Learned about it from this episode of the Team Human podcast
But what is happening in Hong Kong is they come up with a slogan, which is translated as Do Not Split, which is, we know that some people are willing to be confrontational with riot police.
And when they are, that’s going to cost the state in terms of not only resources, but it’s going to cost the state in terms of political capital and support. And we know that there are some people who are not willing to do that. And we are going to abide by the protocol of Do Not Split, which means that we’re not going to criticize them openly, and they’re not going to criticize us openly.
If we’re the pacifists, we’re not going to have them criticize us for being sort of like, I don’t know, limpid or flaccid or not courageous or whatever. And we’re not going to criticize them for being more confrontational. And the thing is that the support is also tacit.
It’s not like they have to come out and tell the media, oh, we approve of our more sort of confrontational colleagues. They just keep quiet. They just keep quiet.
Understanding that a range of tactics is probably going to be necessary. Nobody really knows what’s going to work. But if everybody’s pushing back against a particularly violent state, then everybody’s really on the same side.
This is all well and good, especially in the far more dire situation of Hong Kong.
I don’t think we’re quite there yet globally, or at least not in the US. Could be there fucking tomorrow, but not quite yet today.
There are times when open criticism is warranted. I don’t agree at all that more tribalism is the true solution to the situation we see at least in the US. We can’t just mass execute the people who voted Trump into office.
I don’t think most people have trouble keeping their mouth shut when appropriate.
So yeah, don’t get in the way of good things happening in imperfect ways. But I swear if I start seeing this shit bandied around as a thought terminating stopper of valid criticism I’m going to blow a gasket.
Not everyone on your side of the political divide is an ally. Not everyone on the other side has to be an enemy. This also applies to the more complex mult-axis political compases.
Why not? Obviously you can’t execute tens of millions of voters. But you could execute party members and those who were active during his presidencies and other supporters within or without the party.
You’d probably enjoy the full podcast, cuz that’s basically the overarching theme of not just the episode but the whole series.