4 ms·

Why liberalism and leftism are increasingly at odds

37 points by gnicholas 3y ago

junofan 3y ago
Nate Silver touches on it a bit with his digression into academic roots and technocratic streaks, but I think the divide is naturally driven by incentives rather than differences of opinions and beliefs. One group rewards doctrinaires while the other doesn’t. There’s nothing new about deliberately forming multiracial coalitions and trying to profit before the inevitable collapse.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
AequitasOmnibus 3y ago
In one fell swoop, Nate tries to redefine political alignments in order to artificially distance himself from a concept he personally dislikes (“wokeness”). His statistical analysis is a fun way to follow political horse racing (even if his models aren’t perfect) but this post is the chef’s kiss of ham-fisted amateur political science. Appreciate the earnestness, but can’t agree with basically any of his unsourced “theory.”
- bomewish 3y ago
  Would sprinkling on some citations of academic books magically confer authority somehow? Feels like really the wrong model.
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    sourcing isn't about the presence or not of a [3] next to your wild claims it's about having engaged with work other people have done on the subject. Like, actually read and understood other people's ideas. You can really tell the difference between someone who just googled things to support whatever they wanted to say vs someone who is straight out the gate with "there are three prevailing schools of thought on this issue; the first, characterized by xyz, posits that abc" and so on
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      You think that Nate Silver used Google to find out about the American political landscape? Don't you think that the many years he spent working in a field where he learned a lot about American politics would have made him pretty well-informed on the topic?
      - uoaei 3y ago
        The question is, which perspectives did he expose himself to during that time, and what did he conclude from those inquiries? Data is easy; interpretation is hard. It's not enough to say he had an accurate model, it has to be reasonable, too.
- evv555 3y ago
  In critical theory liberalism is synonymous with colonialism, capitalism, and all the other isms that are meant to be deconstructed. The antagonism is a core component of postmodernism.
_8j50 3y ago
Ideological politics is at odds with correctness driven politics. Policy should be supported and implemented because politicians (policy makers) believe it will acheive a desired goal not because they must conform to an ideology. For example, as a voter, I prefer a centrist president so that he/she won't wield too much power and influence and is better attuned to the needs of all the people, a DA and judge that know mercy is more important than justice, traditionalist senator that resists change for obvious reasons, an impassioned house rep that is full of ideas to change things for the better and so on. I expect them to do their jobs in accordance with what is the best interests of their constituents and the country at large, not according their party or ideology. Political parties are tools of division and control. Politicians with common goals and interesrs should be able to form groups to support their causes but such groupings (caucuses?) must be topic-specific not ideology driven. Even if you disagree with all that, I hope you agree that a politician's party affiliation should not be listed on a ballot, nor should voters be allowed to check a box and it will auto select every option on party lines or politicians be allowed to advertise their party membership as part of their campaign. They should explain the merits of their views based on correctness not conformity to ideology. But the whole thing is so messed up I doubt anything remotely close to what I said will come true.
- pydry 3y ago
  I dont get the appeal of centrism. These days it's usually a disguise for some sort of ideology anyhow (e.g. Biden's foreign policy is neoconservative, which reality is being very unkind to) and even if it weren't it's the living incarnation of the argument to moderation fallacy. Move the overton window and what counts as centrism gets dragged around with it. For example, centrists during slave-owning times called for better treatment of slaves or at the very least providing compensation to owners of freed slaves.
  - beej71 3y ago
    > I dont get the appeal of centrism. Some of us are concerned that a more polarized country will break itself apart, or crush itself, in a very violent way. People like me believe that democracy is hard, and that dictatorship is the natural state of human affairs. And I feel that by taking up a banner against half of the country, we're moving more towards that latter eventuality. And yes, the center does move around. But that's no reason not to aim for it. That said, the reality is that centrists are very likely going to lose, or arguably have already lost. As a whole, Americans are incapable of understanding, empathizing with, or respecting "the others", a necessary ingredient in a functioning [edit: American] democracy, IMHO. After that, my money is that one of the sides will win and crush the other, and then everybody will lose except the rulers. On the plus side, maybe after 100 or 200 more years of that we'll restart the experiment. :)
crote 3y ago
It really feels like the author is hampered by the preconceived notion that there are two "camps" in politics. Sure, it may work out that way in US elections due to a fundamentally broken democratic system, but is it that much of a stretch to believe that people can have different opinions on various topics? In a winner-takes-all system, people don't vote for the person they like most. They vote against the person who's a threat to their way of living, and begrudgingly accept that this means voting for someone they actually quite dislike - but don't actively hate. Without such a laser focus on "two camps" politics, the author might've been able to realize that it's actually a multi-axis political spectrum. A good start might be "authoritarian vs libertarian" and "capitalism vs collectivism".
- beej71 3y ago
  > people don't vote for the person they like most. They vote against the person who's a threat to their way of living I don't quite follow this. It seems kind of like subtracting a number versus adding a negative number. Isn't a threat to my way of life simply a negative like?
  - crote 3y ago
    In a well-functioning democracy you'd vote on someone who you'd agree with on something like 9/10 issues. However, not everyone agrees with you, so they might end up having to create a coalition with someone you agree with on 6/10 issues. In the end you end up with 7.5/10 issues going your way. Not ideal, but not too bad either. In a first-past-the-post system, voting on the 9/10 politician is a complete waste as everyone knows they'll never get a majority. Plenty of people like the 0/10 guy, and the 3/10 guy is quite popular too. So better vote for the 3/10 guy: sure, you don't want him, but having him in office is still better than the 0/10 one winning!
    - beej71 3y ago
      Ah, in the case you might be splitting the vote, I see.
  - taylodl 3y ago
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
> divide people into 16 intersectional categories This seems like an oxymoron. People seem to go way out of their way to misunderstand intersectionality for some reason. Probably makes their entire essay up to that point nonsensical if they allowed themselves to understand the meaning of the word, so instead he needs to make himself look foolish. Also, the bit that could be paraphrased as "us Jews don't believe in identity politics because we prefer to treat people as individuals" is almost that scene from Life of Brian where one guy denies he's an individual.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
> the presidents backpedaled and offered a series of legalistic defenses when asked by Rep. Elise Stefanik about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their respective bullying and harassment policies. This is a remarkable description of a "free speech" position, from a person who later on says he's only being offered crackdowns on Palestinian speech, which he doesn't want because he's a liberal. He's totally thrown them under the bus, and it's not even clear why, because they've taken exactly the liberal, you can say whatever you want, stance he claims to advocate for. The ACLU supported their position, and FIRE ran an op-ed supporting them, so it's pretty unimpeachably a free speech stand to take. (https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/special-post-stephen-rohde-university-presidents https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-a...) So how does this support his "University SJWs support terrorism and Liberals support Israel" division? If anything it shows Republicans leveraging Jewish identity politics against free speech.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
insickness 3y ago
I feel like the central tenet of wokeism, or at least its defining attribute separating it from liberalism, is a belief that differences between groups are 100% attributable to oppression. I used to be extremely liberal for years. Then one day I got into an argument with a friend who believed that men and women are 100% mentally identical, insisting that all differences between men and women, including sexual attraction, was 100% social construct and 0% biological. In other words, the reason the majority of men were attracted to women and vice-versa was a social construct. The lie that all differences between groups is social construct is a necessary foundation to attribute oppression as the cause of any and all differences in success between groups.

37 points by gnicholas 3y ago

Nate Silver touches on it a bit with his digression into academic roots and technocratic streaks, but I think the divide is naturally driven by incentives rather than differences of opinions and beliefs. One group rewards doctrinaires while the other doesn’t. There’s nothing new about deliberately forming multiracial coalitions and trying to profit before the inevitable collapse.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

AequitasOmnibus 3y ago

In one fell swoop, Nate tries to redefine political alignments in order to artificially distance himself from a concept he personally dislikes (“wokeness”). His statistical analysis is a fun way to follow political horse racing (even if his models aren’t perfect) but this post is the chef’s kiss of ham-fisted amateur political science. Appreciate the earnestness, but can’t agree with basically any of his unsourced “theory.”

bomewish 3y ago
Would sprinkling on some citations of academic books magically confer authority somehow? Feels like really the wrong model.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  sourcing isn't about the presence or not of a [3] next to your wild claims it's about having engaged with work other people have done on the subject. Like, actually read and understood other people's ideas. You can really tell the difference between someone who just googled things to support whatever they wanted to say vs someone who is straight out the gate with "there are three prevailing schools of thought on this issue; the first, characterized by xyz, posits that abc" and so on
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    You think that Nate Silver used Google to find out about the American political landscape? Don't you think that the many years he spent working in a field where he learned a lot about American politics would have made him pretty well-informed on the topic?
    - uoaei 3y ago
      The question is, which perspectives did he expose himself to during that time, and what did he conclude from those inquiries? Data is easy; interpretation is hard. It's not enough to say he had an accurate model, it has to be reasonable, too.
evv555 3y ago
In critical theory liberalism is synonymous with colonialism, capitalism, and all the other isms that are meant to be deconstructed. The antagonism is a core component of postmodernism.

_8j50 3y ago

Ideological politics is at odds with correctness driven politics. Policy should be supported and implemented because politicians (policy makers) believe it will acheive a desired goal not because they must conform to an ideology. For example, as a voter, I prefer a centrist president so that he/she won't wield too much power and influence and is better attuned to the needs of all the people, a DA and judge that know mercy is more important than justice, traditionalist senator that resists change for obvious reasons, an impassioned house rep that is full of ideas to change things for the better and so on. I expect them to do their jobs in accordance with what is the best interests of their constituents and the country at large, not according their party or ideology. Political parties are tools of division and control. Politicians with common goals and interesrs should be able to form groups to support their causes but such groupings (caucuses?) must be topic-specific not ideology driven. Even if you disagree with all that, I hope you agree that a politician's party affiliation should not be listed on a ballot, nor should voters be allowed to check a box and it will auto select every option on party lines or politicians be allowed to advertise their party membership as part of their campaign. They should explain the merits of their views based on correctness not conformity to ideology. But the whole thing is so messed up I doubt anything remotely close to what I said will come true.

pydry 3y ago
I dont get the appeal of centrism. These days it's usually a disguise for some sort of ideology anyhow (e.g. Biden's foreign policy is neoconservative, which reality is being very unkind to) and even if it weren't it's the living incarnation of the argument to moderation fallacy. Move the overton window and what counts as centrism gets dragged around with it. For example, centrists during slave-owning times called for better treatment of slaves or at the very least providing compensation to owners of freed slaves.
- beej71 3y ago
  > I dont get the appeal of centrism. Some of us are concerned that a more polarized country will break itself apart, or crush itself, in a very violent way. People like me believe that democracy is hard, and that dictatorship is the natural state of human affairs. And I feel that by taking up a banner against half of the country, we're moving more towards that latter eventuality. And yes, the center does move around. But that's no reason not to aim for it. That said, the reality is that centrists are very likely going to lose, or arguably have already lost. As a whole, Americans are incapable of understanding, empathizing with, or respecting "the others", a necessary ingredient in a functioning [edit: American] democracy, IMHO. After that, my money is that one of the sides will win and crush the other, and then everybody will lose except the rulers. On the plus side, maybe after 100 or 200 more years of that we'll restart the experiment. :)

crote 3y ago

It really feels like the author is hampered by the preconceived notion that there are two "camps" in politics. Sure, it may work out that way in US elections due to a fundamentally broken democratic system, but is it that much of a stretch to believe that people can have different opinions on various topics? In a winner-takes-all system, people don't vote for the person they like most. They vote against the person who's a threat to their way of living, and begrudgingly accept that this means voting for someone they actually quite dislike - but don't actively hate. Without such a laser focus on "two camps" politics, the author might've been able to realize that it's actually a multi-axis political spectrum. A good start might be "authoritarian vs libertarian" and "capitalism vs collectivism".

beej71 3y ago
> people don't vote for the person they like most. They vote against the person who's a threat to their way of living I don't quite follow this. It seems kind of like subtracting a number versus adding a negative number. Isn't a threat to my way of life simply a negative like?
- crote 3y ago
  In a well-functioning democracy you'd vote on someone who you'd agree with on something like 9/10 issues. However, not everyone agrees with you, so they might end up having to create a coalition with someone you agree with on 6/10 issues. In the end you end up with 7.5/10 issues going your way. Not ideal, but not too bad either. In a first-past-the-post system, voting on the 9/10 politician is a complete waste as everyone knows they'll never get a majority. Plenty of people like the 0/10 guy, and the 3/10 guy is quite popular too. So better vote for the 3/10 guy: sure, you don't want him, but having him in office is still better than the 0/10 one winning!
  - beej71 3y ago
    Ah, in the case you might be splitting the vote, I see.
- taylodl 3y ago

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

> divide people into 16 intersectional categories This seems like an oxymoron. People seem to go way out of their way to misunderstand intersectionality for some reason. Probably makes their entire essay up to that point nonsensical if they allowed themselves to understand the meaning of the word, so instead he needs to make himself look foolish. Also, the bit that could be paraphrased as "us Jews don't believe in identity politics because we prefer to treat people as individuals" is almost that scene from Life of Brian where one guy denies he's an individual.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

> the presidents backpedaled and offered a series of legalistic defenses when asked by Rep. Elise Stefanik about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their respective bullying and harassment policies. This is a remarkable description of a "free speech" position, from a person who later on says he's only being offered crackdowns on Palestinian speech, which he doesn't want because he's a liberal. He's totally thrown them under the bus, and it's not even clear why, because they've taken exactly the liberal, you can say whatever you want, stance he claims to advocate for. The ACLU supported their position, and FIRE ran an op-ed supporting them, so it's pretty unimpeachably a free speech stand to take. (https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-amendment-news/special-post-stephen-rohde-university-presidents https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-a...) So how does this support his "University SJWs support terrorism and Liberals support Israel" division? If anything it shows Republicans leveraging Jewish identity politics against free speech.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

insickness 3y ago

I feel like the central tenet of wokeism, or at least its defining attribute separating it from liberalism, is a belief that differences between groups are 100% attributable to oppression. I used to be extremely liberal for years. Then one day I got into an argument with a friend who believed that men and women are 100% mentally identical, insisting that all differences between men and women, including sexual attraction, was 100% social construct and 0% biological. In other words, the reason the majority of men were attracted to women and vice-versa was a social construct. The lie that all differences between groups is social construct is a necessary foundation to attribute oppression as the cause of any and all differences in success between groups.