Losing the Plot: The "Leftists" Who Turn Right
December 13, 2023 5:57 AM Subscribe
"You can only be ironic for so long — you can only post so many George Wallace memes — before you start thinking that two sets of water fountains aren’t a bad idea.”
For my part, I remember during the Occupy Wall Street days when Greenwald and Taibbi were trusted voices. It's bananapants on how the worm has turned.
For my part, I remember during the Occupy Wall Street days when Greenwald and Taibbi were trusted voices. It's bananapants on how the worm has turned.
LOL. I was telling people Greenwald was an obvious creep and opportunist on here for about a decade before his opportunism took him in a direction people liked less. People got real shitty about it too.
posted by Artw at 6:18 AM on December 13, 2023 [59 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:18 AM on December 13, 2023 [59 favorites]
There's nothing more flattering to a liberal than the concept that everyone to their left is just as deranged as those to their right. For that reason, horseshoe theory will always be a popular idea with well-heeled centrists.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [64 favorites]
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [64 favorites]
Also mentioned here: massive racist and misogynist creep Christopher Hitchens. And yes, that was obvious before 9/11 broke his brain.
posted by Artw at 6:21 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:21 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
Shit, I am guilty of confusing Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf and I should probably read Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
posted by Molesome at 6:26 AM on December 13, 2023 [37 favorites]
posted by Molesome at 6:26 AM on December 13, 2023 [37 favorites]
> “Edgelords” who’d once used “strategic irony” to challenge the status quo “began to believe their own rhetoric.”
I had (past tense) two friends who fit this description, and even before the pandemic and everything that has followed in its wake they had already made it clear to me that their "ironic" stances on race relations and misogyny were never really ironic, they were masks of plausible deniability and (in hindsight) probably a method of identifying fellow travellers.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
I had (past tense) two friends who fit this description, and even before the pandemic and everything that has followed in its wake they had already made it clear to me that their "ironic" stances on race relations and misogyny were never really ironic, they were masks of plausible deniability and (in hindsight) probably a method of identifying fellow travellers.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
I really do not have any patience for the idea that pointing out people's racism and sexism forces them to become more racist and sexist. Serious people learn from their mistakes and rectify their areas of ignorance. Narcissists look for somewhere they can go unchallenged.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:28 AM on December 13, 2023 [237 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:28 AM on December 13, 2023 [237 favorites]
It's what happens when the person who's an activist for Cause A gets "cancelled" because of a couple of 7-year-old tweets with an ignorant joke about Cause B, and people stop listening to them about Cause A altogether.
But isn't it usually the selfish, non-apology for past transgressions/offenses that gets people to stop taking someone seriously? There's a lot of people cited in the article who were called out for something and instead of admitting that what they said was wrong and offensive, chose instead to double down on it. And it shouldn't come to any surprise that people who believe they're incapable of being wrong and offensive should gravitate towards an ideology that embraces that line of thought.
There are bad faith actors out there who deliberately stir up trouble, but to entirely dismiss the role that individuals themselves play and blame everything on an ambiguous "cancel culture" diminishes the reasons why people are called out and plays into a very right-wing view of what's going on.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:32 AM on December 13, 2023 [82 favorites]
But isn't it usually the selfish, non-apology for past transgressions/offenses that gets people to stop taking someone seriously? There's a lot of people cited in the article who were called out for something and instead of admitting that what they said was wrong and offensive, chose instead to double down on it. And it shouldn't come to any surprise that people who believe they're incapable of being wrong and offensive should gravitate towards an ideology that embraces that line of thought.
There are bad faith actors out there who deliberately stir up trouble, but to entirely dismiss the role that individuals themselves play and blame everything on an ambiguous "cancel culture" diminishes the reasons why people are called out and plays into a very right-wing view of what's going on.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:32 AM on December 13, 2023 [82 favorites]
Came here to see if the ‘intolerant left’ would be blamed for ‘forcing’ the Greenwalds of the world to become fascists and I see that angle was covered immediately.
posted by chronkite at 6:36 AM on December 13, 2023 [136 favorites]
posted by chronkite at 6:36 AM on December 13, 2023 [136 favorites]
Shit, I am guilty of confusing Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf
Oh, buddy, oof.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [56 favorites]
Oh, buddy, oof.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [56 favorites]
I'm not a big fan of retaining the piece of shit allies. Let them make their own beds.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 6:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by chainlinkspiral at 6:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
>Greenwald was an obvious creep
yah I was watching Citizenfour last decade and something was just a bit off about him so I stopped watching.
posted by torokunai at 6:42 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
yah I was watching Citizenfour last decade and something was just a bit off about him so I stopped watching.
posted by torokunai at 6:42 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Geez, some of the comments on this thread are as illuminating as the article. That article is not at all a circular firing squad.
One of the biggest problems with all of the people mentioned in the article, beyond the seduction of ego and a pulpit, is that most of them are contrarian first and foremost. Each of them had the seeds of these, surprising for some, turns early on in their writing. Come on, Tulsi Gabbard! What a fitting dance partner for Matt Taibbi. They are all like nationalists in a way: It’s not the country or the ideology that’s important to them it’s being right.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 6:44 AM on December 13, 2023 [75 favorites]
One of the biggest problems with all of the people mentioned in the article, beyond the seduction of ego and a pulpit, is that most of them are contrarian first and foremost. Each of them had the seeds of these, surprising for some, turns early on in their writing. Come on, Tulsi Gabbard! What a fitting dance partner for Matt Taibbi. They are all like nationalists in a way: It’s not the country or the ideology that’s important to them it’s being right.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 6:44 AM on December 13, 2023 [75 favorites]
But isn't it usually the selfish, non-apology for past transgressions/offenses that gets people to stop taking someone seriously? There's a lot of people cited in the article who were called out for something and instead of admitting that what they said was wrong and offensive, chose instead to double down on it. And it shouldn't come to any surprise that people who believe they're incapable of being wrong and offensive should gravitate towards an ideology that embraces that line of thought.
Yeah, that's fair.
I still have a problem when that happens, though, because it isn't always the "non-apology" people who get targeted (I'm thinking of James Gunn, for instance, someone who DID sincerely apologize for past comments but still got harangued)I also see people who have done great good in one arena but still have detractors (over in the Taylor Swift thread, someone has stated that they "hate" Taylor - a person who has been donating millions to food banks in each of the cities where she plays - because "she's a climate criminal"). And while I grant that whether James Gunn or Taylor Swift turn to the right would be their own choice...how do such comments discourage them from making such a choice?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:46 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
Yeah, that's fair.
I still have a problem when that happens, though, because it isn't always the "non-apology" people who get targeted (I'm thinking of James Gunn, for instance, someone who DID sincerely apologize for past comments but still got harangued)I also see people who have done great good in one arena but still have detractors (over in the Taylor Swift thread, someone has stated that they "hate" Taylor - a person who has been donating millions to food banks in each of the cities where she plays - because "she's a climate criminal"). And while I grant that whether James Gunn or Taylor Swift turn to the right would be their own choice...how do such comments discourage them from making such a choice?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:46 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
Complicating this discussion: the insistence that when terrible people who used to be on (sorta) the left move to the right, that's considered to be indicative of something about The Left rather than something about those terrible people. As if, contra the cliche about the Republican party, you cannot abandon leftist politics; leftist politics can only abandon you.
posted by penduluum at 6:46 AM on December 13, 2023 [74 favorites]
posted by penduluum at 6:46 AM on December 13, 2023 [74 favorites]
The problem with just saying "fuck 'em" is:
It’s easy to feel contempt for such people. It’s more honest to acknowledge our losses. We may say, “They were never really Left” — Tulsi Gabbard’s connection to Hindu nationalism is a prime example — or, “Good riddance, we’re better off without them.” But are we?
What they’ve become, yes. But was any movement ever made stronger by subtraction?
Meanwhile, the Right knows the power of addition.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:46 AM on December 13, 2023 [26 favorites]
It’s easy to feel contempt for such people. It’s more honest to acknowledge our losses. We may say, “They were never really Left” — Tulsi Gabbard’s connection to Hindu nationalism is a prime example — or, “Good riddance, we’re better off without them.” But are we?
What they’ve become, yes. But was any movement ever made stronger by subtraction?
Meanwhile, the Right knows the power of addition.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:46 AM on December 13, 2023 [26 favorites]
> It's what happens when the person who's an activist for Cause A gets "cancelled" because of a couple of 7-year-old tweets with an ignorant joke about Cause B, and people stop listening to them about Cause A altogether. It's what happens when someone has been fighting for a particular cause and has finally achieved a hard-fought and real victory against the GOP gets criticized for not having achieved even more, including some things that were never within their power to grasp in the first place.
... I mean, these things are kind of bad? I guess? certainly the latter is way worse than the former. But these things are not what causes people to turn rightward. I personally have never seen it happen among any of my friends or any public figures I'm aware of.
Matt Taibbi and Bill Maher and Glenn Greenwald and Christopher Hitchens and the others were ALL, to the last man, shitheads who revealed themselves as shitheads many many times before they turned rightward. Way back in 2006 or 2007 I watched Bill Maher call women who breastfeed in public "attention seeking [slur]s". Matt Taibbi has always been a brodude provocateur who (even in my short engagement with his works) came across as entertaining but hella misogynistic. Christopher Hitchens literally said women can't be funny, ye so many years ago, even before he was ashill for the Iraq war. Glenn Greenwald was always a men's rights activist even in the early 2000s.
Like. Who was confused about these people? Who actually thought these men were actually liberals let alone leftists?
Other brodude edgelord type guys, that's who. The same folks who used to hail Elon Musk as a leftist hero ten years ago while the rest of us knew better all along.
The measure of a liberal or a leftist has always been (for me, at least) their compassion, their humility, their willingness to do the work as opposed to spouting their mouth off, and their capacity to get their hands (and their pure principles) scuffed in the process. Anyone here think AOC is gonna turn rightward because she got attacked over and over by Bernie acolytes for working with Pelosi a few years ago? Anyone here think Roxane Gay will suddenly turn rightward because she gets criticized for not being left enough and not critical of capitalism enough? Yeah, no. Because that's not what causes people to turn rightward.
> We may say, “They were never really Left” — Tulsi Gabbard’s connection to Hindu nationalism is a prime example — or, “Good riddance, we’re better off without them.” ... But was any movement ever made stronger by subtraction?
It isn't subtraction, is the whole point. These folks weren't TURNED. They remained who they always were. And for the record, hell yes, we are better off without the misogynists, white nationalists, grifters, and predators in our midst. I'm surprised that needs to be said.
posted by MiraK at 6:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [198 favorites]
... I mean, these things are kind of bad? I guess? certainly the latter is way worse than the former. But these things are not what causes people to turn rightward. I personally have never seen it happen among any of my friends or any public figures I'm aware of.
Matt Taibbi and Bill Maher and Glenn Greenwald and Christopher Hitchens and the others were ALL, to the last man, shitheads who revealed themselves as shitheads many many times before they turned rightward. Way back in 2006 or 2007 I watched Bill Maher call women who breastfeed in public "attention seeking [slur]s". Matt Taibbi has always been a brodude provocateur who (even in my short engagement with his works) came across as entertaining but hella misogynistic. Christopher Hitchens literally said women can't be funny, ye so many years ago, even before he was ashill for the Iraq war. Glenn Greenwald was always a men's rights activist even in the early 2000s.
Like. Who was confused about these people? Who actually thought these men were actually liberals let alone leftists?
Other brodude edgelord type guys, that's who. The same folks who used to hail Elon Musk as a leftist hero ten years ago while the rest of us knew better all along.
The measure of a liberal or a leftist has always been (for me, at least) their compassion, their humility, their willingness to do the work as opposed to spouting their mouth off, and their capacity to get their hands (and their pure principles) scuffed in the process. Anyone here think AOC is gonna turn rightward because she got attacked over and over by Bernie acolytes for working with Pelosi a few years ago? Anyone here think Roxane Gay will suddenly turn rightward because she gets criticized for not being left enough and not critical of capitalism enough? Yeah, no. Because that's not what causes people to turn rightward.
> We may say, “They were never really Left” — Tulsi Gabbard’s connection to Hindu nationalism is a prime example — or, “Good riddance, we’re better off without them.” ... But was any movement ever made stronger by subtraction?
It isn't subtraction, is the whole point. These folks weren't TURNED. They remained who they always were. And for the record, hell yes, we are better off without the misogynists, white nationalists, grifters, and predators in our midst. I'm surprised that needs to be said.
posted by MiraK at 6:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [198 favorites]
I still have a problem when that happens, though, because it isn't always the "non-apology" people who get targeted (I'm thinking of James Gunn, for instance, someone who DID sincerely apologize for past comments but still got harangued)
But that's the exception that proves the rule. James Gunn hasn't, as far as I'm aware, been cancelled. Was there a knee-jerk reaction when things first broke? Yeah, but due in no small part to Gunn's own actions to own up to his previous transgressions, things got resolved.
And Taylor Swift, despite what the occasional forum post might imply, hasn't been cancelled either. Random anonymous people on Internet forums can not like her for obtuse reasons. YMMV.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
But that's the exception that proves the rule. James Gunn hasn't, as far as I'm aware, been cancelled. Was there a knee-jerk reaction when things first broke? Yeah, but due in no small part to Gunn's own actions to own up to his previous transgressions, things got resolved.
And Taylor Swift, despite what the occasional forum post might imply, hasn't been cancelled either. Random anonymous people on Internet forums can not like her for obtuse reasons. YMMV.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
> I'm thinking of James Gunn, for instance, .... over in the Taylor Swift thread, someone has stated that they "hate" Taylor
I'm confused. Neither James Gunn nor Taylor Swift have turned to the right AFAIK. How are they relevant to this thread about people turning rightward? Or to your claim that getting cancelled makes people turn rightward?
posted by MiraK at 6:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
I'm confused. Neither James Gunn nor Taylor Swift have turned to the right AFAIK. How are they relevant to this thread about people turning rightward? Or to your claim that getting cancelled makes people turn rightward?
posted by MiraK at 6:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
I really don't like the narrative of "they showed us who they really were all along". People are not a series of shifting masks over an immutable good or bad core. They're people, and if someone appears to hold beliefs both good and bad, it doesn't necessarily mean "oh, they're really a terrible person acting out some good beliefs". It often instead means they are persuadable.
This is what the circular firing squad argument is actually about. It's about the tendency to drive out rather than persuade in.
posted by phooky at 6:56 AM on December 13, 2023 [53 favorites]
This is what the circular firing squad argument is actually about. It's about the tendency to drive out rather than persuade in.
posted by phooky at 6:56 AM on December 13, 2023 [53 favorites]
Content aside for a moment, this line from the article was one of the finest pieces of writing I've encountered recently:
...the current clusterfuck of crises so vast and interconnected that they might more simply be called our condition ...I was glad to see the link to the Lowndes essay; I hadn't encountered the story of Telos before. Lowndes writes,
Telos foundered, lurched rightward and made itself available for racist purposes in great part because while the journals writers and editors were able to generate powerful analyses of capitalism and state formation, they did not theorize them in relation to either slavery and colonialism, or heteropatriarchy.posted by audi alteram partem at 6:58 AM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
Gunn was attacked BY agitators on the right, and was less "canceled" than he was "fired from his job over some bullshit." The extreme overreaction to his Twitter posting history ended up making Disney look like idiots, especially given that what they did resulted in Gunn making a movie for WB, which turned into Gunn heading Marvel's main rival.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
> It's about the tendency to drive out rather than persuade in.
It would be nice to be shown ANY real examples of people who have been driven out from the left toward the right before bandying words like "tendency" about.
posted by MiraK at 6:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [39 favorites]
It would be nice to be shown ANY real examples of people who have been driven out from the left toward the right before bandying words like "tendency" about.
posted by MiraK at 6:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [39 favorites]
Having hung out together as young bloggers with one of the figures highlighted in the piece: I would like to respectfully take exception, at least in this case, to the suggestion that it took "cancel culture" to make this guy a bit out there. In my experience MiraK was correct.
So back when he was cranking out left-wing stuff we could all agree on, about how much he hated the GOP, we took the Metro to the famous Kramer's Bookstore. He does this thing I'll never forget. At the bar, a disheveled man had come in from off the streets. The man tried to start a conversation with me. Maybe he was about to ask for money. I didn't mind. But before I could reply to the man, this blogger had gotten in the man's face. I can still see it: He totally mad-dogs the man with this hard stare, inches away like he is in a gang fight. That was just one of a handful of freakish actions that made me uncomfortable with the dude, and with the underbelly of '00s early online leftists.
And yeah, contrarianism. I always assumed the motive was anger at his politically-mainstream dad. And that, at least in his case, was where the wound came from, not from intolerant liberal orthodoxy or anything like that.
posted by johngoren at 7:04 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
So back when he was cranking out left-wing stuff we could all agree on, about how much he hated the GOP, we took the Metro to the famous Kramer's Bookstore. He does this thing I'll never forget. At the bar, a disheveled man had come in from off the streets. The man tried to start a conversation with me. Maybe he was about to ask for money. I didn't mind. But before I could reply to the man, this blogger had gotten in the man's face. I can still see it: He totally mad-dogs the man with this hard stare, inches away like he is in a gang fight. That was just one of a handful of freakish actions that made me uncomfortable with the dude, and with the underbelly of '00s early online leftists.
And yeah, contrarianism. I always assumed the motive was anger at his politically-mainstream dad. And that, at least in his case, was where the wound came from, not from intolerant liberal orthodoxy or anything like that.
posted by johngoren at 7:04 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
The measure of a liberal or a leftist has always been (for me, at least) their compassion, their humility, their willingness to do the work as opposed to spouting their mouth off, and their capacity to get their hands (and their pure principles) scuffed in the process.
And to me, article co-author Jeff Sharlet, whose great book The Undertow I just read, is that guy, with these qualities.
posted by johngoren at 7:07 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
And to me, article co-author Jeff Sharlet, whose great book The Undertow I just read, is that guy, with these qualities.
posted by johngoren at 7:07 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
> It isn't subtraction, is the whole point. These folks weren't TURNED. They remained who they always were. And for the record, hell yes, we are better off without the misogynists, white nationalists, grifters, and predators in our midst.
I hear you. I'm definitely better off on a personal level without the two guys I mentioned earlier in the thread in my life, but even if deep (or not so deep) down these people were always shitheads, when they decide to publicly go full fascist for whatever reason it helps create a permission structure for others to do the same, and a lot of people like to feel like they're on the winning team, so it all builds a momentum.
None of this is to say that people like this should be coddled or accommodated in the name of winning elections or whatever. I don't know what the answer is. Every playing field these days feels slanted to the right, and greased.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:07 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
I hear you. I'm definitely better off on a personal level without the two guys I mentioned earlier in the thread in my life, but even if deep (or not so deep) down these people were always shitheads, when they decide to publicly go full fascist for whatever reason it helps create a permission structure for others to do the same, and a lot of people like to feel like they're on the winning team, so it all builds a momentum.
None of this is to say that people like this should be coddled or accommodated in the name of winning elections or whatever. I don't know what the answer is. Every playing field these days feels slanted to the right, and greased.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:07 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
It's the result of the left's circular firing squad. The circular firing squad doesn't always kill the people it shoots at, sometimes it blows some of them right.
I do not think this is the case. I have been involved in various capacities in activist-y stuff since my teens and I am mumble-mumble-Old now.
What happens when good people feel that the left is categorically dumb is that they drop out. They vote for Democrats and take up circus arts or go back to the land. They may or may not be cynical about activism, they may or may not complain a lot, they may or may not be really bitter. What doesn't happen is that they think "I truly, ardently believed in racial justice when I was twenty-five, but I got very disillusioned by hypocritical tumblr discourse and decided that actually whites ARE superior".
What does happen is that people who join movements for fun or clout but without deep conviction turn to the right when being in the movement impedes them. I remember noticing this with Berke Breathed and Bloom County and also with Doonesbury when I was a tween, and with lots of "male feminists" of the seventies as well - as long as it was on-trend and faintly rebellious to be a "male feminist", these guys would say positive things about feminism, but the minute someone tried to decenter them, or pointed out that something they said was wrong, then feminists were all ugly shrieking harridans, so unfair! I saw this when a noted punk musician was asked not to refer to CEOs as "whores for capital" because that relies on gross ideas about sex work and all of the sudden whoops feminism had gone too far, and that was just a mild, friendly request.
My point being that when it is hip and exciting in someone's social circle to be on the left, they may be on the left to fit in or for clout. Many of those people are not terrible although they are not leftists, and they will just move on to the next thing later, no hard feelings. Some of them move to the right either for the money and clout or because they had deep-seated right wing ideas all along.
posted by Frowner at 7:11 AM on December 13, 2023 [154 favorites]
I do not think this is the case. I have been involved in various capacities in activist-y stuff since my teens and I am mumble-mumble-Old now.
What happens when good people feel that the left is categorically dumb is that they drop out. They vote for Democrats and take up circus arts or go back to the land. They may or may not be cynical about activism, they may or may not complain a lot, they may or may not be really bitter. What doesn't happen is that they think "I truly, ardently believed in racial justice when I was twenty-five, but I got very disillusioned by hypocritical tumblr discourse and decided that actually whites ARE superior".
What does happen is that people who join movements for fun or clout but without deep conviction turn to the right when being in the movement impedes them. I remember noticing this with Berke Breathed and Bloom County and also with Doonesbury when I was a tween, and with lots of "male feminists" of the seventies as well - as long as it was on-trend and faintly rebellious to be a "male feminist", these guys would say positive things about feminism, but the minute someone tried to decenter them, or pointed out that something they said was wrong, then feminists were all ugly shrieking harridans, so unfair! I saw this when a noted punk musician was asked not to refer to CEOs as "whores for capital" because that relies on gross ideas about sex work and all of the sudden whoops feminism had gone too far, and that was just a mild, friendly request.
My point being that when it is hip and exciting in someone's social circle to be on the left, they may be on the left to fit in or for clout. Many of those people are not terrible although they are not leftists, and they will just move on to the next thing later, no hard feelings. Some of them move to the right either for the money and clout or because they had deep-seated right wing ideas all along.
posted by Frowner at 7:11 AM on December 13, 2023 [154 favorites]
> It's not bananapants, it's what happens when people let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
I have to disagree with this. I mean yes all of those things do happen, and if the American Left is good at anything it's circular firing squads. But I don't think these phenomena explain Taibbi or Greenwald.
When Greenwald started to visibly turn, it was accompanied by a long decline into weirdnesses like sock-puppeting in the comments on poli-sci blogs. In the case of Taibbi, he could have probably made a genuine-sounding apology for having been an embarrassing horndog in his younger days, claimed to have learned better, and gotten a pass. But he wasn't willing to do that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:11 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
I have to disagree with this. I mean yes all of those things do happen, and if the American Left is good at anything it's circular firing squads. But I don't think these phenomena explain Taibbi or Greenwald.
When Greenwald started to visibly turn, it was accompanied by a long decline into weirdnesses like sock-puppeting in the comments on poli-sci blogs. In the case of Taibbi, he could have probably made a genuine-sounding apology for having been an embarrassing horndog in his younger days, claimed to have learned better, and gotten a pass. But he wasn't willing to do that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:11 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
I considered myself fairly apolitical when I was younger, more center-left than far left, but I wasn't informed. I didn't really begin to formulate the person I am now until 2008 or so. (Sorry it took so long, y'all!)
I am never surprised when white dudes who have a microphone get salty and mean when someone--usually a woman, or a person of colour, or both--calls out problematic actions and words.
posted by Kitteh at 7:13 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
I am never surprised when white dudes who have a microphone get salty and mean when someone--usually a woman, or a person of colour, or both--calls out problematic actions and words.
posted by Kitteh at 7:13 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
There have always been personalities who start with a set of political beliefs that transition from extreme left to extreme right. And usually if you look closely enough you can see the seeds of that transition before it happens. I think specifically of Mussolini, who was a revolutionary socialist before breaking with the Italian party over World War One - from a very early stage in his writings he had a lot of ambivalence towards the egalitarian aspect of socialism, which obviously carried forward after the war into the Fascist party.
While it's dismaying to see people who were one of us, man adopt aborrhent beliefs, we should remember there have been three or four major political crises since 2000 that have produced a dramatic reorientation since the 1990s (assuming most people here are older Millennial or Gen Xers). I'm not surprised that some public figures went full Mussolini. Heck, if you told me in 1997 many progressive people would be cheering on the Director of the FBI and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for any reason, I'd have experienced some dissonance too.
posted by fortitude25 at 7:14 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
While it's dismaying to see people who were one of us, man adopt aborrhent beliefs, we should remember there have been three or four major political crises since 2000 that have produced a dramatic reorientation since the 1990s (assuming most people here are older Millennial or Gen Xers). I'm not surprised that some public figures went full Mussolini. Heck, if you told me in 1997 many progressive people would be cheering on the Director of the FBI and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for any reason, I'd have experienced some dissonance too.
posted by fortitude25 at 7:14 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
> when they decide to publicly go full fascist for whatever reason it helps create a permission structure for others to do the same
FWIW I hear you too. People who were nominally on the left going publicly full fascist does create a momentum and a structure for others to follow.
But to me, that speaks to the need for us to be MORE vocal against misogyny, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry within our ranks, to make a bigger and more public fuss when a leftist public figure openly hates on women and trans people. (I keep saying misogyny and transphobia because ime THIS is usually the dead giveaway - there are of course other bigotries that are an equally big problem, but for example racism tends to be expressed in more coded and subtle ways on the left where misogyny and transphobia is usually quite blatant.) Our sin has been that we are too tolerant of open misogynists and transphobes, not that we are too intolerant. That way, when these asshats go to the right and make a public transition to fascism, it's less of a structure for leftists to follow and more of a "ah, he was a misogynist/transphobe".
> What does happen is that people who join movements for fun or clout but without deep conviction turn to the right when being in the movement impedes them. ... as long as it was on-trend and faintly rebellious ... when it is hip and exciting in someone's social circle to be on the left, they may be on the left to fit in or for clout.
Oh, that's so true. Very astute observation warriorqueen.
posted by MiraK at 7:16 AM on December 13, 2023 [46 favorites]
FWIW I hear you too. People who were nominally on the left going publicly full fascist does create a momentum and a structure for others to follow.
But to me, that speaks to the need for us to be MORE vocal against misogyny, transphobia, and other forms of bigotry within our ranks, to make a bigger and more public fuss when a leftist public figure openly hates on women and trans people. (I keep saying misogyny and transphobia because ime THIS is usually the dead giveaway - there are of course other bigotries that are an equally big problem, but for example racism tends to be expressed in more coded and subtle ways on the left where misogyny and transphobia is usually quite blatant.) Our sin has been that we are too tolerant of open misogynists and transphobes, not that we are too intolerant. That way, when these asshats go to the right and make a public transition to fascism, it's less of a structure for leftists to follow and more of a "ah, he was a misogynist/transphobe".
> What does happen is that people who join movements for fun or clout but without deep conviction turn to the right when being in the movement impedes them. ... as long as it was on-trend and faintly rebellious ... when it is hip and exciting in someone's social circle to be on the left, they may be on the left to fit in or for clout.
Oh, that's so true. Very astute observation warriorqueen.
posted by MiraK at 7:16 AM on December 13, 2023 [46 favorites]
that's well said MiraK.
hitchen's is a good example. his assholeness was showing way long ago. it wasn't that he got continually called out by the left and hung a right, he never was there in the first place.
in hitchens' atheist writings and debates, i always compared him and his approach in my mind to, say, carl sagan. classy, respectful,and just as clear and logical as hitchens. zero asshole...
posted by winston smith at 7:17 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Like. Who was confused about these people? Who actually thought these men were actually liberals let alone leftists?
hitchen's is a good example. his assholeness was showing way long ago. it wasn't that he got continually called out by the left and hung a right, he never was there in the first place.
The measure of a liberal or a leftist has always been (for me, at least) their compassion, their humility, their willingness to do the work...
in hitchens' atheist writings and debates, i always compared him and his approach in my mind to, say, carl sagan. classy, respectful,and just as clear and logical as hitchens. zero asshole...
posted by winston smith at 7:17 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
We really lost something great when we lost Douglas Adams.
posted by Artw at 7:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [33 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [33 favorites]
Hitchens and the New Atheists were always abhorrent to me. There was a cruelty, a snideness, to their words that made me feel like, "Yeah, these are not good people. They just happen to be popular because they are too S-M-R-T to believe in Jebus." Actually, I still think that of atheists for the most part, and I am not particularly religious. (Holy roller grandparents in childhood put paid to Christianity sticking at all in me.)
posted by Kitteh at 7:22 AM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 7:22 AM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
Ardent Leftism attracts assholes. Not all Ardent Leftists are assholes.
Ardent Leftism attracts assholes because the Left is so disempowered in the USA. If you're someone who hates on everything, Ardent Leftism is a great way to be hateful, because the system really does suck, and it's shooting fish in a barrel to point this out. Ardent Leftist Assholes drive away potential voters with their assholery and purity tests, because they really just want to complain and seem Smart, rather than do the hard work of assembling coalitions for change. It's counterproductive as hell.
Assholes be assholes, and they're usually horrible in other ways, like misogyny, racism, etc., as well. Sooner or later, that catches up with them, and they're driven from positions of discursive authority within leftist circles, but fascism fucking loves assholes, so the sweet sweet call of fame and attention draws them to the right. But there are a LOT of non-asshole leftists, who, like someone upthread pointed out, get sick of the assholes and just drop out of active changemaking. I have no idea what the solution to all this might be.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [34 favorites]
Ardent Leftism attracts assholes because the Left is so disempowered in the USA. If you're someone who hates on everything, Ardent Leftism is a great way to be hateful, because the system really does suck, and it's shooting fish in a barrel to point this out. Ardent Leftist Assholes drive away potential voters with their assholery and purity tests, because they really just want to complain and seem Smart, rather than do the hard work of assembling coalitions for change. It's counterproductive as hell.
Assholes be assholes, and they're usually horrible in other ways, like misogyny, racism, etc., as well. Sooner or later, that catches up with them, and they're driven from positions of discursive authority within leftist circles, but fascism fucking loves assholes, so the sweet sweet call of fame and attention draws them to the right. But there are a LOT of non-asshole leftists, who, like someone upthread pointed out, get sick of the assholes and just drop out of active changemaking. I have no idea what the solution to all this might be.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [34 favorites]
[oh jeez I said warriorqueen when I meant Frowner, so sorry!]
posted by MiraK at 7:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 7:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
> Serious people learn from their mistakes and rectify their areas of ignorance. Narcissists look for somewhere they can go unchallenged.
This is very well said, too. The sorts of people (mostly but not entirely white dudes) we're talking about in this thread that I have known in my personal life absolutely did not like being contradicted about *anything*. They couldn't even handle disagreements about trivial things like music or sports without getting angry and defensive, so you can imagine how they reacted to being challenged on matters of politics and social issues.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
This is very well said, too. The sorts of people (mostly but not entirely white dudes) we're talking about in this thread that I have known in my personal life absolutely did not like being contradicted about *anything*. They couldn't even handle disagreements about trivial things like music or sports without getting angry and defensive, so you can imagine how they reacted to being challenged on matters of politics and social issues.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Hitchens and the New Atheists were always abhorrent to me.
For all of the New Atheist shouting that "you don't need religion to be good," they also thoroughly demonstrated that whatever it is you do need to be good, they lack that as well.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [68 favorites]
For all of the New Atheist shouting that "you don't need religion to be good," they also thoroughly demonstrated that whatever it is you do need to be good, they lack that as well.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [68 favorites]
sorry to break it to you but to affect change, and to gain power you need assholes as well as good people
posted by lalochezia at 7:32 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 7:32 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
That said, don't let the pigeon drive the bus.
posted by flabdablet at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
Are we really going with "If we had just not been so mean, they'd not have gone fascist?"
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [32 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [32 favorites]
I think a lot of people would rather feel like bad outcomes are something they could have prevented if they'd only been better, than feel like they're completely beyond their control.
Assholes gonna asshole. I can't make somebody an asshole who isn't already an asshole.
posted by flabdablet at 7:38 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
Assholes gonna asshole. I can't make somebody an asshole who isn't already an asshole.
posted by flabdablet at 7:38 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
Let's say we've got someone that's both sympathetic to socialist economic policy but is also a misogynist. Suppose that person really believes in both. When they are forced to choose one or the other, how do we get them to pick the socialist economic policy over the misogyny?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
The thing about the power of addition, it’s not like the Republican Party just harnessed the fringe they swallowed, they were changed by it, into it. That’s cool if you don’t have values aside from power, but if you do, you need remember that you are what you eat.
posted by rodlymight at 7:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [26 favorites]
posted by rodlymight at 7:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [26 favorites]
How do we get them to pick the socialist economic policy over the misogyny?
You can't. That's on them.
posted by flabdablet at 7:50 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
You can't. That's on them.
posted by flabdablet at 7:50 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Matt Taibbi has always been a brodude provocateur who (even in my short engagement with his works) came across as entertaining but hella misogynistic.Years back, a colleague who'd been at the center of some fairly shitty harassment campaigns told me that one of the most dangerous mistakes a vulnerable person can make is assuming that an individual is their ally simply because they hate the correct people. I read a couple of Taibbi's books years back, and thought they were bracing, invigorating, exciting! Someone was finally calling out the shitty people boldly and without apology!
It took a lot more time to realize that he didn't necessarily advocate anything positive that I agreed with — he just hated people I thought were bad.
Realizing that isn't a call to "cancel" people for "insufficient purity," but that colleague's insight has really helped me understand the initially-confusing dynamics of these apparent rightward shifts.
posted by verb at 7:50 AM on December 13, 2023 [61 favorites]
> You can't. That's on them.
That is a denunciation of the possibility of political persuasion. Or is the only purpose of politics to mobilize your base without trying to build coalitions?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:52 AM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
That is a denunciation of the possibility of political persuasion. Or is the only purpose of politics to mobilize your base without trying to build coalitions?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:52 AM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
Is this really about politics? It sounds more like psychology, an individual’s psychology. People can change their hats, but not easily change what the hat is sitting on.
posted by njohnson23 at 7:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 7:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
Narcissists look for somewhere they can go unchallenged.
I think this is central. A lot of the left-to-right converters we're talking about are people more invested in their own image and popularity than in the causes and policies they were supporting, back when we thought of them as leftist. My experience has been like Frowner's -- true leftists sometimes burn out or drop out for various reasons but rarely if ever shift significantly rightward, not unless there's a significant other factor (like a narcissistic pursuit of ego-stroking from an alternate source or an egotistical inability for self-reflection).
We've been so exposed to massively malignant narcissists in our society that it's easy to forget that everybody's got an ego and some folks are more driven by it than others. It doesn't have to be massive or malignant, but if one's ego is the primary motivator of their beliefs or behavior, it's possible and even likely that when pressed they'll fall back on what drives the ego now vs what drove the beliefs then.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 7:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [42 favorites]
I think this is central. A lot of the left-to-right converters we're talking about are people more invested in their own image and popularity than in the causes and policies they were supporting, back when we thought of them as leftist. My experience has been like Frowner's -- true leftists sometimes burn out or drop out for various reasons but rarely if ever shift significantly rightward, not unless there's a significant other factor (like a narcissistic pursuit of ego-stroking from an alternate source or an egotistical inability for self-reflection).
We've been so exposed to massively malignant narcissists in our society that it's easy to forget that everybody's got an ego and some folks are more driven by it than others. It doesn't have to be massive or malignant, but if one's ego is the primary motivator of their beliefs or behavior, it's possible and even likely that when pressed they'll fall back on what drives the ego now vs what drove the beliefs then.
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 7:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [42 favorites]
I'll have to agree with Eoin Higgins who is quoted here that there is no One Simple Reason why someone "on the left" makes a heel turn:
"There are financial incentives, there are attention incentives, there are culture war differences as people are becoming more conservative on culture; there’s a sense of being betrayed by progressives and the Left. There are so many different reasons that reducing this to people going too far [left] and going to the Right is an oversimplification."
posted by windbox at 7:57 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
"There are financial incentives, there are attention incentives, there are culture war differences as people are becoming more conservative on culture; there’s a sense of being betrayed by progressives and the Left. There are so many different reasons that reducing this to people going too far [left] and going to the Right is an oversimplification."
posted by windbox at 7:57 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
Greenwald was never a leftist. He's an attention seeking contrarian. If everyone believes something it must be wrong. He just happened to get really famous when everyone thought the Patriot Act was super cool and GW Bush was a strategic genius. So not only did Greenwald seem leftist but also smarter than 90% of the political class. Contextual circumstances changed and shock! He's just an idiot with a soapbox. It's true of a lot of people.
posted by Glibpaxman at 7:57 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
posted by Glibpaxman at 7:57 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
the Right offers simple solutions. often the simple solutions offer a clear opponent/enemy, and the activity of Right politics can feel good to those involved: 'winning'
I can't add much to what others have already posted, but whatever passes for Left seems to be grappling with finding solutions to real problems. Real problems are hard, and it takes hard work to make any gains. So much about the structures of family, governance, and business is about authorities, hierarchies, and destructive competition. what we're calling the Left really should be calling attention to this while undermining and finding new and better ways of doing things. kliuless posted one of their monster threads on the activity of democracy, the endless work and activity. Who has the time and energy for that?
I agree with Frowner, in that people I associate with the Left may slowly tap out and redirect their energy to other things but they don't become assholes. Meanwhiles, assholes find all kinds of ways to be assholes.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
I can't add much to what others have already posted, but whatever passes for Left seems to be grappling with finding solutions to real problems. Real problems are hard, and it takes hard work to make any gains. So much about the structures of family, governance, and business is about authorities, hierarchies, and destructive competition. what we're calling the Left really should be calling attention to this while undermining and finding new and better ways of doing things. kliuless posted one of their monster threads on the activity of democracy, the endless work and activity. Who has the time and energy for that?
I agree with Frowner, in that people I associate with the Left may slowly tap out and redirect their energy to other things but they don't become assholes. Meanwhiles, assholes find all kinds of ways to be assholes.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
The truth of it all, he says, isn’t in this theory or that. “People go where people accept them, or are nice to them, and away from people who are mean to them.” It wasn’t always coherent, but it didn’t have to be.
I do feel like right-wing ideology, in part because it's often built on populism, is an "easier" community to join for many people feeling lost. Hate the right people and you're in, and the rules of conformity are often much clearer than in spaces on the left which are, as discussed here, often in debate with themselves.
It also doesn't help that right-wing populist rhetoric works better for social media engagement algorithms. People who are upset are much more likely to leave a comment, and on average write longer comments, than those who are happy. So if "time on platform = engagement", the algorithm is incentivised to promote outrage.
It's a perfect storm of society and technology pushing these things in a direction.
posted by slimepuppy at 8:02 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
I do feel like right-wing ideology, in part because it's often built on populism, is an "easier" community to join for many people feeling lost. Hate the right people and you're in, and the rules of conformity are often much clearer than in spaces on the left which are, as discussed here, often in debate with themselves.
It also doesn't help that right-wing populist rhetoric works better for social media engagement algorithms. People who are upset are much more likely to leave a comment, and on average write longer comments, than those who are happy. So if "time on platform = engagement", the algorithm is incentivised to promote outrage.
It's a perfect storm of society and technology pushing these things in a direction.
posted by slimepuppy at 8:02 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
a denunciation of the possibility of political persuasion. Or is the only purpose of politics to mobilize your base without trying to build coalitions?
Politics is both inspirational and transactional. You can and should inspire people, who then become your base, but persuading assholes to do what needs to be done always requires a quid pro quo and does not render them non-assholes. See also: Joe Manchin.
posted by flabdablet at 8:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
Politics is both inspirational and transactional. You can and should inspire people, who then become your base, but persuading assholes to do what needs to be done always requires a quid pro quo and does not render them non-assholes. See also: Joe Manchin.
posted by flabdablet at 8:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
ITT a lot of talk as though there is such a thing as a "Left to Right pipeline" by which people who were formerly identified with the Left become associated with the Right.
While there are a lot of people whom you can point at as having made the move, it's not clear that there "a pipeline" by which they did it. The primordial example is David Horowitz, whose Leftism was of the red-diaper variety. He had the experience of seeing that when Marxism was tried, in the form of Marxism-Leninism, where it wound up was Brezhnev. Can you seriously blame him for being disillusioned? Horowitz is like the political equivalent of the militant atheist who was raised a strict Catholic, or maybe Salafi Muslim, who was forced into a realization that God is dead.
I think in the cases of the people that are talked about in TFA and the thread, they divide into a few groups. There are the people like Dawkins who were never so much Leftists as a kind of presumed ally who hated some of the right people, but who turned out to be mostly just assholes who were capable of teaming up with the Dark Side with the right provocation. Then there are the people like Taibbi and Naomi Wolf, who were making some of the right kinds of noises to be thought of as Left-leaning but who reacted to public humiliations in ways not consistent with being really responsible for themselves, which led them into the company of people for whom that kind of irresponsibility is a way of life. Then there are Greenwald and the various comedians, whose contrarianness and irony eventually led them to the same place as disillusioned real Leftists and the people who were sort of performing Leftism until something bad happened to them.
It's a very mixed bag, I am suggesting.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:12 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
While there are a lot of people whom you can point at as having made the move, it's not clear that there "a pipeline" by which they did it. The primordial example is David Horowitz, whose Leftism was of the red-diaper variety. He had the experience of seeing that when Marxism was tried, in the form of Marxism-Leninism, where it wound up was Brezhnev. Can you seriously blame him for being disillusioned? Horowitz is like the political equivalent of the militant atheist who was raised a strict Catholic, or maybe Salafi Muslim, who was forced into a realization that God is dead.
I think in the cases of the people that are talked about in TFA and the thread, they divide into a few groups. There are the people like Dawkins who were never so much Leftists as a kind of presumed ally who hated some of the right people, but who turned out to be mostly just assholes who were capable of teaming up with the Dark Side with the right provocation. Then there are the people like Taibbi and Naomi Wolf, who were making some of the right kinds of noises to be thought of as Left-leaning but who reacted to public humiliations in ways not consistent with being really responsible for themselves, which led them into the company of people for whom that kind of irresponsibility is a way of life. Then there are Greenwald and the various comedians, whose contrarianness and irony eventually led them to the same place as disillusioned real Leftists and the people who were sort of performing Leftism until something bad happened to them.
It's a very mixed bag, I am suggesting.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:12 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
Are we really going with "If we had just not been so mean, they'd not have gone fascist?"
Speaking for myself, and only myself, it's less about others being "mean" and more about "I refuse to be challenged in any meaningful way because you shouldn't be challenging me, I am on your side" from them. Even if you in the gentlest way possible push back against their words, it's interpreted as "wah! The Left is being mean to me!" when it's really just "Why are you arguing with me? I, your avowed ally? Fine! Then I'm taking my ball and going home!"
Egos like a house of cards.
posted by Kitteh at 8:18 AM on December 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
Speaking for myself, and only myself, it's less about others being "mean" and more about "I refuse to be challenged in any meaningful way because you shouldn't be challenging me, I am on your side" from them. Even if you in the gentlest way possible push back against their words, it's interpreted as "wah! The Left is being mean to me!" when it's really just "Why are you arguing with me? I, your avowed ally? Fine! Then I'm taking my ball and going home!"
Egos like a house of cards.
posted by Kitteh at 8:18 AM on December 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
The camera/microphone/platform/newspaper do love outrageous gestures, titillating soundbites, and fiery rhetoric. This goes a long way to explain phenomena like Brand/Maher/Taibbi etc. Attention accelerates these political/cultural changes we watch, spellbound with our own outrage.
What is most concerning to me is when this kind of thing happens to friends. Former friends. The culture of celebrity-watching I can sit out. But when someone you love falls into the web of outlandish conspiracy theorizing, it's personal.
posted by kozad at 8:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
What is most concerning to me is when this kind of thing happens to friends. Former friends. The culture of celebrity-watching I can sit out. But when someone you love falls into the web of outlandish conspiracy theorizing, it's personal.
posted by kozad at 8:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
I do feel like right-wing ideology, in part because it's often built on populism, is an "easier" community to join for many people feeling lost. Hate the right people and you're in, and the rules of conformity are often much clearer than in spaces on the left which are, as discussed here, often in debate with themselves.It's also less threatening for people in the dominant groups – in the United States, for example, there's a huge cultural inertia for white, straight, culturally-Christian people which means we don't have to think about what we say or do since the default was set for people like them. The right wing message is that this is the natural order of things and you shouldn't be expected to spend time thinking about people outside of that umbrella. That doesn't make it correct, of course, but the benefits of letting people not think about things is pretty high. It also affects satisfaction – if you go the local “Moms for Fascism” meetup, it's probably a lot easier to leave feeling like you're part of a powerful growing movement, whereas on the left it's pretty easy to have any sense of accomplishment or momentum dissipated by spending an hour talking about the right terms to use. (This is not to say that there aren't valid concerns about inclusivity, language, etc. but there's a reason why successful volunteer movements do not look like dry graduate seminars)
posted by adamsc at 8:20 AM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
So, born-again right-wingers are a land of contrasts?
I agree that there's no real "pipeline" as there seems to be from wellness to QAnon, for example. It may be simply a manner of following the money; the article notes that "Taibbi and two other Twitter Files reporters received a $100,000 award from a program of the Young America’s Foundation, long a bridge between establishment conservatives and each generation’s shoutiest right-wing youth." Dolla dolla bill y'all. It even ties into the egotism of the chronic brogressive; nothing is as flattering as being paid well for one's opinion.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:23 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
I agree that there's no real "pipeline" as there seems to be from wellness to QAnon, for example. It may be simply a manner of following the money; the article notes that "Taibbi and two other Twitter Files reporters received a $100,000 award from a program of the Young America’s Foundation, long a bridge between establishment conservatives and each generation’s shoutiest right-wing youth." Dolla dolla bill y'all. It even ties into the egotism of the chronic brogressive; nothing is as flattering as being paid well for one's opinion.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:23 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Or is the only purpose of politics to mobilize your base without trying to build coalitions?
It is precisely because I want to build coalitions that I am anti-asshole - because it turns out that assholes push people out, and that it turns out that you can be effective without being an asshole.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:23 AM on December 13, 2023 [31 favorites]
It is precisely because I want to build coalitions that I am anti-asshole - because it turns out that assholes push people out, and that it turns out that you can be effective without being an asshole.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:23 AM on December 13, 2023 [31 favorites]
Naomi Klein (the good one) had this equation, though she's backed away from it lately:
a kind of equation for leftists and liberals crossing over to the authoritarian right that goes something like this: Narcissism (Grandiosity) + Social media addiction + Midlife crisis ÷ Public shaming = Right wing meltdown.posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:28 AM on December 13, 2023 [37 favorites]
Two old men in ancient Greece were looking for a leader for plan to capture an estate that was owned by a wicked horrible man.
They had found a small group to confront the villain but lack what they saw as a leader.
The first elder said to the other, "We can't have the reputation of our leader injure our cause. We must search far and wide and critically for a good man to lead us."
The second elder raised his eyebrows and said, "If we are looking for a good man then don't look too closely or you'll never find him."
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
They had found a small group to confront the villain but lack what they saw as a leader.
The first elder said to the other, "We can't have the reputation of our leader injure our cause. We must search far and wide and critically for a good man to lead us."
The second elder raised his eyebrows and said, "If we are looking for a good man then don't look too closely or you'll never find him."
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Greenwald was never a leftist.
No true Scotsman, eh?
posted by drstrangelove at 8:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
No true Scotsman, eh?
posted by drstrangelove at 8:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
Epoch Times is also published by the Falun Gong which is a group (1) that legitimately suffered (2) at the hands of the CCP but it also goes hard into the paint like a surprisingly large number of Chinese immigrants do for far right conservatism
which is to say that this isn't super surprising to me given re the left-to-alt-right-to-accelerationist-fascist pipeline for Taibbi give how mucked up a lot of the convo on human rights in China is in the West with the US state-sponsored propaganda machines being part of the mix
I think there's probably also a larger convo here about the pervasive paranoia of bad-jacketing and COINTELPRO in activist spaces and how that influences people towards certain toxically authoritarian prove-yourself tendencies when in comes to group organizing, and how easy it is to accidentally mix that poison in with your philosophical principles about suffering and human rights only to end up conned by an actual grifter type
and money - there's definitely the influence of the ultra wealthy here pulling in brains and charisma towards their cause with the kind of politics that makes the Koch bros look like tame neoliberals and that shit is legitimately scary and terrible for any and all grassroots spaces
---
(1) actually probably a cult
(2) apparently less so than they claim
"Falun Gong insists that thousands of its members have been killed in state custody [...] but many experts dispute this. (In 2017, a lawyer who has defended hundreds of Falun Gong members told the Washington Post that he knew of only three or four members dying in prison, and that he had never heard of organs being harvested from live prisoners, as Falun Gong claims.)"
posted by paimapi at 8:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
which is to say that this isn't super surprising to me given re the left-to-alt-right-to-accelerationist-fascist pipeline for Taibbi give how mucked up a lot of the convo on human rights in China is in the West with the US state-sponsored propaganda machines being part of the mix
I think there's probably also a larger convo here about the pervasive paranoia of bad-jacketing and COINTELPRO in activist spaces and how that influences people towards certain toxically authoritarian prove-yourself tendencies when in comes to group organizing, and how easy it is to accidentally mix that poison in with your philosophical principles about suffering and human rights only to end up conned by an actual grifter type
and money - there's definitely the influence of the ultra wealthy here pulling in brains and charisma towards their cause with the kind of politics that makes the Koch bros look like tame neoliberals and that shit is legitimately scary and terrible for any and all grassroots spaces
---
(1) actually probably a cult
(2) apparently less so than they claim
"Falun Gong insists that thousands of its members have been killed in state custody [...] but many experts dispute this. (In 2017, a lawyer who has defended hundreds of Falun Gong members told the Washington Post that he knew of only three or four members dying in prison, and that he had never heard of organs being harvested from live prisoners, as Falun Gong claims.)"
posted by paimapi at 8:37 AM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
Adding "bad-jacketing" to my vocabulary. Thanks.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:40 AM on December 13, 2023
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:40 AM on December 13, 2023
‘Greenwald was never a leftist’ is a statement of fact, not a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy.
He was and is a *contrarian*, as stated above, and drifted wherever that contrarianism took him.
posted by chronkite at 8:41 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
He was and is a *contrarian*, as stated above, and drifted wherever that contrarianism took him.
posted by chronkite at 8:41 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
Actually, I still think that of atheists for the most part
Kind of an amusing remark given the general topic.
...and I suppose being able to admit it is Step One, so good on you for that.
posted by aramaic at 8:41 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Kind of an amusing remark given the general topic.
...and I suppose being able to admit it is Step One, so good on you for that.
posted by aramaic at 8:41 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Greenwald was never a leftist.
No true Scotsman, eh?
No, he just never was, just a contrarian leaning libertarian with an anti-war and anti-government streak that seemed to wax and wane considerably based on who was doing the warring or govermenting. As I say the way people would circle the wagons to defend his obviously fraudulent ass always bugged the shit out of me.
posted by Artw at 8:43 AM on December 13, 2023 [35 favorites]
No true Scotsman, eh?
No, he just never was, just a contrarian leaning libertarian with an anti-war and anti-government streak that seemed to wax and wane considerably based on who was doing the warring or govermenting. As I say the way people would circle the wagons to defend his obviously fraudulent ass always bugged the shit out of me.
posted by Artw at 8:43 AM on December 13, 2023 [35 favorites]
This thread has already produced lots of good points about the multiple ways in which specific individuals find their way to right wing ideologies.
We don't have to argue about whether Greenwald or anyone else was ever truly a leftist and/or always an asshole.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
We don't have to argue about whether Greenwald or anyone else was ever truly a leftist and/or always an asshole.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think that here, as in so many places, the left (and the marginalized constituencies it's trying to represent/fight for) is in a double bind. Like, don't stand up for yourself and you'll keep being treated like a doormat. Stand up for yourself and you'll be attacked for being uppity/a bitch/a SJW gone maaaad/the intolerant left.
So that's happening. And other things are happening too! I agree that leftists turning right (and the more general fascist cultural momentum) is a mixed bag, happening for multiple, sometimes synergistic and sometimes contradictory reasons. So, like, yes the specific celebrities in question (Taibbi and Greenwald) definitely seem to be assholes/narcissists/misogynists. And I also think there's plenty of less prominent people who are potentially persuadable to the left who are just kinda of going with the flow.
And of course going with the flow is super contingent on your social identities and access to privilege, as adamsc points out.
There's this fashy narrative that "the left are the new scolding moralists, come join us on the right where we're cool and rebellious and you'll be accepted just as you are" and then the fine print: unless you're a woman/queer/a person of color/in need of health care/etc. And at the same time, there are many on the left pointing out that we do have some circular firing squad type problems. It's confusing because while "cancel culture" has become a huge right wing propaganda point, the concept began as a well-intentioned internal critique within the left and is still used that way. For example, by Contrapoints and adrienne maree brown.
So here's that double bind again. I think the left simultaneously needs, as MiraK argues, to be more openly and fiercely anti-oppressive and to center the needs, priorities, and perspectives of the most marginalized AND to create a more open, inviting, relaxed, fun atmosphere where people of all identities and all levels of knowledge can learn and grow together and disagree and make mistakes and get mad at each other, all while staying in a broader container of connection, respect, and mutual goodwill. It's like we've got to fight capitalism, survive capitalism, build the new world in the shell of the old, put out the most urgent fires, create a long term vision, unlearn multiple forms of oppression, remember to take out the recycling on Thursday night, etc etc etc. It's too much. And I'm one of those lefty people who has largely burnt out and feel somewhat hopeless about politics but here I am trying to say something because I want us to understand each other and work together more effectively so maybe that's a tiny bit of hope.
posted by overglow at 8:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [49 favorites]
So that's happening. And other things are happening too! I agree that leftists turning right (and the more general fascist cultural momentum) is a mixed bag, happening for multiple, sometimes synergistic and sometimes contradictory reasons. So, like, yes the specific celebrities in question (Taibbi and Greenwald) definitely seem to be assholes/narcissists/misogynists. And I also think there's plenty of less prominent people who are potentially persuadable to the left who are just kinda of going with the flow.
And of course going with the flow is super contingent on your social identities and access to privilege, as adamsc points out.
There's this fashy narrative that "the left are the new scolding moralists, come join us on the right where we're cool and rebellious and you'll be accepted just as you are" and then the fine print: unless you're a woman/queer/a person of color/in need of health care/etc. And at the same time, there are many on the left pointing out that we do have some circular firing squad type problems. It's confusing because while "cancel culture" has become a huge right wing propaganda point, the concept began as a well-intentioned internal critique within the left and is still used that way. For example, by Contrapoints and adrienne maree brown.
So here's that double bind again. I think the left simultaneously needs, as MiraK argues, to be more openly and fiercely anti-oppressive and to center the needs, priorities, and perspectives of the most marginalized AND to create a more open, inviting, relaxed, fun atmosphere where people of all identities and all levels of knowledge can learn and grow together and disagree and make mistakes and get mad at each other, all while staying in a broader container of connection, respect, and mutual goodwill. It's like we've got to fight capitalism, survive capitalism, build the new world in the shell of the old, put out the most urgent fires, create a long term vision, unlearn multiple forms of oppression, remember to take out the recycling on Thursday night, etc etc etc. It's too much. And I'm one of those lefty people who has largely burnt out and feel somewhat hopeless about politics but here I am trying to say something because I want us to understand each other and work together more effectively so maybe that's a tiny bit of hope.
posted by overglow at 8:47 AM on December 13, 2023 [49 favorites]
This thread has already produced lots of good points about the multiple ways in which specific individuals find their way to right wing ideologies.
We don't have to argue about whether Greenwald or anyone else was ever truly a leftist and/or always an asshole.
I would argue that of the bulk of the named people in this article though, and the article itself doesn’t exactly go against it.
posted by Artw at 8:48 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
We don't have to argue about whether Greenwald or anyone else was ever truly a leftist and/or always an asshole.
I would argue that of the bulk of the named people in this article though, and the article itself doesn’t exactly go against it.
posted by Artw at 8:48 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
If there is any take away at all I’d say that it’s dismissing red flags with a “but they’re OUR asshole” is a terrible idea and will always bite you in the ass eventually, and particular red flags to pay attention to are unrepentant misogyny/racism, fraudulant behavior/fact bending to fit narratives, and credible accounts of sexual assault.
posted by Artw at 8:54 AM on December 13, 2023 [38 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:54 AM on December 13, 2023 [38 favorites]
I agree with those who say the virtue of this article is that it points out there is no easy answer here. There's a real temptation to find the real singular reason this happens ('they were never really on our side to begin with' vs 'it's the socials!' vs 'it's the billionaires!' vs 'circular firing squads')...but we're watching forces turn the world rightward in realtime, and those forces are contingent, they have a history, and there is no one weird trick, no simple answer that allows you an easy us-vs-them relationship. Basically all the factors are true, and the arrow points one way. The left, however defined, simply does not have an effective evangelism nor path to solidarity. There is no right-to-left pipeline. One is tempted to say it's a matter of entropy--the right, even when it is fascist, even when it is monarchial, allows a seething mass of conflicting chaos, because it's easier to take that chaos and allow some simple authoritarianism to emerge to order it, than it is to sort of arrange it by distributing power to the people.
Well, that was a very confused paragraph. To put it another way: Watching what has happened has made me lose hope for the left. I'm still a leftist very firmly, I just don't think it's going to win. I think there are too many points of failure that only the right can exploit. And that was always true--there was never going to be a revolution, certainly not a good one, because revolutions produce the above-mentioned chaos. We live in an insane time, and only the right has an idea of how to utilize insanity (as we saw all-too-clearly during the height of the pandemic). It doesn't mean we're doomed to eternal fascism (greedy idiots are bad at constructing long-lasting systems). But it does mean there's no luxury space communism coming.
posted by mittens at 8:56 AM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
Well, that was a very confused paragraph. To put it another way: Watching what has happened has made me lose hope for the left. I'm still a leftist very firmly, I just don't think it's going to win. I think there are too many points of failure that only the right can exploit. And that was always true--there was never going to be a revolution, certainly not a good one, because revolutions produce the above-mentioned chaos. We live in an insane time, and only the right has an idea of how to utilize insanity (as we saw all-too-clearly during the height of the pandemic). It doesn't mean we're doomed to eternal fascism (greedy idiots are bad at constructing long-lasting systems). But it does mean there's no luxury space communism coming.
posted by mittens at 8:56 AM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
people who join movements for fun or clout
the Twitter figure/podcaster Aimee Terese, mentioned in the article, provides an example here. She went through about six distinct ideologies in half as many years:
- regular-ass left-liberal social democrat (before she was “famous”)
- Bernie Bro number one, Liz Warren’s worst enemy
- “Bernie was a sheepdog for the Democrats/I’m the last real Marxist”
- various shades of culture-first conservative but, bizarrely, still claiming to be the last real Marxist
- awkwardly adopting 4chan Nazi signifiers at 30-something years old
There’s always been a kind of person who is a political loose cannon, who is serially attracted to extremes rather than joining a movement based on a stable sense of their own values. But online you can (sort of) make a career of it.
posted by atoxyl at 9:03 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
the Twitter figure/podcaster Aimee Terese, mentioned in the article, provides an example here. She went through about six distinct ideologies in half as many years:
- regular-ass left-liberal social democrat (before she was “famous”)
- Bernie Bro number one, Liz Warren’s worst enemy
- “Bernie was a sheepdog for the Democrats/I’m the last real Marxist”
- various shades of culture-first conservative but, bizarrely, still claiming to be the last real Marxist
- awkwardly adopting 4chan Nazi signifiers at 30-something years old
There’s always been a kind of person who is a political loose cannon, who is serially attracted to extremes rather than joining a movement based on a stable sense of their own values. But online you can (sort of) make a career of it.
posted by atoxyl at 9:03 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Seeing the Red Scare hosts mentioned doesn't surprise me. I only listened to the podcast a handful of times, because I found them insufferable, but they never seemed like leftists to me. Maybe they were doing the whole irony shtick, but they always seemed like right-of-centre weirdos going on about traditional femininity and "race realism." Maybe I came to the show after their "turn" (this was still several years ago, though, 2019 or earlier), but it seemed like they were already the people the article describes -- as were a lot of the others cited.
posted by asnider at 9:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by asnider at 9:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
> So here's that double bind again
I was just looking at a thing about a pre-Leftism reform movement where there was a remark about the tendency of such movements toward internal division. And it strikes me that this is likely an unavoidable problem for reform movements.
Such movements are in the business of imagining a world that does not exist and arguing in favor of policies to bring that world about. These desired policies are always going to fuck with somebody's income stream and/or asset balance sheet. They are policies that challenge existing hierarchies. Existing hierarchies are always bound up in complex ways with respectability and orthodoxy. Different people with interest in a reform movement will have differing tolerances for heterodoxy. It would be nice if insight on this point could be more widespread and it could be a basis for making alliances and not breaking them.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
I was just looking at a thing about a pre-Leftism reform movement where there was a remark about the tendency of such movements toward internal division. And it strikes me that this is likely an unavoidable problem for reform movements.
Such movements are in the business of imagining a world that does not exist and arguing in favor of policies to bring that world about. These desired policies are always going to fuck with somebody's income stream and/or asset balance sheet. They are policies that challenge existing hierarchies. Existing hierarchies are always bound up in complex ways with respectability and orthodoxy. Different people with interest in a reform movement will have differing tolerances for heterodoxy. It would be nice if insight on this point could be more widespread and it could be a basis for making alliances and not breaking them.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Inasmuch as the "circular firing squad" is to blame here, I think it's that there's a phenomenon in political discourse where to the left, all the things matter, so often individuals will get called out for being on the wrong side of the one thing, and perhaps feel "pushed out" (especially when this happens in a public manner), while the right is very good at single-issue-messaging, basically a "you don't need to agree with us about everything, just as long as you know that the one thing you do agree with us about is the thing that's coming to kill you and your family, and you shut up about all the stuff you disagree with us about."
(This can happen in the other direction as well, but I feel like that's rarer. The Left has been Milkshake-Ducked enough to be kinda gunshy about embracing someone who was drummed out of the right over a single issue, but it can happen.)
BUT, while that sucks, it's an unfortunate side effect of the left genuinely thinking that all the things matter. On the right, where only more power and money to the moneyed and powerful matter, and everything else is basically theatre in order to serve that end, they can take folks who were nominally liberal or leftists, who felt pilloried for one "wrong" opinion and dug themselves in over it, and adopt them by encouraging the opinions that got them "in trouble" to begin with, so long as they act as a mouthpiece for specifically that one opinion until the frog-boiling of being in their new community is complete and they're willing to parrot or at least nod along with the rest of it.
AND ALSO, this phenomenon really only works on narcissists, because it relies on the individuals seeing themselves as being at the center of everything. Unfortunately, that means that it will disproportionately affect media personalities, for whom narcissism is often a key asset for reaching any prominence at all. But it can pull others rightward in its wake as well (I'm thinking here of a friend from law school who used to constantly commiserate with me about her mom - whom she lived with afterwards - always having FOXNews on at home. Then she followed JK Rowling into TERF-dom and suddenly the FOXNews folks started making a lot of sense. As you might imagine, I haven't talked to her in a while now.)
But I also know folks who were right-wing/libertarian leaning when I met them, who have responded to the rise of Trump by going boots-on-the-ground leftist. There are very public people who were either apolitical or conservative leaning who this era has pushed openly leftward (like Taylor Swift, or Arnold Schwarzenneger calling out Trump's bullshit.) The folks "lost" in this article are largely people who made names for themselves by hating the right things and getting clout for it, who then found that there are a lot of folks on the right who will be happy to give you attention for hating the right things. I'm not saying "good riddance" exactly, but as has been said above, I think that's more about the psychology of the individuals in question than the Left killing itself over purity tests.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
(This can happen in the other direction as well, but I feel like that's rarer. The Left has been Milkshake-Ducked enough to be kinda gunshy about embracing someone who was drummed out of the right over a single issue, but it can happen.)
BUT, while that sucks, it's an unfortunate side effect of the left genuinely thinking that all the things matter. On the right, where only more power and money to the moneyed and powerful matter, and everything else is basically theatre in order to serve that end, they can take folks who were nominally liberal or leftists, who felt pilloried for one "wrong" opinion and dug themselves in over it, and adopt them by encouraging the opinions that got them "in trouble" to begin with, so long as they act as a mouthpiece for specifically that one opinion until the frog-boiling of being in their new community is complete and they're willing to parrot or at least nod along with the rest of it.
AND ALSO, this phenomenon really only works on narcissists, because it relies on the individuals seeing themselves as being at the center of everything. Unfortunately, that means that it will disproportionately affect media personalities, for whom narcissism is often a key asset for reaching any prominence at all. But it can pull others rightward in its wake as well (I'm thinking here of a friend from law school who used to constantly commiserate with me about her mom - whom she lived with afterwards - always having FOXNews on at home. Then she followed JK Rowling into TERF-dom and suddenly the FOXNews folks started making a lot of sense. As you might imagine, I haven't talked to her in a while now.)
But I also know folks who were right-wing/libertarian leaning when I met them, who have responded to the rise of Trump by going boots-on-the-ground leftist. There are very public people who were either apolitical or conservative leaning who this era has pushed openly leftward (like Taylor Swift, or Arnold Schwarzenneger calling out Trump's bullshit.) The folks "lost" in this article are largely people who made names for themselves by hating the right things and getting clout for it, who then found that there are a lot of folks on the right who will be happy to give you attention for hating the right things. I'm not saying "good riddance" exactly, but as has been said above, I think that's more about the psychology of the individuals in question than the Left killing itself over purity tests.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
mittens, I wanna favorite your comment but I can't let go of my dreams of fully automated luxury gay space communism soooo... take this comment instead?
We live in an insane time, and only the right has an idea of how to utilize insanity (as we saw all-too-clearly during the height of the pandemic).
This is an interesting and important point. If I can fudge "insanity" into "irrationality," maybe it's time to draw some inspiration from past leftist currents that drew from or at least navigated irrationality. I'm thinking the DaDa movement, the Surrealists, Schizoanalysis, Gothic Marxism, liberation theology, feminist witchcraft. That Gramsci quote: "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters." I've never read Gramsci but maybe now is the time to break open his Prison Notebooks, which he wrote while imprisoned by Mussolini's regime, i.e. the original fascists.
posted by overglow at 9:20 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
We live in an insane time, and only the right has an idea of how to utilize insanity (as we saw all-too-clearly during the height of the pandemic).
This is an interesting and important point. If I can fudge "insanity" into "irrationality," maybe it's time to draw some inspiration from past leftist currents that drew from or at least navigated irrationality. I'm thinking the DaDa movement, the Surrealists, Schizoanalysis, Gothic Marxism, liberation theology, feminist witchcraft. That Gramsci quote: "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters." I've never read Gramsci but maybe now is the time to break open his Prison Notebooks, which he wrote while imprisoned by Mussolini's regime, i.e. the original fascists.
posted by overglow at 9:20 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
> There’s always been a kind of person who is a political loose cannon, who is serially attracted to extremes rather than joining a movement based on a stable sense of their own values. But online you can (sort of) make a career of it.
A term I have heard related to this is the Serial Convert. Richard Bulliet describes Saint Augustine as a Serial Convert. He is someone who was attracted to the transformational experience of adopting a new set of beliefs, and went through several different religious transformations during the course of his life. Each time, after glow from the conversion experience wears off and the new faith doesn't live up to satisfy their need, they move on and try to find salvation somewhere else.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:29 AM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
A term I have heard related to this is the Serial Convert. Richard Bulliet describes Saint Augustine as a Serial Convert. He is someone who was attracted to the transformational experience of adopting a new set of beliefs, and went through several different religious transformations during the course of his life. Each time, after glow from the conversion experience wears off and the new faith doesn't live up to satisfy their need, they move on and try to find salvation somewhere else.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:29 AM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
It's what happens when someone has been fighting for a particular cause and has finally achieved a hard-fought and real victory against the GOP gets criticized for not having achieved even more, including some things that were never within their power to grasp in the first place.
You just described what happened to Barack Obama with the ACA (a good part of its alleged "unpopularity" was disappointment that it didn't do even more, a fact the so-called "liberal media" rarely troubled to explain), and he didn't become a right-wing crank, so I'd argue that it doesn't just "happen."
Likewise Biden and the response to, oh, everything he's achieved so far this term.
posted by Gelatin at 9:33 AM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
You just described what happened to Barack Obama with the ACA (a good part of its alleged "unpopularity" was disappointment that it didn't do even more, a fact the so-called "liberal media" rarely troubled to explain), and he didn't become a right-wing crank, so I'd argue that it doesn't just "happen."
Likewise Biden and the response to, oh, everything he's achieved so far this term.
posted by Gelatin at 9:33 AM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
More on horseshoe theory being nonsense (linked in the main article)
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:35 AM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
For the left, the problem with globalisation is that it has given free rein to capital and entrenched economic and political inequality. The solution is therefore to place constraints on capital and/or to allow people to have the same freedom of movement currently given to capital, goods, and services. They want an alternative globalisation. For the right, the problem with globalisation is that it has corroded supposedly traditional and homogeneous cultural and ethnic communities – their solution is therefore to reverse globalisation, protecting national capital and placing further restrictions on the movement of people.I had been persuaded by horseshoe theory at my first encounter with the concept, but perhaps it is more of a horseshoe of emotional needs rather than any coherent political analysis. Elites bad! Rabble-rousers good! Traditional sources of knowledge bad! Prophets good!
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:35 AM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
What is most concerning to me is when this kind of thing happens to friends. Former friends. The culture of celebrity-watching I can sit out. But when someone you love falls into the web of outlandish conspiracy theorizing, it's personal.
All it takes is a single wedge issue that resonates with someone. That gets them hooked into the far right media sphere and gradually they adopt more and more far right positions. I have seen this happen to two acquaintances. For one, the issue was gun control , and for the other the issue was “critical race theory” via the breathless far-right narrative that zOMG white school children are being taught to be ashamed of being white. Neither of these guys were ever leftists, but they were dependable Obama voting Democrats who have now been reduced to gibbering about wokeness and Hunter Biden’s laptop and rigged elections. Their brains have been fully broken.
Some of you may be thinking “good riddance”. But I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity. The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned. Contrast to the right, which is now inclusive. A big happy tent. They’ll happily make room for a pro-choice Nazi, or an anti-capitalist TERF, or whatever bizarre ideology you can concoct, as long is it has at least one repugnant view.
when a noted punk musician was asked not to refer to CEOs as "whores for capital" because that relies on gross ideas about sex work
Yup.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:35 AM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
All it takes is a single wedge issue that resonates with someone. That gets them hooked into the far right media sphere and gradually they adopt more and more far right positions. I have seen this happen to two acquaintances. For one, the issue was gun control , and for the other the issue was “critical race theory” via the breathless far-right narrative that zOMG white school children are being taught to be ashamed of being white. Neither of these guys were ever leftists, but they were dependable Obama voting Democrats who have now been reduced to gibbering about wokeness and Hunter Biden’s laptop and rigged elections. Their brains have been fully broken.
Some of you may be thinking “good riddance”. But I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity. The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned. Contrast to the right, which is now inclusive. A big happy tent. They’ll happily make room for a pro-choice Nazi, or an anti-capitalist TERF, or whatever bizarre ideology you can concoct, as long is it has at least one repugnant view.
when a noted punk musician was asked not to refer to CEOs as "whores for capital" because that relies on gross ideas about sex work
Yup.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:35 AM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
Seeing the Red Scare hosts mentioned doesn't surprise me. I only listened to the podcast a handful of times, because I found them insufferable, but they never seemed like leftists to me.
Prior to starting the podcast, they were sort of Left Twitter/associated podcast sphere hangers-on. Anna K. was already doing a sort of Paglia-wannabe contrarian schtick, while Dasha was best known for a viral video in which she made an Infowars reporter look like a fool at a Bernie event. Their trajectory is absolutely not surprising if you’re familiar with the serial convert/serial movement chaser type - arguably they were more honest about doing this than most - but you can still call it an irony that they ended up doing a photo shoot with Alex Jones.
posted by atoxyl at 9:36 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Prior to starting the podcast, they were sort of Left Twitter/associated podcast sphere hangers-on. Anna K. was already doing a sort of Paglia-wannabe contrarian schtick, while Dasha was best known for a viral video in which she made an Infowars reporter look like a fool at a Bernie event. Their trajectory is absolutely not surprising if you’re familiar with the serial convert/serial movement chaser type - arguably they were more honest about doing this than most - but you can still call it an irony that they ended up doing a photo shoot with Alex Jones.
posted by atoxyl at 9:36 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
That's the most important thing. I don't care whether someone is a "real" leftist or not. I care that they continue not voting for the real fascists.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:38 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
...they were sort of Left Twitter/associated podcast sphere hangers-on
Yeah. I think the entire reason I knew about them was from an occasional mention on Chapo Trap House, but when that was a big cultural phenomenon that I listened to regularly.
Once I actually started listening, I did not understand the appeal. They seemed very much like people just taking part in a movement because it suited their own interests and not because they actually believed in anything.
posted by asnider at 9:47 AM on December 13, 2023
Yeah. I think the entire reason I knew about them was from an occasional mention on Chapo Trap House, but when that was a big cultural phenomenon that I listened to regularly.
Once I actually started listening, I did not understand the appeal. They seemed very much like people just taking part in a movement because it suited their own interests and not because they actually believed in anything.
posted by asnider at 9:47 AM on December 13, 2023
as regards the central problem here,
Losing the Plot: The "Leftists" Who Turn Right
a Robert Anton Wilson quote comes to mind that I can't immediately find. Something along the lines of "all it takes for a liberal to become a conservative is to go twenty years without changing a single idea".
So I don't know if "losing the plot" is the right choice of words. Because as said former liberal would counter (and trust me I've heard it plenty) they're the ones who have definitively stuck to the plot. Look no further than a guy like Charlton Heston who was marching with Martin Luther King in the early 1960s ... but fronting the NRA within twenty-five years. I've read his diaries (it's a long story) and trust me that, in his mind, he's the one that stayed true, stayed sane.
Beware of rigid thinking, I guess. Beware of those who would so closely align their sense of SELF with their ideas that if those ideas get attacked, they immediately assume it's an attack on them, the core of who they are; it becomes an issue of sheer survival.
posted by philip-random at 9:55 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
Losing the Plot: The "Leftists" Who Turn Right
a Robert Anton Wilson quote comes to mind that I can't immediately find. Something along the lines of "all it takes for a liberal to become a conservative is to go twenty years without changing a single idea".
So I don't know if "losing the plot" is the right choice of words. Because as said former liberal would counter (and trust me I've heard it plenty) they're the ones who have definitively stuck to the plot. Look no further than a guy like Charlton Heston who was marching with Martin Luther King in the early 1960s ... but fronting the NRA within twenty-five years. I've read his diaries (it's a long story) and trust me that, in his mind, he's the one that stayed true, stayed sane.
Beware of rigid thinking, I guess. Beware of those who would so closely align their sense of SELF with their ideas that if those ideas get attacked, they immediately assume it's an attack on them, the core of who they are; it becomes an issue of sheer survival.
posted by philip-random at 9:55 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
over in the Taylor Swift thread, someone has stated that they "hate" Taylor - a person who has been donating millions to food banks in each of the cities where she plays - because "she's a climate criminal"
What happened to "nobody becomes a billionaire by accident"? A little philanthropy is enough to redeem you now, make you "left"? Swift goes in a category with Bill Gates and Effective Altruists.
posted by Dysk at 10:00 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
What happened to "nobody becomes a billionaire by accident"? A little philanthropy is enough to redeem you now, make you "left"? Swift goes in a category with Bill Gates and Effective Altruists.
posted by Dysk at 10:00 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
The idea that Greenwald---of all people---was cancelled for his past tweets, rather than out of favor with the left because of his CURRENT behavior (shilling for trump, being tucker carlson's bestie), is just wrong. The opening comment here is just so mind-numbingly dumb, completely ignorant of actual politics, that I'm kinda stunned.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:04 AM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:04 AM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
I care that they continue not voting for the real fascists.
And also not voting for shitty third parties because "MY vote has to be EARNED". And also not not voting at all.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:05 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
And also not voting for shitty third parties because "MY vote has to be EARNED". And also not not voting at all.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:05 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Some of you may be thinking “good riddance”. But I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity. The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned.
If that single repugnant view is 'preserving white male privilege', then yes. Good riddance.
People talk about wedge issues, but I've yet to see a single wedge issue that couldn't be reduced to white male privilege. Gun control. Abortion. Wokeness. I'm sorry your acquaintances decided their own egos were more important than the needs of the nation, but their decisions are their own.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:09 AM on December 13, 2023 [32 favorites]
If that single repugnant view is 'preserving white male privilege', then yes. Good riddance.
People talk about wedge issues, but I've yet to see a single wedge issue that couldn't be reduced to white male privilege. Gun control. Abortion. Wokeness. I'm sorry your acquaintances decided their own egos were more important than the needs of the nation, but their decisions are their own.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:09 AM on December 13, 2023 [32 favorites]
But I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity.
Bullshit. The idea that people on the left should, as a matter of course, be opposed to bigotry of all stripes is not "total ideological purity", and the idea that it is winds up being an argument that those impacted by bigotry are obliged to "take one for the team", as it were.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:10 AM on December 13, 2023 [38 favorites]
Bullshit. The idea that people on the left should, as a matter of course, be opposed to bigotry of all stripes is not "total ideological purity", and the idea that it is winds up being an argument that those impacted by bigotry are obliged to "take one for the team", as it were.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:10 AM on December 13, 2023 [38 favorites]
And also not voting for shitty third parties because "MY vote has to be EARNED".
This kind of sentiment is becoming increasingly gross. Like ok, not voting for the dems because they didn't achieve XYZ goal on some social spending is one thing, but I'm going to find it hard to fault people for letting their conscience lead them to a place where they abstain for voting for a someone who is abetting a genocide, especially if their co-ethnics are the victim and especially so if they live and vote in a swing state.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:11 AM on December 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
This kind of sentiment is becoming increasingly gross. Like ok, not voting for the dems because they didn't achieve XYZ goal on some social spending is one thing, but I'm going to find it hard to fault people for letting their conscience lead them to a place where they abstain for voting for a someone who is abetting a genocide, especially if their co-ethnics are the victim and especially so if they live and vote in a swing state.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:11 AM on December 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
I'm going to find it hard to fault people for letting their conscience lead them to a place where they abstain for voting
I'm not. The cold hard fact is that if you have two shitty choices, and one is much shittier than the other, it is in your best interest to vote for the less shitty choice because by not voting you are effectively giving your vote to the much shittier choice by way of reducing the total pool of votes.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:15 AM on December 13, 2023 [33 favorites]
I'm not. The cold hard fact is that if you have two shitty choices, and one is much shittier than the other, it is in your best interest to vote for the less shitty choice because by not voting you are effectively giving your vote to the much shittier choice by way of reducing the total pool of votes.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:15 AM on December 13, 2023 [33 favorites]
but I'm going to find it hard to fault people for letting their conscience lead them to a place...
Just stop. However imperfect the Dems may be, doing anything that makes it more likely that the Republicans will come to power is aiding and abetting genocide right here at home—and I say this as someone who loathes the Israeli Apartheid State and its stranglehold on our politics. It's not conscience; it's pure selfishness.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:17 AM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
Just stop. However imperfect the Dems may be, doing anything that makes it more likely that the Republicans will come to power is aiding and abetting genocide right here at home—and I say this as someone who loathes the Israeli Apartheid State and its stranglehold on our politics. It's not conscience; it's pure selfishness.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:17 AM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
Can't wait for all the thinkpieces in Dec 2024 from white liberals shaming Muslims in Michigan for cause the state to flip Red and Biden to lose.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:19 AM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
truly amazing coalition building in the last few comments
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:20 AM on December 13, 2023 [25 favorites]
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:20 AM on December 13, 2023 [25 favorites]
There's some plausible right --> left examples: Bill Kristol, George Conway, Jennifer Rubin.
Of course there's many fake-ass Never-Trump grifters out there, but maybe the movement isn't all one way.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 10:23 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Of course there's many fake-ass Never-Trump grifters out there, but maybe the movement isn't all one way.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 10:23 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
And also not voting for shitty third parties because "MY vote has to be EARNED".
Literally every single person I have known IRL who spouted that line took exactly two elections before he (sorry, in my acquaintanceship this is a 100% dude phenomenon) began voting for the most unhinged right-wing Republican possible and spouting pure racism on his sosh meeds.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:24 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
Literally every single person I have known IRL who spouted that line took exactly two elections before he (sorry, in my acquaintanceship this is a 100% dude phenomenon) began voting for the most unhinged right-wing Republican possible and spouting pure racism on his sosh meeds.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:24 AM on December 13, 2023 [27 favorites]
Beware of those who would so closely align their sense of SELF with their ideas that if those ideas get attacked, they immediately assume it's an attack on them, the core of who they are; it becomes an issue of sheer survival.
But without my ideas, what am I? Just a sack of bones and meat. What else but my ideas do I have to align my sense of self with?
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:24 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
But without my ideas, what am I? Just a sack of bones and meat. What else but my ideas do I have to align my sense of self with?
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:24 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh Christ could we not do the “vote harder” bullshit derail for the millionth time?
posted by Artw at 10:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
it's simple, I think:
always vote for the candidate who you feel has the best chance of beating the candidate you fear the most.
This, of course, presupposes that you think (like me) that voting, though essential, is not the most important thing one does in a democracy. It ranks well below things like staying informed, staying conscious, staying involved in the everyday stuff that makes your community actually work, or not. Voting is just a few minutes every one or two or four years. Whereas everyday life is every day.
posted by philip-random at 10:30 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
always vote for the candidate who you feel has the best chance of beating the candidate you fear the most.
This, of course, presupposes that you think (like me) that voting, though essential, is not the most important thing one does in a democracy. It ranks well below things like staying informed, staying conscious, staying involved in the everyday stuff that makes your community actually work, or not. Voting is just a few minutes every one or two or four years. Whereas everyday life is every day.
posted by philip-random at 10:30 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
However imperfect the Dems may be, doing anything that makes it more likely that the Republicans will come to power is aiding and abetting genocide right here at home. [...] It's not conscience; it's pure selfishness.
Please understand that there are many people who would rightly consider condoning genocide abroad in order to prevent genocide at home to also be very selfish. Perhaps there's another way of making this argument?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
Please understand that there are many people who would rightly consider condoning genocide abroad in order to prevent genocide at home to also be very selfish. Perhaps there's another way of making this argument?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:31 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
I really enjoyed the article but it’s the second day in a row that the ultra-niche, ultra-stupid Dimes Square has come up for me. And Peter Thiel. There was an article in the NYT about some dudebro with zero skills but apparently failing into money to build his own techno utopia city.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:43 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by misterpatrick at 10:43 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
here is a helpful diagram for people interested in understanding what's referred to as the "circular firing squad" and slash or people interested in understanding what's called "horseshoe theory."
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:43 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:43 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Trump is not exactly notably restrained when it comes to genocide abroad. He almost triggered a war with Iran last time around. Considering the situation right now with Iran and its proxies, it really shouldn't be discounted that he might pull it off given another chance. And, well, a regional war with Iran might not be genocide but it would be very, very, very bad.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:44 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 10:44 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
People in the public eye with 'opinions' don't get there by not wanting to be looked at. Being looked at gratifies them, and they want their 'opinions' to be heard loud and clear and to resonate more strongly than those others stealing the public eye away. We love to give them the eyes they want if they do increasingly divisive or antisocial things. Either their true colors show beyond what acceptable opinions originally brought them into the public eye, or they get louder and more obnoxious the more attention they get. IMO, denounce the toxic information, ignore the sources. They hate that.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:44 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by BlueHorse at 10:44 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
The idea that Greenwald---of all people---was cancelled for his past tweets, rather than out of favor with the left because of his CURRENT behavior (shilling for trump, being tucker carlson's bestie), is just wrong. The opening comment here is just so mind-numbingly dumb, completely ignorant of actual politics, that I'm kinda stunned.
No, that first comment makes sense. As already mentioned, people like Greenwald have their ego/identity/livelihood invested in their being regarded as truth-tellers and thought-leaders. If the furor over past activities suddenly delegitimizes them with their current community, they will seek the same role elsewhere.
I agree with mittens. It's just a sad fact that the right is in ascendance, for a number of reasons, including some resentment or fatigue over the perception of being harangued by the left for just wanting to live like their parents did (whether that's morally justified or sustainable is of course in question). By contrast, as noted, the right seems more welcoming to many. Thee right is attracting Zionists as well as conservative Muslims. Many first and second generation immigrants, seeking their own version of the American dream, are attracted to the right's messages. Hell, the right embraced George Santos.
always vote for the candidate who you feel has the best chance of beating the candidate you fear the most.
The fact that a horrible person can even become a candidate is one of the problems with a rigidly bipolar political system. Most people voting out of identity and ritual dislike of the "other", instead of being led by specific policy proposals.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:45 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
No, that first comment makes sense. As already mentioned, people like Greenwald have their ego/identity/livelihood invested in their being regarded as truth-tellers and thought-leaders. If the furor over past activities suddenly delegitimizes them with their current community, they will seek the same role elsewhere.
I agree with mittens. It's just a sad fact that the right is in ascendance, for a number of reasons, including some resentment or fatigue over the perception of being harangued by the left for just wanting to live like their parents did (whether that's morally justified or sustainable is of course in question). By contrast, as noted, the right seems more welcoming to many. Thee right is attracting Zionists as well as conservative Muslims. Many first and second generation immigrants, seeking their own version of the American dream, are attracted to the right's messages. Hell, the right embraced George Santos.
always vote for the candidate who you feel has the best chance of beating the candidate you fear the most.
The fact that a horrible person can even become a candidate is one of the problems with a rigidly bipolar political system. Most people voting out of identity and ritual dislike of the "other", instead of being led by specific policy proposals.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:45 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
This, of course, presupposes that you think (like me) that voting, though essential, is not the most important thing one does in a democracy. It ranks well below things like staying informed, staying conscious, staying involved in the everyday stuff that makes your community actually work, or not. Voting is just a few minutes every one or two or four years.
Except that voting is the one mechanism by which our voices must be heard. My representatives don't have to listen to my calls or read my letters, or even pay attention my needs, but they do have to abide by my vote. If I want to affect change, voting is really the only option the system provides.
If voting isn't the most import way to participate in government, doesn't that just make us all lobbyists with varying degrees of access to our representatives?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:48 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Except that voting is the one mechanism by which our voices must be heard. My representatives don't have to listen to my calls or read my letters, or even pay attention my needs, but they do have to abide by my vote. If I want to affect change, voting is really the only option the system provides.
If voting isn't the most import way to participate in government, doesn't that just make us all lobbyists with varying degrees of access to our representatives?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:48 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
If the furor over past activities suddenly delegitimizes them with their current community, they will seek the same role elsewhere.
This 100% did not happen with Greenwald. Greenwald shifted from the left to the right (yes he was always an asshole), the left didn't get mad at him because of his pro-Iraq war stance back in the day, they got mad because of his current Trump apologia.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:48 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
This 100% did not happen with Greenwald. Greenwald shifted from the left to the right (yes he was always an asshole), the left didn't get mad at him because of his pro-Iraq war stance back in the day, they got mad because of his current Trump apologia.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:48 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Perhaps there's another way of making this argument?
Here's my exceedingly insufficient and milquetoast way of doing so, myself, which I'm embarrassed to even put into print here:
As much as it sickens me to not see Biden doing more to make a ceasefire happen yesterday, I believe that he is at least working behind closed doors to that end. Even if I didn't think that he cares a bit about the atrocities for their own sake (and I believe that he does), I know that, politically speaking, this is one of the worst things that could happen for him right now. It's an absolute seven-ten split for him, electorally, at a particularly bad time for him, and that even in the most cynical view, the sooner some version of peace happens, the better it is for him.
And I believe, with much more evidence even, that Trump would straight-up encourage more genocide. Because that's better for him, and he absolutely 100% does not give a shit about people who aren't himself.
And that's real shitty. Just a terrible argument for getting people to the polls. Absolute dogwater. But that's where I'm at.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
Here's my exceedingly insufficient and milquetoast way of doing so, myself, which I'm embarrassed to even put into print here:
As much as it sickens me to not see Biden doing more to make a ceasefire happen yesterday, I believe that he is at least working behind closed doors to that end. Even if I didn't think that he cares a bit about the atrocities for their own sake (and I believe that he does), I know that, politically speaking, this is one of the worst things that could happen for him right now. It's an absolute seven-ten split for him, electorally, at a particularly bad time for him, and that even in the most cynical view, the sooner some version of peace happens, the better it is for him.
And I believe, with much more evidence even, that Trump would straight-up encourage more genocide. Because that's better for him, and he absolutely 100% does not give a shit about people who aren't himself.
And that's real shitty. Just a terrible argument for getting people to the polls. Absolute dogwater. But that's where I'm at.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [44 favorites]
it's an unfortunate side effect of the left genuinely thinking that all the things matter
The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned.
(I know these are two different comments saying different things, I’m just using them as examples of a overlapping themes)
I do actually believe that exhaustion with the requirement to care about everything all the time is part of what creates a market for, say, the early Red Scare podcast. But that doesn’t really account for who follows them past the point that they are mostly interviewing pseudonymous Twitter racists and who doesn’t.
posted by atoxyl at 10:54 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned.
(I know these are two different comments saying different things, I’m just using them as examples of a overlapping themes)
I do actually believe that exhaustion with the requirement to care about everything all the time is part of what creates a market for, say, the early Red Scare podcast. But that doesn’t really account for who follows them past the point that they are mostly interviewing pseudonymous Twitter racists and who doesn’t.
posted by atoxyl at 10:54 AM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Honestly don’t tell the left about Biden’s secret anti-genocide actions, tell Muslims in Michigan, that is where the problem will be.
(“The Left” will get blamed for any election loss anyway because that is just the default, but reality never supports this.)
posted by Artw at 11:07 AM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
(“The Left” will get blamed for any election loss anyway because that is just the default, but reality never supports this.)
posted by Artw at 11:07 AM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity.
See also the Bolshevik revolution.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
See also the Bolshevik revolution.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:08 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think what really sets fascists apart is the desire to submit their will to the Will of the Powerful Leader.
Not to have any more doubts, not to be tortured by ambiguities and uncertainty, not to be out in the cold by yourself but to be enfolded by the Truth and feel your voice amplified by the voices of thousands of like mindless others as you all shout in unison.
Look at Lindsey Graham, for example, he's ten times as smart as the 'stable genius' who can’t even hold a candle to Mr. Ed, but he pisses himself every time he hears his master's voice..
I see Greenwald in a very similar light, but I believe the Will he is in thrall to is not Trump's but Putin’s.
And men are more likely to fall prey to this syndrome than women are, in my opinion, which is one reason I tend to prefer leadership by women at all levels of society.
The best introduction to this approach to Fascism is Susan Sontag's great takedown of Leni Riefenstahl, more revelant as well as relevant now than the day it was written, and immensely powerful and savage.
And for people who think they’re immune, I always ask how they reacted to the character arc of Aragorn in LOTR, because if you were thrilled and moved by that — as I was, for example — I think you are vulnerable.
posted by jamjam at 11:16 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Not to have any more doubts, not to be tortured by ambiguities and uncertainty, not to be out in the cold by yourself but to be enfolded by the Truth and feel your voice amplified by the voices of thousands of like mindless others as you all shout in unison.
Look at Lindsey Graham, for example, he's ten times as smart as the 'stable genius' who can’t even hold a candle to Mr. Ed, but he pisses himself every time he hears his master's voice..
I see Greenwald in a very similar light, but I believe the Will he is in thrall to is not Trump's but Putin’s.
And men are more likely to fall prey to this syndrome than women are, in my opinion, which is one reason I tend to prefer leadership by women at all levels of society.
The best introduction to this approach to Fascism is Susan Sontag's great takedown of Leni Riefenstahl, more revelant as well as relevant now than the day it was written, and immensely powerful and savage.
And for people who think they’re immune, I always ask how they reacted to the character arc of Aragorn in LOTR, because if you were thrilled and moved by that — as I was, for example — I think you are vulnerable.
posted by jamjam at 11:16 AM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
When the day eventually comes, the “vampire squid relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”— Taibbi’s unforgettable embodiment of Goldman Sachs in a 2010 article—will haunt his obituary.
This is a terrible comparison. Vampire squids are quiet, depth-dwelling cephalopods which just feed on the detritus and "marine snow" falling from above. They are nothing as bad as an investment bank.
yes, I know - the illusion is also probably antisemitic, but (even as a Jew), I'm more offended by the terrible misunderstanding of a cool cephalopod.
posted by jb at 11:18 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
This is a terrible comparison. Vampire squids are quiet, depth-dwelling cephalopods which just feed on the detritus and "marine snow" falling from above. They are nothing as bad as an investment bank.
yes, I know - the illusion is also probably antisemitic, but (even as a Jew), I'm more offended by the terrible misunderstanding of a cool cephalopod.
posted by jb at 11:18 AM on December 13, 2023 [23 favorites]
I remember noticing this with Berke Breathed and Bloom County and also with Doonesbury
Did these cartoonists really move to the right? I recall their strips being dropped from several newspapers in Southern states, and successfully censored by threat of legal action -- even recently when Berke came out of retirement to lampoon TFG. Every time Trudeau tries to discuss abortion he gets moved to the op-ed page.
posted by credulous at 11:22 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Did these cartoonists really move to the right? I recall their strips being dropped from several newspapers in Southern states, and successfully censored by threat of legal action -- even recently when Berke came out of retirement to lampoon TFG. Every time Trudeau tries to discuss abortion he gets moved to the op-ed page.
posted by credulous at 11:22 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
>Perhaps there's another way of making this argument?
Nope, everyone’s gotta intelligently pick their own poison.
/Cue the Rush lyric
posted by torokunai at 11:24 AM on December 13, 2023
Nope, everyone’s gotta intelligently pick their own poison.
/Cue the Rush lyric
posted by torokunai at 11:24 AM on December 13, 2023
> I have seen this happen to two acquaintances. For one, the issue was gun control , and for the other the issue was “critical race theory” via the breathless far-right narrative that zOMG white school children are being taught to be ashamed of being white. Neither of these guys were ever leftists, but they were dependable Obama voting Democrats who have now been reduced to gibbering about wokeness and Hunter Biden’s laptop and rigged elections. Their brains have been fully broken.
> ... I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity. The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned.
I'm sorry, what? How are your friends an example of the left "ejecting" people for holding a single repugnant view?
1) You note that neither of them were ever leftists
2) You make no mention of how the left excluded them, or demanded total ideological purity of them, or ejected them
3) On the contrary, you explicitly say that they went voluntarily rightward based on one single issue each.... which means THEY were incapable of tolerating a single difference on one single issue from Democrats towards themselves? Like, according to you, they agreed with Dems on literally everything except that one thing, and that one dissension caused them to quit the whole camp? Doesn't that make YOUR FRIENDS the weirdly inconsistent ideological purists (in that they apply ideological purity only towards Democrats)?
My sister used to play a silly game when we both were children, where she would slap me on the thigh repeatedly and say, "Hey! Stop slapping me! Hahahaha!" <---- that's what this whole comment was, except it's not a game and nobody's laughing. It's pure gaslighting. Jesus.
posted by MiraK at 11:24 AM on December 13, 2023 [38 favorites]
> ... I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity. The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned.
I'm sorry, what? How are your friends an example of the left "ejecting" people for holding a single repugnant view?
1) You note that neither of them were ever leftists
2) You make no mention of how the left excluded them, or demanded total ideological purity of them, or ejected them
3) On the contrary, you explicitly say that they went voluntarily rightward based on one single issue each.... which means THEY were incapable of tolerating a single difference on one single issue from Democrats towards themselves? Like, according to you, they agreed with Dems on literally everything except that one thing, and that one dissension caused them to quit the whole camp? Doesn't that make YOUR FRIENDS the weirdly inconsistent ideological purists (in that they apply ideological purity only towards Democrats)?
My sister used to play a silly game when we both were children, where she would slap me on the thigh repeatedly and say, "Hey! Stop slapping me! Hahahaha!" <---- that's what this whole comment was, except it's not a game and nobody's laughing. It's pure gaslighting. Jesus.
posted by MiraK at 11:24 AM on December 13, 2023 [38 favorites]
Just stop. However imperfect the Dems may be, doing anything that makes it more likely that the Republicans will come to power is aiding and abetting genocide right here at home—and I say this as someone who loathes the Israeli Apartheid State and its stranglehold on our politics. It's not conscience; it's pure selfishness.
I'll try to use this line on my Palestinian-American friends! You're selfish for not voting for the guy aiding and abetting the murders of your cousins and grandparents back home because otherwise you're doing a genocide here or something.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:25 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'll try to use this line on my Palestinian-American friends! You're selfish for not voting for the guy aiding and abetting the murders of your cousins and grandparents back home because otherwise you're doing a genocide here or something.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:25 AM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
Honestly don’t tell the left about Biden’s secret anti-genocide actions, tell Muslims in Michigan, that is where the problem will be.
Also just a reminder that leftist Muslims exist! Including in Michigan. Framing them as some neublous 'other' is not great.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
Also just a reminder that leftist Muslims exist! Including in Michigan. Framing them as some neublous 'other' is not great.
posted by armadillo1224 at 11:27 AM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
But I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity.
This is only coherent if you think of "left" primarily as an identity, rather than a basket of socioeconomic policies or philosophies, which is basically to say: you're probably projecting.
Look, it doesn't matter how mean people are to me, I'm not going to stop believing in free health care, racial equality or radically-progressive taxation. I don't believe those things because I am "left," I am left because I believe those things.
I also believe things that don't fit neatly into the basket called "left," and sometimes (often) I say things that are contradictory or offensive to some people who hold roughly the same positions I do. Sometimes it turns out that I am wrong, sometimes it turns out that I believe I'm right. Some people might say those things invalidate my membership in the club, but that's OK, because there is no club. Identity as a political force is largely the purview of the right, and I do not belong to the right because my beliefs do not fit into the basket marked "right."
And I'm not so emotionally unregulated that I'm going to abandon my own worldview and join the fascists just because some rando on the internet thinks my non-membership in an imaginary club should be rescinded. The only people who would do that are already primarily driven by identity and probably just confused about which club they belonged to all along.
posted by klanawa at 11:30 AM on December 13, 2023 [45 favorites]
This is only coherent if you think of "left" primarily as an identity, rather than a basket of socioeconomic policies or philosophies, which is basically to say: you're probably projecting.
Look, it doesn't matter how mean people are to me, I'm not going to stop believing in free health care, racial equality or radically-progressive taxation. I don't believe those things because I am "left," I am left because I believe those things.
I also believe things that don't fit neatly into the basket called "left," and sometimes (often) I say things that are contradictory or offensive to some people who hold roughly the same positions I do. Sometimes it turns out that I am wrong, sometimes it turns out that I believe I'm right. Some people might say those things invalidate my membership in the club, but that's OK, because there is no club. Identity as a political force is largely the purview of the right, and I do not belong to the right because my beliefs do not fit into the basket marked "right."
And I'm not so emotionally unregulated that I'm going to abandon my own worldview and join the fascists just because some rando on the internet thinks my non-membership in an imaginary club should be rescinded. The only people who would do that are already primarily driven by identity and probably just confused about which club they belonged to all along.
posted by klanawa at 11:30 AM on December 13, 2023 [45 favorites]
This is actually a great thread with a lot of good pulling-apart of the left-to-right media phenomena. To provide a counterexample, though, I wanted to put this testimony here (a recent diary entry from Daily Kos.)
It's the first-hand and admittedly anecdotal account of an ordinary guy who reconsidered his own conservative beliefs. Years later, he found that his friend, who he had known from their conservative church, had also reconsidered his:...
1) People do move left-to-right, but they also move right-to-left. I think famous people—for some values of fame—have more trouble going right-to-left because they have a much longer paper trail; someone like Liz Cheney might get some additional respect from the left, but it's going to be a long time before Democrats forget that while we agree with her on issues of rule of law, we disagree with her on virtually every other policy issue.
This doesn't really matter moving left-to-right, as a number of people have pointed out, right-wing ideology is mostly a fig leaf over a power grab. Nobody really needs you to agree on policy until you've got the levers of government firmly in hand (and then, as we've seen in the Republican-controlled House, the knives do come out.)
Not-famous people have an easier (if not easy,) time refuting their previous beliefs because they're not famous. They don't rely on professing their beliefs to make a living. They can change their minds and the only ones they are answerable to are friends and family. They don't need fellowships or column inches or talking-head jobs.
2) In the case of the guy at Daily Kos and his friend, it's a relationship with their kids that's the deciding factor. It's my relationship to my children that's pulled me farther to the left, too. It's easier (if not easy,) to change your life and your beliefs for your kids than it is for an abstract idea of social justice or fairness. People have said that the success of the LGBTQ movement lies in part on the fact that LGBTQ children appear in every family. I think this factor applies to other political movements, too.
3) This guy who refuted his previous conservative beliefs strikes me as a little hyperbolic, but overall pretty humble. As many people have noted, writers, podcasters and media celebrities are not, as a whole, all that humble. Narcissism will pull you to the point of greatest praise and attention, politics be damned.
And finally, I wanted to note that while right-wing movements have been accelerating in recent years, they don't necessarily represent majorities. Certainly in the US, the far / radical right has done amazing work mobilizing and co-opting the Republican party, but if anything, it's shrunk the base. There are more people who are compassionate, who prefer the law to lawlessness and who think fairness is a virtue, than not. The last two election cycles actually demonstrated this; Republicans, by all reasonable measures, should hold the presidency and the House and Senate. They don't because people see these schmucks for who they are.
Seeing some big names flop around (and, frankly, become a lot less interesting) when they decide to make the switch from team human to team murder shouldn't demoralize us. It should remind us that celebrity is something we give to people, and something we can take away from them, too. They're picking a loser, and it's our job to make them lose.
posted by Playdoughnails at 11:30 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
It's the first-hand and admittedly anecdotal account of an ordinary guy who reconsidered his own conservative beliefs. Years later, he found that his friend, who he had known from their conservative church, had also reconsidered his:
Ultimately, my own children (as older teens and adults) convinced me how wrong I was to tacitly support such (a) unkind and (b) holier-than-thou attitudes.
I was overjoyed to find out that my friend, the husband, had begun his journey into the light too...I think this points to a couple things.
Separately, his kids had said, “Dad, why are you unable to see that your Bible study friends are not making good choices with their politics?” (Cue the Law and Order Sound Effect, “dun dun”.)
1) People do move left-to-right, but they also move right-to-left. I think famous people—for some values of fame—have more trouble going right-to-left because they have a much longer paper trail; someone like Liz Cheney might get some additional respect from the left, but it's going to be a long time before Democrats forget that while we agree with her on issues of rule of law, we disagree with her on virtually every other policy issue.
This doesn't really matter moving left-to-right, as a number of people have pointed out, right-wing ideology is mostly a fig leaf over a power grab. Nobody really needs you to agree on policy until you've got the levers of government firmly in hand (and then, as we've seen in the Republican-controlled House, the knives do come out.)
Not-famous people have an easier (if not easy,) time refuting their previous beliefs because they're not famous. They don't rely on professing their beliefs to make a living. They can change their minds and the only ones they are answerable to are friends and family. They don't need fellowships or column inches or talking-head jobs.
2) In the case of the guy at Daily Kos and his friend, it's a relationship with their kids that's the deciding factor. It's my relationship to my children that's pulled me farther to the left, too. It's easier (if not easy,) to change your life and your beliefs for your kids than it is for an abstract idea of social justice or fairness. People have said that the success of the LGBTQ movement lies in part on the fact that LGBTQ children appear in every family. I think this factor applies to other political movements, too.
3) This guy who refuted his previous conservative beliefs strikes me as a little hyperbolic, but overall pretty humble. As many people have noted, writers, podcasters and media celebrities are not, as a whole, all that humble. Narcissism will pull you to the point of greatest praise and attention, politics be damned.
And finally, I wanted to note that while right-wing movements have been accelerating in recent years, they don't necessarily represent majorities. Certainly in the US, the far / radical right has done amazing work mobilizing and co-opting the Republican party, but if anything, it's shrunk the base. There are more people who are compassionate, who prefer the law to lawlessness and who think fairness is a virtue, than not. The last two election cycles actually demonstrated this; Republicans, by all reasonable measures, should hold the presidency and the House and Senate. They don't because people see these schmucks for who they are.
Seeing some big names flop around (and, frankly, become a lot less interesting) when they decide to make the switch from team human to team murder shouldn't demoralize us. It should remind us that celebrity is something we give to people, and something we can take away from them, too. They're picking a loser, and it's our job to make them lose.
posted by Playdoughnails at 11:30 AM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Young Turks.
concerning greenwald, I've always found this comment to be most enlightening.
posted by clavdivs at 11:35 AM on December 13, 2023
concerning greenwald, I've always found this comment to be most enlightening.
posted by clavdivs at 11:35 AM on December 13, 2023
Serious people learn from their mistakes and rectify their areas of ignorance. Narcissists look for somewhere they can go unchallenged.
I think the recent HBomberGuy video on Plagiarism and You(Tube) post makes a great argument for letting these toxic people go/kicking them out of leftist spaces: how many LGBT writers were overlooked because the more popular James Somerton built his audience by plagiarizing them?
James Somerton absolutely will try to make a comeback as a right-wing grifter who was "cancelled by the left" because he's chasing status, money, and a place where he isn't challenged. His pipeline will be greased by his misogyny and, uh, literal sympathizing of the Nazis.
Well, he'll come back if he has any talent that isn't based on reading other people's words. (Maybe he doesn't have any talent: ex-Google engineer James Damore had a perfect moment to become a "Jordan Peterson of Silicon Valley" figure after he was fired but he didn't know how/want to play the media game.)
Will we lament the "loss" of Somerton because HBomberGuy participated in a "circular firing squad" that got him "cancelled"? If we don't overlook Somerton's lengthy history of constant stealing and give him a 72nd chance, are we letting "perfect be the enemy of good"?
posted by AlSweigart at 11:39 AM on December 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
I think the recent HBomberGuy video on Plagiarism and You(Tube) post makes a great argument for letting these toxic people go/kicking them out of leftist spaces: how many LGBT writers were overlooked because the more popular James Somerton built his audience by plagiarizing them?
James Somerton absolutely will try to make a comeback as a right-wing grifter who was "cancelled by the left" because he's chasing status, money, and a place where he isn't challenged. His pipeline will be greased by his misogyny and, uh, literal sympathizing of the Nazis.
Well, he'll come back if he has any talent that isn't based on reading other people's words. (Maybe he doesn't have any talent: ex-Google engineer James Damore had a perfect moment to become a "Jordan Peterson of Silicon Valley" figure after he was fired but he didn't know how/want to play the media game.)
Will we lament the "loss" of Somerton because HBomberGuy participated in a "circular firing squad" that got him "cancelled"? If we don't overlook Somerton's lengthy history of constant stealing and give him a 72nd chance, are we letting "perfect be the enemy of good"?
posted by AlSweigart at 11:39 AM on December 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
But I’d say this illustrates a real problem with today’s left: the requirement for total ideological purity.
Bullshit. The idea that people on the left should, as a matter of course, be opposed to bigotry of all stripes is not "total ideological purity", and the idea that it is winds up being an argument that those impacted by bigotry are obliged to "take one for the team", as it were.
Greenwald and Taibbi are horrible examples, but let me draw out a couple that are directly relevant (and whose errors have been litigated quite vitriolically here as well as elsewhere). If the left doesn't have a serious problem with the requirement of ideological purity enforced by the same kinds of threats and harassment the right loves to wield, I'd like to know where the experiences of Linsday Ellis and Natalie Wynn fit in.
posted by tclark at 11:40 AM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
Bullshit. The idea that people on the left should, as a matter of course, be opposed to bigotry of all stripes is not "total ideological purity", and the idea that it is winds up being an argument that those impacted by bigotry are obliged to "take one for the team", as it were.
Greenwald and Taibbi are horrible examples, but let me draw out a couple that are directly relevant (and whose errors have been litigated quite vitriolically here as well as elsewhere). If the left doesn't have a serious problem with the requirement of ideological purity enforced by the same kinds of threats and harassment the right loves to wield, I'd like to know where the experiences of Linsday Ellis and Natalie Wynn fit in.
posted by tclark at 11:40 AM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
One point of curiosity, for those who see the problem on the left as a circular firing squad over beliefs, and for those who are certain that is not a factor: What is, like, the minimum credo you require, to consider someone a leftist? Is there such a thing? Is it a really long list? What's everyone worried about getting canceled over?
posted by mittens at 11:42 AM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by mittens at 11:42 AM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Possibly it is less “ideological purity” and more “detecting bad actors” in most of these cases.
Not a right wing problem as they are entirely composed of bad actors.
posted by Artw at 11:42 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
Not a right wing problem as they are entirely composed of bad actors.
posted by Artw at 11:42 AM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
If folks are feeling masochistic, you can check out the lengthy "you're doing it wrong" discussions (for better or for worse) from previous MeFi posts, A Eulogy for Occupy and Recycling and other myths about tackling climate change.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:45 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 11:45 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
> I'd like to know where the experiences of Linsday Ellis and Natalie Wynn fit in.
I'm sure they have harassers on the left, but they're famously targeted by the 4chan/Kiwifarms/Gamergate crowd. In which case, it's telling that the left-wing harassers are the type of leftists that are allied with the far-right.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
I'm sure they have harassers on the left, but they're famously targeted by the 4chan/Kiwifarms/Gamergate crowd. In which case, it's telling that the left-wing harassers are the type of leftists that are allied with the far-right.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
are lindsay ellis and natalie wynn working for the right wing?
and how does this argue against the fact that often times the claims of "ideological purity" do revolve around a marginalized group pointing out a bigotry and then told to just take one for the team, or that now is not the time, or that it could be worse and scraps are better than nothing?
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
and how does this argue against the fact that often times the claims of "ideological purity" do revolve around a marginalized group pointing out a bigotry and then told to just take one for the team, or that now is not the time, or that it could be worse and scraps are better than nothing?
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:49 AM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
And for people who think they’re immune, I always ask how they reacted to the character arc of Aragorn in LOTR
Sorry I need to know.
Book-Aragorn or Movie-Aragorn?
posted by Zumbador at 11:50 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
I'm sure they have harassers on the left, but they're famously targeted by the 4chan/Kiwifarms/Gamergate crowd.
It wasn't the griefers on the right that drove them basically entirely offline. It was the people on the left that decided that no matter what apologies and changes to behavior were forthcoming, there was no way they'd be forgiven for their errors.
posted by tclark at 11:51 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
It wasn't the griefers on the right that drove them basically entirely offline. It was the people on the left that decided that no matter what apologies and changes to behavior were forthcoming, there was no way they'd be forgiven for their errors.
posted by tclark at 11:51 AM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
"all it takes for a liberal to become a conservative is to go twenty years without changing a single idea"
This seems like an important part of the dynamic. Some of what we're seeing is the fruit of progressive cultural victories.
When the Democratic Party embraced some anti-racist policies, they lost a lot of racists, but homophobes were still welcome. When the Democratic Party started supporting same-sex marriage, they lost some homophobes, but many transphobes still felt comfortable. Now that the Democratic Party has taken some steps to support the rights of transgender people, they've lost some transphobes.
But, crucially, many people actually changed their minds and their policies instead of switching sides. Obama was elected opposing legalization of same-sex marriage but was unambiguously in favor of it before he left office.
Yes, when the culture moves left, some people will decide they have more in common now with conservatives, but I don't think the culture moves left without some people changing their minds. It's definitely possible for people to recognize they were wrong about they way they treated women and decide to do better.
I think we need to be explicit that a key part of what it means to be progressive is to believe there's injustices I haven't noticed yet and that it's good news to discover these things and to have the opportunity to take part in changes that make lives better.
Imagine you could make someone's life better just by using pronouns a little differently. Wouldn't that be amazing?
posted by straight at 11:52 AM on December 13, 2023 [36 favorites]
This seems like an important part of the dynamic. Some of what we're seeing is the fruit of progressive cultural victories.
When the Democratic Party embraced some anti-racist policies, they lost a lot of racists, but homophobes were still welcome. When the Democratic Party started supporting same-sex marriage, they lost some homophobes, but many transphobes still felt comfortable. Now that the Democratic Party has taken some steps to support the rights of transgender people, they've lost some transphobes.
But, crucially, many people actually changed their minds and their policies instead of switching sides. Obama was elected opposing legalization of same-sex marriage but was unambiguously in favor of it before he left office.
Yes, when the culture moves left, some people will decide they have more in common now with conservatives, but I don't think the culture moves left without some people changing their minds. It's definitely possible for people to recognize they were wrong about they way they treated women and decide to do better.
I think we need to be explicit that a key part of what it means to be progressive is to believe there's injustices I haven't noticed yet and that it's good news to discover these things and to have the opportunity to take part in changes that make lives better.
Imagine you could make someone's life better just by using pronouns a little differently. Wouldn't that be amazing?
posted by straight at 11:52 AM on December 13, 2023 [36 favorites]
are lindsay ellis and natalie wynn working for the right wing?
Because Ellis and Wynn aren't chumming it up with the far-right crowd, now the left doesn't have a serious problem with harassment and threats in pursuit of ideological purity? It's OK to harass them offline because they won't switch sides?
posted by tclark at 11:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Because Ellis and Wynn aren't chumming it up with the far-right crowd, now the left doesn't have a serious problem with harassment and threats in pursuit of ideological purity? It's OK to harass them offline because they won't switch sides?
posted by tclark at 11:53 AM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
someone like Liz Cheney might get some additional respect from the left, but it's going to be a long time before Democrats forget that while we agree with her on issues of rule of law, we disagree with her on virtually every other policy issue.
I can respect people I disagree with, and even sometimes don't respect people I do agree with on many issues. But over the past 8 years or so (and this is the culmination of a longer process), the respectable conservatives have had their party usurped by Trump and his lackeys.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:56 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I can respect people I disagree with, and even sometimes don't respect people I do agree with on many issues. But over the past 8 years or so (and this is the culmination of a longer process), the respectable conservatives have had their party usurped by Trump and his lackeys.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:56 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Because Ellis and Wynn aren't chumming it up with the far-right crowd, now the left doesn't have a serious problem with harassment and threats in pursuit of ideological purity? It's OK to harass them offline because they won't switch sides?
No, it's not okay, but it's also a bit unrelated to the issue of the "left to right pipeline" and a good counter-example to the idea that bullying or harassment is what drives otherwise leftists to be right wing.
posted by Dysk at 11:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
No, it's not okay, but it's also a bit unrelated to the issue of the "left to right pipeline" and a good counter-example to the idea that bullying or harassment is what drives otherwise leftists to be right wing.
posted by Dysk at 11:59 AM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
My guess is that those that most of those made this circular, or at least 180 degree, jerk are those that started off privileged. I've found that there are those who are privileged who deign to become liberal or bowing to the needs of the underprivileged as long as they see the underprivileged as being grateful enough for their given attention.
The moment they realize that the poor are not enthralled by the wonderment of their generosity they feel spurned.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:06 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
The moment they realize that the poor are not enthralled by the wonderment of their generosity they feel spurned.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 12:06 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Like, bullying and harassment is a real problem, but it's not the reason why the "right to left pipeline" exists. The "right to left pipeline" is a product of allies of convenience no longer finding an alliance convenient. People who actually believe in leftist values don't suddenly abandon them when they get pushback, not even when they get bullied and harassed to the point they can no longer participate in public life. Clearly Wynn and Ellis are actual decent people, with actual decent values. Taibbi, for example, is not and was not.
posted by Dysk at 12:07 PM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 12:07 PM on December 13, 2023 [11 favorites]
(Err, "left to right pipeline" I mean, not the reverse. Can I blame my dyslexic inability to tell right from left here? :P)
posted by Dysk at 12:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 12:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Because Ellis and Wynn aren't chumming it up with the far-right crowd, now the left doesn't have a serious problem with harassment and threats in pursuit of ideological purity? It's OK to harass them offline because they won't switch sides?
I don't want to ignore this point, because as these examples point out, this absolutely does happen (I'm not familiar with Natalie Wynn but after the HBomberGuy thread I'm curious about checking out ContraPoints. I'm fairly familiar with how the shit with Lindsay Ellis went down, and that was ugly.*) There are leftists - and I think this is particularly a thing among very-online, college-aged-and-younger leftists, but not exclusively - to get wrapped up in the drama around a take-down. Hell, I'm in my forties and not nearly as online as a lot of people, and I got wrapped up in the James Somerton drama this past week. Self-righteous GRAR is fun and seductive and on the internet nobody knows you're a human.
But, to belabor a point others have made already, Lindsay Ellis didn't shift even with the harassment (and I suspect neither did Natalie Wynn.) They weren't performing beliefs. They are who they are and remained that way even while caught in the crossfire of ugly backlash coming from people who generally agree with them politically. So I think their "place" in this is to show that shifting rightward due to a circular firing squad is not inevitable, but rather points towards certain media personalities caring more about attention than purported values.
Or maybe Ellis and Wynn are just spectacular individuals better able to withstand the heat and maintain their convictions than the average bear. That's certainly possible.
*By my understanding, she said something dismissive of Raya and the Last Dragon, which caught her heat from people feeling that she was dismissing Asian narratives and representation generally, and then folks piled on her apology as being insulting or inadequate or both, when reading her just a little more generously would have revealed the whole thing as a nothingburger, but by the time the knives were out folks were invested. I might be wrong about that, though, and am happy to be corrected.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:16 PM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
I don't want to ignore this point, because as these examples point out, this absolutely does happen (I'm not familiar with Natalie Wynn but after the HBomberGuy thread I'm curious about checking out ContraPoints. I'm fairly familiar with how the shit with Lindsay Ellis went down, and that was ugly.*) There are leftists - and I think this is particularly a thing among very-online, college-aged-and-younger leftists, but not exclusively - to get wrapped up in the drama around a take-down. Hell, I'm in my forties and not nearly as online as a lot of people, and I got wrapped up in the James Somerton drama this past week. Self-righteous GRAR is fun and seductive and on the internet nobody knows you're a human.
But, to belabor a point others have made already, Lindsay Ellis didn't shift even with the harassment (and I suspect neither did Natalie Wynn.) They weren't performing beliefs. They are who they are and remained that way even while caught in the crossfire of ugly backlash coming from people who generally agree with them politically. So I think their "place" in this is to show that shifting rightward due to a circular firing squad is not inevitable, but rather points towards certain media personalities caring more about attention than purported values.
Or maybe Ellis and Wynn are just spectacular individuals better able to withstand the heat and maintain their convictions than the average bear. That's certainly possible.
*By my understanding, she said something dismissive of Raya and the Last Dragon, which caught her heat from people feeling that she was dismissing Asian narratives and representation generally, and then folks piled on her apology as being insulting or inadequate or both, when reading her just a little more generously would have revealed the whole thing as a nothingburger, but by the time the knives were out folks were invested. I might be wrong about that, though, and am happy to be corrected.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:16 PM on December 13, 2023 [19 favorites]
Adding my chagrin and embarrassment to the chorus lamenting how often I've screwed up Naomi Klein with Naomi Wolf. I think there is something in my brain that flags people who reach a large audience with interesting ideas and I need to clean the cobwebs out more often.
This is an interesting piece in TNR about the mix-up. And it comes with a mnemonic!
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:21 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
This is an interesting piece in TNR about the mix-up. And it comes with a mnemonic!
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:21 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Because Ellis and Wynn aren't chumming it up with the far-right crowd, now the left doesn't have a serious problem with harassment and threats in pursuit of ideological purity? It's OK to harass them offline because they won't switch sides?
didn't say any of that, just asked how this argues against the second line of my comment, which i see you just kindly ignored. but yes, i will disavow harassment and threats, just to continue the conversation.
to ask again: how do leftist harassment and threats argue against the fact that often times the claims of "ideological purity" by critics of the left revolve around situations where a marginalized group points out a bigotry and then is told to just take one for the team, or that now is not the time, or that it could be worse and scraps are better than nothing?
posted by i used to be someone else at 12:26 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
didn't say any of that, just asked how this argues against the second line of my comment, which i see you just kindly ignored. but yes, i will disavow harassment and threats, just to continue the conversation.
to ask again: how do leftist harassment and threats argue against the fact that often times the claims of "ideological purity" by critics of the left revolve around situations where a marginalized group points out a bigotry and then is told to just take one for the team, or that now is not the time, or that it could be worse and scraps are better than nothing?
posted by i used to be someone else at 12:26 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
It was the people on the left that decided that no matter what apologies and changes to behavior were forthcoming, there was no way they'd be forgiven for their errors.
In regards to Ellis, my take on that was that she never actually addressed the reason that AAPI creators found her comment so problematic with regards to framing their work through a lens of white creators, and actually doubled down on her position while ignoring how badly sourced it was, as well as it being part of a larger issue with Western media critics bringing an overly Western focus on media created by non-Western creators. And no, she did not deserve the abuse she got at all - but the argument that "nobody was accepting apologies or changes to behavior", at least to me, runs counter to her actual position.
By my understanding, she said something dismissive of Raya and the Last Dragon, which caught her heat from people feeling that she was dismissing Asian narratives and representation generally,
It wasn't that she said something dismissive, but tried to argue that Raya was derivative of the Western-created Avatar: The Last Airbender, which had AAPI creators upset at work produced by those in that community framed through a Western lens and called derivative of a Western work. It also showed a lack of awareness about the crosstalk between Western and Eastern animation, particularly at the turn of the millenium when anime was seeing a boom on Western TV (and American TV in particular), and (as mentioned above) was part of a larger issue in Western media criticism regarding viewing non-Western media and creators through an overly Western lens. A lot of the "nothingburger" arguments, at least to me, really didn't grapple with the content or context of the criticism being leveled.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:33 PM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
In regards to Ellis, my take on that was that she never actually addressed the reason that AAPI creators found her comment so problematic with regards to framing their work through a lens of white creators, and actually doubled down on her position while ignoring how badly sourced it was, as well as it being part of a larger issue with Western media critics bringing an overly Western focus on media created by non-Western creators. And no, she did not deserve the abuse she got at all - but the argument that "nobody was accepting apologies or changes to behavior", at least to me, runs counter to her actual position.
By my understanding, she said something dismissive of Raya and the Last Dragon, which caught her heat from people feeling that she was dismissing Asian narratives and representation generally,
It wasn't that she said something dismissive, but tried to argue that Raya was derivative of the Western-created Avatar: The Last Airbender, which had AAPI creators upset at work produced by those in that community framed through a Western lens and called derivative of a Western work. It also showed a lack of awareness about the crosstalk between Western and Eastern animation, particularly at the turn of the millenium when anime was seeing a boom on Western TV (and American TV in particular), and (as mentioned above) was part of a larger issue in Western media criticism regarding viewing non-Western media and creators through an overly Western lens. A lot of the "nothingburger" arguments, at least to me, really didn't grapple with the content or context of the criticism being leveled.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:33 PM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
> There's some plausible right --> left examples: Bill Kristol, George Conway, Jennifer Rubin.
Somebody also mentioned Liz Cheney. But these people aren't right->left converts, I don't think. I doubt there's a one of them who would say "Ds were right all along about affirmative action/abortion availability/socialized healthcare/taxing the rich instead of cutting benefits." In the case of Rubin she jumped ship from the R Party because she has loyalties as an American citizen that she realizes are not consistent with trying to advance the R Party politically. But I don't see her calling for an expanded welfare state, raising the FICA exemption ceiling to stabilize social security, ditching the Hyde Amendment, repealing Taft-Hartley, any of that. IDK about Kristol and Conway, I haven't paid much attention to them.
As for Liz Cheney. She is not close to being an ally. She's a fellow traveler, if she can help put the genie the Rs released back into the bottle. But she bears responsibility for having helped open the bottle, and I have yet to hear any acknowledgement about that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:34 PM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
Somebody also mentioned Liz Cheney. But these people aren't right->left converts, I don't think. I doubt there's a one of them who would say "Ds were right all along about affirmative action/abortion availability/socialized healthcare/taxing the rich instead of cutting benefits." In the case of Rubin she jumped ship from the R Party because she has loyalties as an American citizen that she realizes are not consistent with trying to advance the R Party politically. But I don't see her calling for an expanded welfare state, raising the FICA exemption ceiling to stabilize social security, ditching the Hyde Amendment, repealing Taft-Hartley, any of that. IDK about Kristol and Conway, I haven't paid much attention to them.
As for Liz Cheney. She is not close to being an ally. She's a fellow traveler, if she can help put the genie the Rs released back into the bottle. But she bears responsibility for having helped open the bottle, and I have yet to hear any acknowledgement about that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 12:34 PM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
Shit, I am guilty of confusing Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf and I should probably read Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
She's offering 2 chapters of this book free on her website!
posted by thoughtful_jester at 12:36 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
She's offering 2 chapters of this book free on her website!
posted by thoughtful_jester at 12:36 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
It wasn't that she said something dismissive, but tried to argue that Raya was derivative of the Western-created Avatar: The Last Airbender, which had AAPI creators upset at work produced by those in that community framed through a Western lens and called derivative of a Western work. It also showed a lack of awareness about the crosstalk between Western and Eastern animation, particularly at the turn of the millenium when anime was seeing a boom on Western TV (and American TV in particular), and (as mentioned above) was part of a larger issue in Western media criticism regarding viewing non-Western media and creators through an overly Western lens. A lot of the "nothingburger" arguments, at least to me, really didn't grapple with the content or context of the criticism being leveled.
Thank you for this! This is elucidating.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:38 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Thank you for this! This is elucidating.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:38 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
And for people who think they’re immune, I always ask how they reacted to the character arc of Aragorn in LOTR, because if you were thrilled and moved by that — as I was, for example — I think you are vulnerable.
Lord of the Rings had a lot of stuff about it we would think of as problematic today. Literally all of the stuff about Numenorian blood vs. regular "weak" humans, etc. I can enjoy the story while fully recognizing that.
But it's not like Gondor was a free, democratic society and along comes this charismatic "rightful king" to impose his authoritarian rule, which involves openly oppressing women and kicking out everyone with too much Rohan blood. Gondor was a kingdom which, temporarily, had been ruled by a non-royal but still very much authoritarian hereditary figure.
There's also quite a difference between cheering for the victory of the Obvious Good Guy in a work of fiction that is almost completely devoid of any nuance where it comes to right and wrong, and actual real-world politics.
posted by Foosnark at 12:38 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Lord of the Rings had a lot of stuff about it we would think of as problematic today. Literally all of the stuff about Numenorian blood vs. regular "weak" humans, etc. I can enjoy the story while fully recognizing that.
But it's not like Gondor was a free, democratic society and along comes this charismatic "rightful king" to impose his authoritarian rule, which involves openly oppressing women and kicking out everyone with too much Rohan blood. Gondor was a kingdom which, temporarily, had been ruled by a non-royal but still very much authoritarian hereditary figure.
There's also quite a difference between cheering for the victory of the Obvious Good Guy in a work of fiction that is almost completely devoid of any nuance where it comes to right and wrong, and actual real-world politics.
posted by Foosnark at 12:38 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
People who actually believe in leftist values don't suddenly abandon them when they get pushback
I think this is mostly right - people are using terms like “getting ejected” a lot, but literally getting ejected mostly just happens when you’re a member of a close-knit organization. Getting harassed happens, but mostly to public figures, and it seems more common for people to burn out as a result rather than running hard to the other side. I don’t know that either of these quite describes the median case of tension within the Left, especially if we’re counting online as part of the “movement” and I don’t think they represent the core cause of people making the journey all the way across the spectrum.
On the other hand I think there’s a real issue that a number of people on the activist Left, especially online people, just don’t even seem to know what to do with somebody who legitimately does care about unions, but not so much about non-stigmatizing language for sex work, to steal the earlier example. That’s totally a real person! What that person does and doesn’t care about may be determined by what affects them personally, but self-interest is a pretty important factor in politics. If you can’t rally a disparate group of people behind a cause in which they have a shared interest, you aren’t doing very well at politicking.
posted by atoxyl at 12:39 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
I think this is mostly right - people are using terms like “getting ejected” a lot, but literally getting ejected mostly just happens when you’re a member of a close-knit organization. Getting harassed happens, but mostly to public figures, and it seems more common for people to burn out as a result rather than running hard to the other side. I don’t know that either of these quite describes the median case of tension within the Left, especially if we’re counting online as part of the “movement” and I don’t think they represent the core cause of people making the journey all the way across the spectrum.
On the other hand I think there’s a real issue that a number of people on the activist Left, especially online people, just don’t even seem to know what to do with somebody who legitimately does care about unions, but not so much about non-stigmatizing language for sex work, to steal the earlier example. That’s totally a real person! What that person does and doesn’t care about may be determined by what affects them personally, but self-interest is a pretty important factor in politics. If you can’t rally a disparate group of people behind a cause in which they have a shared interest, you aren’t doing very well at politicking.
posted by atoxyl at 12:39 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
Gondor was a kingdom which, temporarily, had been ruled by a non-royal but still very much authoritarian hereditary figure.
That "temporarily" would be 976 years.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 12:42 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
That "temporarily" would be 976 years.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 12:42 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think it's also important to have a clear idea of what we mean by "the left".
Is the left the same as "the discourse"? I feel like a lot of what people talk about as "left" on tumblr, twitter, etc is....I mean, it's left-adjacent in that it takes up some left ideas, but an awful lot of the "we are all canceling you because you said something wrong about a TV show" stuff is not "left" in any concrete sense.
What do I mean by "concrete sense"? Doing something that is more than just commenting or voting, I guess. That could be anything from "specifically doing informative commenting on a site where it has some educational value" to "taking part in boycotts or support of a particular business or institution" to "requesting lawn signs for your candidate", although in general I'd expect that people who consider themselves left mostly do a little more than that - donate, volunteer, organize, be in a union if one is available, GOTV, go to protests or other related events, create media, write letters or things like this. It seems like if leftism is to mean anything, it has to mean more than tweeting about how awful some TV star is.
Most of the "discourse" is either promulgated by people who don't do anything recognizably left or by people who do something utterly unrelated to the discourse - if you spend all night piling on some hapless cartoonist that has nothing to do with the fact that you spend your weekends fixing taillights for DSA.
~~~
My feeling is that a lot of the true "left to right" people do cultural work. I don't mean "the discourse", I mean content creation, punditry, etc. It is much, much easier to see politics as mostly about identity and personality when what you do is mostly words and pictures. That's not at all to say that words and pictures aren't important, just that it is easy for people who don't have a lot of conviction to say the right thing in the moment.
I realize this more and more as I do more concrete stuff. For most of my adult life, much of what I did other than protests was cultural stuff - slightly more concrete in that I ran events and staffed a bookstore, but still very much about personalities and words.
Now that my main thing is a mutual aid project, I work with a much more diverse group, personalities are a lot less important, word choices are a lot less important unless a mission statement is being written or someone says something really intolerable and the emphasis is on pulling together, relatively anonymously, for a common project. I don't meet very many of the people I used to work with, and indeed I don't actually connect especially well with a lot of the people I work with, but we work together anyway. It is really different.
Now, I'm not saying it is better - the cultural stuff I was doing before was also good and I felt good about it and miss doing it. But there was a LOT more room for personality, celebrity and clout there than there is in the stuff I'm doing now.
posted by Frowner at 12:44 PM on December 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
Is the left the same as "the discourse"? I feel like a lot of what people talk about as "left" on tumblr, twitter, etc is....I mean, it's left-adjacent in that it takes up some left ideas, but an awful lot of the "we are all canceling you because you said something wrong about a TV show" stuff is not "left" in any concrete sense.
What do I mean by "concrete sense"? Doing something that is more than just commenting or voting, I guess. That could be anything from "specifically doing informative commenting on a site where it has some educational value" to "taking part in boycotts or support of a particular business or institution" to "requesting lawn signs for your candidate", although in general I'd expect that people who consider themselves left mostly do a little more than that - donate, volunteer, organize, be in a union if one is available, GOTV, go to protests or other related events, create media, write letters or things like this. It seems like if leftism is to mean anything, it has to mean more than tweeting about how awful some TV star is.
Most of the "discourse" is either promulgated by people who don't do anything recognizably left or by people who do something utterly unrelated to the discourse - if you spend all night piling on some hapless cartoonist that has nothing to do with the fact that you spend your weekends fixing taillights for DSA.
~~~
My feeling is that a lot of the true "left to right" people do cultural work. I don't mean "the discourse", I mean content creation, punditry, etc. It is much, much easier to see politics as mostly about identity and personality when what you do is mostly words and pictures. That's not at all to say that words and pictures aren't important, just that it is easy for people who don't have a lot of conviction to say the right thing in the moment.
I realize this more and more as I do more concrete stuff. For most of my adult life, much of what I did other than protests was cultural stuff - slightly more concrete in that I ran events and staffed a bookstore, but still very much about personalities and words.
Now that my main thing is a mutual aid project, I work with a much more diverse group, personalities are a lot less important, word choices are a lot less important unless a mission statement is being written or someone says something really intolerable and the emphasis is on pulling together, relatively anonymously, for a common project. I don't meet very many of the people I used to work with, and indeed I don't actually connect especially well with a lot of the people I work with, but we work together anyway. It is really different.
Now, I'm not saying it is better - the cultural stuff I was doing before was also good and I felt good about it and miss doing it. But there was a LOT more room for personality, celebrity and clout there than there is in the stuff I'm doing now.
posted by Frowner at 12:44 PM on December 13, 2023 [24 favorites]
Which is to say I think there are some fair complaints one could make about the need for ideological purity in certain environments, but I think that’s a phony explanation for “influencers” switching sides at the drop of a hat. Opportunists exist!
posted by atoxyl at 12:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 12:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Pater Aletheias: "For all of the New Atheist shouting that "you don't need religion to be good," they also thoroughly demonstrated that whatever it is you do need to be good, they lack that as well."
Yes. I remember picking up Dawkin's book mumble-mumble years ago and hitting page whatever when he starts to unload on the tenets of Islam and thinking, "that's pretty bold, I didn't realize they'd managed to get 2 billion humans on the same page about... abusing children?"
I hated seminary, every god forsaken second of it, because I was raised by libertarians who hammered Kant into my brain and refused to let me believe a thing might be true just because it felt true. I made the extraordinarily questionable choice to go to a graduate school that was filled to capacity with the third generation liberals who had less interest in defending their ideas than they had in defending deconstruction in-and-of-itself. I spent three entire semesters grinding my teeth in Derrida seminars in Hyde Park - not because of the material, and not because the ideas we discussed were "good" or "bad" or "interesting" or "boring," but because the analysis itself was a complete charade utterly disconnected from the lived realities of "earth humans." (The real people I knew and loved and ate dinner with on major holidays.) I learned pretty quickly that while it's easy to get 'cancelled' by people who are smarter than you, it's actually pretty hard to get shunned from a community that has seen you bleed beside them in the mud. I opted for the community instead of the institution and so far it's proven a solid wager.
Now I live around people who went from "hating those elitest hollywood liberals weirdos" to "hating the weirdos except for Nate, he's okay," to "actually it'd probably be better if we weren't assholes, in general." You can get there but Matt f-ing Taibbi isn't your lamplighter.
It was probably this ridiculous blue website, more than anything, that kept me on any kind of rails - I couldn't have jumped to the right without someone here patiently pointing out the inconsistencies in my thinking, the lived implications of my ideas, and the historic evidence that contradicted my suspicions. And I wasn't going to quit this place because dammit I paid my $5 just like everyone else.
It slowly dawned on me that people who manage to get their books published might not be as insightful and brilliant as my academic lords had led me to believe.
And as much as I hate to do this (because it's tedious), I blame capitalism - because for as long as white Americans of every political stripe throw their mental energy behind people who appear to "succeed in the marketplace of ideas" we're going to keep going 'round and 'round this carousel. In America, people don't become popular or successful or whatever because they're smart.
They're popular and successful because they're lucky, and they're lucky because everything is so inane and stupid and arbitrary.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:50 PM on December 13, 2023 [29 favorites]
Yes. I remember picking up Dawkin's book mumble-mumble years ago and hitting page whatever when he starts to unload on the tenets of Islam and thinking, "that's pretty bold, I didn't realize they'd managed to get 2 billion humans on the same page about... abusing children?"
I hated seminary, every god forsaken second of it, because I was raised by libertarians who hammered Kant into my brain and refused to let me believe a thing might be true just because it felt true. I made the extraordinarily questionable choice to go to a graduate school that was filled to capacity with the third generation liberals who had less interest in defending their ideas than they had in defending deconstruction in-and-of-itself. I spent three entire semesters grinding my teeth in Derrida seminars in Hyde Park - not because of the material, and not because the ideas we discussed were "good" or "bad" or "interesting" or "boring," but because the analysis itself was a complete charade utterly disconnected from the lived realities of "earth humans." (The real people I knew and loved and ate dinner with on major holidays.) I learned pretty quickly that while it's easy to get 'cancelled' by people who are smarter than you, it's actually pretty hard to get shunned from a community that has seen you bleed beside them in the mud. I opted for the community instead of the institution and so far it's proven a solid wager.
Now I live around people who went from "hating those elitest hollywood liberals weirdos" to "hating the weirdos except for Nate, he's okay," to "actually it'd probably be better if we weren't assholes, in general." You can get there but Matt f-ing Taibbi isn't your lamplighter.
It was probably this ridiculous blue website, more than anything, that kept me on any kind of rails - I couldn't have jumped to the right without someone here patiently pointing out the inconsistencies in my thinking, the lived implications of my ideas, and the historic evidence that contradicted my suspicions. And I wasn't going to quit this place because dammit I paid my $5 just like everyone else.
It slowly dawned on me that people who manage to get their books published might not be as insightful and brilliant as my academic lords had led me to believe.
And as much as I hate to do this (because it's tedious), I blame capitalism - because for as long as white Americans of every political stripe throw their mental energy behind people who appear to "succeed in the marketplace of ideas" we're going to keep going 'round and 'round this carousel. In America, people don't become popular or successful or whatever because they're smart.
They're popular and successful because they're lucky, and they're lucky because everything is so inane and stupid and arbitrary.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:50 PM on December 13, 2023 [29 favorites]
METAFILTER: (Cue the Law and Order Sound Effect, “dun dun”.)
posted by philip-random at 12:55 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 12:55 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
What I've seen on the ground in local politics in my town is some people who went from the local left wing party, or who espoused typical left concerns around environment and community and so forth, to the extreme right. I observed they had a basically oppositional stance, and often manifested contrarianism in other ways (eg rejecting conventional medicine) and came up during a right-wing government. Then when we later had a left wing govt those people flipped, being as vehemently against the new incumbents as they were before. But also, they got love from the people they joined, and rebuke from the people they left, which cemented them. And some of their existing contrarian beliefs had right wing counterparts (think hippy -> Nazi transformation bridged by wellness culture, fetishising tradition, that kind of thing).
(This is not in the US so please don't imagine US political parties when I say "left wing" or "right wing", thanks).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:58 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
(This is not in the US so please don't imagine US political parties when I say "left wing" or "right wing", thanks).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:58 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
In terms of cancellation, one reason I don't consider it activism or "left" is that it only works against the weak. I did not understand this at first, but inevitably the people who stay "cancelled" are marginalized people without strong social networks or else they are people who take the cancellation to heart as a referendum on their worth. Isabel Fall was canceled - destroyed as a public person - because people pile onto trans women for the tiniest perceived flaw. But I remember when Lana del Rey was canceled and now the very same people who viewed her as a nepo baby cultural appropriator phony see her as some kind of serious voice of a generation - and I do, in this case, mean the same people.
"Canceling" people on the internet isn't political work when it's just about creating a social consensus within a particular internet sphere. I'd say that an actual concrete campaign against someone so that, eg, an open racist doesn't get speaking engagements or a rapist doesn't get to mentor grad students is a bit different - there's a goal that's more than just the cultural goal of "we all agree that this person is very bad indeed", and there's a standard for being "very bad indeed" that can be discussed clearly and concretely.
posted by Frowner at 12:59 PM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
"Canceling" people on the internet isn't political work when it's just about creating a social consensus within a particular internet sphere. I'd say that an actual concrete campaign against someone so that, eg, an open racist doesn't get speaking engagements or a rapist doesn't get to mentor grad students is a bit different - there's a goal that's more than just the cultural goal of "we all agree that this person is very bad indeed", and there's a standard for being "very bad indeed" that can be discussed clearly and concretely.
posted by Frowner at 12:59 PM on December 13, 2023 [20 favorites]
(And of course the upheaval of the pandemic greatly facilitated this transition for people who were concerned about abuse of state power and control over the body, which is not necessarily a left or right thing and again can provide a bridge).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
ince I was the one who raised the "circular firing squad" thing, that I should say first that y'all have given me a lot of food for thought and made me realize I was actually complaining about something different, so thank you all.
I think, though, that what I was complaining about was this:
Ardent Leftism attracts assholes because the Left is so disempowered in the USA.
I disagree that ardent leftism "attracts assholes" - and also that it's only ardent LEFTISM that does so. I think it's actually the reverse - the ardor is what IS the asshole tendency, and what they are being assholes ABOUT is beside the point. Because there are PLENTY of examples of the right also attracting ardent assholes.
And I strongly believe that it's the ardor, the "my way or else" that is the real asshole behavior. The refusal to compromise, the insistence that the One True Path is the way YOU think it should be done. Moms For Liberty isn't dangerous because they dislike certain books and are trying to give them negative reviews on their web site or something and letting others decide for themselves, they're dangerous because they are trying to take the book away altogether and deciding for others. It's their code that matters, not ours. A person who is opposed to abortion on an intellectual level alone, but confines themselves to just speaking out against it and letting each person make their own decision is a different matter from a person who is opposed to abortion but also removes the right to choose from other people.
And yes, you DO find that kind of "my way of doing things is the only correct way" attitude on the left sometimes. The biggest difference is that it's rarely put into public policy; it's more of a grass-roots people sniping at each other thing.
That said, though, it's that grass-roots people-sniping-at-each-other thing is likely what makes formerly-active leftists drop out. And...upthread someone said that we should be trying to draw more people in, yeah?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:04 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
I think, though, that what I was complaining about was this:
Ardent Leftism attracts assholes because the Left is so disempowered in the USA.
I disagree that ardent leftism "attracts assholes" - and also that it's only ardent LEFTISM that does so. I think it's actually the reverse - the ardor is what IS the asshole tendency, and what they are being assholes ABOUT is beside the point. Because there are PLENTY of examples of the right also attracting ardent assholes.
And I strongly believe that it's the ardor, the "my way or else" that is the real asshole behavior. The refusal to compromise, the insistence that the One True Path is the way YOU think it should be done. Moms For Liberty isn't dangerous because they dislike certain books and are trying to give them negative reviews on their web site or something and letting others decide for themselves, they're dangerous because they are trying to take the book away altogether and deciding for others. It's their code that matters, not ours. A person who is opposed to abortion on an intellectual level alone, but confines themselves to just speaking out against it and letting each person make their own decision is a different matter from a person who is opposed to abortion but also removes the right to choose from other people.
And yes, you DO find that kind of "my way of doing things is the only correct way" attitude on the left sometimes. The biggest difference is that it's rarely put into public policy; it's more of a grass-roots people sniping at each other thing.
That said, though, it's that grass-roots people-sniping-at-each-other thing is likely what makes formerly-active leftists drop out. And...upthread someone said that we should be trying to draw more people in, yeah?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:04 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
Also when we talk about regular people switching sides at the drop of a hat I think it’s a reality that a lot of people uh aren’t too stable in their core values at all. The closest thing to a real “horseshoe theory” is the existence of “inchoate anti-establishment energy” and that stuff goes all over the place.
posted by atoxyl at 1:11 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 1:11 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
I feel like pure-ism is less of a factor in driving people to the Right than in just discouraging people from engaging with Left communities and media. People whose initial motivation is often just a vague, "I feel like these people don't deserve how they're being treated", or "my, it seems like the system is broken" are often not going to hang around too long when greeted with "Here is a list of 647 issues, and you'd fucking better have slid out of the womb having the right position on every single one of them".
This tends to be a stronger impulse in communities that mostly articulate yourself online and are all about discussing ideas, because if you're an activist group trying to actually get something done on the ground, I imagine there's a countervailing force of "these are the people who showed up, if we shove half of them out the door we won't get this done".
Liberals and conservatives tend to be fine with someone sharing a handful of central tenants, and outside of those you can think whatever about whatever. The Right seems to have learned that this is a good strategy if you want to mainstream your ideology. They're fine with Taibbi or whoever showing up to the party because, while he doesn't agree with everything they believe, he agrees on a couple of things and will probably bring in a whole bunch of other people with him.
posted by AdamCSnider at 1:16 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
This tends to be a stronger impulse in communities that mostly articulate yourself online and are all about discussing ideas, because if you're an activist group trying to actually get something done on the ground, I imagine there's a countervailing force of "these are the people who showed up, if we shove half of them out the door we won't get this done".
Liberals and conservatives tend to be fine with someone sharing a handful of central tenants, and outside of those you can think whatever about whatever. The Right seems to have learned that this is a good strategy if you want to mainstream your ideology. They're fine with Taibbi or whoever showing up to the party because, while he doesn't agree with everything they believe, he agrees on a couple of things and will probably bring in a whole bunch of other people with him.
posted by AdamCSnider at 1:16 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
> Because Ellis and Wynn aren't chumming it up with the far-right crowd, now the left doesn't have a serious problem with harassment and threats in pursuit of ideological purity? It's OK to harass them offline because they won't switch sides?
Um, no?? But this conversation is ABOUT people who move right and you are bringing up examples of people who *didn't* move right because.. why? I'm not sure.
It's like, wasn't there a study which said leftists are more likely to suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency than right wing people? B12 is important, right, and nobody is going to argue that we should neglect our collective B12 deficiency. But unless someone can show that this B12 deficiency is driving people in our camp rightward, complaining about leftist B12 deficiency here on this particular thread is an irrelevant derail.
posted by MiraK at 1:17 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
Um, no?? But this conversation is ABOUT people who move right and you are bringing up examples of people who *didn't* move right because.. why? I'm not sure.
It's like, wasn't there a study which said leftists are more likely to suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency than right wing people? B12 is important, right, and nobody is going to argue that we should neglect our collective B12 deficiency. But unless someone can show that this B12 deficiency is driving people in our camp rightward, complaining about leftist B12 deficiency here on this particular thread is an irrelevant derail.
posted by MiraK at 1:17 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
The patient has cancer, but this post is about heart disease. Please stay on topic.
posted by AdamCSnider at 1:19 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by AdamCSnider at 1:19 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
because if you're an activist group trying to actually get something done on the ground, I imagine there's a countervailing force of "these are the people who showed up, if we shove half of them out the door we won't get this done".
amen to that. just replace activist group with union local.. how about a bargaining team where one of your teammates will refuse to do an information picket because that's a bridge too far (too "radical"). you really have to take what you get and find a way to build together, and on a screen it's a lot easier to perform to whatever metric of Left/Correct Thought etc.
posted by elkevelvet at 1:21 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
amen to that. just replace activist group with union local.. how about a bargaining team where one of your teammates will refuse to do an information picket because that's a bridge too far (too "radical"). you really have to take what you get and find a way to build together, and on a screen it's a lot easier to perform to whatever metric of Left/Correct Thought etc.
posted by elkevelvet at 1:21 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't think the shifting is all left-to-right. I'm a fan of the Bulwark and of Republican Voters against Trump (now called Republican Accountability) and Trump has managed to drive people to at least the moderate left. So have Evangelical scandals.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't think the shifting is all left-to-right. I'm a fan of the Bulwark and of Republican Voters against Trump (now called Republican Accountability) and Trump has managed to drive people to at least the moderate left. So have Evangelical scandals.
Have these people moved meaningfully to the left? I've listened to that podcast and while they are somewhat left of the Republican position on LGBTQ issues 15 years ago, they are otherwise firmly positioned on the right. The main host still avows his anti-choice viewpoints, Bill Kristol is still a foreign policy neocon who also likes economic inequality, and they all find every opportunity to slag the extremely collaborationist and compromise-eager Squad while lifting up ol' turd-in-every-punch-bowl Joe Manchin.
It's good that they affirm their willingness to vote Biden over voting apocalypse. (Those of us with deep commitments to left politics have been holding our nose at the ballot box since we turned 18, so now we are in a reluctant club with these people, I suppose.) Surely it matters, surely they get credit for it, surely it reflects some commitment to civil society, but I don't think it reflects a meaningful change in political commitments.
posted by kensington314 at 1:48 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Have these people moved meaningfully to the left? I've listened to that podcast and while they are somewhat left of the Republican position on LGBTQ issues 15 years ago, they are otherwise firmly positioned on the right. The main host still avows his anti-choice viewpoints, Bill Kristol is still a foreign policy neocon who also likes economic inequality, and they all find every opportunity to slag the extremely collaborationist and compromise-eager Squad while lifting up ol' turd-in-every-punch-bowl Joe Manchin.
It's good that they affirm their willingness to vote Biden over voting apocalypse. (Those of us with deep commitments to left politics have been holding our nose at the ballot box since we turned 18, so now we are in a reluctant club with these people, I suppose.) Surely it matters, surely they get credit for it, surely it reflects some commitment to civil society, but I don't think it reflects a meaningful change in political commitments.
posted by kensington314 at 1:48 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Adding my chagrin and embarrassment to the chorus lamenting how often I've screwed up Naomi Klein with Naomi Wolf.
It does happen enough that Klein wrote a whole book about it (well, really about how the person she's mistaken for has gone off the deep-end...)
If it helps, in the game of "Jewish, Canadian, Both or Neither?", Naomi Wolf is Jewish but not Canadian, and Naomi Klein is BOTH Jewish and Canadian.
posted by jb at 1:49 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
It does happen enough that Klein wrote a whole book about it (well, really about how the person she's mistaken for has gone off the deep-end...)
If it helps, in the game of "Jewish, Canadian, Both or Neither?", Naomi Wolf is Jewish but not Canadian, and Naomi Klein is BOTH Jewish and Canadian.
posted by jb at 1:49 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Frowner is correct, as we'd be probably be posting against each other all day long on a faster site but were we ever to meet up and do anything concrete together we'd probably get along well enough as a real goal would be involved.
Most people don't do that much concrete, though, can't blame them as that's pretty difficult, and for those that do the results don't always show up in the media so it's "like it never happened."
posted by kingdead at 2:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
Most people don't do that much concrete, though, can't blame them as that's pretty difficult, and for those that do the results don't always show up in the media so it's "like it never happened."
posted by kingdead at 2:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
(This is not in the US so please don't imagine US political parties when I say "left wing" or "right wing", thanks).
Yes, please. I know MeFi skews American and the FPP focuses primarily on the US, but this is a global phenomenon and arguing about the value of voting Democrat or not is maybe a little beside the point?
posted by asnider at 2:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
Yes, please. I know MeFi skews American and the FPP focuses primarily on the US, but this is a global phenomenon and arguing about the value of voting Democrat or not is maybe a little beside the point?
posted by asnider at 2:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
In terms of cancellation, one reason I don't consider it activism or "left" is that it only works against the weak. I did not understand this at first, but inevitably the people who stay "cancelled" are marginalized people without strong social networks or else they are people who take the cancellation to heart as a referendum on their worth.
I regret that I have but one like to give to this comment.
posted by praemunire at 2:15 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
I regret that I have but one like to give to this comment.
posted by praemunire at 2:15 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
On the one hand, fuck these people. On the other hand... I see a lot of truth in the EmpressCallipygos comment that kicked off this thread.
I'm left as fuck, but there have been a few times, on Metafilter and elsewhere, when I said something that really, really pissed off my fellow lefties, and it is not fun to wake up one morning and find yourself being called names by a lot of people you thought were on your side. Humans can be vicious, they can act in bad faith and pile on, and I can see how a leftist public figure could reach a point where they got so sick of being called a fascist troll that they'd finally snap and start wailing about being canceled by the woke mob.
I also think a lot of leftists get left behind by the changing times, their politics are stuck in 1997 or whenever, so they'll keep insisting that they're liberals even as they say stuff that sounds reactionary to younger people. That's how you get a John Cleese. He's a smart guy and I don't believe he's evil, even if he's said a lot of clueless and dipshitty stuff lately about trans people like me. He's a 1979 liberal and he's used to being right, and the more people tell him he's just hateful and stupid, the more he doubles down on some of his nonsense. It's hard to change your mind about stuff you've believed for like 65 years, especially when the people telling you you're wrong seem so hateful about it.
A lot of people on the left will insist that cancellation does not happen, but if we can define it as somebody losing their career and social staus because of controversial things they've done, I think it certainly happens. Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, for example, have both gotten themselves thoroughly and deservedly cancelled. Roseanne Barr seems to be well on her way to lifelong cancellation, and Kanye West may be headed the same way. These people may not lose their millions, but nobody wants to work with them or even hear about them. I will note, however, that all of the people I'm using as examples here are total assholes. Has a legit cancellation happened to a decent person? I might be able to think of a few people I think got a bad rap, but I don't want to mention them here for fear that I might end up in another big flame war with my fellow lefties.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:19 PM on December 13, 2023 [25 favorites]
I'm left as fuck, but there have been a few times, on Metafilter and elsewhere, when I said something that really, really pissed off my fellow lefties, and it is not fun to wake up one morning and find yourself being called names by a lot of people you thought were on your side. Humans can be vicious, they can act in bad faith and pile on, and I can see how a leftist public figure could reach a point where they got so sick of being called a fascist troll that they'd finally snap and start wailing about being canceled by the woke mob.
I also think a lot of leftists get left behind by the changing times, their politics are stuck in 1997 or whenever, so they'll keep insisting that they're liberals even as they say stuff that sounds reactionary to younger people. That's how you get a John Cleese. He's a smart guy and I don't believe he's evil, even if he's said a lot of clueless and dipshitty stuff lately about trans people like me. He's a 1979 liberal and he's used to being right, and the more people tell him he's just hateful and stupid, the more he doubles down on some of his nonsense. It's hard to change your mind about stuff you've believed for like 65 years, especially when the people telling you you're wrong seem so hateful about it.
A lot of people on the left will insist that cancellation does not happen, but if we can define it as somebody losing their career and social staus because of controversial things they've done, I think it certainly happens. Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, for example, have both gotten themselves thoroughly and deservedly cancelled. Roseanne Barr seems to be well on her way to lifelong cancellation, and Kanye West may be headed the same way. These people may not lose their millions, but nobody wants to work with them or even hear about them. I will note, however, that all of the people I'm using as examples here are total assholes. Has a legit cancellation happened to a decent person? I might be able to think of a few people I think got a bad rap, but I don't want to mention them here for fear that I might end up in another big flame war with my fellow lefties.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:19 PM on December 13, 2023 [25 favorites]
The left, however defined, simply does not have an effective evangelism nor path to solidarity. There is no right-to-left pipeline.
Sure there is. That's why the right is so terrified, and that in turn is why they're so terrifying. They know that the demographics are against them, so they have to win NOW. Why do you think they are targeting elections?
Here's a graph showing the situation in a nutshell: in the last 30 years, people identifying as "liberals" (the other options are moderate and conservative) went from 25% to 50% of the Democratic Party. An avowed socialist got 43% of the Dem primary vote in 2016. On a wider view: despite the mythos of the '60s as a countercultural free-for-all. Nixon won the 1968 election with a 61% landslide; Trump lost the popular vote with 46%. Congressional polarization means that the Republicans are crazier than ever, but also that the Democrats are more liberal than ever. (Want to hear some old stories about Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson? Really you don't.)
I remember reading a column by Rush Limbaugh complaining about "circular firing squads" on the right, and assuming that the left was completely united.
As for pundits, I also lean toward the "contrarian asshole" hypothesis. In the 90s there was a large group of center-right to center-left pundits that all read each other and adopted some of each other's positions. It's possible to jump across the horseshoe, but it's also common and easy to sliiiiiide rightward on the top.
posted by zompist at 2:27 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
Sure there is. That's why the right is so terrified, and that in turn is why they're so terrifying. They know that the demographics are against them, so they have to win NOW. Why do you think they are targeting elections?
Here's a graph showing the situation in a nutshell: in the last 30 years, people identifying as "liberals" (the other options are moderate and conservative) went from 25% to 50% of the Democratic Party. An avowed socialist got 43% of the Dem primary vote in 2016. On a wider view: despite the mythos of the '60s as a countercultural free-for-all. Nixon won the 1968 election with a 61% landslide; Trump lost the popular vote with 46%. Congressional polarization means that the Republicans are crazier than ever, but also that the Democrats are more liberal than ever. (Want to hear some old stories about Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson? Really you don't.)
I remember reading a column by Rush Limbaugh complaining about "circular firing squads" on the right, and assuming that the left was completely united.
As for pundits, I also lean toward the "contrarian asshole" hypothesis. In the 90s there was a large group of center-right to center-left pundits that all read each other and adopted some of each other's positions. It's possible to jump across the horseshoe, but it's also common and easy to sliiiiiide rightward on the top.
posted by zompist at 2:27 PM on December 13, 2023 [16 favorites]
Sometimes the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend.
Sometimes that friendship lasts only as long as that specific shared enemy lasts.
Sometimes you forget why the enemy of your enemy wasn't your friend to begin with.
posted by delfin at 2:29 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
Sometimes that friendship lasts only as long as that specific shared enemy lasts.
Sometimes you forget why the enemy of your enemy wasn't your friend to begin with.
posted by delfin at 2:29 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
> There's some plausible right --> left examples: Bill Kristol, George Conway, Jennifer Rubin.
Somebody also mentioned Liz Cheney. But these people aren't right->left converts, I don't think.
Yeah, this is more ""respectable" Republicans stand in place dumbfounded as the rest of the party runs screaming and gibbering into the fever swamps waving the Confederate flag."
Conway and Rubin might have wandered into center-right Democrat territory, but Cheney is 110% down with everything the Republicans have ever wanted until Jan 6 happened, and she wants to go back to keeping the quiet parts quiet, and I'd bet money Kristol is 110% behind her when she runs for President in 2028. (She is definitely going to run for President in 2028.)
posted by soundguy99 at 2:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Somebody also mentioned Liz Cheney. But these people aren't right->left converts, I don't think.
Yeah, this is more ""respectable" Republicans stand in place dumbfounded as the rest of the party runs screaming and gibbering into the fever swamps waving the Confederate flag."
Conway and Rubin might have wandered into center-right Democrat territory, but Cheney is 110% down with everything the Republicans have ever wanted until Jan 6 happened, and she wants to go back to keeping the quiet parts quiet, and I'd bet money Kristol is 110% behind her when she runs for President in 2028. (She is definitely going to run for President in 2028.)
posted by soundguy99 at 2:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
Part of the problem is that the left/right dichotomy is too simplistic. I know people who are on the left economically, but socially conservative and vice versa. That may even make them more subject to flipping. For example, the EL/SC might flip fully conservative if attacked for not supporting, say, gay marriage. The EC/SL might flip liberal if they see policies harming those they associate with socially.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Baby_Balrog: Adding my chagrin and embarrassment to the chorus lamenting how often I've screwed up Naomi Klein with Naomi Wolf.
I’m not much better here either. I thought one was a model and the other sang country music with her mother.
posted by dr_dank at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’m not much better here either. I thought one was a model and the other sang country music with her mother.
posted by dr_dank at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Bill Kristol, George Conway, Jennifer Rubin ... Somebody also mentioned Liz Cheney. ... these people aren't right->left converts, I don't think.
Definitely not Cheney, IMO, but I've been interested to locate some bona-fide converts, (mostly to no avail!) so track Kristol, Conway, and Rubin a bit.
I doubt there's a one of them who would say "Ds were right all along about affirmative action/abortion availability ...
Rubin's recent pro-choice and other writings have atrios joking about her going "woke". My sense is there's some leftward shift by her, not just "the GOP became autocratic while I stood still."
Conway is indeed still anti-affirmative action, but he made some pro-trans posts on social media. I wonder whether that would've happened w/out having left the GOP.
From what I've seen of Kristol, he's not reversing his views, but explicitly softening on their importance, stating that these disagreements are no longer central, full-throatedly endorsing Democrats, advocating against Fox getting its FCC license renewed ... I guess that strikes me as a kind of movement ... though certainly less pronounced than the left->right pipeline discussed here.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 2:46 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Definitely not Cheney, IMO, but I've been interested to locate some bona-fide converts, (mostly to no avail!) so track Kristol, Conway, and Rubin a bit.
I doubt there's a one of them who would say "Ds were right all along about affirmative action/abortion availability ...
Rubin's recent pro-choice and other writings have atrios joking about her going "woke". My sense is there's some leftward shift by her, not just "the GOP became autocratic while I stood still."
Conway is indeed still anti-affirmative action, but he made some pro-trans posts on social media. I wonder whether that would've happened w/out having left the GOP.
From what I've seen of Kristol, he's not reversing his views, but explicitly softening on their importance, stating that these disagreements are no longer central, full-throatedly endorsing Democrats, advocating against Fox getting its FCC license renewed ... I guess that strikes me as a kind of movement ... though certainly less pronounced than the left->right pipeline discussed here.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 2:46 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
MiraK …It's pure gaslighting. Jesus
You’re welcome to disagree with my premise and my conclusion and all the steps in between. By making a comment, I invited that. But this was a needlessly personal attack. Not every opinion you disagree with is gaslighting (a bad-faith deception tactic - we don’t know each other, but is that who you think I am?). Jesus.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 3:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
You’re welcome to disagree with my premise and my conclusion and all the steps in between. By making a comment, I invited that. But this was a needlessly personal attack. Not every opinion you disagree with is gaslighting (a bad-faith deception tactic - we don’t know each other, but is that who you think I am?). Jesus.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 3:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
“I'm left as fuck, but there have been a few times, on Metafilter and elsewhere, when I said something that really, really pissed off my fellow lefties, and it is not fun to wake up one morning and find yourself being called names by a lot of people you thought were on your side.”
But that's the problem. If you (generic you, not you in particular) can't take criticism about your positions and actions with regard to the very issues core to leftism, then maybe you're missing the damn point.
When I wrote here on MeFi (in the 00s) some inexcusably misogynist things about Ann Coulter, I was attacked and rightly so. I'm bringing it up here because I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen. It revealed to others — and then me — something in myself that I didn't realize was there. I was and am horrified and embarrassed; but for fuck's sake, the whole damn point is to make the world a better, more just and inclusive place, and for me, that starts with me.
If a hostile challenge to my biases and privilege leads me to alter my politics, then my politics probably weren't actually what they presented themselves as being. Maybe, just maybe, those politics were self-serving.
In fact, let me take this a step further. I've noticed even in this very thread the presumption that politics is primarily self-interested. We've had a lot of discussion about "what does it mean for me?"
But if you accept the idea that most people's politics are about self-interest, then given that self-interest is situational and contingent, it follows that people's principles and beliefs are also situational and contingent. It should come as no surprise when they switch sides.
I've got like ten different stories about examples here on MetaFilter where people fucking freak out over criticism from the left — not just individual people, but at various times, the majority. And, five or ten years later, the criticism has become the mefi conventional wisdom. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned being a progressive means that there are things we're unwittingly regressive about and that we should remind ourselves of this. We should welcome being made aware of it. This is, apparently, a bridge too far for many.
And, the thing is, it's not an accident that almost all of these left-to-right folk are white men, and some white women. These are people with a lot of unexamined privilege who have thrived in leftist spaces in no small part because of their privilege. When that's questioned, they take their ball and go home, in an angry pout, because it's all been mostly comfortable abstraction for them.
By all rights, I should have been one of them: I'm white, male, straight, and almost elderly. Somehow, I've not followed the typical script. Maybe I've been fortunate, maybe I'm more resilient or whatever. But, regardless: fuck them. I'm so done with coddling these assholes.
And contrarian fucknuts have been a veritable scourge almost my whole life. I think it's fair to say I've been a demonstrably independent thinker — and these people have been in all the spaces I've ever been in because far too many people confuse contrarianism with independence. These folk are, at best, fair-weather friends and, at worst, deeply toxic.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [58 favorites]
But that's the problem. If you (generic you, not you in particular) can't take criticism about your positions and actions with regard to the very issues core to leftism, then maybe you're missing the damn point.
When I wrote here on MeFi (in the 00s) some inexcusably misogynist things about Ann Coulter, I was attacked and rightly so. I'm bringing it up here because I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen. It revealed to others — and then me — something in myself that I didn't realize was there. I was and am horrified and embarrassed; but for fuck's sake, the whole damn point is to make the world a better, more just and inclusive place, and for me, that starts with me.
If a hostile challenge to my biases and privilege leads me to alter my politics, then my politics probably weren't actually what they presented themselves as being. Maybe, just maybe, those politics were self-serving.
In fact, let me take this a step further. I've noticed even in this very thread the presumption that politics is primarily self-interested. We've had a lot of discussion about "what does it mean for me?"
But if you accept the idea that most people's politics are about self-interest, then given that self-interest is situational and contingent, it follows that people's principles and beliefs are also situational and contingent. It should come as no surprise when they switch sides.
I've got like ten different stories about examples here on MetaFilter where people fucking freak out over criticism from the left — not just individual people, but at various times, the majority. And, five or ten years later, the criticism has become the mefi conventional wisdom. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned being a progressive means that there are things we're unwittingly regressive about and that we should remind ourselves of this. We should welcome being made aware of it. This is, apparently, a bridge too far for many.
And, the thing is, it's not an accident that almost all of these left-to-right folk are white men, and some white women. These are people with a lot of unexamined privilege who have thrived in leftist spaces in no small part because of their privilege. When that's questioned, they take their ball and go home, in an angry pout, because it's all been mostly comfortable abstraction for them.
By all rights, I should have been one of them: I'm white, male, straight, and almost elderly. Somehow, I've not followed the typical script. Maybe I've been fortunate, maybe I'm more resilient or whatever. But, regardless: fuck them. I'm so done with coddling these assholes.
And contrarian fucknuts have been a veritable scourge almost my whole life. I think it's fair to say I've been a demonstrably independent thinker — and these people have been in all the spaces I've ever been in because far too many people confuse contrarianism with independence. These folk are, at best, fair-weather friends and, at worst, deeply toxic.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [58 favorites]
if you're an activist group trying to actually get something done on the ground, I imagine there's a countervailing force of "these are the people who showed up, if we shove half of them out the door we won't get this done".
Absolutely, and it's worth noting that this isn't entirely without its own problems as well - it's why so many (IRL) activist groups have broken stairs, for example.
posted by Dysk at 4:01 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
Absolutely, and it's worth noting that this isn't entirely without its own problems as well - it's why so many (IRL) activist groups have broken stairs, for example.
posted by Dysk at 4:01 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
Everything Ivan just said there and more of it please.
posted by chronkite at 4:23 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by chronkite at 4:23 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
the requirement for total ideological purity.
Seriously: WHAT?
The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned.
This just is not true at all.
Let's look at two examples. First let's gaze back through the mists of time to 1990-whateveritwas and remember the confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas when everybody on the left was stumbling all over themselves to be the first at the cocktail party to say "they're both good people." Biden kicked Anita Hill's witnesses, who were there to attest to the blazingly obvious fact that they couldn't both be good people because one of them was lying, out of the senate chamber so they were never heard. All Thomas had to do was thunder "High-tech lynching" and every left-of-center person anywhere near a camera or a microphone scrambled and scabbled and bloodied themselves to get their earnest face on camera and their quavering voice on a mic saying some permutation of "they're both good people" into my ears. NOBODY said JACK SHIT about how maybe it's not the act of a good person to torture your female employees your whole career and then lie about it to the US senate. The left can't even act to boot someone as pernicious as Clarence Thomas out of a position of unimaginable power over, like, everybody on the globe, even when the left is in charge.
Now let's hop back in our time machine and come back to near-now and observe the time Al Franken unexpectedly revealed himself to have been kinda rapey all along and got kicked out of the senate and out of my inbox. Did Al Franken get ejected from "the left?" Hell to the fucking no, Al Franken is still left of center in most of his beliefs and accepted as such.
Al Franken doesn't happen to have all of the beliefs of the person he was cosplaying all those years--for instance, he doesn't believe that women are persons and therefore are possessed of bodily autonomy. But he didn't get kicked out of the left and have to go hang out with the My Pillow guy, for Christ's sake! Nobody can do that to Al Franken but Al Franken, and he doesn't seem to be inclined to do it because many of his left-of-center beliefs seem to be genuine.
Al Franken is still on the left. I know because a couple times a year I have to remind gmail that e-mail from Al Franken about whatever leftist cause he's e-mailing about today is, yes, still spam as far as this inbox is concerned because Al Franken has not given me any reason to suspect he's changed his thinking about women and whether they deserve to say yes or no to being molested while posing for photos at the Minnesota State Fair. If at any point he decided to quit deny deny denying that whole shameful and embarrassing mess, admitted he behaved monstrously, made restitution to his victims, and apologized genuinely, well, I'd be pleased to receive e-mail from Al Franken again and might even buy his Trump Is a Big Fat Idiot books and videos.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:26 PM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
Seriously: WHAT?
The left has become exclusive. It ejects its own for holding a single repugnant view, even if they’re otherwise aligned.
This just is not true at all.
Let's look at two examples. First let's gaze back through the mists of time to 1990-whateveritwas and remember the confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas when everybody on the left was stumbling all over themselves to be the first at the cocktail party to say "they're both good people." Biden kicked Anita Hill's witnesses, who were there to attest to the blazingly obvious fact that they couldn't both be good people because one of them was lying, out of the senate chamber so they were never heard. All Thomas had to do was thunder "High-tech lynching" and every left-of-center person anywhere near a camera or a microphone scrambled and scabbled and bloodied themselves to get their earnest face on camera and their quavering voice on a mic saying some permutation of "they're both good people" into my ears. NOBODY said JACK SHIT about how maybe it's not the act of a good person to torture your female employees your whole career and then lie about it to the US senate. The left can't even act to boot someone as pernicious as Clarence Thomas out of a position of unimaginable power over, like, everybody on the globe, even when the left is in charge.
Now let's hop back in our time machine and come back to near-now and observe the time Al Franken unexpectedly revealed himself to have been kinda rapey all along and got kicked out of the senate and out of my inbox. Did Al Franken get ejected from "the left?" Hell to the fucking no, Al Franken is still left of center in most of his beliefs and accepted as such.
Al Franken doesn't happen to have all of the beliefs of the person he was cosplaying all those years--for instance, he doesn't believe that women are persons and therefore are possessed of bodily autonomy. But he didn't get kicked out of the left and have to go hang out with the My Pillow guy, for Christ's sake! Nobody can do that to Al Franken but Al Franken, and he doesn't seem to be inclined to do it because many of his left-of-center beliefs seem to be genuine.
Al Franken is still on the left. I know because a couple times a year I have to remind gmail that e-mail from Al Franken about whatever leftist cause he's e-mailing about today is, yes, still spam as far as this inbox is concerned because Al Franken has not given me any reason to suspect he's changed his thinking about women and whether they deserve to say yes or no to being molested while posing for photos at the Minnesota State Fair. If at any point he decided to quit deny deny denying that whole shameful and embarrassing mess, admitted he behaved monstrously, made restitution to his victims, and apologized genuinely, well, I'd be pleased to receive e-mail from Al Franken again and might even buy his Trump Is a Big Fat Idiot books and videos.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:26 PM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
I have had a similar arc… Me of fifteen years ago an insufferable person who presumed they’ve pretty lefty and had the right take on everything, but sure posted some objectionable shit that I got called for.
And… for the most part I listened and learned from that. It was. Actually it’s been pretty formative to my whole current philosophy of life. Now I am differently insufferable, and way, WAY more lefty.
Hanging with a bunch of Nazi freaks never really seemed like an appealing reaction?
posted by Artw at 4:31 PM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
And… for the most part I listened and learned from that. It was. Actually it’s been pretty formative to my whole current philosophy of life. Now I am differently insufferable, and way, WAY more lefty.
Hanging with a bunch of Nazi freaks never really seemed like an appealing reaction?
posted by Artw at 4:31 PM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
I don't know about any of the people in the article, but watching a friend transition into a Republican in real time was an edifying experience. This person wasn't some secret asshole hiding in the open. For them, their journey rightward began with a vulnerable moment. They had become disillusioned by the Left's ability to meet their needs, then discovered right wing forums online. With new friends came those friends' ideas, and the rest snowballed.
Understate disillusionment with your in-group at your own peril. Disillusionment opens you up to change, the same way you become open to trying new products after your previously reliable brand fails on you. Maybe you'll only casually flirt with new ideas. Or maybe you'll give them a try because why not, what else have you got to lose? When it came to my friend's disillusionment, they saw the Left struggle to address their basic problems, and responded with, "Well, maybe my problems really are unsolveable, and the people who told me otherwise are just time-wasters with no grasp on the real world."
I see a lot of essentialism in this thread. I don't think that's correct. People can and do change over time. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But it happens. The Right has its own sets of values and principles, just as the Left does. It's a mistake to believe that world views aren't pursuadale in both directions, or that people who move right are just amoral to begin with, and good-riddance.
posted by lock robster at 4:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
Understate disillusionment with your in-group at your own peril. Disillusionment opens you up to change, the same way you become open to trying new products after your previously reliable brand fails on you. Maybe you'll only casually flirt with new ideas. Or maybe you'll give them a try because why not, what else have you got to lose? When it came to my friend's disillusionment, they saw the Left struggle to address their basic problems, and responded with, "Well, maybe my problems really are unsolveable, and the people who told me otherwise are just time-wasters with no grasp on the real world."
I see a lot of essentialism in this thread. I don't think that's correct. People can and do change over time. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. But it happens. The Right has its own sets of values and principles, just as the Left does. It's a mistake to believe that world views aren't pursuadale in both directions, or that people who move right are just amoral to begin with, and good-riddance.
posted by lock robster at 4:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [15 favorites]
One dynamic that I think must be related to the left --> right pipeline is how many leftists who haven't piped nevertheless will run cover for the right.
E.g., there's been endless nitpicking by some leftists arguing that, technically, Trump isn't actually a "fascist", J6 wasn't, properly speaking, an attempted "coup", and so on.
By my read, some of these left-leaners, who bear similarities to Taibbi et al., are trying to signal how others are insufficiently revolutionary, since the REAL threats to democracy, both domestic and abroad, come from the US bipartisan political establishment.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 4:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
E.g., there's been endless nitpicking by some leftists arguing that, technically, Trump isn't actually a "fascist", J6 wasn't, properly speaking, an attempted "coup", and so on.
By my read, some of these left-leaners, who bear similarities to Taibbi et al., are trying to signal how others are insufficiently revolutionary, since the REAL threats to democracy, both domestic and abroad, come from the US bipartisan political establishment.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 4:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Inasmuch as the "circular firing squad" is to blame here, I think it's that there's a phenomenon in political discourse where to the left, all the things matter, so often individuals will get called out for being on the wrong side of the one thing, and perhaps feel "pushed out" (especially when this happens in a public manner), while the right is very good at single-issue-messaging, basically a "you don't need to agree with us about everything
I think this is actually a huge part of the problem, genuinely. Because it's not just all the things matter, it's also 'all the things matter, so you have to have the exact right position all the time, and can't disagree on anything or you're wrong and deserve to be pushed out'.
I've been having a lot of these conversations with a number of my friends lately - solid leftists - and one of the things that we've been really discussing is the concept of how much people are hesitant to engage on a number of things because of the fear of being legitimately thrown out of the tent for talking about their experiences or beliefs. And we're not talking actual right wing beliefs here, or racism, or sexism, or anything like that - we're talking just Things Not Part Of The Orthodoxy.
posted by corb at 4:49 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
I think this is actually a huge part of the problem, genuinely. Because it's not just all the things matter, it's also 'all the things matter, so you have to have the exact right position all the time, and can't disagree on anything or you're wrong and deserve to be pushed out'.
I've been having a lot of these conversations with a number of my friends lately - solid leftists - and one of the things that we've been really discussing is the concept of how much people are hesitant to engage on a number of things because of the fear of being legitimately thrown out of the tent for talking about their experiences or beliefs. And we're not talking actual right wing beliefs here, or racism, or sexism, or anything like that - we're talking just Things Not Part Of The Orthodoxy.
posted by corb at 4:49 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
When it came to my friend's disillusionment, they saw the Left struggle to address their basic problems,
I don't really understand what this means - would leftist policies not address their problems, or was a particular group of lefty activists not addressing their problems?
I think one thing that possibly makes this thread as a whole a bit confusing to me, because people keep talking about "the left" and I don't necessarily know what they're referring to?
I guess speaking for myself, I have definitely had disagreements with lefty activist groups, and been made to feel unwelcome in them. I responded by thinking those people were kinda arseholes in a way, but I didn't attribute that failure or shortcoming to left-wing politics or ideas, though. Like, people are dicks that eg ignore cultural differences in a way that becomes, charitably, borderline racism, but I just don't understand how that was supposed to lead me to "...and this redistributive taxation is bad, and we should deregulate industry."
Lefties can be arses, but that's a reflection on them as people, not on lefty ideas or politics themselves, isn't it?
posted by Dysk at 5:02 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
I don't really understand what this means - would leftist policies not address their problems, or was a particular group of lefty activists not addressing their problems?
I think one thing that possibly makes this thread as a whole a bit confusing to me, because people keep talking about "the left" and I don't necessarily know what they're referring to?
I guess speaking for myself, I have definitely had disagreements with lefty activist groups, and been made to feel unwelcome in them. I responded by thinking those people were kinda arseholes in a way, but I didn't attribute that failure or shortcoming to left-wing politics or ideas, though. Like, people are dicks that eg ignore cultural differences in a way that becomes, charitably, borderline racism, but I just don't understand how that was supposed to lead me to "...and this redistributive taxation is bad, and we should deregulate industry."
Lefties can be arses, but that's a reflection on them as people, not on lefty ideas or politics themselves, isn't it?
posted by Dysk at 5:02 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
Because there are PLENTY of examples of the right also attracting ardent assholes.
Absolutely. Sorry if I worded it in such a way that you thought I was saying that only Ardent Leftists could be assholes. The entire right is an asshole; I've never once met a conservative who didn't on some level think that others' suffering was nobody's fault but their own.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:06 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
Absolutely. Sorry if I worded it in such a way that you thought I was saying that only Ardent Leftists could be assholes. The entire right is an asshole; I've never once met a conservative who didn't on some level think that others' suffering was nobody's fault but their own.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:06 PM on December 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
I guess speaking for myself, I have definitely had disagreements with lefty activist groups, and been made to feel unwelcome in them. I responded by thinking those people were kinda arseholes in a way, but I didn't attribute that failure or shortcoming to left-wing politics or ideas, though. Like, people are dicks that eg ignore cultural differences in a way that becomes, charitably, borderline racism, but I just don't understand how that was supposed to lead me to "...and this redistributive taxation is bad, and we should deregulate industry."
You're not the only one who has expressed some version of this, so I'm going to describe how I've seen this actually happen in real life to people who are serious leftist activists - people who have been organizing for decades, faced jail time for their beliefs, and even achieved real victories. We are poorer without these people. They are now cancelled by a number of their former leftist activist friends and people from their social circles.
1. K is completely "cancelled" because K detransitioned after several years of taking hormones, and talks about how their feelings about their own detransition affect their beliefs about how they think that medical transitioning should be handled and what kind of advice, counseling, and support should be offered, and it makes people really deeply uncomfortable.
2. T is also completely "cancelled" because T had a very bad reaction to the COVID vaccine, and became a COVID truther.
3. B is cancelled because their romantic partner of fifteen years got cancelled for bad politics and B didn't dump them.
4. I is cancelled because they worked for a nonprofit organization and had wage theft, which they reported to a government organization responsible for stopping wage theft, which was considered 'informing'.
And I want to state that right now, these people are not what I would call "on the right". But I am noticing a dangerous rightward trend on the part of all of these people. Why? Because the vast majority of the people they knew on the left defriended them on social media and stopped inviting them to social gatherings and meetings, leaving them with feeds and gatherings full of right wing bullshit. The only people they can spend time with are right wingers. So is it any wonder they are now starting to espouse more and more creeping right wing views? They're not suddenly changing their views on taxation or economics, but I can see them starting to shift their views on current events, because of garbage in-garbage out issues.
posted by corb at 5:27 PM on December 13, 2023 [34 favorites]
You're not the only one who has expressed some version of this, so I'm going to describe how I've seen this actually happen in real life to people who are serious leftist activists - people who have been organizing for decades, faced jail time for their beliefs, and even achieved real victories. We are poorer without these people. They are now cancelled by a number of their former leftist activist friends and people from their social circles.
1. K is completely "cancelled" because K detransitioned after several years of taking hormones, and talks about how their feelings about their own detransition affect their beliefs about how they think that medical transitioning should be handled and what kind of advice, counseling, and support should be offered, and it makes people really deeply uncomfortable.
2. T is also completely "cancelled" because T had a very bad reaction to the COVID vaccine, and became a COVID truther.
3. B is cancelled because their romantic partner of fifteen years got cancelled for bad politics and B didn't dump them.
4. I is cancelled because they worked for a nonprofit organization and had wage theft, which they reported to a government organization responsible for stopping wage theft, which was considered 'informing'.
And I want to state that right now, these people are not what I would call "on the right". But I am noticing a dangerous rightward trend on the part of all of these people. Why? Because the vast majority of the people they knew on the left defriended them on social media and stopped inviting them to social gatherings and meetings, leaving them with feeds and gatherings full of right wing bullshit. The only people they can spend time with are right wingers. So is it any wonder they are now starting to espouse more and more creeping right wing views? They're not suddenly changing their views on taxation or economics, but I can see them starting to shift their views on current events, because of garbage in-garbage out issues.
posted by corb at 5:27 PM on December 13, 2023 [34 favorites]
that's a reflection on them as people, not on lefty ideas or politics themselves, isn't it?
I guess one thing I have trouble with is, there is a particular left-ish practice of call-outs that doesn't seem particularly left to me, but which is popular, like what Ivan Fyodorovich describes above as a "hostile challenge," which to my thinking has the same valence as the armchair talk of nazi-punching, although sometimes takes a more passive-aggressive form of criticisms that start with words like "Gently." And I suppose it's all online stuff, it arises from the way we talk in our little weird online siloes, but I don't really see it when I watch the right? Maybe it happens? Maybe there's someone in the background on right-ish forums yelling at someone else that the current bans on abortion aren't nearly stringent enough?
I'm having a terrible time trying to communicate this point--which is silly because it's a point you hear a million times a day. Right rhetoric, to me, has an outwardly-directed violence; left rhetoric has a bidirectional violence. I expect people on the left to care about...well, each other, and people in general. And yet there's this element of, "I'm going to be mean to you in a way I'd never dare to face-to-face, and I expect that to change your thinking and behavior so that you agree with me." That's just so weird. And off-putting, and clearly effective as a silencing tactic, and tedious! And I don't think the right does that? Do they?
posted by mittens at 5:28 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
I guess one thing I have trouble with is, there is a particular left-ish practice of call-outs that doesn't seem particularly left to me, but which is popular, like what Ivan Fyodorovich describes above as a "hostile challenge," which to my thinking has the same valence as the armchair talk of nazi-punching, although sometimes takes a more passive-aggressive form of criticisms that start with words like "Gently." And I suppose it's all online stuff, it arises from the way we talk in our little weird online siloes, but I don't really see it when I watch the right? Maybe it happens? Maybe there's someone in the background on right-ish forums yelling at someone else that the current bans on abortion aren't nearly stringent enough?
I'm having a terrible time trying to communicate this point--which is silly because it's a point you hear a million times a day. Right rhetoric, to me, has an outwardly-directed violence; left rhetoric has a bidirectional violence. I expect people on the left to care about...well, each other, and people in general. And yet there's this element of, "I'm going to be mean to you in a way I'd never dare to face-to-face, and I expect that to change your thinking and behavior so that you agree with me." That's just so weird. And off-putting, and clearly effective as a silencing tactic, and tedious! And I don't think the right does that? Do they?
posted by mittens at 5:28 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
> Understate disillusionment with your in-group at your own peril. Disillusionment opens you up to change
Expecting the left to protect people from feeling disillusioned is a big ask, and not a fair one.
> the vast majority of the people they knew on the left defriended them on social media and stopped inviting them to social gatherings and meetings, leaving them with feeds and gatherings full of right wing bullshit. The only people they can spend time with are right wingers.
First of all, thank you so much for making this problem concrete and putting me out of my confusion about what people mean when they say the left pushes people out, ejects people over ideological impurity, etc.
> I expect people on the left to care about...well, each other, and people in general.
We do. That's why we eject people over issues of "ideological impurity". To take corb's examples,
- "K" was probably unfriended and ejected to protect the trans members of the group for whom their choice of discussion topic is very close to violence in our world;
- "T" was probably unfriended and ejected because once again, it is close to violence for people who have lost loved ones to Covid to have to listen to a Covid truther;
- "B" was supposedly unfriended and rejected because their partner had ~bad politics~ which, for all we know, could mean they wore a pointy white hat and a bedsheet? There are just an uncountable number of ~bad politics~ positions which would mean that staying with such a partner makes "B" an unsafe person in any leftist gathering.
["I" was unfriended and ejected by corrupt swindlers who were explicitly taking a stance against worker's rights to their earned wages? so, like, blaming this on "leftists" enforcing "ideological purity" is kind of wild.]
In each of the cases above where the left enforced ideological purity and ejected people, it was in defense of the defenseless among us. This is how we show care for the people in our group.
You do have a point that maybe we owe a duty of care to the people whom we eject and unfriend, because as corb points out, this did push their friends to the right because they had no other choice -- and more important, there is cruelty inherent in ejecting and unfriending these people. But that duty of care isn't rightly fulfilled by letting these folks stay unchallenged, continuing to expose the rest of us to the harm they are actively causing! Challenging these folks isn't super helpful either, to them or to our communities.
posted by MiraK at 6:01 PM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Expecting the left to protect people from feeling disillusioned is a big ask, and not a fair one.
> the vast majority of the people they knew on the left defriended them on social media and stopped inviting them to social gatherings and meetings, leaving them with feeds and gatherings full of right wing bullshit. The only people they can spend time with are right wingers.
First of all, thank you so much for making this problem concrete and putting me out of my confusion about what people mean when they say the left pushes people out, ejects people over ideological impurity, etc.
> I expect people on the left to care about...well, each other, and people in general.
We do. That's why we eject people over issues of "ideological impurity". To take corb's examples,
- "K" was probably unfriended and ejected to protect the trans members of the group for whom their choice of discussion topic is very close to violence in our world;
- "T" was probably unfriended and ejected because once again, it is close to violence for people who have lost loved ones to Covid to have to listen to a Covid truther;
- "B" was supposedly unfriended and rejected because their partner had ~bad politics~ which, for all we know, could mean they wore a pointy white hat and a bedsheet? There are just an uncountable number of ~bad politics~ positions which would mean that staying with such a partner makes "B" an unsafe person in any leftist gathering.
["I" was unfriended and ejected by corrupt swindlers who were explicitly taking a stance against worker's rights to their earned wages? so, like, blaming this on "leftists" enforcing "ideological purity" is kind of wild.]
In each of the cases above where the left enforced ideological purity and ejected people, it was in defense of the defenseless among us. This is how we show care for the people in our group.
You do have a point that maybe we owe a duty of care to the people whom we eject and unfriend, because as corb points out, this did push their friends to the right because they had no other choice -- and more important, there is cruelty inherent in ejecting and unfriending these people. But that duty of care isn't rightly fulfilled by letting these folks stay unchallenged, continuing to expose the rest of us to the harm they are actively causing! Challenging these folks isn't super helpful either, to them or to our communities.
posted by MiraK at 6:01 PM on December 13, 2023 [14 favorites]
Slipping in here to say that (as someone who perhaps jumps to the comments instead of reading the original links too often), the actual piece has a lot of thought and depth to it, and pulls in more, the deeper you go.
One amusing curiousity: the link used to damn Christopher Hitchens in it is actually to a critical piece written by Max Blumenthal, who is later given as another example of someone swinging right from left.
posted by ntk at 6:09 PM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
One amusing curiousity: the link used to damn Christopher Hitchens in it is actually to a critical piece written by Max Blumenthal, who is later given as another example of someone swinging right from left.
posted by ntk at 6:09 PM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
So in terms of trying to find leftist community and knowing what politics people hold and so on - this is going to be a ramble but maybe some of y'all have insight.
So firstly: I'm not American, so Dem vs Rep stuff doesn't necessarily apply, but my local situation isn't necessarily that different.
I'd say that most of my politics are left, or at least left-leaning. However, I have noticed that there is a strong thread of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment that feeds through both the Left and Right. "Immigrants are stealing our jobs and they're the reason our wages are down" or "they're kicking us natives out [which is rather egregious coming from a White person but anyway] and gentrifying us" or "they're the cause of overpopulation that is killing our environment" or "their culture is toxic to us, ban the burqa" or "we only want the good migrants in" are all things I have heard from socialists, unionists, environmentalists, and many others who would consider themselves ardent leftists.
Meanwhile, I am radically open borders. Fuck immigration, fuck visas, fuck this tiered residency system where you have large chunks of the local population that still have to pay taxes and still have to follow local rules and still have to contribute to the local community and are essentially subsidising everyone else but can't get access to Government support or healthcare or voting. You live there, you get equal rights.
Unlike my lefty peers, I'm also not fond of the idea of the Government or the State being in charge for things that should be made "public ". It's a nice idea in theory, but I'm originally from a country that has made international news for corruption by super right wing Governments, and the left-ish view there is "get the Government out of things because they are super controlling".
Some people have said I'm likely more anarchist - I can say why they'd say that, but I feel like more structure is still useful. I just don't trust the Government to know or care about that structure and I'm concerned that certain groups of people will be considered too "foreign" to be part of these structures.
So where does that leave me?
posted by creatrixtiara at 6:20 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
So firstly: I'm not American, so Dem vs Rep stuff doesn't necessarily apply, but my local situation isn't necessarily that different.
I'd say that most of my politics are left, or at least left-leaning. However, I have noticed that there is a strong thread of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment that feeds through both the Left and Right. "Immigrants are stealing our jobs and they're the reason our wages are down" or "they're kicking us natives out [which is rather egregious coming from a White person but anyway] and gentrifying us" or "they're the cause of overpopulation that is killing our environment" or "their culture is toxic to us, ban the burqa" or "we only want the good migrants in" are all things I have heard from socialists, unionists, environmentalists, and many others who would consider themselves ardent leftists.
Meanwhile, I am radically open borders. Fuck immigration, fuck visas, fuck this tiered residency system where you have large chunks of the local population that still have to pay taxes and still have to follow local rules and still have to contribute to the local community and are essentially subsidising everyone else but can't get access to Government support or healthcare or voting. You live there, you get equal rights.
Unlike my lefty peers, I'm also not fond of the idea of the Government or the State being in charge for things that should be made "public ". It's a nice idea in theory, but I'm originally from a country that has made international news for corruption by super right wing Governments, and the left-ish view there is "get the Government out of things because they are super controlling".
Some people have said I'm likely more anarchist - I can say why they'd say that, but I feel like more structure is still useful. I just don't trust the Government to know or care about that structure and I'm concerned that certain groups of people will be considered too "foreign" to be part of these structures.
So where does that leave me?
posted by creatrixtiara at 6:20 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
In each of the cases above where the left enforced ideological purity and ejected people, it was in defense of the defenseless among us. This is how we show care for the people in our group.
This sounds like a recipe for ... a smaller group. If that's what you're after - a small, tightly-knit circle - that's OK. But if you've got wider goals, like trying to reach and influence more people, enforced ideological purity isn't much of a recruiting slogan.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:45 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
This sounds like a recipe for ... a smaller group. If that's what you're after - a small, tightly-knit circle - that's OK. But if you've got wider goals, like trying to reach and influence more people, enforced ideological purity isn't much of a recruiting slogan.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:45 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
Ctrl-F, "Hale". No results.
Glenn Greenwald's first foray onto the national stage was as the lawyer for World Church of the Creator founder Matt Hale. Nobody made him do that. He decided, on his own, to take legal work from a white nationalist leader.
The idea that he was ever a creature of the left who got run off or whatever is simply an ignorant fantasy in service to noxious narratives.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:46 PM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
Glenn Greenwald's first foray onto the national stage was as the lawyer for World Church of the Creator founder Matt Hale. Nobody made him do that. He decided, on his own, to take legal work from a white nationalist leader.
The idea that he was ever a creature of the left who got run off or whatever is simply an ignorant fantasy in service to noxious narratives.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:46 PM on December 13, 2023 [21 favorites]
close to violence
I think...I think this is pretty crucial to what I mean. The left--some of the left, some section that I hear from more than any other section--seems to have an amplified theory of harm, of violence. The world is absolutely throwing bodies into the meat-grinder, and everyone feels on the verge of ruin, and this is all very physically real, materially real...but there seems to be some confusion where any disagreement can be violence, and thus can and should be met with violent talk. And that just seems so counterproductive to me.
posted by mittens at 6:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [25 favorites]
I think...I think this is pretty crucial to what I mean. The left--some of the left, some section that I hear from more than any other section--seems to have an amplified theory of harm, of violence. The world is absolutely throwing bodies into the meat-grinder, and everyone feels on the verge of ruin, and this is all very physically real, materially real...but there seems to be some confusion where any disagreement can be violence, and thus can and should be met with violent talk. And that just seems so counterproductive to me.
posted by mittens at 6:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [25 favorites]
hmm gotta paste the brennan lee mulligan quote quote
“On the level of individuals and civilizations, personality predates ideology.” Meaning that before you were a fascist, you were a bully and an asshole.
the ostracism of shitty people is a feature, not a shortcoming. leftist communities that don't fix their broken stairs passively exclude the marginalized. the paradox of tolerance etc. you know you're in such a space when there are no people of color, no women, and no queer people.
the issue of ideological purity is not about individual bad actors getting pushed out, it's about the refusal of any imperfect solution. people who won't vote for so-and-so because the only real solution is violent marxist revolution, but also don't take any positive steps toward that, in favor of bickering on the internet.
posted by sharktopus at 6:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
“On the level of individuals and civilizations, personality predates ideology.” Meaning that before you were a fascist, you were a bully and an asshole.
the ostracism of shitty people is a feature, not a shortcoming. leftist communities that don't fix their broken stairs passively exclude the marginalized. the paradox of tolerance etc. you know you're in such a space when there are no people of color, no women, and no queer people.
the issue of ideological purity is not about individual bad actors getting pushed out, it's about the refusal of any imperfect solution. people who won't vote for so-and-so because the only real solution is violent marxist revolution, but also don't take any positive steps toward that, in favor of bickering on the internet.
posted by sharktopus at 6:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
“Slipping in here to say that (as someone who perhaps jumps to the comments instead of reading the original links too often), the actual piece has a lot of thought and depth to it, and pulls in more, the deeper you go.”
I think TFA is seminal. It's really, really good. I almost posted it here myself last night and I did come here this evening hoping there'd be more engagement with it directly.
That said, I nevertheless think the discussion has been productive.
It seems to me that corb's examples are mostly or entirely people who've decided that "the left" wasn't doing enough for them.
Sometime during the 90s, someone said to me online that they were mystified as to why I'd agitate to protect rights that I, myself, could never exercise. This was kind of a bolt from the blue where I was like, "oh, that's how people think" and this is not as much less true for the left as it ought to be.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:09 PM on December 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
I think TFA is seminal. It's really, really good. I almost posted it here myself last night and I did come here this evening hoping there'd be more engagement with it directly.
That said, I nevertheless think the discussion has been productive.
It seems to me that corb's examples are mostly or entirely people who've decided that "the left" wasn't doing enough for them.
Sometime during the 90s, someone said to me online that they were mystified as to why I'd agitate to protect rights that I, myself, could never exercise. This was kind of a bolt from the blue where I was like, "oh, that's how people think" and this is not as much less true for the left as it ought to be.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:09 PM on December 13, 2023 [17 favorites]
Violent Marxist revolutions are fun to fantasize about but if that’s your idea of “the left” 1) that’s a tiny fraction of people in the world and 2) none of the named people supposedly drummed out of “the left” were ever in It.
posted by Artw at 7:09 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:09 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think...I think this is pretty crucial to what I mean. The left--some of the left, some section that I hear from more than any other section--seems to have an amplified theory of harm, of violence. The world is absolutely throwing bodies into the meat-grinder, and everyone feels on the verge of ruin, and this is all very physically real, materially real...but there seems to be some confusion where any disagreement can be violence, and thus can and should be met with violent talk. And that just seems so counterproductive to me.
okay. let's take this:
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [18 favorites]
okay. let's take this:
1. K is completely "cancelled" because K detransitioned after several years of taking hormones, and talks about how their feelings about their own detransition affect their beliefs about how they think that medical transitioning should be handled and what kind of advice, counseling, and support should be offered, and it makes people really deeply uncomfortable.is k just saying that transitioning didn't work for them? or are they trying to make transition care harder to obtain? because if it's the former, i find it hard to believe that they were just excised from their existing queer community. if it's the latter, well, they're basically trying to strip healthcare from other marginalized people, which is violence, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:13 PM on December 13, 2023 [18 favorites]
“The left--some of the left, some section that I hear from more than any other section--seems to have an amplified theory of harm, of violence.”
Or maybe they're calling attention to harm from which the privileged are inherently insulated and therefore tend not to recognize as "harm"?
Could that be it?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:14 PM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
Or maybe they're calling attention to harm from which the privileged are inherently insulated and therefore tend not to recognize as "harm"?
Could that be it?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:14 PM on December 13, 2023 [13 favorites]
I read the article, and I have to say that Dimes Square stuff is really creepy. I've only seen it before vaguely alluded to in the NYT. It's much more disturbing than Matt Taibbi or Glenn Greenwald. People espousing eugenics and genocide is beyond contrarian, it's psychotic.
posted by maggiemaggie at 7:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by maggiemaggie at 7:47 PM on December 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
Or maybe they're calling attention to harm from which the privileged are inherently insulated and therefore tend not to recognize as "harm"?
So like: the thing is, this is a really, really easy thing to say, for a couple reasons. First, because sometimes it's right! And so that fact makes it really tempting to say in all situations, even when it's wrong. Not all situations where someone is being ostracized is because they're causing harm. In fact, many situations where someone is being ostracized is because they're creating cognitive dissonance, which isn't actually harm.
The cognitive dissonance is largely with the idea that only bad people think this way, which is unfortunately, the new shibboleth in large parts of the left. It's the new dehumanization. And it functions by saying that anyone who thinks differently in any respect is privileged, or bigoted, and thus deserves their exclusion, rather than just someone who has had different experiences that lead them to different conclusions on one particular aspect of the overall things in which they are in agreement.
None of the people I talked about above made a deliberate turn away from the left, and none of them decided the left 'wasn't doing enough for them'. All of them would still self describe as leftists. All of them are marginalized. In fact, all are disabled, working class individuals. Two are queer. Two are people of color. But each of them is no longer involved in leftist organizations because they are shunned from the leftist organizations they were a part of, because we currently live in a world where we believe in guilt by association and even being working partners with or intimate partners with someone who is shunned is enough to get you shunned. And all new information they are taking in is being filtered through everyone who remains - which is the people who won't shun them, which is everyone left in their family or friends groups who are more conservative.
And like - that's the world some people are comfortable living in, I guess. I'm not. I think we're the poorer for it and I think it's empowering the right with truly terrifying speed. But I guess people will have the comfort of their ideological purity, and eventually, all three of them left in twenty years will get to have a hell of a party.
posted by corb at 8:05 PM on December 13, 2023 [39 favorites]
So like: the thing is, this is a really, really easy thing to say, for a couple reasons. First, because sometimes it's right! And so that fact makes it really tempting to say in all situations, even when it's wrong. Not all situations where someone is being ostracized is because they're causing harm. In fact, many situations where someone is being ostracized is because they're creating cognitive dissonance, which isn't actually harm.
The cognitive dissonance is largely with the idea that only bad people think this way, which is unfortunately, the new shibboleth in large parts of the left. It's the new dehumanization. And it functions by saying that anyone who thinks differently in any respect is privileged, or bigoted, and thus deserves their exclusion, rather than just someone who has had different experiences that lead them to different conclusions on one particular aspect of the overall things in which they are in agreement.
None of the people I talked about above made a deliberate turn away from the left, and none of them decided the left 'wasn't doing enough for them'. All of them would still self describe as leftists. All of them are marginalized. In fact, all are disabled, working class individuals. Two are queer. Two are people of color. But each of them is no longer involved in leftist organizations because they are shunned from the leftist organizations they were a part of, because we currently live in a world where we believe in guilt by association and even being working partners with or intimate partners with someone who is shunned is enough to get you shunned. And all new information they are taking in is being filtered through everyone who remains - which is the people who won't shun them, which is everyone left in their family or friends groups who are more conservative.
And like - that's the world some people are comfortable living in, I guess. I'm not. I think we're the poorer for it and I think it's empowering the right with truly terrifying speed. But I guess people will have the comfort of their ideological purity, and eventually, all three of them left in twenty years will get to have a hell of a party.
posted by corb at 8:05 PM on December 13, 2023 [39 favorites]
Corb, you are absolutely getting at something that directly abuts the limits of language in western (small "l") liberal culture and I don't know how to talk through the assumptions and shared definitions that come with it.
There is an entire branch of semiotics that attempts to understand what we mean when we say "violence," much of it overlaps with genocide studies, and all of it is relatively new and poorly understood in general.
I don't see a way of bridging this that doesn't fail on category errors, alone.
The post-ww2 left hasn't had a great track record of defining our terms. And when half of the population believes "liberty" is a function of property rights and the other half thinks it means "freedom from harm" you've got a recipe for fighting.
I don't know how to fix this. You're not wrong.
Personally, this is where my own notions of "libertarianism" in matters of state violence and "collectivism" in matters of the commonwealth start to play tug-of-war.
"Violence" is too often a poorly defined term deployed in bad faith on the left in order to cut to the end of an argument and pick a winner. And I'm not sure if it was you who said it, but "shunning" is only an effective tactic if the person being threatened has enough privilege to care about losing face.
It's important, I think, to remember that the people listed in the article were (are) celebrities, first. And so to them, "canceling" feels like an attack on their "liberty." Because when you have that kind of privilege anything that questions it probably feels like violence. (Which is frankly pretty laughable).
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
There is an entire branch of semiotics that attempts to understand what we mean when we say "violence," much of it overlaps with genocide studies, and all of it is relatively new and poorly understood in general.
I don't see a way of bridging this that doesn't fail on category errors, alone.
The post-ww2 left hasn't had a great track record of defining our terms. And when half of the population believes "liberty" is a function of property rights and the other half thinks it means "freedom from harm" you've got a recipe for fighting.
I don't know how to fix this. You're not wrong.
Personally, this is where my own notions of "libertarianism" in matters of state violence and "collectivism" in matters of the commonwealth start to play tug-of-war.
"Violence" is too often a poorly defined term deployed in bad faith on the left in order to cut to the end of an argument and pick a winner. And I'm not sure if it was you who said it, but "shunning" is only an effective tactic if the person being threatened has enough privilege to care about losing face.
It's important, I think, to remember that the people listed in the article were (are) celebrities, first. And so to them, "canceling" feels like an attack on their "liberty." Because when you have that kind of privilege anything that questions it probably feels like violence. (Which is frankly pretty laughable).
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
I've come to really like and respect you, corb, but that was bullshit. In fact, I like and respect you because I remember the days when you said some awful shit here, you were called on it repeatedly, and you changed. I didn't think you were a "bad person", ever. Maybe other people did. That kind of reductive moralizing about people's character is infantile. There is way, way, way too much discussion devoted to whether someone is "bad" or not. You said a lot of awful things and, early on, you were far more disruptive than you were productive. The people that didn't like you wanted you gone for good reason. I always believed, from the beginning, that you were well-meaning and I did notice, from the beginning, that you made an effort to think things out and listen and learn. So I defended you. I'm glad I did.
But you were not owed that defense. No one was obligated to work to try to see beyond your words and, indeed, it was in fact your obligation to consider your words and their effect on others.
The people we're talking about aren't you. The people we're talking about expect people to understand their point of view even though they do fuck-all about trying to understand the point of view of others.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:41 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
But you were not owed that defense. No one was obligated to work to try to see beyond your words and, indeed, it was in fact your obligation to consider your words and their effect on others.
The people we're talking about aren't you. The people we're talking about expect people to understand their point of view even though they do fuck-all about trying to understand the point of view of others.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:41 PM on December 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
There's nothing more flattering to a liberal than the concept that everyone to their left is just as deranged as those to their right. For that reason, horseshoe theory will always be a popular idea with well-heeled centrists.
Who's to say that horseshoe theory is wrong? It's certainly more true than fish hook theory. I'm neither centrist nor well-heeled, but centrists are just more likely to stay bland and spineless rather than make a sharp turn to the right. The more dramatic lurches to the right come from the left. The article has several examples & unless you can come up with as many examples of centrists going that far right, the bulk of the evidence seems to be on the side of horseshoe theory.
posted by jonp72 at 8:50 PM on December 13, 2023
Who's to say that horseshoe theory is wrong? It's certainly more true than fish hook theory. I'm neither centrist nor well-heeled, but centrists are just more likely to stay bland and spineless rather than make a sharp turn to the right. The more dramatic lurches to the right come from the left. The article has several examples & unless you can come up with as many examples of centrists going that far right, the bulk of the evidence seems to be on the side of horseshoe theory.
posted by jonp72 at 8:50 PM on December 13, 2023
It would be nice to be shown ANY real examples of people who have been driven out from the left toward the right before bandying words like "tendency" about.
Excuse me, but there are multiple examples in the article if you don't engage in "no true Scotsman" arguments.
posted by jonp72 at 8:53 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Excuse me, but there are multiple examples in the article if you don't engage in "no true Scotsman" arguments.
posted by jonp72 at 8:53 PM on December 13, 2023 [2 favorites]
Again, due to the nature of the people involved the article itself barely doesn’t do that.
That any of these people were “driven out” is pretty damn questionable also.
posted by Artw at 8:59 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
That any of these people were “driven out” is pretty damn questionable also.
posted by Artw at 8:59 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
This sounds like a recipe for ... a smaller group. If that's what you're after - a small, tightly-knit circle - that's OK. But if you've got wider goals, like trying to reach and influence more people, enforced ideological purity isn't much of a recruiting slogan.
Doing the opposite is also a recipe for a smaller group: if you don't eg kick out the transphobes, you are de facto kicking out trans people.
posted by Dysk at 9:11 PM on December 13, 2023 [22 favorites]
Doing the opposite is also a recipe for a smaller group: if you don't eg kick out the transphobes, you are de facto kicking out trans people.
posted by Dysk at 9:11 PM on December 13, 2023 [22 favorites]
So far unmentioned is Lee Fang, another influential journalist, formerly of The Nation and The Intercept, who's also been drifting right. Like Ana Kasparian from TYT, Fang seems to be started along that left-->right journey.
You might interpret Fang's rightward drift in terms of his specific history of getting criticized on social media for his view that races don't exist and for his objections to any property destruction at BLM protests, etc. But there's also a non-individualistic story -- he's another dude at The Intercept, along with Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey, all of whom have been drifting right. And Fang belongs to the larger group the article discusses as well...
I've been puzzled over this phenomena, and am glad to read the article and comments here about its likely causes.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 9:15 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
You might interpret Fang's rightward drift in terms of his specific history of getting criticized on social media for his view that races don't exist and for his objections to any property destruction at BLM protests, etc. But there's also a non-individualistic story -- he's another dude at The Intercept, along with Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey, all of whom have been drifting right. And Fang belongs to the larger group the article discusses as well...
I've been puzzled over this phenomena, and am glad to read the article and comments here about its likely causes.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 9:15 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Matt Taibbi and Bill Maher and Glenn Greenwald and Christopher Hitchens and the others were ALL, to the last man, shitheads who revealed themselves as shitheads many many times before they turned rightward.
I think that's a rose-colored view of history.
I remember chuckling over Taibbi's 2009 takedown of Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, which I have seen on a list of the best negative reviews of all time. I also remember his characterization of Goldman Sachs as a vampire squid was very popular during Occupy Wall Street in 2001. I only found out about his disgraceful activities in Russia much later.
As for Bill Maher, I remember his anti-Bush, anti-SUV book, When You Ride Alone, You Ride with bin Laden, being a big seller at local bookstores in progressive Berkeley, CA, where I was living at the time. As for Greenwald, he won a "Koufax Award" for his blog in 2006, which is an award for left-leaning blogs (Sandy Koufax being one of baseball's most famous "lefties"). Christopher Hitchens was a columnist for The Nation, America's longest running left-of-center publication, for almost 20 years, beginning in 1981.
Maybe it was obvious they were shitheads the whole time, but we can't say that they were excluded from left-wing or left-liberal spaces the whole time. That's just completely misrepresenting history.
posted by jonp72 at 9:16 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think that's a rose-colored view of history.
I remember chuckling over Taibbi's 2009 takedown of Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, which I have seen on a list of the best negative reviews of all time. I also remember his characterization of Goldman Sachs as a vampire squid was very popular during Occupy Wall Street in 2001. I only found out about his disgraceful activities in Russia much later.
As for Bill Maher, I remember his anti-Bush, anti-SUV book, When You Ride Alone, You Ride with bin Laden, being a big seller at local bookstores in progressive Berkeley, CA, where I was living at the time. As for Greenwald, he won a "Koufax Award" for his blog in 2006, which is an award for left-leaning blogs (Sandy Koufax being one of baseball's most famous "lefties"). Christopher Hitchens was a columnist for The Nation, America's longest running left-of-center publication, for almost 20 years, beginning in 1981.
Maybe it was obvious they were shitheads the whole time, but we can't say that they were excluded from left-wing or left-liberal spaces the whole time. That's just completely misrepresenting history.
posted by jonp72 at 9:16 PM on December 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
The idea that he was ever a creature of the left who got run off or whatever is simply an ignorant fantasy in service to noxious narratives.
Greenwald won a Koufax award in the 2006, which was an award that was given to left-of-center bloggers. Greenwald was also viewed as a left-libertarian, anti-Bush blogger when he started blogging at Salon in 2007.
You can't erase what Greenwald did with respect to legally representing neo-Nazi Matthew Hale of The World Church of the Creator, but I remember that being completely overlooked in left-liberal spaces at the time. Greenwald was a "creature of the left" in the sense that people on the left actually did accept him as one of their own. I should know; I was there.
Maybe some of you on Metafilter saw through Greenwald the whole time. That's great if you did, but I know I didn't necessarily have him all figured in 2006 or 2007. I can admit that. I just hope some people aren't selectively remembering their own past in this thread.
posted by jonp72 at 9:28 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Greenwald won a Koufax award in the 2006, which was an award that was given to left-of-center bloggers. Greenwald was also viewed as a left-libertarian, anti-Bush blogger when he started blogging at Salon in 2007.
You can't erase what Greenwald did with respect to legally representing neo-Nazi Matthew Hale of The World Church of the Creator, but I remember that being completely overlooked in left-liberal spaces at the time. Greenwald was a "creature of the left" in the sense that people on the left actually did accept him as one of their own. I should know; I was there.
Maybe some of you on Metafilter saw through Greenwald the whole time. That's great if you did, but I know I didn't necessarily have him all figured in 2006 or 2007. I can admit that. I just hope some people aren't selectively remembering their own past in this thread.
posted by jonp72 at 9:28 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
That any of these people were “driven out” is pretty damn questionable also.
I think it's a little different from "driving out." I think some of these people were flawed the whole time & we chose to overlook their flaws at one time, but then there came a point we couldn't overlook their flaws any more & we turned away from them. I think it's more a question of seeing what you refused to see before than any conscious driving out.
posted by jonp72 at 9:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think it's a little different from "driving out." I think some of these people were flawed the whole time & we chose to overlook their flaws at one time, but then there came a point we couldn't overlook their flaws any more & we turned away from them. I think it's more a question of seeing what you refused to see before than any conscious driving out.
posted by jonp72 at 9:30 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maybe it was obvious they were shitheads the whole time, but we can't say that they were excluded from left-wing or left-liberal spaces the whole time. That's just completely misrepresenting history.
I don't think anyone is arguing that, though. They may have been darlings of (some parts of) leftwing communities, but their problematic bullshit was always there.
You have to consider who wasn't welcome or able to feel safe in the lefty spaces celebrating eg Maher in 2007, that might be now.
posted by Dysk at 9:34 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
I don't think anyone is arguing that, though. They may have been darlings of (some parts of) leftwing communities, but their problematic bullshit was always there.
You have to consider who wasn't welcome or able to feel safe in the lefty spaces celebrating eg Maher in 2007, that might be now.
posted by Dysk at 9:34 PM on December 13, 2023 [8 favorites]
I think it's worth pointing out that TFA isn't that terribly concerned with these left-to-right media personalities themselves, or why they did what they did, but more about the influence they have on others, who then follow them.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:39 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:39 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
unless you can come up with as many examples of centrists going that far right
That's interesting- JK Rowling I think, Maher traveled through the center, so I'm not sure where he lands in terms of horse shoe v. fish hook.
It's also possible that rightward drifting by centrists often just gets called bipartisanship or being non-partisan. What do we call Hillary Clinton befriending Henry Kissinger, or the Obamas helping to resuscitate GW Bush's reputation? Or centrist pundits like Matt Yglesias advocating moving right for supposed political advantages?
Maybe the phenomena we're talking about is that progressives have started moving rightward as often as centrists? (Denounce me if you must, but that's a genuine question!)
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 9:40 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
That's interesting- JK Rowling I think, Maher traveled through the center, so I'm not sure where he lands in terms of horse shoe v. fish hook.
It's also possible that rightward drifting by centrists often just gets called bipartisanship or being non-partisan. What do we call Hillary Clinton befriending Henry Kissinger, or the Obamas helping to resuscitate GW Bush's reputation? Or centrist pundits like Matt Yglesias advocating moving right for supposed political advantages?
Maybe the phenomena we're talking about is that progressives have started moving rightward as often as centrists? (Denounce me if you must, but that's a genuine question!)
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 9:40 PM on December 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
As an example, a lot of lefty communities used to be pretty much entirely cool with homophobia. Maybe not like, exterminationist homophobia, but casual homophobia was just kinda okay. Now it isn't. Someone who used to be in those circles, maybe even celebrated or something of a leader within them, who is now unwelcome because they're a homophobe, they'll experience this as cancel culture gone too far, and what a loss for the movement them no longer being involved is. But for any queer people, the situation looks rather different - what a loss to the movement not having them involved was before.
If the old status quo was alright, big tent, the gays can just suck it up or keep quiet about who they are, then why isn't the current status quo alright? Big tent, the homophobes can just suck it up or keep quiet about their odious beliefs.
A lot of the worry here looks to me like expecting minorities to have thicker skin than the predominantly straight white cis men that we've now "lost". Should we pander to them at the cost of everyone else because Maher can run into the open arms of the right in a way that eg a queer, trans, disabled person can't? You can't have both involved in your group, but only one of them is going to join the other team if you kick them out?
That's not a movement or group I want to be part of, and it seems a lot of other leftists agree these days.
posted by Dysk at 9:48 PM on December 13, 2023 [46 favorites]
If the old status quo was alright, big tent, the gays can just suck it up or keep quiet about who they are, then why isn't the current status quo alright? Big tent, the homophobes can just suck it up or keep quiet about their odious beliefs.
A lot of the worry here looks to me like expecting minorities to have thicker skin than the predominantly straight white cis men that we've now "lost". Should we pander to them at the cost of everyone else because Maher can run into the open arms of the right in a way that eg a queer, trans, disabled person can't? You can't have both involved in your group, but only one of them is going to join the other team if you kick them out?
That's not a movement or group I want to be part of, and it seems a lot of other leftists agree these days.
posted by Dysk at 9:48 PM on December 13, 2023 [46 favorites]
(I just had a moment of "oh shit, I probably used a bad example, Maher was anti-Islam predominantly wasn't he, he would be mutually exclusive with Muslim lefties, not queers.
A quick Google later, and reader, he's a massive homophobe as well. Are we really mourning his move rightward? Did he even move rightward, or did mainstream lefty communities just get their heads out their arses a bit more, and stop tolerating his brand of bigotry?)
posted by Dysk at 9:55 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
A quick Google later, and reader, he's a massive homophobe as well. Are we really mourning his move rightward? Did he even move rightward, or did mainstream lefty communities just get their heads out their arses a bit more, and stop tolerating his brand of bigotry?)
posted by Dysk at 9:55 PM on December 13, 2023 [7 favorites]
The Dimes Square stuff started a little before the pandemic, actually. (On Manhattan terms, that stretch was relatively affordable even before...it's a sort of weird area where other neighborhoods merge and peter out and there aren't a ton of stores.) One might say that these were a bunch of young people who had no actual radical politics or innovative art to offer, but they felt they needed to be a "scene," so...
posted by praemunire at 10:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 10:00 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Did he even move rightward?
He was fired in 2001 for being too far left to be on a US TV network.
That said, he was a mixed bag back then, and one of the least surprising people to drift rightward IMO. There are a lot more interesting/puzzling cases to discuss.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 10:06 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
He was fired in 2001 for being too far left to be on a US TV network.
That said, he was a mixed bag back then, and one of the least surprising people to drift rightward IMO. There are a lot more interesting/puzzling cases to discuss.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 10:06 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
He was fired in 2001 for being too far left to be on a US TV network.
Sure, but is it him that's shifted, or the Overton window in leftist communities? Have Maher's actual politics changed, or just how they're viewed?
posted by Dysk at 10:08 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sure, but is it him that's shifted, or the Overton window in leftist communities? Have Maher's actual politics changed, or just how they're viewed?
posted by Dysk at 10:08 PM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
But you were not owed that defense. No one was obligated to work to try to see beyond your words and, indeed, it was in fact your obligation to consider your words and their effect on others.
I think corb's point is basically a more nuanced, less exaggerated take on this meme, and this response of yours is not exactly doing much to disprove the basic thesis of the meme.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:46 PM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
I think corb's point is basically a more nuanced, less exaggerated take on this meme, and this response of yours is not exactly doing much to disprove the basic thesis of the meme.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:46 PM on December 13, 2023 [10 favorites]
There was a great article cited on Mastodon about generational and social change, but now I can't find it. The gist was
So yes, leftism as a whole has changed. For the better, I'll add. But likewise, some people haven't changed enough along with it.
posted by zompist at 10:58 PM on December 13, 2023 [29 favorites]
- People don't get more conservative as they age. On the contrary, they get more liberal.
- However, they don't change as fast as society does.
- Therefore, by the time they're old, though they are more liberal than they were when they were young, they may feel more at home with conservative parties.
So yes, leftism as a whole has changed. For the better, I'll add. But likewise, some people haven't changed enough along with it.
posted by zompist at 10:58 PM on December 13, 2023 [29 favorites]
this is a global phenomenon and arguing about the value of voting Democrat or not is maybe a little beside the point?
Quite a lot of the globe lives with the choice of Shit vs Shit Lite, and I think most people are quite capable of translating the specific words that refer to these options appropriately.
Metafilter: now we are in a reluctant club with these people, I suppose.
posted by flabdablet at 11:49 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Quite a lot of the globe lives with the choice of Shit vs Shit Lite, and I think most people are quite capable of translating the specific words that refer to these options appropriately.
Metafilter: now we are in a reluctant club with these people, I suppose.
posted by flabdablet at 11:49 PM on December 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Barry Oshry (who studies organizational behavior) suggest that people who see themselves as being at the bottom value solidarity extremely highly. This in turn tends to result in pressure to conform.
posted by russilwvong at 12:03 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Bottom peer groups exist in a context of shared vulnerability (“Four Persons in a Bottom Context”). The reflexive response is to coalesce. In coalescing, we feel (and, in fact, may be) less vulnerable. We develop a ‘‘we’’ mentality in which our differences are submerged and we feel connected to one another, supporting and being supported by one another.In reading this description, I wonder whether far-right groups (seeing themselves as an embattled minority, like anti-vaxxers or the convoy protesters in Ottawa) have exactly the same tendency towards conformity.
But then we harden in our we-ness — our closeness to one another and our separateness from all others, from ‘‘them.’’ In our we-ness we become wary of all others, resistant to them, and at times antagonistic to them. In our we-ness, there is pressure from one another as well as self-inflicted pressure to maintain unity. Difference is experienced as threatening to the we, and those expressing difference are pressured to come back into line. Individual action is experienced as threatening to the we and is discouraged.
The pressure toward conformity is intense. The cost to individuals is the suppression of their freedom and the opportunity to develop their individuality; the cost to the system is resistance to even the best-intentioned change initiatives and the suppression of energy that could be focused on system business.
posted by russilwvong at 12:03 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
is it him that's shifted, or the Overton window in leftist communities?
I see your point, probably more the latter for Maher.
Maybe more interesting is someone like Greenwald who has shifted. He was lambasting authoritarian threats under GW Bush, then downplaying them under Trump, arguing ad naseum that everybody should trust him that Trump wasn't a genuine authoritarian b/c, after all, he had helped expose Bolsonaro.
... unlike some, I confess I did not see most of this coming, and it seems to me the left-->right shifts have accelerated recently. Tulsi Gabbard, vice chair of the DNC in 2016, guest-hosting Tucker Carlson's White Power Hour in 2022? New kind of awful.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 12:35 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I see your point, probably more the latter for Maher.
Maybe more interesting is someone like Greenwald who has shifted. He was lambasting authoritarian threats under GW Bush, then downplaying them under Trump, arguing ad naseum that everybody should trust him that Trump wasn't a genuine authoritarian b/c, after all, he had helped expose Bolsonaro.
... unlike some, I confess I did not see most of this coming, and it seems to me the left-->right shifts have accelerated recently. Tulsi Gabbard, vice chair of the DNC in 2016, guest-hosting Tucker Carlson's White Power Hour in 2022? New kind of awful.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 12:35 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Tulsi Gabbard, who was going on Fox News to lambast Obama for not being anti-Muslim enough back in 2015?
posted by Dysk at 1:12 AM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 1:12 AM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
CW: CSA, r*pe, suicide
I am not famous nor do I produce content online. I’m Canadian. Otherwise, I’m one of the people this article is about. I went from anti-capitalism in 2011 to anti-mandate rallies in the summer of 2021. I've only lost one meaningful lefty friendship in that time.(I was under enormous stress, couldn't talk about it because there were no solutions, got way too drunk in public, and shot my mouth off about the wrong topic with the wrong person. I expect no charity, grace, or forgiveness from anyone on the left.)
But anyone telling me I was never a real leftist isn’t going to feel like an insult at all. Not anymore.
I dated an Emotionally Dysregulated woman, and the relationship fell apart around the same time as my belief in hard Left activism, and the larger leftist project. The parallels were striking; namely, Walking On Eggshells all the time, only to discover There Are No Good Moves.
The idea that purity spirals and circular firing squads are a ‘problem’ on the left seems to me to miss the point. These dynamics are an animating force in activism, as near as I can tell. Engaging in the purity war gives people purpose. I see a through-line between being treated with contempt for asking a question about this week's new language policy and straight-up deadly cruelty. Come Hell or High Water by Richard Singer and Delfina Vannucci is a book about consensus processes going wrong: they have a whole section on Cruelty which the anarchist authors say they’d have been happy to leave out if they hadn't seen it over and over again.
“Must my pain always be greater than yours for it to count?” - Jacqueline Rose
During my recovery from childhood sexual abuse, one of the things I learned in peer support groups is that we don't do any 'trauma-trumping' if we want to create a space for lost voices and healing. That is, we don't rank our traumas by severity, length, who the perpetrator was, anything.
I noticed that the people who would decry the Oppression Olympics --using that term-- would also in the same breath advocate for policies and procedures that would incentivize and inevitably lead to said Olympics. Seeing stuff like that enough times made me think that trauma-trumping is actually the entirety of the progressive worldview.
(I’d now have to add communal pseudo-innocence and vulnerable narcissism dressed up as empathy, but this is already a long post.)
An activist I know was relentlessly pilloried as a toxic white male, and the excitement with which the cause of excising him was taken up disturbed me, especially as his biggest crime was being an effective leader in areas that other white people felt was their right to be recognized for, despite not having demonstrated any leadership themselves.
He still doesn’t have perfect behaviours, but despite my having been swept up in the initial cancel-frenzy, when I had a real problem and needed real help, I went to this supposedly toxic person before any of the exceedingly self-righteous elect that had emerged in that group. Because I’d seen him doing the thing none of them could ever bring themselves to do: help an actual person in the real world, not all of humanity in inspiring prefigurative hypotheticals.
I know a woman whose trauma counsellors, after her rape, pressured her to dismiss her own history, i.e., the fact that she had a good relationship with her father. That fact interfered with the political views they wanted her to buy into, not because it was necessary for her healing, but because she owed it to The Movement. I encouraged her to speak out about this. She’s smarter than me, though, and never will.
I overheard at one protest how disappointed one long-timer was in the turnout and commitment, considering all the time he'd done. He soon thereafter ended his own life. Nobody can promise that the movement will unfold in the manner anyone might expect, and “Everybody Makes Their Own Decisions" gets invoked a lot. Which is how I figured it was better to back away slowly than get embroiled in any arguments about the ethics of getting poor and mentally ill people riled up and jailed, especially when there's a vocal camera-ready contingent that consider themselves too vital to The Movement to do the same.
I met a woman who described her induction into this kind of activism, by a parent, as a kind of grooming. One friend described a lonely and not-so-invisibly disabled former neighbour as having been cajoled and coerced into having an arrest record, devastating his already low employment prospects. I discussed all of this with a former Pride organizer who agreed that taking action carries costs, but also that the Left will continue to eat its own.
There are people highly motivated to change material conditions, and then there are people who demand that any movement worth their time also function as The Church of Purely Good People. The response to the pandemic has certainly underscored, for me, just how much people want something in the culture to play the role that religion once did. I hope we find something, because politics, media narratives, and public health bureaucrats seem terribly damaging as substitutes.
The 'come and get your boy/s' argument I may seem to be making usually falls apart quickly with a simple, 'these ain't my people’. Whenever I bring up what I perceive to be the excesses of ‘the left’, my Marxist-Leninist buddy informs me there is no Left in North America, so none of it is any skin off his nose.
But he also got himself accused of mansplaining, because he was offering vital information to people who didn't know how to do their jobs and didn't care to learn. He was volunteering his time to help the demographically-underrepresented artist that had become the face of a rather tony local arts extravaganza. They put her face on their promo materials, making themselves look nice and diversity-minded, and then used a 'progressive' trope to shield themselves from the consequences of their technical incompetence that effectively butchered her work. And the BIPOC artist herself? She was already just tired of fighting them.
It seems to me that progressive tropes are allowed enter the vernacular and the culture only to the degree that they can be used by the affluent, comfortable, and corporate-sponsored as a sword against their perceived enemies(the working class) and a shield for their own misdeeds, incompetence, or nefariousness.
People just aren't as noble or good as we might like: If they can escape opprobrium by hating on whoever this week's scapegoat is, they will. Until there's an effective means of mitigating against the harms done by dead-end cluster B rageaholics, social movements will likely continue to implode and wind up being worn as skinsuits by the Trudeaus and Buttigiegs of this world. And I’m not falling for it again.
The cadre of activists I used to protest alongside eventually descended into a Purity Spiral that resulted in the ostracism and exclusion of a man who'd given half his life to The Movement. A short time later he ended that life. I'm still angry about it, even though we weren't close. A couple of people, upon receiving this news, have remarked that he spent a lot of time running other people out of local activism, so was perhaps hoisted on his own petard. Decades under your belt of being The Guy Who Actually Cares About Women’s Feelings doesn’t make the ice under you any thicker.
fwiw, I was pretty disheartened by the infighting and sabotage accusations that took over the anti-mandate/Freedom movement, too. No matter how dismal the turnout was at those rallies, we could always count on Mysterious Loner With A Trump Flag, Dancer With No Shirt And An Open Beer, and Evangelical Anti-Masker With His Own Sound System to show. ‘The left’, if that’s a thing, still feels in lots of ways like ‘my people’ and I wish I could stand with them, but they make it harder every day. And they’re doing it with glee.
If there's a left that wants people like me back(there isn't), they'll make arguments closer to the one Ed Broadbent made to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology in 1998. A left that valued social cohesion wouldn't do any of the things I've described above. And they'd agree with Justice Pazaratz, quoted on the sign I carried at those anti-mandate rallies, "No one is a bad person simply by virtue of questioning their government." And they'd scrap their own virtue hoarding--sometimes--in favour of grace, charity, and forgiveness.
(I did decide to intervene when I found out my nephew was adopting Andrew Tate's mental health rhetoric, so perhaps I'm merely politically homeless at the moment. I also realize that for most here, that's a distinction without a difference.)
posted by Paddle to Sea at 1:39 AM on December 14, 2023 [20 favorites]
I am not famous nor do I produce content online. I’m Canadian. Otherwise, I’m one of the people this article is about. I went from anti-capitalism in 2011 to anti-mandate rallies in the summer of 2021. I've only lost one meaningful lefty friendship in that time.(I was under enormous stress, couldn't talk about it because there were no solutions, got way too drunk in public, and shot my mouth off about the wrong topic with the wrong person. I expect no charity, grace, or forgiveness from anyone on the left.)
But anyone telling me I was never a real leftist isn’t going to feel like an insult at all. Not anymore.
I dated an Emotionally Dysregulated woman, and the relationship fell apart around the same time as my belief in hard Left activism, and the larger leftist project. The parallels were striking; namely, Walking On Eggshells all the time, only to discover There Are No Good Moves.
The idea that purity spirals and circular firing squads are a ‘problem’ on the left seems to me to miss the point. These dynamics are an animating force in activism, as near as I can tell. Engaging in the purity war gives people purpose. I see a through-line between being treated with contempt for asking a question about this week's new language policy and straight-up deadly cruelty. Come Hell or High Water by Richard Singer and Delfina Vannucci is a book about consensus processes going wrong: they have a whole section on Cruelty which the anarchist authors say they’d have been happy to leave out if they hadn't seen it over and over again.
“Must my pain always be greater than yours for it to count?” - Jacqueline Rose
During my recovery from childhood sexual abuse, one of the things I learned in peer support groups is that we don't do any 'trauma-trumping' if we want to create a space for lost voices and healing. That is, we don't rank our traumas by severity, length, who the perpetrator was, anything.
I noticed that the people who would decry the Oppression Olympics --using that term-- would also in the same breath advocate for policies and procedures that would incentivize and inevitably lead to said Olympics. Seeing stuff like that enough times made me think that trauma-trumping is actually the entirety of the progressive worldview.
(I’d now have to add communal pseudo-innocence and vulnerable narcissism dressed up as empathy, but this is already a long post.)
An activist I know was relentlessly pilloried as a toxic white male, and the excitement with which the cause of excising him was taken up disturbed me, especially as his biggest crime was being an effective leader in areas that other white people felt was their right to be recognized for, despite not having demonstrated any leadership themselves.
He still doesn’t have perfect behaviours, but despite my having been swept up in the initial cancel-frenzy, when I had a real problem and needed real help, I went to this supposedly toxic person before any of the exceedingly self-righteous elect that had emerged in that group. Because I’d seen him doing the thing none of them could ever bring themselves to do: help an actual person in the real world, not all of humanity in inspiring prefigurative hypotheticals.
I know a woman whose trauma counsellors, after her rape, pressured her to dismiss her own history, i.e., the fact that she had a good relationship with her father. That fact interfered with the political views they wanted her to buy into, not because it was necessary for her healing, but because she owed it to The Movement. I encouraged her to speak out about this. She’s smarter than me, though, and never will.
I overheard at one protest how disappointed one long-timer was in the turnout and commitment, considering all the time he'd done. He soon thereafter ended his own life. Nobody can promise that the movement will unfold in the manner anyone might expect, and “Everybody Makes Their Own Decisions" gets invoked a lot. Which is how I figured it was better to back away slowly than get embroiled in any arguments about the ethics of getting poor and mentally ill people riled up and jailed, especially when there's a vocal camera-ready contingent that consider themselves too vital to The Movement to do the same.
I met a woman who described her induction into this kind of activism, by a parent, as a kind of grooming. One friend described a lonely and not-so-invisibly disabled former neighbour as having been cajoled and coerced into having an arrest record, devastating his already low employment prospects. I discussed all of this with a former Pride organizer who agreed that taking action carries costs, but also that the Left will continue to eat its own.
There are people highly motivated to change material conditions, and then there are people who demand that any movement worth their time also function as The Church of Purely Good People. The response to the pandemic has certainly underscored, for me, just how much people want something in the culture to play the role that religion once did. I hope we find something, because politics, media narratives, and public health bureaucrats seem terribly damaging as substitutes.
The 'come and get your boy/s' argument I may seem to be making usually falls apart quickly with a simple, 'these ain't my people’. Whenever I bring up what I perceive to be the excesses of ‘the left’, my Marxist-Leninist buddy informs me there is no Left in North America, so none of it is any skin off his nose.
But he also got himself accused of mansplaining, because he was offering vital information to people who didn't know how to do their jobs and didn't care to learn. He was volunteering his time to help the demographically-underrepresented artist that had become the face of a rather tony local arts extravaganza. They put her face on their promo materials, making themselves look nice and diversity-minded, and then used a 'progressive' trope to shield themselves from the consequences of their technical incompetence that effectively butchered her work. And the BIPOC artist herself? She was already just tired of fighting them.
It seems to me that progressive tropes are allowed enter the vernacular and the culture only to the degree that they can be used by the affluent, comfortable, and corporate-sponsored as a sword against their perceived enemies(the working class) and a shield for their own misdeeds, incompetence, or nefariousness.
People just aren't as noble or good as we might like: If they can escape opprobrium by hating on whoever this week's scapegoat is, they will. Until there's an effective means of mitigating against the harms done by dead-end cluster B rageaholics, social movements will likely continue to implode and wind up being worn as skinsuits by the Trudeaus and Buttigiegs of this world. And I’m not falling for it again.
The cadre of activists I used to protest alongside eventually descended into a Purity Spiral that resulted in the ostracism and exclusion of a man who'd given half his life to The Movement. A short time later he ended that life. I'm still angry about it, even though we weren't close. A couple of people, upon receiving this news, have remarked that he spent a lot of time running other people out of local activism, so was perhaps hoisted on his own petard. Decades under your belt of being The Guy Who Actually Cares About Women’s Feelings doesn’t make the ice under you any thicker.
fwiw, I was pretty disheartened by the infighting and sabotage accusations that took over the anti-mandate/Freedom movement, too. No matter how dismal the turnout was at those rallies, we could always count on Mysterious Loner With A Trump Flag, Dancer With No Shirt And An Open Beer, and Evangelical Anti-Masker With His Own Sound System to show. ‘The left’, if that’s a thing, still feels in lots of ways like ‘my people’ and I wish I could stand with them, but they make it harder every day. And they’re doing it with glee.
If there's a left that wants people like me back(there isn't), they'll make arguments closer to the one Ed Broadbent made to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology in 1998. A left that valued social cohesion wouldn't do any of the things I've described above. And they'd agree with Justice Pazaratz, quoted on the sign I carried at those anti-mandate rallies, "No one is a bad person simply by virtue of questioning their government." And they'd scrap their own virtue hoarding--sometimes--in favour of grace, charity, and forgiveness.
(I did decide to intervene when I found out my nephew was adopting Andrew Tate's mental health rhetoric, so perhaps I'm merely politically homeless at the moment. I also realize that for most here, that's a distinction without a difference.)
posted by Paddle to Sea at 1:39 AM on December 14, 2023 [20 favorites]
I think the conflation of "the left" as a social/organising group, and a set of politics/values is unhelpful. Being thrown out of it becoming disillusioned with an organising group isn't the same thing as being thrown out of our becoming disillusioned with a politics itself. Do you still believe in helping people? That we all have a responsibility to each other? Then in my book, you're still a lefty. The rest is details (not to suggest that those details don't matter, they very much do).
Where I am, attitudes to vaccines and vaccine mandates don't track cleanly with political affiliation at all. The most ardent anti-vaxxers have one thing in common: strong beliefs. You get people in that movement who are hard left as well as people who are hard right.
What I don't understand (and in fact, don't really see evidence of anywhere) is becoming disillusioned with a social group and changing your core values or politics because of it. Being "politically homeless" doesn't mean you aren't a lefty, doesn't mean your politics have moved to the right, even if your affiliations have. You do see people who subsume their own beliefs into group conformity, or strategically emphasise isolated points of agreement stop doing that when they leave a group, but that's not quite the same thing, that's more like a Gabbard/Maher situation.
posted by Dysk at 2:41 AM on December 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
Where I am, attitudes to vaccines and vaccine mandates don't track cleanly with political affiliation at all. The most ardent anti-vaxxers have one thing in common: strong beliefs. You get people in that movement who are hard left as well as people who are hard right.
What I don't understand (and in fact, don't really see evidence of anywhere) is becoming disillusioned with a social group and changing your core values or politics because of it. Being "politically homeless" doesn't mean you aren't a lefty, doesn't mean your politics have moved to the right, even if your affiliations have. You do see people who subsume their own beliefs into group conformity, or strategically emphasise isolated points of agreement stop doing that when they leave a group, but that's not quite the same thing, that's more like a Gabbard/Maher situation.
posted by Dysk at 2:41 AM on December 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
I just want to say I have nothing to add--I'm not as smart as you people--and that between the rather great article and this thread there is an wealth of opinion and insight here and they serve as very good milestones of the political spectrum circa 2023.
posted by zardoz at 3:05 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 3:05 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
“Four Persons in a Bottom Context”
World's saddest polycule.
posted by mittens at 4:45 AM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
World's saddest polycule.
posted by mittens at 4:45 AM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
I think it matters a lot why you’re on the left. I’m here because - as silly and naive as it sounds to some people - part of my self-definition is that I am in league with the future. Whether or not I’m especially welcome in any one particular leftist group is beside the point. Being a white dude with both an evangelical fundie past and an early-/r/atheism-style misogynist past means that twenty years later some leftist spaces will remain closed off. That I will never be pure enough for everyone. But that doesn’t change the fact that conservative beliefs are the political equivalent of an evolutionary dead end and always will be.
There is no place in right wing politics for someone who is utopian at heart and that is why I cannot go back and do not - will not - want to go back. The future is intersectional and the future is a softer shade of Marx. You don’t need to be especially clever to see that much.
Most of the figures being critiqued here were pretty clearly on the left because they liked being publicly smarter than other people and could make money doing so using clever words. If they could get that elsewhere, or were increasingly closed off from getting it within the left, there was nothing in particular anchoring them.
While I probably enjoy being smarter than other people on technical subjects a bit too much, that’s not a motivating force in my politics. So I will continue to be leftist where I am welcome and walk away from where I am not. Because I don’t need to win every argument, and as much as it chafes I don’t need everyone to love me. What I need is to first meet the minimum bar of not being part of the problem, then to rise above that and rack up some points being part of the solution where I can. And that will have to suffice.
posted by Ryvar at 4:59 AM on December 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
There is no place in right wing politics for someone who is utopian at heart and that is why I cannot go back and do not - will not - want to go back. The future is intersectional and the future is a softer shade of Marx. You don’t need to be especially clever to see that much.
Most of the figures being critiqued here were pretty clearly on the left because they liked being publicly smarter than other people and could make money doing so using clever words. If they could get that elsewhere, or were increasingly closed off from getting it within the left, there was nothing in particular anchoring them.
While I probably enjoy being smarter than other people on technical subjects a bit too much, that’s not a motivating force in my politics. So I will continue to be leftist where I am welcome and walk away from where I am not. Because I don’t need to win every argument, and as much as it chafes I don’t need everyone to love me. What I need is to first meet the minimum bar of not being part of the problem, then to rise above that and rack up some points being part of the solution where I can. And that will have to suffice.
posted by Ryvar at 4:59 AM on December 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
fwiw, I was pretty disheartened by the infighting and sabotage accusations that took over the anti-mandate/Freedom movement, too. No matter how dismal the turnout was at those rallies, we could always count on Mysterious Loner With A Trump Flag, Dancer With No Shirt And An Open Beer, and Evangelical Anti-Masker With His Own Sound System to show. ‘The left’, if that’s a thing, still feels in lots of ways like ‘my people’ and I wish I could stand with them, but they make it harder every day. And they’re doing it with glee.I don't expect to change your mind about vaccines, but the people who show up to anti-vax rallies don't act the way that people with coherent well thought out belief systems act for a reason.
posted by zymil at 5:14 AM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
MetaFilter: Walking On Eggshells all the time, only to discover There Are No Good Moves.
posted by pracowity at 5:52 AM on December 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 5:52 AM on December 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
Side note:
Some people have said I'm likely more anarchist - I can say why they'd say that, but I feel like more structure is still useful. I just don't trust the Government to know or care about that structure and I'm concerned that certain groups of people will be considered too "foreign" to be part of these structures.
The political philosophy of anarchism is not at all the same thing as the colloquial use of the word to mean chaos or lack of structure. There are many young people who call themselves anarchists because of the latter, so there’s certainly overlap. But historically anarchists are some of the biggest structure nerds, thinking about alternative structures. This is more the case for anarcho-communists than folks who have been purely anti-state anarchists without much focus on the economic analysis, in my experience.
‘Course, all variants of anarchism grew out of a primarily Western context. There have been some prominent anarchists in other parts of the world too, but my impression is that more often folks with largely overlapping ideas will situate themselves in political traditions more culturally relevant to themselves. Eg. Zapatistas or much of the Indigenous political activism in the US and Canada that I’m familiar with share a lot in common with anarcho-communism, but come from different, Indigenous political traditions. (Noting that, although it’s not often mentioned, part of this overlap is due to the influence of those non-Western political traditions on the development of Western or European anarchism, too!)
On top of anarchism not being the relevant cultural context for everyone, it’s also perhaps rather anarchist to not fully self-identify with any given ideology?
posted by eviemath at 5:52 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Some people have said I'm likely more anarchist - I can say why they'd say that, but I feel like more structure is still useful. I just don't trust the Government to know or care about that structure and I'm concerned that certain groups of people will be considered too "foreign" to be part of these structures.
The political philosophy of anarchism is not at all the same thing as the colloquial use of the word to mean chaos or lack of structure. There are many young people who call themselves anarchists because of the latter, so there’s certainly overlap. But historically anarchists are some of the biggest structure nerds, thinking about alternative structures. This is more the case for anarcho-communists than folks who have been purely anti-state anarchists without much focus on the economic analysis, in my experience.
‘Course, all variants of anarchism grew out of a primarily Western context. There have been some prominent anarchists in other parts of the world too, but my impression is that more often folks with largely overlapping ideas will situate themselves in political traditions more culturally relevant to themselves. Eg. Zapatistas or much of the Indigenous political activism in the US and Canada that I’m familiar with share a lot in common with anarcho-communism, but come from different, Indigenous political traditions. (Noting that, although it’s not often mentioned, part of this overlap is due to the influence of those non-Western political traditions on the development of Western or European anarchism, too!)
On top of anarchism not being the relevant cultural context for everyone, it’s also perhaps rather anarchist to not fully self-identify with any given ideology?
posted by eviemath at 5:52 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Someone upthread mentioned “He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole”. I have a specific experience relevant to this exact phrase.
There was such a guy in my first union. The union included two tiers of workers at our employer, where some members of one tier had supervisory power over the other tier. In many ways this was a useful setup for us in the lower tier, because we were able to benefit from the greater power within our workplace held by those in the upper tier (as opposed to a third group of workers in a different less-powerful tier who had their own separate union, but were not able to get many concessions from the employer). However, the guy who had been the lead negotiator for our union during contract negotiations for many years was an asshole - the sort who other union members in the upper tier explicitly described using exactly the words “he’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”
So, when I was there, a group of us lower tier workers had a campaign to increase participation in the union by other lower tier workers in the lead-up to a round of negotiations. Some important issues were at stake, and we needed as much solidarity as possible to protect our working conditions. We were fairly successful, except in the department that “our asshole” worked in. Barely any upper tier workers who had to work directly with him would participate in the union, though many were at least non-obstructionist; but the lower tier workers in that department were actively hostile to the union, and it was because they didn’t trust the union, because this guy who was an asshole who directly negatively impacted their working conditions had this position of power and commendation from the union. While he was a good head negotiator, that is a skill that other people could have learned; and in the mean time his having that position within the union actively impeded building the solidarity that is the true basis of power of any union.
posted by eviemath at 6:07 AM on December 14, 2023 [23 favorites]
There was such a guy in my first union. The union included two tiers of workers at our employer, where some members of one tier had supervisory power over the other tier. In many ways this was a useful setup for us in the lower tier, because we were able to benefit from the greater power within our workplace held by those in the upper tier (as opposed to a third group of workers in a different less-powerful tier who had their own separate union, but were not able to get many concessions from the employer). However, the guy who had been the lead negotiator for our union during contract negotiations for many years was an asshole - the sort who other union members in the upper tier explicitly described using exactly the words “he’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.”
So, when I was there, a group of us lower tier workers had a campaign to increase participation in the union by other lower tier workers in the lead-up to a round of negotiations. Some important issues were at stake, and we needed as much solidarity as possible to protect our working conditions. We were fairly successful, except in the department that “our asshole” worked in. Barely any upper tier workers who had to work directly with him would participate in the union, though many were at least non-obstructionist; but the lower tier workers in that department were actively hostile to the union, and it was because they didn’t trust the union, because this guy who was an asshole who directly negatively impacted their working conditions had this position of power and commendation from the union. While he was a good head negotiator, that is a skill that other people could have learned; and in the mean time his having that position within the union actively impeded building the solidarity that is the true basis of power of any union.
posted by eviemath at 6:07 AM on December 14, 2023 [23 favorites]
I think this is central. A lot of the left-to-right converters we're talking about are people more invested in their own image and popularity than in the causes and policies they were supporting, back when we thought of them as leftist.
KMO claimed that James Howard Kunsler's shift to cheerleading Trump was the side he shifted to was the only one who was still willing to write checks for public speaking as his income was based off of the public speaking based on his conversations with Mr. Kunsler.
Tulsi Gabbard, vice chair of the DNC in 2016, guest-hosting TuckeDNCr Carlson's White Power Hour in 2022? New kind of awful.
Or is it a reaction in part to the DNC being not democratic and when challenged in a lawsuit the reaction of the DNC was cooking the books ain't illegal.
By going against the DNC annotated person her ability to make a living as a commentator was limited on the D side.
I look forward to pearl clutching in 4 years about the people who left the left in part to this cycles willingness to not have primaries for that top spot and the down ballot effects.
Party over principles baby!
posted by rough ashlar at 6:20 AM on December 14, 2023
KMO claimed that James Howard Kunsler's shift to cheerleading Trump was the side he shifted to was the only one who was still willing to write checks for public speaking as his income was based off of the public speaking based on his conversations with Mr. Kunsler.
Tulsi Gabbard, vice chair of the DNC in 2016, guest-hosting TuckeDNCr Carlson's White Power Hour in 2022? New kind of awful.
Or is it a reaction in part to the DNC being not democratic and when challenged in a lawsuit the reaction of the DNC was cooking the books ain't illegal.
By going against the DNC annotated person her ability to make a living as a commentator was limited on the D side.
I look forward to pearl clutching in 4 years about the people who left the left in part to this cycles willingness to not have primaries for that top spot and the down ballot effects.
Party over principles baby!
posted by rough ashlar at 6:20 AM on December 14, 2023
Dysk, I appreciate what you're trying to do, and there is something to it: I voted Green in our last provincial election, but only because they had the lone acceptable position on the rights of the disabled. I can't get into why I find your litmus test inapplicable without getting even more long-winded about myself and my experiences, and I think this thread has likely had enough of that. You are correct about one thing: I did attend those rallies with my Communist friends, who are currently champing at the bit to vote in Pollievre. One of 'em has long had the complaint that a large swath of what passes for The Left has nothing to offer but petty oneupmanship via insults, witticisms, and snark, as we can see so aptly demonstrated a few comments back. But I was on the fence about the shots in the beginning. What changed my mind was seeing everyone go after people who had gone and got their injection, but had the nerve to publicly talk about their ensuing injuries. That confirmed for me what I'd begun to suspect: a great many smart, educated people had lost the ability to think. Fear and psyops will do that to you.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 6:22 AM on December 14, 2023
posted by Paddle to Sea at 6:22 AM on December 14, 2023
One of the difficulties of doing Leftist activism is that we have all grown up in a world and in individual cultures that have at least some contradictory values. So everyone engaged in anti-poverty work has grown up with some ingrained classism, and everyone working for lgbtqia+ rights has grown up with some ingrained homophobia transphobia, and everyone working for women’s rights has grown up with some ingrained sexism, and everyone working for disability rights has grown up with some ingrained ableism, etc. To be a successful activist or organizer in these areas requires knowing and acknowledging that about oneself, and about others. Anyone taking on a leadership role in such activism or organizing needs to be open to learning about where they act based on learned behavior that isn’t in accordance with their current values, and able to work on improving when such behavior is pointed out to them. That’s what makes a leader that more vulnerable members of the group can and will trust, not perfect ideological purity. In smaller groups, it matters that everyone is trustworthy - that we don’t let someone’s abusive ex join the group, for a specific example from groups I have experience with. In larger movements, there is enough space and buffer for there to be some members who other members don’t always feel safe around, or who hold harmful views on one topic while largely agreeing on the majority of topics. But only if the folks in leadership positions act in a trustworthy manner by accepting when they inadvertently do harm and working to improve. If you get someone who is blatantly classist helping lead your pride group, that will drive out more people than whatever the supposed benefit of their organizing skills are; or if you get someone blatantly sexist heading up your union, etc.
Even among the assholes I’ve seen and been in groups with, left to right shifts have been rare in my personal experience. Far more common are the people who just drop out.
posted by eviemath at 6:27 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Even among the assholes I’ve seen and been in groups with, left to right shifts have been rare in my personal experience. Far more common are the people who just drop out.
posted by eviemath at 6:27 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
He [Maher] was fired in 2001 for being too far left to be on a US TV network.
I thought he was fired because he said the terrorists who attacked the WTC Towers were not cowards, but our military was? Wiki
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 6:51 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
I thought he was fired because he said the terrorists who attacked the WTC Towers were not cowards, but our military was? Wiki
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 6:51 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
He was fired in 2001 for being too far left to be on a US TV network.
i might have been a wee babe and possibly more "socially liberal/fiscally conservative" like all children from families of pretension back around the turn of the century, but i don't think saying that the 9/11 terrorists were brave was a particularly leftist belief?
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:00 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
i might have been a wee babe and possibly more "socially liberal/fiscally conservative" like all children from families of pretension back around the turn of the century, but i don't think saying that the 9/11 terrorists were brave was a particularly leftist belief?
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:00 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
great many smart, educated people had lost the ability to think.
Most people just go on vibes most of the time, folks. I can’t help but think that most people, most of the time, make the decisions that they do because this is what feels right, and/or this is what other people I identify with say/do, so this must be the correct action. What are my peers doing? Yeah, sure, there are conflicts that push people to change peer groups, but those are acute examples of a much broader phenomenon where stupid social media bs or Fox News starts being poured into someone’s brain and changing it, which is more widespread (and personally I find scarier).
posted by bq at 7:10 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Most people just go on vibes most of the time, folks. I can’t help but think that most people, most of the time, make the decisions that they do because this is what feels right, and/or this is what other people I identify with say/do, so this must be the correct action. What are my peers doing? Yeah, sure, there are conflicts that push people to change peer groups, but those are acute examples of a much broader phenomenon where stupid social media bs or Fox News starts being poured into someone’s brain and changing it, which is more widespread (and personally I find scarier).
posted by bq at 7:10 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
There's a lot of people cited in the article who were called out for something and instead of admitting that what they said was wrong and offensive, chose instead to double down on it. And it shouldn't come to any surprise that people who believe they're incapable of being wrong and offensive should gravitate towards an ideology that embraces that line of thought.
You didn't explicitly say so, but there's a hint of major hidden divide. There is a balance to be struck between social ideals and individualism, especially in regards to privacy and disagreement. Those who admit this today would often be judged guilty as a moderate because the pressure is on to pick a side, rather than both. Confessional culture is abhorrent to a lot of people, and not just because it has a long and tortured history. It blatantly flaunts an elitism that most people recognize as capable of turning against them some day for their minor sins. This recognition is a self-awareness, not based on a delusion, and is why so many fear the left. The way forward would be to use an agreed checklist of policy priorities, to get everyone on a page. One would be surprised to learn how many on the left would not agree on the list, or the priorities, especially anything that looks like a sin in the original sense.
posted by Brian B. at 7:37 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
You didn't explicitly say so, but there's a hint of major hidden divide. There is a balance to be struck between social ideals and individualism, especially in regards to privacy and disagreement. Those who admit this today would often be judged guilty as a moderate because the pressure is on to pick a side, rather than both. Confessional culture is abhorrent to a lot of people, and not just because it has a long and tortured history. It blatantly flaunts an elitism that most people recognize as capable of turning against them some day for their minor sins. This recognition is a self-awareness, not based on a delusion, and is why so many fear the left. The way forward would be to use an agreed checklist of policy priorities, to get everyone on a page. One would be surprised to learn how many on the left would not agree on the list, or the priorities, especially anything that looks like a sin in the original sense.
posted by Brian B. at 7:37 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
There’s also the issue that when some folks are talking about “left” they mean the progressive wing of the leftmost dominant political party (Democrats, NDP, Labour, etc.), and when other people are talking about “left” we mean subgroups with specific absolute, not relative, political positions (which generally excludes political parties). Eg. no way would I have ever called eg. Tulsi Gabbard a leftist, even while I can acknowledge the plain fact that she made most of her political career within the Democratic Party, and that the Democratic Party is relatively to the left of the Republican Party.
Communists voting for Poilievre would be some accelerationist Tankie bullshit that I would absolutely call out if I saw it among my social circles.
There was a similar situation in one of my social (not political) circles in my small rural Canadian town. During the 2016 US presidential election, many folks in my town had strong opinions, because although it is a different country, the US has a significant economic and cultural impact on Canada. There were a handful of guys within my social circle who were pro-Trump because they were adamantly against Hilary Clinton. Most of them I am still friends with, because when I talked with them they were able to listen and acknowledge my experience (which included knowing people who had relatives who worked for Trump, so having secondhand knowledge of his shittiness as an employer as well as his overall general bigotry and authoritarianism) and perspective, and they incorporated the info about Trump (who they had only previously known as a tv personality) and adapted their opinions and behavior. The extent or nature of their dislike of Clinton was still colored by sexism, but to about the same degree as everything is colored by sexism, which is to say, back to the baseline level that I had considered passable before (not close friends, but ok to socialize with).
But there was this one guy who would not listen to me, and was sure that he knew better based on what he read online, who was both the most vehement Trump booster and Clinton hater in the social group. I absolutely cut all social contact with him. A year or so later he came up to me at a party to semi-apologize, having realized that he had been wrong about Trump (though not other details). But the underlying attitude of not believing me and my experience was still the same. It was sexist af. Not surprisingly, I had also been hearing vague rumors (nothing concrete, unfortunately) that he perhaps wasn’t a safe person for inebriated women to be alone with. I’m sure this guy thinks of himself as a leftist, then and still - he’s an old hippie (more of the partying sort than the politically active sort, politics seems to have always been more about group identity than values for him), has worked construction his whole life and identifies as working class, and was supportive of me when I had some issues with a local landlord (though possibly partly or largely out of personal dislike of the landlord in question). But he’s a missing stair, and there are multiple people who don’t feel safe or comfortable in some of the local social settings due to his presence. They just drift off quietly, however, so other people don’t notice that he’s taking away more than he’s providing to his social group.
Another feature of the larger discussion here is that folks in highly marginalized groups are dealing with a lot of personal trauma. The nearest city to me has a relatively large-ish trans community, including many young and politically active folks who I’ve worked with in various activist groups. Relationship violence or emotional abuse has been an issue in the community, very much related to everyone’s histories of personal trauma (not at a greater rate than in cis-hetero relationships, but adding on to existing marginalization in ways that have further harmed some folks, whose potential social circles are already quite restricted due to being trans), and while relatively sizeable it’s not a large enough community that everyone involved can easily remain engaged in leftist activism or the related social circles while avoiding abusive exes. I don’t know of anyone who has made a left-to-right political shift due to those dynamics (that would be pretty hard for a trans or nonbinary person, but also they seem to have kept their underlying politics). This example is more to illustrate one source of some of the difficulties that folks may experience as leftist infighting (adding on to my previous comment about how everyone doing leftist activism or organizing is handicapped by having been raised with some contradictory values - trauma adds another layer to that for many folks).
posted by eviemath at 7:38 AM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
Communists voting for Poilievre would be some accelerationist Tankie bullshit that I would absolutely call out if I saw it among my social circles.
There was a similar situation in one of my social (not political) circles in my small rural Canadian town. During the 2016 US presidential election, many folks in my town had strong opinions, because although it is a different country, the US has a significant economic and cultural impact on Canada. There were a handful of guys within my social circle who were pro-Trump because they were adamantly against Hilary Clinton. Most of them I am still friends with, because when I talked with them they were able to listen and acknowledge my experience (which included knowing people who had relatives who worked for Trump, so having secondhand knowledge of his shittiness as an employer as well as his overall general bigotry and authoritarianism) and perspective, and they incorporated the info about Trump (who they had only previously known as a tv personality) and adapted their opinions and behavior. The extent or nature of their dislike of Clinton was still colored by sexism, but to about the same degree as everything is colored by sexism, which is to say, back to the baseline level that I had considered passable before (not close friends, but ok to socialize with).
But there was this one guy who would not listen to me, and was sure that he knew better based on what he read online, who was both the most vehement Trump booster and Clinton hater in the social group. I absolutely cut all social contact with him. A year or so later he came up to me at a party to semi-apologize, having realized that he had been wrong about Trump (though not other details). But the underlying attitude of not believing me and my experience was still the same. It was sexist af. Not surprisingly, I had also been hearing vague rumors (nothing concrete, unfortunately) that he perhaps wasn’t a safe person for inebriated women to be alone with. I’m sure this guy thinks of himself as a leftist, then and still - he’s an old hippie (more of the partying sort than the politically active sort, politics seems to have always been more about group identity than values for him), has worked construction his whole life and identifies as working class, and was supportive of me when I had some issues with a local landlord (though possibly partly or largely out of personal dislike of the landlord in question). But he’s a missing stair, and there are multiple people who don’t feel safe or comfortable in some of the local social settings due to his presence. They just drift off quietly, however, so other people don’t notice that he’s taking away more than he’s providing to his social group.
Another feature of the larger discussion here is that folks in highly marginalized groups are dealing with a lot of personal trauma. The nearest city to me has a relatively large-ish trans community, including many young and politically active folks who I’ve worked with in various activist groups. Relationship violence or emotional abuse has been an issue in the community, very much related to everyone’s histories of personal trauma (not at a greater rate than in cis-hetero relationships, but adding on to existing marginalization in ways that have further harmed some folks, whose potential social circles are already quite restricted due to being trans), and while relatively sizeable it’s not a large enough community that everyone involved can easily remain engaged in leftist activism or the related social circles while avoiding abusive exes. I don’t know of anyone who has made a left-to-right political shift due to those dynamics (that would be pretty hard for a trans or nonbinary person, but also they seem to have kept their underlying politics). This example is more to illustrate one source of some of the difficulties that folks may experience as leftist infighting (adding on to my previous comment about how everyone doing leftist activism or organizing is handicapped by having been raised with some contradictory values - trauma adds another layer to that for many folks).
posted by eviemath at 7:38 AM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
He was fired in 2001 for being too far left to be on a US TV network.
i might have been a wee babe and possibly more "socially liberal/fiscally conservative" like all children from families of pretension back around the turn of the century, but i don't think saying that the 9/11 terrorists were brave was a particularly leftist belief?
That's the point. I don't think that saying the 9/11 terrorists were brave was a particularly leftist belief. I remember Susan Sontag saying something quite similar at the time, but she was mainly view as more liberal than left at the time.
However, I think it is correct to say Maher was fired for being "too far left." He wasn't fired for sexism. He wasn't fired for his creepy obsession with right-wing blondes like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, whose careers he launched. (No, he literally called himself "the Louis B. Mayer of leggy, conservative blondes" at the time.) He wasn't fired for saying things that liberals or leftists considered "politically incorrect." But he was fired for not going along with jingoistic rah-rah mindset after 9/11 and that was definitely viewed at the time as a more "left" thing than a "right" thing.
posted by jonp72 at 7:40 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
i might have been a wee babe and possibly more "socially liberal/fiscally conservative" like all children from families of pretension back around the turn of the century, but i don't think saying that the 9/11 terrorists were brave was a particularly leftist belief?
That's the point. I don't think that saying the 9/11 terrorists were brave was a particularly leftist belief. I remember Susan Sontag saying something quite similar at the time, but she was mainly view as more liberal than left at the time.
However, I think it is correct to say Maher was fired for being "too far left." He wasn't fired for sexism. He wasn't fired for his creepy obsession with right-wing blondes like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, whose careers he launched. (No, he literally called himself "the Louis B. Mayer of leggy, conservative blondes" at the time.) He wasn't fired for saying things that liberals or leftists considered "politically incorrect." But he was fired for not going along with jingoistic rah-rah mindset after 9/11 and that was definitely viewed at the time as a more "left" thing than a "right" thing.
posted by jonp72 at 7:40 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
i feel like with that logic chain left and right no longer have meaning?
especially since a lot of liberals and leftists seemed to have thought that praising the wholesale murder of over 3,000 people using two widebody jets might have been somewhat politically incorrect?
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
especially since a lot of liberals and leftists seemed to have thought that praising the wholesale murder of over 3,000 people using two widebody jets might have been somewhat politically incorrect?
posted by i used to be someone else at 7:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
I know the cliche is, "If you haven't read The Conquest of Bread, are you really a leftist?" I think there something to it though, because getting through Kropotkin implies a commitment to liberation that will survive the all too common descent to reactionary crank in middle age; e.g., Miller, Maher, Greenwald, Taibbi, Chappelle, Musk, et al.
Cf. “The Dipshit Paradox,” A.R. Moxon, The Reframe, 26 July 2023
P.S. “Beyond the Bread Book”—Zoe Baker, 20 January 2020
posted by ob1quixote at 7:51 AM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
Cf. “The Dipshit Paradox,” A.R. Moxon, The Reframe, 26 July 2023
P.S. “Beyond the Bread Book”—Zoe Baker, 20 January 2020
posted by ob1quixote at 7:51 AM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
To complete the thought from my last two comments, the dominant, non-leftist cultural values that we’re all raised with impact how we react in times of stress, such as when an activist group has a missing stair who creates a challenge to solidarity and social cohesion within the group. Lots of folks over centuries have thought and written and talked about this. One really helpful and readably short piece is the 2013 essay on Black Girl Dangerous Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable by Ngọc Loan Trần. The Creative Interventions Toolkit can also be a good starting point. But this is one of the hard problems in organizing and activism, that folks in leadership positions (formal or informal) ideally should also read up on, but that your average participant isn’t going to be super familiar with.
posted by eviemath at 8:05 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 8:05 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
This post from the current Gaza thread fits well here too.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:29 AM on December 14, 2023
posted by Artful Codger at 8:29 AM on December 14, 2023
"shunning" is only an effective tactic if the person being threatened has enough privilege to care about losing face.
I don't think that's true. Shunning works because humans, with rare exception, are inherently social creatures and cutting us off from community is extremely painful.
This isn't to say that shunning is never justified, merely that it's not something that only works if the person being shunned already has some level of privilege (beyond the most basic "privilege" of being part of a community from which they can be shunned).
posted by asnider at 8:31 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't think that's true. Shunning works because humans, with rare exception, are inherently social creatures and cutting us off from community is extremely painful.
This isn't to say that shunning is never justified, merely that it's not something that only works if the person being shunned already has some level of privilege (beyond the most basic "privilege" of being part of a community from which they can be shunned).
posted by asnider at 8:31 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
historically anarchists are some of the biggest structure nerds, thinking about alternative structures
This is what depresses me most about modern "anarchists"--people like Kropotkin and Bakunin were urgently concerned with the question of how to organize society better without using coercion, not seeking to abolish all organization: an issue that occupies me today a little less than I was twelve, but that still remains important.
posted by praemunire at 8:32 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is what depresses me most about modern "anarchists"--people like Kropotkin and Bakunin were urgently concerned with the question of how to organize society better without using coercion, not seeking to abolish all organization: an issue that occupies me today a little less than I was twelve, but that still remains important.
posted by praemunire at 8:32 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
eviemath - There is also important analysis about what constitutes anarchism wrt praxis.
I'm a Christian anarchist - not because I read about "anarchism" and decided it felt right, but because I read about Christianity and decided it was how I wanted to be in the world. That came first, and I think that for many, many people who found themselves participating in anti-vax rallies there was a similar dynamic at play.
A tenet of my faith that is impossible to overstate is something like the following:
"there exists no system of authority on earth (or anywhere else) that supersedes my fidelity to Christ" (the key variables here are "system," "authority," "fidelity," and perhaps most importantly, "Christ.")
I literally could not imagine a way of reconciling my fidelity to the gospel with any of the 'ways of being in the world' that had ever been offered to me. Most especially "entrepreneurship" or whatever they're calling it today - that was the handbook for life I was given and that was the oath I had to renounce in order to survive.
The problem was that I was (and am) an american and I also didn't want to starve to death outside of any kind of real community. I was 20 years old and I couldn't imagine violating my faith (how naïve!) I'm 40 years old and I still can't imagine violating my ordinal vows. It gives me the same nausea that I get when I think about cheating on my spouse.
I assumed that my professional home would naturally be found in the left-most Christian denomination that remained explicitly Christian. When this inevitably led to weeping and gnashing of teeth I fled to another denomination that eschewed the trappings of the professional managerial class. I rather enjoyed that experience but there is no home there for me unless I want to leave my community of origin.
Ultimately I will probably end up in the final drain-trap of reformed ecclesiology but at that point I will be too old to do anything other than bake brownies for the after-party.
When Jesus says, "give water to the thirsty," it is perfectly natural to respond, meme-style, "yes." When you get about the business of giving water to thirsty you suddenly run into
A. a mountain of bureaucratic bullshit
On the right: "you have no right to that water nor do you have the right to modify the land under which the water sits."
On the left: "we have protocols in place for giving water to the thirsty and you are unqualified to be the arbiter of who gets water."
B. a mountain of moralizing nonsense
On the right: "they'll never be motivated to get water on their own! It's not our personal burden to give them water."
On the left: "are they the best and most deserving of water? Will giving them water create problems for the theoretical other?"
And on goes the passage of time, and the thirsty die for want of water, and on the right the rich get richer and on the left they get... tenure? esteem? I'm not entirely sure what motivates a hall monitor to be a hall monitor.
So you come back to where you started and eventually someone sticks a microphone in your face and you say, innocently, "thirsty people should be given water" and somebody tells you you're an anarchist because you failed to consider the restrictions of the state authority or you failed to "do your own homework" about the long and storied history of people trying to give other people water.
A lot (a LOT) of the time this cycle gets labeled "politically homeless." Or you get called an "enlighted centrist" or some other bullshit. Or told you think "both parties are the same lolololol"
I don't know precisely what motivated John Brown but I know everybody hated him.
And there is no home for this way of life under late capital. Even the collections of men (always men, always white men, always white men of significant means) who appear to publicly adopt this position end up being reactionary assholes who have confused liberty with entitlement.
I do not believe that I could have survived 40 years on this planet without a meta-narrative or "higher power" or something transcendental, a community of dead humans, or a real boss who is an embodied ideal rather than a fallible creature. I get why people care about the United State Constitution at a lizard-brain level. I get it. It's dumb to me, but I get it.
I have absolutely no idea how people without some kind of utterly transcendent system of authority maintain their sanity. As weird and gross and hippy-dippy as it sounds, I'm actually very hopeful that easy access to psychedelics might "fix" a lot of this stuff.
It's not "bad" to question all forms of authority.
It is probably "unnatural" or (more likely for most humans) "uncomfortable" but it is not a moral decision.
We live in an age where these matters can only be viewed through a moral lens and I harbor the suspicion that this is the end-stage "final boss" of western liberalism.
Even Star Trek can't get away from this and they have that cool food replicator thing. (I'm not a trekkie (trekker?), love and honor to the trekkies, no hate, I wear weird outfits too)
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:42 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
I'm a Christian anarchist - not because I read about "anarchism" and decided it felt right, but because I read about Christianity and decided it was how I wanted to be in the world. That came first, and I think that for many, many people who found themselves participating in anti-vax rallies there was a similar dynamic at play.
A tenet of my faith that is impossible to overstate is something like the following:
"there exists no system of authority on earth (or anywhere else) that supersedes my fidelity to Christ" (the key variables here are "system," "authority," "fidelity," and perhaps most importantly, "Christ.")
I literally could not imagine a way of reconciling my fidelity to the gospel with any of the 'ways of being in the world' that had ever been offered to me. Most especially "entrepreneurship" or whatever they're calling it today - that was the handbook for life I was given and that was the oath I had to renounce in order to survive.
The problem was that I was (and am) an american and I also didn't want to starve to death outside of any kind of real community. I was 20 years old and I couldn't imagine violating my faith (how naïve!) I'm 40 years old and I still can't imagine violating my ordinal vows. It gives me the same nausea that I get when I think about cheating on my spouse.
I assumed that my professional home would naturally be found in the left-most Christian denomination that remained explicitly Christian. When this inevitably led to weeping and gnashing of teeth I fled to another denomination that eschewed the trappings of the professional managerial class. I rather enjoyed that experience but there is no home there for me unless I want to leave my community of origin.
Ultimately I will probably end up in the final drain-trap of reformed ecclesiology but at that point I will be too old to do anything other than bake brownies for the after-party.
When Jesus says, "give water to the thirsty," it is perfectly natural to respond, meme-style, "yes." When you get about the business of giving water to thirsty you suddenly run into
A. a mountain of bureaucratic bullshit
On the right: "you have no right to that water nor do you have the right to modify the land under which the water sits."
On the left: "we have protocols in place for giving water to the thirsty and you are unqualified to be the arbiter of who gets water."
B. a mountain of moralizing nonsense
On the right: "they'll never be motivated to get water on their own! It's not our personal burden to give them water."
On the left: "are they the best and most deserving of water? Will giving them water create problems for the theoretical other?"
And on goes the passage of time, and the thirsty die for want of water, and on the right the rich get richer and on the left they get... tenure? esteem? I'm not entirely sure what motivates a hall monitor to be a hall monitor.
So you come back to where you started and eventually someone sticks a microphone in your face and you say, innocently, "thirsty people should be given water" and somebody tells you you're an anarchist because you failed to consider the restrictions of the state authority or you failed to "do your own homework" about the long and storied history of people trying to give other people water.
A lot (a LOT) of the time this cycle gets labeled "politically homeless." Or you get called an "enlighted centrist" or some other bullshit. Or told you think "both parties are the same lolololol"
I don't know precisely what motivated John Brown but I know everybody hated him.
And there is no home for this way of life under late capital. Even the collections of men (always men, always white men, always white men of significant means) who appear to publicly adopt this position end up being reactionary assholes who have confused liberty with entitlement.
I do not believe that I could have survived 40 years on this planet without a meta-narrative or "higher power" or something transcendental, a community of dead humans, or a real boss who is an embodied ideal rather than a fallible creature. I get why people care about the United State Constitution at a lizard-brain level. I get it. It's dumb to me, but I get it.
I have absolutely no idea how people without some kind of utterly transcendent system of authority maintain their sanity. As weird and gross and hippy-dippy as it sounds, I'm actually very hopeful that easy access to psychedelics might "fix" a lot of this stuff.
It's not "bad" to question all forms of authority.
It is probably "unnatural" or (more likely for most humans) "uncomfortable" but it is not a moral decision.
We live in an age where these matters can only be viewed through a moral lens and I harbor the suspicion that this is the end-stage "final boss" of western liberalism.
Even Star Trek can't get away from this and they have that cool food replicator thing. (I'm not a trekkie (trekker?), love and honor to the trekkies, no hate, I wear weird outfits too)
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:42 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
I have absolutely no idea how people without some kind of utterly transcendent system of authority maintain their sanity
It's no problem at all. My data-driven understanding that there's nothing transcendental out there and we're just a bunch of monkeys who learned how to stand up and talk, living on a planet of one of the 250 billion stars in one of the billions of galaxies, all makes me shrug when confronted with irrationality or injustice. The only thing that will change that injustice is hard work on the part of individuals and groups: "god" is not coming to our rescue.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:54 AM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
It's no problem at all. My data-driven understanding that there's nothing transcendental out there and we're just a bunch of monkeys who learned how to stand up and talk, living on a planet of one of the 250 billion stars in one of the billions of galaxies, all makes me shrug when confronted with irrationality or injustice. The only thing that will change that injustice is hard work on the part of individuals and groups: "god" is not coming to our rescue.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 8:54 AM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
One of the biggest problems with all of the people mentioned in the article, beyond the seduction of ego and a pulpit, is that most of them are contrarian first and foremost.
FWIW, mistaking a "contrarian" for a "leftist" isn't even all that new. Teddy Roosevelt is arguably the most famous progressive of the early twentieth century, but if you look closely at his positions on everything, it's pretty clear his modus operandi was to find the most aggressively masculine thing to get into a brawl with and then oppose them. Between the Spanish-American War and World War I, that thing happened to be corporate robber barons. But his pugnacity was greater than his principles, and as soon as the movement he once led got too big for him, he started opposing them instead.
posted by jackbishop at 9:01 AM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
FWIW, mistaking a "contrarian" for a "leftist" isn't even all that new. Teddy Roosevelt is arguably the most famous progressive of the early twentieth century, but if you look closely at his positions on everything, it's pretty clear his modus operandi was to find the most aggressively masculine thing to get into a brawl with and then oppose them. Between the Spanish-American War and World War I, that thing happened to be corporate robber barons. But his pugnacity was greater than his principles, and as soon as the movement he once led got too big for him, he started opposing them instead.
posted by jackbishop at 9:01 AM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
As someone who was on Tumblr all the time, I read posts by several detransitioners, who remain fully supportive of trans people and the right to transition while also writing about their individual and less than ideal experiences with transition, who because they had written/spoken publicly were recruited by the horrifying evangelical rightwing vultures who are salivating at the prospect of using someone's personal story to further transphobic policies, and who then flat out rejected such usage. I also have seen that some of the people they retweeted or talk with are leaning perilously close to "gender critical" feminism, BUT
nonetheless these detransitioners have not been sucked in by those who pretend to be their friends as they have first-hand knowledge of being a gender non-conforming person and detransitioning doesn't change that.
Example from a detransitioner:
nonetheless these detransitioners have not been sucked in by those who pretend to be their friends as they have first-hand knowledge of being a gender non-conforming person and detransitioning doesn't change that.
Example from a detransitioner:
I had a wild ride testifying yesterday against Ohio HB68, a statewide ban on pediatric trans affirmative gender care. It’s an extreme bill written by a state representative who committed literal conversion therapy as a church pastor. I hope other detransitioners will reach out to the groups defending trans healthcare in their states to offer similar testimonies. I had the luck and privilege of getting assistance from Trans Allies of Ohio and Equality Ohio. That was key in helping calm my nerves before the day of testimony, helping me figure out the logistics of navigating the statehouse, and recovering from the drama of testimony. At the same time the staff of these organizations were so mindful about not impacting my message and not pressuring me to say things I don’t believe or participate in ways that don’t serve my life. I hope other detransitioners that are angry about how our existence is being used to ban healthcare find organizers in the trans community who are as helpful and empathetic as Cam, Maria, and Kathryn. I’m really grateful we crossed paths.posted by spamandkimchi at 9:10 AM on December 14, 2023 [18 favorites]
FWIW, mistaking a "contrarian" for a "leftist" isn't even all that new. Teddy Roosevelt is arguably the most famous progressive of the early twentieth century, but if you look closely at his positions on everything, it's pretty clear his modus operandi was to find the most aggressively masculine thing to get into a brawl with and then oppose them.
not really germane to this, but fuck teddy r. you can directly point to his administration as one of the precipitating factors for the 35 years of korea's brutal occupation by the japanese and i do not give a fucking shit that he also created the national parks
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:22 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
not really germane to this, but fuck teddy r. you can directly point to his administration as one of the precipitating factors for the 35 years of korea's brutal occupation by the japanese and i do not give a fucking shit that he also created the national parks
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:22 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
also oh hb68 passed. so. that healthcare may be stripped from marginalized people.
and it doesn't even take government action these days, so.
to demand trans people to remain in communion with those who are actively working for these end results is as absurd as asking lamb to walk into an abbatoir. color me shocked that someone working against health access might suddenly find themselves no longer invited to soirees held by the people they've just harmed.
but call it "demanding ideological purity" and suddenly it's the dispossessed who are the bad guys; such is the way power and privilege work.
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:27 AM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
and it doesn't even take government action these days, so.
to demand trans people to remain in communion with those who are actively working for these end results is as absurd as asking lamb to walk into an abbatoir. color me shocked that someone working against health access might suddenly find themselves no longer invited to soirees held by the people they've just harmed.
but call it "demanding ideological purity" and suddenly it's the dispossessed who are the bad guys; such is the way power and privilege work.
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:27 AM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
I'm always suspicious of self-proclaimed "former liberals" because of Jonathan Haidt who has been a former liberal ever since I first heard of him and still regularly refers to himself as a former liberal and it has been about a third of a century or so.
posted by srboisvert at 9:49 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 9:49 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
asking a lamb to walk into an abbatoir
I'm glad this was brought up so explicitly, because I think it speaks to one of the primary issues where people say they're terrified of getting something wrong. (And it's clear that "I'm afraid of saying something that gets my hand slapped or gets me ostracized" is at least a major part of what we mean when we're talking about, well, all the above stuff.) It is really hard to know how to have a conversation about this stuff. Personally, my basic stance--an overwhelming skepticism of medicalization, a worry about when diagnoses and treatments become widespread, all the beliefs about the perils of the medical industry from watching my own treatment and the treatment of so many other people over the years on the psychiatric side of things--has brought me headlong into conflict with people I think of as allies. Except not really conflict-conflict, because I don't want to get in fights with my friends, so I just shut up about it and let people have their opinions even when I think those opinions are wrong, even potentially harmful.
I'm trying to think of a less-charged example here, but all of them feel like flashpoints...like, even asking "Why is everybody suddenly queer?" feels like stepping into some sort of spiky bear-trap. "Why are we all so eager to get diagnosed, why are we celebrating neurodivergence like it's a gift..." I mean, the list sort of goes on and on there, there's a cultural shift happening and I just can't sort it out.
But it's extra-weird too because like, none of those questions lead to an abdication of what I think are fairly lefty values--people should be suspicious of accumulations of power, power and money should be distributed fairly, governments need to stop killing people and trying to control their private lives, that sort of thing. But clearly those questions about the cultural shift have also been co-opted by the right (which is extra weird because the right LOVES power), so there's just a lot of cognitive dissonance right now, for someone who has basic critiques of this social stuff but absolutely does not want any lambs going into the abbatoir!
posted by mittens at 10:17 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm glad this was brought up so explicitly, because I think it speaks to one of the primary issues where people say they're terrified of getting something wrong. (And it's clear that "I'm afraid of saying something that gets my hand slapped or gets me ostracized" is at least a major part of what we mean when we're talking about, well, all the above stuff.) It is really hard to know how to have a conversation about this stuff. Personally, my basic stance--an overwhelming skepticism of medicalization, a worry about when diagnoses and treatments become widespread, all the beliefs about the perils of the medical industry from watching my own treatment and the treatment of so many other people over the years on the psychiatric side of things--has brought me headlong into conflict with people I think of as allies. Except not really conflict-conflict, because I don't want to get in fights with my friends, so I just shut up about it and let people have their opinions even when I think those opinions are wrong, even potentially harmful.
I'm trying to think of a less-charged example here, but all of them feel like flashpoints...like, even asking "Why is everybody suddenly queer?" feels like stepping into some sort of spiky bear-trap. "Why are we all so eager to get diagnosed, why are we celebrating neurodivergence like it's a gift..." I mean, the list sort of goes on and on there, there's a cultural shift happening and I just can't sort it out.
But it's extra-weird too because like, none of those questions lead to an abdication of what I think are fairly lefty values--people should be suspicious of accumulations of power, power and money should be distributed fairly, governments need to stop killing people and trying to control their private lives, that sort of thing. But clearly those questions about the cultural shift have also been co-opted by the right (which is extra weird because the right LOVES power), so there's just a lot of cognitive dissonance right now, for someone who has basic critiques of this social stuff but absolutely does not want any lambs going into the abbatoir!
posted by mittens at 10:17 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
like, even asking "Why is everybody suddenly queer?" feels like stepping into some sort of spiky bear-trap
I think the issue here is that it is very easy to read that question as presupposing that more people identifying as queer is somehow a problem. I think this goes for the rest of your list as well - the way you phrase them, they don't read like genuine questions, they read like criticisms. I'm not sure if that's what you intend, but the "why are we all doing x now?" phrasing is pretty commonly used to imply disapproval.
posted by Dysk at 10:26 AM on December 14, 2023 [18 favorites]
I think the issue here is that it is very easy to read that question as presupposing that more people identifying as queer is somehow a problem. I think this goes for the rest of your list as well - the way you phrase them, they don't read like genuine questions, they read like criticisms. I'm not sure if that's what you intend, but the "why are we all doing x now?" phrasing is pretty commonly used to imply disapproval.
posted by Dysk at 10:26 AM on December 14, 2023 [18 favorites]
Paddle to Sea, I appreciate your talking about your own journey from left to right (at least I think that's what you mean when you say you're the type of person the article is about). One thing I'm just not getting -- your disillusionment with leftist activist circles has prompted you to make bedfellows with people who are, for instance, actively working to make life hell for someone like me, an LGBT+ person? I want to be sympathetic to your journey but I could never sit congenially at a table with someone who doesn't care all that much about whether or not my rights are taken away or my friends are denied the health care they need. Why the need to align yourself with one or the other? If you leftist activism wasn't a good home for you, why not just take a step back rather than diving in with both feet on the other side? You sound like a compassionate person. Are you really ok with the collateral damage to people like me and so many others?
posted by treepour at 10:26 AM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by treepour at 10:26 AM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
Greenwald was never a leftist’ is a statement of fact
No, that is simply an opinion and an example of the ideological purity test mentioned above.
posted by drstrangelove at 10:32 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
No, that is simply an opinion and an example of the ideological purity test mentioned above.
posted by drstrangelove at 10:32 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
"Why is everybody suddenly queer?"
I happen to think it’s that anytime the suffocating blanket of heteronormativity and patriarchy in our society lifts even a little the natural diversity of human sexuality wriggles free. I think we barely know what human sexuality is because it’s so tightly socially constructed and controlled.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:35 AM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
I happen to think it’s that anytime the suffocating blanket of heteronormativity and patriarchy in our society lifts even a little the natural diversity of human sexuality wriggles free. I think we barely know what human sexuality is because it’s so tightly socially constructed and controlled.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:35 AM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
Greenwald was never a leftist’ is a statement of fact
No, that is simply an opinion and an example of the ideological purity test mentioned above.
I'm not sure Greenwald ever identified himself as a leftist. He always came off as a libertarian, he happened to come into politics when the authoritarian to be mad at was George W Bush. His evolution has been much more "libertarian to authoritarian" pipeline than left-to-right.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:38 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
No, that is simply an opinion and an example of the ideological purity test mentioned above.
I'm not sure Greenwald ever identified himself as a leftist. He always came off as a libertarian, he happened to come into politics when the authoritarian to be mad at was George W Bush. His evolution has been much more "libertarian to authoritarian" pipeline than left-to-right.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:38 AM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
eviemath: “…[T]his is one of the hard problems in organizing and activism, that folks in leadership positions (formal or informal) ideally should also read up on, but that your average participant isn’t going to be super familiar with.”This reminded me of a recent video that is well worth the 124 minutes.
“Harm and Justice”—The Leftist Cooks, 29 November 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 10:55 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I also could’ve sworn Maher was a libertarian in his ‘Politically Incorrect’ days. I was a kid then and my father would tell me essentially “at first he seems like he’s okay, but he doesn’t believe in the Civil Rights Act.”
posted by Selena777 at 11:06 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 11:06 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
Personally, my basic stance--an overwhelming skepticism of medicalization, a worry about when diagnoses and treatments become widespread, all the beliefs about the perils of the medical industry from watching my own treatment and the treatment of so many other people over the years on the psychiatric side of things--has brought me headlong into conflict with people I think of as allies.and all of these are valid things to be concerned about for your own health care! but what expertise do you have when it comes to trans healthcare, and why should your skepticism be privileged and somehow more important than trans people's lived experiences and those of the doctors working directly with trans people? most of us find it reprehensible and horrifying when an impeached shithead attorney general and and nine robed republican dickheads think they know better than a woman's doctors about said woman's health; how is this appreciably different?
the "hand slapping" that people get from trans people is a recent occurrence arising from the fact that trans people are actually able to occasionally speak to their experiences (even though, by and large, most conversations about us aren't by us but rather people speaking over us, often negatively or skeptically), which is a distinct change from our history where we've been silenced, ignored, and marginalized: in short, a form of 'queers bash back'. sucks to be on the end of it, i'm sure; perhaps imagine that it's a mere fraction of what it's like to be part of a community constantly being bashed in the first place.
as far as the next paragraph of your post, it's all presumed on this idea that queerness is somehow not as great as not-queerness, that neurodivergence is somehow lesser, and the pushback you see is originating from those groups finally having some ability to say, for once, "hey, we're happy as who we are." a form of pride, if you will.
...but the thing is, you're right, in the last graph. none of this should lead to an abdication of left-leaning values. and you're right in that the right-wing has used all of these as wedges to shred the coalition, because it's so easy to play up those reasonable concerns people have about tiny marginalized groups, especially when there's fertile ground there already due to things like "why are there so many queer people all of a sudden," or "wow, why are so many children turning out trans," and "i heard from a friend whose friend is a teacher that kids are thinking they're cats now and there's cat litter in schools."
I'm glad this was brought up so explicitly, because I think it speaks to one of the primary issues where people say they're terrified of getting something wrong. (And it's clear that "I'm afraid of saying something that gets my hand slapped or gets me ostracized" is at least a major part of what we mean when we're talking about, well, all the above stuff.)i didn't even want to point this shit out because it's going to come across as an irritated attack, a "hand-slapping", and contribute to the whole "fear" of talking about these issues; a pox on me and mine for putting another stake through the heart of this left-leaning coalition and driving ever more people to the right. and i don't have the energy or patience for that shit anymore, trying to handhold every tom, dick, harry, karen, helen, and jennifer because it just burned me out when it was about race, and now we're talking about queerness, and this is before intersectionality...
it's why you don't hear from a lot of people; the dropping away is real, the decision to leave and refuse to break bread with those who refuse to evolve is one of individual safety. because for those of us already on the rim, when we push, the mass pushes back. and once we're pushed back past the rim, well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ we already are blamed for so many ills; go ahead and toss "sending people on a rightward spin because we demand 'ideological purity'" to that list.
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:10 AM on December 14, 2023 [20 favorites]
to back up the libertarian thing, Greenwald was a first amendment lawyer most known for defending neo-nazis' free speech. For good or ill, that's a typical 1990s libertarian thing to do, but not a particularly leftist one.
I'm trying to think of a less-charged example here, but all of them feel like flashpoints...like, even asking "Why is everybody suddenly queer?" feels like stepping into some sort of spiky bear-trap. "Why are we all so eager to get diagnosed, why are we celebrating neurodivergence like it's a gift..." I mean, the list sort of goes on and on there, there's a cultural shift happening and I just can't sort it out.
If you can find a way to come at this from a place of genuine curiosity, it will help a lot. These sorts of questions (as phrased) all come off as why aren't things how they used to be, why can't you all be normal. And I'm sure I've had those thoughts too, really most people probably do when their worldview is challenged.
The politics of diagnosis in neurodivergence is actually quite complicated, but accommodations are often gatekept behind diagnosis. Being diagnosed doesn't make you neurodivergent; people who are desperate for a diagnosis already are suffering from something, whether they're eventually diagnosed or not. It's simply not true that neurodivergent people are all walking around insisting that it's a gift. Some people do, and part of it is a "fuck you" to a society that isn't sure neurodivergent people are fully human. I'm not exaggerating.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:13 AM on December 14, 2023 [15 favorites]
I'm trying to think of a less-charged example here, but all of them feel like flashpoints...like, even asking "Why is everybody suddenly queer?" feels like stepping into some sort of spiky bear-trap. "Why are we all so eager to get diagnosed, why are we celebrating neurodivergence like it's a gift..." I mean, the list sort of goes on and on there, there's a cultural shift happening and I just can't sort it out.
If you can find a way to come at this from a place of genuine curiosity, it will help a lot. These sorts of questions (as phrased) all come off as why aren't things how they used to be, why can't you all be normal. And I'm sure I've had those thoughts too, really most people probably do when their worldview is challenged.
The politics of diagnosis in neurodivergence is actually quite complicated, but accommodations are often gatekept behind diagnosis. Being diagnosed doesn't make you neurodivergent; people who are desperate for a diagnosis already are suffering from something, whether they're eventually diagnosed or not. It's simply not true that neurodivergent people are all walking around insisting that it's a gift. Some people do, and part of it is a "fuck you" to a society that isn't sure neurodivergent people are fully human. I'm not exaggerating.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:13 AM on December 14, 2023 [15 favorites]
I happen to think it’s that anytime the suffocating blanket of heteronormativity and patriarchy in our society lifts even a little the natural diversity of human sexuality wriggles free.
Sure, but there also seems to be this thing among the younguns where "straight" only means rigid, unswerving straightness, a complete and total lack of interest in the same sex. And anything else must be queer. "I like girls, but I had an impure thought about Oscar Isaac once so that means I'm bi." By a standard like that, I expect there wouldn't be very many "straight" people.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:16 AM on December 14, 2023
Sure, but there also seems to be this thing among the younguns where "straight" only means rigid, unswerving straightness, a complete and total lack of interest in the same sex. And anything else must be queer. "I like girls, but I had an impure thought about Oscar Isaac once so that means I'm bi." By a standard like that, I expect there wouldn't be very many "straight" people.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 11:16 AM on December 14, 2023
Sure, but there also seems to be this thing among the younguns where "straight" only means rigid, unswerving straightness, a complete and total lack of interest in the same sex. And anything else must be queer. "I like girls, but I had an impure thought about Oscar Isaac once so that means I'm bi." By a standard like that, I expect there wouldn't be very many "straight" people.
i suppose we can all tut-tut about kids these days, that seems to be a unifying bond between all groups, left and right
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:17 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
i suppose we can all tut-tut about kids these days, that seems to be a unifying bond between all groups, left and right
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:17 AM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Some thoughts that I hope aren't too redundant to things folks have said--I've read most of this thread but there's a lot here. I am inclined to agree with folks here who've suggested that a lot of these characters weren't on "the left" previously.
Bill Maher is the most obvious example--his show was named "Politically Correct" because he was already heavy on the "get off my lawn" tip about American political culture; if he had named the show in 2023 it might as well be called "The Not Woke Hour" or something. He was very open at the time that he was basically a kind of center-right libertarian, that his highest value was to prevent the government from interfering in his own personal sex/drugs/rock/roll lifestyle, which is a fine position to take but not a leftist position. IIRC he explicitly did not like even liberals, let alone leftists. He was not fired in 2001 for being too far to the left. Today we would say he got "cancelled" because Dinesh D'Souza of all people lured him into a maudlin but apolitical soliloquy about the semantics of the word "coward" vis a vis terrorists. His show was cancelled because audiences could perceive what he said as sympathetic to terrorists, but not because he espoused any kind of anti-establishment or left position with regard to American foreign policy, for example. He simply put his dumb foot in his dumber mouth--he wasn't ready for air, but his job was to be on air.
(The New Atheist project, mentioned throughout this thread for good reason, but not mentioned in the article, were also never a left project. They espoused, charitably, an apolitical viewpoint about science which felt like leftism in context of early aughts culture wars. But the extremely anti-religious schtick was an anti-humanism, and it was also, even at the time, so close to Islamophobia that it surprised no one when it crossed over the fence into full-on exterminationist rhetoric.)
With respect to Glen Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, I think you can take a left-aligned position without being a leftist. I haven't paid attention to Greenwald in a long time, but my memory is he was basically interested in privacy, surveillance, and the idea that information should be free. His advocacy for Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and even the grotesque Julian Assange were admirable, and I think can be firmly ensconced in a broader left political program. But upholding privacy and government transparency as the highest value is a hook you can hang many hats on--left wing politics, right wing politics, conspiracy, malignant narcissism. I think Greenwald and Taibbi probably always belonged in those latter camps. Glen Greenwald's extreme antipathy toward Hillary Clinton was transparently misogynist (I say this as someone who doesn't like Hillary Clinton as a political actor). Taibbi was an edgelord built for the modern web long before it arrived--what can you say for a guy who made a creme pie of horse sperm and attacked a New York Times journalist with it?
This thread reminded me of someone who thankfully falls outside the ranks of those mentioned in this article: Jon Stewart, that universally lauded tribune of the GWB era. Even genuine socialists loved a good Jon Stewart takedown, but Jon Stewart was not really a person of the left. He was frequently just a run of the mill both-sides liberal. His public persona is deeply humane, often righteous, frequently very funny, but at least in the aughts it wasn't exactly leftism.
A lot of these people look like leftists in their specific context because of how dumb American political culture is--Stewart hit the jackpot being able to take down the dumbest political actors in recent history. Taibbi hit the jackpot spewing righteous invective about Wall Street. Maher gave Barack Obama a bunch of money because the Republican party, even before Trump, was a kind of idiot's pact between short-earth creationists and weapons manufacturers and Wall Street. George W. Bush was a world historically bad president and ding dong who made all of his detractors look like Mother Jones.
But actually this article gave me a kind of hope? The years when these people came to fame on the broad left were so, so bleak. Think about it: it is an article about the twists and turns of ideology taken by a small handful of minor political celebrities half of whom came to prominence 20+ years ago, which was a time when a person who had actual left politics could find nothing to attach themselves to. (The other half are fame-seeking podcasters of no conviction.) But leftism is not about individuals. It is about our collective attachments to left institutions, left organizing, mutual aid, and collaboration in service of a politics that will not reward us handsomely or make us famous. We're on a knife's edge right now between right wing apocalypse and survival, but as someone who developed his political consciousness at a time when there wasn't a functional national left at all in the U.S., this very interesting article mostly reminded me that the left is in a better place than it was back then.
posted by kensington314 at 11:21 AM on December 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
Bill Maher is the most obvious example--his show was named "Politically Correct" because he was already heavy on the "get off my lawn" tip about American political culture; if he had named the show in 2023 it might as well be called "The Not Woke Hour" or something. He was very open at the time that he was basically a kind of center-right libertarian, that his highest value was to prevent the government from interfering in his own personal sex/drugs/rock/roll lifestyle, which is a fine position to take but not a leftist position. IIRC he explicitly did not like even liberals, let alone leftists. He was not fired in 2001 for being too far to the left. Today we would say he got "cancelled" because Dinesh D'Souza of all people lured him into a maudlin but apolitical soliloquy about the semantics of the word "coward" vis a vis terrorists. His show was cancelled because audiences could perceive what he said as sympathetic to terrorists, but not because he espoused any kind of anti-establishment or left position with regard to American foreign policy, for example. He simply put his dumb foot in his dumber mouth--he wasn't ready for air, but his job was to be on air.
(The New Atheist project, mentioned throughout this thread for good reason, but not mentioned in the article, were also never a left project. They espoused, charitably, an apolitical viewpoint about science which felt like leftism in context of early aughts culture wars. But the extremely anti-religious schtick was an anti-humanism, and it was also, even at the time, so close to Islamophobia that it surprised no one when it crossed over the fence into full-on exterminationist rhetoric.)
With respect to Glen Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, I think you can take a left-aligned position without being a leftist. I haven't paid attention to Greenwald in a long time, but my memory is he was basically interested in privacy, surveillance, and the idea that information should be free. His advocacy for Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and even the grotesque Julian Assange were admirable, and I think can be firmly ensconced in a broader left political program. But upholding privacy and government transparency as the highest value is a hook you can hang many hats on--left wing politics, right wing politics, conspiracy, malignant narcissism. I think Greenwald and Taibbi probably always belonged in those latter camps. Glen Greenwald's extreme antipathy toward Hillary Clinton was transparently misogynist (I say this as someone who doesn't like Hillary Clinton as a political actor). Taibbi was an edgelord built for the modern web long before it arrived--what can you say for a guy who made a creme pie of horse sperm and attacked a New York Times journalist with it?
This thread reminded me of someone who thankfully falls outside the ranks of those mentioned in this article: Jon Stewart, that universally lauded tribune of the GWB era. Even genuine socialists loved a good Jon Stewart takedown, but Jon Stewart was not really a person of the left. He was frequently just a run of the mill both-sides liberal. His public persona is deeply humane, often righteous, frequently very funny, but at least in the aughts it wasn't exactly leftism.
A lot of these people look like leftists in their specific context because of how dumb American political culture is--Stewart hit the jackpot being able to take down the dumbest political actors in recent history. Taibbi hit the jackpot spewing righteous invective about Wall Street. Maher gave Barack Obama a bunch of money because the Republican party, even before Trump, was a kind of idiot's pact between short-earth creationists and weapons manufacturers and Wall Street. George W. Bush was a world historically bad president and ding dong who made all of his detractors look like Mother Jones.
But actually this article gave me a kind of hope? The years when these people came to fame on the broad left were so, so bleak. Think about it: it is an article about the twists and turns of ideology taken by a small handful of minor political celebrities half of whom came to prominence 20+ years ago, which was a time when a person who had actual left politics could find nothing to attach themselves to. (The other half are fame-seeking podcasters of no conviction.) But leftism is not about individuals. It is about our collective attachments to left institutions, left organizing, mutual aid, and collaboration in service of a politics that will not reward us handsomely or make us famous. We're on a knife's edge right now between right wing apocalypse and survival, but as someone who developed his political consciousness at a time when there wasn't a functional national left at all in the U.S., this very interesting article mostly reminded me that the left is in a better place than it was back then.
posted by kensington314 at 11:21 AM on December 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
By a standard like that
That's the fun thing: standards are made up. If kids these days want to be queer because they've had one gay sex dream then that seems fine, and even if it doesn't work out well, that's sort of up to them, I figure. If the world is full of Kinsey 1.5s and 5.5s deciding they're queer than that seems a lot better than enforcing straightness on anyone.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:23 AM on December 14, 2023 [18 favorites]
That's the fun thing: standards are made up. If kids these days want to be queer because they've had one gay sex dream then that seems fine, and even if it doesn't work out well, that's sort of up to them, I figure. If the world is full of Kinsey 1.5s and 5.5s deciding they're queer than that seems a lot better than enforcing straightness on anyone.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:23 AM on December 14, 2023 [18 favorites]
I would argue that if you occasionally find other men sexually attractive - even if you are mostly attracted only to women! - you are in fact bisexual. And that it's good, in fact, to point out that lots of people are bisexual. If you tell people "you need to be EXTREMELY AND CONSTANTLY interested in queer hookups to count as queer", naturally you'll push a lot of people into the closet because they'll think "is it really worth the trouble, am I queer enough to count".
In fact "I'm not gay enough" and "I'm not trans enough" are canonically the things that hold people back from coming out and transitioning. Very often, one only realizes that one is in fact "gay enough" or "trans enough" when one starts actively living as a gay or trans person. "I think I might be bisexual but I guess I'm probably not so I'd better not make a fuss" is literally compulsory heterosexuality.
Also, in re the kids and their internet: why oh why are we judging "the left" based on what a bunch of tweens say when they are figuring themselves out? Karl Marx didn't write Capital at twelve.
posted by Frowner at 11:28 AM on December 14, 2023 [25 favorites]
In fact "I'm not gay enough" and "I'm not trans enough" are canonically the things that hold people back from coming out and transitioning. Very often, one only realizes that one is in fact "gay enough" or "trans enough" when one starts actively living as a gay or trans person. "I think I might be bisexual but I guess I'm probably not so I'd better not make a fuss" is literally compulsory heterosexuality.
Also, in re the kids and their internet: why oh why are we judging "the left" based on what a bunch of tweens say when they are figuring themselves out? Karl Marx didn't write Capital at twelve.
posted by Frowner at 11:28 AM on December 14, 2023 [25 favorites]
That's the fun thing: standards are made up. If kids these days want to be queer because they've had one gay sex dream then that seems fine, and even if it doesn't work out well, that's sort of up to them, I figure. If the world is full of Kinsey 1.5s and 5.5s deciding they're queer than that seems a lot better than enforcing straightness on anyone.
Exactly. The whole thing about sexuality is that it's a personal decision. The fact that "the kids these days" are coming out as queer after experiences that maybe some of the older folks don't understand as queer says a good deal more about the "moral" repression a lot of us grew up under than anything else, including how other people got to define sexuality for everyone else. A lot of people, especially it seems on the Right, still seem to view women who sometimes like women as still basically straight. The fact the younger generation is saying "now hold on. That's not how I actually feel" is fantastic, and a sign that the hold on "norms" is slipping sway from the old guard.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:30 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
Exactly. The whole thing about sexuality is that it's a personal decision. The fact that "the kids these days" are coming out as queer after experiences that maybe some of the older folks don't understand as queer says a good deal more about the "moral" repression a lot of us grew up under than anything else, including how other people got to define sexuality for everyone else. A lot of people, especially it seems on the Right, still seem to view women who sometimes like women as still basically straight. The fact the younger generation is saying "now hold on. That's not how I actually feel" is fantastic, and a sign that the hold on "norms" is slipping sway from the old guard.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:30 AM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
Reading through this VERY long thread has been very interesting. My takeaway is that, more than anything else, the "liberal to hard-right" pipeline has been more a combination of the ever shifting Overton window as history moves slowly leftward faster than some leftists are willing or able to reassess and adapt, and the mistake of confusing Libertarians who are quiet about some of their views as liberals/leftists.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:33 AM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:33 AM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
the mistake of confusing Libertarians who are quiet about some of their views as liberals/leftists.
Flagged this for removal for the offense of saying in 16 words what I blathered on about like a fucking blowhard for several paragraphs.
posted by kensington314 at 11:36 AM on December 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
Flagged this for removal for the offense of saying in 16 words what I blathered on about like a fucking blowhard for several paragraphs.
posted by kensington314 at 11:36 AM on December 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
Flagged this for removal for the offense of saying in 16 words what I blathered on about like a fucking blowhard for several paragraphs.
Lol Bless.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:37 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lol Bless.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 11:37 AM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don’t use Reddit a lot but there is a subreddit where I’ve actually learned a lot. It’s called r/tankiejerk and is dedicated to calling out “leftists” who do happy to support genocide as long as it’s anti-west, anti-US. While there can be a lot of disagreement about things it’s been useful to help me coalesce various things in my head.
posted by misterpatrick at 11:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by misterpatrick at 11:43 AM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
ideology can get very weird, I met an actual professed communist who thinks maybe work camps would be a good place to put alcoholics if they can't cope in society. I think they were more or less just a straight-up Stalinist? Very weird to realize there are people walking around with these opinions that don't just exist on tankie Twitter
posted by BungaDunga at 11:52 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 11:52 AM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Just to continue with the sexuality thread in this discussion - sexuality is both lived and felt. We accept this about many sexual proclivities - some people have an interest in masochism or shoes or whatever from when they first become conscious of their sexuality, but many people start feeling sexual interests later in life as they start to have sex and to have access to a variety of sexual subcultures, etc. This may be because their sexuality actually shifts or it may be because the opportunity to express and develop their pre-existing sexuality surfaces things that were not apparent at first. If someone decides that they're into BDSM at thirty-five, we don't tell them "no you're not, you're actually vanilla or you would have been into this from your very first libidinal stirrings".
The whole underlying idea of the "most people are just saying they're gay because it's trendy and that's bad" thing is that we should all stick to, sort of, sexual minimalism. If people can be happy, or at least not too miserable, accepting a very limited kind of heterosexuality, that's what they ought to do - they ought not to consider what they might like or who they might become if they pursued a thought or an impulse. Everyone should conform, in short, unless it will be really, really intolerable for them.
That was the view that I was brought up with - if people really, truly couldn't be happy trying to be straight, they should be able to be openly gay, but most people should focus on not making a fuss and not rocking the boat if at all possible. This was not ideal for me.
But, like, so what if literally everyone is gay? People will still have a society. We all, like, know enough gay people to understand that in most aspects of life, queer people are more like straight people than different, queer people take care of their parents, have kids, do volunteer work, clean house, etc. What skin off anyone's nose would it be if everyone was gay? It boils down to "I think being gay is weird and bad", not "there are provable down sides".
Most of my friends are queer and I of course am both transmasculine and queer - and yet we are all intensely boring and respectable and middle-aged. I like to think that I'm fun in a quiet sort of way, but I am certainly not out there pulling a Gilles de Rais.
posted by Frowner at 11:53 AM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
The whole underlying idea of the "most people are just saying they're gay because it's trendy and that's bad" thing is that we should all stick to, sort of, sexual minimalism. If people can be happy, or at least not too miserable, accepting a very limited kind of heterosexuality, that's what they ought to do - they ought not to consider what they might like or who they might become if they pursued a thought or an impulse. Everyone should conform, in short, unless it will be really, really intolerable for them.
That was the view that I was brought up with - if people really, truly couldn't be happy trying to be straight, they should be able to be openly gay, but most people should focus on not making a fuss and not rocking the boat if at all possible. This was not ideal for me.
But, like, so what if literally everyone is gay? People will still have a society. We all, like, know enough gay people to understand that in most aspects of life, queer people are more like straight people than different, queer people take care of their parents, have kids, do volunteer work, clean house, etc. What skin off anyone's nose would it be if everyone was gay? It boils down to "I think being gay is weird and bad", not "there are provable down sides".
Most of my friends are queer and I of course am both transmasculine and queer - and yet we are all intensely boring and respectable and middle-aged. I like to think that I'm fun in a quiet sort of way, but I am certainly not out there pulling a Gilles de Rais.
posted by Frowner at 11:53 AM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
I would argue that if you occasionally find other men sexually attractive - even if you are mostly attracted only to women! - you are in fact bisexual. And that it's good, in fact, to point out that lots of people are bisexual. If you tell people "you need to be EXTREMELY AND CONSTANTLY interested in queer hookups to count as queer", naturally you'll push a lot of people into the closet because they'll think "is it really worth the trouble, am I queer enough to count".
In fact "I'm not gay enough" and "I'm not trans enough" are canonically the things that hold people back from coming out and transitioning. Very often, one only realizes that one is in fact "gay enough" or "trans enough" when one starts actively living as a gay or trans person. "I think I might be bisexual but I guess I'm probably not so I'd better not make a fuss" is literally compulsory heterosexuality.
It me! I have not yet really come out as bi because I feel like I don't deserve to because I present as hetero married woman. I worry too much about whether my attraction to women counts because I don't act on it, or be open about it. (Again, I worry that I would be taking up too much space for actual queer people.) I am a little more vocal about my attraction to women, but again, because my attraction to men is a little higher, I am like, "Nah, I am not allowed to be bi."
posted by Kitteh at 12:19 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
In fact "I'm not gay enough" and "I'm not trans enough" are canonically the things that hold people back from coming out and transitioning. Very often, one only realizes that one is in fact "gay enough" or "trans enough" when one starts actively living as a gay or trans person. "I think I might be bisexual but I guess I'm probably not so I'd better not make a fuss" is literally compulsory heterosexuality.
It me! I have not yet really come out as bi because I feel like I don't deserve to because I present as hetero married woman. I worry too much about whether my attraction to women counts because I don't act on it, or be open about it. (Again, I worry that I would be taking up too much space for actual queer people.) I am a little more vocal about my attraction to women, but again, because my attraction to men is a little higher, I am like, "Nah, I am not allowed to be bi."
posted by Kitteh at 12:19 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
The whole underlying idea of the "most people are just saying they're gay because it's trendy and that's bad" thing is that we should all stick to, sort of, sexual minimalism.
I feel like the primary criticism of queer-as-trend is a little distance from that though. Like, yes, definitely, to your earlier comment, the accusation that one is not-queer-enough is out there and shapes the dialog and people's worries about coming out. And there really isn't some sort of objective measurement where the big red dial turns from straight to queer. And it's not fair to try to mind-read people, sort of peeking over their shoulder to question their decision-making. And yet...it's very very weird to meet, continually, repeatedly, people whose sole queerness appears to be saying that they're queer, and whose lifestyles, outlooks, histories, dreams, all appear straight. Except they adopt the language of queerness, and often the language of being-oppressed, in a way that seems outsized. It's like they're using the same word I use, but clearly mean something so different by it, that it calls into question what commonality we might have.
I've had to do a lot of work sort of unpacking this reaction, because I know part of it is personal resentment--people using a word I associate with abuse, homophobia, death threats, the threat of losing friends and family, even though they are at no risk of any of that. But I don't think this perception that something's odd about it, is entirely the result of my own resentment. It's more the absence of a real story--a sense that this is a deep part of their biography, their personality. One objection that gets brought up is like, "Why would anyone choose to label themselves in this way, if it weren't true? Why would they take the risk?" And yet the risk profile they're experiencing seems so different--so much more benign--than the one that has left me all twisted up and bitter and gross.
I mean, I dunno, I don't expect to really understand it, and I don't want to bug my friends with too too many questions, and I don't want to invalidate anyone. Far better that people should be happy and content with their lives, than I should get my weird little list of questions answered.
posted by mittens at 12:21 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I feel like the primary criticism of queer-as-trend is a little distance from that though. Like, yes, definitely, to your earlier comment, the accusation that one is not-queer-enough is out there and shapes the dialog and people's worries about coming out. And there really isn't some sort of objective measurement where the big red dial turns from straight to queer. And it's not fair to try to mind-read people, sort of peeking over their shoulder to question their decision-making. And yet...it's very very weird to meet, continually, repeatedly, people whose sole queerness appears to be saying that they're queer, and whose lifestyles, outlooks, histories, dreams, all appear straight. Except they adopt the language of queerness, and often the language of being-oppressed, in a way that seems outsized. It's like they're using the same word I use, but clearly mean something so different by it, that it calls into question what commonality we might have.
I've had to do a lot of work sort of unpacking this reaction, because I know part of it is personal resentment--people using a word I associate with abuse, homophobia, death threats, the threat of losing friends and family, even though they are at no risk of any of that. But I don't think this perception that something's odd about it, is entirely the result of my own resentment. It's more the absence of a real story--a sense that this is a deep part of their biography, their personality. One objection that gets brought up is like, "Why would anyone choose to label themselves in this way, if it weren't true? Why would they take the risk?" And yet the risk profile they're experiencing seems so different--so much more benign--than the one that has left me all twisted up and bitter and gross.
I mean, I dunno, I don't expect to really understand it, and I don't want to bug my friends with too too many questions, and I don't want to invalidate anyone. Far better that people should be happy and content with their lives, than I should get my weird little list of questions answered.
posted by mittens at 12:21 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
to demand trans people to remain in communion with those who are actively working for these end results is as absurd as asking lamb to walk into an abbatoir.
So to be clear; the examples I gave were all people who *weren't* doing organizing on the right, because I think it's important to look at kind of the flash points of how this stuff happens *before* it gets to the problem areas. In the case of K, for example, they aren't actively working against healthcare access; they are simply talking and musing about their own experiences. They are 'cancelled' not because their experiences *have* been used by right wingers trying to cancel healthcare, but because people fear those experiences *might* be used by right wingers trying to cancel healthcare.
But I think that there are some issues that have been brought up in thread that are contributing to the problems, and I think it's worth identifying some of the major ones that have sprung to mind.
1. What is harm? Is it harm to hear a different idea? Is it harm to hear a different idea loudly? Is it harm to hear a different idea in a place where you weren't expecting to hear it? Is it harm to hear it if it's pointed? Is it harm only if it's being turned into action? These are all different, and I think that when we treat them all the same, it causes problems.
2. What counts as being 'on the left'? And this can range from 'progressive' to 'hard leftist' to 'general range of ideas that tend to fall into the left'. When we say 'these people were never on the left', what exactly do we *mean*?
3. What counts as being 'cancelled'? This can range from 'you're not welcome as a leader' to 'you're not welcome in this group' to 'no one can associate with you without losing all of their friends'? Because the first is really understandable, but the last causes deep, serious problems.
4. What is acceptable to do with heterodox views? Because there's a broad range of positions here, ranging from 'it's okay to have heterodox views as long as you keep them to yourself' to 'if you have heterodox views in any way you are a danger', and I think the last is really problematic because eventually, everyone is going to have heterodox views about *something*.
And I want to also bring up another thing, which is that schismogenesis is real - and that the less effective any particular group is at fighting an external enemy, the more it tears itself apart. You see this with union organizing, for example: when people are fighting the bosses and striking and winning raises, they're generally unified; when the external enemy becomes less obvious or they stop securing wins, they attack each other and blame each other for the lack of wins. Similarly, I don't see public defenders or legal workers trying to keep people out of prison attacking each other, because each and every day they have prosecutors and the state to fight.
There were real problems with missing stairs that we let exist in movements for a long time - that stuff is real. But that's not the same thing as "somebody tweeted something wrong, so now we throw away all of their organizing and decide they can't participate until they have a mandatory public self-criticism session.
posted by corb at 12:26 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
So to be clear; the examples I gave were all people who *weren't* doing organizing on the right, because I think it's important to look at kind of the flash points of how this stuff happens *before* it gets to the problem areas. In the case of K, for example, they aren't actively working against healthcare access; they are simply talking and musing about their own experiences. They are 'cancelled' not because their experiences *have* been used by right wingers trying to cancel healthcare, but because people fear those experiences *might* be used by right wingers trying to cancel healthcare.
But I think that there are some issues that have been brought up in thread that are contributing to the problems, and I think it's worth identifying some of the major ones that have sprung to mind.
1. What is harm? Is it harm to hear a different idea? Is it harm to hear a different idea loudly? Is it harm to hear a different idea in a place where you weren't expecting to hear it? Is it harm to hear it if it's pointed? Is it harm only if it's being turned into action? These are all different, and I think that when we treat them all the same, it causes problems.
2. What counts as being 'on the left'? And this can range from 'progressive' to 'hard leftist' to 'general range of ideas that tend to fall into the left'. When we say 'these people were never on the left', what exactly do we *mean*?
3. What counts as being 'cancelled'? This can range from 'you're not welcome as a leader' to 'you're not welcome in this group' to 'no one can associate with you without losing all of their friends'? Because the first is really understandable, but the last causes deep, serious problems.
4. What is acceptable to do with heterodox views? Because there's a broad range of positions here, ranging from 'it's okay to have heterodox views as long as you keep them to yourself' to 'if you have heterodox views in any way you are a danger', and I think the last is really problematic because eventually, everyone is going to have heterodox views about *something*.
And I want to also bring up another thing, which is that schismogenesis is real - and that the less effective any particular group is at fighting an external enemy, the more it tears itself apart. You see this with union organizing, for example: when people are fighting the bosses and striking and winning raises, they're generally unified; when the external enemy becomes less obvious or they stop securing wins, they attack each other and blame each other for the lack of wins. Similarly, I don't see public defenders or legal workers trying to keep people out of prison attacking each other, because each and every day they have prosecutors and the state to fight.
There were real problems with missing stairs that we let exist in movements for a long time - that stuff is real. But that's not the same thing as "somebody tweeted something wrong, so now we throw away all of their organizing and decide they can't participate until they have a mandatory public self-criticism session.
posted by corb at 12:26 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
1. What is harm? Is it harm to hear a different idea? Is it harm to hear a different idea loudly? Is it harm to hear a different idea in a place where you weren't expecting to hear it? Is it harm to hear it if it's pointed? Is it harm only if it's being turned into action? These are all different, and I think that when we treat them all the same, it causes problems.
I thought this out using "trans people don't exist," a hateful and untrue thing to say.
Is it harm to hear a different idea?
"Trans people don't exist" is a different, incorrect, and hurtful idea, so yes, harmful.
Is it harm to hear a different idea loudly?
Telling others "trans people don't exist" loudly is harm, yes. It spreads the wrong idea, it harms more than one person at a time.
Is it harm to hear a different idea in a place where you weren't expecting to hear it? I
Sure! I don't go to Fox News to hear "trans people don't exist" and thats easy for me to avoid. But if I hear it at the grocery store, or on MeFi, it is shocking and hurts.
Is it harm to hear it if it's pointed?
Meaning towards a trans person? Or towards one person, who knows and loves trans people? Yes.
Is it harm only if it's being turned into action?
No, words are harmful on their own. We are emotional creatures.
These are not very different to me. What problems could it possibly cause to see these all as the same? Openly admitting my example may not fit your point, I don't know.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:40 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I thought this out using "trans people don't exist," a hateful and untrue thing to say.
Is it harm to hear a different idea?
"Trans people don't exist" is a different, incorrect, and hurtful idea, so yes, harmful.
Is it harm to hear a different idea loudly?
Telling others "trans people don't exist" loudly is harm, yes. It spreads the wrong idea, it harms more than one person at a time.
Is it harm to hear a different idea in a place where you weren't expecting to hear it? I
Sure! I don't go to Fox News to hear "trans people don't exist" and thats easy for me to avoid. But if I hear it at the grocery store, or on MeFi, it is shocking and hurts.
Is it harm to hear it if it's pointed?
Meaning towards a trans person? Or towards one person, who knows and loves trans people? Yes.
Is it harm only if it's being turned into action?
No, words are harmful on their own. We are emotional creatures.
These are not very different to me. What problems could it possibly cause to see these all as the same? Openly admitting my example may not fit your point, I don't know.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:40 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Except they adopt the language of queerness, and often the language of being-oppressed, in a way that seems outsized.
I don't think it's "outsized" so much as...under current circumstances, asserting a queer identity means asserting both personal preferences about sexual activity and something about your relationship to the structures of powers in this country. Not even in the "queer must be radical!" sense, in the "this substantially conditions my relations with the authorities, in a way I can't escape unless I am delusional like Peter Thiel" sense. As long as those two claims are yoked together, you can get Kinsey 1s acting (or, really, more commonly, speaking) like they're in the same position in society as trans lesbians, and I hope it's evident to everyone reading this that they just aren't. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter. But a lot of this is, as others have noted, youthful zeal and ignorance and is self-correcting if the young person's underlying values are good.
posted by praemunire at 12:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't think it's "outsized" so much as...under current circumstances, asserting a queer identity means asserting both personal preferences about sexual activity and something about your relationship to the structures of powers in this country. Not even in the "queer must be radical!" sense, in the "this substantially conditions my relations with the authorities, in a way I can't escape unless I am delusional like Peter Thiel" sense. As long as those two claims are yoked together, you can get Kinsey 1s acting (or, really, more commonly, speaking) like they're in the same position in society as trans lesbians, and I hope it's evident to everyone reading this that they just aren't. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter. But a lot of this is, as others have noted, youthful zeal and ignorance and is self-correcting if the young person's underlying values are good.
posted by praemunire at 12:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
>They are 'cancelled' not because their experiences *have* been used by right wingers trying to cancel healthcare, but because people fear those experiences *might* be used by right wingers trying to cancel healthcare.
And that's fair, since it's actually happening. The danger isn't hallucinatory. It is real.
There are ways to talk about one's own detransition experience that don't create the possibility of being used by right wingers, though. Was K doing their due diligence and being careful in how they speak? Making sure (as far as they possibly could) that what they were saying could not be used against the trans community?
Look, this isn't a new problem that detransitioners are the first to discover. Everyone who lives at the intersection of more than one system of oppression comes up against this problem at SOME point. I've had to come up with very careful ways to talk about my experiences with the particular misogyny of my non-white native culture when I am in spaces filled with Americans, otherwise my legitimate concerns about misogyny in my native culture are going to become fodder for white supremacists in USA. I've had to understand that this care is necessary not only to safeguard people of *my* ethnicity from white supremacists in the US, but actually, this care is necessary because the safety of the people of my ethnicity has historically been built on the backs of activism by Black civil rights activists, and if I don't speak carefully, I endanger Black Americans who are much more precarious in the racial politics of this country. You know?
Ask any muslim person living in first world/western countries and they'll tell you they walk this tightrope every day too. I have a close friend who is Iranian and she HATES the symbolism of headscarves because headscarves had only relatively recently been forced on Iranians when she moved here. She was so angry about it, and she could not understand why American/British/French Muslims saw headscarves as a symbol of liberation.. but that was the work she was forced to do. To understand that symbols mean different things for different people depending on which context their most salient oppression comes from. It would have been irresponsible for either her to start spouting off about headscarves being always oppressive, or for other muslims to start saying headscarves are always liberation.
There's so much to consider, and it's hard work, but I OWE this work and this care to my community before I start spouting off my mouth. The very fact that I have a voice with which to speak means that I have to be responsible with it and not endanger people with it.
It's the same calculus for anyone who speaks of their detransition. Their freedom and their safety was built on the backs of trans activists. So any detransitioner who wishes to speak needs to do their due diligence, put in the effort, and take care that what they say does not end up endangering the very people whose blood bought them their safety. Spamandkimchi's comment above has a great example of speech by detransitioners that does employ the requisite level of care.
posted by MiraK at 12:44 PM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
And that's fair, since it's actually happening. The danger isn't hallucinatory. It is real.
There are ways to talk about one's own detransition experience that don't create the possibility of being used by right wingers, though. Was K doing their due diligence and being careful in how they speak? Making sure (as far as they possibly could) that what they were saying could not be used against the trans community?
Look, this isn't a new problem that detransitioners are the first to discover. Everyone who lives at the intersection of more than one system of oppression comes up against this problem at SOME point. I've had to come up with very careful ways to talk about my experiences with the particular misogyny of my non-white native culture when I am in spaces filled with Americans, otherwise my legitimate concerns about misogyny in my native culture are going to become fodder for white supremacists in USA. I've had to understand that this care is necessary not only to safeguard people of *my* ethnicity from white supremacists in the US, but actually, this care is necessary because the safety of the people of my ethnicity has historically been built on the backs of activism by Black civil rights activists, and if I don't speak carefully, I endanger Black Americans who are much more precarious in the racial politics of this country. You know?
Ask any muslim person living in first world/western countries and they'll tell you they walk this tightrope every day too. I have a close friend who is Iranian and she HATES the symbolism of headscarves because headscarves had only relatively recently been forced on Iranians when she moved here. She was so angry about it, and she could not understand why American/British/French Muslims saw headscarves as a symbol of liberation.. but that was the work she was forced to do. To understand that symbols mean different things for different people depending on which context their most salient oppression comes from. It would have been irresponsible for either her to start spouting off about headscarves being always oppressive, or for other muslims to start saying headscarves are always liberation.
There's so much to consider, and it's hard work, but I OWE this work and this care to my community before I start spouting off my mouth. The very fact that I have a voice with which to speak means that I have to be responsible with it and not endanger people with it.
It's the same calculus for anyone who speaks of their detransition. Their freedom and their safety was built on the backs of trans activists. So any detransitioner who wishes to speak needs to do their due diligence, put in the effort, and take care that what they say does not end up endangering the very people whose blood bought them their safety. Spamandkimchi's comment above has a great example of speech by detransitioners that does employ the requisite level of care.
posted by MiraK at 12:44 PM on December 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
I thought this out using "trans people don't exist," a hateful and untrue thing to say.
Why would you use that as an example? In most circles, not just on the left, that statement would get the same reception as "the earth is flat". Whereas the example of K is more complex.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
Why would you use that as an example? In most circles, not just on the left, that statement would get the same reception as "the earth is flat". Whereas the example of K is more complex.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:53 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
Was K doing their due diligence and being careful in how they speak? Making sure (as far as they possibly could) that what they were saying could not be used against the trans community?
Is that their responsibility?
A few months ago there was an FPP about a 2016 essay, "I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out." The author was attacked (not by Mefites, but by other critics linked in the post) in harsh political terms for writing to explore her personal experience as a closeted trans woman and her feelings about her gender identity. I find it hard to consider it liberating, or community-building, to require people to only dare speak about their experiences if they fashion their speech in such a way that no bad faith actor could possibly make use of it. I know there are detransitioners out there eating lunch on the right-wing circuit telling lies about health care policies, and how harmful they are, but that is a far cry from being truthful about your own experiences, even if they are deeply unhappy ones (and, God, looking that up--I hope that author has found her peace).
posted by praemunire at 12:54 PM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Is that their responsibility?
A few months ago there was an FPP about a 2016 essay, "I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out." The author was attacked (not by Mefites, but by other critics linked in the post) in harsh political terms for writing to explore her personal experience as a closeted trans woman and her feelings about her gender identity. I find it hard to consider it liberating, or community-building, to require people to only dare speak about their experiences if they fashion their speech in such a way that no bad faith actor could possibly make use of it. I know there are detransitioners out there eating lunch on the right-wing circuit telling lies about health care policies, and how harmful they are, but that is a far cry from being truthful about your own experiences, even if they are deeply unhappy ones (and, God, looking that up--I hope that author has found her peace).
posted by praemunire at 12:54 PM on December 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
> Is that their responsibility?
Yes. You'll see that I noted "as far as they possibly can". It's not their responsibility if their speech does get used by the right wing to harm queer people, but it IS their responsibility to TRY to ensure that their speech can't be used against queer people. We are all responsible for doing this type of due diligence. I hope the examples in my comment illustrate exactly why we owe this extra effort and care.
> I know there are detransitioners out there eating lunch on the right-wing circuit telling lies about health care policies, and how harmful they are, but that is a far cry from being truthful about your own experiences, even if they are deeply unhappy ones
I agree, I'm not tarring both with the same brush. The former is an outright malicious actor. I'd call the latter irresponsible if they didn't do their due diligence to the extent of, say, making the appropriate disclaimers when they speak of their experiences. It's their duty to be aware of the politics surrounding their speech and to make reasonable efforts to try to avoid being co-opted by right wingers, the same way that I make reasonable efforts not to encourage racists when I talk about misogyny in the Indian community, the same way my Iranian friend makes reasonable efforts to pre-empt Islamophobic interpretations of her tirades against the headscarf mandate in Iran.
posted by MiraK at 1:04 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yes. You'll see that I noted "as far as they possibly can". It's not their responsibility if their speech does get used by the right wing to harm queer people, but it IS their responsibility to TRY to ensure that their speech can't be used against queer people. We are all responsible for doing this type of due diligence. I hope the examples in my comment illustrate exactly why we owe this extra effort and care.
> I know there are detransitioners out there eating lunch on the right-wing circuit telling lies about health care policies, and how harmful they are, but that is a far cry from being truthful about your own experiences, even if they are deeply unhappy ones
I agree, I'm not tarring both with the same brush. The former is an outright malicious actor. I'd call the latter irresponsible if they didn't do their due diligence to the extent of, say, making the appropriate disclaimers when they speak of their experiences. It's their duty to be aware of the politics surrounding their speech and to make reasonable efforts to try to avoid being co-opted by right wingers, the same way that I make reasonable efforts not to encourage racists when I talk about misogyny in the Indian community, the same way my Iranian friend makes reasonable efforts to pre-empt Islamophobic interpretations of her tirades against the headscarf mandate in Iran.
posted by MiraK at 1:04 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
You'll see that I noted "as far as they possibly can". It's not their responsibility if their speech does get used by the right wing to harm queer people, but it IS their responsibility to TRY to ensure that their speech can't be used against queer people. We are all responsible for doing this type of due diligence. I hope the examples in my comment illustrate exactly why we owe this extra effort and care.
Well...using your example. You yourself are a relatively privileged person on the world scale who (I believe? I'm not trying to mischaracterize you here) considers herself an activist or at least a conscious leftist. Consider someone in your ethnic community who is extremely marginalized--poor, uneducated, lacking family support--and who has experienced whatever you consider the worst violences of misogyny in your culture that you can experience and still be alive. Would you fault her for writing about her experiences in an honest but insufficiently "careful" way, because--and this is true! I don't disagree with you at all about this!--right-wingers might use her story against your ethnic or religious community?
To try to connect this more closely to the FPP topic, I rarely empathize with the "hurt feelings" argument about people moving to the right, but I strongly suspect that if I, as a younger person, experienced this kind of criticism, I would revolt against the community I was being asked to sacrifice for. (Note: I don't think this explains any of the examples given in the original article.)
posted by praemunire at 1:20 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well...using your example. You yourself are a relatively privileged person on the world scale who (I believe? I'm not trying to mischaracterize you here) considers herself an activist or at least a conscious leftist. Consider someone in your ethnic community who is extremely marginalized--poor, uneducated, lacking family support--and who has experienced whatever you consider the worst violences of misogyny in your culture that you can experience and still be alive. Would you fault her for writing about her experiences in an honest but insufficiently "careful" way, because--and this is true! I don't disagree with you at all about this!--right-wingers might use her story against your ethnic or religious community?
To try to connect this more closely to the FPP topic, I rarely empathize with the "hurt feelings" argument about people moving to the right, but I strongly suspect that if I, as a younger person, experienced this kind of criticism, I would revolt against the community I was being asked to sacrifice for. (Note: I don't think this explains any of the examples given in the original article.)
posted by praemunire at 1:20 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Why would you use that as an example? In most circles, not just on the left, that statement would get the same reception as "the earth is flat".
I would really beg to differ. Maybe not expressed as explicitly as that, but rephrase it as "you can't just change sex"/"you can't just say you're a woman" and it is likely to meet murmurs if approval ends nods from at least a substantial portion of a random (ie not queer, not picked for being pro-trans) crowd.
posted by Dysk at 1:22 PM on December 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
I would really beg to differ. Maybe not expressed as explicitly as that, but rephrase it as "you can't just change sex"/"you can't just say you're a woman" and it is likely to meet murmurs if approval ends nods from at least a substantial portion of a random (ie not queer, not picked for being pro-trans) crowd.
posted by Dysk at 1:22 PM on December 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
Apologies if I muddied the waters of a more eloquent conversation by tossing in a basic ingredient. Was trying to answer the questions posed with a simpler example, probably wrong-headed of me, sorry again.
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:24 PM on December 14, 2023
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:24 PM on December 14, 2023
> Consider someone in your ethnic community who is extremely marginalized--poor, uneducated, lacking family support--and who has experienced whatever you consider the worst violences of misogyny in your culture that you can experience and still be alive. Would you fault her for writing about her experiences in an honest but insufficiently "careful" way, because--and this is true! I don't disagree with you at all about this!--right-wingers might use her story against your ethnic or religious community?
You're right about that, she can't be faulted. But I also wouldn't blame any leftie spaces in the US for ejecting her either.
Upthread from corb's comment that first mentioned "K" and everyone else, I came away thinking that there needs to be some other solution and I just don't know what it is... and your comment here has given me a glimmer of what that might be. I think it's the responsibility of folks LIKE ME to take these ejected people aside and help them feel heard while also schooling them. (And eventually maybe it's the responsibility of the people in the leftie spaces to give people who fucked up a second chance, now that they have learned to do better.)
Sorry, I know this is impossibly twee and pat etc. But it does feel like something just clicked for me, you know? I would think it's unfair for people in the larger group, especially the Black and Brown people in it, to be subjected to the lesser-privileged, less-aware Indian woman's tirades against Indian men's misogyny in a mixed-race American space. And since folks like me are the ones who aren't being directly harmed by her tirade, it falls on us to take them aside and help them through.
For detransitioners, I'm not sure who that person might be, who has both the direct experience to empathize AND the relative immunity from potential harm caused by the unaware person's speech. Maybe other detransitioners, IDK.
posted by MiraK at 1:28 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
You're right about that, she can't be faulted. But I also wouldn't blame any leftie spaces in the US for ejecting her either.
Upthread from corb's comment that first mentioned "K" and everyone else, I came away thinking that there needs to be some other solution and I just don't know what it is... and your comment here has given me a glimmer of what that might be. I think it's the responsibility of folks LIKE ME to take these ejected people aside and help them feel heard while also schooling them. (And eventually maybe it's the responsibility of the people in the leftie spaces to give people who fucked up a second chance, now that they have learned to do better.)
Sorry, I know this is impossibly twee and pat etc. But it does feel like something just clicked for me, you know? I would think it's unfair for people in the larger group, especially the Black and Brown people in it, to be subjected to the lesser-privileged, less-aware Indian woman's tirades against Indian men's misogyny in a mixed-race American space. And since folks like me are the ones who aren't being directly harmed by her tirade, it falls on us to take them aside and help them through.
For detransitioners, I'm not sure who that person might be, who has both the direct experience to empathize AND the relative immunity from potential harm caused by the unaware person's speech. Maybe other detransitioners, IDK.
posted by MiraK at 1:28 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
1. What is harm? Is it harm to hear a different idea? Is it harm to hear a different idea loudly? Is it harm to hear a different idea in a place where you weren't expecting to hear it? Is it harm to hear it if it's pointed? Is it harm only if it's being turned into action? These are all different, and I think that when we treat them all the same, it causes problems.
It depends on the idea, doesn't it? Maybe 'ideas' is too much of an abstraction here. "I think all income over a million dollars should be taxed at 50% instead of 37%" is a very different kind of idea than "I don't recognize some people as deserving the same rights as I have". It's tempting to just categorize all speech as ideas and imagine them competing in a marketplace of some sort, but that creates a huge false equivalence.
Maybe instead of trying to figure out which contexts make ideas hurtful we examine their consequences?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:29 PM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
It depends on the idea, doesn't it? Maybe 'ideas' is too much of an abstraction here. "I think all income over a million dollars should be taxed at 50% instead of 37%" is a very different kind of idea than "I don't recognize some people as deserving the same rights as I have". It's tempting to just categorize all speech as ideas and imagine them competing in a marketplace of some sort, but that creates a huge false equivalence.
Maybe instead of trying to figure out which contexts make ideas hurtful we examine their consequences?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:29 PM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
To try to connect this more closely to the FPP topic, I rarely empathize with the "hurt feelings" argument about people moving to the right, but I strongly suspect that if I, as a younger person, experienced this kind of criticism, I would revolt against the community I was being asked to sacrifice for.
IMO, you can revolt against a lot of liberal ideas and liberal people without becoming a Republican. That's why I find some of the comments here perplexing. I personally think DSA member Dean Preston is a moron, but that doesn't mean I have to immediately vote for Donald Trump to spite him and all of his stupid ideas. I'm sure we agree on many things.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:32 PM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
IMO, you can revolt against a lot of liberal ideas and liberal people without becoming a Republican. That's why I find some of the comments here perplexing. I personally think DSA member Dean Preston is a moron, but that doesn't mean I have to immediately vote for Donald Trump to spite him and all of his stupid ideas. I'm sure we agree on many things.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:32 PM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
I would really beg to differ. Maybe not expressed as explicitly as that, but rephrase it as "you can't just change sex"/"you can't just say you're a woman" and it is likely to meet murmurs if approval ends nods from at least a substantial portion of a random (ie not queer, not picked for being pro-trans) crowd.
Understood, but then again anyone who's done nothing more than watching Jeopardy in the last couple of years knows that trans people exist. There are important points being discussed; I just thought that the example given detracts from the argument.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:41 PM on December 14, 2023
Understood, but then again anyone who's done nothing more than watching Jeopardy in the last couple of years knows that trans people exist. There are important points being discussed; I just thought that the example given detracts from the argument.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:41 PM on December 14, 2023
Well...using your example. You yourself are a relatively privileged person on the world scale who (I believe? I'm not trying to mischaracterize you here) considers herself an activist or at least a conscious leftist. Consider someone in your ethnic community who is extremely marginalized--poor, uneducated, lacking family support--and who has experienced whatever you consider the worst violences of misogyny in your culture that you can experience and still be alive. Would you fault her for writing about her experiences in an honest but insufficiently "careful" way, because--and this is true! I don't disagree with you at all about this!--right-wingers might use her story against your ethnic or religious community?
i mean, it's not just right wingers, but centrists and left wingers who like using sourcelander experiences to dismiss diaspora experiences. we had a few threads like that on here; for example, the kimono one comes to mind.
posted by i used to be someone else at 1:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
i mean, it's not just right wingers, but centrists and left wingers who like using sourcelander experiences to dismiss diaspora experiences. we had a few threads like that on here; for example, the kimono one comes to mind.
posted by i used to be someone else at 1:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Understood, but then again anyone who's done nothing more than watching Jeopardy in the last couple of years knows that trans people exist.
It depends what you mean by "trans people exist" and the people who say that we don't aren't ignorant of our existence in that sense, they're saying that our identities aren't real or valid. And people do use that phrasing to some extent, even if the examples I suggested are more common. They mean the same thing.
posted by Dysk at 1:45 PM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
It depends what you mean by "trans people exist" and the people who say that we don't aren't ignorant of our existence in that sense, they're saying that our identities aren't real or valid. And people do use that phrasing to some extent, even if the examples I suggested are more common. They mean the same thing.
posted by Dysk at 1:45 PM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
(I have heard "trans people don't exist" at least a dozen times this year from multiple horrible sources. Glad if other people haven't. Also agree with "you can't just change sex"/"you can't just say you're a woman" as equivalent omg Instagram looking at you)
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:46 PM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 1:46 PM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
anyone who's done nothing more than watching Jeopardy in the last couple of years knows that trans people exist
When people say "trans people don't exist", they mean that they think trans identities are either fake or pathological, not that there aren't people who live as a different gender to how they were assigned at birth.
posted by BungaDunga at 1:47 PM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
When people say "trans people don't exist", they mean that they think trans identities are either fake or pathological, not that there aren't people who live as a different gender to how they were assigned at birth.
posted by BungaDunga at 1:47 PM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
Don't police other people's orientation identification. You may think you have good reasons to do so, and it will somehow help, and that disregarding their experience of self will somehow serve some larger social justice purpose, but you're wrong.
Believe/accept people when they describe their experience of self because the tendency to reframe their identify through the conventional lens (conservatism) or a utopian aspirational lens (progressives) and police them about it does much more harm than good.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:47 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Believe/accept people when they describe their experience of self because the tendency to reframe their identify through the conventional lens (conservatism) or a utopian aspirational lens (progressives) and police them about it does much more harm than good.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:47 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Also, praemunire, I think the more appropriate response to your question would have been: we can't blame that person for fucking up, but we can definitely blame them for refusing to take feedback, learn, and do better. This is a point that's been made upthread several times, that people get ejected because they won't apologize and don't learn to do better.
If the experience of causing accidental harm to someone else and being asked to quit causing said harm makes someone move rightward, well, fuck them! That is proof that they're bad actors - malicious, not just clueless.
posted by MiraK at 2:00 PM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
If the experience of causing accidental harm to someone else and being asked to quit causing said harm makes someone move rightward, well, fuck them! That is proof that they're bad actors - malicious, not just clueless.
posted by MiraK at 2:00 PM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well...using your example. You yourself are a relatively privileged person on the world scale who (I believe? I'm not trying to mischaracterize you here) considers herself an activist or at least a conscious leftist. Consider someone in your ethnic community who is extremely marginalized--poor, uneducated, lacking family support--and who has experienced whatever you consider the worst violences of misogyny in your culture that you can experience and still be alive. Would you fault her for writing about her experiences in an honest but insufficiently "careful" way, because--and this is true! I don't disagree with you at all about this!--right-wingers might use her story against your ethnic or religious community?
With this kind of stuff, it all becomes too abstract. Like, where is this person writing about her experiences and to what end? Are we chatting on facebook? Is she contributing a story at a public hearing? Is she writing a nasty message to someone on the internet? Is she speaking as the public face of a group I participate in?
Whoops, this was posted by a cat foot. I have a bit more to say.
posted by Frowner at 2:00 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
With this kind of stuff, it all becomes too abstract. Like, where is this person writing about her experiences and to what end? Are we chatting on facebook? Is she contributing a story at a public hearing? Is she writing a nasty message to someone on the internet? Is she speaking as the public face of a group I participate in?
Whoops, this was posted by a cat foot. I have a bit more to say.
posted by Frowner at 2:00 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Lots of this infighting over purity seems to be a proxy for the more general fight over who gets to decide what 'good' is along with the privilege of telling everyone else not to selfishly let perfect be the enemy of it.
On the one hand, there's only so much that can be done to make incremental progress, but on the other hand it really sucks if you're impacted personally by the decision not to pursue the perfect, or if the amount of 'good' achieved is something that doesn't come close to restoring what was taken away by Republicans.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:02 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
On the one hand, there's only so much that can be done to make incremental progress, but on the other hand it really sucks if you're impacted personally by the decision not to pursue the perfect, or if the amount of 'good' achieved is something that doesn't come close to restoring what was taken away by Republicans.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:02 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
So the marginalized person who is writing about their experience in an honest way:
I've literally sat in meetings where marginalized people did in fact say some Not Great stuff based in their own experience. The best outcome in recent memory was when the group as a whole validated parts of the person's comments and pushed back on the rest. That happened because almost everyone in the large, full room had some lived experience with the broader issue under discussion and had the desire to build a coalition.
I think it's important not to assume that marginalized people are stupid, too, because I think an underpinning here is "here is this uneducated person speaking in a raw, unconsidered way that is "natural" rather than calculated and intentional, and we can't expect them to have sophisticated self-insight".
Sometimes having a terrible life and a lot of deprivation does seem to deprive people of self-insight and ease in making complex arguments, but very often I have observed that marginalized and deprived people do in fact make complex and calculated arguments for their audiences, just not in the language that privileged people associate with that. This means that people's arguments sometimes get accepted as raw and true when they should be debated and sometimes means that people are just patronizing and don't really pay attention to what is being said.
Mainly, I think that we default to "how we interact on twitter and tumblr" when we think about people writing about their experience rather than thinking about all the other situations where people are making arguments based on what they've lived. Someone who is participating in an online space where the purpose is to tell their story and try to understand themselves, or to shed light on a type of experience in a broad general way shouldn't be read the same way as a person who is speaking at a public hearing or posting on a site where the posts are intended to generate a specific political gestalt.
So many of these questions about the left really need to be anchored in the specific kind of work that is being undertaken, because the appropriate response to someone is going to depend very much on the specific room they are in. It's not just "you have been oppressed THIS much so we have a right to be rude to you about THIS but must keep silent when you say awful things about THAT".
posted by Frowner at 2:09 PM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
I've literally sat in meetings where marginalized people did in fact say some Not Great stuff based in their own experience. The best outcome in recent memory was when the group as a whole validated parts of the person's comments and pushed back on the rest. That happened because almost everyone in the large, full room had some lived experience with the broader issue under discussion and had the desire to build a coalition.
I think it's important not to assume that marginalized people are stupid, too, because I think an underpinning here is "here is this uneducated person speaking in a raw, unconsidered way that is "natural" rather than calculated and intentional, and we can't expect them to have sophisticated self-insight".
Sometimes having a terrible life and a lot of deprivation does seem to deprive people of self-insight and ease in making complex arguments, but very often I have observed that marginalized and deprived people do in fact make complex and calculated arguments for their audiences, just not in the language that privileged people associate with that. This means that people's arguments sometimes get accepted as raw and true when they should be debated and sometimes means that people are just patronizing and don't really pay attention to what is being said.
Mainly, I think that we default to "how we interact on twitter and tumblr" when we think about people writing about their experience rather than thinking about all the other situations where people are making arguments based on what they've lived. Someone who is participating in an online space where the purpose is to tell their story and try to understand themselves, or to shed light on a type of experience in a broad general way shouldn't be read the same way as a person who is speaking at a public hearing or posting on a site where the posts are intended to generate a specific political gestalt.
So many of these questions about the left really need to be anchored in the specific kind of work that is being undertaken, because the appropriate response to someone is going to depend very much on the specific room they are in. It's not just "you have been oppressed THIS much so we have a right to be rude to you about THIS but must keep silent when you say awful things about THAT".
posted by Frowner at 2:09 PM on December 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
But that's the problem. If you (generic you, not you in particular) can't take criticism about your positions and actions with regard to the very issues core to leftism, then maybe you're missing the damn point.
Well, we both made it through our Metafilter political crucibles and we evolved a little and refused to become reactionary shitheads... but we've only had a taste of what lefty famous people get if they say or do something that pisses off the American left wing in a big way. There's handling criticism and then there's dealing with a celebrity social media fiasco. If hating you goes viral and you suddenly find yourself scrolling through a thousand TikToks about what a dogshit person you are, and at the same time maybe a bunch of conservative creeps are coming around and cooing in your ear about how it's so unfair how you're being cancelled by the woke mob, I can see how a person might go nuts and decide the left is evil and the right is fine and dandy. Obviously it's not always that extreme, but I think the left does drive a lot of people away with all the infighting and nastiness. We're always bickering amongst ourselves while those on the right are willing to put aside their differences and form a Coalition of Evil.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:21 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Well, we both made it through our Metafilter political crucibles and we evolved a little and refused to become reactionary shitheads... but we've only had a taste of what lefty famous people get if they say or do something that pisses off the American left wing in a big way. There's handling criticism and then there's dealing with a celebrity social media fiasco. If hating you goes viral and you suddenly find yourself scrolling through a thousand TikToks about what a dogshit person you are, and at the same time maybe a bunch of conservative creeps are coming around and cooing in your ear about how it's so unfair how you're being cancelled by the woke mob, I can see how a person might go nuts and decide the left is evil and the right is fine and dandy. Obviously it's not always that extreme, but I think the left does drive a lot of people away with all the infighting and nastiness. We're always bickering amongst ourselves while those on the right are willing to put aside their differences and form a Coalition of Evil.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:21 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
But how does one form a Coalition of Good with those who have worried us with their comments against those in our group? They should acknowledge their comments were maybe not great and join us again! If not...that's not OUR fault for failing to ignore their poorly worded or whoops damn that is problematic comments (if in fact, said comments was not in malice but was poorly thought out - for some, this is not a given, weasel words and all)
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:36 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 3:36 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I mean, a lot of things are true at the same time here.
I think it’s generally valid and correct for groups which include marginalized members to defend them by separating from people who pose a risk to them. I think that’s a good thing even when that impacts some not-horrible people that are making honest mistakes, or coming from their own difficult life experiences. (And it’s clearly good when it ejects bad actors.)
At the same time, I think doing so makes it more difficult for those groups to build coalitions or broad-based support. New, more casual, or less-committed people who join these groups and make mistakes… will sometimes turn around and leave rather than keep trying. That may happen because they’re bad people, but also might happen because they’re just not in a position to put in the effort needed by that group.
An unfortunate part here is that broad coalitions are often necessary to build the support for political change at a large scale, and so the two behaviors above come into tension.
My only solution to that is to acknowledge that it’s ok for there to be lots of different groups and for those groups to have different levels of tolerance for bad behavior, mistaken or otherwise. I expect different levels of safety and care from (for example) a small leftist activist group and the national Democratic party, because they have different goals and requirements for effective action.
Connecting back to the original topic, I think people see “the left” as ejecting people when it’s often a small-ish group rightly protecting its membership. Which is obnoxious but good for generating think pieces…
posted by learning from frequent failure at 4:03 PM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
I think it’s generally valid and correct for groups which include marginalized members to defend them by separating from people who pose a risk to them. I think that’s a good thing even when that impacts some not-horrible people that are making honest mistakes, or coming from their own difficult life experiences. (And it’s clearly good when it ejects bad actors.)
At the same time, I think doing so makes it more difficult for those groups to build coalitions or broad-based support. New, more casual, or less-committed people who join these groups and make mistakes… will sometimes turn around and leave rather than keep trying. That may happen because they’re bad people, but also might happen because they’re just not in a position to put in the effort needed by that group.
An unfortunate part here is that broad coalitions are often necessary to build the support for political change at a large scale, and so the two behaviors above come into tension.
My only solution to that is to acknowledge that it’s ok for there to be lots of different groups and for those groups to have different levels of tolerance for bad behavior, mistaken or otherwise. I expect different levels of safety and care from (for example) a small leftist activist group and the national Democratic party, because they have different goals and requirements for effective action.
Connecting back to the original topic, I think people see “the left” as ejecting people when it’s often a small-ish group rightly protecting its membership. Which is obnoxious but good for generating think pieces…
posted by learning from frequent failure at 4:03 PM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
Someone who is participating in an online space where the purpose is to tell their story and try to understand themselves, or to shed light on a type of experience in a broad general way shouldn't be read the same way as a person who is speaking at a public hearing or posting on a site where the posts are intended to generate a specific political gestalt.
So I think this is kind of another example of the problem that is happening, and why this really cries out for far more nuanced understandings than I think the discourse is currently capable of, because we don't really have clear, agreed-upon understandings of what spaces are for and what their purposes are for. So much of our understandings of these places are built by who we are, and how old we are, and what generation we are from, and where we are socialized from and those understandings are not shared.
I'm right on the cusp between GenX and Millenial; my first interaction with social media was on Livejournal, then Myspace, then Facebook. I joined Twitter and Instagram but did not really come of age on those mediums and do not natively understand them; nor do most of my peers. I think of social media primarily, first and foremost, as a way to share my thoughts and opinions with my friends; when I think of it in conjunction with political arguments, my first thought is of arguing about politics with friends and with friends of friends, largely not for political agitation, but for understanding friends and for trying to persuade them as individuals. And that's largely the way that I see it for other peers of my generation, and the way I see them using it - as ways to communicate with other people, to have conversations with people they know, or would like to know. I would define a lot of that participation as telling stories and understanding themselves and each other; on shedding light.
And yet - even though I think of these places as small, and my own social media is locked down, not everyone else's is. In fact, I usually have no way of knowing, when I post on my friend's social media, whether their social media is equally locked down, whether it's a place where we are all sharing together, or where other people will perceive it as a site where posts are intended to generate a political gestalt. Facebook, in particular, is in many cases a battleground, where people are getting radicalized and mobilized to vote particular ways and to go to various events and to fall down rabbit holes.
And so you have some people thinking that places are for sharing and others that places are for locking things down entirely and not showing any vulnerability in front of the enemy, and these two beliefs can't really coexist. (Leaving aside that some people believe that not showing any vulnerability in front of the enemy is itself problematic and unhelpful to the greater cause, that's a separate issue).
And I think that even if we did come to common agreement about what the rules should be for public or semi public spaces, we are also not really good at responding in accordance with specific spaces yet. Or at least - I haven't seen it done well; if you have, I'd be interested to hear about it. I've seen it handled bluntly, with the tool of shunning, which is a very broad tool. I haven't really seen, "We wish that you wouldn't do this, however, you're still a valued member of our community" within leftist spaces. I haven't really seen any middle ground between "nothing is done" and "This person is spoken of as a bad person who has done bad things and shouldn't be associated with or welcomed". There doesn't really seem, from what I've seen, to be a left-equivalent of "this person is a sinner, we are all sinners, this person is struggling with their sin and working on it, we accept that they will fail from time to time". Like - upthread it was mentioned that it's not good when we think of people as good people or bad people, and I agree and I think most people agree, but at the same time, I don't think people are really good at holding nuanced views at really divided times and I don't know folks who have done it well outside of Circles of Support and Accountability, which are a *lot* of work.
But more broadly: if one side has nothing other than 'nothing or shunning' and the other side has a bunch of nuance and welcome, I think that over time, that other side is going to be in society with many more people, just by default, because they will be all that's left. And I don't think that's good. I don't think that helps us. Just like if one side has "the only way to work on your problems is public humiliation" and the other side has "you can work on this quietly", I think the second is going to be more attractive, hands down, nine times out of ten. And I wonder, who wins when we do the first one?
posted by corb at 4:38 PM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
So I think this is kind of another example of the problem that is happening, and why this really cries out for far more nuanced understandings than I think the discourse is currently capable of, because we don't really have clear, agreed-upon understandings of what spaces are for and what their purposes are for. So much of our understandings of these places are built by who we are, and how old we are, and what generation we are from, and where we are socialized from and those understandings are not shared.
I'm right on the cusp between GenX and Millenial; my first interaction with social media was on Livejournal, then Myspace, then Facebook. I joined Twitter and Instagram but did not really come of age on those mediums and do not natively understand them; nor do most of my peers. I think of social media primarily, first and foremost, as a way to share my thoughts and opinions with my friends; when I think of it in conjunction with political arguments, my first thought is of arguing about politics with friends and with friends of friends, largely not for political agitation, but for understanding friends and for trying to persuade them as individuals. And that's largely the way that I see it for other peers of my generation, and the way I see them using it - as ways to communicate with other people, to have conversations with people they know, or would like to know. I would define a lot of that participation as telling stories and understanding themselves and each other; on shedding light.
And yet - even though I think of these places as small, and my own social media is locked down, not everyone else's is. In fact, I usually have no way of knowing, when I post on my friend's social media, whether their social media is equally locked down, whether it's a place where we are all sharing together, or where other people will perceive it as a site where posts are intended to generate a political gestalt. Facebook, in particular, is in many cases a battleground, where people are getting radicalized and mobilized to vote particular ways and to go to various events and to fall down rabbit holes.
And so you have some people thinking that places are for sharing and others that places are for locking things down entirely and not showing any vulnerability in front of the enemy, and these two beliefs can't really coexist. (Leaving aside that some people believe that not showing any vulnerability in front of the enemy is itself problematic and unhelpful to the greater cause, that's a separate issue).
And I think that even if we did come to common agreement about what the rules should be for public or semi public spaces, we are also not really good at responding in accordance with specific spaces yet. Or at least - I haven't seen it done well; if you have, I'd be interested to hear about it. I've seen it handled bluntly, with the tool of shunning, which is a very broad tool. I haven't really seen, "We wish that you wouldn't do this, however, you're still a valued member of our community" within leftist spaces. I haven't really seen any middle ground between "nothing is done" and "This person is spoken of as a bad person who has done bad things and shouldn't be associated with or welcomed". There doesn't really seem, from what I've seen, to be a left-equivalent of "this person is a sinner, we are all sinners, this person is struggling with their sin and working on it, we accept that they will fail from time to time". Like - upthread it was mentioned that it's not good when we think of people as good people or bad people, and I agree and I think most people agree, but at the same time, I don't think people are really good at holding nuanced views at really divided times and I don't know folks who have done it well outside of Circles of Support and Accountability, which are a *lot* of work.
But more broadly: if one side has nothing other than 'nothing or shunning' and the other side has a bunch of nuance and welcome, I think that over time, that other side is going to be in society with many more people, just by default, because they will be all that's left. And I don't think that's good. I don't think that helps us. Just like if one side has "the only way to work on your problems is public humiliation" and the other side has "you can work on this quietly", I think the second is going to be more attractive, hands down, nine times out of ten. And I wonder, who wins when we do the first one?
posted by corb at 4:38 PM on December 14, 2023 [11 favorites]
Making the future better than the present requires personal sacrifice, commitment, and negotiation. But for a pundit, parroting generic modern-capitalist racist/sexist spew requires little effort and is well paying, it only requires selling your soul, a price some are willing to pay. It's a tempting paid gig for a clever but intellectually lazy narcissist, just waiting for the check to come in.
posted by ovvl at 4:39 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 4:39 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Just like if one side has "the only way to work on your problems is public humiliation"
What is this referring to? I don't mean to single you out, I feel like this idea has cropped up a few times in this thread, but I really don't know what this means. Is it a way of characterising a public apology, or is there something more to it?
posted by Dysk at 4:42 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
What is this referring to? I don't mean to single you out, I feel like this idea has cropped up a few times in this thread, but I really don't know what this means. Is it a way of characterising a public apology, or is there something more to it?
posted by Dysk at 4:42 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Whoops, this was posted by a cat foot. I have a bit more to say.
I am totally going to steal this next time I think of something else a minute after I post a comment, and end up posting multiple comments in a row.
posted by eviemath at 4:55 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I am totally going to steal this next time I think of something else a minute after I post a comment, and end up posting multiple comments in a row.
posted by eviemath at 4:55 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
It’s not me being too hasty of a poster, it’s all my cat’s fault….
posted by eviemath at 4:56 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 4:56 PM on December 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I haven't really seen, "We wish that you wouldn't do this, however, you're still a valued member of our community" within leftist spaces.
That's because people who keep hurting others aren't valued members of the community, and if you want to say that something is actually unacceptable in a community, there needs to be consequences for that line being crossed.
There doesn't really seem, from what I've seen, to be a left-equivalent of "this person is a sinner, we are all sinners, this person is struggling with their sin and working on it, we accept that they will fail from time to time".
Because this is a shitty statement that serves to excuse harmful behavior under the guise of "people should be understanding to those who cause harm." I do believe that there should be some understanding extended to people who have caused harm - but at the same time that should be tempered with the expectation that such people do acknowledge and show contrition for that harm. And if someone isn't willing to put that work in, then the community shouldn't be expected to turn a blind eye to that.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:11 PM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
That's because people who keep hurting others aren't valued members of the community, and if you want to say that something is actually unacceptable in a community, there needs to be consequences for that line being crossed.
There doesn't really seem, from what I've seen, to be a left-equivalent of "this person is a sinner, we are all sinners, this person is struggling with their sin and working on it, we accept that they will fail from time to time".
Because this is a shitty statement that serves to excuse harmful behavior under the guise of "people should be understanding to those who cause harm." I do believe that there should be some understanding extended to people who have caused harm - but at the same time that should be tempered with the expectation that such people do acknowledge and show contrition for that harm. And if someone isn't willing to put that work in, then the community shouldn't be expected to turn a blind eye to that.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:11 PM on December 14, 2023 [7 favorites]
There doesn't really seem, from what I've seen, to be a left-equivalent of "this person is a sinner, we are all sinners, this person is struggling with their sin and working on it, we accept that they will fail from time to time".
I posted some links with options upthread? I’ve seen this middle ground happen in the leftist groups I’ve been in significantly more often than complete shunning. The vast majority of complete or near-complete shunnings I’ve seen or experienced have been the more traditional religious or homophobic/transphobic sort, or stemming from ableism in the case of people struggling with their mental health.
‘Course, Metafilter is the closest to an online leftist space I’ve been in, and I have eschewed Twitter, Tumblr, etc., so possibly this is partly a difference between online versus in-person dynamics.
Side note: the far right absolutely splinters and infights (post-Charlottetown, or the various individuals and groups that were involved with the right wing convoys up here in Canada, or the Republicans in the House of Representatives trying to elect a speaker) and throws out people based on failures of ideological purity (see: the proliferation of accusations of Republicans being RINOs, Kevin McCarthy’s aborted stint as Speaker of the House).
posted by eviemath at 5:11 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I posted some links with options upthread? I’ve seen this middle ground happen in the leftist groups I’ve been in significantly more often than complete shunning. The vast majority of complete or near-complete shunnings I’ve seen or experienced have been the more traditional religious or homophobic/transphobic sort, or stemming from ableism in the case of people struggling with their mental health.
‘Course, Metafilter is the closest to an online leftist space I’ve been in, and I have eschewed Twitter, Tumblr, etc., so possibly this is partly a difference between online versus in-person dynamics.
Side note: the far right absolutely splinters and infights (post-Charlottetown, or the various individuals and groups that were involved with the right wing convoys up here in Canada, or the Republicans in the House of Representatives trying to elect a speaker) and throws out people based on failures of ideological purity (see: the proliferation of accusations of Republicans being RINOs, Kevin McCarthy’s aborted stint as Speaker of the House).
posted by eviemath at 5:11 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
What is this referring to? I don't mean to single you out, I feel like this idea has cropped up a few times in this thread, but I really don't know what this means. Is it a way of characterising a public apology, or is there something more to it?
Okay so I can only speak for myself - a liberation theologist Catholic and an anarchist - which informs my position on a lot of this; other people are going to have different ideas and perhaps have less visceral reactions to some of the things bothering me, but I'll give it my best shot.
I have found that the tradition of a regular examination of conscience with an accountability partner is incredibly useful, and I don't think it needs religion in order to work. I think that considering and going over ways in which you may have harmed other people, especially the most vulnerable, and thinking of how you are going to work to try not to do it in future, and thinking of ways you are going to work to make up for your error, is really useful and helpful and helps both yourself and the movements that you serve. I think this can be with a romantic partner, a comrade, really just anyone you trust to keep your confidences and be honest with you and call you on your shit. But I think that for the most part, this is most useful when it's private and encourages people to be at their most honest, rather than when they are trying to kind of curate this examination for public consumption. I think that sometimes the ways you're going to work to make up for your errors might wind up demanding an apology to the person you have harmed, but it's not an always thing, and it's only when it seems like it will be more beneficial than harmful. I have seen this happen in small mutual aid groups and in-person anarchist groups. I haven't seen it happen with groups larger than about 25.
I contrast this with what I see as kind of a tendency towards demanding what seems to me to be similar to Maoist self-criticism "struggle sessions". In my belief, the current 'cancellation' mode, in part because of the inherent publicity and enormous crowds of social media, bears a lot of similarity to the worst excesses of the "struggle sessions". Intimates are pressured to betray each other and receive praise for doing so, which enhances people's lack of trust in their companions and encourages them to feel secure only in their political loyalty. It is encouraged for people who were previously close friends, intimate partners, or comrades to expose each other to cancellation. The "struggle sessions" took place in front of large crowds which increased humiliation and the amount of people attacking the individual- so too do modern 'cancellations' on social media. Supposedly, struggle sessions were for the benefit of eliminating counter-revolutionary thinking - so too, are these moments supposedly for the benefit of helping the person come back towards 'right thinking' and 'growth'. And like struggle sessions, once people have been involved in such a mob, they're more invested in it, they believe in its rightness more, they are more willing to participate again. And I fundamentally do not believe that there is any benefit, either to individuals, or to the movement, in such sessions. I am sure that Maoists disagree, and probably some MLs as well, so feel free to take my position here with a grain of salt; I am inherently distrustful of enforcement of party lines.
posted by corb at 5:16 PM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
Okay so I can only speak for myself - a liberation theologist Catholic and an anarchist - which informs my position on a lot of this; other people are going to have different ideas and perhaps have less visceral reactions to some of the things bothering me, but I'll give it my best shot.
I have found that the tradition of a regular examination of conscience with an accountability partner is incredibly useful, and I don't think it needs religion in order to work. I think that considering and going over ways in which you may have harmed other people, especially the most vulnerable, and thinking of how you are going to work to try not to do it in future, and thinking of ways you are going to work to make up for your error, is really useful and helpful and helps both yourself and the movements that you serve. I think this can be with a romantic partner, a comrade, really just anyone you trust to keep your confidences and be honest with you and call you on your shit. But I think that for the most part, this is most useful when it's private and encourages people to be at their most honest, rather than when they are trying to kind of curate this examination for public consumption. I think that sometimes the ways you're going to work to make up for your errors might wind up demanding an apology to the person you have harmed, but it's not an always thing, and it's only when it seems like it will be more beneficial than harmful. I have seen this happen in small mutual aid groups and in-person anarchist groups. I haven't seen it happen with groups larger than about 25.
I contrast this with what I see as kind of a tendency towards demanding what seems to me to be similar to Maoist self-criticism "struggle sessions". In my belief, the current 'cancellation' mode, in part because of the inherent publicity and enormous crowds of social media, bears a lot of similarity to the worst excesses of the "struggle sessions". Intimates are pressured to betray each other and receive praise for doing so, which enhances people's lack of trust in their companions and encourages them to feel secure only in their political loyalty. It is encouraged for people who were previously close friends, intimate partners, or comrades to expose each other to cancellation. The "struggle sessions" took place in front of large crowds which increased humiliation and the amount of people attacking the individual- so too do modern 'cancellations' on social media. Supposedly, struggle sessions were for the benefit of eliminating counter-revolutionary thinking - so too, are these moments supposedly for the benefit of helping the person come back towards 'right thinking' and 'growth'. And like struggle sessions, once people have been involved in such a mob, they're more invested in it, they believe in its rightness more, they are more willing to participate again. And I fundamentally do not believe that there is any benefit, either to individuals, or to the movement, in such sessions. I am sure that Maoists disagree, and probably some MLs as well, so feel free to take my position here with a grain of salt; I am inherently distrustful of enforcement of party lines.
posted by corb at 5:16 PM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
So many conservative religious communities that absolutely cast out perceived sinners unless they definitively and publicly recant their sin or put up with literal abuse (eg. conversion therapy) or being forever more seen as the black sheep.
posted by eviemath at 5:18 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 5:18 PM on December 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
Anyway, I’ve made this same point in the past on another thread, but a lot of the behavior we seem to be concerned about in leftist spaces in this thread is just pretty common behavior in the culture or society at large; and because leftists also grew up in that broader culture, we should not be at all surprised to see the same learned behaviors in leftist spaces. Avoiding such behavior requires conscious effort and self-education.
And also, that’s getting fairly far afield from the topic or phenomenon of the fpp of questionably leftist white male very public figureheads shifting rightward. Back to the question of horseshoe theory that was brought up much earlier: some people do shift their political positions. Politics is better visualized as a multidimensional space, where individuals can be at different coordinates relative to different axes. In that visualization, one would speak about “torus theory” instead of “horseshoe theory” if one expected the ends of any given axis to wrap around on each other. But I think any movement within that political space by Bill Maher or Glenn Greenwald is much shorter than it might seem if one tries to project the multidimensional space into a single axis (or, the distance they have moved depends very much on how you make that multidimensional to one-dimensional projection); and in all the cases mentioned, the distance moved is notably shorter than if, say, Noam Chomsky (definitely leftist on many issues, a bit “get off my lawn you kids” on other leftist issues) became a center-liberal Joe Manchin supporter (still left of US political center in the relative sense, not leftist in any objective sense, but not far right either).
posted by eviemath at 5:37 PM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
And also, that’s getting fairly far afield from the topic or phenomenon of the fpp of questionably leftist white male very public figureheads shifting rightward. Back to the question of horseshoe theory that was brought up much earlier: some people do shift their political positions. Politics is better visualized as a multidimensional space, where individuals can be at different coordinates relative to different axes. In that visualization, one would speak about “torus theory” instead of “horseshoe theory” if one expected the ends of any given axis to wrap around on each other. But I think any movement within that political space by Bill Maher or Glenn Greenwald is much shorter than it might seem if one tries to project the multidimensional space into a single axis (or, the distance they have moved depends very much on how you make that multidimensional to one-dimensional projection); and in all the cases mentioned, the distance moved is notably shorter than if, say, Noam Chomsky (definitely leftist on many issues, a bit “get off my lawn you kids” on other leftist issues) became a center-liberal Joe Manchin supporter (still left of US political center in the relative sense, not leftist in any objective sense, but not far right either).
posted by eviemath at 5:37 PM on December 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Okay, so it is kind of a way of characterising the (public) demand for a public apology?
This is kinda getting into the weeds a bit, but:
I have found that the tradition of a regular examination of conscience with an accountability partner is incredibly useful
So I think there is one glaring issue with this practice, or possibly two in some contexts.
Firstly, it relies on picking a perfect accountability partner (which is obviously not a thing that exists). Any overlap in blind spots means there are things you will never address this way, and everyone has blind spots. That's a huge advantage of letting everyone hold everyone else accountable. Of course, the calling people on their bullshit doesn't necessarily have to happen publicly and nor does an apology.
However, on that last point, if the (let's be charitable) mistake was made publicly - and if you're talking social media for example, it almost by definition was - then it can be appropriate for the pushback to be public as well, and it very much is appropriate for the apology to be made publicly as well. It's part of how norms are set within groups.
If the issue of eg someone's homophobic comments is dealt with silently (from the perspective of a group member who is neither the called out nor the caller) then it just looks like homophobia is tolerated without comment. This serves to make a group appear unwelcoming to queer people, even if the issue is being dealt with. It also means that the next person with some unexamined internalised homophobia is not prompted to think or examine it until they also say something homophobic. This means the work of trying to set norms, of explaining the problems, working through potentially painful bullshit, etc, falls most likely on the affected people, queer people in this example, repeatedly in a way that is, at least to an extent, avoidable. This again serves to make the space out community unwelcoming to queer people.
And on top of that, the lack of visible pushback against homophobia, or apologies for it, serves to make the space appear welcoming to actual homophobes, further magnifying the above issues, and making it more likely for the culture of a space to start to change towards genuinely tolerating homophobia, making it very unwelcoming to queer people.
A big public callout for an error in private is not appropriate. But if you fuck up in public, I'm off the opinion that you should apologise in public. The forum of the error should be the forum of the apology.
posted by Dysk at 5:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
This is kinda getting into the weeds a bit, but:
I have found that the tradition of a regular examination of conscience with an accountability partner is incredibly useful
So I think there is one glaring issue with this practice, or possibly two in some contexts.
Firstly, it relies on picking a perfect accountability partner (which is obviously not a thing that exists). Any overlap in blind spots means there are things you will never address this way, and everyone has blind spots. That's a huge advantage of letting everyone hold everyone else accountable. Of course, the calling people on their bullshit doesn't necessarily have to happen publicly and nor does an apology.
However, on that last point, if the (let's be charitable) mistake was made publicly - and if you're talking social media for example, it almost by definition was - then it can be appropriate for the pushback to be public as well, and it very much is appropriate for the apology to be made publicly as well. It's part of how norms are set within groups.
If the issue of eg someone's homophobic comments is dealt with silently (from the perspective of a group member who is neither the called out nor the caller) then it just looks like homophobia is tolerated without comment. This serves to make a group appear unwelcoming to queer people, even if the issue is being dealt with. It also means that the next person with some unexamined internalised homophobia is not prompted to think or examine it until they also say something homophobic. This means the work of trying to set norms, of explaining the problems, working through potentially painful bullshit, etc, falls most likely on the affected people, queer people in this example, repeatedly in a way that is, at least to an extent, avoidable. This again serves to make the space out community unwelcoming to queer people.
And on top of that, the lack of visible pushback against homophobia, or apologies for it, serves to make the space appear welcoming to actual homophobes, further magnifying the above issues, and making it more likely for the culture of a space to start to change towards genuinely tolerating homophobia, making it very unwelcoming to queer people.
A big public callout for an error in private is not appropriate. But if you fuck up in public, I'm off the opinion that you should apologise in public. The forum of the error should be the forum of the apology.
posted by Dysk at 5:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
“I haven't really seen, "We wish that you wouldn't do this, however, you're still a valued member of our community" within leftist spaces.”
That's because people who keep hurting others aren't valued members of the community, and if you want to say that something is actually unacceptable in a community, there needs to be consequences for that line being crossed.
You’re not going to last long in the guns are great for society space spouting gun control ideas, but does that get you ostracized in the it’s all because of volcanos space of anti-environmentalism? At the same time if someone suggests people should be nice and courteous to trans people while they work through a mental illness, are they still welcome at the river cleanup?
I find comparisons like that are where “the left” gets branded as exclusionary for those lacking ideological purity. And also where people in the article can drift because if they’re invited and go into right leaning spaces to share their agreeing perspectives on border security, they have a hard time staying in left leaning spaces to share their pro-environment messages. And so they’re “gone” to the pipeline. It’s on them if they actually change their perspective on the environment based on who’ll listen, but there they go.
Absolutely get when issues are personal to you, the ability see around the problem to someone’s better aspects isn’t worth your time. And I get when your privilege allows you to do so, but you know what you’re doing when you look around the problem, and just don’t anymore. But it seems the left just has way more of these redlines. Not necessarily for politicians, where perhaps “the right” actually demands more ideological purity, but in the wider social and activist spaces regular people live.
And a final thought, as someone about two decades removed from feeling welcome in most leftist spaces, it hasn’t changed my ideas. Just cause many people don’t care for my attitude, and takes on a wide variety of subjects, hasn’t altered my views on economic justice, living wages, future of the planet. So some of this discussion, to me, is moot. No matter how tiresome I find many leftists, I still chip in a couple bucks on the cause and vote and make positive choices, and treat everyone with decency and encourage others to as well. It’s on them if some people go evil just cause the good guys think they’re a dick.
That said, most people don’t believe and behave the way they do because they thought about it. They do what they do out of custom and their social group. If the Good Guys want a bigger army, they kinda need to bring in the imperfect sympathizers, meet them on their level, and build them up.
posted by ixipkcams at 7:26 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
That's because people who keep hurting others aren't valued members of the community, and if you want to say that something is actually unacceptable in a community, there needs to be consequences for that line being crossed.
You’re not going to last long in the guns are great for society space spouting gun control ideas, but does that get you ostracized in the it’s all because of volcanos space of anti-environmentalism? At the same time if someone suggests people should be nice and courteous to trans people while they work through a mental illness, are they still welcome at the river cleanup?
I find comparisons like that are where “the left” gets branded as exclusionary for those lacking ideological purity. And also where people in the article can drift because if they’re invited and go into right leaning spaces to share their agreeing perspectives on border security, they have a hard time staying in left leaning spaces to share their pro-environment messages. And so they’re “gone” to the pipeline. It’s on them if they actually change their perspective on the environment based on who’ll listen, but there they go.
Absolutely get when issues are personal to you, the ability see around the problem to someone’s better aspects isn’t worth your time. And I get when your privilege allows you to do so, but you know what you’re doing when you look around the problem, and just don’t anymore. But it seems the left just has way more of these redlines. Not necessarily for politicians, where perhaps “the right” actually demands more ideological purity, but in the wider social and activist spaces regular people live.
And a final thought, as someone about two decades removed from feeling welcome in most leftist spaces, it hasn’t changed my ideas. Just cause many people don’t care for my attitude, and takes on a wide variety of subjects, hasn’t altered my views on economic justice, living wages, future of the planet. So some of this discussion, to me, is moot. No matter how tiresome I find many leftists, I still chip in a couple bucks on the cause and vote and make positive choices, and treat everyone with decency and encourage others to as well. It’s on them if some people go evil just cause the good guys think they’re a dick.
That said, most people don’t believe and behave the way they do because they thought about it. They do what they do out of custom and their social group. If the Good Guys want a bigger army, they kinda need to bring in the imperfect sympathizers, meet them on their level, and build them up.
posted by ixipkcams at 7:26 PM on December 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
At the same time if someone suggests people should be nice and courteous to trans people while they work through a mental illness, are they still welcome at the river cleanup?
Most of the people who consider being trans a mental illness seem to fail to realize terming it as a mental illness is itself not nice, not courteous, and rather obnoxiously dismissive, and precisely why trans people avoid groups with people holding those views in it. Big tent indeed.
I mean, we've already been over this in the thread but why not rehash it? Because it is so much fun constantly being used as the example of "ideological" purity, because it's still apparently okay to debate our legitimacy as a population.
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:35 PM on December 14, 2023 [25 favorites]
Most of the people who consider being trans a mental illness seem to fail to realize terming it as a mental illness is itself not nice, not courteous, and rather obnoxiously dismissive, and precisely why trans people avoid groups with people holding those views in it. Big tent indeed.
I mean, we've already been over this in the thread but why not rehash it? Because it is so much fun constantly being used as the example of "ideological" purity, because it's still apparently okay to debate our legitimacy as a population.
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:35 PM on December 14, 2023 [25 favorites]
Most of the people who consider being trans a mental illness seem to fail to realize terming it as a mental illness is itself not nice, not courteous, and rather obnoxiously dismissive, and precisely why trans people avoid groups with people holding those views in it. Big tent indeed.
Innuendo Studios made a good point about what this sort of dialog is in their most recent short episode of the Alt-Right Playbook - it's a demand for power, framed as an argument that things "aren't so bad" and that the people on the receiving end should just accept it to get along. Which is why the argument that identity of any sort should be up for debate is so offensive and harmful - because it's a demand for power over others. Which leads to...
If the Good Guys want a bigger army, they kinda need to bring in the imperfect sympathizers, meet them on their level, and build them up.
It's my feeling that we have more fertile and healthier paths for growth by building up the humanity of others than we do by arguing that we should turn a blind eye to bigotry.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
Innuendo Studios made a good point about what this sort of dialog is in their most recent short episode of the Alt-Right Playbook - it's a demand for power, framed as an argument that things "aren't so bad" and that the people on the receiving end should just accept it to get along. Which is why the argument that identity of any sort should be up for debate is so offensive and harmful - because it's a demand for power over others. Which leads to...
If the Good Guys want a bigger army, they kinda need to bring in the imperfect sympathizers, meet them on their level, and build them up.
It's my feeling that we have more fertile and healthier paths for growth by building up the humanity of others than we do by arguing that we should turn a blind eye to bigotry.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:43 PM on December 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
METAFILTER: it’s all my cat’s fault….
but seriously, at least two of my best friends are people this thread would have reviled thirty-forty years ago.
But they changed.
What did I do way back when, when they said seriously ugly stuff? I certainly didn't correct them. People fucking hate being corrected -- I figured that out by Grade Six. I guess if I did anything, I just shrugged off their bullshit, looked past them, noticed something in the distance that they hadn't already made up their minds about.
but seriously, what really changed them was falling in love with the right person. Love is like that.
posted by philip-random at 11:24 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
but seriously, at least two of my best friends are people this thread would have reviled thirty-forty years ago.
But they changed.
What did I do way back when, when they said seriously ugly stuff? I certainly didn't correct them. People fucking hate being corrected -- I figured that out by Grade Six. I guess if I did anything, I just shrugged off their bullshit, looked past them, noticed something in the distance that they hadn't already made up their minds about.
but seriously, what really changed them was falling in love with the right person. Love is like that.
posted by philip-random at 11:24 PM on December 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maybe I just move in very different circles, but "people hate being corrected" is far from a universal truth in my experience. Even a lot of people who do find it unpleasant in itself recognise that the alternative can be much worse, that the correction is a mercy compared to letting you show your ass repeatedly.
(I also don't find making a public apology to be humiliating, and really don't understand that perspective. Being called out isn't even embarrassing, the fuckup that prompted the callout is what's embarrassing. Taking that out on the caller is shooting the messenger at best.)
posted by Dysk at 1:01 AM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
(I also don't find making a public apology to be humiliating, and really don't understand that perspective. Being called out isn't even embarrassing, the fuckup that prompted the callout is what's embarrassing. Taking that out on the caller is shooting the messenger at best.)
posted by Dysk at 1:01 AM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
If the Good Guys want a bigger army, they kinda need to bring in the imperfect sympathizers, meet them on their level, and build them up.
No, if the good guys want a bigger army, then we should expect the new recruits to pass basic training first, or else we'll just end up with a shitty and useless army full of unqualified assholes. No coddling them in basic training either! Drill sergeants are meant to be mean and uncompromising.
Oh are we constructing a bigger tent, not building an army? Well, have you ever seen teams of seamstresses at work? Do you think they have a lot of patience for clueless stitch droppers who can't take feedback? LOL.
To be serious for a second: what all of you all mean when you say the right is very accepting and doesn't require purity is that the right has NO STANDARDS other than blind group loyalty, because the right has NO BELIEFS. Why would anyone think we should do that.
posted by MiraK at 2:22 AM on December 15, 2023 [12 favorites]
No, if the good guys want a bigger army, then we should expect the new recruits to pass basic training first, or else we'll just end up with a shitty and useless army full of unqualified assholes. No coddling them in basic training either! Drill sergeants are meant to be mean and uncompromising.
Oh are we constructing a bigger tent, not building an army? Well, have you ever seen teams of seamstresses at work? Do you think they have a lot of patience for clueless stitch droppers who can't take feedback? LOL.
To be serious for a second: what all of you all mean when you say the right is very accepting and doesn't require purity is that the right has NO STANDARDS other than blind group loyalty, because the right has NO BELIEFS. Why would anyone think we should do that.
posted by MiraK at 2:22 AM on December 15, 2023 [12 favorites]
To be serious for a second: what all of you all mean when you say the right is very accepting and doesn't require purity is that the right has NO STANDARDS other than blind group loyalty, because the right has NO BELIEFS. Why would anyone think we should do that.
It's not that the right has zero principles; it's that being conservative - aka "Things are/were ok. Leave me/us alone" is maybe the biggest pole of their tent, and is indeed "welcoming", compared to the criteria being discussed here.
This thread had given me a better understanding of the difference between being sympathetic with a group, and actually being in it. The people actually IN either the left or the right is a small percentage of the voting population, and the left and the right wage a battle to persuade the rest of us to advance their projects. Loyalty is nice, but a vote is a vote.
So, for me (mostly leaning progressive) the concern is over why, in most places, right-leaning populist sentiment is beating out progressive sentiment. A fractured, bickering left is a possible cause.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:34 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
It's not that the right has zero principles; it's that being conservative - aka "Things are/were ok. Leave me/us alone" is maybe the biggest pole of their tent, and is indeed "welcoming", compared to the criteria being discussed here.
This thread had given me a better understanding of the difference between being sympathetic with a group, and actually being in it. The people actually IN either the left or the right is a small percentage of the voting population, and the left and the right wage a battle to persuade the rest of us to advance their projects. Loyalty is nice, but a vote is a vote.
So, for me (mostly leaning progressive) the concern is over why, in most places, right-leaning populist sentiment is beating out progressive sentiment. A fractured, bickering left is a possible cause.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:34 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
So, for me (mostly leaning progressive) the concern is over why, in most places, right-leaning populist sentiment is beating out progressive sentiment. A fractured, bickering left is a possible cause.
Or maybe it's because the majority—or at least a critical mass—of humanity is, and always has been, selfish, cruel and stupid.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:38 AM on December 15, 2023
Or maybe it's because the majority—or at least a critical mass—of humanity is, and always has been, selfish, cruel and stupid.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:38 AM on December 15, 2023
"people hate being corrected" is far from a universal truth in my experience.
and in mine, I guess. "some people really hate being corrected" would have been better wording. And yes, it's a failing. But who doesn't have at least a few of those?
the majority—or at least a critical mass—of humanity is, and always has been, selfish, cruel and stupid.
or will certainly tend to behave in these ways when they feel under threat. But the fact that humanity has not already annihilated itself, particularly after almost eighty years of having our hands on atomic weaponry, tells me that we don't always tend this way.
I mean, just getting along with people is one of the most complex things humans do, yet most of us do manage to pull it off much of the time.
posted by philip-random at 7:47 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
and in mine, I guess. "some people really hate being corrected" would have been better wording. And yes, it's a failing. But who doesn't have at least a few of those?
the majority—or at least a critical mass—of humanity is, and always has been, selfish, cruel and stupid.
or will certainly tend to behave in these ways when they feel under threat. But the fact that humanity has not already annihilated itself, particularly after almost eighty years of having our hands on atomic weaponry, tells me that we don't always tend this way.
I mean, just getting along with people is one of the most complex things humans do, yet most of us do manage to pull it off much of the time.
posted by philip-random at 7:47 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
No, if the good guys want a bigger army, then we should expect the new recruits to pass basic training first, or else we'll just end up with a shitty and useless army full of unqualified assholes. No coddling them in basic training either! Drill sergeants are meant to be mean and uncompromising.
Oh are we constructing a bigger tent, not building an army? Well, have you ever seen teams of seamstresses at work? Do you think they have a lot of patience for clueless stitch droppers who can't take feedback? LOL.
And if this means there is absolutely never a big enough team of Good Guys, and we just repeatedly get plowed into the ground by the bad guys, that is...better?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:04 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh are we constructing a bigger tent, not building an army? Well, have you ever seen teams of seamstresses at work? Do you think they have a lot of patience for clueless stitch droppers who can't take feedback? LOL.
And if this means there is absolutely never a big enough team of Good Guys, and we just repeatedly get plowed into the ground by the bad guys, that is...better?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:04 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
And now we’re back at the Paradox of Intolerance
posted by bq at 8:05 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by bq at 8:05 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
None of the naked people in the article have made a sincere apology in their lives, FWIW, and most are proud and unrepentant in their assholedom.
posted by Artw at 8:08 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 8:08 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is our problem being outnumbered, or outvoted and outmoneyed, Blast Hardcheese?
posted by Selena777 at 8:08 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Selena777 at 8:08 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
So, for me (mostly leaning progressive) the concern is over why, in most places, right-leaning populist sentiment is beating out progressive sentiment. A fractured, bickering left is a possible cause.
Because the right-wing yahoos are seeing more of a return on investment?
The culture warriors are feeling like they are being heard and making progress. They have a national party -- Trump in particular, but many other prominent figures as well -- who are driving policy and platforms towards the extreme intolerance that they desire. Fringe ideas are being spoken openly. Fringe actors are not only being heard, but actually directing the leadership of the party and driving out the insufficiently pungent. Dingbats are not just electing Congresspeople but being elected themselves. And if they have any doubts about any of that, their own private Mirror Universe Media is happy to tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Meanwhile, on the left, they're seeing abortion rights vanishing, civil rights for LGBT+s under siege, unrepentant coup-ists not just untried and unjailed but walking around DC as if nothing could be wrong, not just a refusal to denounce but open support for overseas genocide, a completely dysfunctional Congress, and an increasing sense of dread over the Trump regime potentially not just avoiding consequences for its actions but sliding right back into an even worse position of power.
I know which side I'd expect to have more morale problems at present.
posted by delfin at 8:10 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
Because the right-wing yahoos are seeing more of a return on investment?
The culture warriors are feeling like they are being heard and making progress. They have a national party -- Trump in particular, but many other prominent figures as well -- who are driving policy and platforms towards the extreme intolerance that they desire. Fringe ideas are being spoken openly. Fringe actors are not only being heard, but actually directing the leadership of the party and driving out the insufficiently pungent. Dingbats are not just electing Congresspeople but being elected themselves. And if they have any doubts about any of that, their own private Mirror Universe Media is happy to tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Meanwhile, on the left, they're seeing abortion rights vanishing, civil rights for LGBT+s under siege, unrepentant coup-ists not just untried and unjailed but walking around DC as if nothing could be wrong, not just a refusal to denounce but open support for overseas genocide, a completely dysfunctional Congress, and an increasing sense of dread over the Trump regime potentially not just avoiding consequences for its actions but sliding right back into an even worse position of power.
I know which side I'd expect to have more morale problems at present.
posted by delfin at 8:10 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
treepour: Dysk pointed out upthread that I may be making too much of what I see in organizing and slapping it on the whole ideology. Seems pertinent, but I also don't have to work very hard at this at all.
Why do you want to be sympathetic to my journey? I'm perhaps not the person described in the article, I started skimming as soon as Eoin Higgins was referred to as a journalist. (I'm happy for him that he's transcended all incentives, but I forget, is his operation funded by a shadowy billionaire or NED, or both?) I'm just bringing it here to refute the idea that getting fed up with the left can only be motivated by a desire for clout or money.
My contribution to the issue you're shoehorning me into: Homeless trans people I barely knew have found refuge on my apartment floor a couple of times. I’ve brought material about gender-affirming speech therapy into the classroom. Prior to a family crisis upending my life 7 months ago, I was working on a project about a WWII-era cross-dresser who later transitioned. One of the interviews I logged brought me to tears, so perhaps I am a compassionate person.
But I have also congenially sat across a table with a parent who expressed his disapproval of the sex-ed curriculum in his kids' school and got a visit from the cops. I have a second cousin who's either transitioned from non-binary to genderfluid or the reverse, and when a relative, at an all-too-rare family gathering, asked some other cousins about which one it was, she was met with total silence. I don't think the discourse around this issue is healthy at all from any side, or that anyone's interested in social cohesion, when people are too intimidated? to talk to their own family.
I have seen some glimmers of hope. I watched livestreams of the Million Person March and the counterprotest and noticed there were two people who saw the conflict as an opportunity for dialogue. "These people over here seem to think this side doesn't want there to be any safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people anywhere, and these people over here seem to think the teachers are angling for an opportunity to aggressively reshape their kids." I'm very blessed to have a non-binary colleague I can hash a lot of this stuff out with in a way that's mostly impossible online. Most people aren't activists, aren't instrumentalizing everyone they meet, and are just trying to live their lives.
Are you really ok with the harm the lockdown regime and medical coercion has done to my family? I'm living with the fallout every day, and it seems to be escalating. Literally shaking most days. It doesn't help when media figures own up to being wrong about some things and demand forgiveness from the people they wanted fired and rounded up, instead of asking for it.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 8:25 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why do you want to be sympathetic to my journey? I'm perhaps not the person described in the article, I started skimming as soon as Eoin Higgins was referred to as a journalist. (I'm happy for him that he's transcended all incentives, but I forget, is his operation funded by a shadowy billionaire or NED, or both?) I'm just bringing it here to refute the idea that getting fed up with the left can only be motivated by a desire for clout or money.
My contribution to the issue you're shoehorning me into: Homeless trans people I barely knew have found refuge on my apartment floor a couple of times. I’ve brought material about gender-affirming speech therapy into the classroom. Prior to a family crisis upending my life 7 months ago, I was working on a project about a WWII-era cross-dresser who later transitioned. One of the interviews I logged brought me to tears, so perhaps I am a compassionate person.
But I have also congenially sat across a table with a parent who expressed his disapproval of the sex-ed curriculum in his kids' school and got a visit from the cops. I have a second cousin who's either transitioned from non-binary to genderfluid or the reverse, and when a relative, at an all-too-rare family gathering, asked some other cousins about which one it was, she was met with total silence. I don't think the discourse around this issue is healthy at all from any side, or that anyone's interested in social cohesion, when people are too intimidated? to talk to their own family.
I have seen some glimmers of hope. I watched livestreams of the Million Person March and the counterprotest and noticed there were two people who saw the conflict as an opportunity for dialogue. "These people over here seem to think this side doesn't want there to be any safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people anywhere, and these people over here seem to think the teachers are angling for an opportunity to aggressively reshape their kids." I'm very blessed to have a non-binary colleague I can hash a lot of this stuff out with in a way that's mostly impossible online. Most people aren't activists, aren't instrumentalizing everyone they meet, and are just trying to live their lives.
Are you really ok with the harm the lockdown regime and medical coercion has done to my family? I'm living with the fallout every day, and it seems to be escalating. Literally shaking most days. It doesn't help when media figures own up to being wrong about some things and demand forgiveness from the people they wanted fired and rounded up, instead of asking for it.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 8:25 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
why, in most places, right-leaning populist sentiment is beating out progressive sentiment.
Oh, I wonder why?
Problem: Some people have a lot less money than others
* Left response: "Everyone richer than me has to share their money around."
* Right response: "I guess it sucks to be those poor people."
Problem: Pollution is destroying the world
* Left response: "Everyone needs to stop polluting."
* Right response: "I can't hear you. I'm leaving my big home to drive my big car to a big plane that's taking me to a big hotel in some former paradise far away, where I will mess around for a couple of days before reversing that trip. Enjoy my exhaust."
Problem: People are starving
* Left response: "Everyone who makes more money than I do needs to pay way more in taxes to feed the world."
* Right response: "They're starving?! I'm starving. Gotta phone for a pizza or something."
Problem: Guns are killing thousand and thousands of innocent people
* Left response: "We need to do something about gun ownership."
* Right response: * makes gun gesture at you with pointed index finger and raised thumb * "Bang."
And so on.
posted by pracowity at 8:39 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
Oh, I wonder why?
Problem: Some people have a lot less money than others
* Left response: "Everyone richer than me has to share their money around."
* Right response: "I guess it sucks to be those poor people."
Problem: Pollution is destroying the world
* Left response: "Everyone needs to stop polluting."
* Right response: "I can't hear you. I'm leaving my big home to drive my big car to a big plane that's taking me to a big hotel in some former paradise far away, where I will mess around for a couple of days before reversing that trip. Enjoy my exhaust."
Problem: People are starving
* Left response: "Everyone who makes more money than I do needs to pay way more in taxes to feed the world."
* Right response: "They're starving?! I'm starving. Gotta phone for a pizza or something."
Problem: Guns are killing thousand and thousands of innocent people
* Left response: "We need to do something about gun ownership."
* Right response: * makes gun gesture at you with pointed index finger and raised thumb * "Bang."
And so on.
posted by pracowity at 8:39 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
I thought right leaning populist sentiment actually does threaten to help and hurt people with the government. What you're describing seems more like laissez faire type stuff that used to be the Republican status quo.
posted by Selena777 at 8:47 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 8:47 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
That's because the far right aren't conservatives, they are radicals. They aren't interested in preserving the old system, they want to shatter it and replace it with a new one.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:52 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:52 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
May I recommend Sarah Schulman's 2016 book Conflict is Not Abuse and/or associated lectures (here's an interview article). While the book has gotten both deserved praise and deserved critique, which Schulman has incorporated some of, it really helped me think about some of the nuances of hurt and harm and conflict and abuses.
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:55 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:55 AM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
An excerpt from the interview I linked above:
Perhaps Schulman’s most provocative move in Conflict Is Not Abuse is her insistence that overstatement of harm happens everywhere: People in power who face criticism can overstate harm, but people who have previously suffered — who have lived through real harm — can do it too. For those in positions of dominance, she told me, “opposition feels like an attack.” Meanwhile, for those who have survived trauma, “it’s sometimes so hard to just keep it together that being asked to be self-critical can feel like your whole world is going to fall apart.” The explanation is different, but the result can be similar.posted by spamandkimchi at 8:59 AM on December 15, 2023 [7 favorites]
For readers focused on establishing the gravity and reality of domestic abuse, Schulman’s critical scrutiny of the term’s use may seem counterproductive. Her broader point, though, is that we live in “a culture of underreaction to abuse and overreaction to conflict,” as she writes. “Abuse” happens in situations where one person has direct power over the other; her analysis of “conflict” concerns situations of mutual participation, or in which the powerful person is in denial.
Paddle to Sea, that anti-vax blog post you linked to seems to take it as given that what it calls the "fake left's" support of lockdowns and vaccination were merely a cover for its true desire to pull society into authoritarianism (and even fascism!). But...the lockdowns came and went, any language even vaguely mandating vaccination in certain spaces came and went, and the common left is still around not being the ones pushing for authoritarianism. Like, I think your antivax-left cohorts here really just got this one wrong.
posted by nobody at 9:01 AM on December 15, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by nobody at 9:01 AM on December 15, 2023 [18 favorites]
nobody, a woman in Alberta was denied a life-saving organ transplant because she hadn't got her shots. She'd had COVID. Natural immunity is real. "Not exempting those with prior infection was always unfair; now it is unscientific as well." I still see lots of job postings requiring the shots.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 9:15 AM on December 15, 2023
posted by Paddle to Sea at 9:15 AM on December 15, 2023
Critiques of governmental COVID policy in this thread would make sense if...like...our governments were leftist. They're not. COVID opened a conspiracist whirlpool that is still impacting public health, and a good bit of that conspiracy-mindedness was bipartisan, but if we're talking about COVID's impact moving people from left to right, we should talk about the manufacturing of those conspiracies, not a government's tepid, capital-friendly response.
posted by mittens at 9:25 AM on December 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by mittens at 9:25 AM on December 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
one of the naked people in the article have made a sincere apology in their lives, FWIW, and most are proud and unrepentant in their assholedom.
NAMED people. Gah.
posted by Artw at 9:29 AM on December 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
NAMED people. Gah.
posted by Artw at 9:29 AM on December 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
The most freudian of slips
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:36 AM on December 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:36 AM on December 15, 2023 [10 favorites]
aka "Things are/were ok. Leave me/us alone" is maybe the biggest pole of their tent, and is indeed "welcoming", compared to the criteria being discussed here.
IDK, this thread is so tiring partly because this keeps being asserted and assumed as if it's true. In what universe?! The right ejects people who speak out for leaving queer people alone or for leaving healthcare rights private. The right ejects people who want to be left alone by the police or by immigration officials. The right ejects people who want to be left alone to worship Satan in peace, hell they don't even want to leave people who worship GOD alone - if they are using an Arabic name for Him. The right ejects people for speaking freely and truthfully about American history. It ejects people for not falling in line with their Dear Leaders. It even ejects people for dressing in nontraditional clothing. Tell me, please, about how the right just want people to be left alone?!
And, in addition to ejecting people for political beliefs and politicized acts, the right ejects people for reasons of identity as well. Queer people. People who are immigrants of color. People of color. People who are women. (The right has a huge problem with the "people" aspect of these demographics, even when they're fine with their existence as subhuman entities who are denied people-rights.)
Yeah we all like this handwringing about the intolerance of the left (which I grant you, it is true, the left does eject people for crossing certain lines, and maybe we should do something different because shunning and isolating people can be a bad thing to do).
But to say that the right is more welcoming in comparison is one of the most incoherent and insane claims I've ever heard. In what fucking universe, I ask you. In. What. Universe.
The only reason folks here are saying it or implying it or assuming it is because you all want to argue that the left's level of intolerance drives people toward the right. But of course that is absolute fucking bollocks. The left's intolerance is NOT what drives people rightward. If people wish to flee intolerance, they would not go rightward. It makes zero sense to argue that they do, it is a complete denial of reality on so many levels.
posted by MiraK at 9:42 AM on December 15, 2023 [27 favorites]
IDK, this thread is so tiring partly because this keeps being asserted and assumed as if it's true. In what universe?! The right ejects people who speak out for leaving queer people alone or for leaving healthcare rights private. The right ejects people who want to be left alone by the police or by immigration officials. The right ejects people who want to be left alone to worship Satan in peace, hell they don't even want to leave people who worship GOD alone - if they are using an Arabic name for Him. The right ejects people for speaking freely and truthfully about American history. It ejects people for not falling in line with their Dear Leaders. It even ejects people for dressing in nontraditional clothing. Tell me, please, about how the right just want people to be left alone?!
And, in addition to ejecting people for political beliefs and politicized acts, the right ejects people for reasons of identity as well. Queer people. People who are immigrants of color. People of color. People who are women. (The right has a huge problem with the "people" aspect of these demographics, even when they're fine with their existence as subhuman entities who are denied people-rights.)
Yeah we all like this handwringing about the intolerance of the left (which I grant you, it is true, the left does eject people for crossing certain lines, and maybe we should do something different because shunning and isolating people can be a bad thing to do).
But to say that the right is more welcoming in comparison is one of the most incoherent and insane claims I've ever heard. In what fucking universe, I ask you. In. What. Universe.
The only reason folks here are saying it or implying it or assuming it is because you all want to argue that the left's level of intolerance drives people toward the right. But of course that is absolute fucking bollocks. The left's intolerance is NOT what drives people rightward. If people wish to flee intolerance, they would not go rightward. It makes zero sense to argue that they do, it is a complete denial of reality on so many levels.
posted by MiraK at 9:42 AM on December 15, 2023 [27 favorites]
That's because the far right aren't conservatives, they are radicals. They aren't interested in preserving the old system, they want to shatter it and replace it with a new one.
Arguably, they want to shatter the new system and replace it with the old one.
And by "new system" I mean the modern social order of the last sixty years or so, or ninety in other respects. The idea that people who have enough money and power shouldn't dictate the lives of everyone beneath them. The idea that people other than conservative cis het WASP males are entitled to hold public office. The idea that everyone should be entitled to a certain amount of dignity, of privacy, of assurance that they'll have some kind of decent living as they get older, that they can get healthcare, that they won't just slave away until they finally fall over. The idea that there's no one group of Real Americans whose beliefs and lifestyles should be the only acceptable ones.
The New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, Obergefell, Lawrence, Griswold, all of it. They're all cracks in the wall of the OLD social order, where people knew their place. And many who are tired of not being obeyed by those they perceive as lessers want that back.
posted by delfin at 9:43 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Arguably, they want to shatter the new system and replace it with the old one.
And by "new system" I mean the modern social order of the last sixty years or so, or ninety in other respects. The idea that people who have enough money and power shouldn't dictate the lives of everyone beneath them. The idea that people other than conservative cis het WASP males are entitled to hold public office. The idea that everyone should be entitled to a certain amount of dignity, of privacy, of assurance that they'll have some kind of decent living as they get older, that they can get healthcare, that they won't just slave away until they finally fall over. The idea that there's no one group of Real Americans whose beliefs and lifestyles should be the only acceptable ones.
The New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, Obergefell, Lawrence, Griswold, all of it. They're all cracks in the wall of the OLD social order, where people knew their place. And many who are tired of not being obeyed by those they perceive as lessers want that back.
posted by delfin at 9:43 AM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Right-leaning spaces are more comfortable for normative-passing people wanting to throw their weight around, because that is their preferred group activity.
If you've been active in leftist spaces but still don't have quite enough clout to get away with calling trans women mentally ill, it's a logical lateral move.
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:51 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
If you've been active in leftist spaces but still don't have quite enough clout to get away with calling trans women mentally ill, it's a logical lateral move.
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:51 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
Shrug, look past them into the distance, and wait for them to fall in love? That looks a lot like the Republican playbook for dealing with people in their club who break really obvious rules of common decency. Does it work? Hmmmm... Matt Gaetz... Trump... Lauren Boebert... Strom Thurmond... [insert whoever you're thinking of]... Well, wow! It really doesn't seem to be an effective strategy at all!
Also! They seem to know it doesn't work because when somebody in their club breaks a different rule that's nothing to do with common decency but a Republican cardinal rule like We Hate All Outgroups, they don't use this strategy. You can be a big ol rapist all your life and they'll shrug and wait for you to fall in love endlessly, but just try copping a wide stance in the airport bathroom and see what happens. Out on your ear.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:58 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also! They seem to know it doesn't work because when somebody in their club breaks a different rule that's nothing to do with common decency but a Republican cardinal rule like We Hate All Outgroups, they don't use this strategy. You can be a big ol rapist all your life and they'll shrug and wait for you to fall in love endlessly, but just try copping a wide stance in the airport bathroom and see what happens. Out on your ear.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:58 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
> a woman in Alberta was denied a life-saving organ transplant because she hadn't got her shots. She'd had COVID. Natural immunity is real. "Not exempting those with prior infection was always unfair; now it is unscientific as well." I still see lots of job postings requiring the shots.
Is this thread about listing the ways in which "the left" (if the Canadian government can be called that, smh, but fine, let's go with it) has fucked up sometimes? Are you trying to prove that the left makes mistakes, even big mistakes? Like, to what end are you doing this?
This isn't a "reasons to hate leftists" thread. It's not a "ways that leftists have fucked up" thread. This FPP is about people moving politically rightward, especially publicly. Are you saying that this incident caused someone to move rightward, justifiably so because "the left" fucked up so bad that this person or their family realized that the other side was correct all along? The other side being... people who denied the existence of Covid, or the seriousness of it, refused to mask, discouraged people from masking, refused to get vaccinated, encouraged others to refuse vaccination, and thus literally caused the deaths of millions? This woman's story somehow causes people to move to THAT side, and, like, you think their logic makes... sense?
This thread reminds me a lot of the aftermath of the 2016 election when Hillary was getting ripped apart for failing to do X or Y or Z, failing to meet P or Q or R standard of correctness, and in a lot of people's minds, it was her failings and shortcomings which lost her the election. It was as if people thought she was running against a perfect candidate, not the candidate she was actually running against, you know? If she failed to meet standards P, Q, and R, her opponent failed to meet standards A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and R. Which would logically suggest that her failure to meet P, Q, and R standard IS NOT WHAT CAUSED HER TO LOSE TO HIM. But good luck trying to get folks to see this point. They're just invested in hating on her, not seeing the comparison there was in reality.
posted by MiraK at 10:16 AM on December 15, 2023 [12 favorites]
Is this thread about listing the ways in which "the left" (if the Canadian government can be called that, smh, but fine, let's go with it) has fucked up sometimes? Are you trying to prove that the left makes mistakes, even big mistakes? Like, to what end are you doing this?
This isn't a "reasons to hate leftists" thread. It's not a "ways that leftists have fucked up" thread. This FPP is about people moving politically rightward, especially publicly. Are you saying that this incident caused someone to move rightward, justifiably so because "the left" fucked up so bad that this person or their family realized that the other side was correct all along? The other side being... people who denied the existence of Covid, or the seriousness of it, refused to mask, discouraged people from masking, refused to get vaccinated, encouraged others to refuse vaccination, and thus literally caused the deaths of millions? This woman's story somehow causes people to move to THAT side, and, like, you think their logic makes... sense?
This thread reminds me a lot of the aftermath of the 2016 election when Hillary was getting ripped apart for failing to do X or Y or Z, failing to meet P or Q or R standard of correctness, and in a lot of people's minds, it was her failings and shortcomings which lost her the election. It was as if people thought she was running against a perfect candidate, not the candidate she was actually running against, you know? If she failed to meet standards P, Q, and R, her opponent failed to meet standards A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, and R. Which would logically suggest that her failure to meet P, Q, and R standard IS NOT WHAT CAUSED HER TO LOSE TO HIM. But good luck trying to get folks to see this point. They're just invested in hating on her, not seeing the comparison there was in reality.
posted by MiraK at 10:16 AM on December 15, 2023 [12 favorites]
As for the right being welcoming... it is only welcoming for as long as you are useful to them, and do not waver from certain factions' desires in any way.
Mitch McConnell, as an example, has done more to advance the conservative movement during his tenure than any five other Republicans combined. He has rigged the American court system from the top down, he has blocked innumerable bills that would have benefitted millions had they passed, and he has been a thorn in the side of Democratic Presidents and of democracy itself.
According to current right-wing dogma, he is a Republican in Name Only, a secret Democrat and a shameless liberal who should be primaried, voted out, and pressured to retire prematurely so that a Real Republican can take his place in leadership.
posted by delfin at 10:16 AM on December 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
Mitch McConnell, as an example, has done more to advance the conservative movement during his tenure than any five other Republicans combined. He has rigged the American court system from the top down, he has blocked innumerable bills that would have benefitted millions had they passed, and he has been a thorn in the side of Democratic Presidents and of democracy itself.
According to current right-wing dogma, he is a Republican in Name Only, a secret Democrat and a shameless liberal who should be primaried, voted out, and pressured to retire prematurely so that a Real Republican can take his place in leadership.
posted by delfin at 10:16 AM on December 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
But to say that the right is more welcoming in comparison is one of the most incoherent and insane claims I've ever heard.
It's possible one thing we're missing is, like, a full life-cycle of left-to-right movement, and we're only looking at the welcome mat and how inviting it is. "Oh, so you're vaguely anti-imperialist but only when it's America being imperial? Let me introduce you to COVID denialism!" If you watch the conversations that are happening, on one level, yes, absolutely it is more welcoming. Because when people are encouraged to talk about a topic they feel they haven't been allowed to talk about, they flourish (that's just, like, basic humanity, rather than a right/left thing). Finally, someone understands them! But you're right, tensions do arise. ("What, my favorite TERF is also staunchly anti-Palestine?! And yet I cannot criticize them without being insulted! I remain silenced all my life!") We're always just talking about fragments of a narrative. It would be interesting to see the people who have been pulled rightward by this or that pipeline, how they either drop out entirely, resist, return to the left, or whatever it is they end up doing, when they hit that tension, when it's either go full nazi or go home.
posted by mittens at 10:21 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's possible one thing we're missing is, like, a full life-cycle of left-to-right movement, and we're only looking at the welcome mat and how inviting it is. "Oh, so you're vaguely anti-imperialist but only when it's America being imperial? Let me introduce you to COVID denialism!" If you watch the conversations that are happening, on one level, yes, absolutely it is more welcoming. Because when people are encouraged to talk about a topic they feel they haven't been allowed to talk about, they flourish (that's just, like, basic humanity, rather than a right/left thing). Finally, someone understands them! But you're right, tensions do arise. ("What, my favorite TERF is also staunchly anti-Palestine?! And yet I cannot criticize them without being insulted! I remain silenced all my life!") We're always just talking about fragments of a narrative. It would be interesting to see the people who have been pulled rightward by this or that pipeline, how they either drop out entirely, resist, return to the left, or whatever it is they end up doing, when they hit that tension, when it's either go full nazi or go home.
posted by mittens at 10:21 AM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
MiraK, I was responding to a comment that the mandates came and went and so a certain flavor of authoritarianism has vanished. It doesn't appear that way to me at all, but I'll leave it there, as I agree the vax debate is a derail. Except:
mittens, the most pernicious of these conspiracy theories was that of The Great Reset. It was on the cover of TIME, Klaus Schwab wrote a book with that title, Trudeau and Freeland both used the slogan repeatedly in public, The Bank of Canada used it as the title of their 2020 report, and yet somehow people still believe it's a real thing. Yuval Noah Harari appearing on elder abuse network MSNBC the other night to lay the ideological groundwork for the so-called '4th Industrial Revolution', is probably just going to get these conspiracy-mad lunatics riled up further. I don't know where they're getting all these crazy ideas.
And the kind of smugness I'm demonstrating above is a reflex for me now, after receiving so much of it the other way, even from One Of The Few People I Can Have This Conversation With:
Me: Well lookee here, Bill Gates says the vaccines don't have much in the way of duration, and they're not good at infection blocking.
OOTFPICHTCW: Paddle, you really have to do just the most basic Google searching to debunk this claim. Bill Gates did not say this. Maybe you need to ask yourself, 'what is it about this narrative that serves to keep me stuck where I am in my life right now?' And then you can begin to understand how it doesn’t serve your interests.
Me: Here he is saying it at 15:55
OOTFPICHTCW: I have more important things to worry about right now.
Maybe that's not smugness after all, but it does feel isolating, something I'm heartened to see this thread mostly seem to agree is actually a bad thing, to be doled out with careful consideration, and perhaps not become a reflex, despite its sometimes necessary utility.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 10:32 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
mittens, the most pernicious of these conspiracy theories was that of The Great Reset. It was on the cover of TIME, Klaus Schwab wrote a book with that title, Trudeau and Freeland both used the slogan repeatedly in public, The Bank of Canada used it as the title of their 2020 report, and yet somehow people still believe it's a real thing. Yuval Noah Harari appearing on elder abuse network MSNBC the other night to lay the ideological groundwork for the so-called '4th Industrial Revolution', is probably just going to get these conspiracy-mad lunatics riled up further. I don't know where they're getting all these crazy ideas.
And the kind of smugness I'm demonstrating above is a reflex for me now, after receiving so much of it the other way, even from One Of The Few People I Can Have This Conversation With:
Me: Well lookee here, Bill Gates says the vaccines don't have much in the way of duration, and they're not good at infection blocking.
OOTFPICHTCW: Paddle, you really have to do just the most basic Google searching to debunk this claim. Bill Gates did not say this. Maybe you need to ask yourself, 'what is it about this narrative that serves to keep me stuck where I am in my life right now?' And then you can begin to understand how it doesn’t serve your interests.
Me: Here he is saying it at 15:55
OOTFPICHTCW: I have more important things to worry about right now.
Maybe that's not smugness after all, but it does feel isolating, something I'm heartened to see this thread mostly seem to agree is actually a bad thing, to be doled out with careful consideration, and perhaps not become a reflex, despite its sometimes necessary utility.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 10:32 AM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I guess this is a derail, I don’t really understand what relevance that has? I feel like we probably have pretty good data on the duration of effectiveness and infection-blocking ability of the vaccines now? And who gives a shit what Bill Gates says? I’d put him in the same category as Elon Musk in terms of ‘reliable source of vaccine information’, i.e. not at all? And he’s not particularly a leftist, so, uh, what?
posted by bq at 11:15 AM on December 15, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by bq at 11:15 AM on December 15, 2023 [11 favorites]
Yeah, this is starting to feel like a hobbyhorse that was brought in as a Trojan one.
posted by Kitteh at 11:16 AM on December 15, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 11:16 AM on December 15, 2023 [11 favorites]
Me: Well lookee here, Bill Gates says the vaccines don't have much in the way of duration, and they're not good at infection blocking.
So what? He's not a doctor. He's not a virologist. What kind of clown has cared about anything Bill Gates has said since the launch of Windows 95? He's a nonentity.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:20 AM on December 15, 2023 [12 favorites]
So what? He's not a doctor. He's not a virologist. What kind of clown has cared about anything Bill Gates has said since the launch of Windows 95? He's a nonentity.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:20 AM on December 15, 2023 [12 favorites]
I think the Bill Gates example is actually extremely on-point. COVID generated a massive amount of conversation, and in those early days when not much was known about it, a public figure could very easily say something that proved to be wrong only months later. This particular conspiracy pipeline is paved with snippets of bad interviews, screenshots of graphs, and discussions of questionable policy decisions, because there was so much of that going on. For those of us with denialists in our close circles, to hear someone talk about ivermectin as an effective treatment suppressed by the government--now!--in nearly 2024!!!--points to how pervasive the hooks were, and how deep they sank. It's very hard to extract someone from that mindset when they have heard ten thousand repetitions of the same wrong point, because by now they are no longer receptive to all the work that has been done showing the effectiveness and longevity of the vaccines, they do not pay attention to the fact that other older, off-patent meds are being found that help treat COVID (just not their preferred dewormer), and they don't seem to see that the health-authoritarian turn they said was just around the corner, never actually got here. That propaganda is still being published. It blows my mind.
posted by mittens at 11:27 AM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by mittens at 11:27 AM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
Faint of Butt, During the pandemic, news outlets have widely looked to Bill Gates as a public health expert on covid—even though Gates has no medical training and is not a public official. /end derail
posted by Paddle to Sea at 11:36 AM on December 15, 2023
posted by Paddle to Sea at 11:36 AM on December 15, 2023
Me: Well lookee here, Bill Gates says the vaccines don't have much in the way of duration, and they're not good at infection blocking.
So what? He's not a doctor. He's not a virologist. What kind of clown has cared about anything Bill Gates has said since the launch of Windows 95? He's a nonentity.
Not only that, but Bill Gates is not a leftist. He's a freak'n billionaire. If he wanted to redistribute the means of production to the working class, he would have. The most the news gave him is that his charity has worked in public health, specifically vaccines. A real leftist response to the COVID would have been a complete shutdown of all but the most essential services, the protection of frontline essential workers in the wake of danger, the payment of every household the salary so they would not work, and the full passing of Medicare for All during the time it was most necessary.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 11:40 AM on December 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
So what? He's not a doctor. He's not a virologist. What kind of clown has cared about anything Bill Gates has said since the launch of Windows 95? He's a nonentity.
Not only that, but Bill Gates is not a leftist. He's a freak'n billionaire. If he wanted to redistribute the means of production to the working class, he would have. The most the news gave him is that his charity has worked in public health, specifically vaccines. A real leftist response to the COVID would have been a complete shutdown of all but the most essential services, the protection of frontline essential workers in the wake of danger, the payment of every household the salary so they would not work, and the full passing of Medicare for All during the time it was most necessary.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 11:40 AM on December 15, 2023 [9 favorites]
I'd argue that assuming that billionaires are leftists at all is faulty. If they were, they'd redistribute their wealth instead of looking for approval cookies in the form of software or self-driving cars or private jets.
posted by Kitteh at 11:45 AM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 11:45 AM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
But to say that the right is more welcoming in comparison is one of the most incoherent and insane claims I've ever heard.
I think that I'm one of the few people here who has had enough of a full political change that I've been present as an in-group member of both the left and the right. And I think that that is the missing piece here. At least pre-Trump, the right, while absolutely quick to throw out people they think aren't part of their tribe, has been much more welcoming to in-group members who exhibit deviance or heterodoxy. Jonathan Haidt was mentioned above - his moral foundations political theory talks a lot about how left and right groups tend to have different clusters of moral values that are more important to them: left groups often tend to work along Harm/Fairness, whereas right groups tend to cluster along in-group loyalty and authority.
And so this kind of manifests in the "Well, they may be wrong in every way, but they're *ours*" attitude. It's not universal, obviously there are exceptions: but for the most part, when the right is organizing around a particular issue, if people show up and say "I'm on your side", they tend to take people at their word and welcome them in. When the NRA calls the banners to oppose gun control, the weird militia guys get coffee for the queer punks who are showing up to oppose gun control too. Same with homeschooling, or getting people elected. The right may not have policies that are friendly to people of color, or women, or immigrants, but they fucking love it when those people show up and say they're planning to vote Republican and want to know how they can help. What they tend not to tolerate is people who say "I'm not with you". But in all of my time either being on the right or infiltrating the right, I've never known them to turn away someone offering them free labor or resources.
Now, I'll admit, I was never in hard-right spaces and have been in hard-left spaces; it's possible that hard-right spaces are equally as infighty and intolerant; some examples have been mentioned upthread. But from my perspective, it seems like progressive spaces do kind of demand agreement with the full constellation of leftist beliefs in order to participate, in ways that the broad-right doesn't really demand because their main demand is in-group loyalty.
posted by corb at 11:47 AM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think that I'm one of the few people here who has had enough of a full political change that I've been present as an in-group member of both the left and the right. And I think that that is the missing piece here. At least pre-Trump, the right, while absolutely quick to throw out people they think aren't part of their tribe, has been much more welcoming to in-group members who exhibit deviance or heterodoxy. Jonathan Haidt was mentioned above - his moral foundations political theory talks a lot about how left and right groups tend to have different clusters of moral values that are more important to them: left groups often tend to work along Harm/Fairness, whereas right groups tend to cluster along in-group loyalty and authority.
And so this kind of manifests in the "Well, they may be wrong in every way, but they're *ours*" attitude. It's not universal, obviously there are exceptions: but for the most part, when the right is organizing around a particular issue, if people show up and say "I'm on your side", they tend to take people at their word and welcome them in. When the NRA calls the banners to oppose gun control, the weird militia guys get coffee for the queer punks who are showing up to oppose gun control too. Same with homeschooling, or getting people elected. The right may not have policies that are friendly to people of color, or women, or immigrants, but they fucking love it when those people show up and say they're planning to vote Republican and want to know how they can help. What they tend not to tolerate is people who say "I'm not with you". But in all of my time either being on the right or infiltrating the right, I've never known them to turn away someone offering them free labor or resources.
Now, I'll admit, I was never in hard-right spaces and have been in hard-left spaces; it's possible that hard-right spaces are equally as infighty and intolerant; some examples have been mentioned upthread. But from my perspective, it seems like progressive spaces do kind of demand agreement with the full constellation of leftist beliefs in order to participate, in ways that the broad-right doesn't really demand because their main demand is in-group loyalty.
posted by corb at 11:47 AM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
that seems more of an indictment on the news outlets now, doesn't it?
anyway, i went and listened to the context of the bill gates quote. right before it he talks a lot about having advanced infrastructure and health care capacity; that diagnostic technologies are constantly improving; that therapeutic methods are also improving, and hopefully they'll want those that are pathogen-independent, which means that they aren't tailored just to one virus/bacteria/parasite
but also: you're right, he does say that they're looking for vaccines with longer duration and infection blocking capabilities... but those seem to be specific terms for how classes of vaccines behave and operate.
in terms of duration, some have, yes, very short half-lives; others last a lifetime. some of it is dependent on how quickly the pathogen evolves and adapts--measles, polio, and smallpox don't change much which is why those vaccines do in fact generally last a lifetime, whereas the reason we are recommended to take covid and flu boosters on the regular and why there is none for the cold is because those evolve a much more accelerated speeds, meaning that vaccine development is in constant push-pull. it *also* matters whether it's the b cells or t cells that grant immunity, and their relative lifespans.
as far as infection blocking vs symptom reduction vaccines, that's also a thing! most of the covid ones are reduction vaccines--and that's before we get to susceptibility reduction types, and all three of them operate differently and change the kind of immunity one gets.
but whatever. i'm not here to convince you. i found all of this with one incognito search leading me to nature.com, pubmed at nih.gov, national library of medicine at nih.gov, hhs.gov, and cedars-sinai.org. i guess it depends on media literacy, who people trust as sources, and how much context one takes in on these quotes.
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:51 AM on December 15, 2023 [11 favorites]
anyway, i went and listened to the context of the bill gates quote. right before it he talks a lot about having advanced infrastructure and health care capacity; that diagnostic technologies are constantly improving; that therapeutic methods are also improving, and hopefully they'll want those that are pathogen-independent, which means that they aren't tailored just to one virus/bacteria/parasite
but also: you're right, he does say that they're looking for vaccines with longer duration and infection blocking capabilities... but those seem to be specific terms for how classes of vaccines behave and operate.
in terms of duration, some have, yes, very short half-lives; others last a lifetime. some of it is dependent on how quickly the pathogen evolves and adapts--measles, polio, and smallpox don't change much which is why those vaccines do in fact generally last a lifetime, whereas the reason we are recommended to take covid and flu boosters on the regular and why there is none for the cold is because those evolve a much more accelerated speeds, meaning that vaccine development is in constant push-pull. it *also* matters whether it's the b cells or t cells that grant immunity, and their relative lifespans.
as far as infection blocking vs symptom reduction vaccines, that's also a thing! most of the covid ones are reduction vaccines--and that's before we get to susceptibility reduction types, and all three of them operate differently and change the kind of immunity one gets.
but whatever. i'm not here to convince you. i found all of this with one incognito search leading me to nature.com, pubmed at nih.gov, national library of medicine at nih.gov, hhs.gov, and cedars-sinai.org. i guess it depends on media literacy, who people trust as sources, and how much context one takes in on these quotes.
posted by i used to be someone else at 11:51 AM on December 15, 2023 [11 favorites]
corb, in my experience what you describe from leftist groups varies a lot depending on the class and racial composition of the group. Your observations align with my experiences for conservatives versus liberals from upper middle class white backgrounds. However, working class people I know tend to be a lot more concerned with loyalty and solidarity while upper middle class student organizing is more concerned with ideological purity, in general, in my experience. I am white and have mostly been in white-dominant spaces, but I’ve also observed some significant differences between how folks from local Black and Indigenous groups talk about their organizing and their relationship to community versus how white activists coming from upper middle class academic backgrounds (even avowed communists or anarcho-communists) think about community and solidarity. (There’s also the phenomenon where no matter how much a group/family/etc. fights among itself, they may have the value of pulling together whenever there is an external threat.)
posted by eviemath at 12:20 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 12:20 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
> the right, while absolutely quick to throw out people they think aren't part of their tribe, has been much more welcoming to in-group members who exhibit deviance or heterodoxy
... that is a staggering amount of exclusion to handwave away in your quest to paint the right as "more welcoming than the left".
posted by MiraK at 12:36 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
... that is a staggering amount of exclusion to handwave away in your quest to paint the right as "more welcoming than the left".
posted by MiraK at 12:36 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
But to say that the right is more welcoming in comparison is one of the most incoherent and insane claims I've ever heard
Ok, let's discuss "insane":
To be serious for a second: what all of you all mean when you say the right is very accepting and doesn't require purity is that the right has NO STANDARDS other than blind group loyalty, because the right has NO BELIEFS. Why would anyone think we should do that.
Is it really a rational and true statement to say that "the right has NO BELIEFS"? Know the enemy, or be crushed by them.
The right ejects people who ...
I tried hard to differentiate between those who are active in a political group, and the greater number of people who aren't but can be drawn one way or another. We all know that in the US two-party system, electability is ALL. The GOP will run anyone (seriously, ANYONE) who is mathematically electable, and do anything to get their horse across the line first. So, right-wing organizations might not be welcoming to some potential members or viewpoints, but when it comes to building support and registering voters... come one, come all. Is it really in dispute that the right have become pretty adept in attracting the support of many different groups by finding and tugging on some specific shiny thing, grievance, bias that each group will respond to?
posted by Artful Codger at 12:41 PM on December 15, 2023
Ok, let's discuss "insane":
To be serious for a second: what all of you all mean when you say the right is very accepting and doesn't require purity is that the right has NO STANDARDS other than blind group loyalty, because the right has NO BELIEFS. Why would anyone think we should do that.
Is it really a rational and true statement to say that "the right has NO BELIEFS"? Know the enemy, or be crushed by them.
The right ejects people who ...
I tried hard to differentiate between those who are active in a political group, and the greater number of people who aren't but can be drawn one way or another. We all know that in the US two-party system, electability is ALL. The GOP will run anyone (seriously, ANYONE) who is mathematically electable, and do anything to get their horse across the line first. So, right-wing organizations might not be welcoming to some potential members or viewpoints, but when it comes to building support and registering voters... come one, come all. Is it really in dispute that the right have become pretty adept in attracting the support of many different groups by finding and tugging on some specific shiny thing, grievance, bias that each group will respond to?
posted by Artful Codger at 12:41 PM on December 15, 2023
Okay, let's talk about "good at attracting voters". Specifically, then, we mean "Republican voters" here when we say right and "Democrat voters" when we say left, for the purposes of the attracting voters conversation.
So the claim in the context of this thread becomes, Democrats drive away voters towards Republicans because Democrats are intolerant and Republicans are so very welcoming.
But has that actually happened? Are you seriously telling me that Democrats have alienated and polarized voters away from them worse than REPUBLICANS whose standard bearer started his campaign by attacking Mexicans as rapists and women as things to be grabbed and disabled people as funny cartoons? You think Democrats alienate voters MORE than that? Can that seriously be your argument? Sorry, but that position is untethered to reality.
You say:
> the right have become pretty adept in attracting the support of many different groups
But what I see in real life is that Republicans have been losing popular support year after year, reducing them to hanging on to political power by the use of gerrymandering and the electoral college and obstruction politics in the Senate to rig the justice system... without any hope of winning the popular vote. They have become LESS diverse as a voter base as time goes by with the single exception of gaining ground among Hispanic men (otherwise their base is exceedingly homogenous in color, gender, sexuality, age, etc).
In the real world it is DEMOCRATS who have gained popular ground and have more voters than ever before and keep winning the popular vote in the presidency by vast margins and get votes from more and more different groups than ever before, their voter base growing more diverse right along with the country, and it is Democrat policies & issues that are popular even in the reddest of states even among the reddest of voters (see: abortion referendums).
Not to say that Dems are perfect and guaranteed to win and Republicans are no threat. Not at all. But the claim that Dems are driving away voters by being inhospitable, but Republicans are sooo lovely and welcoming? Is total bullshit.
posted by MiraK at 12:56 PM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
So the claim in the context of this thread becomes, Democrats drive away voters towards Republicans because Democrats are intolerant and Republicans are so very welcoming.
But has that actually happened? Are you seriously telling me that Democrats have alienated and polarized voters away from them worse than REPUBLICANS whose standard bearer started his campaign by attacking Mexicans as rapists and women as things to be grabbed and disabled people as funny cartoons? You think Democrats alienate voters MORE than that? Can that seriously be your argument? Sorry, but that position is untethered to reality.
You say:
> the right have become pretty adept in attracting the support of many different groups
But what I see in real life is that Republicans have been losing popular support year after year, reducing them to hanging on to political power by the use of gerrymandering and the electoral college and obstruction politics in the Senate to rig the justice system... without any hope of winning the popular vote. They have become LESS diverse as a voter base as time goes by with the single exception of gaining ground among Hispanic men (otherwise their base is exceedingly homogenous in color, gender, sexuality, age, etc).
In the real world it is DEMOCRATS who have gained popular ground and have more voters than ever before and keep winning the popular vote in the presidency by vast margins and get votes from more and more different groups than ever before, their voter base growing more diverse right along with the country, and it is Democrat policies & issues that are popular even in the reddest of states even among the reddest of voters (see: abortion referendums).
Not to say that Dems are perfect and guaranteed to win and Republicans are no threat. Not at all. But the claim that Dems are driving away voters by being inhospitable, but Republicans are sooo lovely and welcoming? Is total bullshit.
posted by MiraK at 12:56 PM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
The right is a coalition of opportunistic traditionalists, able to set their fundamental belief differences aside for political unity. The left is divided by lack of traditional beliefs to bind them. Some see the progressive effort as the equivalent of unionizing the majority, to guard against abuse and level the field (to allow capital to serve both labor and itself). Others see the left as historically determined higher consciousness, calling for the utopian elimination of capital, as if capital was inherently evil and can't be levied from its holders. The latter shares today's conservative heritage of a once radically communal Christian persecution complex anticipating deliverance (originally as an Essene monasticism), and a similar outdated view of coinage. Although the ancient version had them wait indefinitely for a savior, allowing lords to rule them as fallen humanity, the new version calls for a reversal of fortune, swapping lords with their eager opposites. These revolutions aren't modern, liberal, predictable, inevitable, desirable, and are not only from the left. It is easier to unify over practical political goals instead of a doctrine or theory which stumbles over ancient notions of worthiness, as if we needed a secular religion, as though burdened with a hard habit to quit.
posted by Brian B. at 1:14 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 1:14 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
But the claim that Dems are driving away voters by being inhospitable, but Republicans are sooo lovely and welcoming? Is total bullshit.
To be clear, I didn't mention Democrats, let alone claim that the Democratic Party is inhospitable, (only in the US are they a "left"party. They look center to me, with some progressive social leaning) and I just referred to the GOP as the best known example of a right-wing political party.
No argument that the GOP has used any trick or fiddle to hang onto power. But if a Trump can get any more than 10% of the votes of arguably sane people... there's more to consider.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:15 PM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
To be clear, I didn't mention Democrats, let alone claim that the Democratic Party is inhospitable, (only in the US are they a "left"party. They look center to me, with some progressive social leaning) and I just referred to the GOP as the best known example of a right-wing political party.
No argument that the GOP has used any trick or fiddle to hang onto power. But if a Trump can get any more than 10% of the votes of arguably sane people... there's more to consider.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:15 PM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
> To be clear, I didn't mention Democrats
But your whole comment was about about getting voters in a two-party system. You said so explicitly. That necessarily means we are discussing Democrats and Republicans. Who else can you possibly be discussing? You think that tiny leftie groups have any bearing on large scale voting patterns in USA, against the sheer might of the two big party machines? What *did* you mean??
> But if a Trump can get any more than 10% of the votes of arguably sane people... there's more to consider.
Oh I very much agree. But is that "more" the same as "Democrats are driving voters to Republicans by being inhospitable and unwelcoming"? Absolutely not. There is more, but this is not the more there is.
posted by MiraK at 1:19 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
But your whole comment was about about getting voters in a two-party system. You said so explicitly. That necessarily means we are discussing Democrats and Republicans. Who else can you possibly be discussing? You think that tiny leftie groups have any bearing on large scale voting patterns in USA, against the sheer might of the two big party machines? What *did* you mean??
> But if a Trump can get any more than 10% of the votes of arguably sane people... there's more to consider.
Oh I very much agree. But is that "more" the same as "Democrats are driving voters to Republicans by being inhospitable and unwelcoming"? Absolutely not. There is more, but this is not the more there is.
posted by MiraK at 1:19 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Is Metafilter a Democratic discussion board, or a left-oriented discussion board? Discuss.
posted by Artful Codger at 1:24 PM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Artful Codger at 1:24 PM on December 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Metafilter isn't large enough to influence elections in a two party USA. We can be as inhospitable as we like in here, there are no electoral repercussions.
posted by MiraK at 1:31 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by MiraK at 1:31 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
The violence in this thread has pushed me away from Essene monasticism.
posted by mittens at 1:59 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mittens at 1:59 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
METAFILTER: We can be as inhospitable as we like in here, there are no electoral repercussions.
posted by mstokes650 at 2:20 PM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by mstokes650 at 2:20 PM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
From the end of WW1 going forward, the American Left was vitiated and ultimately tainted by the influence of dictatorial and genocidal communist regimes in Stalinist Russia and the Soviet Union, then in Maoist China as well.
Now, dictatorial and genocidal right wing regimes in the same two countries are crucial backers of the American Right, and have achieved far greater leverage than they ever did on the Left!
It never ceases to shock me how naive we are in the US, and always have been when it comes to realizing how open we are to that kind of manipulation, and that we have yet to develop any effective means of countering it.
posted by jamjam at 3:11 PM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
Now, dictatorial and genocidal right wing regimes in the same two countries are crucial backers of the American Right, and have achieved far greater leverage than they ever did on the Left!
It never ceases to shock me how naive we are in the US, and always have been when it comes to realizing how open we are to that kind of manipulation, and that we have yet to develop any effective means of countering it.
posted by jamjam at 3:11 PM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
Okay, I will contribute to a potential derail - who from China is backing the American Right, and how are they also right wing and in control enough of their ostensibly Communist government to comprise a regime?
posted by Selena777 at 3:23 PM on December 15, 2023
posted by Selena777 at 3:23 PM on December 15, 2023
It never ceases to shock me how naive we are in the US
Maoism came to us from May 68 in France, right?
posted by mittens at 3:24 PM on December 15, 2023
Maoism came to us from May 68 in France, right?
posted by mittens at 3:24 PM on December 15, 2023
Who is not "tainted" by desires for control? Certainly not centrists and those that herald capitalism.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 3:57 PM on December 15, 2023
posted by Lord Chancellor at 3:57 PM on December 15, 2023
The thing is, the right may be a big roiling ball of evil, but they are willing to put aside any differences in the cause of making the world worse. They hate drag queens, for example, but they will happily tolerate George Santos as long as he is useful to them. They've cut him loose for now, but they'll welcome him back in a second if it suits them. Hypocrisy is just not a thing in their world. Hell, they don't give a shit if you're a foreign dictator, an anti-American terrorist, or even a famous lefty. Do you serve their ends, right now? Well, you've got a place at the table, friend.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:18 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:18 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
the right may be a big roiling ball of evil, but they are willing to put aside any differences in the cause of making the world worse.
I've seen right-wing writers make pretty much this exact claim about The Left.
Treating the other side as monolithic is only going to lead to a lot of missed opportunities to put grit in its gears.
posted by flabdablet at 6:21 PM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
I've seen right-wing writers make pretty much this exact claim about The Left.
Treating the other side as monolithic is only going to lead to a lot of missed opportunities to put grit in its gears.
posted by flabdablet at 6:21 PM on December 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
I wasn't saying they're a monolith. They encompass gazillionaire pedophiles and Nazi rednecks who sleep in their cars. But they'll all work together to do harm.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:45 PM on December 15, 2023
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:45 PM on December 15, 2023
> a woman in Alberta was denied a life-saving organ transplant because she hadn't got her shots. She'd had COVID. Natural immunity is real.
It is entirely possible to become infected with covid more than once. I have had it three times myself. (And if you are referring to the Lewis case she hadn't contracted covid yet.)
Part of receiving an organ transplant is taking anti-rejection drugs that will weaken your immune system. Doing so during a pandemic is risky. Taking a the vaccine significantly reduces that risk.
There are a limited supply of organs for transplant. Not everyone who needs an organ is able to get one. Lots of people die waiting. Doctors have to decide which patients stand the best chance of benefiting from the resources available to them.
She has the right to refuse any kind of care, but doing so has an effect on your eligibility for a transplant. People get passed over for transplants for reasons of both other conditions they have, and choices they have made. By refusing to take the vaccine, she made herself less likely to benefit from the transplant than other people. She wasn't permitted to waste someone else's chance at receiving a life saving organ.
And beyond that, there is the very real possibility that being immunosuppressed and unvaccinated would have been more dangerous to her than waiting till transmission rates are reduced. No doctor is obligated to perform a procedure they believe will harm their patient.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:48 PM on December 15, 2023 [19 favorites]
It is entirely possible to become infected with covid more than once. I have had it three times myself. (And if you are referring to the Lewis case she hadn't contracted covid yet.)
Part of receiving an organ transplant is taking anti-rejection drugs that will weaken your immune system. Doing so during a pandemic is risky. Taking a the vaccine significantly reduces that risk.
There are a limited supply of organs for transplant. Not everyone who needs an organ is able to get one. Lots of people die waiting. Doctors have to decide which patients stand the best chance of benefiting from the resources available to them.
She has the right to refuse any kind of care, but doing so has an effect on your eligibility for a transplant. People get passed over for transplants for reasons of both other conditions they have, and choices they have made. By refusing to take the vaccine, she made herself less likely to benefit from the transplant than other people. She wasn't permitted to waste someone else's chance at receiving a life saving organ.
And beyond that, there is the very real possibility that being immunosuppressed and unvaccinated would have been more dangerous to her than waiting till transmission rates are reduced. No doctor is obligated to perform a procedure they believe will harm their patient.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:48 PM on December 15, 2023 [19 favorites]
From the end of WW1 going forward, the American Left was vitiated and ultimately tainted by the influence of dictatorial and genocidal communist regimes in Stalinist Russia and the Soviet Union, then in Maoist China as well.
This is counterhistorical. The US left earlier in the last century was diverse, and included many anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists as well as communists of various stripes (authoritarian and anarcho-communists), and socialists not otherwise defined. From what I’ve read, the more authoritarian communists were in a minority; or at least, many US communists were quite unhappy with Stalinism and many folks became disillusioned with communism because of that. But McCarthyism really decimated the US Left. Maoism came afterwards, and wasn’t that popular, or was popular inasmuch as it was seen as being countercultural in the 60s for example but without much understanding of the actual details (kind of like how it was popular for a bit in the 90s for college kids who knew that the dominant capitalist rat race was a crock but hadn’t quite figured out what to support instead to wear Che Guevara t-shirts).
posted by eviemath at 7:52 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is counterhistorical. The US left earlier in the last century was diverse, and included many anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists as well as communists of various stripes (authoritarian and anarcho-communists), and socialists not otherwise defined. From what I’ve read, the more authoritarian communists were in a minority; or at least, many US communists were quite unhappy with Stalinism and many folks became disillusioned with communism because of that. But McCarthyism really decimated the US Left. Maoism came afterwards, and wasn’t that popular, or was popular inasmuch as it was seen as being countercultural in the 60s for example but without much understanding of the actual details (kind of like how it was popular for a bit in the 90s for college kids who knew that the dominant capitalist rat race was a crock but hadn’t quite figured out what to support instead to wear Che Guevara t-shirts).
posted by eviemath at 7:52 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
But they'll all work together to do harm.
No, though. There are definitely groups on the right - especially the far right - who won’t work with each other due to infighting. I gave specific examples upthread. Sure they pull together more or less (with some factions more willing to compromise on whatever issue it is and others more hardline still) for the occasional big thing, but so do liberals and leftists (eg. defending abortion rights or the Affordable Care Act).
posted by eviemath at 7:57 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
No, though. There are definitely groups on the right - especially the far right - who won’t work with each other due to infighting. I gave specific examples upthread. Sure they pull together more or less (with some factions more willing to compromise on whatever issue it is and others more hardline still) for the occasional big thing, but so do liberals and leftists (eg. defending abortion rights or the Affordable Care Act).
posted by eviemath at 7:57 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
they'll all work together to do harm.
I think it pays to concentrate more on the doing harm part than on the working together part.
It seems to me that the fundamental difference in orientation toward the world between right-leaning and left-leaning people is that those drawn rightward object much more strongly to restrictions on their own ability to do as they please, regardless of what harm this might do, than to pretty much anything else. Left-leaning people, in general, value minimizing total harm and will put up with such restrictions as are necessary to achieve that, with at most a bit of grumbling.
As a younger man I had quite a rainbows and unicorns view of people who espoused leftist values and chose to move in leftist circles; but after getting involved in some actual community organizing, it rapidly became apparent to me that there is never any shortage of disruptive, self-serving, power-hungry arseholes in any social or ideological grouping and that one particularly pernicious variety preferred to work in leftist contexts exactly because a lot of folks who care about community were, like me, willing to bend over backwards to extend them the benefit of the doubt.
In my experience, people who find themselves ostracised from left-leaning organizations that formerly welcomed them are more often than not exactly that kind of self-serving manipulator, and that such of them who subsequently display a rightward drift - or even the spectacular rightward flip complete with New Convert zeal - are motivated more by exacting some kind of personal revenge on those they perceive as having slighted them than by any genuine shift in ideology.
In other words, No True Scotsman isn't always a fallacy. To an extent that I have personally found quite discomfiting, in many cases it's just how things are.
There are definitely groups on the right - especially the far right - who won’t work with each other due to infighting.
Quite so. And my point is that even without working hand in glove, these fuckers continue to do harm because harm just doesn't matter to them; what matters to them is doing whatever the fuck they want, regardless of consequence.
posted by flabdablet at 8:11 PM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think it pays to concentrate more on the doing harm part than on the working together part.
It seems to me that the fundamental difference in orientation toward the world between right-leaning and left-leaning people is that those drawn rightward object much more strongly to restrictions on their own ability to do as they please, regardless of what harm this might do, than to pretty much anything else. Left-leaning people, in general, value minimizing total harm and will put up with such restrictions as are necessary to achieve that, with at most a bit of grumbling.
As a younger man I had quite a rainbows and unicorns view of people who espoused leftist values and chose to move in leftist circles; but after getting involved in some actual community organizing, it rapidly became apparent to me that there is never any shortage of disruptive, self-serving, power-hungry arseholes in any social or ideological grouping and that one particularly pernicious variety preferred to work in leftist contexts exactly because a lot of folks who care about community were, like me, willing to bend over backwards to extend them the benefit of the doubt.
In my experience, people who find themselves ostracised from left-leaning organizations that formerly welcomed them are more often than not exactly that kind of self-serving manipulator, and that such of them who subsequently display a rightward drift - or even the spectacular rightward flip complete with New Convert zeal - are motivated more by exacting some kind of personal revenge on those they perceive as having slighted them than by any genuine shift in ideology.
In other words, No True Scotsman isn't always a fallacy. To an extent that I have personally found quite discomfiting, in many cases it's just how things are.
There are definitely groups on the right - especially the far right - who won’t work with each other due to infighting.
Quite so. And my point is that even without working hand in glove, these fuckers continue to do harm because harm just doesn't matter to them; what matters to them is doing whatever the fuck they want, regardless of consequence.
posted by flabdablet at 8:11 PM on December 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
Left projects require working together by their very nature. It's an optional extra for the Right because doing harm is easier than doing good; the triumph of evil when the good do nothing is essentially a statistical thing.
When the Right does choose to work together - and I'm thinking of the Atlas Network and the Federalist Society here - the results have been disproportionately consequential compared to the general background of banal evil. There's some really good organizing talent over there that I think we'd be well advised to study and learn from.
posted by flabdablet at 8:21 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
When the Right does choose to work together - and I'm thinking of the Atlas Network and the Federalist Society here - the results have been disproportionately consequential compared to the general background of banal evil. There's some really good organizing talent over there that I think we'd be well advised to study and learn from.
posted by flabdablet at 8:21 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
I guess the point I'm circling around here is that the harm done, glaringly obvious though it undoubtedly is, is not necessarily evidence of working together although it would be natural for a leftist to make that assumption given the amount of coordinated effort it takes to get anything even vaguely leftist to happen.
The roiling deserves more scrutiny than the ball or the evil.
posted by flabdablet at 8:35 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
The roiling deserves more scrutiny than the ball or the evil.
posted by flabdablet at 8:35 PM on December 15, 2023 [3 favorites]
I mean, we've already been over this in the thread but why not rehash it? Because it is so much fun constantly being used as the example of "ideological" purity, because it's still apparently okay to debate our legitimacy as a population.
I apologize for that, I was trying to come up with an example of not ill-intentioned obliviousness that would lead balloon and was, I realize, not creative and, oblivious myself.
posted by ixipkcams at 9:31 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
I apologize for that, I was trying to come up with an example of not ill-intentioned obliviousness that would lead balloon and was, I realize, not creative and, oblivious myself.
posted by ixipkcams at 9:31 PM on December 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
these fuckers continue to do harm because harm just doesn't matter to them; what matters to them is doing whatever the fuck they want, regardless of consequence.
I think you're underestimating the sadistic, bullying nature of Trump and his followers. The cruelty is the point, remember? They don't just want to win; they want to inflict suffering on brown people, queers, "the libs," etc. They hurt people to seize power, and they seize power to hurt people.
I guess the point I'm circling around here is that the harm done, glaringly obvious though it undoubtedly is, is not necessarily evidence of working together although it would be natural for a leftist to make that assumption given the amount of coordinated effort it takes to get anything even vaguely leftist to happen.
Well, the right and left have very different ways of "working together." To say that organizing the left is like herding cats is a bit of an insult to cats. The right, meanwhile, is more like a horde of zombies breaking into a boarded-up hardware store to get at the terrified humans hiding inside, only every zombie is convinced they're the hero of the story. When the left wants to do a good thing we will spend so much time arguing about it that we probably won't achieve much. When the right wants to hurt you they may argue amongst themselves about the best way to get the job done, but you will get hurt. You might get taken out by a drone strike or a lone lunatic with a brick, but either way you're a goner.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 11:27 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think you're underestimating the sadistic, bullying nature of Trump and his followers. The cruelty is the point, remember? They don't just want to win; they want to inflict suffering on brown people, queers, "the libs," etc. They hurt people to seize power, and they seize power to hurt people.
I guess the point I'm circling around here is that the harm done, glaringly obvious though it undoubtedly is, is not necessarily evidence of working together although it would be natural for a leftist to make that assumption given the amount of coordinated effort it takes to get anything even vaguely leftist to happen.
Well, the right and left have very different ways of "working together." To say that organizing the left is like herding cats is a bit of an insult to cats. The right, meanwhile, is more like a horde of zombies breaking into a boarded-up hardware store to get at the terrified humans hiding inside, only every zombie is convinced they're the hero of the story. When the left wants to do a good thing we will spend so much time arguing about it that we probably won't achieve much. When the right wants to hurt you they may argue amongst themselves about the best way to get the job done, but you will get hurt. You might get taken out by a drone strike or a lone lunatic with a brick, but either way you're a goner.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 11:27 PM on December 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
They don't just want to win; they want to inflict suffering on brown people, queers, "the libs," etc.
Seems to me that the initial motivation for inflicting that is perceiving the targets as impediments to their being able to do whatever the fuck they want.
I agree that it rapidly becomes the case that inflicting suffering on people they've already decided they don't like is a large part of whatever the fuck they want. But I think that's a human thing, not so much a left-right thing; personally I would have no qualms about inflicting arbitrary amounts of suffering on TFG, for instance, should I ever find myself with the opportunity to do so in a narrowly targeted fashion.
If there is a left-right dimension to it, it's just that people on the right are generally inclined to dislike a wider range of people; anybody in any of their mandatory out-groups will do.
posted by flabdablet at 11:52 PM on December 15, 2023
Seems to me that the initial motivation for inflicting that is perceiving the targets as impediments to their being able to do whatever the fuck they want.
I agree that it rapidly becomes the case that inflicting suffering on people they've already decided they don't like is a large part of whatever the fuck they want. But I think that's a human thing, not so much a left-right thing; personally I would have no qualms about inflicting arbitrary amounts of suffering on TFG, for instance, should I ever find myself with the opportunity to do so in a narrowly targeted fashion.
If there is a left-right dimension to it, it's just that people on the right are generally inclined to dislike a wider range of people; anybody in any of their mandatory out-groups will do.
posted by flabdablet at 11:52 PM on December 15, 2023
When the Right does choose to work together - and I'm thinking of the Atlas Network and the Federalist Society here - the results have been disproportionately consequential compared to the general background of banal evil. There's some really good organizing talent over there that I think we'd be well advised to study and learn from.
Really good organizing costs money. The right is bankrolled by billionaires, and it's really easy to get your message out when you literally own the media channels that millions of people watch.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:13 AM on December 16, 2023 [8 favorites]
Really good organizing costs money. The right is bankrolled by billionaires, and it's really easy to get your message out when you literally own the media channels that millions of people watch.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:13 AM on December 16, 2023 [8 favorites]
^^^^^ THISSSS.
The right is "cohesive" and "works together" only because their leaders and their party have a well oiled (i.e. funded) propaganda machine. Propaganda is all it is. The entire illusion of cohesion on the right comes down to the success of their propaganda.
The voters, the organizers, the activists, the regular folks who lean right.... they might be perfectly able and willing to ask questions and challenge one another if left to their own devices. In private, and off the cuff, they probably do. But when they do, it's like a tree falling in the forest. Nobody hears it. These questions and challenges don't get amplified by their media, and so it's as if it never happened. Propaganda is top-down. The party leaders run a tight ship making sure the questions from the bottom never percolate upward. And honestly? With all the fantastic dysfunction of the GOP playing out like a farce on the national stage, going along with propaganda is a matter of survival for even the rank and file folks at the bottom. They do it willingly now because any other way would force them to confront the dysfunction and total corruption of their party and give them feelings of being annihilated. It's easier to avoid that.
A lot of the regular folks on the right have now gotten into the habit of waiting to hear the party line before reacting to news events. You can see it especially clearly on r/conservative. There was a time even in the very recent past when they'd have impromptu reactions to events - like, even now, the top scoring link of all time is a castigation of the J6 riots as disgusting and unpatriotic and a shameful day for conservatives in USA. These days, though? Zilch. Trump's hidden document stash, for instance: the moderators were banning all new threads on the subject until the right wing position on each development had hardened in the media. People on the subreddit weren't allowed to post anything or even comment on anything until the party line became clear, so that the loyal contingent would have something to say in answer when the less loyal asked questions. These days the whole group is well trained. Trump announced that he was selling off pieces of his suit in which he got arrested, for $5000 per piece of indeterminate size, and they barely had any reaction. The conservative media has ignored it for most part THEREFORE they all have nothing to say about it. They know now not to even comment on it without guidance from up top.
When you have a whole bunch of people awaiting instructions on what to say, and they all say the exact same thing after the exact same pause, they sure look cohesive. That isn't something to emulate or aspire to. And it sure as hell isn't the way to build a political coalition. I'd sooner the left disintegrate completely and fail forever than become... that.
posted by MiraK at 5:16 AM on December 16, 2023 [17 favorites]
The right is "cohesive" and "works together" only because their leaders and their party have a well oiled (i.e. funded) propaganda machine. Propaganda is all it is. The entire illusion of cohesion on the right comes down to the success of their propaganda.
The voters, the organizers, the activists, the regular folks who lean right.... they might be perfectly able and willing to ask questions and challenge one another if left to their own devices. In private, and off the cuff, they probably do. But when they do, it's like a tree falling in the forest. Nobody hears it. These questions and challenges don't get amplified by their media, and so it's as if it never happened. Propaganda is top-down. The party leaders run a tight ship making sure the questions from the bottom never percolate upward. And honestly? With all the fantastic dysfunction of the GOP playing out like a farce on the national stage, going along with propaganda is a matter of survival for even the rank and file folks at the bottom. They do it willingly now because any other way would force them to confront the dysfunction and total corruption of their party and give them feelings of being annihilated. It's easier to avoid that.
A lot of the regular folks on the right have now gotten into the habit of waiting to hear the party line before reacting to news events. You can see it especially clearly on r/conservative. There was a time even in the very recent past when they'd have impromptu reactions to events - like, even now, the top scoring link of all time is a castigation of the J6 riots as disgusting and unpatriotic and a shameful day for conservatives in USA. These days, though? Zilch. Trump's hidden document stash, for instance: the moderators were banning all new threads on the subject until the right wing position on each development had hardened in the media. People on the subreddit weren't allowed to post anything or even comment on anything until the party line became clear, so that the loyal contingent would have something to say in answer when the less loyal asked questions. These days the whole group is well trained. Trump announced that he was selling off pieces of his suit in which he got arrested, for $5000 per piece of indeterminate size, and they barely had any reaction. The conservative media has ignored it for most part THEREFORE they all have nothing to say about it. They know now not to even comment on it without guidance from up top.
When you have a whole bunch of people awaiting instructions on what to say, and they all say the exact same thing after the exact same pause, they sure look cohesive. That isn't something to emulate or aspire to. And it sure as hell isn't the way to build a political coalition. I'd sooner the left disintegrate completely and fail forever than become... that.
posted by MiraK at 5:16 AM on December 16, 2023 [17 favorites]
Right wing Reddit is Camazotz?
posted by flabdablet at 5:46 AM on December 16, 2023
posted by flabdablet at 5:46 AM on December 16, 2023
Meanwhile: Florida Sex Scandal Shakes Moms for Liberty, as Group’s Influence Wanes
posted by Artw at 7:35 AM on December 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:35 AM on December 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Really good organizing costs money. The right is bankrolled by billionaires, and it's really easy to get your message out when you literally own the media channels that millions of people watch.The Tea Party was a powerful reminder of how well that can work for building a sense of community. They had fleets of buses, food, premade signs, etc. to get senior citizens from all over the country to come protest against government-provided healthcare at no cost to themselves, while the counter protests were larger and mostly local people paying their own expenses. On TV, those looked exactly the same and helped a generation of conservatives decide they were part of a silent majority despite their positions consistently polling under a plurality. Having money for professional organizers and event planners, travel, merch, etc. is a really effective tool for getting the most out of your supporters.
posted by adamsc at 7:47 AM on December 16, 2023 [10 favorites]
George Soros is probably confused as fuck by all the shit his peers are paying to have projected on to him.
posted by Artw at 7:49 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 7:49 AM on December 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yup. Money to pay someone for central planning makes an event look more coordinated, and makes it easier for people to just casually attend thereby making it look better supported. An advertising budget ensures more people know of the existence of the event and hear about it often enough to actually attend.
This past summer, some overarching group was trying to get local groups to self-organize protests against drag queen story hours (particularly during Pride) across Canada. In my little out-of-the-way area, this meant that one of our local cranks threw up a Facebook event to protest such an event that was hosted and sponsored by a local business. The counter-protest was exceptionally well organized by a veteran organizer who had the backing of the business owner in doing the organizing work, and it was well-advertised due to the support of the business owner and his connections with the rest of the local business community. Counter-protesters supporting the drag queen story hour outnumbered protesters opposing it by about 30:1. And the protesters were a bit all over the place in their message, and managed to get into a punching fight amongst themselves at one point.
posted by eviemath at 9:16 AM on December 16, 2023 [12 favorites]
This past summer, some overarching group was trying to get local groups to self-organize protests against drag queen story hours (particularly during Pride) across Canada. In my little out-of-the-way area, this meant that one of our local cranks threw up a Facebook event to protest such an event that was hosted and sponsored by a local business. The counter-protest was exceptionally well organized by a veteran organizer who had the backing of the business owner in doing the organizing work, and it was well-advertised due to the support of the business owner and his connections with the rest of the local business community. Counter-protesters supporting the drag queen story hour outnumbered protesters opposing it by about 30:1. And the protesters were a bit all over the place in their message, and managed to get into a punching fight amongst themselves at one point.
posted by eviemath at 9:16 AM on December 16, 2023 [12 favorites]
Eg. a bunch of people showing up to a well-advertised, big budget concert and singing along in a planned audience participation part looks like maybe that song is everyone’s favorite (equivalent to ideological conformity), but the audience will actually have a wide variety of preferred ways of interacting with the music, reasons why they are at the concert, and favorite songs from the artist, which they may argue about quite vehemently on fan message boards. If you are just looking at the concert and not the fan spaces (equivalent to the actual organizing spaces), you get a false sense of cohesiveness. And if you compare that concert to a local open mic (even one that draws musicians who actually have recording contracts and make at least part of their living as musicians, like one I am lucky to have near me), it’s going to look like the big money artists’ fans are more cohesive and aligned or more passionate when that may very much not be the case (or may be the case - point is you can’t tell just by comparing the two very different types of audience experiences).
posted by eviemath at 9:24 AM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 9:24 AM on December 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
> (Noting that, although it’s not often mentioned, part of this overlap is due to the influence of those non-Western political traditions on the development of Western or European anarchism, too!)
on social systems[1] and democratic governance[2] :P
on social systems[1] and democratic governance[2] :P
I'm intrigued because you just reversed the flow of the Atlantic Ocean and instead gave us this notion that rather than thinking of the North American continent as this wilderness without ideas, that, in fact, the intellectual roots might be happening here. Who are some of the tribes where you see these ideas of freedom, of liberty, of egalitarianism emerging in order to make these kinds of contributions both to our founding and transatlantically?posted by kliuless at 3:19 AM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
This feels like the right thread to mention that this is happening right now to Metafilter favorite (and someone I used to find very interesting) Nate Silver. You can watch it in real time.
1. Has a contrarian take, outside his realm of expertise, about pandemic shutdown and COVID vaccine efficacy
2. Gets significant negative attention on social media from left-leaning people (many of whom frame his position as a "betrayal") and significant positive attention from people on the right, specifically on the iconoclastic-libertarian side of the conservative spectrum
3. Instrumentalizes his having been offended and hardens into his position, rather than allowing either of the healthier realizations: communicating with masses of strangers on the internet about frequently sucks, and/or "I'm not as smart as I thought I was"
3. Begins to identify with other politics-media-sphere folks who had similar experiences like Matt Yglesias, Taibbi, etc.
4. Gets his feelings hurt when he's laid off by Disney after their purchase of 538
5. Again, gets tremendous positive attention on social media from people on the right, who sense the opportunity to enfold and corrupt a long-time left-center darling in Silver (literally -- almost every post of his has replies along the lines of "welcome to the dark side") by sharing an enemy in Disney
6. Starts a paid newsletter. Not a substack but might as well be. Notices that when he posts takes that are about politics (rather than his other areas of interest like sports) and that are aligned with the contrarian-iconoclastic-libertarian side of the conservative spectrum, he gets tons and tons more engagement and attention (and therefore, money)
7. [you are here]
It has been extremely weird watching a person whose entire life's work and public persona was devoted to the concept that ideological rigidity and the social pressure of in-group thinking can lead a person to draw incorrect conclusions about the real state of the world ... drawing incorrect conclusions about the state of the world due to ideological rigidity and the social pressure of in-group thinking.
posted by penduluum at 7:48 AM on December 19, 2023 [14 favorites]
1. Has a contrarian take, outside his realm of expertise, about pandemic shutdown and COVID vaccine efficacy
2. Gets significant negative attention on social media from left-leaning people (many of whom frame his position as a "betrayal") and significant positive attention from people on the right, specifically on the iconoclastic-libertarian side of the conservative spectrum
3. Instrumentalizes his having been offended and hardens into his position, rather than allowing either of the healthier realizations: communicating with masses of strangers on the internet about frequently sucks, and/or "I'm not as smart as I thought I was"
3. Begins to identify with other politics-media-sphere folks who had similar experiences like Matt Yglesias, Taibbi, etc.
4. Gets his feelings hurt when he's laid off by Disney after their purchase of 538
5. Again, gets tremendous positive attention on social media from people on the right, who sense the opportunity to enfold and corrupt a long-time left-center darling in Silver (literally -- almost every post of his has replies along the lines of "welcome to the dark side") by sharing an enemy in Disney
6. Starts a paid newsletter. Not a substack but might as well be. Notices that when he posts takes that are about politics (rather than his other areas of interest like sports) and that are aligned with the contrarian-iconoclastic-libertarian side of the conservative spectrum, he gets tons and tons more engagement and attention (and therefore, money)
7. [you are here]
It has been extremely weird watching a person whose entire life's work and public persona was devoted to the concept that ideological rigidity and the social pressure of in-group thinking can lead a person to draw incorrect conclusions about the real state of the world ... drawing incorrect conclusions about the state of the world due to ideological rigidity and the social pressure of in-group thinking.
posted by penduluum at 7:48 AM on December 19, 2023 [14 favorites]
He’s been an anti-mask fuck from day 1, going full anti-vax is the logical conclusion extension.
My favorite hit was when he was calling anyone who wasn’t on board with his take “anti-science” because the CDC had taken the political decision to be anti-mask too.
posted by Artw at 7:54 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]
My favorite hit was when he was calling anyone who wasn’t on board with his take “anti-science” because the CDC had taken the political decision to be anti-mask too.
posted by Artw at 7:54 AM on December 19, 2023 [6 favorites]
In the coming dictatorship thread, MonkeyToes turned me on to Jeff Sharlet appearing on Marc Maron's podcast. You should listen to it today.
posted by ob1quixote at 8:00 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 8:00 AM on December 19, 2023 [1 favorite]
Seems relevant: Why Jonathan Chait says outrageous things
We live in a climate, where once people are Internet famous, they get rapid and large scale attention. Some of them like it, and/or can make careers from it. They keep on pressing the button for that dopamine hit or increase in engagement, and if they aren’t careful, they end up becoming caricatures of themselves.
In short: we live in a media ecology that creates incentives for Internet famous people to become crude approximations of themselves if they want to keep on being Internet famous. Some of them play to their crowd. Some of them embrace the role of Bold Contrarian Truthteller (playing to one crowd, while outraging another). Both tend to play up what gets attention. Both have incentives to double down on error rather than admitting it.
posted by Artw at 7:25 AM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
We live in a climate, where once people are Internet famous, they get rapid and large scale attention. Some of them like it, and/or can make careers from it. They keep on pressing the button for that dopamine hit or increase in engagement, and if they aren’t careful, they end up becoming caricatures of themselves.
In short: we live in a media ecology that creates incentives for Internet famous people to become crude approximations of themselves if they want to keep on being Internet famous. Some of them play to their crowd. Some of them embrace the role of Bold Contrarian Truthteller (playing to one crowd, while outraging another). Both tend to play up what gets attention. Both have incentives to double down on error rather than admitting it.
posted by Artw at 7:25 AM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
That "Why Jonathan Chait says outrageous things" piece is good. Quote:
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Iain Banks’ sf novel, Feersum Endjinn, which depicts a far future in which some people, but not others, are resurrected after death into afterlife in a digital “crypt.” In Banks’ description:posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:51 AM on December 26, 2023 [5 favorites]As the saying had it: the crypt was deep and the human soul was shallow. And the shallower the soul, the less of it survived as any sort of independent entity within the data corpus; somebody whose only opinions were received opinions and whose originality quotient was effectively zero would dissolve almost entirely within the oceanic depths of the crypt’s precedent-saturated data streams and leave only a thin froth of memories and a brief description of the exact shape of their hollowness behind, the redundancy of their beings annihilated by the crypt’s abhorrence of over-duplication.My objection to most professional contrarians isn’t that they outrage my core beliefs, but that they don’t do so in particularly interesting ways. It’s much harder to distinguish Chait from ChaitGPT than it ought be. If you’ve read even a moderate amount of his previous work, you’ll be able to predict, with a very high degree of accuracy, what he is going to write when the next Chait-friendly controversy hits. The media economy’s incentive structure has led him to converge upon his statistical approximation, to the extent that I wouldn’t fancy his chances much in Iain Banks’ imaginary future...
Nate Silver is going off the rails again
He’s an extremely honest thinker who isn't beholden to anyone and has a lot of hands-on life experience at a quirkily wide array of activities.
(He can take two or more numbers and average them)
posted by Artw at 10:18 AM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
He’s an extremely honest thinker who isn't beholden to anyone and has a lot of hands-on life experience at a quirkily wide array of activities.
(He can take two or more numbers and average them)
posted by Artw at 10:18 AM on December 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Nate Silver is going off the rails again
But wait, there's more!
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:41 AM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
But wait, there's more!
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:41 AM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Dude has really gone all in on radical centrist fascism-embrace.
posted by Artw at 9:15 AM on December 30, 2023
posted by Artw at 9:15 AM on December 30, 2023
Also the reason Nate is sore about people calling Biden a eugenicist is that Biden made a guy with eugenic-adjacent views to a a science position on COVID and Nate happens to share those shitty views.
posted by Artw at 9:18 AM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 9:18 AM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
As the saying had it: the crypt was deep and the human soul was shallow. And the shallower the soul, the less of it survived as any sort of independent entity within the data corpus; somebody whose only opinions were received opinions and whose originality quotient was effectively zero would dissolve almost entirely within the oceanic depths of the crypt’s precedent-saturated data streams and leave only a thin froth of memories and a brief description of the exact shape of their hollowness behind, the redundancy of their beings annihilated by the crypt’s abhorrence of over-duplication.The origins of souls, crypts and originality quotients.
posted by Brian B. at 10:01 AM on December 30, 2023
Silver is also involving some bullshit about secret lefty elites. Fully deranged conspiracy mode.
posted by Artw at 10:55 AM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 10:55 AM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wonder if those secret lefty elites are very cosmopolitan...
posted by hydropsyche at 4:01 AM on December 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by hydropsyche at 4:01 AM on December 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oof. Real "Scott Adams flaming himself out on Metafilter" vibes from Silver these days, huh?
posted by Navelgazer at 8:15 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Navelgazer at 8:15 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
“Antifascism Means Refusing to Abandon,” Kelly Hayes, Organizing My Thoughts, 08 January 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 8:43 PM on January 8
posted by ob1quixote at 8:43 PM on January 8
« Older An idol with feet of clay whose demolition is long... | The Soul Stirrers Newer »
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It's not bananapants, it's what happens when people let the perfect become the enemy of the good. It's what happens when the person who's an activist for Cause A gets "cancelled" because of a couple of 7-year-old tweets with an ignorant joke about Cause B, and people stop listening to them about Cause A altogether. It's what happens when someone has been fighting for a particular cause and has finally achieved a hard-fought and real victory against the GOP gets criticized for not having achieved even more, including some things that were never within their power to grasp in the first place.
It's the result of the left's circular firing squad. The circular firing squad doesn't always kill the people it shoots at, sometimes it blows some of them right.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:12 AM on December 13, 2023 [154 favorites]