Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
Aside from being a bit of an ad populum fallacy, I think the more amusing part of this is that Cliff has been railing about the regressive left boogeyman for how many years now? Which is it, a small vocal minority that no one really cares about, or a tsunami of leftist support in favour of the existential destruction of free speech, equivalent to the more fascist tendencies of the far right?
|
A small but highly vocal minority that is disproportionately represented in some areas (e.g. journalism and academia) that have a significant effect on popular culture?
As for the equivalency with the far right, I think the problem you've got there is that there's really no argument on here about the extent of those tendencies or their potential impact. I described Trump's election as nothing short of an existential threat to the species, one which has (thankfully and somewhat to the credit of the system of inherent checks and balances that don't depend on Republicans growing spines) yet to materialize.
Just speaking for myself, my criticism of this portion of the left wing rather than railing against the far right is borne of a few causes. First, I think the far right is a lost cause (though I have more or less come to the conclusion that the same is true of the far left). Second, there's no real basis for a line of communication between me and members of the far right; I really don't know any of them - even my devotedly religious conservative side of the family despises Trump and the alt-right, and would be never-Trumpers if they were American. More importantly, if I did know any, why would they listen to me? We don't speak the same language. Third, and as part and parcel of not really knowing any of those people, I don't know any of them I like, which is not the case among the activist progressive identitarian (or whatever label you'd like to use) left... I know plenty of people I like and greatly respect for various other reasons who are, I'm sad to say, ideologues in that vein. Fifth, it's a sort of betrayal to see your own back yard, ideologically, veer into the ditch in the way that I consider this vocal segment of the left to have done. I've cared about politics since I was very young; I was following US house races in high school because I thought certain issues were very important and the way the USA dealt with them would cascade to Canada and in any event affect a lot of people south of the border (notably the chickenhawk posture of the GOP in the early 2000s and the Christian right's moralizing and as part of that, gay rights). I was pretty hopeful that with enough activism and conversation and through the right people running (I was a big Obama guy from 2004 on) we'd win the war of ideas and those Christians would become a minority and we'd enter an era without dogmatism and moral orthodoxy where all that would matter would be who had the most rational, convincing argument. That hope was aimed at my side of the ideological spectrum: the left. I had no hope that the right would be the catalyst for that change (though perhaps they could be brought around eventually, given enough time). I expected
us to do it. I am, suffice it to say, no longer burdened by that expectation. My criticisms of what's described in that article as "PC culture", to the extent I can be bothered to give voice to them anymore, are mostly the result of that disappointment and frustration with people who I thought wanted more or less the society that I did.