Hello, this is a thread to post your hot takes on (hopefully, leftist) politics. The most spice we have in Cong these days is yelling at each other in the Dem Primary thread, and this is getting tired. Here is a thread where you can truly let people know what you think of them! Please make sure your takes are actually spicy and not just racist. Attack other people’s hot takes if you disagree!
Here are some of mine to start us off:
All kink that involves any kind of domination/submission is immoral.
Just because you engage in sex privately and consensually does not make it apolitical. The way that we treat each other in intimate situations is fundamentally bound up in the same power relations that we would decry as oppressive outside of the bedroom. When you dominate a partner, you degrade them and set yourself up in a relation of power over them that is not actually extricable from your other interactions with them. Both partners internalise at least some part of this dynamic and it cannot help but colour the rest of their interactions. Even if you “leave it in the bedroom” a) it is not clear to me that a line can be drawn between that and other experiences of intimacy that you have, making them also subject to the power relation and b) the line is fundamentally arbitrary and ambiguous – power dynamics have a way of expanding to other interactions.
Kink play of this kind is also not extricable from other power relations. Dominant/submissive roles between, for instance, men and women where the former is dominant are so heavily bound up in the power relations of gender that they are nearly always misogynist. And where those roles are reversed, they do not challenge gender but merely compound it in a perverse parody that returns to normal once they have gotten off on fetishising the same (but inverted) power dynamics that make gender so oppressive in the first place. The same is true of homophobia, racism etc. in relations where that is a part of the kink play. Even relationships that initially appear absent of these power relations mimic and fetishise the adjacent power structures (eg gay men sub/dom play) and import them into their relationship.
None of this is to say people can’t notionally consent to these things and derive enjoyment from them. The fact that this is often the case does not make such power relations immoral.
This interview with Audre Lorde gives a different account of a similar perspective that I think is worth reading:
https://www.feministes-radicales.or...orde-Sadomasochism-not-about-condamnation.pdf
In order to be non-binary, you must experience dysphoria.
By dysphoria, here, I mean a need or desire to transition. Recently, there have been a large group of people who identify as non-binary claiming some combination of the following: 1) you do not need to have dysphoria to be non-binary 2) even if you did, it would not demand transition 3) some kind of “gender euphoria” is sufficient and 4) people should identify how they want.
In the case of 1), then the concept of non-binary identity is incoherent. Being merely dissatisfied with your gender role is a pretty common experience among most cis people (especially women), and you would not be able to distinguish between these two feelings. Given diversity in gender expression and identity within the broad categories “man” and “woman”, without dysphoria your identity is meaningless as it reduces to just a series of deviations from a norm, which is not sufficient for a new categorization.
2) is also incoherent. It is not clear to me how you could define dysphoria without a desire to transition. That is not to say that it requires a medical transition, there are many ways that this identity could come to be expressed by resolving dysphoria, but a desire to transition is both a necessary and sufficient condition for dysphoria, by definition.
3) is the attempt to resolve 1) without dysphoria. It is also incoherent as it implies some initial state by which to judge an improvement (i.e. it reduces to dysphoria conceptually). Simply being happy with a change in your gender expression remains distinct from being non-binary.
4) Sorry, but you’re not valid.
You actually do have an obligation to educate people.
Recent leftist trends where people, when asked for information or to explain something, reply that they have no obligation to do so, or “Google is free” are wrong to do so.
It cannot be both the case that these people have special information by virtue of their experiences, and the case that they have no obligation to share that information. Alternative sources lack the nuance that their understandings supposedly have, are likely to be less persuasive, and are often actively harmful (try Googling anything about being non-binary lol). In nearly all other cases, we acknowledge that people in a position where they have unique authority or information have an obligation to share that information, and it is often crucial to how movements function in setting their goals and educating allies. Passing the buck even if you are tired and fed up with providing that information is unacceptable and failing in your obligation to educate. This probably does not extend to cases of extreme belligerence / insouciance, as the level of effort and likelihood of success probably impact the degree of obligation you have, but otherwise the obligation stands. The fact that there is “emotional labour” involved, or that the person being asked to educate might be oppressed does not change the nature of the obligation – especially given that they can choose how and when they respond.
Stalin was probably not responsible for Holodomor famines.
Attempts at collectivisation of farm land and produce in the region were managed incredibly poorly, and the central committee certainly set standards for grain yields too high. But the kulaks burning livestock and crops, as well as unprecedented bad weather in a region with an agricultural industry entirely subject to the vicissitudes of its climate are what caused the famine. Stalinist policy was neither targeted nor intentional in harming Ukrainians, and while the crisis may have been foreseeable, claiming that this was a deliberate genocide or that Stalin is responsible, given the factors I have outlined above, is simply wrong. As a result, his death count should be substantially lower, and there is good evidence that this particular alleged failing of the Soviet regime was spread by Nazis and Nazi sympathisers living abroad. This is, however, about as far as my tanky inclinations go.
Here are some of mine to start us off:
All kink that involves any kind of domination/submission is immoral.
Just because you engage in sex privately and consensually does not make it apolitical. The way that we treat each other in intimate situations is fundamentally bound up in the same power relations that we would decry as oppressive outside of the bedroom. When you dominate a partner, you degrade them and set yourself up in a relation of power over them that is not actually extricable from your other interactions with them. Both partners internalise at least some part of this dynamic and it cannot help but colour the rest of their interactions. Even if you “leave it in the bedroom” a) it is not clear to me that a line can be drawn between that and other experiences of intimacy that you have, making them also subject to the power relation and b) the line is fundamentally arbitrary and ambiguous – power dynamics have a way of expanding to other interactions.
Kink play of this kind is also not extricable from other power relations. Dominant/submissive roles between, for instance, men and women where the former is dominant are so heavily bound up in the power relations of gender that they are nearly always misogynist. And where those roles are reversed, they do not challenge gender but merely compound it in a perverse parody that returns to normal once they have gotten off on fetishising the same (but inverted) power dynamics that make gender so oppressive in the first place. The same is true of homophobia, racism etc. in relations where that is a part of the kink play. Even relationships that initially appear absent of these power relations mimic and fetishise the adjacent power structures (eg gay men sub/dom play) and import them into their relationship.
None of this is to say people can’t notionally consent to these things and derive enjoyment from them. The fact that this is often the case does not make such power relations immoral.
This interview with Audre Lorde gives a different account of a similar perspective that I think is worth reading:
https://www.feministes-radicales.or...orde-Sadomasochism-not-about-condamnation.pdf
In order to be non-binary, you must experience dysphoria.
By dysphoria, here, I mean a need or desire to transition. Recently, there have been a large group of people who identify as non-binary claiming some combination of the following: 1) you do not need to have dysphoria to be non-binary 2) even if you did, it would not demand transition 3) some kind of “gender euphoria” is sufficient and 4) people should identify how they want.
In the case of 1), then the concept of non-binary identity is incoherent. Being merely dissatisfied with your gender role is a pretty common experience among most cis people (especially women), and you would not be able to distinguish between these two feelings. Given diversity in gender expression and identity within the broad categories “man” and “woman”, without dysphoria your identity is meaningless as it reduces to just a series of deviations from a norm, which is not sufficient for a new categorization.
2) is also incoherent. It is not clear to me how you could define dysphoria without a desire to transition. That is not to say that it requires a medical transition, there are many ways that this identity could come to be expressed by resolving dysphoria, but a desire to transition is both a necessary and sufficient condition for dysphoria, by definition.
3) is the attempt to resolve 1) without dysphoria. It is also incoherent as it implies some initial state by which to judge an improvement (i.e. it reduces to dysphoria conceptually). Simply being happy with a change in your gender expression remains distinct from being non-binary.
4) Sorry, but you’re not valid.
You actually do have an obligation to educate people.
Recent leftist trends where people, when asked for information or to explain something, reply that they have no obligation to do so, or “Google is free” are wrong to do so.
It cannot be both the case that these people have special information by virtue of their experiences, and the case that they have no obligation to share that information. Alternative sources lack the nuance that their understandings supposedly have, are likely to be less persuasive, and are often actively harmful (try Googling anything about being non-binary lol). In nearly all other cases, we acknowledge that people in a position where they have unique authority or information have an obligation to share that information, and it is often crucial to how movements function in setting their goals and educating allies. Passing the buck even if you are tired and fed up with providing that information is unacceptable and failing in your obligation to educate. This probably does not extend to cases of extreme belligerence / insouciance, as the level of effort and likelihood of success probably impact the degree of obligation you have, but otherwise the obligation stands. The fact that there is “emotional labour” involved, or that the person being asked to educate might be oppressed does not change the nature of the obligation – especially given that they can choose how and when they respond.
Stalin was probably not responsible for Holodomor famines.
Attempts at collectivisation of farm land and produce in the region were managed incredibly poorly, and the central committee certainly set standards for grain yields too high. But the kulaks burning livestock and crops, as well as unprecedented bad weather in a region with an agricultural industry entirely subject to the vicissitudes of its climate are what caused the famine. Stalinist policy was neither targeted nor intentional in harming Ukrainians, and while the crisis may have been foreseeable, claiming that this was a deliberate genocide or that Stalin is responsible, given the factors I have outlined above, is simply wrong. As a result, his death count should be substantially lower, and there is good evidence that this particular alleged failing of the Soviet regime was spread by Nazis and Nazi sympathisers living abroad. This is, however, about as far as my tanky inclinations go.
