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Strange that no one seems to ask whether the strident militancy is the perceived proportional response to a culture that at the level of public response doesn't
by diffrinse 6y ago
Strange that no one seems to ask whether the strident militancy is the perceived proportional response to a culture that at the level of public response doesn't seem to really care about the ongoing deprivation and harassment of the majority of Black America, the transparency of which was greatly accelerated by the growth of social media.
Poor Black folk in America aren't the only minority that ever rioted over perceived oppression. It's fascinating that in all this hangup over moral scrutiny no one seems to be able to recall the Paris Riots of 2005, which were a much greater feat of destruction of property on the part of Arab and North African minorities after police were deemed responsible for the deaths of ethnic teens.
Then, just as now, the majority ethnic French response was to sit around talking about why the crazy Brown people weren't formulating any concrete political demands in terms French institutions recognized, e.g., they're not communicating in our language so whatever..
Who is actually being intolerant and refusing to listen? It takes two to bare themselves as anyone in a long-term marriage would know. I don't think the rhetorical tactics of the social media Left are particularly well thought out but they're not without intelligibility either, and to refuse that this is not the case strikes me as just as much a lack of empathy, compassion, and ultimately, intolerance.
Edit: Also, Shklar's use of Nietzsche here is just hilarious. Nietzsche's political opinions are much more aligned with those of Carl Schmitt in that both think Republican Democracy is a sham, at best, since it attempts to pretend the problem of sovereign exception doesn't exist in order to fool people into thinking everyone has equal political power, and by derivation, antithetical to human flourishing. Both thought some form of neo-monarchy ("Great Politics" in Nietzsche, of whom Napoleon was the last vestige of in his mind) was the next step for governance in the West.
Not to mention both are sensitive to the fact that Western secular life is actually a species of Western Christianity, so its not like the criticism raised against "wokeness" are exclusive