Skip to “sir this is a Wendy’s” the minute you feel even slightly heated
April 5, 2023 12:11 PM Subscribe
Laura Jedeed on bar fights, protest trolls, and why punching a guy who is deliberately courting punches is a morally fine thing to do, it’s not pragmatically a good idea.
Bonus: Comedian Aamer Rahman on why punching nazis is better than debating them.
Jedeed has a thoughtful perspective on 21st century masculinity, with a generosity rooted (I think) in her experience of joining the U.S. military at age 18. “With every passing generation, men become weaker and more confused.” We are so used to rhetoric like that on the right that we no longer register how profoundly strange it is to feel that way about oneself.
Bonus: Comedian Aamer Rahman on why punching nazis is better than debating them.
Jedeed has a thoughtful perspective on 21st century masculinity, with a generosity rooted (I think) in her experience of joining the U.S. military at age 18. “With every passing generation, men become weaker and more confused.” We are so used to rhetoric like that on the right that we no longer register how profoundly strange it is to feel that way about oneself.
I literally "Sir, this is a Wendy's"'d a guy on Twitter the other day after he berated me for talking about public school funding in a thread about housing. We then had a mildly acrimonious back-and-forth until I just said "hey man, why are we fighting, this sucks" and he cooled off.
Also, punch the shit out of some Nazis.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:46 PM on April 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
Also, punch the shit out of some Nazis.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:46 PM on April 5, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is good, but contra Jedeed, punching Richard Spencer really derailed him. Milkshaking Andy Ngo seems, in my opinion as activist and idle fascist-watcher, to have done more good than harm because it consolidated center left opinion against him. Growing your audience among pre-existing fascists is good for the grift but only sometimes actually gives you more political reach.
Before I share more thoughts on punching, I will say that I really liked that essay. It's funny, it leverages Jedeed's subject position really well, it is relatable (to me, anyway) and I think that while obviously "some people are just asking to get punched" is a really equivocal statement that can be used to justify abuse, it can also be used to describe people trying to start fights at protests. It's useful to have a category of "people trying to start a fight", even if you have to keep that category pretty clean-cut around the edges to prevent it from being used maliciously.
I guess I'd say something similar about the essay on masculinity - I don't think it's true at all that women can't escape femininity. Failed femininity, failed womanhood, "unsexed" women, etc etc etc - those are all terms of insult, control and anxiety. But I think that Jedeed's distinction between masculinity and femininity on those terms isn't actually the core of her essay and the core of her essay is pretty good.
Now, the punching!
Different social worlds have different kinds of violence. My primary social world is a really non-violent place, but I've spent some time in violent ones and I'd say that I am more afraid of doing something stupid in a confrontation than of running away. Like, for a fat middle-aged nerdy transmasc I get pretty amped. I have no trouble just oozing on away if the issue is arrest but I have to remind myself to run away if the issue is dealing with fucking nazis. Violence is scary and stressful and bad, but different people respond to it differently.
So anyway. If you're in a world where people have bar fights or get into confrontations on the street, small-scale violence like that gets less scary. You may not like it or want to participate in it or be around it, but it's not shocking the same way it is when you first see a fight.
There's different kinds of nazi-punching violence, too. Famously, Minneapolis was nazi-free for a long time because the ARA used to beat the shit out of them. (I know a couple of people from this article - they're not quite my generation and I don't know them well, but I've been in meetings with them and I know enough people from that general milieu to know that they're broadly accurate in how they describe things.) Even now, we don't have nearly as many visible, organized nazis as you'd expect.
The thing here is that none of those nazis were grifters. A lot of nazis aren't high-profile grifters, they're not good at leveraging their media presence and if they are vigorously escorted out of a protest or away from a venue, that's it. Punching them if you need to move them out is good, actually, as long as people are relatively smart.
Sometimes it makes sense to physically remove people from a space, sometimes that just makes things worse. It depends on the situation - who is there, what are they doing, who are your people and how many are there?
The main thing is that respectability politics are bad.
posted by Frowner at 12:57 PM on April 5, 2023 [33 favorites]
Before I share more thoughts on punching, I will say that I really liked that essay. It's funny, it leverages Jedeed's subject position really well, it is relatable (to me, anyway) and I think that while obviously "some people are just asking to get punched" is a really equivocal statement that can be used to justify abuse, it can also be used to describe people trying to start fights at protests. It's useful to have a category of "people trying to start a fight", even if you have to keep that category pretty clean-cut around the edges to prevent it from being used maliciously.
I guess I'd say something similar about the essay on masculinity - I don't think it's true at all that women can't escape femininity. Failed femininity, failed womanhood, "unsexed" women, etc etc etc - those are all terms of insult, control and anxiety. But I think that Jedeed's distinction between masculinity and femininity on those terms isn't actually the core of her essay and the core of her essay is pretty good.
Now, the punching!
Different social worlds have different kinds of violence. My primary social world is a really non-violent place, but I've spent some time in violent ones and I'd say that I am more afraid of doing something stupid in a confrontation than of running away. Like, for a fat middle-aged nerdy transmasc I get pretty amped. I have no trouble just oozing on away if the issue is arrest but I have to remind myself to run away if the issue is dealing with fucking nazis. Violence is scary and stressful and bad, but different people respond to it differently.
So anyway. If you're in a world where people have bar fights or get into confrontations on the street, small-scale violence like that gets less scary. You may not like it or want to participate in it or be around it, but it's not shocking the same way it is when you first see a fight.
There's different kinds of nazi-punching violence, too. Famously, Minneapolis was nazi-free for a long time because the ARA used to beat the shit out of them. (I know a couple of people from this article - they're not quite my generation and I don't know them well, but I've been in meetings with them and I know enough people from that general milieu to know that they're broadly accurate in how they describe things.) Even now, we don't have nearly as many visible, organized nazis as you'd expect.
The thing here is that none of those nazis were grifters. A lot of nazis aren't high-profile grifters, they're not good at leveraging their media presence and if they are vigorously escorted out of a protest or away from a venue, that's it. Punching them if you need to move them out is good, actually, as long as people are relatively smart.
Sometimes it makes sense to physically remove people from a space, sometimes that just makes things worse. It depends on the situation - who is there, what are they doing, who are your people and how many are there?
The main thing is that respectability politics are bad.
posted by Frowner at 12:57 PM on April 5, 2023 [33 favorites]
We are so used to rhetoric like that on the right that we no longer register how profoundly strange it is to feel that way about oneself.
If you spend a lot of time around teenagers and just-past-teenagers professionally, you might notice that there is a set of students, not necessarily on the right or on the left or men or women or people in any other identifiable group, who really overidentify with "kids these days" rhetoric.
Not all of it, by any means. They can often recognize a good moral panic when it's coming from the opposite direction on the political spectrum. But they might believe that their generation is full of sensitive snowflakes, or people who overuse emoji and can't write "properly," or people whose emotional stability and attention span have been destroyed by social media.
And... I mean, it's negging, right? You feel like it's maybe a little bit true and you immediately start wanting to prove that you're not what people say you are, that you're different from the rest of your generation.
Or you might feel like the pain and uncertainty in your own life is because you were born into a weak and confused generation, and if you had been born a hundred years earlier, you would have had certainty and stability, even if it's as unprovable as any other counterfactual.
I don't think it is profoundly strange to feel that way about oneself, I think it is incredibly common.
posted by Jeanne at 1:00 PM on April 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
If you spend a lot of time around teenagers and just-past-teenagers professionally, you might notice that there is a set of students, not necessarily on the right or on the left or men or women or people in any other identifiable group, who really overidentify with "kids these days" rhetoric.
Not all of it, by any means. They can often recognize a good moral panic when it's coming from the opposite direction on the political spectrum. But they might believe that their generation is full of sensitive snowflakes, or people who overuse emoji and can't write "properly," or people whose emotional stability and attention span have been destroyed by social media.
And... I mean, it's negging, right? You feel like it's maybe a little bit true and you immediately start wanting to prove that you're not what people say you are, that you're different from the rest of your generation.
Or you might feel like the pain and uncertainty in your own life is because you were born into a weak and confused generation, and if you had been born a hundred years earlier, you would have had certainty and stability, even if it's as unprovable as any other counterfactual.
I don't think it is profoundly strange to feel that way about oneself, I think it is incredibly common.
posted by Jeanne at 1:00 PM on April 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
And, on the punching front, I have thrown exactly two punches in my life which were not thrown in the context of some sort of punching class:
- The first, when I was 10, in Bermuda. I was standing outside of the White Horse Tavern and some local Bermudan kids were having fun pranking the operator on the direct-to-America payphone. For some reason - probably a few, all problematic - this bothered me, so I yelled at them to not harass the operator. They laughed and got in my face. I turned to walk away and one of them pushed me from behind. I immediately swung around and attempted to punch them - a shallow right hook which missed by a mile. The kid laughed again and booped me right in the nose. Two lessons learned: don't throw a blind right hook, don't bother strangers for stupid reasons.
- The second, which I've mentioned before, was in seventh grade. I'm walking down the hall between classes and this kid, who I think may have been an actual Nazi, is throwing stuff at me and calling me names. This happened a lot in middle school and I had a reputation for not maintaining my composure. Finally the kid throws a pencil at me an I snap. I spin around and - remembering the lesson above - take stock of the situation and throw a straight punch directly into his forehead. I still have a little bump on my right pinkie from that punch! Foreheads are hard. But! He stopped, shocked, because I was not known to fight back. And then I turned right back around and went to class. I remember hearing him start to chase me and then stop. Rumors circulated for the next few days that I had punched a girl, and I got called into the principal's office, but having previously learned that telling the truth in those scenarios only gets you suspended, I lied and said I had no idea what anyone was talking about. Anyhow, that guy never bothered me again, and now he's in jail for murder.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:08 PM on April 5, 2023 [21 favorites]
- The first, when I was 10, in Bermuda. I was standing outside of the White Horse Tavern and some local Bermudan kids were having fun pranking the operator on the direct-to-America payphone. For some reason - probably a few, all problematic - this bothered me, so I yelled at them to not harass the operator. They laughed and got in my face. I turned to walk away and one of them pushed me from behind. I immediately swung around and attempted to punch them - a shallow right hook which missed by a mile. The kid laughed again and booped me right in the nose. Two lessons learned: don't throw a blind right hook, don't bother strangers for stupid reasons.
- The second, which I've mentioned before, was in seventh grade. I'm walking down the hall between classes and this kid, who I think may have been an actual Nazi, is throwing stuff at me and calling me names. This happened a lot in middle school and I had a reputation for not maintaining my composure. Finally the kid throws a pencil at me an I snap. I spin around and - remembering the lesson above - take stock of the situation and throw a straight punch directly into his forehead. I still have a little bump on my right pinkie from that punch! Foreheads are hard. But! He stopped, shocked, because I was not known to fight back. And then I turned right back around and went to class. I remember hearing him start to chase me and then stop. Rumors circulated for the next few days that I had punched a girl, and I got called into the principal's office, but having previously learned that telling the truth in those scenarios only gets you suspended, I lied and said I had no idea what anyone was talking about. Anyhow, that guy never bothered me again, and now he's in jail for murder.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:08 PM on April 5, 2023 [21 favorites]
I'm super excited to see this post, because on this very site, every time someone comments about punching people who are nazis except they're not wearing swastikas, the mods act like the liberals that Aamer Rahman talks about in his bit.
I'm happy for everyone to debate nazis in the marketplace of ideas, wherever that might be, but in the meantime, join your DSA and your SRAs, put on your balaclavas, hoist your black flags, do whatever you think is right, but let's not clutch pearls at punching nazis.
posted by nushustu at 1:13 PM on April 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'm happy for everyone to debate nazis in the marketplace of ideas, wherever that might be, but in the meantime, join your DSA and your SRAs, put on your balaclavas, hoist your black flags, do whatever you think is right, but let's not clutch pearls at punching nazis.
posted by nushustu at 1:13 PM on April 5, 2023 [10 favorites]
“With every passing generation, men become weaker and more confused.”
I think that's a weirdly anxious way of putting it, but I think would seem very reasonable it I said, with every passing generation, men are expected to navigate an increasingly complicated world with more and more complicated problems in it, fewer and fewer of which can be easily addressed by the direct application of main force.
That's a self-evidently true - and I think good - thing about modernity, but anyone who's anchored their identities in a definition of masculinity based on addressing uncomplicated problems with main force is gonna find themselves feeling lonely and adrift in that modernity. And unfortunately, causing people to feel lonely and adrift and then giving them uncomplicated ways deal with that, is the foundation of an outstanding multi-level-marketing-style recruiting scheme whatever you're selling, whether it's nutritional supplements, paleo diet guides, denial, misogyny or fascism.
I mean, punch Nazis, yes, definitely, but also build community centers and seek out and support each other try to be good role models.
posted by mhoye at 2:02 PM on April 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
I think that's a weirdly anxious way of putting it, but I think would seem very reasonable it I said, with every passing generation, men are expected to navigate an increasingly complicated world with more and more complicated problems in it, fewer and fewer of which can be easily addressed by the direct application of main force.
That's a self-evidently true - and I think good - thing about modernity, but anyone who's anchored their identities in a definition of masculinity based on addressing uncomplicated problems with main force is gonna find themselves feeling lonely and adrift in that modernity. And unfortunately, causing people to feel lonely and adrift and then giving them uncomplicated ways deal with that, is the foundation of an outstanding multi-level-marketing-style recruiting scheme whatever you're selling, whether it's nutritional supplements, paleo diet guides, denial, misogyny or fascism.
I mean, punch Nazis, yes, definitely, but also build community centers and seek out and support each other try to be good role models.
posted by mhoye at 2:02 PM on April 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
That Richard Spencer punch was the platonic ideal of punching a nazi. Done at the exact right moment to do maximum damage, completely puncturing his carefully built dapper nazi image, hard enough to hurt him but not hard enough for anybody to sympathise with him being sucker punched, making him look a complete putz.
Similarly, Andy "supplies hit lists to neonazi death squads" Ngo getting hit by a milkshake and carrying on as if it was a murder attempt.
Hopefully Posie Parker getting Campbelled and her whinging about that has the same effect, though transphobes are like the hardest nazis to get rid off as the entire mainstream media is determined to wank them off still.
Quite a few people like a nazi when they can perform that tough guy image, but not so much once it gets punctured. In all these cases, they were made to look pathetic rather than heroic by the 'violence' perpetuated against them and because they're grifters, that worked.
Your old school neonazi wouldn't be stopped by it, so those would need a bit more 'encouragement' but you should do that in a way that doesn't cause media attention.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:23 PM on April 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
Similarly, Andy "supplies hit lists to neonazi death squads" Ngo getting hit by a milkshake and carrying on as if it was a murder attempt.
Hopefully Posie Parker getting Campbelled and her whinging about that has the same effect, though transphobes are like the hardest nazis to get rid off as the entire mainstream media is determined to wank them off still.
Quite a few people like a nazi when they can perform that tough guy image, but not so much once it gets punctured. In all these cases, they were made to look pathetic rather than heroic by the 'violence' perpetuated against them and because they're grifters, that worked.
Your old school neonazi wouldn't be stopped by it, so those would need a bit more 'encouragement' but you should do that in a way that doesn't cause media attention.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:23 PM on April 5, 2023 [18 favorites]
Jedeed's work is really terrific - worth exploring. And she's such a clear, incisive writer.
posted by entropone at 3:34 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by entropone at 3:34 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
The second post on masculinity, part 2, opens:
There is no feminine equivalent of the word “emasculated.”
The pecking order of "God -> Men -> Women -> unsexed" carries a lot of history and erases trans folk and ... it exists, sorry, and that's a poor opener for your second part.
So for a cis-het-white-european male, I'm the demographic that Part 1 on masculinity describes. I was promised to be among the rulers of the earth, to have and get away with what I wanted, and if I chose no crimes then at least I'd have my thumb on the scales of history -- but that's all the grifting promise of the pecking order, and we make do with what we can collectively agree to do.
The other label for the masculinity described in part 2 is "bullying." The bullied become bullies in ongoing rounds of inter-generational trauma as people scrabble up a hierarchy. The promise of the hierarchy is an entire distraction from finding fulfillment or happiness (your satisfaction may vary -- if competition is your thing, please be your very best self).
Part 3 is for later, but the version I'd write seems like herding many cats to the salve of all their different hurts is something that might look like you don't have a concrete vision, given it's a reflection of who shows up. The concrete leftist vision is all of us, together, right now and for the foreseeable future, making choices that reduce suffering and provide the salve of all those different hurts. Outcomes matter, and together we can make choices for better outcomes.
posted by k3ninho at 3:49 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
There is no feminine equivalent of the word “emasculated.”
The pecking order of "God -> Men -> Women -> unsexed" carries a lot of history and erases trans folk and ... it exists, sorry, and that's a poor opener for your second part.
So for a cis-het-white-european male, I'm the demographic that Part 1 on masculinity describes. I was promised to be among the rulers of the earth, to have and get away with what I wanted, and if I chose no crimes then at least I'd have my thumb on the scales of history -- but that's all the grifting promise of the pecking order, and we make do with what we can collectively agree to do.
The other label for the masculinity described in part 2 is "bullying." The bullied become bullies in ongoing rounds of inter-generational trauma as people scrabble up a hierarchy. The promise of the hierarchy is an entire distraction from finding fulfillment or happiness (your satisfaction may vary -- if competition is your thing, please be your very best self).
Part 3 is for later, but the version I'd write seems like herding many cats to the salve of all their different hurts is something that might look like you don't have a concrete vision, given it's a reflection of who shows up. The concrete leftist vision is all of us, together, right now and for the foreseeable future, making choices that reduce suffering and provide the salve of all those different hurts. Outcomes matter, and together we can make choices for better outcomes.
posted by k3ninho at 3:49 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
Reactionaries equate violence with masculinity because the foundation of their politics is, "Do what I say or I'll kill you." For them, power is defined solely and only as the ability to use violence to make people submit to your will. Which is how you get a society run by and for killers like the one we live in.
posted by ob1quixote at 4:56 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 4:56 PM on April 5, 2023 [4 favorites]
My main concern about punching Nazis is that the average person is unlikely to find themselves in a position to punch Nazis where they also have the time and mental resources to reflect thoughtfully on whether it's a good idea to that punch that particular Nazi. Sometimes it is both wise and ethical, sometimes it is not, but in a street encounter you're unlikely to be able to give it much thought. Then you end up like those lawyers who firebombed the cop car in NYC.
Like, I worked from home yesterday because (among other things) I didn't 100% trust myself not to get into a dumb fight while out for lunch with any Proud Boy-adjacent types in town for the indictment and thus lose my job.
posted by praemunire at 4:58 PM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Like, I worked from home yesterday because (among other things) I didn't 100% trust myself not to get into a dumb fight while out for lunch with any Proud Boy-adjacent types in town for the indictment and thus lose my job.
posted by praemunire at 4:58 PM on April 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
Quite a few people like a nazi when they can perform that tough guy image, but not so much once it gets punctured. In all these cases, they were made to look pathetic rather than heroic by the 'violence' perpetuated against them and because they're grifters, that worked.
I think this is why milkshaking, or cracking an egg on them, or some other kind of humiliation, is so effective to Nazis specifically. It punctures the image of power, and so they have to invent ridiculous conspiracies about concrete milkshakes to make the threat line up with how they perceive the threat, which is, of course, just making them look more pathetic. If they ever just laughed it off, we'd be in real trouble, but if they were the sort of person to laugh off a humiliation, they wouldn't be a Nazi.
Sometimes you gotta punch a Nazi, and it's useful to have that in one's back pocket so they don't get the sense that they can escalate to violence and get the upper hand back, but humiliation seems preferable as a tactic.
I think what killed Richard Spencer's grift wasn't just the initial punch, it was the follow-up where people kept following him around and humiliating him. If people had left him alone after the punch, he would have bounced back, I think, but activists were happy to remind him.
posted by Merus at 5:56 PM on April 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
I think this is why milkshaking, or cracking an egg on them, or some other kind of humiliation, is so effective to Nazis specifically. It punctures the image of power, and so they have to invent ridiculous conspiracies about concrete milkshakes to make the threat line up with how they perceive the threat, which is, of course, just making them look more pathetic. If they ever just laughed it off, we'd be in real trouble, but if they were the sort of person to laugh off a humiliation, they wouldn't be a Nazi.
Sometimes you gotta punch a Nazi, and it's useful to have that in one's back pocket so they don't get the sense that they can escalate to violence and get the upper hand back, but humiliation seems preferable as a tactic.
I think what killed Richard Spencer's grift wasn't just the initial punch, it was the follow-up where people kept following him around and humiliating him. If people had left him alone after the punch, he would have bounced back, I think, but activists were happy to remind him.
posted by Merus at 5:56 PM on April 5, 2023 [7 favorites]
FWIW violent confrontation with Nazis, followed by their subsequent effective mocking, is a great way to describe Mel Brooks' army service and career as director-producer, and I would regard him as an expert and role model in these matters
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:39 PM on April 5, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:39 PM on April 5, 2023 [12 favorites]
those lawyers who firebombed the cop car in NYC
The what now? This sounds like a very interesting story; please elaborate.
posted by eviemath at 9:00 PM on April 5, 2023
The what now? This sounds like a very interesting story; please elaborate.
posted by eviemath at 9:00 PM on April 5, 2023
Lawyer gets 15 months behind bars for firebombing police car
posted by anhedonic at 9:14 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by anhedonic at 9:14 PM on April 5, 2023 [2 favorites]
Welp, I'll just drop this here and immediately exit the thread due to the inevitable hate I'll get from the echo chamber, but it needs to be said:
Nazis deserve to be punched. They deserve much worse, in fact. Depending on what branch of moral philosophy you subscribe to, you might even consider it the moral thing to do. You still should not punch them, except in self defense against an actively ongoing violent confrontation that they initiated, because violence against political opponents is some actively fascist shit. Leftists advocating for that is nothing short of idiocy, grade A horseshoe theory bullshit.
Milkshakes, eggs or similar humiliation strategies – fucking fantastic. Do all of that. Still assault, legally speaking, but it's on the right side of the violent/non-violent boundary to be unambiguously virtuous, IMO. It's more effective in the long run than punching them, anyway, and being seen as righteous tricksters instead of "jUSt aS viOLenT as ThEy aRe" by the general public is vastly preferable.
posted by jklaiho at 1:24 AM on April 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
Nazis deserve to be punched. They deserve much worse, in fact. Depending on what branch of moral philosophy you subscribe to, you might even consider it the moral thing to do. You still should not punch them, except in self defense against an actively ongoing violent confrontation that they initiated, because violence against political opponents is some actively fascist shit. Leftists advocating for that is nothing short of idiocy, grade A horseshoe theory bullshit.
Milkshakes, eggs or similar humiliation strategies – fucking fantastic. Do all of that. Still assault, legally speaking, but it's on the right side of the violent/non-violent boundary to be unambiguously virtuous, IMO. It's more effective in the long run than punching them, anyway, and being seen as righteous tricksters instead of "jUSt aS viOLenT as ThEy aRe" by the general public is vastly preferable.
posted by jklaiho at 1:24 AM on April 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
to be unambiguously virtuous
I mean, if that's your goal.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:35 AM on April 6, 2023 [8 favorites]
I mean, if that's your goal.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:35 AM on April 6, 2023 [8 favorites]
My main concern about punching Nazis is that the average person is unlikely to find themselves in a position to punch Nazis where they also have the time and mental resources to reflect thoughtfully on whether it's a good idea to that punch that particular Nazi. Sometimes it is both wise and ethical, sometimes it is not, but in a street encounter you're unlikely to be able to give it much thought. Then you end up like those lawyers who firebombed the cop car in NYC.
This is why scaffolding and organizing are important if that's how you decide to participate in protests/activism/society.
First, I want to say that if people feel like going to protests or otherwise participating in public political life, you don't need to go with a large crowd, you don't need to have a specific plan, you don't need to figure out how you are going to punch a nazi, etc. Sometimes black block/antifa messaging on this gives the impression that if you're going to, eg, a rally at your congressperson's office you need to have an affinity group, an anti-teargas kit and a plan for running from the cops. The vast, vast majority of rallies, protests, etc are fine for casual, mass participation without any risk at all. Most of the time, even fairly militant events are fine and good for mass participation - if you have concerns, you should use your judgement based on local knowledge, of course. Any widely advertised event (that doesn't say "we are going to shut down [LOCATION] until our goals are met" or something) is going to be slow moving enough and safe enough for you to attend part of it and leave if you start to feel concerns.
Unless you're talking about an ad hoc event in a barroom, the people who should be punching nazis are the people who are mentally and socially prepared to do so. Like the mystery antifa person who punched Richard Spencer? They may have acted on total impulse based on opportunity but that was a person who was physically and emotionally prepared and who clearly came from a milieu where mixing it up with fascists is a thing that people do. That person was pretty quick, had at least a theoretical knowledge of how to throw a punch and was dressed in a way that made them more difficult to identify. They came from a community that would have stood up for them 100% if they'd gotten arrested.
Now, I'm not saying that you have to be black block to punch a nazi - I'm just saying that if you don't particularly feel called to punch one and you're not socially and mentally prepared to do so, it's okay not to. But if you want to be ready for punching, it helps to have friends who are on the same page, scaffold how it's going to work, make sure you know how to punch people correctly, etc.
How to get involved and how much to get involved has come up so often on metafilter. My feeling is that the best thing you can do is push yourself just a little. If you never do anything, do something little. If you only do little things, try doing a bigger thing. If you are nervous about going to protests, try going to a safe and respectable one, etc. If everyone moves their own personal needle just a little bit, it will have a massive effect and no one needs to feel bad about not going from "sometimes calls my congressperson" to "nazi-punching machine". (Although if you feel the call, etc.)
posted by Frowner at 9:41 AM on April 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is why scaffolding and organizing are important if that's how you decide to participate in protests/activism/society.
First, I want to say that if people feel like going to protests or otherwise participating in public political life, you don't need to go with a large crowd, you don't need to have a specific plan, you don't need to figure out how you are going to punch a nazi, etc. Sometimes black block/antifa messaging on this gives the impression that if you're going to, eg, a rally at your congressperson's office you need to have an affinity group, an anti-teargas kit and a plan for running from the cops. The vast, vast majority of rallies, protests, etc are fine for casual, mass participation without any risk at all. Most of the time, even fairly militant events are fine and good for mass participation - if you have concerns, you should use your judgement based on local knowledge, of course. Any widely advertised event (that doesn't say "we are going to shut down [LOCATION] until our goals are met" or something) is going to be slow moving enough and safe enough for you to attend part of it and leave if you start to feel concerns.
Unless you're talking about an ad hoc event in a barroom, the people who should be punching nazis are the people who are mentally and socially prepared to do so. Like the mystery antifa person who punched Richard Spencer? They may have acted on total impulse based on opportunity but that was a person who was physically and emotionally prepared and who clearly came from a milieu where mixing it up with fascists is a thing that people do. That person was pretty quick, had at least a theoretical knowledge of how to throw a punch and was dressed in a way that made them more difficult to identify. They came from a community that would have stood up for them 100% if they'd gotten arrested.
Now, I'm not saying that you have to be black block to punch a nazi - I'm just saying that if you don't particularly feel called to punch one and you're not socially and mentally prepared to do so, it's okay not to. But if you want to be ready for punching, it helps to have friends who are on the same page, scaffold how it's going to work, make sure you know how to punch people correctly, etc.
How to get involved and how much to get involved has come up so often on metafilter. My feeling is that the best thing you can do is push yourself just a little. If you never do anything, do something little. If you only do little things, try doing a bigger thing. If you are nervous about going to protests, try going to a safe and respectable one, etc. If everyone moves their own personal needle just a little bit, it will have a massive effect and no one needs to feel bad about not going from "sometimes calls my congressperson" to "nazi-punching machine". (Although if you feel the call, etc.)
posted by Frowner at 9:41 AM on April 6, 2023 [10 favorites]
Also: I like to think of the Spencer-puncher out there somewhere, quietly chuckling to themselves, just going along, doing whatever they do and in the background they just know that they are the one who punched him. Godspeed, Spencer-puncher.
posted by Frowner at 9:44 AM on April 6, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 9:44 AM on April 6, 2023 [9 favorites]
When You Meet a Member of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert L. Poston (1921)
When you meet a member of the Ku Klux Klan
Walk right up and hit him like a natural man;
Take no thought of babies he may have at home;
Sympathy’s defamed when used upon his dome.
Hit him in the mouth and push his face right in,
Knock him down a flight of stairs and pick him up again.
Get your distance from him and then take a running start,
Hit him, brother, hit him, and please hit the scoundrel hard.
Pour some water on him, bring him back to life once more
Think of how he did your folks in the days of long ago;
Make a prayer to heaven for the strength to do the job,
Kick him in the stomach, he, a low, unworthy snob.
Call your wife and baby out to see you have some fun,
Sic you bulldog on him for to see the rascal run.
Head him off before he gets ten paces from your door,
Take a bat of sturdy oak and knock him down once more.
This time you may leave him where he wallows in the sand,
A spent and humble member of the Ku Klux Klan.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:02 PM on April 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
When you meet a member of the Ku Klux Klan
Walk right up and hit him like a natural man;
Take no thought of babies he may have at home;
Sympathy’s defamed when used upon his dome.
Hit him in the mouth and push his face right in,
Knock him down a flight of stairs and pick him up again.
Get your distance from him and then take a running start,
Hit him, brother, hit him, and please hit the scoundrel hard.
Pour some water on him, bring him back to life once more
Think of how he did your folks in the days of long ago;
Make a prayer to heaven for the strength to do the job,
Kick him in the stomach, he, a low, unworthy snob.
Call your wife and baby out to see you have some fun,
Sic you bulldog on him for to see the rascal run.
Head him off before he gets ten paces from your door,
Take a bat of sturdy oak and knock him down once more.
This time you may leave him where he wallows in the sand,
A spent and humble member of the Ku Klux Klan.
posted by AlSweigart at 1:02 PM on April 6, 2023 [4 favorites]
I was reading Jedeed's piece on masculinity, and feel that they fall flat on their face with this statement:
And it's that fundamental misunderstanding of feminism which causes Part 3 to go off the rails, as that misunderstanding of what feminism is causes Jedeed to misunderstand why feminists criticized Matt McGorry's "feminist" actions before diving into gender essentialism, assigning gender to human emotions and drives while not realizing that is exactly the problem.
The problem is that we need a leftist masculinism that focuses on male experiences while working on gender inequality because it turns out that the patriarchy hurts men as well. And it's the lack of such a movement which is why the left struggles to address the masculinity crisis.
(There's also the citing of Hugo Schwyzer, which is rather yikes given his history of abuse, and further undermines the piece.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:12 PM on April 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
If I could go back in time and change one thing about the movement for gender equality, I would call it something–anything–other than “feminism.” The name implies that the gender equality movement exists only for the sake of women, which simply is not true. Feminism, like all leftist concepts, should be for everyone. Most feminists see it that way, too.This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what feminism is. Feminism deals with gender inequality because gender inequality harms women, but feminism is not "the gender equality movement." It is a female-centric field that is focused on understanding the experience of women in society - and it's because of this that it can't be the answer Jedeed wants for masculinity. Feminism is "for everyone" because that understanding of the female experience (or more to the point, experiences) is important for everyone - but it can't address masculinity outside of how it intersects with feminity because that's not the movement's job, nor should it be. (And yes, I get that Jedeed goes off the dictionary definition of feminism, which focuses on political and social goals while not getting into the philosophical side of feminism.)
And it's that fundamental misunderstanding of feminism which causes Part 3 to go off the rails, as that misunderstanding of what feminism is causes Jedeed to misunderstand why feminists criticized Matt McGorry's "feminist" actions before diving into gender essentialism, assigning gender to human emotions and drives while not realizing that is exactly the problem.
The problem is that we need a leftist masculinism that focuses on male experiences while working on gender inequality because it turns out that the patriarchy hurts men as well. And it's the lack of such a movement which is why the left struggles to address the masculinity crisis.
(There's also the citing of Hugo Schwyzer, which is rather yikes given his history of abuse, and further undermines the piece.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:12 PM on April 6, 2023 [5 favorites]
Thanks, NoxAeturnum. I've now got a place to land the thought "the good guys show up," which has been muddling through my brain since 2016.
I suspect the label was good for the binary polar dialectic of 1970’s discourse: the default patriarchal hegemony vs outsiders, but we're multi-dimensional now and I'll have to find another way to be one of the good guys, showing up for our collective good and identifiably masculine -- at present I avoid that last label because it does more harm than good.
So how do we find a masculinity that does more good than harm and that achieves greater output than the sum of the parts?
Some of it will be colluding with an oppressive system to light the way to better choices; some of it will be obstructing the system from doing more harm; some of it will be amplifying voices that are shouted down by the approved voices of the system; some of it will be funding and fundraising to accommodate a wider base of power -- whatever tools built the master's house, they can tolerate building an extension under different architecture.
posted by k3ninho at 7:15 AM on April 7, 2023
I suspect the label was good for the binary polar dialectic of 1970’s discourse: the default patriarchal hegemony vs outsiders, but we're multi-dimensional now and I'll have to find another way to be one of the good guys, showing up for our collective good and identifiably masculine -- at present I avoid that last label because it does more harm than good.
So how do we find a masculinity that does more good than harm and that achieves greater output than the sum of the parts?
Some of it will be colluding with an oppressive system to light the way to better choices; some of it will be obstructing the system from doing more harm; some of it will be amplifying voices that are shouted down by the approved voices of the system; some of it will be funding and fundraising to accommodate a wider base of power -- whatever tools built the master's house, they can tolerate building an extension under different architecture.
posted by k3ninho at 7:15 AM on April 7, 2023
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People seem to talk very casually about punching Nazis, but in my experience, physical violence (at least when you're sober) is absolutely terrifying.
At one incident, about a dozen of us went off looking for stray Nazis and found a much larger group. We agreed to approach them and chant "Shame on you!" which we did... but when I looked behind only three of us were left. Even out of people who had deliberately come on an antifascist protest, and then chosen to look for Nazis, fear had gotten to most of us. I don't blame them at all because being confronted with a large group of people who want to do you physical harm is incredibly scary: mouth dry, stomach churning, fear.
The BNP and EDL themselves seem to deal with it by meeting up in pubs beforehand and getting steaming drunk, but that's not really an option if you're an antifascist wanting to deal in controlled violence only.
I don't have any moral problem with punching Nazis, and I absolutely believe that they have to be confronted in person. But I don't think calling for people to "punch Nazis" is that useful as a tactic because it's just too scary. It's easy to kid yourself that you'd be a hero. And it's easy to be a tough guy on the Internet. But in real life, when you come face to face with a screaming, raging, red-faced mob who want you dead: it's too terrifying. Most people will just quietly melt away instead. It's better to have tactics that more people might actually do.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:40 PM on April 5, 2023 [61 favorites]