Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
You preach a lot about the negative impact of identity politics, the condemning of whole groups, and tribalism. But here you are: the regressive left, liberals, conservatives, you separate people into those groups plus 2 or 3 others and say "these ones are all like this, they need to conform to this group or else they'll die, I'm not like them, I'm in this group."
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I totally disagree with your first point - identity politics is exactly about "I'm different from you, so you should be quiet and listen to me" - but this is absolutely true about a lot of people who see the same problems that Cliff and I are worried about. There's an inherent problem with using the label "regressive left", because the moment it's done, it creates an out-group that you're against, along with your "in-group". The "out-group" in this case being people like Cenk, Greenwald, CJ Werleman, Abby Martin... and there it is, we've just created a tribe. It's that easy.
This happened almost immediately after people like Rubin, Gad Saad and Lalo Dagach started gaining more of a following on twitter. I actually called Saad on it at one point, when he was basically smearing Dean Obeidallah in more or less the same terms that Obeidallah typically smears other people, and muting anyone who objected that he was being disingenuous. His response essentially boiled down to "Dean Obeidallah is a bully, and a despicable, grotesque individual who represents all that is wrong with the West. So I challenge him using his exact tactics. If you don't like it, don't follow me, but I get enough hatred from insane so-called liberals who say horrible things to me. I don't need public criticism of my behaviour from people who fundamentally agree with me on top of that. You're supposed to be on my side in this." There was a total lack of self-awareness about what he was actually endorsing.
There are two problems. First, how do we talk about the problems with this phenomenon, this particular strain of illiberal behaviour without giving a label, whether it's "regressive left" or something else? I think the key is sticking to principles - "more expression is better, a vibrant marketplace of ideas is preferable to suppressing ideas we don't like, dead dogmas lead to serious social problems, people rebel when you try to box them in ideologically", and so on - and talking about why those principles are important. Talk about ideas, not people. That's the way to avoid this problem.
Unfortunately, the label "regressive left" describes a group of people who hold a set of ideas, rather than the ideas themselves. But it's the label that has gained currency, and so we seem to be stuck with it. I'd definitely prefer something else if I had a choice.