Post by @gaditb@icosahedron.website

@Elizafox That's more complicated because "Hitler was actually Jewish" can be at least as much the "obv that homophobe is ~closeted~" idea that bigotry is at root internal emotional turmoil, the only interactions to consider are the ones between two individuals one who is hating one who is hated, and the people who need to think hard about it are primarily (or entirely) those affected, I-personally can just simply love-my-neighbor and be pure and done with my part.

No this is related to the The Socialism Of Fools thing.
(That's the term socialists use for it, because they are (a) concerned about socialism and not the general pattern, and (b) frame their idea of their correctness as an intellectual accomplishment, so misalignment with them is described as foolishness rather than differing priorities/frameworks.)

Gadfly (-booq-)

@gaditb@icosahedron.website 3 hours ago

@Elizafox It's using transness/Jewishness as the boundary-marker of good/bad morality.

It's analysis-as-rhetoric, rather than analysis-as-derivation-of-reality.

The goal here -- possibly articulateable but even if someone would say "no I'm analyzing for what's really there" you can see it by where people feel like they've reached a comfortable conclusion and can stop analyzing&move on --

is not to describe or predict reality, but to remove the feeling of uncertainty and to shore up confidence for the action being taken.

The two moves here are:
a) this is something I know is bad -- how can I confidently locate it as indelibly [trans/Jewish/_] to reinforce the strength of that boundary-marker as determining morality
b) this is something I want to be confident is bad -- how can I draw a line to its [transness/Jewishness/_] to tie down its moral character across the boundary

Gadfly (-booq-)

@gaditb@icosahedron.website 2 hours ago

@Elizafox Phrased more internally, that's
a) recognizing evil in this way is a skill, I want to practice it
b) I have practiced this way of recognizing evil, here is a place where that body of knowledge is/would have been relevant

It's particularly useful in the declaration and externalization of (percieved) internal threats.
Tying it to [transness/Jewishness/_] first of all establishes it as actually EXTERNAL to the social community, so the value (strength or goodness) of the abstract community is maintained and doesn't need to be questioned, and second of all provides a source for the danger/badness to have come from, so that it doesn't leave the "what could have caused this" question worryingly unanswered.

In early Christianity, this was accusations of "Judaizing", e.g..