4 ms·

I’ll admit that I’m one of the people who’s increasingly convinced that what she’s describing is the true form of left-wing politics, at least right now, and I’

by _zzaw 5y ago

I’ll admit that I’m one of the people who’s increasingly convinced that what she’s describing is the true form of left-wing politics, at least right now, and I’m saying this as a leftist. I think at its core, true workable leftism is about compassionate pragmatism: trying to make the world better for as many people as possible. What disturbs me most about the ultra-woke brand of leftism is that it isn’t pragmatic at all, to say nothing of compassionate. I believe you’re correct that what Henley describes is very similar to a meme: it’s simplistic, reductive, and easy. You can feel like you made a difference without having to do the hard work of actually making a difference. That’s what bothers me so much about it. It’s an approach that’s primarily self-focused: venting one’s rage, posturing for the sake of boosting one’s social status. It's not really about helping other people—any more than the moral codes of right-wing religious fundamentalism are about actually being a decent person—and it definitely isn’t close to realistic as far as effectively changing anything.

Spooky23 5y ago
It’s easy to be high minded when you don’t have power. Hell, even Rush Limbaugh sounded intelligent in the early 90s. His successors have devolved to “fuck you” as a political slogan. High minded ideals fall to power. It’s easy to see at the local level, when black and LGBT voting blocs put the Mayor in power, the political spoils get divvied up. As time goes on you get conflict between the various stakeholders, and everyone forgets about the ideals and focuses on the street fighting. That’s why you need competitive elections.
Aloha 5y ago
It's the "required pieces of flare" problem. You can be left as all get out, but if you don't speak in the stilted expected movement oriented language, and swallow the whole enchilada - and sign on to every policy no matter how worthy or good, you don't have the required pieces of flare - and even though you want the same things and would vote for 95% of the things they support, you're thought of as at least suspect if not outright as one of the enemy. Like I have a focus on broad based poverty reduction, but because I'm not focused on poverty for urban poor people, or BIPOC people, I'm suspect in their head - I support broad based poverty reductions because they create durable electoral coalitions, just focusing on one group or another does the opposite. I have other similar "problematic" perspectives. Outrage politics works great for winning social credit on social media, but it does very little to solve actual problems.

by _zzaw 5y ago

Spooky23 5y ago

It’s easy to be high minded when you don’t have power. Hell, even Rush Limbaugh sounded intelligent in the early 90s. His successors have devolved to “fuck you” as a political slogan. High minded ideals fall to power. It’s easy to see at the local level, when black and LGBT voting blocs put the Mayor in power, the political spoils get divvied up. As time goes on you get conflict between the various stakeholders, and everyone forgets about the ideals and focuses on the street fighting. That’s why you need competitive elections.

Aloha 5y ago

It's the "required pieces of flare" problem. You can be left as all get out, but if you don't speak in the stilted expected movement oriented language, and swallow the whole enchilada - and sign on to every policy no matter how worthy or good, you don't have the required pieces of flare - and even though you want the same things and would vote for 95% of the things they support, you're thought of as at least suspect if not outright as one of the enemy. Like I have a focus on broad based poverty reduction, but because I'm not focused on poverty for urban poor people, or BIPOC people, I'm suspect in their head - I support broad based poverty reductions because they create durable electoral coalitions, just focusing on one group or another does the opposite. I have other similar "problematic" perspectives. Outrage politics works great for winning social credit on social media, but it does very little to solve actual problems.