Left wing civil war

[Wokko]

While browsing the site that Pa Marmo linked to before I found an article written about a topic I've been considering a bit myself. The left wing has fractured and there are now two distinct camps that appear to hate each other as much, if not more than they hate the right.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/01/21/civil-war-brewing-for-the-cultural-left/

On one hand we have the old social progressive rationalist. Usually an atheist, this individual would rail against the authoritarian and religious right, fighting against the Thatchers and Reagans and fighting against the hard core religious conservatives. Anti establishment, anti censorship and fiercely rational and academic. These old guard progressive lefties now find themselves under siege from the 'new' left of identity politics, censorship of anything 'offensive' and militantly against anything white, male or christian and yet aggressively defensive of Islam. The new left stifles research, silences rather than debates its critics and whips up a mob whenever one of its sacred cows cops a whack.

As a libertarian, far more right than left I would happily (and have happily) sat and had a beer or 6 and hours of vigorous discussion with the old school left wingers. From hardcore Trots, to environmentalists to philosophers these people may not share my ideals but they were always happy to defend their own and discuss common grounds and enjoy lively debate. This new left is a vile, authoritarian movement that silences dissent and moves to shame and demonize its opposition.

Will this schism destroy the political left or will we see one side emerge as the 'face' of left wing politics of the future. If the 'Social Justice' identity politics brigade is triumphant are we heading somewhere dangerous or will it merely make University campuses and academia a difficult place to be a non conformist?

[pietillidie]

No, sorry. Wishful thinking. The left has its squabbles, but none of them concern anything much that the right could win votes on. You're confusing Howard and Abbott's immoral use of racism and fear, and the sickly form of centrist leftism which kowtows to it, with something important. And, by definition, that just means the the left hates the right even more.

[Tannin]

Stop it before you go blind. You really shouldn't read such ignorant rubbish.

The writer's problem of course, is that he can't think beyond the 1950s and thinks anyone who doesn't agree with him is "on the left". Oh yes, the left is still here, and remarkably strong considering how much it's lost its way since about 1980 or so. But your moronic writer insists on regarding the modern progressive types as "left wing", which of course they are not. In consequence, he is spouting nonsense.

The left and the progressive/green/moderns (whatever you want to call them) have a complex relationship. They fight a lot but in the everyday reality of practical politics they tend to wind up forming alliances and coalitions with one another. In many parts of the world, the moderate right also gets along with them, in the sort of more-or-less way that coalitions tend to do.

Here in Australia, there isn't a moderate right anymore. There is still massive public support for moderate right policies, but the Liberals have purged all their moderates and replaced them with Tea Party types, so Australian moderates on the centre-right have to decide between supporting the hard-right Liberal Party, the moderate left-wing Labor Party, or the Greens. Whichever of those three parties appeals to them most successfully on the day wins the election, every time.

[pietillidie]

^Also, because the OP has such a poor understanding of economics—not due to a lack of intelligence but due to the usual reactionary drives—he wouldn't have noticed the left is very united when it comes to economic policy right across its spectrum of different groups.

What will scare the right most is that the complete collapse of Abbott's climate policy and dirty mining focus, both locally and globally, means that on economics the left have not been this united for decades. And Abbott and the Glibs are getting smashed economically.

[Wokko]

I wasn't framing this as a partisan political issue, whereby the right divides and conquers. I see this more as a hearts and minds campaign of the left, one side will eat the other. And I agree with you Tannin that the modern 'progressive' social justice types aren't left wingers, they're much closer to the religious right (without the religion) but they see themselves through the prism of the egalitarian left. Where these types bother to have economic ideals they also tend towards the far, far left but economics and 'real world' issues don't seem to get their blood pumping.

The writer isn't really that far off the mark, I've watched this happen, both on campus and in first the shady parts of the internet and now increasingly social media and mainstream media. While initially intrigued by the take over of the zealots, I find myself hoping the old socialists and rational left take this in a clean sweep.

Give me a Hawke or Crean anyday. I may disagree with them, but at least they're rational and fighting for what's right.

[Wokko]

I'd also say the Liberals are so confused I wouldn't put them on the Right wing any more than you'd have Social Justice identity types on the left. They don't really have any wings and they're 30,000 feet up with no parachutes, but this isn't about the Australian two party system but the broader international left wing.

[pietillidie]

^Oh crikey. Why does the mainstream left I meet never look like the cloistered sects you seem to hunt down? The people you meet, being angry, ostracised paranoids, are probably a tiny segment. Do you have any numbers on them, or is this another case of you confusing the oddbods you seek the company of with the wider world?

Do you ever mix with mainstream people? You know, people with jobs in the real economy too busy to sit around pondering the world? You don't have to buy into the mainstream trivialities to participate in the mainstream. The worst people to drink with are the far left—nary a group of more morbid, conflicted souls you will find. I avoid them like the plague at the pub.

Get your biased personal encounters and web browsing into statistical perspective, is what I'd say.

[pietillidie]

[Wokko]

Any political movement is defined by its adherents and vocal supporters, not the 'everyman' in the streets. Yes it's possible to just ignore it all and blissfully go about my day, but I like politics and find the analysis and theory of it pretty interesting. I'd probably be the only guy who'd seek out Antony Green to chat with if I was forced to go to an ABC barbeque (hopefully Annabel Crabb is with him at least).

I'm a member of a political party, have an incomplete BA with a philosophy major and talk too much. Of course I'm not in the 'mainstream' (Quite comfortable there however, I actually like just talking footy and ignoring the world sometimes).

If you've avoided having dealings with the 'I can't believe it's not the Left' left wingers then more power to you and I wouldn't dream of pointing you in their direction.

[Wokko]

[pietillidie]

[pietillidie]

[David]

I think it's absurd to call it a "civil war"—as PTID says, any animosity culture warriors and old Marxists feel for each other is dwarfed by their shared loathing of Tories—and I won't even bother reading the article, but I think there might be something to the divide you mention. The trouble, really, is that the old-fashioned left you refer to doesn't really exist in any meaningful way any more, at least not in the op ed pages or the blogosphere. Beyond the revolutionaries, radical feminists, anarchists and hardcore environmentalists on the one side and inner-city Greens-voting centre-left moderates on the other, identity politics seems to make up the bulk of orthodox American (and by extension Australian, because we import so much of it) left-wing discourse nowadays, along with its fixations on cultural appropriation, rape culture, intersectionality, Islam, Twitter and bashing Richard Dawkins.

But I don't think it's as simple as dividing the left into factions. For my part, at least, I don't really feel like I fit in anywhere comfortably. I have an uncomfortable suspicion that my allegiance lies most closely with the utopian socialists of the early 1900s (you know, H.G. Wells, eugenics and so on). I also feel like I would have had plenty of fellow travelers in the '60s when free love and art were all the rage. I don't have much stomach for the modern identity-politics popular left, though—while we might agree on certain fundamentals (probably mostly in economics, shared opposition to conservative politics and so on), I find myself disagreeing with a lot of the causes they pursue and the manner in which they do so. But when it comes to important stuff, like wanting to kick Tony Abbott and his party of crooks to the kerb, we're united.

(P.S. Tannin, why even bring up Labor in this discussion? They are squarely centre-right nowadays.)

Edit: I went against my better judgement and read the article in the OP. it's actually pretty reasonable (well, relatively speaking, considering its source is an anti-intellectual, practically Quadrantesque men's rights activist journal). Most of the examples of cultural-studies leftist overreach he cites are actually pretty terrible, and every single one of them does (or should) make any sensible progressive bang their head against the table in despair. But I think claims of a 'civil war' are greatly exaggerated.

[Tannin]

[Tannin]