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One of the most common tricks used by woke Social Justice activists to defend their view is to de-legitimize criticism by attacking the motives of the person who is opposing them. The goal is to undercut the moral authority and social standing of anyone who disagrees with them

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If you criticize the views of woke Social justice Activists they'll attack your motivations and imply that you're not being honest about your true motives. The goal is to make the audience suspicious of your intentions so they won't trust you or believe anything you say.
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By attacking your motives the woke activists can both discredit you while getting the audience to raise their level of skepticism toward you. This tactic is sometime referred to as "poisoning the well."

It is a dirty tactic, but it is effective.
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Here @BrandonLBradfor attempts to smear Conservative Black thinkers by claiming the reason the Right listens to conservative blacks is to assuage their own insecurity. The implication is people don't really care about the ideas of conservative blacks, they just use them...
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This implies that the ideas of conservative blacks are not worth listening too, and that even if conservative blacks had good ideas, nobody would care any way. This is the sort of pure cynicism that typifies Wokeness.
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Here Joshua Harrington-Sealy uses critical race theory to say that certain lawyers objections to a Statement Of Principles (SOP) was a show, and that he can use Critical Race Theory to explain that is was *REALLY* about regressive politics, not principles.
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Note that Mr. Sealy implies that the reasons people claimed to be agains the SOP are just a show, and he needs to pull back the curtain and tell you what everyone's *REAL* motives are.

Again, pure cynicism.
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Here @kkdumez implies someone negatively reviewed her book in order to trivialize her scholarship because she's a woman. All of the reviewers objections to her book are just layers of nonsense that need to be cut through so you can see the real motivating force: sexism.
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Woke activists do not want to win by defeating you intellectually, they want to win by tearing you down socially.

The goal is to destroy your credibility and make it look like you're hiding something and not being upfront with the audience.

It's a disgusting tactic.
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Do not try to diffuse this tactic by insisting that you're honest. That turns the conversation from an intellectual discussion about facts and ideas into a referendum on your character. That's what woke activists want, don't fall into that trap. There's a better solution...
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The right move is to make it obvious they're using a smear tactic. Simply saying "you're not using arguments you're just attacking my motives" is much more effective then trying to defend yourself because it makes the smear tactic obvious so people don't get taken in by it.
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If you make it painfully obvious that the other person is using a smear tactic, refuse to react with anger or insults and direct the conversation back to the arguments and the facts, you can diffuse the smear while increasing your credibility with the audience.
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Here is an excellent explanation of the principle explained perfectly by Jordan Peterson. He explains exactly how to respond to attacks from people. This is really excellent.
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Because woke activists are very concerned with social power you can expect them to try to win debates or have their ideas win the day by using social power to enforce their view. That's not how we want to go about things. I've messed up in this area and had to apologize...
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So I do not claim to be perfect, and I am still learning how to do this better. however, the times I've been most effective are when I don't let unfair tactics fluster me and I simply call them out, make them obvious, and then get back to the point of the discussion.

/fin
PS/
I do my best to behave well and argue carefully.

Sometimes I fail.
Sometimes I get cynical.
Sometimes I lose my temper.

But I do my best to have that happen less, and I apologize when I mess up. So please forgive me when I fail and keep me humble when I succeed.

Thank you

More from Wokal Distance

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There is an entire industry of guys like this whose only goal is to front as "speaking truth to power" while they build a brand. "Social Justice"
*IS* the cool thing.


2/
I did an entire thread on how these sort of people monetize Social Justice on the one hand, and the turn around and accuse anyone who disagree with their ideas and methods of being in it for power and


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Books like "White Fragility" and "how to be antiracist" sell millions of copies...because that's where the money is and this guy thinks anyone who would say "this recent cultural view that progressive Christians are adopting is bad theology" is in it for money and power...


4/
Ibram Kendi wrote "how to be anti-Racist and had an ad deal with McDonalds.

Does Ameen think he's in it for the money?


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Nikole Hannah-Jones said "Capitalism is the motor thay drove slavery" and then, this is not a joke, did a lecture series on emancipation *SPONSORED BY SHELL OIL*

Will @Ameen_HGA be accusing her of chasing power?
1/
Time to talk Trumpers.

This is Cori Bush's bill to expel from congress anyone who supported election challenges yesterday.

Yesterday was Jan 6.

The bill is dated Jan 5.

*SHE KNEW YOU WOULD PROTEST, LOSE CONTROL, AND GET VIOLENT. AND SHE HAD A BILL READY FOR WHEN YOU DID*


2/
You guys are going to take the "L" here and quite frankly you deserve it. Cori Bush is going to eat your lunch every day until Biden is inaugurated and there isn't a thing you can do about it.

So....

Let's talk about how to make sure this never, ever, happens again.

3/
How did Cori Bush know you guys were going to have problems and violence?

Because she was trained in the lefty protest movement. Lefty organizing are what she did for years, that's her area of expertise. So she knows just how quickly and easily protests go off the rails...

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She knew that this was likely planned by people who did not understand how easily protests go bad, and she knew there was a high likelihood of something going wrong.

Someone is going to say "They had people planted to make it go violent, it is not our fault..."

5/
So what?

Your job is to make sure your people behave, and that you have enough trained people to handle agitators looking to make trouble.

The left knows how to do this. The hold peaceful protests *WHEN THEY WANT TO*

Look at the Women's march, 2 million people, no violence

More from Society

Tomorrow, January 6th, MAGA chuds, Proud Boys, and white supremacists are planned to descend on Washington D.C. to contest the election. Among them will be NSC-131, a New England based neo-Nazi organization. Let's welcome them by saying hi to one of their members, Eddie Stuart!


Edward Stuart, from Chester, New Hampshire, has been a member of Nationalist Social Club (NSC) since the very beginning and is a staple participant in their actions. He is known in NSC chats as "Carl Jung" and is well connected in the New England Nazi scene.
2/


NSC-131 is a neo-Nazi group that was started in Massachusetts in early 2020 by Chris Hood. You can learn more about NSC and it's members in these threads:


Eddie describes his ideology as "Esoteric Hitlerism" which is an occult form of Nazism that literally worships Adolf Hitler as a god, or, specifically, as an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu. Here is Ed holding the RigVeda with some of his occult Nazi pals. Interesting Ed!
4/


Much of this ideological insight was gained from Eddie's Twitter, where he originally used his "Carl Jung" persona and reposts explicit neo-fascist content and racist memes. In one edited picture, Eddie can be seen at an NSC event in late June 2020 holding a Nazi Sonnenrad flag
5
Two things can be true at once:
1. There is an issue with hostility some academics have faced on some issues
2. Another academic who himself uses threats of legal action to bully colleagues into silence is not a good faith champion of the free speech cause


I have kept quiet about Matthew's recent outpourings on here but as my estwhile co-author has now seen fit to portray me as an enabler of oppression I think I have a right to reply. So I will.

I consider Matthew to be a colleague and a friend, and we had a longstanding agreement not to engage in disputes on twitter. I disagree with much in the article @UOzkirimli wrote on his research in @openDemocracy but I strongly support his right to express such critical views

I therefore find it outrageous that Matthew saw fit to bully @openDemocracy with legal threats, seeking it seems to stifle criticism of his own work. Such behaviour is simply wrong, and completely inconsistent with an academic commitment to free speech.

I am not embroiling myself in the various other cases Matt lists because, unlike him, I think attention to the detail matters and I don't have time to research each of these cases in detail.

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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?