• Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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    1 month ago

    Well then horseshoe theory isn’t about leftism and it’s basically just wrong, which was the point of me quoting that person’s own link back at them. If your point is that unhinged extremists with no coherent ideology tend towards a horrifying common denominator regardless of their starting point, then that’s true, but it says nothing about principled socialists.

    There are plenty of revolutionary ideologies that do not fit within horseshoe theory, as political scientists have pointed out. If you want to say they’re wrong you’ll need something more than just what you reckon.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The horseshoe theory is not real theory, it’s an observation that people on the extremes will have contrarian views, so they agree with each other on accident

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        Right, so it’s basically just bullshit, and it doesn’t apply to anyone principled anyway. Although most people who talk about horseshoe theory try to use it to discredit people on the left in general, whatever your walked-back version of it may be.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          If you’re a tankie or a Nazi can you really be principled? Even a principled racist would not be a Nazi because Jews contributed a huge amount to science and art. A principled racist would say Jews are good because they accomplish a lot and have higher IQs. A principled Socialist wouldn’t support Russia because Russia is a country owned by oligarchs and is in no way Socialist.

          • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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            1 month ago

            This entire conversation started because a centrist attacked anyone not in the centre with horseshoe “theory”. Either everyone who isn’t in the dead centre - another dubious term that is actually synonymous with conservatism - is either a tankie or a nazi, or we’re right to criticise the use of the term in this context.

            If you use it to mean all extreme positions, you’re still wrong because tankies aren’t leftists. I was conceding a small kernel of truth to the idea, not that the idea itself is an acceptable way to analyse politics.

            Also “higher IQ”? That’s pretty much just a racist position, and I don’t agree there’s such a thing as a “principled racist” since race itself is a bullshit concept.

            • iopq@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              To a principled racist race is not a bullshit concept, so they are entirely consistent

              • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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                1 month ago

                Race is not scientific, so you don’t get to racism through study and learning, you get there by believing bullshit propaganda, like for instance that some races are inherently more intelligent than others, like you apparently believe. EDIT: If you don’t believe it and are just using it as an example of racist beliefs that’s unclear, but it’s not that relevant to my point.

                And you’ve totally dropped the subject of the horseshoe. Sounds like you’ve noticed that walking back what it stands for makes no sense in light of how it was used in this thread.

                • iopq@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  The horseshoe subject is not that interesting, can’t add much to that discussion. I’m using the example is racist beliefs to show you can be internally consistent as a racist.

                  And a consistent racist would point out the book The Bell Curve as proof of his beliefs. I still can’t see any inconsistency of this world view. There was a debate between a Twitter racist and a liberal dude and they never got anywhere. I’m not sure if you’re interested in following this thread, though

                  • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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                    1 month ago

                    The Bell Curve was rightly ridiculed as a “scabarous piece of racial pornography” and there is no credible thread of thought that upholds it. Anyone interested in “principles” would be able to see that.

                    And oh my god someone on twitter was not convinced by their interlocutor? Clearly they have reasonable and internally consistent beliefs.

                    If you actually can’t tell apart the arguments of racists and the arguments of anti racists then you’re not paying attention to the content of those arguments, only their aesthetics.

                    It was obvious you had nothing to contribute to the horseshoe discussion ages ago when you boiled the entire political landscape down to tankies, nazis and “based centrists”. The fact you keep suggesting that pseudo-scientific racist beliefs like those from The Bell Curve are actually consistent with themselves is evidence that you lack even the most basic political education. In other words, you are a typical centrist.