@jpmc26 I think the fundamental issue here is that users feel differently about being charitable towards SE now their work is more clearly lining somebody else's pockets.
But I'm unaware of the cultural nuances of the particular issue. In my language man refers to a person with XY chromosomes. It offends me slightly to use the word differently to that, but not so much I'll make a big thing of it. I'm sure this view offends one side or other.
But I don't know which side are the cultural Marxists in your view.
...what I mean is, whichever side I were to apply that label to, I imagine they would also be applying it to me.
Hmm. I'm not persuaded that it's anything to do with "cultural Marxism", either according to its classical definition or to its contemporary, more perjorative definition. More a combination of highly toxified office politics and a handful of people who don't have much (or anything) of a formal background in Sociology pursuing some half-baked ideas which they only half-understand.
There are those (entirely well-intentioned, I'm guessing) who wish to push back against dominant identities within binary frameworks and include less dominant identities. But - quite extraordinarily - they target the dominant identity instead of challenging the binary framework. This is, at best, misguided and at worst it entrenches the binary framework further, which is counter-productive.
This includes calling for staff to resign or trying to assign blame. - I can understand somewhat the reasoning for the former but the latter? No thanks, that just seems as though we're not allowed to point out the obvious, as though, these folks are untouchable, so to speak.
@samerivertwice The main thesis of Marx was that you could explain society in terms of an economic oppressor class deriving their wealth and status by forcing an oppressed class to take actions detrimental to themselves and that the solution was to invert the power structure. A "cultural Marxist" is someone who extends that thesis to non-economic, social classes.
And by "invert the power structure," I mean to implement coercion to remove their source of prosperity (namely their property). In social terms, this means replacing the dominant class' sense of normalcy and acceptance with one of disdain and derision. In terms of specifics, that means labeling them hateful, "unwelcoming," or many of the other negative terms you hear bandied about. It's about creating an attitude that those who live out the dominant lifestyle are participants in a great evil.
@Rounin It's not extraordinary at all. Humans are prone to blaming others, self righteousness, and other forms of tribalism. This is, in my opinion, the reason why communism continues to be perpetuated despite its spectacular failure and destructiveness: it appeals to those most base emotions.
(communism and Marxism and its descendants in general)
It's also the reason why communism (a flat, property-less, government free society) is a pipe dream. It really staggers my intellect that people can believe that appealing to jealousy and envy and categorically rejecting a dominant class could produce anything positive.
I may be using the term in a non-standard way. My apologies if so. But I think my usage is intuitive: expanding Marxist doctrine beyond merely economic classes to include social and cultural ones. Is there a better term for that?
@jpmc26 - Allow me to clarify: It is extraordinary (to me) that some those who wish to push back against an asymmetrically framed relationship, seek to tweak the asymmetry within the frame, but don't seek to redefine or replace the frame. I'd want to suggest it's the frame that's the issue, not whatever asymmetry is going on inside it.
Regarding property, @jpmc26, have you heard the good news? In the old days, you simply could not have your cake and eat it too. Nor could you have your cake if you already let your friend eat it. But these, days, we have a new class of stuff: digital.
I can have my video, or software, or book, and share it too. While recognizing that the nature of cake has not changed, does not the nature (and contemporary importance!) of digital property warrant re-litigating old truisms about the haves and have-nots?
For example, consider something like the Stack Exchange network. All of the code and images and scripts and sounds and config files that make up the family of sites would no doubt fit on a single (expensive) USB stick. But, that's not really the valuable part of the Network, is it? No, surely the value is the body of work from all those users. The "content".
You'd need one to ten (expensive) external hard drives to store all of that. [ed. hedged my bets as to the total storage cost. 10TB externals now exist.]
Hi, I just joined Meta (but have been following it for quite a while), and this might be a silly question, but I am wondering why/how does the profile of poster (Ms. Sara Chipps) keeps showing her reputation as 1, when only days ago it was a different number (4). I have seen it happen frequently with this profile, where after it gets some reputation, it resets to 1 after some time.
@AkshayKhot meta.stackexchange.com/users/139284/sara-chipps ? Do you lose reputation on Meta if a question you post there gets downvoted? Sara Chipps posted the question we are discussing, which has -1505 (sum).
I don't know if this is true. I have a question (unrelated) that is being downvoted right now, but my reputation isn't changing. Maybe it's not real-time? (Other rep changes seem to be real-time.)
@Rounin I disagree. The redefinition of "the frame" is precisely what is being attempted here.
@daveloyall Meta.StackExchange is unique among metas. It's not a companion to any particular site, so reputation there works like on any main site. On other metas, voting on the companion meta site has no impact on reputation.
@daveloyall That's certainly a reasonable question to ask (and one I'm not able to provide an answer to right now), but it really has no bearing on the basic Marxist worldview of oppressor vs. oppressed and the demands for reversing the power dynamic, other than to possibly serve as evidence against the worldview's validity.
@jpmc26 If it is, it's not being attempted very well. eg. When attempting to redefine the dominant narrative on who the gods are, there are degrees of magnitude of difference between claiming the Greek gods aren't real but the Roman gods are and between claiming the Greek gods aren't real but the Israelite deity Yahweh is the one true God of all the world. In comparison, the first redefinition attempt looks like a tweak.
@Rounin Attempting to supplant the existing language tools built around biological sex with meanings referring instead to subjective, unobservable self perception does not strike me as a tweak.
I'll grant you that if your goal is to topple a set of fundamental beliefs in a society, it would seem to make more sense to distinguish yourself more clearly. However, that's kind of my point. The goal isn't to lay out competing ideas and try to convince people of their position. It's to quietly modify the existing structure in such a manner as to make it assume their own suppositions, rather than challenge the old suppositions openly.
@daveloyall They are not separate issues. That's the point. The CoC was created by a group of people who are looking to use SE the corporation as a mechanism to further their belief system. Monica's removal and their response to it are a result of their ideological beliefs put into practice.
Particularly their belief that anything less than full agreement with their ideas about gender is morally unacceptable to them, or at least is treated as such.
One of the things I find strangest about all this is that SE is content to leave it's director of q&a unchanged when her reputation with the community is abysmal...
