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Some interesting recent posts have delved into the nature of the modern progressive/leftist/radical -- whatever we want to call the woke and their ilk.
Our prolific @drbastiat kicked it off with a characteristically thought-provoking piece with the problematic title Leftism is based on individualism. Conservatism is not. I read the piece, read the article that inspired it, and, in part for lack of time to give either the consideration they deserved, decided to refrain from commenting -- and perhaps I just can't get past the title, with which I reflexively take exception.
The piece seems to have stuck in @dontillman's craw as well, prompting him to write Oh good grief. Leftism is not based on individualism in response. In his piece, Don proposes a more prosaic theory as to the motivation of the unhinged left: it's the naked will to power. While that strikes me as plausible, I think it misses the mark: I know too many people I'd consider "woke" who seem to have no interest in personal power and winning elections. Indeed, I suspect that most people who hold what I consider to be the nuttier political views are relatively disinterested in participating in the political melee.
This post is prompted by another piece Doc gave us today: Leftist hatred of stay-at-home moms is not what it seems. It has me again thinking about what it is that really characterizes progressives.
I've stated my own views about the left/right political spectrum. (I haven't written, yet, about how dissatisfied I am with the labels we use, given how overloaded they've become.) Briefly and broadly: I think the great political divide, at least among the vast majority of us who aren't actually interested in participating in politics, is between radical and conservative personalities. In my way of thinking, radicals are people who feel little emotional attraction to or comfort in traditional norms and customs, and who are positively motivated to depart from those traditional forms. In contrast, conservatives are people who feel affinity for or security in established systems, and who generally feel a reflexive discomfort at the thought of change.
With that in mind, let me propose a simple, parsimonious alternative to Doc and Don's theories.
People on the left like to change things. They like the frisson, the thrill, and even the chaos and destruction of disruptive change. Those of us on the right generally don't. And it's fundamentally emotional.
Discussion (43)
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And yet … the progressives who wanted tear society down in the 60’s have become hectoring scolds, demanding conformity. Except that they demand conformity in the service of radical ideas. What is the trans movement other than a full blooded assault on sexual identity in general?
It’s almost completely beyond understanding.
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I understand how unintuitive that seems, but I think it isn't. The hectoring scolds of the 60s still think they're fighting the same fight. Traditions don't happen in a lifetime. You have to grow up in a particular culture to see it as the orthodoxy, and that culture has to have been around for awhile. It can't feel new, it has to feel like the status quo, like the thing normal people take for granted.
If the socialists win, eighty years from now the radicals will be calling for free markets.
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Their goal of fundamentally transforming the US remains. The difference is that, back in the 60s, they didn’t have the power to DEMAND that the rest of society conform to their wishes. Now they do. Or, rather, so they thought. Boy, did we dodge a bullet with this election!
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Hank, I have a number of thoughts about this.
The first thought is that the Left-Right dichotomy is an oversimplification. I observe little rhyme or reason to the positions taken presently by people on the supposedly "conservative" Right and those on the supposedly "liberal" or "radical" Left.
Consider how positions have changed on a number of issues, in the past century and even in our lifetimes. Tariffs used to be policy of the Right, the "conservatives" and Republicans. It was the radical, Left-wing Democrat FDR who slashed tariffs. By the 1980s, the positions of the parties were pretty much reversed, with the supposedly Right-wing, conservative, Republican Reagan opposing tariffs. Now, it's switched again with Trump.
We saw similar changes with respect to immigration, though it was even stranger. In the 1920s, bipartisan majorities of both houses of Congress seriously restricted immigration, under a Republican President (Coolidge). In 1965, bipartisan majorities in both houses opened immigration, under a Democratic President. In 1986, there was a bipartisan amnesty for illegal aliens, supported by a Republican President with strong bipartisan support (though a small majority of House Republicans opposed it). In the 1990s, I recall the Democrats being opposed to immigration, especially black Democrats, while Republicans were pretty close to supporting open borders. Now, opposition to immigration is a supposedly Right-wing, conservative, Republican position.
If you expand the Left-Right dichotomy to a second dimension, you can create a Cartesian plane like the "Political Compass." There are several ways to do it, with one way being to measure "social" policy on one axis and "economic" policy on the other. The supposedly Left or Democrat side tends to favor more economic regulation but less social regulation, while the supposedly Right or Republican side tends to favor the reverse. Even this is an oversimplification, though.
I submit that there is a fundamental flaw in thinking of politics as operating on a single, Left-Right axis. Any attempt to explain such a model is not useful, because the model itself is too simple.
That's my first thought. I'll cover the next in a second comment.
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I don't understand leftists.
I think the closest I have come to understanding was an article I wrote which compared leftists to Amish. Both dislike the internal combustion engine etc, and view the industrial revolution with distrust. And there are many more similarities.
But there's one big difference:
I've been exploring lots of other perspectives recently. I think all of them have at least some merit.
But I also think that one thing that a lot of leftists have in common, regardless of the particular flavor of leftism they practice, is that they are angry if you don't practice it with them.
I don't care what people do. Leftists do care.
Maybe that's it?
I don't know. I could be wrong on all this...
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