Submitted by [deleted] in meta (edited )

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__0 wrote

The cult of personality issue is a huge issue with a lot of so called anarchist leaning spaces I've been involved with, where a few people always become dominant/dominating voices in conversations ...

Situations where people feel anxious about being heard or where some people are flexing their power within a group to steer decisions that don't affect them as much as their actions affect others, things sometimes can turn decidedly non anarchistic, and the people who are usually more interested in more open ended conversations can often feel disillusioned and withdraw from the group

I do see an issue with a sense of ownership over forums on this site, and people using some forums as their personal soap boxes, as much as I think it's important for people to have moments where they can be very loud and visible. There is also something very important about taking time to learn the dynamics of a space before participating... Not to say that someone always has to act in accordance with an etiquette... But more that they can see the general atmosphere of a forum.

I think In the way this side is divided into different forums, wikis, pages, bios, could be seen as almost pseudogeographic. It's interesting how the way people interact with the intersections of these spaces really do a lot to create the actual experience of using this site, In a sense there is a hierarchy to the way these pages are organized and even the nature of comments and posts being ranked numerically could be described as hierarchical, although these numbers don't really mean that much, I do find myself at times interacting with these metrics in a kind of way that I was trying to escape in other social spaces.

Maybe it's only human to desire validation, but In a sense the anonymity of the validation is kind of alienating, and I find myself responding to it in ways I don't consider entirely healthy.

I try to participate in raddle in a way that others on this site as well as myself would find to be positive. I think the limits of the site to cause some issues but they also make the site what it is.

Also these things seem to come in waves.

Lots more I want to talk about on this thread, but I'm pretty busy rn!

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ewk wrote

The pseudo-geography is one of anti-intellectualism. I have lots of examples, but the common thread is people who refuse to read some books, refuse to talk with people who have read those books, and generally refuse to acknowledge that facts are the context for debates about politics, race, history, and science.

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TheFacelessFace wrote (edited )

What I find interestingly ironic is that in being demonized for simply setting up "f/zen" as a forum for studying Zen, actual students of Zen are like the Palestinians, while the pre-emptive attempt to silence us is like the Israelis claiming "nah, we have historic claim to this land."

"You" do?

How? Why? Because your religion said so?

Who even are "you" that this land is "yours"??

What I also find interesting is just how quickly triggered bigots are ready to jettison their professed ideals and identities in order to come out as what they really are: fascists.

Thus we have this post on raddle.me--a place which promotes the "Decolonization of Israel"--putting forth an OP which espouses a "Zionist" attitude towards Zen and actively calling for an apartheid against people that simply want to discuss books.

Calling us ideologues and oppressors is like Israel justifying state-sponsored bigotry by calling the Palestinians "terrorists."

"Zen Buddhists" (Japanese or otherwise) want to claim that they have a historical claim to Zen, but even their own supporters can't legitimize the claim.

Bigots refuse to acknowledge that book (linked above).

It would be like if some other Stanford academic wrote an ostensibly pro-Zionist biography of Theodor Herzl and was forced to admit that the foundation of Zionism was illegitimate, but then went on to claim that Zionism was an "important philosophy" anyway, one which "innovated" upon Jewish religion.

OP here is basically saying, "Palestinian history is not really ‘Palestinian’ because Theodor Herzl proved that 'Palestine' was always 'Israel' so people who come here to create f/palestine for the purpose of discussing Palestinian history are terrorists and ideologues."

If these intellectual spaces constitute a "pseudogeographic" region, then bigots like OP are saying "you don't have a right to discuss Zen, because Zen belongs to the religious usurpers because their religion says so."

Equating you to Ben Shapiro is like equating Edward Said to Alan Dershowitz.

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__0 wrote

By pseudo-geographic I mean, that online spaces represent a space, that each space is connected and has cross influence, although raddle has a great deal of homogeneity throughout the forums since a lot of people participate in a borderless fashion die to browsing all/new there are people who focus on particular forums and influence the forums culture and general atmosphere, I mean it also in an almost deleuzian way as well, where there are flows of influence and rhizomatic structure. But you can see it as anti-intelectual if you want honestly I don't care it seems like a bad faith argument to me. But sure I'm sure that people not looking at your forum is basically apartheid lmao, sounds rough.

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TheFacelessFace wrote

That was a disingenuous take.

And clearly I understood what you meant by "pseudo-geographic" since I used it in the same way that you just said that you intended it.

If people simply "didn't look at our forum" that would be great.

Right now, that's not what's happening.

It's like Israel talking about "tolerating the Palestinian 'occupation'" while discussing how to poison their wells.

Saying that "honest discussion in a Zen forum" is akin to a "cult of personality" is like saying that the Palestinian desire for independence and rights to live on their land is akin to a "terrorist insurrection".

The foundations of apartheid and bigotry are right there in the language.

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__0 wrote

...I can't believe how bad your takes are. Honestly I think you should consider posting your garbage somewhere else. Comparing the plight of people not liking your spam quality posts to that of apartheid, and Palestine is absolutely tasteless.

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TheFacelessFace wrote (edited )

Thanks for the advice but I think you're a pseudointellectual pig just looking to troll people for kicks, so I'm going to decline your invitation to cede my pseudogeographic territory to your bigoted view of intellectual purity.

Sorry to pwn you 🙏

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__0 wrote

Yeah but do you have any examples of anything you're claiming? Or should I just take your word for it? I'm a bigot, probably some sort of racist microaggression that I'm not enjoying your posts on this forum? I'm probably a just another lying-pseud-bigot-pig-troll-purist who is getting very pwn'd right now...

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TheFacelessFace wrote

I'm probably a just another lying-pseud-bigot-pig-troll-purist who is getting very pwn'd right now...

Good job.

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