thread: i used to be a radical liberal or "radlib" so i will lay out some of the guidelines of radlib philosophy

identity > material conditions, no matter what. if someone identifies as male then they have male privilege no matter how society actually treats them. likewise if someone ids as female then any ounce of benefit they get from being seen as male by society is null and void/untrue.

you must always side with the person with the most oppression labels - even if they are being completely unreasonable or incorrect or legit abusive. you must always be nice & accommodating to that person and never ban them from spaces because what if they have nowhere else to go?

3. loyalty & patience have no value among radlibs. you must abandon a friend if they say or think the 'wrong' things. this is "cutting out toxic people". i have abandoned many good people for not having the same views as me. you end up isolated from everyone except other radlibs.

4. you must keep up to date. you used to be able to say LGBT. in extreme radlib spaces you must now say LGBTQIA+. NB used to mean non-binary, now it's racist because sometimes people use it to mean Non-Black. keep up! read every post, immerse yourself in inconsequential bullshit.

5. criticizing people for arguing online/not doing any actual activism is "ableism". there is no longer any onus on 'activists' to log off, go outside and actually DO activism. what if they have mobility issues or communication difficulties? clearly they can't do activism, bigot.

6. lane politics: you cannot have a valid opinion on race or gender if you are deemed to have more privilege in the conversation. stating your opinion is "talking over" the other person (even if it's on the internet where that concept makes no sense anyway). stay in your lane!

7. somewhat related to the first point - newly invented oppressions/privileges based ONLY on inner feelings and not on material conditions. this has led to people saying they are oppressed for being asexual or accusing others of having "binary privilege".

8. total masculinity is bad, no matter who is performing it. if you were born female & that masculinity is a rejection of the femininity forced on you since birth? still bad. only acceptable if you add glitter or dyed hair or something. conversely, femininity is always good.

9. radlibs are often "abolitionists" for prison, government etc, which sounds good, but in the radlib sense this just means nobody bothers to improve the current state of things, like fighting for prison welfare or voting. going online & telling people not to vote is activism.

10. for all the talk of race & gender & trans issues, class is almost completely overlooked and unimportant to radlibs. this is likely because most radlibs are culturally middle class and live in areas where they do not encounter actual serious poverty or working class people.

11. radlibs don't really give a fk about older people. ageism is never discussed and abuse against the elderly is not seen as a political issue, despite disproportionately affecting women and disabled people. even LGBT elders are mostly ignored and their opinions disregarded.

this isn't exhaustive, & not all radlibs follow all of these. there are subsets of radlib with their own rules, such as polyamorous radlibs: saying you are "poly" is offensive to polynesian people. having a main partner you want to spend most of your time with is "hierarchical".

the most important radlib rule: projection. anyone who doesn't follow these rules is the REAL liberal! people who try to reform society, people who are monogamous, people who don't want to ID as queer, people who use slightly outdated words. they are anti-revolutionary; liberals.

i probably missed a bunch so fellow ex-radlibs, feel free to add your own! let's bask in the stupidity (oops, saying "stupid" is ableist ) of this vast, damaging movement, a powerful weapon of the academic middle class in current year.