The most common reason why people are left-leaning is that they think left-leaning policies are moral ones. The chief argument against the other side isn't that their policies are flawed. It's that they're bigots, warmongers and fearmongers who want to oppress women and control their bodies, don't care about poor people, and just want to hoard wealth for the people who already have too much and need to "pay their fair share".
I think it's a pendulum thing.
The right has gone so far to the right that they no longer have objective grounds to support anything. So it becomes a moral argument. So the left has a lot of ground that is correct just based on the math.
But if you look at Canada and its dogmatic belief in single payer health care it's a moral issue for the left. It's unfair to jump the cue. Whereas the right would argue some form of mixed system is not without its flaws but would offer lower cost health care overall.
The side that is "winning" at the time usually ends up being dogmatic and moralistic because most policy needs some nuanced approach.
So both the left and the right have their moralists.
The side that is "winning" at the time usually ends up being dogmatic and moralistic because most policy needs some nuanced approach.
So both the left and the right have their moralists.
I agree. I'm just saying that the majority of people who subscribe to either ideology are doing so because they think that ideology represents the morally right social framework.
If there's one book I've read in the past five years that was influential on me politically and that I'd recommend to literally everyone, it's Jon Haidt's "The Righteous Mind". Does an excellent job of dealing with these tendencies.
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"The failure to deal with Islam by the regressive left" is pretty empty and meaningless. It's not really open for debate or intelligent discourse.
No political ideology has successfully "dealt" with Islam thus far, so pinpointing one (which isn't that common of one, consisting of mostly loud, immature minds, who generally grow out of it or are just simply uninformed) isn't that valuable.
The regressive left is bad. Water is wet. Brilliant, next.
The best Thor could hope for is someone saying "no" and then an always-interesting left v. right partisan debate. How fun.
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He wasn't rigorous, and was actually quite a sloppy thinker. Good writer, great speaker, but also highlighted his strengths by taking ugly dates to prom.
Did he really get to choose who he debated in these public forums? These things are typically set up by third parties who want participants with some kind of public profile. Who would host or broadcast a debate between Hitchens and some bookish academic from Pennsylvania who nobody had ever heard of?
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Originally Posted by peter12
All told, I really liked Hitchens, but I can't stand the cult of celebrity that continues to surround him. He was North America's exposure to a public intellectual personality type that is actually very common in England.
I agree that his stature in North America was overblown because a public intellectual is almost unheard of on this side of the Atlantic. But would you rather no intellectual have a public profile in North America?
The thing that irks me about Hitchens' public profile in the U.S. is most people know him only as a strident atheist. So I'm not sure the notion of a public intellectual with diverse areas of interest and knowledge even did sink in.
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The most common reason why people are left-leaning is that they think left-leaning policies are moral ones. The chief argument against the other side isn't that their policies are flawed. It's that they're bigots, warmongers and fearmongers who want to oppress women and control their bodies, don't care about poor people, and just want to hoard wealth for the people who already have too much and need to "pay their fair share".
Absolutely. The last 15 years or so have seen the North American left transform from a movement largely interested in economic egalitarianism to one motivated passionately by moral distinctions. As traditional religion has retreated among the young and educated, many have embraced a different kind of moral program, and revived the tried and true habits of signalling virtue, condemning the wicked, and using shame to enforce conformity.
Ensuring public services are accessible, efficient, and sustainable doesn't arouse anything close to the enthusiasm among the new left as a good old-fashioned moral crusade.
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If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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Absolutely. The last 15 years or so have seen the North American left transform from a movement largely interested in economic egalitarianism to one motivated passionately by moral distinctions. As traditional religion has retreated among the young and educated, many have embraced a different kind of moral program, and revived the tried and true habits of signalling virtue, condemning the wicked, and using shame to enforce conformity.
Ensuring public services are accessible, efficient, and sustainable doesn't arouse anything close to the enthusiasm among the new left as a good old-fashioned moral crusade.
A lot of left wing supporters (like right wing supporters) are also motivated by self-interest. A great example is the federal and BC NDP parties. They've somehow wrapped themselves in the guise of left wing philosophy when they are in fact a labour party. IE: they care about unions and their employees and not the actual left wing ideals. Some times the motivations left wing and labour parties overlap, but other times they don't. For example, the labour parties are pro-lumber industry. It's an industry that cuts down trees/forests, which is contrary to left wing environmental dogma.
Additionally, academia, aid groups, etc.. have become industries onto themselves. The members of those individuals often act in their own self-interest and work to perpetuate the systems they earn a living from.
Anyways.../rant.
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I agree. I'm just saying that the majority of people who subscribe to either ideology are doing so because they think that ideology represents the morally right social framework.
If there's one book I've read in the past five years that was influential on me politically and that I'd recommend to literally everyone, it's Jon Haidt's "The Righteous Mind". Does an excellent job of dealing with these tendencies.
If you have the time, an excellent talk.
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The chief argument against the other side isn't that their policies are flawed. It's that they're bigots, warmongers and fearmongers who want to oppress women and control their bodies, don't care about poor people, and just want to hoard wealth for the people who already have too much and need to "pay their fair share".
It's just much easier for people to believe that the other side disagrees with you because they're bad or stupid than it is to accept that they might have a point. (For an example, see this thread.)
This is not a left/right thing, just another people thing.
Paradoxically, the more you see yourself as being a rational person and your views as carefully considered and practical ones, the more prone you are to think your opponents are simply being bad or stupid. After all, after you've thought about your idea a lot, it tends to become the obvious and only truth for you.
Unfortunately most people can't (or don't want to) think with multiple simultaneous truths. People like simple world views where something is always right or always wrong. They especially like to think they're almost always right.
If you tend to think that people in general are selfish and terrible, it's pretty natural to think your political opposition are terrible. That's a cynical world view.
On the other hand if you think your views are morally the right ones, and the opposition offers ideas that on the surface sound nice (such as free education), then it's more natural to think that your opposition is stupid or naive or delusional. Or you know, maybe you just prefer to pick the better option of "they're either stupid or bad".
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Did he really get to choose who he debated in these public forums? These things are typically set up by third parties who want participants with some kind of public profile. Who would host or broadcast a debate between Hitchens and some bookish academic from Pennsylvania who nobody had ever heard of?
Of course he had a choice, but you are right to agree with me - the whole thing was a publicity stunt of sorts. Certainly, he wasn't a rigourous intellectual interested in the truth.
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I agree that his stature in North America was overblown because a public intellectual is almost unheard of on this side of the Atlantic. But would you rather no intellectual have a public profile in North America?
People liked him because he made them feel like they were on the right side of history. There are many excellent public intellectuals in North America.
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The thing that irks me about Hitchens' public profile in the U.S. is most people know him only as a strident atheist. So I'm not sure the notion of a public intellectual with diverse areas of interest and knowledge even did sink in.
He was a literary critic of some repute before the whole atheist book-selling phenomenon got started. Other that that, I don't know what else he knew much about. His books on American politics were of third-rate importance, at best.
He really came into his own after 9/11, because he was one of the few pointing out that America had a right to be very, very angry at a group of very blood-thirsty, awful, barbaric criminals.
This burst of moral clarity did a lot of for him, and launched him, almost overnight, to the level of an almost elder statesman in journalism. Before that, he was kind of another CSPAN type.
Ensuring public services are accessible, efficient, and sustainable doesn't arouse anything close to the enthusiasm among the new left as a good old-fashioned moral crusade.
You're confusing loudness with popularity. Which of Sanders and Clinton was the moral crusader?
Obama didn't go on a moral crusade either. He portrayed himself as "the adult in the room" (as Jon Stewart described him). He's pretty much the poster-boy for the modern mainstream left. Extremely centrist, get smart guys to find cost-effective solutions, F morality. (As was most evident with the drone-bombing campaign.)
On moral issues, the Left has become increasingly ideological, and vehement. The culture war is the most important cleavage, not economics. Both parties spend like drunken sailors.
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Obama didn't go on a moral crusade either. He portrayed himself as "the adult in the room" (as Jon Stewart described him). He's pretty much the poster-boy for the modern mainstream left. Extremely centrist, get smart guys to find cost-effective solutions, F morality. (As was most evident with the drone-bombing campaign.)
And his pragmatism left many in the American left deeply disenchanted.
I get that simplistic dogmatism has always been attractive to both left and right. But as someone who takes a more utilitarian and liberal approach to public policy, I used to find I was more compatible with the left than the right. That is no longer true. The left changed and left me with no political home.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
And his pragmatism left many in the American left deeply disenchanted.
I get that simplistic dogmatism has always been attractive to both left and right. But as someone who takes a more utilitarian and liberal approach to public policy, I used to find I was more compatible with the left than the right. That is no longer true. The left changed and left me with no political home.
This is obviously how you feel so by definition you can't be wrong.
However, if people like you abandon the left, that just makes the left that much more prone to obnoxious crusades.
Personally I would hope that you and people like you just ignore the loud minority of the moral crusader types on the left. They really don't have that much actual political power. The real power is still with the moderate centrist types.
Utilitarian liberalism is still the best protection from all types of moral crusaders.
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This is obviously how you feel so by definition you can't be wrong.
However, if people like you abandon the left, that just makes the left that much more prone to obnoxious crusades.
Personally I would hope that you and people like you just ignore the loud minority of the moral crusader types on the left. They really don't have that much actual political power. The real power is still with the moderate centrist types.
Utilitarian liberalism is still the best protection from all types of moral crusaders.
A very good point. The emptying out of the middle has left our political systems very vulnerable to the authoritarian impulses on both right and left.
I actually think utilitarian liberalism is the vehicle for the left's current authoritarian streak.
Currently, the Left pines for the optimism of the 1960s, while the Right does the same for the 1980s.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to detach both perspectives from the place and times they view as defining America the most.
Canada is a bit more complicated. I feel that Canadian conservatives are particularly out of touch.
Absolutely. The last 15 years or so have seen the North American left transform from a movement largely interested in economic egalitarianism to one motivated passionately by moral distinctions. As traditional religion has retreated among the young and educated, many have embraced a different kind of moral program, and revived the tried and true habits of signalling virtue, condemning the wicked, and using shame to enforce conformity.
Ensuring public services are accessible, efficient, and sustainable doesn't arouse anything close to the enthusiasm among the new left as a good old-fashioned moral crusade.
Partisan politics is by definition on argument over morality, if it isn't, well then it is just bureaucratic technocracy. An argument of favour of that is still a moral one.
Partisan politics is by definition on argument over morality, if it isn't, well then it is just bureaucratic technocracy. An argument of favour of that is still a moral one.
I don't think that's always the case.
For example, on the right people believe that what's good for the economy is on the long run good for everybody.
Thus for them, welfare is a short term solution to a long term problem. They tend to see it as counterproductive, as it increases taxes (which they also believe is bad for the economy) and makes people less eager to look for new jobs (which is also bad for the economy and bad for the people themselves). By that logic, cutting welfare benefits is actually for the good of the poor.
On the left they tend to think that an improved economy is not automatically beneficial for everybody, that you need to move money from the rich to the poor through taxation or the poor will be left behind. Plus the poor just need money to keep to stay sane and healthy and not turn to crime, which is important if they're supposed to find jobs one day.
As another example, let's take the question of integrating immigrants into a new country. A left wing politician might demand that the immigrants be allowed to use their own language in all sorts of situations, because he believes that it makes the immigrants feel welcome and part of the society, and thus integrate more easily.
A right wing politician might argue that it's better to force them to learn the local language, because only through that will they ever truly integrate.
So you can easily have two people who have the exact same moral goals but fundamentally different views on how the world works, and thus completely different political views across the board.
(Btw, I believe that both sides in both examples have relevant points, but I side with the left in wellfare and with the right in the language thing.)
Last edited by Itse; 08-15-2016 at 05:43 PM.
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