Neoreactionaries And Conferences
Jun. 12th, 2015 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwaldI wish I were exaggerating when I say the objective of the Neoreactionary movement is the reversal of democracy and human rights, and an intention to install a monarch CEO over America. Alas, that is how they describe their stance in their own words.
Recently, the most famous Neoreactionary thought-leader (one of the founders of the movement) was scheduled to speak about technology at a major software conference. When his detractors pointed out the content of his online writings to the conference organizers, the conference decided to un-invite him.
A flood of complaints emerged about persecution of the right wing by the left. Can Neoreactionaries really be called "right wing"? And if you're right wing, do you really want that connection? This is one of a series of distinctions which the complaints repeatedly conflate (including "They are no longer inviting him to speak" conflated with "They banned him").
Do you see the gulf between "right of center" and "James Bond villain"? At least "right" and "left" are dimensions on a political continuum-- the same perhaps cannot be said of overt advocacy for world domination. So if you ask "Is it wrong to un-invite a speaker from a convention for political views", that is the wrong question for this situation. Is establishing a dictator really politics? Extolling the Middle Ages is so far outside the Overton Window that it is not politics.
Scott Alexander wrote "The Anti-NeoReactionary FAQ". While describing this scenario on his blog, even he expressed concerns over removing speakers who are "insufficiently leftist".
The uninvited Neoreactionary speaker once blogged as follows:
Consider another case; this case is of another software developer who invented an innovative new file system. He would be giving talks on it right now, were he not in prison for the murder of his wife. Would you look forward to sitting in an audience, listening to him on a stage with a microphone? If you weigh his dead wife and her family on one hand, and your enjoyment of file systems on the other, and if you have a sense of proportion, your answer is "no".
Your lack of desire to hear him talk will not bring his wife back, so what's really behind it? To give a stage and a microphone to a person is to communicate that you honor a person. That person must, at the very least, be bare-minimum honorable in public life. Are you "politicizing" the conference in this case? No.
If that's not politics, why is the original case of the Neoreactionary one of politicization of the software conference? When a Neoreactionary says he wants feudalism, this is not like when some leftists call America "feudal" and its citizens "serfs". In light of conditions in North Korea, we recognize that is hyperbolic rhetoric. Well, the Neoreactionary openly wants a return to non-rhetorical feudalism, in which you would be a non-rhetorical serf. When publicly pondering whether millions of Californians should be shot in the back of the head, he finds this concept troubling, but does not reject it out of hand. I am not blowing his views out of proportion for hyperbolic effect. You have a first-amendment right of freedom of association, which includes not associating with this person. His freedom of speech doesn't include the right to a megaphone.
Only with a complete lack of perspective is it possible to characterize the conference's decision as having anything to do with politics. If you would like to wring your hands over your uncertainty over where the line is drawn, this incident is not your test case. This software conference is so far from the slippery slope, they can't see it with a telescope.
Recently, the most famous Neoreactionary thought-leader (one of the founders of the movement) was scheduled to speak about technology at a major software conference. When his detractors pointed out the content of his online writings to the conference organizers, the conference decided to un-invite him.
A flood of complaints emerged about persecution of the right wing by the left. Can Neoreactionaries really be called "right wing"? And if you're right wing, do you really want that connection? This is one of a series of distinctions which the complaints repeatedly conflate (including "They are no longer inviting him to speak" conflated with "They banned him").
Do you see the gulf between "right of center" and "James Bond villain"? At least "right" and "left" are dimensions on a political continuum-- the same perhaps cannot be said of overt advocacy for world domination. So if you ask "Is it wrong to un-invite a speaker from a convention for political views", that is the wrong question for this situation. Is establishing a dictator really politics? Extolling the Middle Ages is so far outside the Overton Window that it is not politics.
Scott Alexander wrote "The Anti-NeoReactionary FAQ". While describing this scenario on his blog, even he expressed concerns over removing speakers who are "insufficiently leftist".
The uninvited Neoreactionary speaker once blogged as follows:
As the King begins the transition from democracy, however, he sees at once that many Californians – certainly millions – are financial liabilities. These are unproductive citizens. Their place on the balance sheet is on the right. To put it crudely, a ten-cent bullet in the nape of each neck would send California’s market capitalization soaring – often by a cool million per neck.That's only "insufficiently leftist" if the Pope is "insufficiently Satanist". No, scratch that. It's not even the opposite of leftist.
Consider another case; this case is of another software developer who invented an innovative new file system. He would be giving talks on it right now, were he not in prison for the murder of his wife. Would you look forward to sitting in an audience, listening to him on a stage with a microphone? If you weigh his dead wife and her family on one hand, and your enjoyment of file systems on the other, and if you have a sense of proportion, your answer is "no".
Your lack of desire to hear him talk will not bring his wife back, so what's really behind it? To give a stage and a microphone to a person is to communicate that you honor a person. That person must, at the very least, be bare-minimum honorable in public life. Are you "politicizing" the conference in this case? No.
If that's not politics, why is the original case of the Neoreactionary one of politicization of the software conference? When a Neoreactionary says he wants feudalism, this is not like when some leftists call America "feudal" and its citizens "serfs". In light of conditions in North Korea, we recognize that is hyperbolic rhetoric. Well, the Neoreactionary openly wants a return to non-rhetorical feudalism, in which you would be a non-rhetorical serf. When publicly pondering whether millions of Californians should be shot in the back of the head, he finds this concept troubling, but does not reject it out of hand. I am not blowing his views out of proportion for hyperbolic effect. You have a first-amendment right of freedom of association, which includes not associating with this person. His freedom of speech doesn't include the right to a megaphone.
Only with a complete lack of perspective is it possible to characterize the conference's decision as having anything to do with politics. If you would like to wring your hands over your uncertainty over where the line is drawn, this incident is not your test case. This software conference is so far from the slippery slope, they can't see it with a telescope.
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Date: 2015-06-13 06:14 pm (UTC)