Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 3:33am

Fearsome to the Enemies of Truth

Dave Griffey at Daffey Thoughts recalls the SJW trolls who swarmed over his blog, alarmed at this conservative intruder into their happy hunting ground, when it was at Patheos:

 

 

 

This time, a post-battle review.  He nails Ms. Newman of Channel 4 for what she is.  She is a Marxist inspired post-modern leftist.  To that end, there is no truth, there’s merely the assumption of my measure of righteousness, anyone who disagrees must be a stereotype.  And it isn’t just Ms. Newman. That’s the biggest problem.  Peterson also calls out the fact that Ms. Newman’s tactics are all too common. While not unique to any time or place, her approach is pretty much the go-to approach in our millennial age; the post-Truth age where the point is to be affirmed in your awesomeness and contempt for non-conformers, rather than care a lick about getting to the truth.

As I listened to this, I thought of a glaring mistake I made at Patheos.  Early on, I assumed commentators commented in good faith.  Not sure why, since I’ve visited blogs for years. But I did assume this, I suppose because it was my blog and I thought I could direct the spirit of the comments.  No.  I was wrong.  Some did in good faith.  Many did not.  The best Troll of the bunch incarnated the postmodern leftist millennial age and all its problems that we see with Ms. Newman.

Early on I missed that and tried to engage in the spirit of mature discourse.  Which led to endless comments of nothing, strings of pointlessness that ended up chasing readers away (by the end, some told me exactly who it was that they dreaded seeing on a comments thread).  The wag would use any tactic imaginable – deflection, inconsistency, arrogance, subtle insult, pointless rabbit chasing, insinuation, you name a method of obfuscation – to do nothing other than win, and feel intellectually superior.  Any attempts to correct the situation?  More accusations, name calling or insults.

Which is why his approach reminded me of Ms. Newman, and much of the postmodern, millennial approach to debate.  There was no attempt to get to the point, discover the truth, find an answer, or discover a solution.  There was no real desire to understand my point – something I missed for too long.  The point was keeping the individual tripped up as long as possible to feel validated and superior. Truth, and reality were completely irrelevant. 

When engaging with the Marxist inspired postmodern millennial Left, it might be worth remembering this sad and ugly fact.  We don’t engage with people seeking Truth.  We engage with people who have one agenda and one agenda only – the eradication of anything that challenges their own superior view of themselves and their latest convenient values.

The fact that mainline outlets are taking notice and making with the slick ‘he’s obviously evil, he’s not liberal’ headlines, is all I need to know to understand how dangerously on the edge we are. Dangerous because it’s not just people who need validation on blogs, but actual jouranlism and even our very educational institutions that are in on the act.  Here, the Chronicle of Higher Education takes on Peterson.  It’s more subtle than Ms. Newman, but the obvious suggestions and hints are there.  Slate, of course, cuts right to the chase and in typical *Yawn* form, labels Peterson an Alt-Right hero.  Alt-Right is quickly becoming ‘excuse to root for the extermination of those who don’t conform’, rather than a descriptive label.

All of which reminded me of the Patheos Trolls, Ms. Newman, progressive millennials, and why we must stop fooling ourselves about compromising with a movement of tyranny, oppression, violence and wickedness resting on lies and calumny and rejection of Truth as its primary tactic.  It’s not just on Patheos or Channel 4.  Increasingly, it is the millennial Left in a nutshell.

Go here to comment.  One of my favorite scenes from the movie Becket:

I have always been struck by the words after the mitre is placed on Becket that:   “he may appear fearsome to the enemies of Truth.”  With most Leftists we are dealing with people who do not believe there is such a thing as truth, which explains a lot when you think about it.

 

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Mary De Voe
Thursday, January 25, AD 2018 1:50pm

Goliath fell with one stroke of the stone then the sword, his own sword like ad hominem. Trolls do not respond when cornered. Watching Jordan Peterson and Cathy Newman was an eyeopener. Know your enemy. Dr. Peterson is being called an army on one. I call him the majority of one. Find it. Watch it.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, January 25, AD 2018 1:53pm

In the following spin the yellow livered cowards blame the bad Dr. Peterson for embarrassing Ms. Newman. Ignorance is embarrassing.

Phillip
Phillip
Thursday, January 25, AD 2018 2:25pm

“The wag would use any tactic imaginable – deflection, inconsistency, arrogance, subtle insult, pointless rabbit chasing, insinuation, you name a method of obfuscation – to do nothing other than win, and feel intellectually superior. Any attempts to correct the situation? More accusations, name calling or insults.”

Wait, is he talking about Shea?

c matt
c matt
Thursday, January 25, AD 2018 5:47pm

What I don’t get is how can these trolls honestly believe their tactics work – in the sense of actually convincing fence-sitters of their position? Sure, the indoctrinated will declare victory, but any reasonably objective observer can see the ridiculousness of their arguments. What, exactly, do they think they gain, other than more echos from the echo chamber?

Maybe I am working under the similar delusion that the average fence-sitter does care about truth.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Friday, January 26, AD 2018 4:51am

Becket: “that he may appear fearsome to the enemies of Truth.”

Relativism breeds Trolls.
No absolutes – no God – no Truth.
Where there’s no God the law of vacuum demands a filler..false God(s) -false truth – false religion.
The Trolls are placed in incubation centers, Berkeley for example, then after a proper amount of cooking, they punch through their shell and carry out their mission. A State Religion to control them all. Mordorism.

Lionel Andrades
Lionel Andrades
Friday, January 26, AD 2018 5:49am

JANUARY 26, 2018
Hilary White and Massimo Faggioli interpret the Catechism, Vatican Council II and Letter of the Holy Office with hypothetical cases not being hypothetical : so there is a rupture with Tradition (with graphics)
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2018/01/hilary-white-and-massimo-faggioli.html

Dave Griffey
Dave Griffey
Friday, January 26, AD 2018 6:48am

C Matt,
The impression I got at Patheos is that those Trolls weren’t the least bit interested in changing my mind, or anyone’s mind. They were just trying to tear down any opposing individual. Not opposing view, the individual.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Friday, January 26, AD 2018 11:07am

No absolutes.
No Truth…just what you choose truth to be.
Take a look into Shape of Water;

http://blog.spiritdaily.com/news/beware-of-the-shape-of-water

Foxfier
Admin
Tuesday, January 30, AD 2018 11:08am

What I don’t get is how can these trolls honestly believe their tactics work – in the sense of actually convincing fence-sitters of their position?

Generally, they’re able to silence opposition– who is going to sign up for abuse which, for at least a decade, it’s been known can result in someone life-altering steps against you, when you know it will do nothing but give them a target?

Generally, they believe that if nobody is arguing with them, then the others agree with them. And if someone they assumed is on “their” side so much as politely differs on a point of fact– it’s a gut-deep betrayal which justifies all sorts of incredibly vicious attacks. (….I’m a woman who was born in the 80s. Among my acts of betrayal are joining the military in good faith rather than as an activist, not going to college, being happily married and having more than two children. Things REALLY get nasty when they realize I’m a believing Catholic and have been conservative my whole life.)

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