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UK Politics: Johnsons Hoaxy Yurt North of Hadrian's Wall


Tywin Manderly

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20 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

With regard to your silly empathy comment, I'm not claiming to be able to read minds, just that I can understand how others might feel. This is all alien to you though, apparently. Or are you willfully misunderstanding yet again?

Well no, you are claiming to be able to use your magic empathy skills to understand how others might feel, and seem to regard that power over actually asking them. I'm suggesting your 'empathy' might not be all that powerful, might be loaded with biases and could well be wrong, and that using evidence of actually asking people might be more worthwhile. However you have a bad habit of assuming what people think, so I'd say your empathy radar is well off.
 

20 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Seriously, why is it so important to you that statues of shitty human people are left as they are?

Empathy malfunction happening to you again. I don't think that. If you go back and read what I wrote you'd understand what point I'm trying to make, but you brushed over all that because I'm sure you're empathy power knew what I really thought.

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As a POC and someone who, while not British, has sisters who are and live in London, and as someone who's been going there a few times a year since the last few decades for work/holiday, I felt I had to chime in here. 

Acknowledging someone's great work doesn't mean glorifying them, if there are aspects like racism or slavery etc. attached to that person. I don't know that the distinction is hard to grasp. Studying someone's work and respecting them within that field isn't the same as erecting statues or naming buildings after them. 

In terms of the discussion above, I'm just surprised at how complex it seems to have become, when the actual issue is pretty simple. The UK has a long history of colonialism, with shitty repercussions for millions of people, myself included. You can extol the virtues of the 'Empire' all day long, and pretend it was all about 'discovering' new lands (it wasn't, you can't discover places where people are already living!), and 'civilising the natives' (just typing 'natives' made me want to vomit. Also, we didn't need your 'civilising', thanks, we were pretty evolved already). It seems to me that a rosy view of British colonialism is taught there. I get it, I also did my GCSEs and ended up with a hilariously one-sided, misrepresented view. Luckily, I did a lot of other reading and was able to form a much more well-rounded and coherent opinion. One that included the systematic pillage and plunder of continents and the resulting, long-lasting and devastating impact on those continents' economies and people. Not sure how familiar some of you are with that side of colonialism, to be honest. There are loads of great books out there, many by your very own William Darlymple, Peter Frankopan, and non British authors too. I'd recommend checking some out if you haven't. Silk Roads, especially, brilliantly proves that the entire concept of a 'civilised' West and a 'barbaric East' is absolute crap. 

All this to say, yes, it absolutely offends me (and people like me) to see representatives of that colonialist past being honoured with shit like statues. It's especially galling when a lot of those men made their fortunes through stealing from other countries and then waltzed home to buy massive estates, titles and seats in Parliament. Sure, you can acknowledge the 'good' stuff they did, but literally putting them on a pedestal is ludicrous. 

As for the notion that pulling down statues is of no value and meaningless and somehow a derailment from attacking 'real' racism, I call utter BS. It's all part of the same overarching issue, which is a complex and many-sided one. To claim that we cannot tackle different aspects of an issue at the same time is incorrect, simplistic or worse, disingenuous. The entire point is to dismantle such symbols of racism/oppression where you find them, along with other fundamental aspects of racism. Symbolism is important. If it weren't, you wouldn't have people simultaneously labelling taking down statues as 'unimportant' while also defending said statues. 

 

 

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3 hours ago, mormont said:

Now this is just misrepresenting what happened, I'm afraid. Here's what you said:

And here's my response:

You've very clearly introduced the idea that there is a threshold under which these concerns can be dismissed: not enough of the right sort of people are upset. I've responded by saying if that's your concern, you should check out the only source of data that we have - there are no opinion polls, to my knowledge - but also by rejecting the very idea that such a threshold is important.

Implicit in your criticism is the assumption that because the petition is open, it is not safe to assume that the signatories are the 'right sort of people' - which you've suggested is (current?) students and particularly BAME students. You duck the question of whether alumni and others are not important too, or why we should dismiss the opinions of others, or why we need a certain amount of people to have this concern, which was my actual response to your point above.

But whatever. We've thrashed that particular horse to death. I remain of the opinion that there's a good case for taking this step, you remain in your opinion that it's fine to airily dismiss genuine and serious concerns about Hume's evident racism as 'very silly'. Let's leave it there.

You brought the petition into the discussion to provide some evidence as to how many students were actually upset by this. It fails to do this because of all the reasons I gave. There isn't anything else to say on the subject, and no amount of arm waving about thresholds and misrepresentations is going to change this fact.

I did also respond to your other point about the number of people feeling offended not mattering. My view is that if your case rests on the contention that the old name of the tower 'is offensive to BAME students' it is absurd to say it doesn't matter what proportion of BAME students actually find it offensive. Such logic would allow you to proclaim the name offensive to BAME students even if no BAME student thought it was offensive. And I submit that's ridiculous. 

 

 

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It’s possible to rename a building because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of how many people are actually aware/offended by it.

The Hume example is cut and dry really, it’s be a different conversation if they’d removed him from the syllabus but they haven’t. Influential philosopher = covered in the syllabus. Racist asshole = no building names for you.

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Like the serious concern that racism is being magically powered by a bunch of statues that nobody knew existed?

If the statutes are so inconsequential, why not take them down given they cost millions to keep up?

IMO statutes for individuals are meant to glorify

Not teach or give a nuanced portrait of their life.

Glorify. To give the message towards society a particular person is worth admiration.

So why the hostility towards any idea of having a discussion on which statutes of individuals actually deserve to stay up?

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Do you genuinely believe you know what a person thinks or feels about something so correctly that you don't think actually asking them is important? This is pretty hilarious. 

Eh. Richard Spencer would say he doesn’t want genocide if asked directly.

But eh. He does.

Asking a person to explicitly to explicitly say what  believe isn't the greatest mode to determine if they actually believe it.

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The difference here is that you take an issue like 'combating racism' which pretty everyone agrees on and place the battleground where you suddenly make people have to decide which side of the fence they sit on.

Eh. That’s Debatable. You know a Washington Post poll found 10% of Americans have sympathies towards the alt-right?

It's not really find plenty polls/studies demonstrating that kinda exist aplenty.

26 minutes ago, Crixus said:

As for the notion that pulling down statues is of no value and meaningless and somehow a derailment from attacking 'real' racism, I call utter BS. It's all part of the same overarching issue, which is a complex and many-sided one. To claim that we cannot tackle different aspects of an issue at the same time is incorrect, simplistic or worse, disingenuous. The entire point is to dismantle such symbols of racism/oppression where you find them, along with other fundamental aspects of racism. Symbolism is important. If it weren't, you wouldn't have people simultaneously labelling taking down statues as 'unimportant' while also defending said statues. 

True. 

I think presently there's this fearmongering that doing things will drag a person to the far-right, and have them chumy with fascists.

But if people are so willing to go along them in defense of their ”culture” I think that shows they were never that against racism to begin with.

I remember reading an op-ed by Pierce Morgan about how the liberals and leftists supporting 1619 project could only help Trump.

Because God forbid, school children don't get a sanitized version of the America’s revolutionary war where every founder was just great hero whose only interest was freedom. 

 

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30 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Empathy malfunction happening to you again. I don't think that. If you go back and read what I wrote you'd understand what point I'm trying to make, but you brushed over all that because I'm sure you're empathy power knew what I really thought.

Again, I'm not claiming to be a mind-reader. Are you being deliberately obtuse here?

You've still not made your position on statues clear though. Referring back to things you've said previously is of no help as you dodge the question consistently, instead waffling about how it isn't achieving anything. We can all agree that removing a statue isn't going to solve racism in one fell swoop, but still, why not remove statues of racists? What is the downside?

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10 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

It’s possible to rename a building because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of how many people are actually aware/offended by it.

The Hume example is cut and dry really, it’s be a different conversation if they’d removed him from the syllabus but they haven’t. Influential philosopher = covered in the syllabus. Racist asshole = no building names for you.

Eh. It just seems like a thing people are unnecessaryily getting offended over.

 

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1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

I guess that answers my question. I mean, if you need poll results to consider how someone might feel about something, then yes, no empathy at all.

You seem to think being interested in polling data and asking people displays a lack of empathy, so...
 

2 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Again, I'm not claiming to be a mind-reader. Are you being deliberately obtuse here?

You've still not made your position on statues clear though. Referring back to things you've said previously is of no help as you dodge the question consistently, instead waffling about how it isn't achieving anything. We can all agree that removing a statue isn't going to solve racism in one fell swoop, but still, why not remove statues of racists? What is the downside?

I have no real attachment to statues and don't really care if they are being torn down especially, if there is a decent reason to do it. 

My position is simply that most people would have very little awareness of these statues, and especially of their history. Their presence is not really contributing to racism is any real way. Remember also almost all of these people are not being glorified for their racism or racist achievements. 

The point is that once you start tearing down statues as the first thing you do, or going after British institutions, all you are doing is alienating people who might value their own sense of history and national pride, and suddenly the conversation stops being about racism but what statues are being torn down, and the whole movement turns into a joke. Worse it empowers racists to think their culture is under attack. 

It's a dumb move, it serves little purpose and it's counter productive. That is my argument.

I dunno, the focus could be on something like stop and search or poverty in certain areas, discrimination in the workplace. Unfortunately those are complicated difficult problems, and don't have overnight easy solutions. Chucking a statue into a river makes every feel better and they can post a video online about it.

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14 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Again, I'm not claiming to be a mind-reader. Are you being deliberately obtuse here?

You've still not made your position on statues clear though. Referring back to things you've said previously is of no help as you dodge the question consistently, instead waffling about how it isn't achieving anything. We can all agree that removing a statue isn't going to solve racism in one fell swoop, but still, why not remove statues of racists? What is the downside?

They mentioned 'British culture' earlier on, didn't they? I reckon culture includes glorifying racist twats, then? It's the same interpretation of 'culture' that excuses anti-immigration stances: We don't want brown/black people coming in, they'll destroy our culture! The fact that culture is ever-morphing and influenced by exchanges between different people (and this has happened for centuries and centuries, it isn't a new phenomenon), and that the British culture itself picked up a shitload of stuff from their former colonies, seems to escape those with such POVs.

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5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The point is that once you start tearing down statues as the first thing you do, or going after British institutions, all you are doing is alienating people who might value their own sense of history and national pride, and suddenly the conversation stops being about racism but what statues are being torn down, and the whole movement turns into a joke. Worse it empowers racists to think their culture is under attack. 

Isn't it kinda already telling you think taking down statues has to automatically empower extreme racists?

7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

My position is simply that most people would have very little awareness of these statues, and especially of their history.

They're so inconsequential, but keeping them up forever is so important.

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I have no real attachment to statues and don't really care if they are being torn down especially, if there is a decent reason to do it. 

Eh. 
Kinda the reverse. There must be a decent reason to keep one up at the costs millions.

10 minutes ago, Heartofice said:


I dunno, the focus could be on something like stop and search or poverty in certain areas, discrimination in the workplace. Unfortunately those are complicated difficult problems, and don't have overnight easy solutions. Chucking a statue into a river makes every feel better and they can post a video online about it.

Yeah, walking and chewing gum is hard.
Dude, all the things you've listed can get focus.
But plenty reactionaries do try to hyperventilate over the prospect of any statue taking down and ignore that.

29 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Again, I'm not claiming to be a mind-reader. Are you being deliberately obtuse here?

You've still not made your position on statues clear though. Referring back to things you've said previously is of no help as you dodge the question consistently, instead waffling about how it isn't achieving anything. We can all agree that removing a statue isn't going to solve racism in one fell swoop, but still, why not remove statues of racists? What is the downside?

From what I can tell the worst thing is that ”Sjws.” are doing it.

The opposition comes largely from people who’d cry against any discussion of racism/sexism/ any other bigotry that's not against white people or men, being allowed in the public sphere. 

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1 hour ago, Crixus said:

They mentioned 'British culture' earlier on, didn't they? I reckon culture includes glorifying racist twats, then? It's the same interpretation of 'culture' that excuses anti-immigration stances: We don't want brown/black people coming in, they'll destroy our culture! The fact that culture is ever-morphing and influenced by exchanges between different people (and this has happened for centuries and centuries, it isn't a new phenomenon), and that the British culture itself picked up a shitload of stuff from their former colonies, seems to escape those with such POVs.

True. References to culture in these discussions are extremely Nebulous on what exactly ”culture” Is in the given context.

When pressed for details reactionaries may give some vague flowery language that sounds nice, but mean nothing.

What is British culture? How is it being changed  by x? 

Why should we fear that change? 

Reactionaries: Some British people like tea and Scones.

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Angela Rayner acquitting herself well at PMQs, although given how Boris seems to have been asleep for his last few Parliamentary appearances this hasn't been hard.

Quote

"The next time a man with Covid symptoms drives from London to Durham, it’ll probably be to get a Covid test."

I have an unrelated hospital appointment next week but need to get a COVID test beforehand, so ironically I've got an appointment to get one when I technically don't need it, and people I know who do need one urgently are shit out of luck. It sounds like the most efficient way of getting an appointment is to pretend you have another, completely unrelated ailment that requires you to get a test before they investigate it.

I suspect we'll get another U-turn in a matter of days and people will be allowed to just rock up to the testing stations and get a test done on a first-come, first-served basis. The current situation where people are being sent a hundred miles to get a test when there's completely empty testing sites a couple of miles away is completely ludicrous.

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I have to say I personally don't think individuals themselves should get statues. Helps creates an atmosphere of hero-worship that makes discussing the full consequences of their actions that much more hard.

Though if reorganization of a person not being virtuous enough to deserve a statue isn't reason enough to justify bringing a statue down what exactly is?

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2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

It’s possible to rename a building because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of how many people are actually aware/offended by it.

The Hume example is cut and dry really, it’s be a different conversation if they’d removed him from the syllabus but they haven’t. Influential philosopher = covered in the syllabus. Racist asshole = no building names for you.

Maybe. Unfortunately though saying something is 'the right thing to do' is not in itself an argument of any kind. And as the only argument ever produced here as to why renaming the tower was 'the right thing to do' was the offensiveness of the name to BAME students, which it has now been conceded is actually irrelevant, we are left without any argument or reason why renaming the tower is 'the right thing to do.' 

Oh dear. 

On the other hand we have superlative reasons for restoring and maintaining the old moniker, namely because public honours to eminent individuals remind us of great human achievements, in this case intellectual achievements, inspire us to emulate those individuals and enrich our public life. 

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Yes, let us all celebrate the famous and storied racists of history! Let's all fondly remember when Britain was really Great; when you could be as racist as you liked and the statues would still flow freely!

I'm not sure that anyone here has conceded that a statue or building's offensiveness is irrelevant. All that's really been established is that you apparently don't view racism as a deal-breaker.

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2 hours ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Angela Rayner is good!  I thought Johnson would be relieved not to face Sir Keir for once, but he seemed even more nervous - and now I see why!

Very clever of Labour. Just send a different person to show off against Johnson every day. An easy way to build up a good rep. In German we have the word Aufbaugegner for situations like that.

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