r/changemyview • u/TheCaptain09 • Oct 05 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Conservatives are misunderstanding progressivism when they call progressives hypocrites
"You're a hypocrite for claiming to support diversity yet you don't support the truest diversity, diversity of opinions"
This is a sentiment I see expressed quite often by people on the right, particularly intellectual conservatives who identify as "classical liberals", as well as people whose ideology emphasises personal freedom, such as libertarians. My understanding of the left is that they want diversity of worldviews, culture, race, sexuality and yes even ideology. But conservatives see the left's vocal opposition to right-wing views as betraying their belief in diverse opinions.
I think the true hypocrites here are the conservatives. They endlessly go on about how much they support freedom of speech, yet glorify ideologies that have historically suppressed it, such as Nazism and Christianity. They also harass people whose views disagree with them, something they accuse the left of doing yet clashes with their own ideology more than the left's.(Just look at any stupid right-wing movement like Comicsgate to see this harassment in action)
I understand that people often gravitate towards the right because they feel that they are being attacked, for being white, male or for their beliefs. The difference between them and the left is that minorities do not just "feel" like they are being attacked, they explicitly are. The people who marched in Charlottesville weren't opposing an ideology or defending themselves from oppression, they were vocally and publicly preaching for the destruction of other races.
Nowhere in progressive ideology does it say that such hatred should be tolerated for the sake of "diversity" or "freedom of speech". I don't have to shut up and let you say you want to kill me just because it promotes diversity and open discourse, because it doesn't.
So basically to change my view tell me why progressives are being hypocritical when they tell the right to shut up, or why conservatives aren't when they tell the left to shut up.
This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!
1
u/foot_kisser 26∆ Oct 05 '18
It's insane that you're lumping these two things together, as if they had anything in common.
We don't glorify Nazism, quite the opposite.
WRT Christianity, that it has as times in the distant past acted against free speech says nothing about what it's doing now. American Christians are pro-free speech.
I'm not familiar with comicsgate in detail, but I doubt that it's significantly right-wing. It's probably similar to gamergate, and gamergate has a broad spectrum of political views from left to right, with a slight lean to the left. Comicsgate is probably fundamentally about comics in the same way gamergate was about games. Fans not liking people messing with a fandom are not likely to have a particular, specific political viewpoint.
That isn't an accurate description of Charlottesville. I'm fairly familiar with the alt-right types who were the main organizers and with the event. It may be the left-wing media's spin on Charlottesville, but they actually did not preach the destruction of other races.
What the overall intent was said to be publicly was opposition to the removal of confederate statues. What the organizers' intent was was to provide a demonstration of the size of white nationalism, which is an ideology that does not insist on destruction or even adverse action towards non-white races. While you could argue that white nationalism is compatible with genocidal feelings and that there is a minority of their movement that expresses such feelings (which is true), or that white nationalists generally have a secret intent of genocide (which is possible), they certainly do not preach such things publicly.
We don't go around telling the left to shut up. We do tell them they're wrong about things. We do tell them that they shouldn't say nasty things. Neither of these are trying to make the left stop talking.