Post #4172820

2026-07-28 20:19 UTC

The line between discernment and purity test continues to mess with me I have two people in my life who, by almost any measure, are to my left politically and are doing far more local and global good than I am. They mentor, they canvas, they donate professional skills. One is a surrogate big sister to dozens of LGBTQ kids who first came out to them. Another is a prolific award-winning author who travels globally giving talks about ableism. Until recently, these people were role models and north stars. And yet... One just switched their very active newsletter to substack (and auto-subscribed me to it) The other posted a selfie wearing Meta glasses Look, I'm hardly one to judge. I fail many of my own purity tests and I don't think one can maintain friendships based on them. Their politics haven't changed. Their activism hasn't diminished. On balance, they are still stellar humans I don't think a substack should be a line in the sand. But it's breaking me a little

Replies (2)

@brianvastag@mas.to 2026-07-28 20:53

@kims@mas.to With enough purity tests, no one would have anyone left in their life. Does ANYONE live a pure life? Never shops at an evil corporation, never listens to anything by someone with wonky opinions, never clicks on a site that does harm? Purity tests divide people.

Open ##4173558
@muddle@infosec.exchange 2026-07-29 01:20

@kims@mas.to I was reading a guardian article recently... here it is https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/23/anton-jager-groundbreaking-book-being-devoured-by-left The main thing I picked up from it is that "politicisation" goes through cycles and that we're currently in a stage where people are turned off from it. Not sure if I agree with that, but whatever. I kind of laugh at the mention of purity tests. Practically anyone who uses the phrase (yourself excluded, I think) uses it as a way to discredit other people. "Gatekeeping" also comes up a lot, and again, I laugh, because many (but not all) the people using it as a pejorative are basically fascist-adjacent or fascist-curious. Anyway, I loathe substack, but I loathe Meta even more. Rather than thinking about it in terms of purity tests or gatekeeping, my thing is "why is there a middleman?" Isn't that the common enemy? We should seize the means of communication as much as the means of production. #DoesThisMakeMeACommie

Open ##4178925