anon2936

You are assuming that there is a question to legitimize. If you have someone convinced of the issue then there is no question. By engaging in discussion you are simplying providing an alternative view point. You don't have to present yourself as opponent, you can present yourself as member of the ingroup with a slightly more moderate position that might also be more palatable to the public. There are many strategies. It is also important to realize that there are many passive readers of such discussions. I recall moot (rip) saying something along the lines that there is a 1:10 ratio of posters to lurkers. So by presenting a more moderate position you're also showing people who might not like the left that there are alternatives to the most radical voices.

In the past, even in many brutal wars, belligerents generally recognized the need for parley. This is not even a war, it is a disagreement about social norms and laws. If villainize the other side to the extent where it would be immoral to even speak to them you're only fueling the polarization instead of creating a continuum. Look at europe. The extreme right exist too, but between the left and the right there are many different currents represented in parties, which lowers the activation potential for people gradually switch camps.

As someone who frequently has reasonable exchanges with alt-righters I largely agree with your post.

To me the hatred from the right is somewhat self-aware. They know that their views are not welcome and they have no pretense of being inclusive. Segregation of cultures is their shtick after all.

But they are willing to debate things openly, at least on the internet. They might call you a shill, bluepilled or even a race traitor but I have not heard the that something is unthinkable to be discussed.

In fact, on 8chan you can find furry porn (which would be considered degenerate by nazi standards) and seemingly serious discussions how the purity of ones race and culture can be preserved side by side.

When then people from the left come and say things such as "it is not acceptable to argue over [...]" then the thoughtcrime bells in my head go off and I get the visceral feeling that the "distinct but equal" norm on the right might actually not be so bad compared to the "absorb and unify everything, when done stamp out things outside the overton window" on the left. Because I want to be able to argue hypotheticals outside the overton window without being accidentally mistaken as someone who might perform acts outside the window.

The fact that you feel you need to litter your post with a lot of virtue signalling out of concern as being mistaken as a nazi-sympathizer strikes me as something having gone wrong. Are people incapable of distinguishing between an argument being made vs. (non-)endorsement of an argument?

> but since this is such a sensitive topic

This is also something that I do not understand. As long as there are actual wars in the world, global warming, starvation etc. this seems to be an inconsequential topic to me. If we can discuss nations attacking each other, death penalty, sweatshops, massive extinction of many valuable species, etc. then we should be able to discuss groups within one nation hating each others' guts at a sub-war-threshold without putting on satin gloves. These "culture wars" are way too overblown considering what they represent on the hierarchy of needs.

> I do concede that it might make it more appealing to those with anti-semitic sentiments.

That is what I meant to say.

That said, both /pol/ and the israeli government tend¹ to lump anti-zionism and anti-semitism together. In the former case due to the purported¹ global jewish conspiracy, in the latter case because it makes a cheap knockout argument against anyone questioning their treatment of palestine.

So I phrased it through that lens.

¹ do I really have to pepper those qualifier words everywhere?

That doesn't mean much. People wear masks, self-censor or adopt more obtuse language. For example despite using a throwaway right now I am still phrasing things not quite as I would like out of concern that I would not be taken seriously.

"hate speech communities" still consist of people. Those people can engage in other hobbies without injecting their political views into everything. Similar how vegans and meat-eaters can dine in the same establishment and atheists and christians can be buried on the same cemeteries.

I would even argue that dedicated places for hatespeech lead to exaggerated expression of mostly reasonable people. Think of trump promising the wall. People cheered him on for that. But that doesn't really mean they want a wall. They might be perfectly happy with stricter immigration policy or enforcement of existing immigration laws too. But shouting "build the wall" is a group ritual for them. Virtue signalling works for both sides.

Edit: After skimming the paper I noticed that the authors were also identifying subreddit-specific lingo. I wouldn't expect this to carry over unmodified to other subreddits. You can still denigrate particular groups without using those particular keywords.

I post on /pol/ without agreeing with most of their views. You're unlikely to immediately convince anyone of a diametrically opposed point of view at any given time. But you can bring nuance to a very one-sided, memed and stereotyped "discussion".

For example there is a large overlap between pro-fossil fuel and nationalist attitudes. It is fairly easy to get some concessions about renewables from them once you point out that renewables mean energy-independence and not giving money to the middle east.

If you have no scruples of adopting their arguments for the sake or arguing you can also make your argument explicitly anti-jewish by pointing out that israel would be a far less important strategically if the US did not depend on oil as much. It seems like people have trouble applying logic of this kind because they fear being seen endorsing the arguments that they use but in the end it's just a form of playing devil's advocate.

If you have a thread where the general tone is that all blacks should be killed then maybe an admission that this would not be a smart move and better solutions can be found is already progress. Small progress, but still important, nudging things in a better direction bit by bit. And yes, board culture does change over time, imperceptibly to most, but it does change.