by Here:[embedded content]Yes, it is true that the Old Left was, broadly speaking, socially conservative, and certainly by modern standards. They did have their Bohemian fringe as well, however.But it remains true, for example, that, as late as the time of Clement Attlee’s premiership in Britain, the UK Labour party continued to support the illegality of abortion and homosexual acts, and the government itself did not even abolish the death penalty (despite a movement within the party for the abolition of capital punishment). There was no doubt a lot of hostility to homosexuality too, because this was the cultural norm back then. I would not doubt that many on the Old Left shared in a type of excessive and ugly racial feeling too and intolerance of other races.Anarchopac complains that there was hatred and persecution of gay people on the Old Left. Correct.But to call for a return to something like Old Left politics now – as well as the contention that the extreme aspects of the modern cultural leftism and SJWism are a disaster and should be abandoned – does not require that we return to open persecution or hatred towards gay or transgender people at all, or any of the inhumane social ideas that characterised that era. It just means ditching all the false, divisive, and intellectually feeble nonsense on the left that was pushed too far.
Topics:
Lord Keynes considers the following as important: Anarchopac on the Old Left
This could be interesting, too:
Yes, it is true that the Old Left was, broadly speaking, socially conservative, and certainly by modern standards. They did have their Bohemian fringe as well, however.
But it remains true, for example, that, as late as the time of Clement Attlee’s premiership in Britain, the UK Labour party continued to support the illegality of abortion and homosexual acts, and the government itself did not even abolish the death penalty (despite a movement within the party for the abolition of capital punishment). There was no doubt a lot of hostility to homosexuality too, because this was the cultural norm back then. I would not doubt that many on the Old Left shared in a type of excessive and ugly racial feeling too and intolerance of other races.
Anarchopac complains that there was hatred and persecution of gay people on the Old Left. Correct.
But to call for a return to something like Old Left politics now – as well as the contention that the extreme aspects of the modern cultural leftism and SJWism are a disaster and should be abandoned – does not require that we return to open persecution or hatred towards gay or transgender people at all, or any of the inhumane social ideas that characterised that era.
It just means ditching all the false, divisive, and intellectually feeble nonsense on the left that was pushed too far. Nor does it mean that you think the Old Left got everything right.
Despite Anarchopac, identity politics – the outgrowth of Postmodernism, cultural relativism, truth relativism, the abandonment of serious economic thinking – has ruined the left.
Also, what is so ridiculous about cultural leftists is their narrative that they are some underdog – some kind of radical minority fighting the man and speaking truth to power. This is such bullsh*t.
Generally speaking, it is utterly easy and socially acceptable to virtue signal about gay rights, feminism, transgender rights, and refugee rights all day long on Facebook or wherever. In fact, in polite, educated middle class society it is probably the expected thing to do to fit in.
But try talking about the real disaster of mass immigration, or open borders, or Islamism from an Old Left perspective, and watch the hysterical abuse and slanders fly.
Even more significantly, many of the large capitalist corporations and corporate culture are all about diversity, multiculturalism and gay rights, as has been shown by Walter Benn Michaels in The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality (New York, 2006) (see here and here on this).
You cultural leftists actually won the culture war. So many of the minorities and marginalised people who feature prominently in your narratives are treated, if anything, with remarkable privilege, e.g., affirmative action, laws to stop discrimination, hate speech laws, etc.
Even worse, in the culture you have helped to construct, white heterosexual men – and especially white heterosexual working class men – are subjected to the most vicious and incredible demonisation and abuse. If anything, they are sometimes portrayed as the most evil people ever, and their lives can be easily devalued in culture with no serious consequences. E.g., a feminist personality can tweet #killallwhitemen on Twitter, and it is widely shrugged off as “just being edgy.”
How are you so stupid that you don’t see this? Gay marriage is becoming the norm in the Western world. Feminism and diversity is preached in the mainstream media. Governments generally support it and push it. The universities preach it.
Cultural leftism, broadly speaking, is our mainstream culture.
You cultural leftists are not some radical fringe as you were in 1960s.
Instead, you are a large part of the elite and elite culture.