#she leverages attraction to make people uncomfortable or complacent

[itsdappleagain]

CARMEN SANDIEGO OC WEEK DAY 3: RELATIONSHIPS June 9th

diversity win! the woman torturing you is aroace!

shes hot buff lady with homoerotic tension with a lot of the women she tortures, but this is mostly a result of her being hot and cool and knowing how to leverage her traits to get people to do what she wants them to whilst working. outside of work she's wholly uninterested in romance. she's so real for that

as for friend relationships, she doesn't have a lot of operative friends because, even though she's pretty chill, everyone knows that if they royally fuck up she will not hesitate to do as she is told. she is more of a weapon than in a person in the eyes of most.

she has one younger sibling whom the faculty use as leverage against her to keep her in line.

nobody talk about how she looks like a different person every time i draw her

[barrypurcell]

Exploring the Limits of Civility

When Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia recently — a restaurant that, in response, had chicken feces thrown at it— she made a point of saying that she left “politely” and that she always tries to “treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully.” Later during the week, President Trump suggested that Democratic candidates would have more success at the polls if they were “nicer, and more respectful” — specifically, to him.

When reporter Selene San Felice, a survivor of the Capital Gazette shooting in Maryland in which five people were killed, told Anderson Cooper on CNN she “couldn’t give a fuck” about the inevitable demonstration of thoughts and prayers, NRA-endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio’s response was to complain about the bothersome word she chose to use.

Politely Disagree

Although it might seem like a recent development, politeness is a traditional conservative preoccupation. Conservatives are generally averse to large-scale social change and one of the main functions of politeness is to preserve the status quo. This is why conservatives, consciously or otherwise, leverage the social contract (“we must all be polite”) to silence criticism and demonize opponents as abrasive and hostile. Calls for politeness serve as discourse-policing norms that stifle attempts to raise awareness through more confrontational language and direct forms of action.

In the recent civility debate, politeness and respectfulness have been encouraged as the values a democratic state should emphasize. However, it may not be possible for some issues to be conveyed with the gravity and passion they deserve while abiding by the strictures of polite society.

Many believe the opposite is true: confrontational, antagonistic arguments will alienate specific demographics of the electorate. Even if that were true, there could still be cases where rejecting politeness is optimal (from a pragmatic standpoint) and right (from an ethical standpoint).

There is an argument to be made that politeness as a concept isn’t about being nice at all, but conspicuously advertising an abnegation of hostility. Greater levels of politeness therefore imply greater levels of conflict avoidance. There certainly seems to be nothing in the stereotypical politeness of, for instance, English culture or Japanese culture to prevent their representatives from committing acts of the most brutal barbarity. Collective compliance with these norms of politeness can serve to enable seriously destructive behaviors. As Naomi Shulman said of her parents’ neighbors in the Third Reich: “Nice people make the best Nazis.”

Case Study: Punching Nazis

After footage of notorious white supremacist Richard Spencer being punched by a passer-by during a street interview went viral, “Punch a Nazi” was adopted by some left-wing protestors and anti-fascists as a reaction to open displays of the more extreme forms of right-wing authoritarian nationalism (fascism).

Spencer was ambushed, but Black Bloc protestors violently clashed with right-wing marchers in Portland, Oregon just a few days ago in a more classic form of confrontation. In both cases, punching people might seem like a good idea, but it’s not.

1. Punching Nazis Delegitimizes Anti-Fascists

Freedom of speech is fundamental to a functioning democracy. Without it, the lack of open debate would compromise elections, hobble the responsibility of journalism to hold power accountable, and generally render the infrastructure of democracy non-navigable. The framers of the Constitution of the United States, where most of the Nazi-punchers seem to live, felt strongly enough to put it right into the First Amendment.

Nazi-punchers sometimes argue that “freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences,” the implication being that if you’re going to say horrible things, you should expect a violent response. However, the rights and responsibilities of freedom of speech do not supersede other laws. Whatever “consequences” you feel constitute a reasonable response to someone else’s speech must also be lawful, and it’s illegal to violently assault people.

Nazi-punchers sometimes argue that withholding a definitive response to a harmful political position might result in the normalization of that position as “just another opinion” on the political spectrum. However, it’s difficult to seriously believe that Nazis would be warmly welcomed into public discourse were it not for being assaulted. More overt forms of white supremacy are already crowded out from respectable discourse by non-violent pressures and while prominent fascists can take up an uncomfortable amount of air-time and media attention, the blame lies with the media’s own systemic shortcomings rather than a failure of non-violent resistance to his ideas.

Nazi-punchers sometimes argue that the lack of a forceful response can lead to crypto-fascists being emboldened. However, for reasons I explain below, nothing emboldens a fascist like being punched in the face.

None of this means we should embrace complacency, or even debate Spencer-types directly. If, however, you find yourself out of ideas once punching is taken off the table, this might represent a failure of the imagination on your part. You could, for instance, create some art, take part in a lawful protest of your own, or distribute leaflets countering the more popular arguments. The best response to stupid ideas is clever ideas, and there are always ways to make public outings uncomfortable for fascists without physically damaging anyone.

2. Punching Nazis Legitimizes Fascists

Fascists have a victim-complex ideology; they need someone to blame or the whole project falls over. “This is what they want” seems like a cliché, but perceived persecution functions as an ideology-aggrandizing moment for fascists. They can claim that they are being assaulted because the liberals are terrified of the truth. The recruitment pitches practically write themselves.

Any ideology which is dependent on a victim-complex narrative will be validated, emboldened, and enabled by violent resistance. The more you punch them, they better it goes for them. They’re so desperate for this validation that they will specifically engineer public demonstrations to provoke as much hostility as possible. It’s a very real possibility that, as with the Westboro Baptist Church’s  funeral demonstrations, the central purpose for these rallies is to attract violence. If this possibility is true, forcing them off the streets with violence is not a victory of any kind; actually, it empowers them.

3. Nazis Are The Bad Guys

Nazis are so obviously the bad guys that the History Channel manages to fund advertising for an entire cable outlet based on shows itemizing how awful they were. Nazis are so obviously the bad guys that most people use them as their go-to example of evil, a rhetorical cliche codified as Godwin’s Law. The identification of Nazism with evil is ubiquitous and secure.

Creeping fascism operates subtly, which makes it an excellent candidate for strong denunciations, but there’s no pressing need to explain the wrongness of Nazism. There’s even less need to mount a violence-based resistance to it, since it has no claims or viable pathways to power. However, assaulting Nazis creates an opening where there wasn’t one originally; it amplifies their message by providing concrete evidence of oppression.

The End of Violence

Politeness is regularly wielded as a shield against uncomfortable truths, but we shouldn’t assault those whose views we find reprehensible.

This isn’t tantamount to protecting fascist ideology; on the contrary, it’s a defence of liberal, democratic values. When left-wing observers assert that this amounts to a defense of Nazism, it undermines their own position and betrays the values they claim to be protecting.

As with conspiracy theorists, punching Nazis helps people with few avenues to power find some sense of control under circumstances where the forces of darkness appear overwhelming and they are powerless to act. Yet, also like conspiracy theorists, punching Nazis does no actual good  other than make the puncher feel better about himself.

Punching Nazis combines the very worst of virtue signalling with the very worst of mob rule. It helps justify the fascist worldview and their response to it and I prefer to avoid empowering and validating fascists where possible.

Original version published on Arc Digital, 6 July, 2018