1,709 words
When arguing on social media — especially over political or cultural matters — the point should not be to convince your interlocutor of anything. The point should be to convince those reading your exchange that your position is the more desirable one.
Note that I’m not saying that you need to demonstrate the rightness of your position. Being right certainly makes the job easier, but your main task should always be to make your position the more attractive one in comparison. You can save rightness for private one-on-one conversations or academic or scientific papers, the latter of which will have only a limited number of readers, in any event. Arguments on social media, however, more resemble political theater. When you engage in one, you are campaigning for popularity points whether you realize it or not, and the person with greater attractiveness or desirability will most likely come out on top.
Attractiveness or desirability essentially refers to how a person uses a combination of rhetoric, logic, warmth, and humor to entice the reader into following him and not the other guy. It’s as simple as that. If you speak truth on social media but repel readers through, say, excessive sarcasm or ad hominems, then you lose the argument and, subsequently, followers. It’s not like there’s a referee or rulebook you can appeal to.
Certain words can sharply repel or attract as soon as they appear. When a writer uses them, he tips his hand regarding where he stands in our political or cultural spectrum, and does so in a way he can most likely never undo. These words are Rubicons of a sort, and they signal much more than what appears in the dictionary, urban or otherwise. Most of the time, such words are fine when used in moderation, and of course context is important. But their overuse can often hurt the user by making his position less attractive.
“Nigger” comes to mind in this regard. Oddly enough, this word isn’t used terribly often on the Dissident Right. It remains anathema for normies, but among race-realist white advocates, it has lost its punch. We all know the truth about blacks, and so peppering your language with this word to show how “based” you are is about as impressive as that lonely high school kid who finally gets a girlfriend and can’t stop showing her off at the dance. Furthermore, it is a ghetto word that blacks themselves use incessantly, so its overuse in our circles smacks of imitating blacks and appropriating their crude mannerisms. This will score no points among dissidents.
“Faggot,” on the other hand, comes up a lot more often, and deserves more comment since it is an insult dissidents often hurl at people who are interested in us enough to engage with us on social media. I’ve seen it used in absentia, referring to agents of globohomo and other Left-wing efforts to promote the LGBTQ agenda — especially among children — but who are clearly not the ones participating in social media threads where the word is used. I find this unobjectionable, within reason, given the vile nature of the criminals in question and the need for a truly hurtful epithet with which to describe them.
Using this word in any other context, especially as a shaming mechanism, is a simply a cheap way to signal that one is a staunch traditionalist who has contempt for those who promote dysgenic sexual behavior. This is a little like someone using the word “nigger” to demonstrate that he is a race realist. I sympathize with such a starting position, but, to borrow from Shakespeare, protesting too much will make a reader wonder what the writer’s true motivations are. Such words in these contexts are simply mean-spirited, evince a dearth of imagination, and gain so little as to not be worth the effort to write them down. Would a person put a ten-dollar bet on a 50-to-1 favorite just to show the world that he can back a winner?
Profanity can also be overused — but again, context plays a big role. When someone provides off-the-cuff commentary, especially in a casual, conversational manner, then some profanity doesn’t hurt. In a more formal environment, such as in a proper debate or an essay, however, we should be more mindful of how bad language can make our position less attractive. And when you’re angry or otherwise agitated, this is an easy thing to forget.
You can buy Spencer J. Quinn’s My Mirror Tells a Story here.
I would like to think that people will be reading my essays years from now, after tastes in language usage have changed. So unless I have a very good reason to include profanity, I typically don’t. But one example of an excellent application of profanity occurred in E. Michael Jones’ debate with Jared Taylor in 2021. Jones used the word “asshole” to make a particularly vivid point, and the ever-proper Taylor just sat there and nodded politely. So it can work if it’s done right.
For me, profanity is like spice. It takes a really good cook to know how much is too much.
Another thing to consider is how women react to it. Profanity is known as sailor’s speech or salty language because it is often used when women aren’t around, such as on ships (at least traditionally). “Mixed company” typically means that there are women in the room, and so the men need to tone down the sailor talk.
I experienced this first-hand once when, after a committee meeting which involved roughly equal numbers of men and women, two other men and I had to stay afterwards to do some paperwork. One of these men was gay, and the other was straight, but that didn’t matter. Within minutes we were talking freely, swearing like sailors, and having a great time. We were also working very efficiently with each other. At one point, one of the women reentered the room to check on us, and instantly the swearing stopped. After she left, we three grinned at each other like mischievous schoolboys and went back at it.
I operate from the premise that women typically have a lower tolerance for profanity than men do. I’m sure a neuroscientist will suss out why this is so one day, and the explanation will be fascinating. But in the meantime, I always keep in mind that in order to win women over, it’s best to practice discretion when using profanity — and err on the side of not using it at all.
Another word which comes up a lot is “retard,” largely because it’s funny. I particularly enjoy how the Z-Man devises clever variations on his “Enjoy mute, retard” statement every time someone gets out of line on one of his Gab posts.
Yes, like the other words I have discussed, it can be overused, but I think it’s the least problematic of all of them. It signals a general rejection of the narrow-minded cat-lady scolding culture, which I believe became prevalent sometime in the 1970s. I actually knew a woman about a decade ago who wore a T-shirt that called for the outright banning of the word.
Two pop culture references demonstrate the true power of this word (which really isn’t much). In the 1998 movie There’s Something About Mary, Matt Dillon hilariously plays a low-class cad who is infatuated with Cameron Diaz. He tries to impress her by pretending to be a therapist of some sort, and when she asks him what he does for a living, he naïvely responds, “I work with retards.” Diaz, of course, was horrified at this breach of etiquette, but the audience I saw it with erupted in laughter.
Then there was the tempest-in-a-teapot backlash against the use of the word in 2008’s Tropic Thunder. Did the studios cave under pressure? Of course not. Nobody is afraid of cat ladies.
Yes, using this word to describe or insult someone with Down Syndrome or some other cognitive disorder is cruel and shouldn’t be done. But no one does this. Nevertheless, it is not a nice word, and some caution should be practiced when using it.
In essence, the above forms of language can be a turnoff in more ways than one. If abused, they can elicit more sympathy for the recipient — or victim, depending on one’s perspective — than his interlocutor. This is the exact opposite of what we want.
Such abuse also reveals something unflattering about those who engage in it. When I used to play nickel-ante poker with my high school friends, my father would sometimes tease us by saying, “The winner laughs and tells funny stories, while the loser says ‘Shut up and deal.’” A person abusing language is akin to that irritable loser losing patience with the player dealing the cards. (The key word here is “loser,” which in this context refers to the player not winning the game; it’s not a pejorative describing someone who is a failure more generally.) When someone is frustrated by the way things are changing in the world, as many dissidents can be, it’s very tempting to lose patience and lash out at people who represent that change in one’s mind.
This abuse of language does not project the sense that one is winning. It projects frustration, irritability, and impatience. In short, it projects losing. And since everyone loves a winner, using this word in this manner cannot possibly be good. Even if dissidents believe that pro-white causes are failing today, projecting this idea in our choice of language will ensure a greater probability of ultimately going down in defeat. Such language only offers reasons for the uninitiated to stay away.
We have to project the idea that we are winning. We have to stress the justice and morality of our cause. Most importantly, we must underscore the inevitability of our ideas at all times. A person who knows they will win the end game isn’t going to resort to ugly smear tactics against those who might end up on their side tomorrow, even if they aren’t today. Instead, they will show the patience and confidence of a winner, and treat every skeptic and moderate as a potential ally rather than as a potential enemy.
And one great way of doing this is to realize that language is an easy, easy thing to abuse.
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26 comments
Good advice Spencer. Might I also suggest that one avoid using words that Sub Saharans over use. Two of those that spring to mind are basically and scenario.
I am often guilty of using the word ‘basically’. I try to substitute ‘in essence’ when i can. In verbal debates, the filler words such as ‘like’ or ‘you know’ or ‘um’ are grating to the listener. It takes some discipline for a speaker to be intent with silent pauses, and not deeming it imperative to keep talking even when searching his mind for the next thing to say. Tucker is great at this, especially when the prompter is slow.
One important tip when telling a story is to know the details well. For example, avoid things like ‘I think it was Churchill who said…’ or ‘Yamaguchi…I think that was his name…survived both atom bombs’.
Don’t neglect the importance of knowing the basic facts, and be ready for followup questions. My favorite answer to the followup question of ‘how did George Beauchamp [the man who survived both Lusitania and Titanic calamities] die?’ is to joke ‘he drowned in his bathtub ‘.
It doesn’t take much effort to memorize some interesting details of a story to really engage the listener. The day, month, year of an event are critical, the first and last names of main characters, ages, city, country, background info that is relevant.
Your joke about Beauchamp is hilarious!!
Nigger is too overused, along with the social ramifications of being caught using it in public, so I rarely say it except under my breath. Faggot on the other hand is fun to say and still has some shock value today, so it pops up in my vocabulary quite often, which I’m sure has something to do with the prevalence of Drag Queen Story Hour and Pride parades being stuffed down my throat. But the one thing I’ll never stop saying is Faggot Empire Nigger.
“They will show the patience and confidence of a winner, and treat every skeptic and moderate as a potential ally rather than as a potential enemy.”
Yes, and this is why I don’t like it when Dissidents engage in contemptuous online conversations about “normies.” It is my belief that many white “normies” will come to our side eventually, as things continue to deteriorate. Welcome them. Calling them “retards”, “losers,” and “libtards” or “shitards” (even if they are!) is uncalled for (and comes across as really immature), even in justifiable moments of exasperation and frustration.
I hate the “f” word but sometimes no other word will do. It’s one of the words that adds some much needed spice, as Spencer J. Quinn noted above.
While I understand the point I don’t really agree with the way this essay is weighted. It’s weighted in the wrong direction. Generally, constrictions on how we communicate open the door to more harm than good.
I more believe that there is a place for everything. Everything has its context and context matters. Personally I don’t groan or cringe if our people use spicy language on social media. I feel numb about it. I’m not embarrassed or shocked personally. Sometimes I enjoy reading it.
Some of that language is not well suited to every context at every moment with every person, sure. They might want to alter their language if they seek to engage with, or persuade some different types of people. But sometimes brute force language can work quite well all on its own.
It’s also important to maintain some parts of our movement as quite provocative just on the area of free speech and taboos. We need all the tools on the table. The right thrives on a certain amount of freedom, not restraint.
As for the mention of mute. There’s using mute because someone is a very bad troll or a fed, and then there’s using mute to avoid the results of your own faulty behavior, where bitterness, craziness and grifting can be repeatedly posted and then any negative responses to it can just be rendered unseen.
There are people who act like this on Gab and who misuse certain features. There’s nothing laudable about that. And if their main body of work is the same template over and over again for which they change the details for and ask people to buy them a beer or coffee and then make a point of telling others how they are muting someone, it’s not an impressive sight. It’s a poor one.
Finally, we have to be careful of manufacturing a delusional sense of ‘winning if I do/don’t do X’ here. It’s a path of good intentions notion but not necessarily that meaningful to actually winning. Sadly it is possible to create an artificial and sterilized impression of our own orderliness and probity in relation to the state of everything else, and consequently there are no feelings about it. No anger. No sense of injustice. It’s just becomes a lame troll that “we’re cool” as everything crumbles around us. That’s not going win over everyone either.
Great essay. Too many people on our side have been so long on the fringe that they don’t really understand how to do ‘normal’ anymore or think that behaving like a normal person is an imposition.
‘Normal’ is the vast bulk of the population in the middle of the Curve.
They’re the one’s we want to move just a wee bit in our direction.
I’ll make mistakes and indulge myself on Gab, and I find that ‘nigger’ and ‘kike’ and ‘faggot’ are like a drug. You get that first hit and you want more and more. The next thing you know, you’re ‘Seig Heiling’ with your pecker hanging out in front of the synagogue with a ‘George Wallace 2024’ placard.
Stay frosty out there, people.
Sometimes it’s the only way though because it’s the only language your adversary understands.
Your enemy is never going to ‘understand’ your language. That’s why they’re your enemy. Concentrate on the unseen and non-vocal audience. They’re the ones that have value.
What a timely article as I toggle over from niggerfaggotretard Gab. But seriously, this is sage advice for those who relish words and word choice, not to mention care about whether others embrace their ideas.
Your points about context are important. For example, (and speaking of the Gab), “nigger” can be used to good effect as shorthand for strong contempt, say, toward a video of some savage antiwhite attack by, well, the usual suspects, when discussed among like minds. Oddly though, I’m not inclined to write the world’s most evil utterance myself, perhaps to your point about the staying power of the more dispassionately rendered written word, perhaps because I’m just naturally polite and consider politeness a powerful weapon in its own right.
Great point about the winning, too. Handling defeat with poise is noble, but even the soft-hearted empath viscerally loathes the graceless loser.
I agree with your points in that this is a particularly timely and appropriate article as we get more involved in arguing our points.
I don’t think adopting the crude Black mutations of the English language is good. For one, we are not seeking to persuade Blacks about anything. Whether good, bad or ugly, we are not seeking Blacks but are seeking to recruit more whites into our circles. We don’t need to establish “street cred” with them or their close followers by adopting their dysfunctional language patterns.
Our movement has been characterized by the SPLC and others of just having crudely speaking nazi skinheads. Thus the vast majority of whites will simply not bother seeking our views on anything. Well-written, factual articles, on the other hand, will surprise them and may eventually convert them to our cause. It is these types of articles that the Progressive Left attempts to cover up and suppress.
I may even suspect rapidly pro-white, poorly-written articles, laced with vulgarity, as being written by 5th columnists: i.e. covert Progressives attempting to discredit us.
One suggestion tho Mr. Quinn. I have never watched Tropic Thunder nor do I remember Something About Mary. Thus those illustrations, unless explained, are not useful to me. Similarly with strange Identitarian terms referring back to internecine fights in our movement.
Hi Nicolas
I hope I was able to explain in the article the ‘retard’ reference in There’s Something About Mary.
As for Tropic Thunder, we have a white actor played by Robert Downey Jr. who is portraying a black soldier while shooting a Vietnam War movie. When the film’s star regrets playing an retarded man in a previous movie, Downey (who is still in blackface) warns him that actors will never get an Oscar if they go “full retard.”
“Never go full retard” has been a meme ever since.
Say ‘howdy’ sometime if you’re ever so moved. I’m @hamburgertoday over at Gab.
Certainly! I already follow you over there, having recognized your username from here. At Gab I use a nickname, but you’ll know who the “howdy” is from.
This article smacks of the how-to-get-liked-by-the-liberal-faggot-press manual forced upon all newly elected Republican members of Congress when they get to Washington DC.
I disagree, see my comment above.
I don’t think any of us on the alt-right should ever use the term “gay” as being a polite term for homosexual. When I was a child in the early 1960s, the term “gay” did not exist except as meaning happy or carefree. When talking about homosexuals, we used the terms “homosexual” or “queer”. If we were angry, we used the term “faggot”. The term “gay” did not come into use until I was about 16 or 17 in 1972 or 1973. This was about exactly the same time the American Psychiatric Association decided that homosexuality was no longer a mental illness. By using the term “gay” for homosexual, we are stating that there is no problem with homosexuality and that the difference between homosexual and heterosexual is like the difference between having brown eyes or blue eyes. We are also destroying a perfectly beautiful English word. For more on this subject, see the latest article by Paul Craig Roberts or see the article “Why Homosexuality is abnormal” by Michael Levin. The former is on PCR’s website and the latter is in the Philosophical Journal “The Monist” in the year 1985. I first became aware of the homosexual problem with the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. It is returning once again with Monkey Pox. BTW, two of my heroes, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alan Turing, were homosexual.
Well, once the rainbow did not have any associations with homosexuals. The rainbow was on the emblem of the US Army Berlin Brigade (rainbow and flaming sword), the rainbow band was on the logo of German clothing shop net C&A, and nobody thought about “faggots” seeing it. And, yes, Nietzsche´s Gay Science is not about homosexuals.
Same here, I don’t use the word ‘gay’ for homosexuals. I don’t use it to mean ‘happy’ either cause I find it a dated term, but I’d definitely won’t let the alphabet gang appropriate these words. I also don’t use the term ‘straight’, I just say ‘normal’ when referring to hetero.
But I am wondering if perhaps you find the word “gay” dated because it came to mean homosexual? Perhaps if that had not happened “gay” would be just as up to date in your mind as “happy”.
Jud, there is a good chance you are correct. I wonder if the same thing will happen to my use of the word ‘pride’. So far, so good.
Hi La-Z-Man,
Your response reminded me of one of John Derbyshire’s jokes on Derb Radio (Vdare). He was talking about the old sport movie “Pride of the Yankees” starring Gary Cooper who plays Lou Gehrig. Probably everyone over 40 has seen this move but many younger people have not. If you told a younger person the title of the movie, they would probably think it was about when Lou Gehrig came out of the closet.
Thank you for this insightful piece Spencer. I especially agree with the last paragraph.
I’m in the process of finishing up a novella and I’ve already had one well known dissident writer edit it. When he finished he said to me; “It’s very good. You really have something here. But your main character, no, anger, no anger! The normies will throw this by the wayside in no time flat. You want them to emphasize with him”.
When he told me that, I thought he was nuts. But the more I thought about it, I realized that he was very right.
This has helped me on social media platforms to spread our knowledge, and message, especially about Jewish supremacy. Gentle, with facts, that’s how to do it. You would be surprised that when we want to introduce what we know in this way, how many listen; especially now with so many Americans suffering horribly under the Jewish Biden regime.
We can get angry here, or over at Gab, on TOO also. But when on the normie platforms, easy-does-it, step by step, introducing revisionist facts gently, goes a long way to waking folks up.
I really like sci-fi and used to read some fantasy. One trilogy that particularly stood out for me was The Trilogy of Thomas Covenant: the Unbeliever. In it, our main character is of course the hero but like many of us also has some deep character flaws.
The novel is similar to Tolkien’s Lord of the Ring series but IMO better as well as more vivid and actually more blood-thirsty/ violent if that can be imagined. Somehow it was never picked up by Hollywood and made into a movie. But its treatment of characters is much better, at least it seemed to me. Maybe tho most people prefer the Hollywood version of totally good heroes and totally evil villains: but that’s not how life is.
Oh yes; my point in all of this. Now I remember. Is there a title? Can we get a link to your novella so we can buy & read it?
Hi Nicolas. Thanks for asking.
I’m still putting the finishing touches on it. But when it is published, you’ll most likely hear about it. I do have a dissident publisher interested.
Okay thanks, I’ll watch out for it to appear.
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