When I first signed up, you all clocked me for what I was: a troll. But a few of you actually understood the joke: that my intention was to hold to you a mirror-image caricature of the seemingly addicted-to-violence mentality that pervades this board.
I became quickly bored (as I'm sure you all were with me from the start) and went back to lurking after realizing that those of you who are keen on aggressive action in the face of conflict with an enemy you equate with evil are at no risk of changing your minds, and I have no intention of making the mistake of arguing with you like so many others have come here to do.
Say what you will about not defining Discordia, but I have always imagined the Discordian as an out-of-the-box thinker, someone too clever for physical confrontation. If anything, the Discordian should be the person who tricks others into getting into fistfights, rather than being directly engaged. When I think of Discordia, I think of conflict resolution through trickery and manipulation (and preferably without bloodshed). Don't tell the enemy they can't have what they want; fool them into thinking they want something they can have. To me, a Discordian is a master at social engineering.
So unless these calls to arms and violence are themselves an elaborate and clever cover designed to trick others into thinking that Discordians are bloodthirsty mouth-breathers while real actions are taken covertly, I have to ask in earnestness if anyone else here has a commitment to non-violence in their personal politics.
Over the past few days, in reading up on the Charlottesville incident, I've found my views shifting somewhat. At first, I was appalled that opponents to the alt-right's rally would purposely engage in a way meant to escalate the conflict into violent chaos. I assumed that the Nazis were a clever distraction meant to prevent the progressives from reexamining their own failures in the 2016 election and that everyone was taking the bait.
For instance, this reaction to a (very entertaining but violently passionate) rant by Doug Harmon sums up my initial views quite well:
However, I found a counterargument that made me begrudgingly entertain the alternative:
So I now must admit that I have to consider that the aggressive and confrontational element is a necessary evil, so to speak, and that the problem cannot be resolved (I.E. the alt-right's agenda defeated) without it. Perhaps the far-right has indeed become a very real threat with another civil war on the horizon.
I am still, however, surprised to see so many Discordians hungry to participate in the violence. Are there any of you, like me, who aren't? Who would, if anything, attempt subvert it instead of willfully helping to immanentize it?
I became quickly bored (as I'm sure you all were with me from the start) and went back to lurking after realizing that those of you who are keen on aggressive action in the face of conflict with an enemy you equate with evil are at no risk of changing your minds, and I have no intention of making the mistake of arguing with you like so many others have come here to do.
Say what you will about not defining Discordia, but I have always imagined the Discordian as an out-of-the-box thinker, someone too clever for physical confrontation. If anything, the Discordian should be the person who tricks others into getting into fistfights, rather than being directly engaged. When I think of Discordia, I think of conflict resolution through trickery and manipulation (and preferably without bloodshed). Don't tell the enemy they can't have what they want; fool them into thinking they want something they can have. To me, a Discordian is a master at social engineering.
So unless these calls to arms and violence are themselves an elaborate and clever cover designed to trick others into thinking that Discordians are bloodthirsty mouth-breathers while real actions are taken covertly, I have to ask in earnestness if anyone else here has a commitment to non-violence in their personal politics.
Over the past few days, in reading up on the Charlottesville incident, I've found my views shifting somewhat. At first, I was appalled that opponents to the alt-right's rally would purposely engage in a way meant to escalate the conflict into violent chaos. I assumed that the Nazis were a clever distraction meant to prevent the progressives from reexamining their own failures in the 2016 election and that everyone was taking the bait.
For instance, this reaction to a (very entertaining but violently passionate) rant by Doug Harmon sums up my initial views quite well:
Quote
Strongly disagree with this very simplistic viewpoint. So quick to shun all discussion, label it a black-and-white moral "no-brainer", and lump anyone who doesn't agree with him in with the most extreme factions of the opposition. Fact of the matter is that there are very real socioeconomic and psychological forces at play driving people to the far right and until we start listening to and working towards solutions to these issues, the tensions will only escalate. Nonviolence is the only way forward if we hope to deescalate the situation and resume any semblance of a reasonable national conversation.
People wanting to "stab Nazis" as Dan seems to advocate here are a big part of the problem.
The small group of people who were in Charlottesville violently anti-protesting have given Trump the ammunition for his "on all sides" rhetoric. Had Antifa not been there, the left would have the clear moral high ground. Instead, they showed up looking to pick fights with Nazis and they got one... except one of the nonviolent protesters was the one to pay the price for it. This whole "it's okay to assault Nazis" thing needs to end. Violence is not okay. It makes us no better than them.
You know how Rosa Parks wasn't the first person to refuse to give up her seat, but she was specifically chosen to be the first civil rights case that everyone could get behind because she had no record, no dirt, no skeletons in the closet? Civil rights leaders of the time knew that this must be the case going into the fray, because the other side is absolutely going to attempt to sling any mud that they can to discredit the movement...
Well, the tactics of Antifa are our skeleton in the closet this week. Because of their use of violence, there is no clear provocateur of the conflict. Police say so themselves... No one forced the kid to run through a crowd with his car... but let's not pretend that the preceding "mutually engaged combat" had nothing to do with it... his attack was a reaction to escalating conflict, likely compounded by mental illness. I'm not saying that makes it right, I'm just saying that had Antifa not been there looking for violence, the right would have no one to point the finger at, as they are known to do.
Antifa ruined the spirit of counter-protest by practicing eye for an eye. In their absence, the car attack may not have happened; if it did still happen then we would have had a nation unified against political violence. Instead, we've become enthralled by the prospect of more of it because "Nazis"... I fear for the coming months.
If we want the Right to distance themselves from their extremist factions, we MUST be willing to do the same on the Left. Anyone throwing punches or using weapons at rallies should be shunned by their respective groups and arrested, even utilizing citizen's arrest by their own in-group if necessary. I don't give a shit if they're punching Nazis or Communists or Progressives or Regressives or Black Lives Matter or White Lives Matter or whatever. It's not up to individual citizens to decide when violence is justified, except in cases of self-defense. That's a matter for our top lawyers and judges and lawmakers who spend their lives studying these topics to decide, and it's a rule that only the state is capable of being objective over and enforcing.
I do NOT want to see mob rule in America. There's a reason ACLU defended the white nationalist's right to protest. There's a reason that you've got black cops out there defending the KKK's right to speak... The reason is that discourse, even hateful discourse, is the bedrock of our democracy. If we're going to go to war with Nazis because they represent a clear and present danger, we need to decide that as a country and act in unison. Easier said than done, I will admit. But the wheels of justice turn slowly for a reason.
However, I found a counterargument that made me begrudgingly entertain the alternative:
Quote
The battle for civil rights was a two-pronged attack. One prong was staunchly nonviolent (MLK, Rosa Parks, etc) and the other prong was more militant and had no such commitment to nonviolence.
Would the nonviolent civil rights crusaders have been nearly as successful without the militant wing of the movement?
There's no definitive way to answer that question, obviously. The best we can do is speculate.
But I think it's highly likely that the mere presence of the militant wing on the national landscape helped the nonviolent civil rights pioneers to an immense degree.
Think about it. Imagine a 1960s where there's no Black Panthers, no Huey P. Newton, no Malcolm X. To whites, MLK would have seemed like a dangerous radical, somebody on the fringe, wanting to smash the status quo.
But that's not how it played out in reality. Because there were other, "scarier" African-Americans out there, many white Americans saw the nonviolent side of the movement as a voice of reason and peace in the middle. This made the nonviolent message of MLK and Rosa Parks that much more palatable to white Americans. Instead of being on the fringe, they seemed like the reasonable centrists.
Bottom line? Well, I sure like the idea of nonviolence, but I'm also not convinced that it can always solve things on its own. Nonviolent appeasement of Hitler sure didn't work.
So I now must admit that I have to consider that the aggressive and confrontational element is a necessary evil, so to speak, and that the problem cannot be resolved (I.E. the alt-right's agenda defeated) without it. Perhaps the far-right has indeed become a very real threat with another civil war on the horizon.
I am still, however, surprised to see so many Discordians hungry to participate in the violence. Are there any of you, like me, who aren't? Who would, if anything, attempt subvert it instead of willfully helping to immanentize it?
