Stamping out hate?
There’s a word for that.
Love.
I wish Eddie Izzard every good fortune in his Labour Party NEC role but see the recurring problem recurring:
Will his use of “terrible” be understood as not hating those Tories?
Will “for the many not the few” be understood as not hating the few, or is it simply an inadvertent licence to choose which few to hate?
It requires action to call out the haters that claim Labour allegiance, not simply disengage from them and allow them to continue hating in our name, any name.
This has never been about social media – and who takes ownership responsibility for content – but about caring enough not to hate. It’s never really been about anti-semitism either – the source of claims of smear-campaigns. There are plenty of anti-semitic tropes embedded in both western post-Christian (inc Islamic) and liberal-left cultures we all need to care about enough not to conflate with reality. Business or politics, no reason for post-Capitalism to involve anti-capitalist hatred of those terrible … (capitalist, imperialist … zionist?) … Tories.
Left or right, caricatures kill.
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[Post Note:
Everyone is worried by ‘echo-chambers’ & online ‘filter bubbles’ of like-minded people. I think the opposite is a bigger problem: being surrounded constantly by opponents who can be caricatured & set up as straw-men.
” Jamie Bartlett (@JamieJBartlett) April 2, 2018
Jamie on the same wavelength again today too. Of course the echo-chamber is full of people attacking the “others” using every rhetorical trick in the book – that’s how you can tell it’s just an echo-chamber rather than a place of meaningful dialogue – the inhuman polarisation of one reinforces the other.]
[Post Note: And after Jewdas-gate, it really is about (not)-hating:
Good, nuanced thread. Twitter will hate it. https://t.co/mX5IBkCbuw
” Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) April 3, 2018
Thread starting here:
I’ve marched with Jewdas for refugees and I’ve marched with Jewdas against fascists. I don’t agree with a lot of the positions they take, but the way they are being portrayed by some is cynical, disingenuous and politicised. I also don’t think Corbyn should have met them tonight.
” Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) April 3, 2018
Agreed. An “Anarchist Collective” is not what we want a serious political leader associating with in a democracy, not even an imperfect one. Careful dialogue, with anyone in an appropriate context, sure but also care about political messages.]