#far left

"Hey it's really important to not target a minority with dehumanization and bigotry-"

"GENOCIDE DENIER!"

It's the exact same silencing tactic the Right has used for decades now. Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts and when you're confronted on your shitty behavior. Yell some buzzword, make wild accusations, beat your chest.

You're right - that is the exact same silencing  tactic. 

This has a name.

It's called Moral Bludgeoning.

It's using a false binary morality as a tool to gain an advantage in a disagreement, rather than engaging in reasoned discourse.

The goal of the tactic isn't truth, understanding, or justice. It's enforcing obedience. Control through social punishment.

You said something they found threatening - that people in a supposedly righteous movement were behaving in a way that was, in fact, bigoted.

Grappling with that would require introspection, accountability, and nuance...and their movement punishes those things. 

You were pointing out information which doesn't fit into their binary, the binary which assures them they're good people. They needed to shut you up fast before they risked feeling less than utterly righteous. 

The people doing this often aren't stupid , but they're always frightened.

They're terrified of complexity which muddies the narrative.

Terrified of being cast out of their peer group for failing to adhere to the narrative.

Terrified of losing control of the narrative, because most of them derive their sense of personal legitimacy from the narrative.

So they flatten. Nuance becomes complicity. Dissent becomes betrayal. Complexity or moral ambiguity become denial.

You're also right that Moral Bludgeoning is used by both the right and the left. 

Both extremes use it to keep the middle silent. 

On the far Right, you see this play out in culture war accusations:

Criticize police abuse? You must be a Marxist anarchist terrorist!

Question US military spending? You hate America!

Say trans people should have rights? You're grooming children.

On the far Left, it’s the same energy, but different buzzwords:

Ask for civility toward Jewish people? You're a genocide apologist.

Note that Hamas isn't progressive? You’re a racist colonialist.

Point out antisemitism in "anti-Zionist" spaces? You're weaponizing your trauma to silence Palestinians.

It's never about the truth, it's about making the social cost of nuance unbearable. 

Tactics like Moral Bludgeoning are enforcement mechanisms of rigid ideologies. 

Healthy movements can tolerate disagreement, but ideologically rigid movements (right or left!) treat any deviation as a threat.

That's why you'll hear the same people screaming about "freedom of speech" one minute, then shrieking “DENIER” the next.

It's not even really hypocrisy in their minds, because they believe their cause grants them moral supremacy which entitles them to do almost anything. And that includes the entitlement to silence you in the name of righteous justice...and to be as antisemtic as they like.

The real power of this tactic is in how it bypasses reasoning entirely and goes straight to two of our most powerful emotions: shame and fear. 

You nailed this too:

"Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts..." 

The louder and more confident the accusation, the more it floods the emotional bandwidth of the conversation, making any reasoned dialogue impossible.

It works because people fear social isolation more than factual errors. No one wants to be the next target, so the mob roars together to drown you out.

The tragedy is that you were trying to do what they claim to care about. 

You didn't defend war crimes or deny suffering. 

You were doing the thing that movements need in order to remain sane: holding your own side accountable to its stated values.

Movements sometimes die from internal intolerance and ideological purity tests.

I think this is part of why the SDS movement of the 60s and 70s fizzled out. I think Occupy Wall Street fell victim to endless internal policing around privilege, language, and ideological orthodoxy and meetings devolved into ritual purity checks instead of coming up with and promoting actual policy ideas. I think this is a good explanation for what brought about the Reign of Terror.

The inability to tolerate nuance is where intellectual rot begins.

The people who did this to you aren't fighting oppression. They're just enforcing ideological purity at the expense of reality. It's an old and stupid game.

Can I tell you, though, how much I appreciate this Ask?

It's more evidence that there are many in the large middle who are repulsed by both ends of the Horseshoe. There are many who still care about evidence, reason, pragmatism, and avoiding ideological groupthink. 

There are still people who know that justice requires complexity. There are still people who don't think standing up against antisemitism is something to be ashamed of. 

Thinking critically and voicing those thoughts makes you feel like a threat to people on either far end of the political spectrum, all who rely on false binaries and performative loyalty.

So keep doing it.

Let them rage. Let them shriek their buzzwords. Just hold the line. 

You saw clearly and quickly that this was not about justice, it was about obedience...and you didn't bend the knee.

Do you have any idea how much that pisses them off?

Well done, Anon.

------

Edited to add this great example I got within hours of posting this:

Mmm.... not really, no 😅

HOWEVER It turns out that Internet Archive has quite a few. Here are a few collections that seem like a good place to start:

182 books published by AK Press - These seem like more polished, mainstream, intellectual - BORING. Comrade, do I look like I want professional graphic design and glossy, properly-bound books? Who wants anarchist lit with an official ISBN number from THE MAN?

300+ books by Sprout Distro - Okay, now that's more like it. Their shitty black-and-white zines about showing up to protests to cause a ruckus are clearly designed to be printed at home and distributed by hand - way more authentically anarchist imho

4000+ books in the Sparrow's Nest Library and Archive - Aw fuck yeah. That's the kind of look I like in my underground literature. An interesting collection of historic self-published anarchist materials - largely from the UK.

🔥From sea 2 shining mothafuckin sea 🔥

Time is just about up for Mystery Babylon🇺🇸⌛