Everything you say rings true, but I would add a few notes:
What Hamas did (with no small amount of outside support) was not just terrorism. It was specifically and clearly genocide. The ritual slaughter of babies, children, the elderly was an eliminationist act on par with the Holocaust. This was not a political act, but a psychopathic act of unbridled hatred.
The identity politics that drove otherwise bright Harvard students (et al) to reflexively side with genocide is ultimately rooted in Marxism and reflects the Left's success in its long March through institutions.
As for the follow up tidal wave of ignorance and pat phrases about Israel (apartheid state, stolen land, etc.), this reflects the Left's pathological aversion to history. As they say, for the Left the future is always certain, it is just the past that keeps changing.
A) There's nothing psychopathic in the acts of Hamas. It is part of an ideology of dehumanization of the Other that fits perfectly with the type of religious fundamentalism that Islamist Islam represents: the killer is led by God, praised by God, rewarded by God, even more if he dies; those he kills are enemies of God and therefore non-human; the death of innocents on his own side is seen as martyrdom that will be further rewarded in Heaven. (Make no mistake, EVERY religion is capable of this -- if you wish I can lead you in a lovely stroll along the crusades... oh, not those in Holy Land: those enacted in Europe against heretic populations, like the Albigesians, by the merciful Christian church). Now Islam is severely suffering from this kind of religious fever. But psychopathy implies mental illness, which is an obfuscating comforting lie, which prevents us from facing the darkness of human nature which any of us may, given the right time and place, embrace -- and which each of us should be very much on guard against in ourselves. Hamas is not mad, just like the Nazis were not mad, like Pol Pot was not mad -- they live by an ideology that allows these things.
They live by an ideology that must be countered and defeated.
B) The conspiracy theory of Cultural Marxism is so painfully rooted in the frothing hysteria of ignorant, reactionary conservatism, that just mention of any of its tenets makes the words spoken lose IQ. People who mention it clearly never read Marx, nor have any idea how even the concept of Cultural Marxism came about, so many years ago in my native land (Britain) and related to completely different matters. Most clearly never even read the far-right pundits that spread this idea of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy to destroy Western culture. But never mind.
You see the Left as the enemy. Look at that, you just have made a great stand for another ideological absurdity, a monolithic entity, through the existence of which we again go back to see the world in black and white. The Left is the enemy and the source of all evil. The Right is the enemy and the source of all evil. What great and helpful ideas, one the mirror of the other.
But there is no conspiracy, my friend, there is no Long March. The old nonviolent Left from whom that phrase is taken hoped in a bloodless revolution that would change societies democratically towards their utopian goals. The change was never promoted through deceptive means but through persuasion, and it was countered quite strongly by other worldviews, and it failed to convince people to dismantle Capitalism.
Sure, there are many ideas that come from the traditional Left, including some versions of Marxism, in the Critical Social Justice pot; and many that come from Christianity, and a huge lot that come from bigoted prudery, and a few that come outright out of Fascism. There are ideas that were bad to begin with, and ideas that were good and rotted. There is in particular this desperate need to feel part of a holy fellowship of RIGHTEOUS knights, just like Crusaders, and a vengeful attitude nurtured by the rise of a victimhood culture that spans all political fields.
The Right produces similar and worse in many circumstances. Both Conservatism and Progressivism need to keep themselves rational and balanced if we want the world not to go to hell... and it is not something I see signs of in the mental landscape of especially American culture wars.
C) The popular Left has as much aversion to history as the popular Right. History is a hard and not easy field to explain to the populace that wants clean-cut answers. People want historians to tell them what they want to hear, and they surely will find some historians that oblige and selectively come up with documents to support a certain thesis or another. Do not attribute the sin of altering history to suit one's purpose specifically to the Left, because it is typical of political factions and ideologies of every stripe.
Brevity is the soul of wit, so there is some value in using shorthand terms like "Left" when the situation is indeed more complex. Like Popper, I believe this mind virus centered around utopianism, elitism and secular absolution goes very deep in western thought and is not just Marx. Nor is it any kind of conspiracy. The credentialed pretensions supporting genocide follow the TS Eliot observation: most of the harm in the world is due to people pursuing their self-importance ...
Then we are in agreement. I fear the mixup has been due to that brevity indeed.
I have never been brief in my life -- often to the point of boredom. It comes I suspect from poring over documents mostly written in dead or obsolete languages, which have to be examined and re-examined and compared in order to obtain a semblance of convincing sense.
Brevity is mightily powerful in literature. But its function is to cast a very stark illumination on a single facet of things, which indeed may be very meaningful and even symbolical of the whole but prunes complexity. And this function, in socio-political discourse, unless the conversation is among people who know very well what the general opinions of the interlocutors are, inevitably leads to generalised statements that easily are read as slogans and used as such. Brevity is the soul of wit but too often, in cases like this, the mother of stereotypes.
I am glad to find that your brevity was not what it looked like.
Just as an addendum. This article very much explains, more succinctly than I am able while not losing detail or scope, the issue that I am talking about:
I was made acutely aware of this when, during a discussion with my wife about the #MeToo movement a few years ago, I said the infelicitous phrase "The Feminists..." And communicative disaster ensued.
I thought it was clear that I referred to those Feminists who had spoken in that particular context or theorised in a direction that produced that kind of conflict. But my wife heard 'The Feminists -- all of them', and could not countenance that.
The incident made me aware of the value of even excessive specifications, in particular or controversial or emotionally charged subjects.
The left's betrayal of its supposed principles has deep and dark historical roots. Consider the nauseating story of Gareth Jones who in 1932 reported on the Holodomor (Terror-Famine) in Ukraine and was denounced by the leading progressives of the time, including the NYT Walter Duranty. Of course, the dominant ideologies of the left mutate, from communism to what Yascha defines as "identity synthesis", but the underlying impulse to see the world as black and white, victims and oppressors, remains the same. And this impulse leads to worse cruelty than any greed or corruption. Nothing is as dangerous as a true believer. No matter how many pictures of deliberately murdered children you show, idealists will only see the faces of the "enemy", whether it be the kulaks or the colonialists.
While I agree with these points, the very term "the left" falsely connotes a monolithic block, ironically reminiscent of the "impulse to see the world as black and white."
Agree with the added point that the left's Manichian world view is dressed up as righteousness, making any disagreement with them necessarily a result of stupidity or depravity.
I agree, but would argue that the political positions of the identity synthesis left aren't even consistent with their stated views. For example, there's a whole lot of talk of how important indigenous people are and how much we should fight to protect their rights, but I don't see that playing out in real life. Armenians were just ethnically cleansed from their homeland of thousands of years, and I've heard nothing on the left in protest of this. The Assyrians, who are indigenous to Northern Iraq, were ethnically cleansed as well, and again, the reaction of the progressive left was a collective shrug. You'd think that the progressive left would be championing reparations for what was a direct outcome of US policy in Iraq, but somehow these people are unworthy. In fact, you'd think that all Iraqi's would be entitled to reparations. But I guess reparations don't seem like such a good idea when you're the one paying.
You are absolutely right: Identity does not determine morality; that is the absurdity of contemporary Critical Theory. I am no fan of luxury ethics and the boutique morality that comes from those ethical principles. When you apologize for the behavior of Hamas from the safety and wealth of academe you harm the living Palestinians and living Israelis who must live in the brutal blood soaked pain of what such wretched morals allow. Never treat a person as a means to an end. It is just that simple. Killing innocent babies to promote some greater good is never justified even if for every baby killed you could save a hundred lives. I feel pity for those whose luxury ethics led them to buy "Free Palestine" paraphernalia only now to discover their donations of those funds ultimately supported Hamas. So many on the left must now go to bed every night here ever after knowing they have the blood of innocents on their hands. The elite chi chi can no longer pretend their esoteric critical theoretical ethics makes them good people. They are today murderers.
I'm half way through your brilliant book, "The Identity Trap". It could not be more timely. Your reasonable centrism is so appealing! I do hope that your ideas get spread more widely, and I intend to make my fellow progressives aware of them.
In graduate school, I was instructed that “statistics do not apply to the individual” as a part of inferential analysis. Is this still true? It seems, to me, that structural racism within identity politics involves an ecological fallacy that you can infer the group behavior using individual behavior and individual behavior from group behavior.
That was very well done, though I resent the finger-wagging at Israel, which will doubtless lose many cherished sons who would have lived if it fought only by the rules that America and Europe adhere to.
I suspect a lot of this is just young people being Young People. As a 75-year-old (white male, if that’s relevant) who was raised a liberal Democrat and reflexively supported a lot of the radical nonsense of the Sixties (“Revolution”-advocating Blacks, North Vietnam/the Viet Cong, Castroism, and a lot else; “everybody” was doing it) and later came to see the folly of all those stances, it appears to me that about 90% of what we’re seeing in Western countries is basically just young people behaving that way all over again. The adult guides/mentors of such movements largely consist of radical professors at universities who prey on the credulity of young people towards radical claims and demands - plus, there’s a certain “hip” fashion to being a radical: it means that one is truly “in the know”. Lewis Feuer wrote a book on the phenomenon: “The Conflict of Generations: The Character and Significance of Student Movements”.
Incidentally, for anyone who actually puts any stock in Judith Butler’s incoherent word salads, it would be instructive to watch a video about the immense difficulty of the construction of the underwater BART tube between the East Bay and San Francisco, a “masculine” project that Judith and her wife Wendy Brown likely routinely ride between their home ensconced in the Berkeley hills (perhaps) and “beautiful” San Francisco.
I wish so deeply that this were true. Well, that it was *just* this. But this revolutionary immaturity has become embedded in most of our institutions and civic organizations. Deeply embedded in the federal government, so deeply even a change in administration isn't going to undo it, especially where race essentialism and the gender insanity is concerned. There are a BUNCH of adults, including those at every level of decison-making that sincerely believe this stuff. (I'm speaking from within the beast of the government-funded non-profit world.)
Why did it take 40 paragraphs for you to say that “I feel as much empathy for the Palestinian children who are dying in bombardments of Gaza as I do for the Jewish children who were killed in Hamas’ attack on Israel.”? Just because there is a vocal minority on the left doesn’t mean that “The Left “ agree. Unfortunately Israel can not seem to learn how to govern fairly.
The sympathy too many on the left have for Hamas is strikingly similar to the sympathy many old-style leftists had for the Soviet Union. Leftists who condemn Hamas but are quick to blame Israel for things are like old-style fellow travelers who blamed capitalism and/or American power for the world’s ills. All this is odd, because Hamas’ charter has more in common with Nazism than with anything communistic. Then again, I’ve always thought the horseshoe was really a circle.
It's true, as I indicated, that there are significant ideological differences between neo -Marxists on the one hand, postcolonial and postmodern thinkers on the other. But historically, they have all called themselves "the left". And actually, there is an underlying impulse to impose a utopia by force and to disregard complexities of history that unifies all of them. You may call them "secular millennialists".
A unifying feature of all these ideologically diverse movements is that, while the movement toward their utopia may be described as "democratic", their "democracy" is always a one-way ratchet: the first time that the people make the "right" decision, there's no reconsideration, no going back, and unlimited coercion against backsliders and "enemies" is justified.
I feel as much empathy for the Palestinian children who are dying in bombardments of Gaza as I do for the Jewish children who were killed in Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Many publications use the word "militant" rather than "terrorist" because Hamas are state actors whereas terrorists are not. It's not a value judgment. It's an attempt by journalists to be consistent and accurate in the language they use. Yascha should know better than to assume that it implies tacit support for the actions of Hamas.
State terrorism is well recognized. Wikipedia has a page (with many entries) devoted to state terrorism. Let's be honest here. The BBC is 'woke' and the 'woke' are pro-Hamas. Russia has been repeatedly denounced for state terrorism.
Yascha writes: How could such a notable portion of the left side with terrorists who openly announce their genocidal intentions?
What comprises "a notable portion of the left"?
A professor from McMaster college in Canada, a Yale professor, chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America, and The Chicago chapter of BLM.
How do these people comprise "a notable portion of the left"? (I hadn't heard of the Democratic Socialists of America until this latest round in the news.)
Also, AOC condemned what the Dem Socialists said. (Yascha doesn't mention that. He only points out that they count AOC as a member. That's a sly way of making AOC guilty of anti-Semitism by association. It's an obvious attempt to smear AOC. Shameful.)
Further The Chicago chapter of BLM is a one man operation that is not affiliated with BLM. And he apologized and took down the tweet or xeet, or whatever.
Meanwhile the right has a race for speaker between Steve Scalise (a man who calls himself "David Duke without the baggage") and Jim Jordan, who refused to honor a Congressional subpoena and voted to overturn the 2020 election for no good reason. And the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for president called called Hamas and Hezbollah "very smart".
Compare that to all of the statements by actual elected officials on the left in America regarding the horrors of 10/7. Joe Biden is the leader of "the left" in America. He is a notable person on the left.
You are losing a lot of credibility with me, Yascha. You seem to have a completely distorted perspective on where the problems in this country lie. The left polices it's bad actors and they come to heel. The right either ignores, or cheers on their bad actors, and they then double down on their mean-spirited insanity. You are not seeing reality clearly. I think you are trying too hard to endear yourself to the right in the hopes of selling a lot of books.
You are living in a world that does not exist. The reality is that life in America is controlled by the left-wing (identity politics) elite. Trump tried to change this. Of course, he failed. Consider a few cases in point. The voters in California have repeatedly rejected using race in college admissions. The elite doesn’t agree. The result is ‘holistic admissions’, which uses very thinly disguised race to determine admissions.
Harvard (for example) has been notably hesitant about condemning Hamas atrocities. Why? Because Harvard is ‘woke’ and the ‘woke’ identify strongly with Hamas. Consider the following quote from Judith Butler “Understanding Hamas/Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important.”
Another example is the universal prevalence of the terms AFAB/AMAB in medicine. Of course, these terms are not even remotely accurate. However, they do reflect elite preferences, which is all that actually counts.
Doctors do guess about sex at birth. They are roughly 99.9% right. Exceptions exist. For example, Caster Semenya was born with a vagina and thought (incorrectly) to be female. However, he is a 46,XY male with testes (internal), no ovaries, and no uterus. He has normal levels of Testosterone. In one area in the Dominican Republic, this is actually somewhat common. See “The extraordinary case of the Guevedoces”. The 5-ARD condition is somewhat common in this area. Semenya is also 5-ARD.
The reality is that left-wing (identity politics) elite run K-12 education, academia, Hollywood, the media, NGOs, SV, Tech, Wall Street, corporate America, the FBI/CIA/military, etc. Note the universal prevalence of DEI mandates. Do the American people agree? Who cares. The elite is wedded to DEI and that’s what counts. A majority of Americans think having biological males competing with actual women is wrong. When Riley Gaines objected to William Thomas joining the U of Penn swim team, she was told it was ‘non-negotiable’ (World Swimming banned trans athletes from women’s swimming in 2022). Note that U of Penn, nominated William Thomas as ‘Woman of the year for 2022’. You should not be surprised that UPenn was/is a hotbed or pro-Hamas sentiment.
A lady by the name of Sophia Lorey tried to speak about this issue at the Yolo county library in California. She was kicked out by the library manager (Scott Love).
For a truly bad example, consider that sad fate of Bud Light. Bud Light drinkers were not likely to influenced in a positive way by Dylan Mulvaney. Of course, the elite loved him. Whose preferences ruled?
The supposed MAGA judges have repeatedly blocked laws restricting puberty blockers and ‘gender affirming care’.
If supporting LGBTQ people is woke, consider me proudly woke. Are you saying that people like you (the non-elites) want to rid the world of these people, or shame them into the closet?
You seem to live entirely in the world of right-wing media. I recognize every single one of your silly talking points from listening to the Dennis Prager (major crackpot) show. You are like a parrot.
You know who's is anti-woke? Hamas and Hezbollah. Being anti-woke seems to be the defining feature of religious fanatics.
Also, the left has never run the FBI/CIA/military. Those are all famously right-leaning institutions. There has never been a Dem head of the FBI.
I guess you missed the part about “A majority of Americans think having biological males competing with actual women is wrong”. UPenn thinks that cheating is a ‘non-negotiable’ fundamental human right. Oberlin thinks that cheating is a fundamental human right. HRW thinks that cheating is a fundamental human right. Do you think cheating is a ‘fundamental human right’? Is rape a ‘fundamental human right? Nicola Sturgeon (see the Isla Bryson case) thinks so?
Hamas (and Hezbollah) are progressive / left social movements according to Judith Butler. Of course, she is hardly alone in this. The Democratic Socialists of American have actually held rallies explicitly endorsing Hamas killing civilians.
“Being anti-woke seems to be the defining feature of religious fanatics.” You can ‘learn’ so much from reading your comments. I guess Richard Dawkins must be a ‘religious fanatic’. I guess Jerry Coyne must be a ‘religious fanatic’.
The identify politics left does run the FBI/CIA/military. I guess you have never heard of General Milley. Of course, it gets worse. Critical race theory is now mandatory at West Point.
I guess you missed the part where the NCAA is rewriting the rules about who can compete because they care about fairness. Under the new rules Leah Thomas would not qualify. But I doubt that will satisfy you. You will continue to claim that they believe in cheating, because you are brainwashed.
And you define anyone who favors greater acceptance for queer people as woke. That is the majority of Americans my friend.
There is nothing progressive about wanting to kill queer people, as Hamas and Hezbollah do. A large majority of the people in the CIA/FBI/military are conservatives who believe it's okay to be queer. They are only liberal in that regard. They believe in individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness––a fundamental American right.
Several sport associations (including NCAA swimming) have moved to remove males from female swimming. However, UPenn stated that William Thomas's membership on the women’s swim team was ‘non-negotiable’. UPenn then nominated him for NCAA ‘Athlete of the year’. No surprise that UPenn has been a bastion of pro-Hamas sentiment. Last month, UPenn actually had a conference that attacked Jews (not just Israel).
The American people, think that cheating is wrong. The ‘woke’ think cheating is OK. The American people are not ‘woke’. The American people that Hamas is evil and has committed numerous war crimes. The ‘woke’ support Hamas and it crimes. The American people are not ‘woke’. The American people oppose racism. The ‘woke’ (including Harvard) completely support racism as long as it is the right kind of racism. The American people are not ‘woke’. The American people regard terms such as AFAB / AMAB as ludicrous (they are ludicrous). The ‘woke’ regard AFAB/AMAB as gospel truth. The American people are not ‘woke’.
With a few exceptions, the trans community has supported Hamas. Ryna Workman ("Israel bears full responsibility") is a bad example. It calls itself non-binary. It was head of the NYU Law School student association.
Don’t play motte and bailey games. Your attempt to play them is quite transparent and quite embarrassing.
You are very confused. There is no point in trying to reason with you. I blame right-wing media. They have been feeding you lies for decades. Almost nothing you say is true.
The left is not above reproach. That's why AOC and many others on the left criticized the Democratic Socialists. That's why they are not defending Sen Menendez and saying he's a victim of the deep state. Radicals have zero power in the Democratic Party. Radicals run the GOP. There is simply no comparison.
I guess you missed the part where Biden tried to mandate biological men in women's sports. I guess you missed the part where Biden refused (for years) to enforce our borders. I guess you missed the part where Kamala Harris lied (repeatedly) about the death of Michael Brown.
The notion that Kamala Harris tweeted about the 'murder' of Michael Brown is just a right-wing fiction. Sure it is. The WaPo is just part of the 'right-wing' media. Sure it is. Vox is part of the 'right-wing' media. Sure it is.
You wrote "more people seem to be afraid of the visibility and assertiveness of transsexual persons, the consequences of “cancel culture”, and the spread of radical left identity politics than the authoritarian measures of the right to control the bodies of disfavored persons - women and transsexuals so far."
The left is pushing for the acceptance of LGBTQ people in our supposedly liberal democracy. The right is demonizing our efforts, as they always do. There is no radicalism spreading on the left. The left keeps the fringe on the fringe. They have zero power in the Dem party.
Right-wing media is the real culprit. They employ an army of soldiers to search the web for the cringiest examples of LGBTQ people, and they amplify them across the country 24/7. It's a sophisticated brain washing operation. It's not because the left is actually crazy. The Democratic party lives in reality. The GOP does not. The difference is incredibly stark. I think Yascha has been fooled into believing that the right-wing media propaganda machine has a legitimate point. They are liars and exaggerators. Sean Hannity does not have a point. He's a liar. Trump is a liar. Jim Jordan is a liar. There is no truth to the idea that Joe Biden is running a criminal family enterprise. To cite just one minor example of their world of lies.
"The Democratic party lives in reality". Wrong planet. This one is called "Earth". Kamala Harris (ever heard of her?) has tweeted that Michael Brown was murdered... After Obama's (ever heard of him?) attorney general found that Darren Wilson (the police officer) acted properly.
If the left was content with pushing for 'acceptance', then the issue would probably go away. However, the 'woke' left is demanding that cheating be acceptable and that is not OK. The 'woke' left is also demanding that GAC (Gender-Affirming-Care) be used without criticism... After Norway, Sweden, France, the UK, etc. have all backed off.
And there is nothing we on the left can do about it. They represent less than 1% of the left, but people like Yascha make it seem as if it's a much bigger part of the left. That's my complaint with him. Sam Harris does the same damn thing. They are both bending over backwards to try to appear to be fair to both sides, but they are giving right-wing media propaganda credibility.
What Jared Kushner did is arguably many times worse, but no one on the right cares about that. That's because their media never report on it and Republicans won't read anything that comes from the mainstream media. It's a big lie by omission.
A ceasefire after Pearl Harbor would have 'saved lives' too. A ceasefire in the Middle-East would just give Hamas time and space to plan and organize the next blood bath. No surprise that AOC favors it.
Everything you say rings true, but I would add a few notes:
What Hamas did (with no small amount of outside support) was not just terrorism. It was specifically and clearly genocide. The ritual slaughter of babies, children, the elderly was an eliminationist act on par with the Holocaust. This was not a political act, but a psychopathic act of unbridled hatred.
The identity politics that drove otherwise bright Harvard students (et al) to reflexively side with genocide is ultimately rooted in Marxism and reflects the Left's success in its long March through institutions.
As for the follow up tidal wave of ignorance and pat phrases about Israel (apartheid state, stolen land, etc.), this reflects the Left's pathological aversion to history. As they say, for the Left the future is always certain, it is just the past that keeps changing.
A) There's nothing psychopathic in the acts of Hamas. It is part of an ideology of dehumanization of the Other that fits perfectly with the type of religious fundamentalism that Islamist Islam represents: the killer is led by God, praised by God, rewarded by God, even more if he dies; those he kills are enemies of God and therefore non-human; the death of innocents on his own side is seen as martyrdom that will be further rewarded in Heaven. (Make no mistake, EVERY religion is capable of this -- if you wish I can lead you in a lovely stroll along the crusades... oh, not those in Holy Land: those enacted in Europe against heretic populations, like the Albigesians, by the merciful Christian church). Now Islam is severely suffering from this kind of religious fever. But psychopathy implies mental illness, which is an obfuscating comforting lie, which prevents us from facing the darkness of human nature which any of us may, given the right time and place, embrace -- and which each of us should be very much on guard against in ourselves. Hamas is not mad, just like the Nazis were not mad, like Pol Pot was not mad -- they live by an ideology that allows these things.
They live by an ideology that must be countered and defeated.
B) The conspiracy theory of Cultural Marxism is so painfully rooted in the frothing hysteria of ignorant, reactionary conservatism, that just mention of any of its tenets makes the words spoken lose IQ. People who mention it clearly never read Marx, nor have any idea how even the concept of Cultural Marxism came about, so many years ago in my native land (Britain) and related to completely different matters. Most clearly never even read the far-right pundits that spread this idea of a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy to destroy Western culture. But never mind.
You see the Left as the enemy. Look at that, you just have made a great stand for another ideological absurdity, a monolithic entity, through the existence of which we again go back to see the world in black and white. The Left is the enemy and the source of all evil. The Right is the enemy and the source of all evil. What great and helpful ideas, one the mirror of the other.
But there is no conspiracy, my friend, there is no Long March. The old nonviolent Left from whom that phrase is taken hoped in a bloodless revolution that would change societies democratically towards their utopian goals. The change was never promoted through deceptive means but through persuasion, and it was countered quite strongly by other worldviews, and it failed to convince people to dismantle Capitalism.
Sure, there are many ideas that come from the traditional Left, including some versions of Marxism, in the Critical Social Justice pot; and many that come from Christianity, and a huge lot that come from bigoted prudery, and a few that come outright out of Fascism. There are ideas that were bad to begin with, and ideas that were good and rotted. There is in particular this desperate need to feel part of a holy fellowship of RIGHTEOUS knights, just like Crusaders, and a vengeful attitude nurtured by the rise of a victimhood culture that spans all political fields.
The Right produces similar and worse in many circumstances. Both Conservatism and Progressivism need to keep themselves rational and balanced if we want the world not to go to hell... and it is not something I see signs of in the mental landscape of especially American culture wars.
C) The popular Left has as much aversion to history as the popular Right. History is a hard and not easy field to explain to the populace that wants clean-cut answers. People want historians to tell them what they want to hear, and they surely will find some historians that oblige and selectively come up with documents to support a certain thesis or another. Do not attribute the sin of altering history to suit one's purpose specifically to the Left, because it is typical of political factions and ideologies of every stripe.
Brevity is the soul of wit, so there is some value in using shorthand terms like "Left" when the situation is indeed more complex. Like Popper, I believe this mind virus centered around utopianism, elitism and secular absolution goes very deep in western thought and is not just Marx. Nor is it any kind of conspiracy. The credentialed pretensions supporting genocide follow the TS Eliot observation: most of the harm in the world is due to people pursuing their self-importance ...
Then we are in agreement. I fear the mixup has been due to that brevity indeed.
I have never been brief in my life -- often to the point of boredom. It comes I suspect from poring over documents mostly written in dead or obsolete languages, which have to be examined and re-examined and compared in order to obtain a semblance of convincing sense.
Brevity is mightily powerful in literature. But its function is to cast a very stark illumination on a single facet of things, which indeed may be very meaningful and even symbolical of the whole but prunes complexity. And this function, in socio-political discourse, unless the conversation is among people who know very well what the general opinions of the interlocutors are, inevitably leads to generalised statements that easily are read as slogans and used as such. Brevity is the soul of wit but too often, in cases like this, the mother of stereotypes.
I am glad to find that your brevity was not what it looked like.
Just as an addendum. This article very much explains, more succinctly than I am able while not losing detail or scope, the issue that I am talking about:
https://quillette.com/2023/10/20/talking-past-each-other/
I was made acutely aware of this when, during a discussion with my wife about the #MeToo movement a few years ago, I said the infelicitous phrase "The Feminists..." And communicative disaster ensued.
I thought it was clear that I referred to those Feminists who had spoken in that particular context or theorised in a direction that produced that kind of conflict. But my wife heard 'The Feminists -- all of them', and could not countenance that.
The incident made me aware of the value of even excessive specifications, in particular or controversial or emotionally charged subjects.
The left's betrayal of its supposed principles has deep and dark historical roots. Consider the nauseating story of Gareth Jones who in 1932 reported on the Holodomor (Terror-Famine) in Ukraine and was denounced by the leading progressives of the time, including the NYT Walter Duranty. Of course, the dominant ideologies of the left mutate, from communism to what Yascha defines as "identity synthesis", but the underlying impulse to see the world as black and white, victims and oppressors, remains the same. And this impulse leads to worse cruelty than any greed or corruption. Nothing is as dangerous as a true believer. No matter how many pictures of deliberately murdered children you show, idealists will only see the faces of the "enemy", whether it be the kulaks or the colonialists.
While I agree with these points, the very term "the left" falsely connotes a monolithic block, ironically reminiscent of the "impulse to see the world as black and white."
Agree with the added point that the left's Manichian world view is dressed up as righteousness, making any disagreement with them necessarily a result of stupidity or depravity.
I agree, but would argue that the political positions of the identity synthesis left aren't even consistent with their stated views. For example, there's a whole lot of talk of how important indigenous people are and how much we should fight to protect their rights, but I don't see that playing out in real life. Armenians were just ethnically cleansed from their homeland of thousands of years, and I've heard nothing on the left in protest of this. The Assyrians, who are indigenous to Northern Iraq, were ethnically cleansed as well, and again, the reaction of the progressive left was a collective shrug. You'd think that the progressive left would be championing reparations for what was a direct outcome of US policy in Iraq, but somehow these people are unworthy. In fact, you'd think that all Iraqi's would be entitled to reparations. But I guess reparations don't seem like such a good idea when you're the one paying.
You are absolutely right: Identity does not determine morality; that is the absurdity of contemporary Critical Theory. I am no fan of luxury ethics and the boutique morality that comes from those ethical principles. When you apologize for the behavior of Hamas from the safety and wealth of academe you harm the living Palestinians and living Israelis who must live in the brutal blood soaked pain of what such wretched morals allow. Never treat a person as a means to an end. It is just that simple. Killing innocent babies to promote some greater good is never justified even if for every baby killed you could save a hundred lives. I feel pity for those whose luxury ethics led them to buy "Free Palestine" paraphernalia only now to discover their donations of those funds ultimately supported Hamas. So many on the left must now go to bed every night here ever after knowing they have the blood of innocents on their hands. The elite chi chi can no longer pretend their esoteric critical theoretical ethics makes them good people. They are today murderers.
I'm half way through your brilliant book, "The Identity Trap". It could not be more timely. Your reasonable centrism is so appealing! I do hope that your ideas get spread more widely, and I intend to make my fellow progressives aware of them.
In graduate school, I was instructed that “statistics do not apply to the individual” as a part of inferential analysis. Is this still true? It seems, to me, that structural racism within identity politics involves an ecological fallacy that you can infer the group behavior using individual behavior and individual behavior from group behavior.
That was very well done, though I resent the finger-wagging at Israel, which will doubtless lose many cherished sons who would have lived if it fought only by the rules that America and Europe adhere to.
I suspect a lot of this is just young people being Young People. As a 75-year-old (white male, if that’s relevant) who was raised a liberal Democrat and reflexively supported a lot of the radical nonsense of the Sixties (“Revolution”-advocating Blacks, North Vietnam/the Viet Cong, Castroism, and a lot else; “everybody” was doing it) and later came to see the folly of all those stances, it appears to me that about 90% of what we’re seeing in Western countries is basically just young people behaving that way all over again. The adult guides/mentors of such movements largely consist of radical professors at universities who prey on the credulity of young people towards radical claims and demands - plus, there’s a certain “hip” fashion to being a radical: it means that one is truly “in the know”. Lewis Feuer wrote a book on the phenomenon: “The Conflict of Generations: The Character and Significance of Student Movements”.
Incidentally, for anyone who actually puts any stock in Judith Butler’s incoherent word salads, it would be instructive to watch a video about the immense difficulty of the construction of the underwater BART tube between the East Bay and San Francisco, a “masculine” project that Judith and her wife Wendy Brown likely routinely ride between their home ensconced in the Berkeley hills (perhaps) and “beautiful” San Francisco.
I wish so deeply that this were true. Well, that it was *just* this. But this revolutionary immaturity has become embedded in most of our institutions and civic organizations. Deeply embedded in the federal government, so deeply even a change in administration isn't going to undo it, especially where race essentialism and the gender insanity is concerned. There are a BUNCH of adults, including those at every level of decison-making that sincerely believe this stuff. (I'm speaking from within the beast of the government-funded non-profit world.)
Why did it take 40 paragraphs for you to say that “I feel as much empathy for the Palestinian children who are dying in bombardments of Gaza as I do for the Jewish children who were killed in Hamas’ attack on Israel.”? Just because there is a vocal minority on the left doesn’t mean that “The Left “ agree. Unfortunately Israel can not seem to learn how to govern fairly.
The sympathy too many on the left have for Hamas is strikingly similar to the sympathy many old-style leftists had for the Soviet Union. Leftists who condemn Hamas but are quick to blame Israel for things are like old-style fellow travelers who blamed capitalism and/or American power for the world’s ills. All this is odd, because Hamas’ charter has more in common with Nazism than with anything communistic. Then again, I’ve always thought the horseshoe was really a circle.
Name a single elected official on the left who expressed support for Hamas
Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and AOC are all hard-core Hamas supporters
It's true, as I indicated, that there are significant ideological differences between neo -Marxists on the one hand, postcolonial and postmodern thinkers on the other. But historically, they have all called themselves "the left". And actually, there is an underlying impulse to impose a utopia by force and to disregard complexities of history that unifies all of them. You may call them "secular millennialists".
A unifying feature of all these ideologically diverse movements is that, while the movement toward their utopia may be described as "democratic", their "democracy" is always a one-way ratchet: the first time that the people make the "right" decision, there's no reconsideration, no going back, and unlimited coercion against backsliders and "enemies" is justified.
I feel as much empathy for the Palestinian children who are dying in bombardments of Gaza as I do for the Jewish children who were killed in Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Many publications use the word "militant" rather than "terrorist" because Hamas are state actors whereas terrorists are not. It's not a value judgment. It's an attempt by journalists to be consistent and accurate in the language they use. Yascha should know better than to assume that it implies tacit support for the actions of Hamas.
State terrorism is well recognized. Wikipedia has a page (with many entries) devoted to state terrorism. Let's be honest here. The BBC is 'woke' and the 'woke' are pro-Hamas. Russia has been repeatedly denounced for state terrorism.
Yascha writes: How could such a notable portion of the left side with terrorists who openly announce their genocidal intentions?
What comprises "a notable portion of the left"?
A professor from McMaster college in Canada, a Yale professor, chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America, and The Chicago chapter of BLM.
How do these people comprise "a notable portion of the left"? (I hadn't heard of the Democratic Socialists of America until this latest round in the news.)
Also, AOC condemned what the Dem Socialists said. (Yascha doesn't mention that. He only points out that they count AOC as a member. That's a sly way of making AOC guilty of anti-Semitism by association. It's an obvious attempt to smear AOC. Shameful.)
Further The Chicago chapter of BLM is a one man operation that is not affiliated with BLM. And he apologized and took down the tweet or xeet, or whatever.
Meanwhile the right has a race for speaker between Steve Scalise (a man who calls himself "David Duke without the baggage") and Jim Jordan, who refused to honor a Congressional subpoena and voted to overturn the 2020 election for no good reason. And the frontrunner for the GOP nomination for president called called Hamas and Hezbollah "very smart".
Compare that to all of the statements by actual elected officials on the left in America regarding the horrors of 10/7. Joe Biden is the leader of "the left" in America. He is a notable person on the left.
You are losing a lot of credibility with me, Yascha. You seem to have a completely distorted perspective on where the problems in this country lie. The left polices it's bad actors and they come to heel. The right either ignores, or cheers on their bad actors, and they then double down on their mean-spirited insanity. You are not seeing reality clearly. I think you are trying too hard to endear yourself to the right in the hopes of selling a lot of books.
You are living in a world that does not exist. The reality is that life in America is controlled by the left-wing (identity politics) elite. Trump tried to change this. Of course, he failed. Consider a few cases in point. The voters in California have repeatedly rejected using race in college admissions. The elite doesn’t agree. The result is ‘holistic admissions’, which uses very thinly disguised race to determine admissions.
Harvard (for example) has been notably hesitant about condemning Hamas atrocities. Why? Because Harvard is ‘woke’ and the ‘woke’ identify strongly with Hamas. Consider the following quote from Judith Butler “Understanding Hamas/Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important.”
Another example is the universal prevalence of the terms AFAB/AMAB in medicine. Of course, these terms are not even remotely accurate. However, they do reflect elite preferences, which is all that actually counts.
Doctors do guess about sex at birth. They are roughly 99.9% right. Exceptions exist. For example, Caster Semenya was born with a vagina and thought (incorrectly) to be female. However, he is a 46,XY male with testes (internal), no ovaries, and no uterus. He has normal levels of Testosterone. In one area in the Dominican Republic, this is actually somewhat common. See “The extraordinary case of the Guevedoces”. The 5-ARD condition is somewhat common in this area. Semenya is also 5-ARD.
The reality is that left-wing (identity politics) elite run K-12 education, academia, Hollywood, the media, NGOs, SV, Tech, Wall Street, corporate America, the FBI/CIA/military, etc. Note the universal prevalence of DEI mandates. Do the American people agree? Who cares. The elite is wedded to DEI and that’s what counts. A majority of Americans think having biological males competing with actual women is wrong. When Riley Gaines objected to William Thomas joining the U of Penn swim team, she was told it was ‘non-negotiable’ (World Swimming banned trans athletes from women’s swimming in 2022). Note that U of Penn, nominated William Thomas as ‘Woman of the year for 2022’. You should not be surprised that UPenn was/is a hotbed or pro-Hamas sentiment.
A lady by the name of Sophia Lorey tried to speak about this issue at the Yolo county library in California. She was kicked out by the library manager (Scott Love).
For a truly bad example, consider that sad fate of Bud Light. Bud Light drinkers were not likely to influenced in a positive way by Dylan Mulvaney. Of course, the elite loved him. Whose preferences ruled?
The supposed MAGA judges have repeatedly blocked laws restricting puberty blockers and ‘gender affirming care’.
If supporting LGBTQ people is woke, consider me proudly woke. Are you saying that people like you (the non-elites) want to rid the world of these people, or shame them into the closet?
You seem to live entirely in the world of right-wing media. I recognize every single one of your silly talking points from listening to the Dennis Prager (major crackpot) show. You are like a parrot.
You know who's is anti-woke? Hamas and Hezbollah. Being anti-woke seems to be the defining feature of religious fanatics.
Also, the left has never run the FBI/CIA/military. Those are all famously right-leaning institutions. There has never been a Dem head of the FBI.
I guess you missed the part about “A majority of Americans think having biological males competing with actual women is wrong”. UPenn thinks that cheating is a ‘non-negotiable’ fundamental human right. Oberlin thinks that cheating is a fundamental human right. HRW thinks that cheating is a fundamental human right. Do you think cheating is a ‘fundamental human right’? Is rape a ‘fundamental human right? Nicola Sturgeon (see the Isla Bryson case) thinks so?
Hamas (and Hezbollah) are progressive / left social movements according to Judith Butler. Of course, she is hardly alone in this. The Democratic Socialists of American have actually held rallies explicitly endorsing Hamas killing civilians.
“Being anti-woke seems to be the defining feature of religious fanatics.” You can ‘learn’ so much from reading your comments. I guess Richard Dawkins must be a ‘religious fanatic’. I guess Jerry Coyne must be a ‘religious fanatic’.
The identify politics left does run the FBI/CIA/military. I guess you have never heard of General Milley. Of course, it gets worse. Critical race theory is now mandatory at West Point.
I guess you missed the part where the NCAA is rewriting the rules about who can compete because they care about fairness. Under the new rules Leah Thomas would not qualify. But I doubt that will satisfy you. You will continue to claim that they believe in cheating, because you are brainwashed.
And you define anyone who favors greater acceptance for queer people as woke. That is the majority of Americans my friend.
There is nothing progressive about wanting to kill queer people, as Hamas and Hezbollah do. A large majority of the people in the CIA/FBI/military are conservatives who believe it's okay to be queer. They are only liberal in that regard. They believe in individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness––a fundamental American right.
Several sport associations (including NCAA swimming) have moved to remove males from female swimming. However, UPenn stated that William Thomas's membership on the women’s swim team was ‘non-negotiable’. UPenn then nominated him for NCAA ‘Athlete of the year’. No surprise that UPenn has been a bastion of pro-Hamas sentiment. Last month, UPenn actually had a conference that attacked Jews (not just Israel).
The American people, think that cheating is wrong. The ‘woke’ think cheating is OK. The American people are not ‘woke’. The American people that Hamas is evil and has committed numerous war crimes. The ‘woke’ support Hamas and it crimes. The American people are not ‘woke’. The American people oppose racism. The ‘woke’ (including Harvard) completely support racism as long as it is the right kind of racism. The American people are not ‘woke’. The American people regard terms such as AFAB / AMAB as ludicrous (they are ludicrous). The ‘woke’ regard AFAB/AMAB as gospel truth. The American people are not ‘woke’.
With a few exceptions, the trans community has supported Hamas. Ryna Workman ("Israel bears full responsibility") is a bad example. It calls itself non-binary. It was head of the NYU Law School student association.
Don’t play motte and bailey games. Your attempt to play them is quite transparent and quite embarrassing.
You are very confused. There is no point in trying to reason with you. I blame right-wing media. They have been feeding you lies for decades. Almost nothing you say is true.
The left is not above reproach. That's why AOC and many others on the left criticized the Democratic Socialists. That's why they are not defending Sen Menendez and saying he's a victim of the deep state. Radicals have zero power in the Democratic Party. Radicals run the GOP. There is simply no comparison.
I guess you missed the part where Biden tried to mandate biological men in women's sports. I guess you missed the part where Biden refused (for years) to enforce our borders. I guess you missed the part where Kamala Harris lied (repeatedly) about the death of Michael Brown.
You live in a fictional world concocted by right-wing media.
The notion that Kamala Harris tweeted about the 'murder' of Michael Brown is just a right-wing fiction. Sure it is. The WaPo is just part of the 'right-wing' media. Sure it is. Vox is part of the 'right-wing' media. Sure it is.
Is that the best you can do? Probably is.
The notion that “A majority of Americans think having biological males competing with actual women is wrong” is just a fiction. Sure it is.
The notion that UPenn had a biological male competing with actual women is just a fiction. A right wing myth. Sure it is.
The notion that Oberlin removed its head women’s lacrosse coach because she objected to males completing with females is just a fiction. Sure it is.
Need more?
Reality is just a right-wing fiction. Sure it is
Japan just attacked Pearl Harbor and AOC wants a 'ceasefire'
You wrote "more people seem to be afraid of the visibility and assertiveness of transsexual persons, the consequences of “cancel culture”, and the spread of radical left identity politics than the authoritarian measures of the right to control the bodies of disfavored persons - women and transsexuals so far."
The left is pushing for the acceptance of LGBTQ people in our supposedly liberal democracy. The right is demonizing our efforts, as they always do. There is no radicalism spreading on the left. The left keeps the fringe on the fringe. They have zero power in the Dem party.
Right-wing media is the real culprit. They employ an army of soldiers to search the web for the cringiest examples of LGBTQ people, and they amplify them across the country 24/7. It's a sophisticated brain washing operation. It's not because the left is actually crazy. The Democratic party lives in reality. The GOP does not. The difference is incredibly stark. I think Yascha has been fooled into believing that the right-wing media propaganda machine has a legitimate point. They are liars and exaggerators. Sean Hannity does not have a point. He's a liar. Trump is a liar. Jim Jordan is a liar. There is no truth to the idea that Joe Biden is running a criminal family enterprise. To cite just one minor example of their world of lies.
"The Democratic party lives in reality". Wrong planet. This one is called "Earth". Kamala Harris (ever heard of her?) has tweeted that Michael Brown was murdered... After Obama's (ever heard of him?) attorney general found that Darren Wilson (the police officer) acted properly.
If the left was content with pushing for 'acceptance', then the issue would probably go away. However, the 'woke' left is demanding that cheating be acceptable and that is not OK. The 'woke' left is also demanding that GAC (Gender-Affirming-Care) be used without criticism... After Norway, Sweden, France, the UK, etc. have all backed off.
And there is nothing we on the left can do about it. They represent less than 1% of the left, but people like Yascha make it seem as if it's a much bigger part of the left. That's my complaint with him. Sam Harris does the same damn thing. They are both bending over backwards to try to appear to be fair to both sides, but they are giving right-wing media propaganda credibility.
What Jared Kushner did is arguably many times worse, but no one on the right cares about that. That's because their media never report on it and Republicans won't read anything that comes from the mainstream media. It's a big lie by omission.
A ceasefire after Pearl Harbor would have 'saved lives' too. A ceasefire in the Middle-East would just give Hamas time and space to plan and organize the next blood bath. No surprise that AOC favors it.
Thank you for telling truth to power so boldly, Yascha, not only in the metaphorical sense but in the very real sense, considering where you work.