6 ms·

Really? I look at the everyday newspapers, and I see even the "left wing, unauthoritarian" news papers preaching xenophobia, ignorance, and bad science. None of

by fao_ 9y ago

Really? I look at the everyday newspapers, and I see even the "left wing, unauthoritarian" news papers preaching xenophobia, ignorance, and bad science. None of which are present within traditional academic "left-wing liberal" thought, with writers such as Rosenburg and Chomsky. Part of this is that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center", however it cannot be ignored that what the mainstream considers 'normal' has indeed been shifted over time by the editors (and through them, the owners) of the newspapers. I think for me the most startling revelation recently was that what I considered to be a traditionally marxist perspective and given right, "The freedom from want", was adopted by western countries during World War Two. It's a damn shame that although it is a founding right, it, and efforts to implement it, have been for decades ignored and disparaged within the media and within "right-wing" academic circles.

mistermann 9y ago
> the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center" As a conservative, I'd claim the window has shifted in the other direction, at least in some respects. Are you able to give any examples that you see as evidence of a broad shift to the right?
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  maybe i'm misperceiving this, but it seems that the left's criticism of US military action has diminished or been muted. in the 60's people on the left literally criticized US soldiers as they returned to the US from Vietnam. (the phrase "baby killers" comes to mind). you don't hear that sort of thing today. criticizing US soldiers is just not done. even Barbara Boxer touted her work with the "Wounded Warriors" project. Al Franken went on USO tours. it's just not ok to criticize US soldiers. on the contrary, we thank them for their service and try not to call into question what happened "over there." furthermore, when GW Bush argued for an invasion of Iraq in 2003, an awful lot of Democratic politicians got on board and voted to authorize it. i think they were afraid not to authorize it. later, drone attacks carried out by the Obama administration were more or less accepted too.
  - musage 9y ago
    Yeah, the remaining ideological battles seem to be mostly about how to frame and rationalize mass murder, and what distractions to bicker about. > in the 60's people on the left literally criticized US soldiers as they returned to the US from Vietnam Considering the draft, that seems more like beating on scape goats though. And if you read something like "Manufacturing Consent", at least in the major media, "left" or "right", the acceptable spectrum of opinion ranged (and ranges) from "let's kill gooks" to "maybe some regrettable mistakes were made in this fundamentally noble undertaking".
- spamizbad 9y ago
  It might make sense to separate key social issue from the rest. The way the media frames matters of divorce, race, LGBTQ and gender have all moved leftward to varying degrees. But on issues like labor and capital the media definitely moved rightward. On foreign policy, the press definitely seems to favor conflict escalation over diplomacy, which can be viewed as a leftward or rightward bias depending on the situation. So today, the "center" in media is the socially-permissive, global intervention, capitalist perspective.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    This sounds pretty accurate to me, thanks.
- leetcrew 9y ago
  > As a conservative, I'd claim the window has shifted in the other direction i'd argue you're both right and the window has widened in both directions.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    I'd go further. On many topics, the Overton Window shattered. Let me start with the idea of a "personal Overton Window". It's the positions that an individual thinks are within the realm of reasonable discourse. Then society's Overton Window is composed of a bunch of individual ones. So, 40 or 50 years ago, it was clear to about 95% of people that gays could not marry. Those 95% gave society a clear Overton Window on the topic. But today, maybe 30% of people still have gay marriage outside their personal Overton Window. Maybe 40% not only have gay marriage in their personal Overton Window, but it is outside their personal Overton Window to not be totally accepting of gay marriage. This means that 70% of the population excludes at least 30% of the population from their personal Overton Window. As a result, no societal Overton Window is possible - we're just left with a bunch of conflicting personal ones.
    - mistermann 9y ago
      An even better explanation, by far.
kelukelugames 9y ago
Do you have examples? "left wing, unauthoritarian" news papers preaching xenophobia, ignorance, and bad science.
macspoofing 9y ago
>Part of this is that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center", I'm sure it seems that way to you.
HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
Part of this is that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center", however it cannot be ignored that what the mainstream considers 'normal' has indeed been shifted over time by the editors (and through them, the owners) of the newspapers. That's a bit disingenuous, considering the overton window had been relentlessly moving leftwards for decades before this. I think what you're seeing now is a correction, and the end of "peak leftism" - at least for another few decades.
- fao_ 9y ago
  No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. You can easily observe this on politicalcompass.org They analyze voting records, speeches, etc. and use an objective test to score each party leader on where they stand on certain policies. Here is a general yardstick for you, you might not agree with it, but this is the scale that I tend to use: https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif As you can see for America: 2004: The candidates are evenly spread around the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004) 2016: Almost all of the candidates are on the right-hand side of the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016) One of the problems in US discussions that I've noticed as someone from Europe, is that Americans tend to talk about "leftists" and "rightists" to mean people who are respectively "less authoritarian" and "more authoritarian", regardless on where those people actually stand on matters relating to the left/right divide. I would say this is one of the biggest problems in US politics, as it causes the most misunderstandings when two people enter into a discussion. As for the UK, you can see here that historically there is and always has been a right-wing bias, which fits with the (more or less) three party system that we have: https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png
  - HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
    > No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. But Marxism is a much more socially acceptable than say, fascism. I've seen a lot of communist themed parties where people hang up hammer and sickle flags, but rarely any parties where people hang up swastikas (or at least, they don't post them on social media !) > Political Compass isn't an impartial or scientific measure. It's center is not guaranteed to correspond the political center of the globe.

by fao_ 9y ago

mistermann 9y ago

> the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center" As a conservative, I'd claim the window has shifted in the other direction, at least in some respects. Are you able to give any examples that you see as evidence of a broad shift to the right?

HillaryBriss 9y ago
maybe i'm misperceiving this, but it seems that the left's criticism of US military action has diminished or been muted. in the 60's people on the left literally criticized US soldiers as they returned to the US from Vietnam. (the phrase "baby killers" comes to mind). you don't hear that sort of thing today. criticizing US soldiers is just not done. even Barbara Boxer touted her work with the "Wounded Warriors" project. Al Franken went on USO tours. it's just not ok to criticize US soldiers. on the contrary, we thank them for their service and try not to call into question what happened "over there." furthermore, when GW Bush argued for an invasion of Iraq in 2003, an awful lot of Democratic politicians got on board and voted to authorize it. i think they were afraid not to authorize it. later, drone attacks carried out by the Obama administration were more or less accepted too.
- musage 9y ago
  Yeah, the remaining ideological battles seem to be mostly about how to frame and rationalize mass murder, and what distractions to bicker about. > in the 60's people on the left literally criticized US soldiers as they returned to the US from Vietnam Considering the draft, that seems more like beating on scape goats though. And if you read something like "Manufacturing Consent", at least in the major media, "left" or "right", the acceptable spectrum of opinion ranged (and ranges) from "let's kill gooks" to "maybe some regrettable mistakes were made in this fundamentally noble undertaking".
spamizbad 9y ago
It might make sense to separate key social issue from the rest. The way the media frames matters of divorce, race, LGBTQ and gender have all moved leftward to varying degrees. But on issues like labor and capital the media definitely moved rightward. On foreign policy, the press definitely seems to favor conflict escalation over diplomacy, which can be viewed as a leftward or rightward bias depending on the situation. So today, the "center" in media is the socially-permissive, global intervention, capitalist perspective.
- mistermann 9y ago
  This sounds pretty accurate to me, thanks.
leetcrew 9y ago
> As a conservative, I'd claim the window has shifted in the other direction i'd argue you're both right and the window has widened in both directions.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  I'd go further. On many topics, the Overton Window shattered. Let me start with the idea of a "personal Overton Window". It's the positions that an individual thinks are within the realm of reasonable discourse. Then society's Overton Window is composed of a bunch of individual ones. So, 40 or 50 years ago, it was clear to about 95% of people that gays could not marry. Those 95% gave society a clear Overton Window on the topic. But today, maybe 30% of people still have gay marriage outside their personal Overton Window. Maybe 40% not only have gay marriage in their personal Overton Window, but it is outside their personal Overton Window to not be totally accepting of gay marriage. This means that 70% of the population excludes at least 30% of the population from their personal Overton Window. As a result, no societal Overton Window is possible - we're just left with a bunch of conflicting personal ones.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    An even better explanation, by far.

kelukelugames 9y ago

Do you have examples? "left wing, unauthoritarian" news papers preaching xenophobia, ignorance, and bad science.

macspoofing 9y ago

>Part of this is that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center", I'm sure it seems that way to you.

HumanDrivenDev 9y ago

Part of this is that the Overton Window has shifted so far right that "left wing" in the mainstream now means "center", however it cannot be ignored that what the mainstream considers 'normal' has indeed been shifted over time by the editors (and through them, the owners) of the newspapers. That's a bit disingenuous, considering the overton window had been relentlessly moving leftwards for decades before this. I think what you're seeing now is a correction, and the end of "peak leftism" - at least for another few decades.

fao_ 9y ago
No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. You can easily observe this on politicalcompass.org They analyze voting records, speeches, etc. and use an objective test to score each party leader on where they stand on certain policies. Here is a general yardstick for you, you might not agree with it, but this is the scale that I tend to use: https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif https://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif As you can see for America: 2004: The candidates are evenly spread around the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2004) 2016: Almost all of the candidates are on the right-hand side of the map (https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016 https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016) One of the problems in US discussions that I've noticed as someone from Europe, is that Americans tend to talk about "leftists" and "rightists" to mean people who are respectively "less authoritarian" and "more authoritarian", regardless on where those people actually stand on matters relating to the left/right divide. I would say this is one of the biggest problems in US politics, as it causes the most misunderstandings when two people enter into a discussion. As for the UK, you can see here that historically there is and always has been a right-wing bias, which fits with the (more or less) three party system that we have: https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png https://i.imgur.com/yI0QXpL.png
- HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
  > No, it's been shifting more _liberal_, which is different. The effects of British and American McCarthyism still put Marxist (and also any associated leftist) thought very much out of the mainstream. But Marxism is a much more socially acceptable than say, fascism. I've seen a lot of communist themed parties where people hang up hammer and sickle flags, but rarely any parties where people hang up swastikas (or at least, they don't post them on social media !) > Political Compass isn't an impartial or scientific measure. It's center is not guaranteed to correspond the political center of the globe.