Arguments I’m trying to stay out of, so I’m griping about them here, and also a dream report

[moon_custafer]

In a lot of what I’d consider moderate-left spaces, attitudes re the US election seem to have split into: 1. “Yes, it shouldn’t have been this close, but if Dems hold the House and win the presidency, that’s at least better than 4+ more years of Trump, and we have a chance of fixing some thing even if it will be the work of generations;” and 2. “The previous statement was gratingly naïve and saccharine in its optimism, why can’t you just admit that even if Biden wins, this is a Pyrrhic victory and America is doomed.”

I lean more towards the cautiously-hopeful-at-least-try side of things, but I also firmly believe you can’t argue someone out of a fit of depression, and I can’t stand watching the in-fighting; so I went over to a different forum and a different discussion, not directly about contemporary politics. Which is where I’m currently trying to resist answering someone who believes hunter-gatherer societies were if anything less egalitarian than agricultural ones because “their hierarchies would have been dependent on the ability to get along with other people,” with “oh come on how is that not true of all societies?”

What social skills I have are telling me I don’t need this kind of trouble, but the rest of my personality wants to construct arguments-- I mean, I think it’s one of the duties of a progressive society to build a safety net that protects even unlikeable or awkward people, but I also still think there are always going to be individuals who drive away everyone who makes their acquaintance, and you can do is try to find a balance between mitigating the damage and impinging on their freedom.

Anyway thanks for your patience (or if you skimmed over this, that’s ok too).

Meanwhile, one of my dreams last night involved working undercover as Hitler’s secretary in order to spy on him. In this dream, no doubt totally uninfluenced by current events, I kept thinking that while it was a good thing for humanity that Hitler kept making stupid decisions, it was also really painful to watch somebody constantly be that incompetent. srsly, he had a detail of highly-trained ninja bodyguards that he couldn’t resist showing off, so he ordered them moved away from their strategic positions so they could stand guard in front of his door, in full view and out in the open. Stupid dream Hitler.

Comments

[sovay]

I lean more towards the cautiously-hopeful-at-least-try side of things, but I also firmly believe you can’t argue someone out of a fit of depression, and I can’t stand watching the in-fighting

I tapped out of my very first online conversation today for that reason. I am one of the people who thinks that even if a Biden presidency is nothing but damage control, damage control is better than damage, and it is very difficult for me not to read (2) as "so you should die because I am tired of fighting," so I am reminding myself that everyone is stressed beyond belief and equally exhausted and depressive spirals are real and people are wrong on the internet all the time without me saying anything about it. I am glad you have found a totally different argument to try not to get sucked into!

srsly, he had a detail of highly-trained ninja bodyguards that he couldn’t resist showing off, so he ordered them moved away from their strategic positions so they could stand guard in front of his door, in full view and out in the open. Stupid dream Hitler.

This is honestly not all that far off from real Hitler. Fictional Nazis tend to be so much more competent than the real ones, who never showed the slightest hesitation to shoot their war effort in the knees if they could spend the budget on genocide instead. (Or march into Russia. One of the funniest pieces of slang I know from WWII continues to be the Napoleon-Gedächtnis-Renne—the Napoleon Memorial Race—which is what survivors of the retreat from Stalingrad called it.)

[sabotabby]

I liken it to a crashing plane and do you want it to level out before it crashes or just plunge nose-first.

That is some dream.

[kore]

1. “Yes, it shouldn’t have been this close, but if Dems hold the House and win the presidency, that’s at least better than 4+ more years of Trump, and we have a chance of fixing some thing even if it will be the work of generations;”

O M F G do they not even REMEMBER what happened to the Obama administration post-2010? Mitch McConnell BLOCKED a Supreme Court nomination! A lot of that shit had never happened before! Biden and the House is great, but they're already talking about Biden picking Cabinet members that McConnell will find "acceptable" because of the confirmation process.

and 2. “The previous statement was gratingly naïve and saccharine in its optimism, why can’t you just admit that even if Biden wins, this is a Pyrrhic victory and America is doomed.”

Equally O M F G yeah, this is horribly close and the country is divided but it's not like that was NEWS (do these people not remember 2000? IwasthereGandalf.gif) and this is the kind of liberal woolly-headed thinking that leads to being eaten by plague because the Fuckward In Chief doesn't want to wear a mask for fear of smearing his pancake makeup


Dream Hitler sounds oddly familiar!