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Comment by mturmon | Hacker News Reader

The Wagner analogy is not very good. This is a shunning, or a boycott, that is designed to affect behavior in this lifetime. It is not a post facto judgement about the artistic merit of a dead person's work.

Likewise, the Mein Kampf and Capital analogies are inapt. It's not about refusing to read books.

Mr. Trump has decided to take many polarizing actions. We should not be surprised that they have caused polarization. It's a way to gauge how seriously one takes the issue.

Another analogy is boycotts and shunning during the South African apartheid era. Apparently uninvolved entities, like musicians and writers, were forced to either take a position against the apartheid state, or to tacitly admit the issue was not important to them. Eventually it became all but untenable to support the South African government policy.

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"This is a shunning, or a boycott" ... "It's a way to gauge how seriously one takes the issue"

shunning: persistently avoid, ignore, or reject (someone or something) through antipathy or caution [1].

Not inclusive. Hypocrisy is a way to gauge how seriously we take an issue as well. I think we all need some practice empathizing with other viewpoints. They exist, regardless of whether we can understand/agree with them. Finding out what we have in common with one another is an important skill.

[1] as a side note, google shows usage over time for the word. interesting to see that shunning is having a comeback, though we are still a ways away from early 1800's levels of usage :)

But Mr Thiel is not mr Trump.

Obviously Mr Thiel on balance, agrees with mr Trump or at least one of his platform policies is meaningful enough to override other concerns he may have. Most voters have this same type dilemma.

I'm really concerned that today someone can't openly advocate for their formal candidate from a major party.

It's not all that different from people blackballing bona fide Communists --yes, they were a threat to _our_ society back then, but, it was still wrong to persecute people for their beliefs as repugnant as it may be to us [and communism was repugnant to the majority of contemporary Americans at the time]

There's more to it than that. Thiel gave Trump over a million dollars. That's not just agreeing, it's enabling. It's facilitating. Thiel is actively helping Trump push his neofascism.

Mr. Trump is not just any candidate ("formal candidate from a major party"), as he has been at pains to demonstrate. So, applying these simple norms is not really persuasive.

> Another analogy is boycotts and shunning during the South African apartheid era. Apparently uninvolved entities, like musicians and writers, were forced to either take a position against the apartheid state, or to tacitly admit the issue was not important to them. Eventually it became all but untenable to support the South African government policy.

Only a ignorant person can think SA is a success story. It is a horror show from beginning to ending. What a colossal fuck up.

You'll never admit you failed will you? That this 'Rainbow Nation didn't work.

You failed and you failed real hard, I am so sick of the lies the media have told about SA. This was the mother of all failures and it is dressed as some success story. I feel sick in my stomach.

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