I saw some of Michael Shermer's transphobic tweets and picked up a copy of his 2000 book Denying History to try to figure out what's going on there.
Below, emphasis mine:
"We all write our own ideological scripts, of course, so what is the difference between our scripts and the scripts of extremists? If we assume that the underlying beliefs of all extremists are false, we have to admit that at some point in our lives most of us qualify as extremists. But, Goertzel explains, the 'true beliefs' of extremist ideological thinking are often so amorphous and ambiguous that it is difficult to refute them. Further, when these beliefs form the basis of group cohesion, when they create in their followers a passionate, almost obsessional attachment to them, that is another sign of extremism, as is the polarization of the world into unambiguous categories, biased rhetorical and semantic argumentation, all-inclusive systems that offer the key to wisdom and truth, the dogmatic use of texts where the leader's words become hallowed, and the denial of contradictory information. Each of these characteristics is a necessary but not sufficient delimiter of extremist ideology. It is the combination of many of these indicators that makes an ideology extreme. The belief that the Holocaust did not happen, for example, is most certainly cohesive for the denier movement — the entire ideology revolves around it. The followers are deeply passionate, indeed, almost obsessive about their belief. They have polarized their world into Jews and non-Jews, exterminationists and revisionists, lies and truth. Their bias, as we shall see, drives them to select evidence, analogies, and documents that fit their belief and ignore those that do not." (p. 91)
Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (University of California Press, 2000)
This interests me because (1) I blogged here about political polarization in 2017 (2) some of it sounds not unlike what it feels like to be on the receiving end of transphobia. When cis people start worrying about the existence of trans people and try to stop people from being trans, it becomes a consuming belief for them.
I wrote more about this book and my reflections on transphobia. See: "Transphobia is a Form of Denialism". It's a 10-minute read on Medium. Medium lets you read a certain number of stories for free every month. You may also consider a paid membership on the platform.
https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1684279589600735239
Relatedly, in genocide denial:
...in response to this...
...Florence Ashley (@ButNotTheCity) tweeted: Barbara Kay, seeing the success of her son’s race science outlet Quillette, officially announces her genocide denialism era. (April 1, 2023)
Thomas Lecaque is referring to this Ohio Capital Journal story.
"“Normalization” might be an overused trope – but here it applies. Religious zealotry is presented as the outgrowth of a worldview shaped by 'faith and family,' those widely accepted pillars of American culture; a professional life spent in rightwing activist circles and among partisan extremists is reinterpreted as a career of service and leadership; a radical political agenda is sanitized as the manifestation of the worries and desires of 'regular folks.'
This is another iteration of an apologist sleight of hand that is often deployed to provide cover for the Republican Party: If extremism is not defined by its ideological and political substance, but purely as 'something fringe,' then the minute it becomes GOP mainstream, it ceases to be regarded as extreme. Just like that, radical ideas and politicians get automatically legitimized: By definition, the Republican Party, regardless of how substantively extreme, gets treated as 'normal' simply because it is not fringe, because it is supported by almost half the country."
— Thomas Zimmer, “Faith and Family” vs Democracy, Democracy Americana (Substack), November 1, 2023
Only one side has moved.
Liberals continue to believe more or less the same thing they've always believed: people exist and should have basic rights, and that while we may sometimes be annoyed or unimpressed with each other, there's no sense making a big fuss about the fact that humans have sexuality and that individuals and groups are different in various ways.
Whereas the "conservatives" have radicalized and ratcheted up supremacist beliefs. They think that they are the real people, and that their nation is theirs to control.
If you say "no," they think you're part of the conspiracy.
If you provide facts and reasons, they deflect with whataboutisms.
Their hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug.
Here are the consequences
If you believe that you deserve to exist and others don't, you'll start to act that way.
"I don’t know how you believe that most people deserve to die except for you without starting to arrange power in ways that will make people die. I don’t know how you can believe that the death of the planet and the eternal punishment of others is tied to your own eternal profit without becoming inherently genocidal in your spirit, without believing that you deserve to live and other people deserve to die, that your comfort is more important than everyone else’ lives, that the satisfaction of your whims are worth their pain."
— A.R. Moxon, "An Appropriate Anger," The Reframe (Substack), October 29, 2023
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