Tuesday, January 18, 2011

What would a vigorous Intellectual Left look like?

Arthur in the comments to this post poses the question.  Wolfwalker takes a stab at it, and as you'd expect brings teh Smart.  But Arthur's question is a good one.  I actually think that there's not a lot to the answer.

What I don't expect is for the Left to become less tribal.  Actually, there's no need for them to try, and it would probably be futile, anyway.  Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have made Mankind a tribal animal, and to flout this is to feed our own frustration.

I also don't believe that specific policy positions are key here.  I Want A New Left covers this in detail, but I think that the Left can recover even with some losers in the policy bucket.

So what would it take?  Having thought about it, I think only three things are needed.  Simple (although we'll come back to this).

Be consistent.

The Left lives in a world where it wants to have its cake and eat it too.  I can't blame them for that - I mean, we all want this - but the rest of us realize that we can't expect life to work this way.  This is the first major area where the MSM makes the left feeble, by allowing them to think that they can get away with a double standard, that they can expect one standard by which their side gets measured, and a different one for their enemies.

The Internet has entirely shattered the MSM's ability to control this dialog, but the Left got soft and lazy back when the media covered for them.  Now there's no place to hide, and so it's plain for anyone to see when someone is talking out of both sides of their mouths.

The "Sarah Palin is responsible for the Tucson murders" meme is only the latest in a long line of inconsistency.  The Left (rightly) puffs itself up about, say, the McCarthy period, where lots of people were unfairly tarred with collective guilt.  It was wrong then, as everyone is taught in school.  Well, it's wrong today, too.

I don't bring this up because it's immoral to use this sort of double standard against your opponents, although it is.  The problem for the Left is that it's ineffective.  Alinsky may have been right in the 1960s when the MSM would cover for your tribe, but quite frankly none of you are smart enough to really pull it off in the Internet Age where information wants to - and will - be free.  Let me repeat: nobody on the Left is smart enough to pull this off, as the New York Times has discovered to its dismay.

So give it up, because you'll have to become stronger if you become consistent.  Palin (or Reagan) is dumb, Tea Partiers are racists, Bill Clinton is a feminist - these tropes are staples of the Left, and are blather of a quite shockingly low quality.  While they may be very fun indeed on the Upper West Side, they're holding the Left back.  As you become more consistent, your arguments will get less stupid, and you'll start convincing more people.

Police your own.

It's a cliche that the Left refuses to maintain any sense of decorum on its own side - pas d'enemies a gauche.  The problem is that the MSM is no longer able to cover up the indiscretions of their tribe.  Look, we're going to find out that Bill Clinton is a philandering SOB.  We're going to find out that the Tea Partiers didn't shout racial epithets at the Congressional Black Caucus.  We're going to find out that the Tucson murderer didn't listen to Talk Radio or Sarah Palin.  We're going to find out that Global Warming doesn't cause record cold winters.

I don't expect you not to be tribal, just to apply the same standards to your own tribe (or close to the same, at least) as you apply to the other tribe.  We're going to find out anyway.

This sort of scortched earth tribalism (e.g. the National Organization of Women sticking up for Bill Clinton, of all people) may be good tactics, and effective signalling behavior to others in your tribe.  But in the long run, it's what's led you to the current disastrous state for the Left: very few women self identify as feminists, many fewer people self identify as environmentalists, only around 20% of people self identify as Democrats.  Each time you tell yourself that while he may be an SOB, he's our SOB, another potential supporter shifts from your column to the undecided middle, or from the middle to the other tribe's column.

I appeal to the Left's intelligence here - how do you really think you look calling Sarah Palin dumb while ignoring Joe Biden?  You make yourself look absurd, and weak.


People figure this sort of thing out, because in the Internet Age information wants to - and will - be free.  So call out your own.  You'll be quite shocked at how much support this will get you.

Stick up for Good Governance.

You need the first two for this to be credible, but (a) the Left is the tribe of Big Government, so it has a vested interest in Good Governance, and (b) the general population wants government to work reasonably well.  This is potentially a huge winner in the ballot box, but only if people believe that the Left will push the Government to govern in society's interest.

It's the Left that should be leading the charge against Regulatory Capture (but isn't).  It's the Left that should be leading the charge to fix broken entitlement programs (but isn't).  It's the Left that should be leading the charge to increase the efficiency of governmental agencies (but isn't).

And that's an enormous problem for the Left, in a very practical sense.  Every time they ask society to, say, let the EPA assume massive regulatory control over energy consumption, they run bang up against most people's gut feel that the EPA are a bunch of dolts, or in thrall to the Environmental Movement, or in thrall to both the Environmental Movement and Big Energy.  Until the Left polices its own here, they won't have - or deserve - the voter's trust.

That's all.  Like I said, simples.  Ah, but there's the rub.  As Clauswitz said, everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.  And so too, here.  The Left has tried to cheat its way through for a long, long time now.  It's used to it, and used to the MSM covering for them.  They're used to opposing views being suppressed at the University.

They wouldn't stand for this, if it were being done for the benefit of their enemies.  Be consistent.  All this makes them intellectually weak.  Police your own.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of your philosophy of Big Government is in a government that works effectively.  Insist on good governance.  This would make your tribe much, much stronger.


Quite frankly, nothing here would be considered radical to John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, or even Daniel Patrick Moynahan.  People know this - everyone but you, it seems.

This post is long enough already, so I'll apply what this means to different policy positions in another post.

10 comments:

Lissa said...

Oh, well done, sir!

ASM826 said...

I'd chastise you for putting this out there so plainly and helping their cause, but I'm quite sure they aren't capable of following such simple advice.

Great post.

wolfwalker said...

Good stuff, Borepatch. Your points 1 and 2 perfectly catch the things that drove me away from the Democratic Party, [mumble] years ago.

I think I might add a fourth point, though: show an understanding of human nature. Leftists have a disturbing habit of treating people as robots -- completely controlled by their existing programming, unable to change on their own, but easy to change from the outside. The idea that ordinary folk are capable of independent thought, of analysis, of learning, of self-control -- it's completely alien to the Left. One sees this throughout Leftist philosophy, from the belief that people have to be forced to do what's good for them, to the belief that non-western people can't be expected to behave up to western standards.

Jehu said...

The democratic party could totally realign the country if they did at least one of three things:

1) Surrender unconditionally on the disparate impact/affirmative action/diversity issue. Basically declare the civil rights war won and stop fighting it---in fact, stop tracking it or giving a media platform to those that wish to do so.
or
2) Get behind operation wetback II, retroactively revoke birthright citizenship of anyone who has dual citizenship in another nation and whose parents weren't US citizens (this applies to most Mexican anchor babies, who are considered Mexican citizens by Mexican law). Take the change of demographic hegemony off the table and put electing a new people beyond the pale of reasonable discourse.
3) Take Roe v Wade off the table. Declare the decision to be wrong and remove the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over such things (you can do that with an act of Congress). Let the issue devolve to the states. Do this and the so-called 'religious right' will largely demobilize on the national scene and will largely revert to a separation from the world stance.
Doing any of those 3, and there are good liberal reasons to do any one you pick, will realign US politics radically. Any Democratic presidential nominee would win in a landslide with a credible commitment to do any one of those 3 things.

wolfwalker said...

Problem is, Jehu, there are also good reasons not to do any of those things ... although they aren't necessarily good liberal reasons.

1) the civil rights war has not been won -- not completely, at any rate. There is still unjustified discrimination going on in our culture. And the traditional 'minorities' aren't the only ones suffering from it. In some arenas, the pendulum has swung so far that the discrimination now goes the other way.

2) a retroactive act of any kind would violate the Constitution's prohibition of ex post facto laws, not to mention screwing over a lot of people who are genuine, honest, honorable, loyal United States citizens.

3) while Roe v. Wade was a bad decision and made for bad law, revoking it and denying the Supreme Court jurisdiction over abortion cases opens a whole new can of worms. Namely, what do you do when a Bible Belt state says that abortion is murder and jails a fifteen-year-old rape victim, or a woman with a medical condition that means pregnancy would kill her? Never mind the argument over 'optional' abortions, or abortion as a birth control method -- there are in fact women alive right now, right here in the United States, for whom pregnancy would be a death sentence. What do you tell them?

one of the things that makes it so damn hard to stand against liberalism is that in a lot of cases, the things they're griping about are real problems, that need real solutions.

Kermit said...

I think wolfwalker hit at least part of the nail: liberals like to treat people as fixed constants, robots. But this is only part of it.

See, you tell a robot what to do, and it does it. If you command a robot, you have power over that robot.

For the rank-and-file liberals, I blame their liberalism on poor education and indoctrination from an early age. It's from these liberals that we get the saying, "If you're 20 and conservative, you're heartless; but if you're 40 and liberal, you're brainless." They're all heart and no thought, as they've been taught and raised to be.

But I cannot extend this dubious courtesy of "exoneration through ignorance/stupidity" to those in charge. A rank-and-file liberal is content to do as he's told. A liberal "leader" wants to do the telling.

It's about power. The liberal leaders, whether they admit it or not, don't care about the particulars of this or that pet cause, or that two pet causes are mutually exclusive. The causes are a means to an end with them; an end that grants them power over their fellow man. It matters less what they are telling others to do than it does that they are able to command others. The double standard which allows them to castigate and punish others for the acts they too commit only comes naturally; they're in charge, therefore they get to decide what's right for whom. Consistency, self-policing, and good governance have no place in their world; they're in charge and they get to make the rules. Their pawns in the media and academia also hold some measure of this power, and are equally, if not more reluctant to relinquish said power over their viewers and students.

I seriously doubt you'll ever see such thing as a "vigorous, intellectual, consistent Left," because the Left has never been about honest intellectualism or consistency. It's always been about power over other people.

wolfwalker said...

Kermit: They're all heart and no thought, as they've been taught and raised to be.

I think this is a bit of an oversimplification. Remember, these are people we're talking about, not robots. :-). The typical twenty-year-old is just coming out of the most traumatic period of his/her life-to-date: the five years or so in which they learn just how unfair life can be, both to themselves and to others. Wanting to change that, to create a more fair, more just society ... well, who wouldn't? It's the next twenty years, the inevitable wearing-down of ideals by reality, that turns people into 'conservatives' who think before they act.

But I cannot extend this dubious courtesy of "exoneration through ignorance/stupidity" to those in charge. A rank-and-file liberal is content to do as he's told. A liberal "leader" wants to do the telling.

I agree completely. The progressive movement was born of a desire to throw out the old ruling class and replace it with a new one ... but for the leaders of the movement, replacing the ruling system was never part of the equation. They didn't actually want to put the People in charge. They only wanted to throw out the aristocrats and then get the goodies for themselves. The power, the money, the women, and most of all, the authority and respect.

I can't help noting that the very term "rank-and-file liberal" (or rank-and-file conservative) illustrates this. 'Rank-and-file' originally referred to soldiers: in a parade formation, a rank is a row of soldiers, a file is a column. In the minds of their generals, infantrymen existed only to fill out the army's ranks and files, to march, to charge the enemy, to kill ... and to die. They weren't people; they were things. Too many political leaders still think of their constituents as just rank-and-file soldiers, not people.

The Tea Party has (I hope) begun to change this for the Right. What the rank-and-file Left really needs is a Tea Party of their own -- a true grassroots movement to revert to the old goals of the Left and make them real goals again, instead of tools used by cynical leaders to keep themselves on top and the rank-and-filers on the bottom.

Kermit said...

wolfwalker: The typical twenty-year-old is just coming out of the most traumatic period of his/her life-to-date: the five years or so in which they learn just how unfair life can be, both to themselves and to others. Wanting to change that, to create a more fair, more just society ... well, who wouldn't? It's the next twenty years, the inevitable wearing-down of ideals by reality, that turns people into 'conservatives' who think before they act.

We're actually in agreement on this point; it's why I gave that old adage about "heartless" and "brainless." A friend of mine at work grew up being taught to accept all things liberal; for this, I fault his education/indoctrination as a child/teen. However, he is smart enough, and willing enough, to question what he has been taught, and told me a while ago that, while he wasn't ready to reject the teachings of his youth, he has been questioning them, and is finding they don't make as much sense as he once believed. Give him another ten years, and he'll be a conservative.

wolfwalker: I can't help noting that the very term "rank-and-file liberal" (or rank-and-file conservative) illustrates this. 'Rank-and-file' originally referred to soldiers: in a parade formation, a rank is a row of soldiers, a file is a column. In the minds of their generals, infantrymen existed only to fill out the army's ranks and files, to march, to charge the enemy, to kill ... and to die. They weren't people; they were things. Too many political leaders still think of their constituents as just rank-and-file soldiers, not people.

Which brings us back to your original point, that the liberal leaders have a tendency to treat the "rank and file" liberals as just that, rank and file, troops, or robots, as you put it. As my friend is demonstrating, they are not robots, and do not behave as such. And like the power-hungry despot who realizes to his dismay that his people do not "love" him as he wishes, following in lockstep to his every decree, they know no other recourse than to "double down" on the rhetoric and coercion. Some of the "rank and file" will buckle under. Some will rebel. I think the recent attempted pillorying of Sarah Palin, blaming her for the attempted assassination of a sitting US Congresswoman, the murders of six other people, and the wounding of 13 more, resulting in a conflicting mess of opinions from the "talking head press," is a perfect example of this. A few knuckled under, and even now continue to press the idea that it's somehow the fault of Palin and the Tea Party; a great many recognized such position as pure folly, and immediately decried such posturing (even though they then made vague blame-attributing references to the "overall political climate," they still recognized the "blame Palin/Tea Party/Sasquatch/etc" meme was a losing schtick; I think they're just trying to play both ends against the middle for self-preservation at this point).

And BTW, by my own reiteration of "heartless/brainless," I've always been "heartless." I blame my parents for teaching me to think for myself at an early age...

Mark Alger said...

BP;

Nicely done, but I must demur on one point, and I'm afraid it's a fundamental error -- a false premise, if you will. You appear to ascribe good faith to the Left's leadership; there is none. They intend the destruction of Western Civilization and the enslavement of its inhabitants, citizens, and subjects to its (the Left's) failed brainfart ideology. That is to say there are no unintended consequences here, and there are no failures of epistemology. They mean what they say and do, make no bones about it.

If you find this difficult to swallow, ask yourself this: if they are not all I say, then how exactly would their words and deeds differ if they were?

M

Jehu said...

Wolfwalker,
Every policy decision, including the 3 I suggest for the Democrats screws someone. Anyone who pretends otherwise is either an idiot or a liar. I favor all 3 of these positions, but I cite those particular 3 because they would fracture the existing political coalitions in the US.