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What disturbs me most in recent years, is the lack of self-awareness concerning groupthink among fellow members of the left in the US. I keep seeing thinking an

What disturbs me most in recent years, is the lack of self-awareness concerning groupthink among fellow members of the left in the US. I keep seeing thinking and behavior along these lines: Because the other side are so horrible in their views/morals we are justified in doing bad things to them. People seem to think that being "on the side of justice" means they can emotionally wound, attack the livelihood, shout down, or physically/bureaucratically exclude people whose views they do not like. Gandhi had a phrase for this: "An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind." Just because "the other side" is so horrible, doesn't mean you are justified in going not quite as far. Being on the side of justice means according all of your fellow human beings the same rights and respect, even your opponents and even your "enemies." A democratic society whose leaders no longer stand up for principles is a society that is breaking down. A movement that claims it is about "justice" but which doesn't stand up for principles -- even when it comes to calling its "own side" into account -- is philosophically and ethically bankrupt.

liberte82 10y ago
I agree completely. I think people are panicking and being pushed one way or the other. We need to remember our kindness and empathy now more than ever.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  We need to remember our kindness and empathy now more than ever. When someone says this, it's time to run, or maybe a little late for that.
loki49152 10y ago
It will all become clear to you when you accept that it was the American Left who inspired the Fascists, Bolsheviks, and Nazis in Europe. All of them were leftist/socialist ideological movements. All of them copied policies that the American Progressives had put in place years before. You are not fighting them. You are them.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > It will all become clear to you when you accept that it was the American Left who inspired the Fascists, Bolsheviks, and Nazis in Europe. All of them were leftist/socialist ideological movements. That's simply factually false; the Bolsheviks were at least plausibly a left-wing movement by the usual standards (though even with them there is an argument that they were a right-authoritarian movement with left-wing rhetoric), but not in any substantive way inspired either by the American Left (which at that point was pretty much just the early labor movement) or American Progressives (which, while the label has been adopted by the modern left, were not at that time a left-wing movement). There inspirations were almost entirely European, not American. The Fascists and Nazis were both right-wing movements, both substantively and, largely, rhetorically, though it's true that both adopted similar, though somewhat different, syntheses of the rhetoric of the European Right with that of certain elements (largely, fron different non-Marxist socialist traditions) elements of the European Left. Neither was inspired by American Leftist or Progressive movements in any substantive way.

liberte82 10y ago

I agree completely. I think people are panicking and being pushed one way or the other. We need to remember our kindness and empathy now more than ever.

stcredzero 10y ago
We need to remember our kindness and empathy now more than ever. When someone says this, it's time to run, or maybe a little late for that.

loki49152 10y ago

It will all become clear to you when you accept that it was the American Left who inspired the Fascists, Bolsheviks, and Nazis in Europe. All of them were leftist/socialist ideological movements. All of them copied policies that the American Progressives had put in place years before. You are not fighting them. You are them.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> It will all become clear to you when you accept that it was the American Left who inspired the Fascists, Bolsheviks, and Nazis in Europe. All of them were leftist/socialist ideological movements. That's simply factually false; the Bolsheviks were at least plausibly a left-wing movement by the usual standards (though even with them there is an argument that they were a right-authoritarian movement with left-wing rhetoric), but not in any substantive way inspired either by the American Left (which at that point was pretty much just the early labor movement) or American Progressives (which, while the label has been adopted by the modern left, were not at that time a left-wing movement). There inspirations were almost entirely European, not American. The Fascists and Nazis were both right-wing movements, both substantively and, largely, rhetorically, though it's true that both adopted similar, though somewhat different, syntheses of the rhetoric of the European Right with that of certain elements (largely, fron different non-Marxist socialist traditions) elements of the European Left. Neither was inspired by American Leftist or Progressive movements in any substantive way.