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beneficii
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09 Sep 2019, 7:03 pm

I'm reading this interesting article here:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... eactionary

It's about the rise of anti-liberal movements. Later on, it goes into the mistakes that modern liberals have made, such as by not meeting people where they are (for example, by simply dismissing out of hand people's concerns about declining living standards), as well as the failure to explain how right now in this moment liberalism can improve things. It also goes into an interesting argument against liberals who attack "identity politics":

Quote:
The third and final unsatisfying liberal response, the one that frustrates me the most, is lashing out at the wrong enemies.

One of the most common genres in modern American punditry is the attack on “identity politics” and “political correctness.” Liberalism’s defenders on both the center-left and center-right frequently pinpoint today’s young people and college kids, with their “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” and gender-neutral pronouns, as being a looming threat to free speech and core liberal values — the tip of a spear aimed at the multicultural left.

Books like The Once and Future Liberal, Columbia professor Mark Lilla’s post-Trump opus, argue for a need to move beyond “identity liberalism”; liberal essayists warn that practitioners of “identity politics” are corroding the soul of American liberalism.

“The modern far left has borrowed the Marxist critique of liberalism and substituted race and gender identities for economic ones,” Jonathan Chait wrote in a 2015 New York magazine feature. “While politically less threatening than conservatism (the far right still commands far more power in American life), the p.c. left is actually more philosophically threatening. It is an undemocratic creed.”

But there is scant persuasive evidence that America’s young left-wing activists are turning against free speech or other core liberal values. The argument also betrays a misunderstanding of the relationship between identity politics and Marxism, as well as an underestimation of the degree to which right-wing anti-liberalism has become a part of the modern Republican Party.

Most importantly, the liberal war on identity politics is a mistake philosophically. It misunderstands the rising energy surrounding identity issues as a threat to liberalism when it’s actually sowing the seeds of liberal renewal.

One of liberalism’s historical sources of strength is seeing the world for what it is, adapting its doctrines to fit changing realities rather than trying to make the world fit an older version of liberalism. Modern liberals need to do the same with the problems raised by its current critics. They — we — need to recognize that there are serious flaws in liberalism as it exists. Leftists are correct that neoliberal faith in the market was far too devout; conservatives are right that liberals have been too inattentive to the importance of community.

But liberal adaptation to change is not merely a process of self-flagellation. It also involves identifying what new ideas are bubbling up that can be adapted to strengthen liberalism, pinpointing the raw materials for generating enthusiastic new liberal movements and visions. The obsessive focus on a handful of overeager college organizers and professors is a mistake; it obscures the undeniable fact that organization around group identity has helped create a number of vital political movements that are defending liberalism’s central component parts.


This I think definitely merits some discussion, particularly once I finish the article. :D


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Antrax
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09 Sep 2019, 7:58 pm

Nice find. I found this passage:

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Many modern liberals, including some brilliant and well-regarded thinkers, do not seem up to the task of defending liberalism from its newest wave of critics. They lean on old arguments persuasive largely to other liberals, doing little to counteract the narrative of crisis from which the new illiberalism gets its force. It feels like the liberalism we have is musty, grown soft from its Cold War victory and unwilling to grapple with an opposition very different from what came before it.

The first of these unsatisfying arguments, which I associate most closely with Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, is that the narrative of a world in crisis is simply wrong. On every conceivable metric, the world is getting better — extreme poverty is declining, life expectancy is going up, deaths from war and violence are on the decline. If things are generally doing well, where’s the need for radical change?

I happen to find the data behind this view persuasive, and indeed have argued that it’s a compelling case for cautious optimism about humanity’s future. It’s not, however, a particularly good defense of liberalism at the moment.


I fall into the author's definition of liberal and basically have tried making this argument over and over again, only to be unconvincing to people. I disagree with the author's statement that this extends only to the developing world, as there are a number of metrics showing it is true for the developed world as well.

It's the right argument and the point is not to abandon it but to make it more convincing. Be able to reach people that feel its not the case.

I think the problem is a "the grass is always greener." It's much easier to sell people on change than the status quo. Especially because the status quo is not perfect.


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Wolfram87
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10 Sep 2019, 3:15 am

Quote:
But there is scant persuasive evidence that America’s young left-wing activists are turning against free speech


Wait, what? In the era of "Everything I don't like is hate speech and everyone I don't like is Hitler" what exactly would then constitute "persuasive evidence" for that proposition?


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JohnPowell
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10 Sep 2019, 10:56 am

Today's liberals aren't remotely liberal


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LoveNotHate
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10 Sep 2019, 12:34 pm

JohnPowell wrote:
Today's liberals aren't remotely liberal

That's what I was thinking.

Clinton, Biden, Obama seem ike "anti-liberals".


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JohnPowell
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10 Sep 2019, 3:23 pm

They are just puppets.


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Fnord
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10 Sep 2019, 3:31 pm

Today's liberal leaders are smarmy, condescending, and over-confident that their book-learning about poor and under-privileged people is a perfect substitute for the experience of actually having been poor and under-privileged.

("Oh, I know all about that! I wrote my Master's thesis on the analysis of the Alinsky Model...")

So if a liberal leader (i.e., "Latte Liberal", "Limousine Liberal", et cetera) wants to connect or re-connect with the rest of us, he or she should show that they really are one of us, that they are no better than the rest of us, and that they really do care about all of us.


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techstepgenr8tion
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10 Sep 2019, 11:15 pm

I think one of the bigger problems that liberalism is facing right now is the communications landscape and how often it's difficult to hold a conversation without being able to select whose in it. In places like Twitter for example the problem is somewhat obvious. In any group five or ten people could be having a very heady or productive discussion and it just takes one saboteur, whether they're genuinely an ideologue or simply someone whose threatened by people speaking over their heads, they pull out a stick of dynamite and light a fuse, and if the conversation isn't over by that point it's at least deeply undermined. This is where if it seems like mental illness has been on the rise it's in part the effect of people with similar problems to group together, find each other, and raise hell for everyone else.


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11 Sep 2019, 10:18 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
I think one of the bigger problems that liberalism is facing right now is the communications landscape and how often it's difficult to hold a conversation without being able to select whose in it... In any group five or ten people could be having a very heady or productive discussion and it just takes one saboteur, whether they're genuinely an ideologue or simply someone whose threatened by people speaking over their heads... This is where if it seems like mental illness has been on the rise it's in part the effect of people with similar problems to group together, find each other, and raise hell for everyone else.
[derail]

Just about any on-line conversation is like that. Start a meaningful conversation on healthcare, and watch it get politicized and turned into a two-way war between people on the Left and on the Right. Discuss relationships and someone will inevitably jump in and complain over and over about all the mean girls who date only bad boys. Talk about the joys of touring the "Holy Land", and the conversation soon devolves into the latest theories involving Zionist conspirators.

It's gotten to the point where I rarely start a thread of my own; instead I usually try to wait a page or two to see how the conversation is developing before chiming in.

Sad.


[/derail]


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11 Sep 2019, 11:06 am

If the Left embraced identity politics, it was inevitable the Right would too, hence white nationalism and its offshoots. Anytime you speak to one tribe only, then the other tribes start wondering who you're for or against.

I've been a lifelong Democrat, but some of the things Trump says make sense to me, as when he points out the shame of the Democrats--that is, Michigan's water, Detroit's bankruptcy, Chicago's crime, and California's homeless. I don't know how the Democrats can let the homeless just camp out right outside people's homes and let the people's children pick up the used needles left behind by drug addicts and deal with all the problems. That right there, and bad water, and crime, is going to flip a lot of Democrats.

Libs may fear looking bad by getting tough on crime or tough on homeless, but they are gonna get slaughtered in middle America. Nobody really wants to pass a bum in their driveway or outside their front door every day on the way to work, nobody. Order and public safety really "trump" a lot of other issues, without that one building block of civilization, nothing else matters to many people. I am pretty happy living in a red state, and it makes me wonder when I look at California, or bankrupt Detroit, what is so special about Democrats?


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beneficii
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11 Sep 2019, 6:48 pm

Gentleman Argentum wrote:
If the Left embraced identity politics, it was inevitable the Right would too, hence white nationalism and its offshoots. Anytime you speak to one tribe only, then the other tribes start wondering who you're for or against.

I've been a lifelong Democrat, but some of the things Trump says make sense to me, as when he points out the shame of the Democrats--that is, Michigan's water, Detroit's bankruptcy, Chicago's crime, and California's homeless. I don't know how the Democrats can let the homeless just camp out right outside people's homes and let the people's children pick up the used needles left behind by drug addicts and deal with all the problems. That right there, and bad water, and crime, is going to flip a lot of Democrats.

Libs may fear looking bad by getting tough on crime or tough on homeless, but they are gonna get slaughtered in middle America. Nobody really wants to pass a bum in their driveway or outside their front door every day on the way to work, nobody. Order and public safety really "trump" a lot of other issues, without that one building block of civilization, nothing else matters to many people. I am pretty happy living in a red state, and it makes me wonder when I look at California, or bankrupt Detroit, what is so special about Democrats?


They're special because they actually support things like universal health care, which the Republicans refuse to even consider.

It is true that the blue states have a higher rate of homelessness than red states:

https://endhomelessness.org/homelessnes ... ss-report/

Looking at California, the homelessness problem in California, in my opinion, boils down to 3 things:

1.) Lots of localities with zoning policies that favor upper-class and upper middle-class housing.

2.) The climate.

3.) This one I don't think is mentioned enough. California provides decent public services that most red states refuse to provide and that people can't get from the feds. When people are desperate and not getting help from their local and state governments, they may consider a move to California; they may think being homeless for a time in California can't be any worse than their current situation. California (and other blue states) actually bear a heavier burden than the red states in this matter, vis-a-vis the federal government. You can see this in how red states are much more dependent on the federal government than the blue states:

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-l ... ment/2700/

The solution to me is:

1.) Change the zoning policies and build more housing for the lower-class, including things like apartments.

2.) Have the red states implement adequate public services, and if they refuse, have the federal government implement them. We need to help ease California's and the other blue states' burden, the rest of the country should adopt these services to prevent people from migrating to blue states in search of help. The red states need to do their share.

Just going in and beating up and locking up homeless people isn't a solution; it's a band-aid, and a poison one at that.


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