Groupthink and tribalism in the Progressive Left

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This is a complex and nuanced subject, so I do ask of everyone to read my posts thoroughly before responding.

There is a trend that I have noticed among Progressives the past several years that I found somewhat alarming. But that is not to say that this reflects all of a significant majority of the Left, but only that I have noticed enough of its presence to warrant concern. I want to be careful to avoid sweeping generalizations: terms like the Left, Libral, Progressives, feminism, woke, SJWs, etc. are extremely broad and refer to diverse groups with diverse points of view. In all honesty, I do not have access to any data regarding how prevalent groupthink is within the Left, but it appears to common among many of the most vocal elements. Additionally, I am not approaching this matter from a Conservative perspective. I consider myself Left-leaning, and consider the Right to be full of toxic and harmful ideologies ranging from the poorly informed to the outright malignant. I am in no way defending any Conservative ideologies. We all need to be willing to look in the mirror and acknowledge our shortcomings and mistakes.

So with that out of the way, the matter I'd like to discuss is the groupthink I've noticed among many Leftists and Left-leaning media outlets. Even when we start with the best of intentions, we are still human and are all susceptible to the pitfalls of groupthink and tribalism. This groupthink often surrounds the ideas that all men/white people have no real or significant problems regardless of poverty or disability, and an overall inability to distinguish the difference between demographics and individuals. The tribalism can be seen in the ways that individuals considered privileged or oppressive (i.e. men/white people) are attacked without provocation, often in contexts in which their struggles and adversities and dismissed and trivialized. I've personally experienced this a number of times: like the time after coming out of a relationship with an extremely abusive woman, many assumed that I must have abused her because I'm a man. Or the time I was unemployed and homeless, and was told by a bunch of feminists that I was just to lazy to hold a job. The idea that a man could face financial adversity and homelessness or be abused by a woman does not fit within progressive groupthink.

Of course racism, sexism, and homophobia exist. I am not attempting to dispel any of that and to do so would be absurd. Of course there's systemic racism and white privilege is a very real thing in our society. I am not disputing that. But what I take issue with is when people who grossly misunderstand and misrepresent what it means as being that all white people are somehow immune to all form of hardship. For example, a list of supposed white privileges that includes gems like "all white people can afford to live in safe upscale neighborhoods". The list also says that record stores and labels only sell music by white artists, which we all know is factually incorrect. This tells me that the people who like to copy and paste this list online probably don't even bother to read it first, let alone fact-check any of it.

I was homeless when a certain billionaire celebrity took it upon herself to lecture impoverished white people about our privileges. Now, I do understand that when all else is equal, a homeless white person still has certain privileges compared to a homeless black person. But that doesn't mean that its appropriate to lecture struggling people about how privileged they are. Regardless of her race, Oprah Whinfrey is still among the 0.001% most privileged individuals on this entire planet, and it is never the place of a billionaire to lecture impoverished and homeless people about their privilege. Yet, in the current cultural climate this kind of sh!t is somehow considered acceptable.

Male privilege is another subject of Leftist groupthink. Male privilege is a valid topic of discussion when handled with nuance by educated individuals. However, it is quiet often handled clumsily by the poorly qualified. I fully acknowledge the many problems and struggles women face, and I have no interest whatsoever in starting some kind of "who has it worse" pity contest. All I'm saying is that men face a large number of varying struggles and problems. The point isn't to say that men have it worse then women; only that men do face problems too. Some examples is the skyrocketing suicide rates among men or the fact that men make up 75% of the homeless population and over 90% of work-caused fatalities. Many feminists and progressives like to either downplay, trivialize, or outright dismiss the problems men face.

For example, men make up the vast majority of war and battle field casualties. The way feminists like to flip this on its side is by saying that its because women are barred from military service. And to be fair, women should be allowed to enlist in the military if they like, and barring them because of their gender is discriminatory and unfair. However, women are not dying violent senseless deaths by the thousands every day as a result of being barred from service, while men are taught its our duty to fight and die and our deaths are trivialized. If you prioritize women's desire to serve over the realities of violence and death men have been perpetually facing for the entirety of our species existence, I'd say that's pretty f****d up.

Rallies and conferences dedicated to discussing men's issues are often disrupted by hateful mobs of feminists who harass and assault attendees, illegally trigger fire alarms, bully venues into canceling event outright, and in some case even make threats of violence to the organizers.

Some years ago, a group of Australian feminists led by Clementine Ford organized a campaign of harassment and violence against an intellectually disabled man in Melbourne. His crime: asking a woman on the tram for a high five. As always, the rights and safety of the developmentally handicapped came under attack in the name of "progress". While it is understandable that misunderstandings do occur, simply asking a few questions would have quickly cleared the matter; according to reports, Ben was a regular on the tram and the driver knew about his handicap. The only outlet I could find reporting on these events is an anti-feminist website, as the Left-leaning mainstream Australian media outlets would not touch a story this embarrassing to their agenda. And while I do acknowledge this website's bias, they did include all the relevant social media posts that support the accuracy of this story.

A hot topic in the discussion of male privilege is the Apex Fallacy. One of the popular arguments among proponents of male privilege is that the majority wealth and power is controlled by men. The counter argument is that it isn't "men" who control wealth and power, but a small subset of men. The majority of men have no more wealth or power than most women do. Many feminists hate the Apex Fallacy because it conflicts with their groupthink interpretation of male privilege, but they are utterly incapable of refuting it with any data or logical argument. So instead they scramble to come up with desperate mental gymnastics to dismiss it.

Here's an example I found on Twitter:

Notice how these writers construct a straw man of the apex fallacy. The apex fallacy is relevant only discussions about male privilege, not white privilege. Nobody has ever claimed that it has anything to do with race dynamics. Please stop with the smoke and mirrors and stay on the topic of how the apex fallacy relates to male privilege. Thank you.

Another matter I'd like to shed light on is the controversy surrounding Islam and Islamophobia. For context, I am an atheist and a former Muslim from a Muslim family. I want to make a distinction between the discrimination against Muslims and violations of the rights both in Western countries and international politics, which are very real issues in the world today; and discussions and critiques of Islamic culture and teachings. Many progressives and liberals seem to struggle understand this distinction.

Islamic teaches that women should submit to men, permits and endorses slavery, calls for the subjugation of religious minorities and the murder of apostates and homosexuals. While progressives are always quick to call out and condemn Christianity and Christians for endorsing most of these same issues, many of them refuse to acknowledge the presence of these same issues in Islam and even accuse those who do of Islamophobia and racism. I'm neither a lover nor defender of Christianity; I'm just pointing out the double standard and logical inconsistency.

Finally, I'd like to bring up how the Left is dismissive of neurodiversity. I think most of us on WB are aware that the neurodiverse are among the most marginalized groups in society. While proudly proclaiming to be the champions of diversity and minority rights, they continue to exclude us. I personally have been in many arguments with so-called progressives and called every name in the book for identifying as a member of marginalized group with their approval. They fancy themselves the arbiters of who is and isn't oppressed, and nobody that doesn't neatly fall into a minority category they recognize is allowed to be acknowledged as oppressed or marginalized.

Of course, many will just try to drown me out and dogpile me with accusations of being an alt-right racist misogynist Nazi, as is always their want whenever they encounter anyone with arguments they dislike but cannot refute with facts or logic.

In closing, I ask that you consider the following: if your kneejerk reaction to my post is to angrily dismiss me as some right wing bigot, then I urge you to reflect on your own views and attitudes. If you find yourself reacting defensively and irrationally, that is likely a sign that you are engaging in tribalistic groupthink. We all need to step back and self-reflect from time to time.

I'm not sure the people who misrepresent white privilege to mean that all white people are better off than everyone else, or misrepresent male privilege to mean that all men are better off than everyone else, are really cases of "groupthink". That's just not a mainstream position among progressives.

There will always be people who are progressive in some way and conservative in others. There are even conservatives who co-opt progressive messages - TERFs are the classic example, "white feminists" (different from feminists who are white) are another, and of course there are plenty more. But in general, I don't think it's fair to say that progressives or the left are dismissive of neurodiversity.

I also don't think it's accurate to say that progressives don't criticise Islam. Progressives tend to be quick to draw the distinction between individual Muslims who do bad things, the bad elements of Islam, and Muslims as a whole as well as Islam as it is typically practiced in Western countries. When a group of Muslim teachers protested against their children being taught LGBT+ inclusivity outside a school in Birmingham, people were quick to criticise them. People are quick to criticise over-sensitivity regarding cartoons. People are very willing to criticise the regimes in countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan, which are motivated by a conservative form of Islam.

As for the apex fallacy, I don't think it applies to most discussions around male privilege. The median man makes more money than the median woman - particularly over the age of 40. Hopefully the small gap we see in people under 40 will remain roughly the same as the current population ages, but there's a very clear gap historically which shows that men as a whole do tend to earn more than women. This isn't just a case of a few billionaires skewing the figures. Of course, most women will earn more than some men, and some women will earn more than most men, but the average man earns more than the average woman.

Figures for the UK: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlab ... theuk/2021

I think we are talking about two different subsets.

There are many academics and activists who are well educated in social issues and understand the nuances of how many factors effects individuals in unique ways and engage in these discussions in intelligent ways. Which are whom you seem to be thinking of. These people are not who I was talking about.

I am thinking about the people who just see social causes as a bandwagon to jump onto to make themselves feel superior. People like these have a very shallow and poor understanding of the issues they claim to champion that amounts to all men/white people are bad or have no real problems. They are more interested in congratulating themselves for being such great heroes than making any actual effort to improve anything or help anyone. I do not claim to know how much of the Left is made up of these types of people, but I've found it a general rule that loudest people are often the dumbest or most extreme.

Have you forgotten this video exist?

Both the extreme Right and extreme Left practice a considerable amount of tribalism, and indulge in considerable “group-think.”

There is little room for individualism within both extremes.

I was asked to join a Troskyite group once. They reminded me of a cult—the same dull, compliant voices as people like the Moonies.

Rule #1.
Expect people to try and take advantage of any weakness you may possess.
Moon the Moonies.

Dumb people with shallow understandings that lack nuance seems to be a pretty broad problem that seems to impact the entire political spectrum. Definitely the left isn't immune to this issue.

My experience is that the numbers and voices of this group are so dominant that they even crowd out other voices on the left. Then the outside world often only hears this special opinion.
And I as "other voice" can't think of any solution.
I have no right to stop this special opinion. And denying or downplaying their existence is a disservice to their victims.

I don't think every point the OP said is accurate. But I will sympathize with him.

The idea that poverty is not a significant source of difficulty, even for white men, is obviously ridiculous. What kinds of people have been telling you that??? Anyone who says such a thing needs to be told to check their class privilege.

Whoever has been saying such things, I would hazard a guess that they aren't serious left-wing political activists.

On the other hand, even many serious left-wing political activists tend not to pay much attention to disability issues, and even less so to issues affecting neurodivergent people. Disability rights activists sometimes refer to folks like this as PEAs (progressive except ablist).

Why are there so many PEAs? Probably because disabled people, especially neurodivergent people, aren't yet organized enough to be a member-in-good-standing of the alliance of marginalized minorities.

Back in the 1960's, feminists had the same problem of not being taken seriously by the Left, and for the same reason.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 12 Apr 2022, 10:38 am, edited 4 times in total.

It seems to me that propagandists on the Right act to ensure that the voices of this group are more easily heard than those of the more "reasonable" commentators. I suppose that there is a complementary process happening at the other end of the political spectrum, but nowadays the Right seems to have put far more effort and money into developing and refining this sort of propaganda technique.

There have always been plenty of people whose primary aim in life is to be fashionable, and who will do whatever is "cool" at the moment, just so they can sneer at people who aren't quite as "cool" as they are.

We happen to live in a highly politicized era. So, being fashionable today means having fashionable political opinions -- whereas, in most other eras here in the U.S.A. at least within my lifetime, being fashionable revolved more around other things, like clothing, hairstyles, musical tastes, living in a trendy neighborhood, etc.

Obviously, someone who adopts a political stance merely because it is fashionable is less likely to think about it very deeply than someone who adopts it for a more intrinsic reason.

I grew up in another highly-politicized era, the 1960's. I vaguely recall, when I was growing up, various people complaining about how young people were being pressured by their peers to have fashionable political opinions (as well as being pressured to use recreational drugs, etc.). I didn't experience very much such pressure when I got into high school, so I concluded that these pressures must have calmed down quite a bit by then.

An interesting question is: Why just the past several years? What changed several years ago?

Obviously, back in 2016, Trump got elected, resulting in a lot of political activism in response, on both the left and the right. A few years earlier, Black Lives Matter had exploded into national prominence, thanks mainly to the rise of cell phone video cameras plus YouTube, which made it a lot easier for ordinary people to document police brutality.

Ever since 2017 or so, there has been enough political activism to make politics in general more fashionable. IMO the rise of today's left-wing movements is mostly a good thing, but fashionability has some undesirable consequences, as I mentioned in my previous post above.

To whatever extent there are more progressives today who say ill-thought-out things, another factor is the decline of message board forums (like Wrong Planet), due to the rise of massive major social media like Facebook and Twitter.

On social media, users can block anyone they disagree with, and are encouraged to do so as a way of keeping the peace. On most message board forums, on the other hand, users can block other users from sending them private messages but NOT from posting in a public discussion.

If people can block other people from seeing or responding to their public posts, this naturally creates bubbles of people who all agree with each other, and who therefore feel free to make ill-thought-out remarks without being challenged. This, in my opinion, probably results in people putting a lot less thought into their expressed political views than they would if they were posting in a place like WP's PPR section.

The problem is that this influences how many people view discussion about social issues, and it has done a lot of damage. Activists now have to dedicate much of their time to convincing people they're not "SJWs". And many seem to have responded by going to the opposite extreme end and joined the far right, because humanity is hopeless.



But they have no right to drown out your voice either.



The problem in contemporary discourse is that nobody can handle opinions that conflict with their own. Everyone has forgotten that not agreeing is the whole point of discourse. Echo chambers accomplish nothing.







Depends on how you define what a serious left-wing political activist is. You could easily fall into a No True Scotsman. I'm sure they all consider themselves serious. Take for instance Linda Sarsour; an anti-Semite with ties to hate groups who was involved in the Woman's March.



And these idiots are happily supplying right-wing propagandists with all the ammo they could dream of.



Sound like you answered your own question.

I'd say the extreme polarization of politics and the rise of online echo chambers has a lot to do with it.

Could also be that's when I started noticing it. I'm not just talking about the existence of these views, but also their prevalence and volume.

A: Irrational
B: Rational
X: Tends to use "activity" to improve the social status of the group
Y: Tends to use actual achievements to improve social status of the group

My theory is: A has a higher degree of coincidence with X; B has a higher degree of coincidence with Y.
Therefore, the fact that the irrational voice is louder is the actual phenomenon. Although right-wing propaganda amplifies this phenomenon, it does exist.
B/Y spends more time on achieving real-world achievements, so it is harder to steal the voice from A/X. This is an energy allocation dilemma.

If I do engage in less publicity on related topics than they do, it's only natural that their voices drown me out.

On the other hand, special opinions are more newsworthy for any medium.

I don't think tribalism and groupthink are exclusively left wing behaviors, but the left isn't as "freethinking" as they like to fancy themselves. For example, if you're a progressive in most categories, but conservative in categories like gun ownership, people would eagerly jump at the chance to tear you down. The right has done this to Tomi Lahren, who came out as pro-choice, a tenet of the left of which conservatives abhor. Nobody aligns perfectly with party lines and I think this surrendering of our collective faculties to a tribunal of sociopaths does us no favors.

I never said groupthink and tribalism are exclusive to the Left.

I'm anti-Covid, anti-gun control, anti-government, anti-regulation, but very pro-choice. Why? I became a misanthrope over the years. I think humans are a garbage species, like wasps and rats. So the fewer humans get born, the better off everything is. And if abortion can reduce the human population, let's grin it and bear it; it's the price we gotta pay regardless of our political affiliations.

Well, abstinence, masturbation, porn, fantasizing, and oral sex reduce the human population too. But as people are people, and they all want to **** [copulate] genitally, we might as well keep abortion legal. Otherwise, some of the pregnancies will get carried to term, new destructive leftists are born, and they join Antifa.