I am politically homeless. My natural affiliation would be with the left as I am by my very nature very concerned with Justice and have spent my life helping the marginalized & the poor. I have lived in a commune and spent 23 years running a homeless shelter.
Having said that, I have far more in common with the "right" than I do with the left. I believe in discipline, accountability, responsibility, and believe that people do best when they have purpose & value. I believe in the value of every person, and because of that, I want every person to live the best life they can. (Which is not sitting on the sidewalk cracked out of their mind)
The "left" takes things such as "Harm Reduction" which does work for a small population of people and makes it a blanket policy for everyone causing immense damage to society. This happens because the left does not seem to believe in boundaries or limits. I do!
Yes. Viewing everyone as a distinct individual with their own agency (as opposed to viewing them thru the identitarian lens and then ascribing certain traits to them, accurate or not), is the highest respect one can give a person. "I see you as you.".
While never fully achieved, we were making great progress toward that. Now, it's a sin to think that way.
For someone on the moderately right conservative (and gay!) My partner and I are continuously baffled by the left. How they abandoned economic crusades for moral crusades and jump from one band wagon to next forgetting / disregarding last week’s unless it circles around again. Tara, you’re spot on in their shape shifting ability and their identitarian moralism.
There's a word for this: "omni-cause." If you're battling climate change, you have to jump on board with Free Palestine; if you're pro-abortion, you must support transing the kids. It's a package of beliefs, i.e., a religion. If you reject any one cause, you're an apostate and suspected of being "far-right."
I'm 65. My peer Democrats were all Classical Liberals; just of different flavors. But I generally used the term "statists" for them, as they were for using the power of the State, within reason, and after debate, to try to achieve certain goals. (I was/am a more libertarian type Classical Liberal, who thinks markets and private charities were better ways to make peoples' lives better.). We could disagree on means, but the ends were the same, and we shared those certain key values like Free Speech. Sadly, I've found out that most of my friends were not strong enough to resist the (incredible, granted) social pressure. Hopefully they come back to sanity one day.
Free speech is the big one to me. For many reasons, but I'll list just one: A vigorous debate dramatically lowers the chances of awful/fatal choices. Once you shut down debate, and only mouth the received wisdom of the mob, you are usually guaranteed a catastrophic outcome. It's like a flight crew all agreeing "That altimeter does not say 1000 ft and falling. It says 30,000 feet and steady". Bam!
I feel free speech is, not over-rated exactly so much as somehow misunderstood. Where is that famous nuance?
Everyone speaking out = social media and generates something like quicksand. Troublemakers speaking out to disrupt in order to dominate is Donald Trump, also hecklers at a comedy club. Hard to shut up and wasteful.
Free speech sharing our relative ignorance about climate change (we're all at various levels of ignorance about it imho) mostly leads to inaction, half measures. (Just electrify! is my view. It couldn't hurt and might help.)
Ditto free speech in the political arena. Paralysis on all the major issues.
Somebody who knows a-lot, better than most, needs to guide every conversation.
Who decides who the "experts" are? A Twitter mob? A bunch of guys getting govt money? The boy who said "The emperor has no clothes" was no doubt viewed as a heckler. Instead of dismissing someone who says things one doesn't like (or one doesn't like HOW they are saying it.), you have an obligation to say WHY they are wrong. Even if they convince 30% of the people they are right (when they aren't; or aren't given our current state of knowledge), they still lost. Freedom is messy. Non-Freedom is REALLY messy....and deadly. And miserable.
I read years ago that for markets (and voting is a market) to work we need two things:
Choices.
The ability to communicate.
The CSJ Theologians are trying to take away both.
Imagine we had a diverse car market. And you were free to choose what you bought. But, you couldn't talk to others about what they thought. Would it work well? No. Conversely, if you had only one car mfr and one model, but the ability to talk about it, everyone would know the care s*cked, but that you couldn't do anything about it. With choice and communication, the better cars eventually get identified, the poorer ones sell less and either get better or die off. Competition means choice.
Decades ago I heard of a study where a college professor asked each student in his classes every year to guess who was going to win each Oscar. No individual student got more than 50% right; over years. But, every year, the aggregate group got like 80% right. That's the Wisdom of Crowds at work. That's why markets, while messy, work.
There is no perfect system. Only less bad ones. The current infatuation with "experts" and the delusion that science is ever settled is childish, delusional, ignorant and dangerous. Science is never settled. Experts are often terribly wrong. I'm in a unique place to see both. BSc MIT 1980. MSc NU 1981. But, then 43 in the financial markets. I've seen so many instances of where the current state of science turned out to be wrong. And I've seen thousands of "experts" get various parts of the market totally wrong. The guys running LTCM (Long Term Capital Mgmt) were the cream of the expert crop; but they blew up. Expert hedge funds blow up every year.
People crave certainty. The mind wants certainty. And some scheister will always offer it to you. I listen to a local Chicago radio station (directly when in Chicago; streaming when not) and one of the ads is for California Psychics. "Everyone deserves certainty.". LOL. But, I'm sure they do a brisk business..... : )
Thank you for this article...you are spot on. I have voted liberal and conservative in my lifetime (I am 73) and I have seen a profound change in the Liberal Party here in Canada particularly since the Chretien era. They are definitely going in the wrong direction at this point in time.
Tara: "The old left was anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-corporate interests, pro-union, pro-working class, pro-civil liberties, and most especially pro-free speech." They were also pro-Communism, which negates the rest.
I've actually taken to calling myself an 'Old School Liberal/Modern Conservative'. The meme from Colin Wright on how the left moved so far left, that anyone left-of-center is now closer to the right, still makes me laugh (it's a sad, resigned laugh, but still a laugh).
I cringe whenever I see the 'progressive' Pride flag. This new flag really does sum up what it means to be on today's modern left. It is all about identities (and has absolutely NOTHING to do with gay rights).
PS. I would also add that the current left seems to be receiving some considerable sponsorship money from Pfizer. It is beyond bonkers how the left went from fighting back against 'the man' and excessive capitalism, to a group whose motto appears to be, "Govern me harder".
I think the change from economics to identity politics on the Western Left came in the late 1980's and 1990's, when centre-left parties were elected to power (e.g. in New Zealand, UK, Canada and USA), and adopted the neoliberalism of the Thatcher-Reagan era, with only a few cosmetic changes. This effectively removed economics from political discourse on the Left, the vacuum being filled by the feminist, gay and non-European racial advancement movements. I saw this myself in the 1990's Ontario NDP, for example, with explicit quotas being introduced for various identity groups among riding delegates to the provincial party convention. The trade union movement's influence was reduced as well, reinforced by political funding legislation introduced by both the Liberals and the Conservatives.
As for the illiberalism of the "left" of today, its hegemony has been well explained by the likes of Jonathan Haidt, Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, Douglas Murray and many others, tracing the philosophical origins of the 1960's New Left and its development since then. Sadly, this train of thought has led to a dead end, including dangerously absurd ideas concerning sex, culture and borders. In the meantime, new magnates have been allowed to seize control of the world economy leading to dangerous instability reminiscent of 1914, and deindustrialising the West to the point of impotence in the face of naked armed aggression. Instead of recognising and resisting such massively negative developments, the "left" spouts irrelevant nonsense. To paraphrase a certain leader, we need to produce ammunition, not a ride to some personal nirvana.
Thanks for reprinting this one. I used to consider myself part of the liberal left. I still struggle with fearing getting called and/or shamed for divergent views. Loss of relationships underpins my fears, and I think a lot of sensitive and kind people are also trying so hard to do the "right" thing and be considerate. Which just keeps them and me quiet and small.
I love that your title is about Identitarian Moralism - I just wrote a post that a part of me named the Crucifixion of Moralism.
I like communism myself. We don't understand Chinese communism very well imho. In my admittedly feeble understanding China is governed by committees that select new members by election. To be considered for a committee at the first geographic level, one must have proved yourself by becoming mayor of a city. Not bad qualification I'd say. And so on up the levels of governance: qualification, nomination, election. It is kind of meritocratic maybe. As i say i don't know too much. I do think we need to stop vilifying China, and communism generally. The Soviet Union and China each lost over 20m people in the 2nd world war. The US less than 1m. Chinese communism raised a billion people out of poverty. We should think harder about what "freedom" means and who exactly we owe ours to.
I have always been curious about this, but have never seen a good explanation as to how it actually works. Most of the little I have seen has been pro or anti propaganda. Do you know of a good source that accurately describes it. The Chinese people I know don't seem to be good sources, as most of they are the people who left because they didn't fit.
I am aware of the irony that i am able to freely say I like communism here but maybe not say i like capitalism in China. Still, we are more communistic here than anyone will admit, Trudeau's government bring virtually a dictatorship. And with no end in sight given the compliance and impotence respectively of the NDP and Conservatives. Today I am thinking we need to lose the terms right and left; neither represents what it used to.
Thanks, I am libertarian in leaning and would like to see decentralization of our political system, as it is not working at any level. All governments in Canada are unresponsive to the citizens, and decisions seem to be made by an unaccountable blob that cannot even be identified, let alone held to account.
What I am looking for is a system that actually allows for innovation to occur, and then feed back loops that actually inform all of us what is, and is not working. What interests me about the little I have heard about the Chinese system is that the local communities can experiment, and that successful programs are duplicated and over a period of time adopted as their success is demonstrated. In other words a bottom up system.
What we have in Canada, is untested, untried policies being imposed from above with all the Universities, Media, & Governments singing from the same song book, while the citizens all wonder where did that come from.
In terms of Chinese Communism I have no opinion, or any basis on which to form one.
(And yes, I know that I said on another posting above that my natural affinity is towards the left, but for me that means "community" with the local Communities making decisions, not the centralized "Command & Control of Big Government)
I am politically homeless. My natural affiliation would be with the left as I am by my very nature very concerned with Justice and have spent my life helping the marginalized & the poor. I have lived in a commune and spent 23 years running a homeless shelter.
Having said that, I have far more in common with the "right" than I do with the left. I believe in discipline, accountability, responsibility, and believe that people do best when they have purpose & value. I believe in the value of every person, and because of that, I want every person to live the best life they can. (Which is not sitting on the sidewalk cracked out of their mind)
The "left" takes things such as "Harm Reduction" which does work for a small population of people and makes it a blanket policy for everyone causing immense damage to society. This happens because the left does not seem to believe in boundaries or limits. I do!
Yes. Viewing everyone as a distinct individual with their own agency (as opposed to viewing them thru the identitarian lens and then ascribing certain traits to them, accurate or not), is the highest respect one can give a person. "I see you as you.".
While never fully achieved, we were making great progress toward that. Now, it's a sin to think that way.
For someone on the moderately right conservative (and gay!) My partner and I are continuously baffled by the left. How they abandoned economic crusades for moral crusades and jump from one band wagon to next forgetting / disregarding last week’s unless it circles around again. Tara, you’re spot on in their shape shifting ability and their identitarian moralism.
There's a word for this: "omni-cause." If you're battling climate change, you have to jump on board with Free Palestine; if you're pro-abortion, you must support transing the kids. It's a package of beliefs, i.e., a religion. If you reject any one cause, you're an apostate and suspected of being "far-right."
Personally, I find the Laptop Class vs. Physical Class distinction is useful here:
https://milesmcstylez.substack.com/p/embrace-your-inner-barbarian
I'm 65. My peer Democrats were all Classical Liberals; just of different flavors. But I generally used the term "statists" for them, as they were for using the power of the State, within reason, and after debate, to try to achieve certain goals. (I was/am a more libertarian type Classical Liberal, who thinks markets and private charities were better ways to make peoples' lives better.). We could disagree on means, but the ends were the same, and we shared those certain key values like Free Speech. Sadly, I've found out that most of my friends were not strong enough to resist the (incredible, granted) social pressure. Hopefully they come back to sanity one day.
Free speech is the big one to me. For many reasons, but I'll list just one: A vigorous debate dramatically lowers the chances of awful/fatal choices. Once you shut down debate, and only mouth the received wisdom of the mob, you are usually guaranteed a catastrophic outcome. It's like a flight crew all agreeing "That altimeter does not say 1000 ft and falling. It says 30,000 feet and steady". Bam!
I feel free speech is, not over-rated exactly so much as somehow misunderstood. Where is that famous nuance?
Everyone speaking out = social media and generates something like quicksand. Troublemakers speaking out to disrupt in order to dominate is Donald Trump, also hecklers at a comedy club. Hard to shut up and wasteful.
Free speech sharing our relative ignorance about climate change (we're all at various levels of ignorance about it imho) mostly leads to inaction, half measures. (Just electrify! is my view. It couldn't hurt and might help.)
Ditto free speech in the political arena. Paralysis on all the major issues.
Somebody who knows a-lot, better than most, needs to guide every conversation.
Like Tara does here perhaps.
In the end someone needs to decide.
Who decides who the "experts" are? A Twitter mob? A bunch of guys getting govt money? The boy who said "The emperor has no clothes" was no doubt viewed as a heckler. Instead of dismissing someone who says things one doesn't like (or one doesn't like HOW they are saying it.), you have an obligation to say WHY they are wrong. Even if they convince 30% of the people they are right (when they aren't; or aren't given our current state of knowledge), they still lost. Freedom is messy. Non-Freedom is REALLY messy....and deadly. And miserable.
I read years ago that for markets (and voting is a market) to work we need two things:
Choices.
The ability to communicate.
The CSJ Theologians are trying to take away both.
Imagine we had a diverse car market. And you were free to choose what you bought. But, you couldn't talk to others about what they thought. Would it work well? No. Conversely, if you had only one car mfr and one model, but the ability to talk about it, everyone would know the care s*cked, but that you couldn't do anything about it. With choice and communication, the better cars eventually get identified, the poorer ones sell less and either get better or die off. Competition means choice.
Decades ago I heard of a study where a college professor asked each student in his classes every year to guess who was going to win each Oscar. No individual student got more than 50% right; over years. But, every year, the aggregate group got like 80% right. That's the Wisdom of Crowds at work. That's why markets, while messy, work.
There is no perfect system. Only less bad ones. The current infatuation with "experts" and the delusion that science is ever settled is childish, delusional, ignorant and dangerous. Science is never settled. Experts are often terribly wrong. I'm in a unique place to see both. BSc MIT 1980. MSc NU 1981. But, then 43 in the financial markets. I've seen so many instances of where the current state of science turned out to be wrong. And I've seen thousands of "experts" get various parts of the market totally wrong. The guys running LTCM (Long Term Capital Mgmt) were the cream of the expert crop; but they blew up. Expert hedge funds blow up every year.
People crave certainty. The mind wants certainty. And some scheister will always offer it to you. I listen to a local Chicago radio station (directly when in Chicago; streaming when not) and one of the ads is for California Psychics. "Everyone deserves certainty.". LOL. But, I'm sure they do a brisk business..... : )
Thank you for this article...you are spot on. I have voted liberal and conservative in my lifetime (I am 73) and I have seen a profound change in the Liberal Party here in Canada particularly since the Chretien era. They are definitely going in the wrong direction at this point in time.
Tara: "The old left was anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-corporate interests, pro-union, pro-working class, pro-civil liberties, and most especially pro-free speech." They were also pro-Communism, which negates the rest.
I've actually taken to calling myself an 'Old School Liberal/Modern Conservative'. The meme from Colin Wright on how the left moved so far left, that anyone left-of-center is now closer to the right, still makes me laugh (it's a sad, resigned laugh, but still a laugh).
I cringe whenever I see the 'progressive' Pride flag. This new flag really does sum up what it means to be on today's modern left. It is all about identities (and has absolutely NOTHING to do with gay rights).
PS. I would also add that the current left seems to be receiving some considerable sponsorship money from Pfizer. It is beyond bonkers how the left went from fighting back against 'the man' and excessive capitalism, to a group whose motto appears to be, "Govern me harder".
I think the change from economics to identity politics on the Western Left came in the late 1980's and 1990's, when centre-left parties were elected to power (e.g. in New Zealand, UK, Canada and USA), and adopted the neoliberalism of the Thatcher-Reagan era, with only a few cosmetic changes. This effectively removed economics from political discourse on the Left, the vacuum being filled by the feminist, gay and non-European racial advancement movements. I saw this myself in the 1990's Ontario NDP, for example, with explicit quotas being introduced for various identity groups among riding delegates to the provincial party convention. The trade union movement's influence was reduced as well, reinforced by political funding legislation introduced by both the Liberals and the Conservatives.
As for the illiberalism of the "left" of today, its hegemony has been well explained by the likes of Jonathan Haidt, Helen Pluckrose, James Lindsay, Douglas Murray and many others, tracing the philosophical origins of the 1960's New Left and its development since then. Sadly, this train of thought has led to a dead end, including dangerously absurd ideas concerning sex, culture and borders. In the meantime, new magnates have been allowed to seize control of the world economy leading to dangerous instability reminiscent of 1914, and deindustrialising the West to the point of impotence in the face of naked armed aggression. Instead of recognising and resisting such massively negative developments, the "left" spouts irrelevant nonsense. To paraphrase a certain leader, we need to produce ammunition, not a ride to some personal nirvana.
Thanks for reprinting this one. I used to consider myself part of the liberal left. I still struggle with fearing getting called and/or shamed for divergent views. Loss of relationships underpins my fears, and I think a lot of sensitive and kind people are also trying so hard to do the "right" thing and be considerate. Which just keeps them and me quiet and small.
I love that your title is about Identitarian Moralism - I just wrote a post that a part of me named the Crucifixion of Moralism.
https://martamuses.substack.com/p/the-crucifixion-of-moralism?r=diq9r
I like communism myself. We don't understand Chinese communism very well imho. In my admittedly feeble understanding China is governed by committees that select new members by election. To be considered for a committee at the first geographic level, one must have proved yourself by becoming mayor of a city. Not bad qualification I'd say. And so on up the levels of governance: qualification, nomination, election. It is kind of meritocratic maybe. As i say i don't know too much. I do think we need to stop vilifying China, and communism generally. The Soviet Union and China each lost over 20m people in the 2nd world war. The US less than 1m. Chinese communism raised a billion people out of poverty. We should think harder about what "freedom" means and who exactly we owe ours to.
Robert says: "We don't understand Chinese communism very well." The rest of your comment indicates you should speak for yourself.
I have always been curious about this, but have never seen a good explanation as to how it actually works. Most of the little I have seen has been pro or anti propaganda. Do you know of a good source that accurately describes it. The Chinese people I know don't seem to be good sources, as most of they are the people who left because they didn't fit.
Hi John, thanks for replying. My go to source for everything is wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China
See section on government.
I am aware of the irony that i am able to freely say I like communism here but maybe not say i like capitalism in China. Still, we are more communistic here than anyone will admit, Trudeau's government bring virtually a dictatorship. And with no end in sight given the compliance and impotence respectively of the NDP and Conservatives. Today I am thinking we need to lose the terms right and left; neither represents what it used to.
Thanks, I am libertarian in leaning and would like to see decentralization of our political system, as it is not working at any level. All governments in Canada are unresponsive to the citizens, and decisions seem to be made by an unaccountable blob that cannot even be identified, let alone held to account.
What I am looking for is a system that actually allows for innovation to occur, and then feed back loops that actually inform all of us what is, and is not working. What interests me about the little I have heard about the Chinese system is that the local communities can experiment, and that successful programs are duplicated and over a period of time adopted as their success is demonstrated. In other words a bottom up system.
What we have in Canada, is untested, untried policies being imposed from above with all the Universities, Media, & Governments singing from the same song book, while the citizens all wonder where did that come from.
In terms of Chinese Communism I have no opinion, or any basis on which to form one.
(And yes, I know that I said on another posting above that my natural affinity is towards the left, but for me that means "community" with the local Communities making decisions, not the centralized "Command & Control of Big Government)