I definitely agree with the second part of what you said but my position on the first part is that there are very, very few people who are born into a paradigm that isn’t liberalism; people arrive at Va*sh by some path and I think that while these people are still liberals, they had been on a path towards a more critical view of the system. And they have managed to end up in the ideological cul de sac that people like Va*sh represent.
Va*sh will die but there are always going to be charlatans. While it’s easy to lay fault at the feet of the people who follow like him—and there certainly is a degree of culpability due to them—he plays to biases and exploits the naivete of his audience. If I didn’t know about Durkheim from elsewhere and I didn’t know Va*sh but he explained anomie like that to me I’d be inclined to accept what he said. I think most people would too because he speaks with a sense of confidence that makes him have the facade of being authoritative.
So you’re not wrong that people choose their teachers but I don’t think it’s fair to assume that everyone is as aware of his parlour tricks as you or I are.
It’s a bit like dismissing scam artists by saying that ultimately people choose who they give their money to. That’s also true but a scam artist will exploit vulnerabilities in their target audience - the gullible ones and the ones who are easily convinced are their marks - and while there is plenty of information out there about all the different ways that scam artists prey upon people, I can’t expect that everyone would be aware of this and I think the blame should be focused on the predators and not the prey.
(I guess the distinction here is that I have a lot of sympathy for victims of scammers and I have a lot of criticisms of people who follow Va*sh. Maybe a better example would have been to use people who are in cults or MLM schemes or who actively promote pseudoscience - something where there’s a line between a mark and a person who is both exploited while also promoting the scam itself. But I treat his audience the same way - not every one of his viewers is old or wise enough to know better and for that cohort I’ll extend patience and understanding to. But the ones who are wilfully ignorant, who actively perpetuate his brand of disinformation especially when confronted with evidence that disproves their position, I’m pretty ruthless with.)
Counterpoint: no sympathy for Vaushites. It’s so blatantly obvious what a pathetic pedo grifter he is, if you fall for his bullshit that 100% on you and it should be a stain on your reputation for the rest of your life. No such thing as as an ex-vaushite.
I definitely agree with the second part of what you said but my position on the first part is that there are very, very few people who are born into a paradigm that isn’t liberalism; people arrive at Va*sh by some path and I think that while these people are still liberals, they had been on a path towards a more critical view of the system. And they have managed to end up in the ideological cul de sac that people like Va*sh represent.
Va*sh will die but there are always going to be charlatans. While it’s easy to lay fault at the feet of the people who follow like him—and there certainly is a degree of culpability due to them—he plays to biases and exploits the naivete of his audience. If I didn’t know about Durkheim from elsewhere and I didn’t know Va*sh but he explained anomie like that to me I’d be inclined to accept what he said. I think most people would too because he speaks with a sense of confidence that makes him have the facade of being authoritative.
So you’re not wrong that people choose their teachers but I don’t think it’s fair to assume that everyone is as aware of his parlour tricks as you or I are.
It’s a bit like dismissing scam artists by saying that ultimately people choose who they give their money to. That’s also true but a scam artist will exploit vulnerabilities in their target audience - the gullible ones and the ones who are easily convinced are their marks - and while there is plenty of information out there about all the different ways that scam artists prey upon people, I can’t expect that everyone would be aware of this and I think the blame should be focused on the predators and not the prey.
(I guess the distinction here is that I have a lot of sympathy for victims of scammers and I have a lot of criticisms of people who follow Va*sh. Maybe a better example would have been to use people who are in cults or MLM schemes or who actively promote pseudoscience - something where there’s a line between a mark and a person who is both exploited while also promoting the scam itself. But I treat his audience the same way - not every one of his viewers is old or wise enough to know better and for that cohort I’ll extend patience and understanding to. But the ones who are wilfully ignorant, who actively perpetuate his brand of disinformation especially when confronted with evidence that disproves their position, I’m pretty ruthless with.)
Counterpoint: no sympathy for Vaushites. It’s so blatantly obvious what a pathetic pedo grifter he is, if you fall for his bullshit that 100% on you and it should be a stain on your reputation for the rest of your life. No such thing as as an ex-vaushite.