Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
Aside from being an ad populum fallacy, I think the more amusing part of this is that Cliff has been railing about the regressive left boogeyman for how many years now? Which is it, a small vocal minority that no one really cares about, or a tsunami of leftist support in favour of the existential destruction of free speech, equivalent to the more fascist tendencies of the far right?
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It's a small minority that has the power to establish and enforce norms out of proportion to its numbers, especially in areas where it's strongest (academia, the media, cultural industries, increasingly the corporate world). But the only reason zealots can enforce norms is because a larger group of people who don't really believe the dogma go along with it.
Some go along out of misplaced partisanship ("at least they're not as bad as the nuts on the other side"), some out of cowardice, and some because insincerely playing the game is a way to gain status. It's no different than church-going Victorians - for every parishioner passionately singing in the pews, there were two who were just there going through the rituals because it's what respectable citizens are seen to do.
Why do I care? Because as an educated, liberal person under 50 who's a bit of a geek, I encounter the folly of progressive identarians every day. I've seen them gradually take over forums and hobby sites and drive dissenters away. I've seen how parroting their pieties has become pretty much mandatory for anyone who has a profile in those communities. I hear it whenever I turn on Canada's national public broadcaster. And it has ramped up dramatically in recent years.
Liberals need to recognize that the far right isn't the only threat to their values. Moderates need to speak up against the bad ideas and uncompromising zealots
in their world. It's more likely to effect change than gathering in echo chambers to denounce Those Other Guys.