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Post by Zarnium on Jan 17, 2018 18:01:13 GMT -8
Parks and Rec? Anti-Republican? (Tim Allen confused grunt noise) I was about to say the same thing. I was always surprised at how often the show got me to side with Ron instead of Leslie. (Well, ok, technically, that's more "Libertarian" than "Republican" and Ron himself would be the first person to correct me on that, but still.)
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 17, 2018 18:06:54 GMT -8
Well, anti-Middle America, more specifically. I know a lot of right-wingers who enjoy the show, but its portrayal of rural Indiana can be pretty unflattering (particularly when compared to something like The Middle). Flamepillar, obviously I agree with you on this. I don't really care if people are somewhat aggressive in criticizing others for racist comments, rhetoric or policies. If our culture is too delicate or passive in shooting down that stuff, it could end up normalizing it even further. Sometimes being polite can be too ineffectual. I do somewhat agree with Scott, though, that using MLK as a platform for it may not be the best approach. The problem in this case is that Schur and company weren't responding to racist comments or policies. Most of their responses either amounted to pulling quotes out of context (Marco Rubio) or just plain ad hominem attacks (Paul Ryan). The one supposedly racist policy they did attack someone for was Roy Blunt's voting "no" on college-admissions Affirmative Action. (For the record, I'm not so sure that MLK would have supported Affirmative Action himself. But that's probably a whole other discussion.) I'm all for fighting back against discrimination. But too many people nowadays just call "racism" to gain the moral high ground in an argument, regardless of whether their opponent is engaging in actual bigotry. The irony here is that the more people use this tactic, the less sensitive we become to actual racism. (And yeah, making nasty comments in response to pro-diversity tweets on MLK Day feels especially egregious.)
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 17, 2018 18:25:14 GMT -8
That's fair enough. But I think sometimes you get hung up more on the tone than the content of a person's comments. And Schur is free to call out hypocrisy when he sees it, same as anybody else. Paul Ryan has been a relative yes-man for Trump for some time now, so of course he's gonna get some of the heat.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 17, 2018 19:27:27 GMT -8
I try to judge comments by content whenever I can. The problem is that on sites like Twitter, there isn't usually much room for content. So tone - particularly loud/angry tone - often overrides coherent arguments. And one ugly comment leads to another, which in turn inspires another, and so forth.
This is not solely a political issue, BTW - as I've been saying for years, it's a problem with the Internet at large. And it's primarily why I avoid most online discussion beyond this site.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 17, 2018 20:06:47 GMT -8
I do agree that Twitter is far from the best venue for nuanced conversations, but those who use it effectively can state something very succinctly if they choose their words carefully. It's too bad it, more often than not, becomes a game of one-upsmanship.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 17, 2018 20:43:38 GMT -8
Yes. And now you know why my Twitter output is generally limited to pithy puns and pop-culture one-liners.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jan 18, 2018 7:54:58 GMT -8
I checked his Twitter out of curiosity, and I don't see anything too bad. I mean, he hasn't willed anyone to get killed by a rhino lately. He's quite vulgar and outspoken in condemning the right-that doesn't make him a social media jerk to me. Kinda does to me. The comments he makes may not be as bad as some of Joss' worst tweets, but they can be pretty obnoxious. And they cast Parks and Rec (perhaps the most ardently anti-Republican sitcom of the past decade) in a pretty cynical light. Stop trying to ruin Parks and Rec, Schur. I won't let you. Actually, I never got that vibe from it. Leslie's political views were often made to be absurd, like when Ron called her "slightly to the left of Leon Trotsky". I don't think the show meant for us to interpret that as a good thing. The show always seemed a bit centrist actually, acknowledging valid points on both sides. The MLK thing was pretty disrespectful and obnoxious, I'll grant you that, but lots of his tweets are just viciously condemning Trump, which I am fine with. After all, why should we hold his critics to a higher standard than Trump himself? (It's not a political thing for me either. Joss is a complete ass on twitter, which I don't think is going to help anyone. Neither will Schur's rants, but it seems to me he's just pointing out things that our President actually might have done.)
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 18, 2018 8:31:36 GMT -8
Oh, I think we should hold Trump to a higher standard on Twitter as well. That standard being "He should delete his bleeping Twitter account immediately."
And I don't mean to disparage the politics on Parks and Rec, which could certainly be even-handed with regards to its main characters. But it's emblematic of TV's difficulty to paint realistic portrayals of blue-collar middle America. In fairness, this is not a new issue; it's been happening with sitcoms for decades, arguably since the infamous "greenwashing" of the early 1970s. But positive portrayals of rural American are few and far between - for every Roseanne, there are at least dozen Newharts.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 18, 2018 9:57:36 GMT -8
You might want to check out the film Nebraska, by Alexander Payne, Jeremy. It has a comedic bend at times, but I don't think it treats rural folks with quite as much condescension as many TV shows.
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Post by otherscott on Jan 18, 2018 10:35:31 GMT -8
My problem with the left wing attacks on Trump and the Republicans is not even that they're wrong exactly, it's just that they're so frigging unhelpful. The political divide in the US is causing major problems right now, and yes Trump is increasing it whenever he gets the chance, no doubt about that.
But the left wing are supposed to be the "educated" ones, who rely on "facts" and "science". Well there's some facts and science associated with good conflict management and how to resolve disputes. You know what is not good practice for resolving conflict? Continually attacking and degrading the other side. Because it achieves nothing, the people who are on your side are still going to be on your side, and it's not like you're convincing neutral observers or the other side to start like negotiating and respecting your point of view with ad hominem attacks.
It's ridiculous and smart people like Michael Schur should know better.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jan 18, 2018 10:51:32 GMT -8
My problem with the left wing attacks on Trump and the Republicans is not even that they're wrong exactly, it's just that they're so frigging unhelpful. The political divide in the US is causing major problems right now, and yes Trump is increasing it whenever he gets the chance, no doubt about that. But the left wing are supposed to be the "educated" ones, who rely on "facts" and "science". Well there's some facts and science associated with good conflict management and how to resolve disputes. You know what is not good practice for resolving conflict? Continually attacking and degrading the other side. Because it achieves nothing, the people who are on your side are still going to be on your side, and it's not like you're convincing neutral observers or the other side to start like negotiating and respecting your point of view with ad hominem attacks. It's ridiculous and smart people like Michael Schur should know better. That's a stereotype though. I don't think liberals are intellectually superior at all. There's an equal amount of idiotic liberals and conservatives. I agree with you that Twitter rants don't actually accomplish anything. But in this day and age, it doesn't seem like anything else will either.
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Post by otherscott on Jan 18, 2018 11:01:16 GMT -8
The quotation marks were intentional, I was simply stating how the liberals see themselves compared to their conservative counterparts based on those stereotypes.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 18, 2018 11:03:10 GMT -8
Equal number? There are certainly a fair number of idiots on both sides, but I'll need to see your math on that, sir.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 18, 2018 12:18:25 GMT -8
Equal number? There are certainly a fair number of idiots on both sides, but I'll need to see your math on that, sir. A recent study by Fizziology discovered that liberals and conservatives enjoy Dancing with the Stars in equal measure. I'd say that about sums it up. My problem with the left wing attacks on Trump and the Republicans is not even that they're wrong exactly, it's just that they're so frigging unhelpful. The political divide in the US is causing major problems right now, and yes Trump is increasing it whenever he gets the chance, no doubt about that. But the left wing are supposed to be the "educated" ones, who rely on "facts" and "science". Well there's some facts and science associated with good conflict management and how to resolve disputes. You know what is not good practice for resolving conflict? Continually attacking and degrading the other side. Because it achieves nothing, the people who are on your side are still going to be on your side, and it's not like you're convincing neutral observers or the other side to start like negotiating and respecting your point of view with ad hominem attacks. Agreed with all of this. Ad hominem political attacks are not new, but they've become an easier go-to tactic than ever. And while they may provide brief moments of superficial catharsis, they're not helping matters. I think Ross Douthat summed up the issue behind the current divide best: Both sides feel threatened. Liberals feel threatened because Republicans control all branches of government, denying them a voice in their country. Conservatives feel threatened because Democrats have long controlled the media and culture, denying them a voice as well. The wider issue is that discussion and discourse is no longer fueled by concrete facts, but rather by faith (on the right) and feelings (on the left). The term "anti-science" has often struck me as missing the point. Most people technically consider themselves "pro-science" - it's just that they attach themselves to whatever scientific theories best conform to their political beliefs, regardless of whether those theories have widespread support or sufficient data to back it up. Is there a long-term solution to all this? I'm not quite sure. But if there is, it definitely starts with people cutting down on the baseless partisan attacks.
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Post by unkinhead on Jan 18, 2018 13:51:32 GMT -8
Equal number? There are certainly a fair number of idiots on both sides, but I'll need to see your math on that, sir. Yeah seriously. Liberals are way dumber on average. In all seriousness, Education ≠ Intelligence So liberals definitely more often have the pretension of intelligence...which is honestly way worse imo, because someone who is eloquent and stupid can actually convince others of their stupidity. I wanna say liberals are dumber because they are far more infuriating to me personally (hypocrisy and deceit tends to piss me off more than just stupidity, unwavering traditionalism and ignorance). Probabilistically though, I would say liberals are likely on average more intelligent by virtue of some correlations: More intelligent kids go into college > college's are liberal indoctrination camps > smart liberals Openness as a personality trait is correlated with both liberalism and intelligence What would be far more interesting imo would be a study of IQ at a college campus depending on political affiliation. because then you could remove the whole education variable...kinda.
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