I've been reading these with interest, but I don't get why you have to spend a whole post insulting the people you're going to disagree with (apparently). This was a huge turnoff for me (a "centrist" -- I guess? -- who doesn't want the privilege to have Black people arrested in my local park). I understand the point that if you spend all your time explaining yourself you're wasting time that could be spent on other things, but I think it could be made without the exaggerated (as you admit) caricature of people whose "lived experience" you apparently haven't taken the time to understand or consider in any depth.
I agree with everything you've said about the frustration of talking to liberals about issues. I'm not personally focused on police reform like you are, but I feel the same frustration when talking about global warming and transportation. There is no pithy slogan at work but few mainstream liberals are willing to acknowledge how dramatic are the changes that are coming in transportation. My academic friends are especially baffled when I bring up the topic of travel to conferences. So I sympathize with most of your frustration.
But the part that bothers me is at the start of your essay when you say that "None of the serious activists or intellectuals who use them [abolish the police / defund the police] mean either in a fully literalized way." I think this is wrong. There are serious activists who do make that argument. See here for example - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html. I don't know any background about the author but the publication, New York Times, is certainly 'serious'.
I think the problem is that 'serious' is doing too much work. Today it is easy to find someone, somewhere who is taking the slogan 'abolish the police' in a completely literal way and defending that position in public. Trying to determine which one of them is 'serious' is a fool's game.
Dismissing anyone who takes the slogan literally as unserious just makes you look ovely defensive. Why not just say that "yes, indeed, there are some activists who literally do want to abolish the police and many of them gained prominence last year, but I disagree with that position and here's why." I think that is what you are trying to do and I look forward to reading your future posts on this topic, even if I expect to disagree with many of them.
Just as you are frustrated with liberal activists who only want to talk about the slogan, I'm frustrated with writers, like yourself, who want to argue that 'no one serious says' abolish the police. To not acknowledge the presence of people who are making that argument does a disservice to the activists who take that position seriously and it also makes you look obtuse. In the current media environment there is almost always going to be someone who is expressing an extreme position and finding them is just a keyword search away.
I don't claim to understand the mind of the centrist liberal, but I will hazard a guess that some of them have read serious activists or intellectuals make the argument that we should abolish the police, literally.
I've been reading these with interest, but I don't get why you have to spend a whole post insulting the people you're going to disagree with (apparently). This was a huge turnoff for me (a "centrist" -- I guess? -- who doesn't want the privilege to have Black people arrested in my local park). I understand the point that if you spend all your time explaining yourself you're wasting time that could be spent on other things, but I think it could be made without the exaggerated (as you admit) caricature of people whose "lived experience" you apparently haven't taken the time to understand or consider in any depth.
I agree with everything you've said about the frustration of talking to liberals about issues. I'm not personally focused on police reform like you are, but I feel the same frustration when talking about global warming and transportation. There is no pithy slogan at work but few mainstream liberals are willing to acknowledge how dramatic are the changes that are coming in transportation. My academic friends are especially baffled when I bring up the topic of travel to conferences. So I sympathize with most of your frustration.
But the part that bothers me is at the start of your essay when you say that "None of the serious activists or intellectuals who use them [abolish the police / defund the police] mean either in a fully literalized way." I think this is wrong. There are serious activists who do make that argument. See here for example - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html. I don't know any background about the author but the publication, New York Times, is certainly 'serious'.
I think the problem is that 'serious' is doing too much work. Today it is easy to find someone, somewhere who is taking the slogan 'abolish the police' in a completely literal way and defending that position in public. Trying to determine which one of them is 'serious' is a fool's game.
Dismissing anyone who takes the slogan literally as unserious just makes you look ovely defensive. Why not just say that "yes, indeed, there are some activists who literally do want to abolish the police and many of them gained prominence last year, but I disagree with that position and here's why." I think that is what you are trying to do and I look forward to reading your future posts on this topic, even if I expect to disagree with many of them.
Just as you are frustrated with liberal activists who only want to talk about the slogan, I'm frustrated with writers, like yourself, who want to argue that 'no one serious says' abolish the police. To not acknowledge the presence of people who are making that argument does a disservice to the activists who take that position seriously and it also makes you look obtuse. In the current media environment there is almost always going to be someone who is expressing an extreme position and finding them is just a keyword search away.
I don't claim to understand the mind of the centrist liberal, but I will hazard a guess that some of them have read serious activists or intellectuals make the argument that we should abolish the police, literally.