@AgentXJP “regressive liberalism”, “neo-reactionary”…you must have gotten an A+ in your Marxist political science class.
@crede123 AgentXJP is the type of person you will meet at some colleges if you dare to express a conservative viewpoint…you will be insulted and called all of the latest terms someone has learned in class. Such students are not in the majority however, but they will do their best to make you keep you quiet.
All I am going to say is that this:
"the type of person you will meet at some colleges if you dare to express a conservative viewpoint…you will be insulted and called all of the latest terms someone has learned in class. Such students are not in the majority however, but they will do their best to make you keep you quiet. "
is completely at odds with anything I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been around college campuses almost my entire life.
I’m just throwing this out there… I am related to one of the former editors of Brietbart (sp?) and I’ll just say to take anything they write with a fist full of salt.
It seems to me, AgentXJP, that you may be the type of person I’ve been hearing about. You react to the possibility of alternate viewpoints with an ad-hominem attack, denouncing me as a probable bigot and propaganda-fed conservative extremist. I can assure you, the opposite is the case. I’ve never actually watched Fox News, and until now I don’t believe I had heard of Breitbart. If I’ve been brainwashed at all, it’s by alternative ‘liberal’ media and progressive parents. Regressive leftist is a term that is used by secular progressives and liberals. I’ve heard about this stuff from various professors accounts, a miscellaneous collection of articles, and youtube channels such as the Rubin Report. I’m fairly confident I was not being biased in my question- I am still unsure about the seriousness of the phenomenon, so I wanted to find out what people on this forum thought/knew.
To everyone else, thanks for your responses, I did not expect so many replies, and some have been quite helpful. It’s difficult to sort through the abundance of information on the web, especially with the serious confusion and bias that surrounds this topic. I appreciate what help you’ve provided.
@NickFlynn Well said. It’s best to ignore people like him. He lives in some fantasy world where conservatives are victims.
@Crede123 No. I’m a political moderate and registered independent. “Regressive leftist” is a propaganda term used by right-wingers and conservatives who feel threatened by modern social changes (women and minorities no longer being inferiors), and thus want to liken liberals to some kind of bad thing. You will FREQUENTLY here about “regressive leftism” from neo-reactionaries (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement#Positions). Neo-reactionaries are commonly defined by hostility to feminism, multiculturalism, and progressivism in all its forms and use the phrase “regressive leftism” to describe what they feel is degeneracy.
You can claim you don’t read Breitbart or Fox News all you want, but your actions make your sources pretty clear. Or maybe you’re unaware. I’m simply telling you the origin of this phrase, what it implies, and the kind of crowd that loves to use it.
You can use it all you want, but when you bring Fox News-style generalizations into a discussion don’t be surprised when people assume you read the equivalent of Fox News.
@Crede123 And secondly I never called YOU anything, so the idea that I reacted with an “ad-hominem” attack is completely false.
You stated two strawmen matter of factly, and I simply explained that these strawmen you’re curious about (the idea that liberal colleges are taking your rights and censoring people) are mere strawman and commonly pushed by neo-reactionaries and hard conservatives as propaganda.
That doesn’t mean you’re one. I’m just telling you the origins of those silly generalizations, and as everyone else has told you here they are silly/false. It’s like the people who think Obama is planning to take your guns.
Well, I really did not intend for this to become an argument, but I guess I’ll let it. ‘Regressive Left’ was a term created by Maajid Nawaz to describe those on the left who defend aspects of Islam that they would otherwise criticize. Maajid Nawaz is a liberal. The term has been popularized and expanded upon by the ‘atheism activists’, Bill Maher, Peter Boghossian, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, along with Dave Rubin (from whom I first heard it). These are all liberals, and most of them are progressives. Perhaps the term has crept into usage amongst the conservatives, but I would not know, since I have avoided conservative media. I’m not a huge fan of the term, but it seems to be the only one in existence to describe this sort of phenomenon, and it has become somewhat well-known. I
Ad-hominem attack was incorrectly used, I’ll admit. I was responding to “I’m not demonizing anyone. If anything that’s what the topic starter is doing”.
As I said before, I’m not certain about any of this, and I wanted to get more opinions through this site.
Well, at least you got your answer.
I must say that a term like “regressive left” is not somewhat well known - I keep a good beat on politics and I have yet to hear it from any source - even fringe conservatives. Additionally, the definition you just provided describes something that has nothing to do with the incorrect perception of colleges currently - most of the current and shiny new scandals are relating with levels of sensitivity and debate over what is and isn’t censorship. Also, I found two articles recently that I think show that even the media is realizing all of this is incredibly overblown:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-year-of-the-imaginary-college-student
http://ncac.org/resource/ncac-report-whats-all-this-about-trigger-warnings/
I’m looking at this thread and the only one here actually starting trouble is AgentXJP. TomSr only started his own generalisations after this anti-conservative made an account here and started nipping without any provocation.
Frankly speaking, there is no such thing as total free speech and you’d do well to watch your tongue in any situation. Speech policies are enforced based on the amount of noise the offended party makes, in most cases, people let very obvious policy infringements slide to save the hassle. It’s often up to chance whether what you say will get you screwed over, so just don’t pull anything ballsy unless you absolutely have to.