07-28-2019, 05:16 AM
I came across this paragraph in a bit on reddit about Trump's racism:
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
Replace anti-Semite with anti-TMT and it is still relevant. There is a certain giddiness about telling everyone else to go shove it. Making sense is not the objective at least for some. NOT making sense and getting away with it is its own reward.
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
Replace anti-Semite with anti-TMT and it is still relevant. There is a certain giddiness about telling everyone else to go shove it. Making sense is not the objective at least for some. NOT making sense and getting away with it is its own reward.