I can’t say I’ve been using Lemmy for long, but from the get-go it seems that the communities, memes, opinions that get upvoted seem to reflect left-wing ideas.
I’m certainly not complaining, it honestly feels like a breathe of fresh air compared to other social media sites that seem to shift further and further to the far right, though I am curious to hear why this might be the case? Does FOSS tend to attract more left-wing minded people, or does this just happen to be a broadly left-wing microcosm/bubble?
Hope you all have a great day.
I would say that FOSS typically draws a more educated crowd, and right wing rhetoric and propaganda typically target those of lesser education and lower cognitive ability, simply because those people are the most likely hosts for rightoid brain worms. Why do colleges skew heavily left, gee it must be brainwashing /s
Eh, there’s plenty of educated right wingers. Not fascists as much, but the kind of fiscally conservative economists who preach austerity are often as not highly educated, just lacking in empathy.
There are definitely plenty of well educated, intelligent fascists as well. It’s pretty dangerous to start thinking that what separates two ideological groups is intelligence.
I believe what they were separating was Fascist leaders versus fascist followers.
I was mainly responding to the previous comment which characterized right-wingers as having “lesser cognitive ability”. Just saying that that kind of thinking sets up a “we’re superior” mentality that can too easily lead to the same kinds of consequences as thinking you’re superior based on race or social status. There are so many environmental and experiential factors that go into where a person lands politically and how effective certain forms of propaganda are on them. Blanket statements that characterize entire people groups as less intelligent are not in any way accurate or helpful.
It already does, it’s called ableism and it has such deep roots in society it is everywhere no matter political leaning, which is why it is rarely addressed - because most of society still sees it as perfectly acceptable that disabled people are inferior (even though ableism impacts them too, not just because accessibility and inclusion benefit everyone, but because people just don’t like to think about getting hit by a car, having a stroke, or just growing old, nor about their child being born neurodivergent for example).
I think what you said is true. But you’re referring to people who have an actual handicap and are discriminated against for it.
What I’m referring to is the idea of allowing myself to believe that a people group are less intelligent than I am just because they don’t align with me politically or ideologically. There is no actual handicap for which they are being discriminated against, simply having a different life experience and different view point is enough. It’s ironically a deeply fascist mentality…and I agree it is everywhere.
They might not have a disability, but using intelligence based insults isn’t ableist because of that, just like calling someone “gay” as an insult isn’t problematic because the person they’re trying to insult isn’t actually gay, but because it frames being gay as a negative term and something worthy of derision and mockery.
You’re speaking of pundits and politicians whose opinions are public and widespread. There is little reason to believe that those folks are sincere in their public statements. They are motivated by greed to lie in an effort to sway the opinions of uneducated people.
Among the general public, those that sincerely hold conservative political views are cognitively impaired. Source: they vote for things that are objectively against their own prosperity.
The educated and the well-travelled may have a broader set of view points to see how many different ideas and values work (or don’t work) in practice.
I don’t disagree on some just lacking empathy. But I also think not all education creates exposure to a wide range of ideas and values that stick (or the education is just too narrow), so you’ll still find plenty of people who are educated on paper, but not cognizant of a broad set of world views. I also think we are too quick to label foreign ideas==bad ourselves. Empathy is a two way street. The key in navigating this may be in identifying when an idea comes in good faith or if it is hostile.
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