Liberalism vs Social-Authoritarian Leftism – Reexamining Identity Politics

 

 

I'm continuing my series on liberalism vs social-authoritarian leftism.  I consider large swaths of the left to have become socially-authoritarian and illiberal.  I see them using social violence to force their politics, which is why I say that they're social-authoritarians.  The group that I've come to call the Social Violence Warriors are abusive and illiberal.  I feel that they've betrayed the left and betrayed America.

 

There's more than one way to be on the left.

 

Today's topic is identity politics.  I support equality and rights for everybody by everybody and respect to everybody from everybody, but I respectfully disagree with some of the leftist ideas about this issue.  So, I'll be talking about how I see a lot of leftists talking about it, why I disagree about subtle points, and what I think.

 

To What Extent Does Perspective Really Effect Opinion?

 

I hear the new left talking a lot about perspective.  Its adherents claim, first of all, that members of oppressed groups all have similar perspectives as members of the oppressed group, that members of traditionally oppressive groups have common perspectives, likewise, and, finally, that perspective significantly influences opinion.  It's certainly true that we have different perspectives and that differences among us, such as race or gender, can definitely effect those perspectives, but I think we have to be careful to avoid over-categorizing a group as having a monolithic perspective.

 

The new left claims that perspective effects opinion, but I see a lot of evidence that it does not dictate opinion.  How do they explain Sarah Palin, for example?  She's a woman.  Women are an oppressed group.  Their logic would say that Palin's female perspective would control her opinion and make her do whatever's best for women to help her sister fight free from under the heal of patriarchal oppression.  Yet, when she was mayor, Palin opposed having enough rape kits at police stations to prosecute rapists.  She has a very anti-feminist record.  I personally know a black woman who is on the side of the police on the police shootings issue. 

 

I also see plenty of fair skinned Americans supporting people of color in their struggle for freedom from oppression.  We know many who are "straight but not narrow".  There are men like me who are ready and willing to fight for women's causes.  So, even if there are monolithic perspectives that glob together according to traditionally-oppressive groups, it seems to me that perspectives don't dictate opinion.  It seems to me that morals and values are also factors in how people form their opinions.  For example, I support women's rights because I'm a social liberal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism), not because I'm a woman.  In fact, the notion that perspective dictates opinion seems to see humans as fundamentally selfish, but we know that we're often not.  We often do care about others.

 

But I'll go even farther and say that I doubt whether these monolithic perspectives even exist.  I'm a man, yes, but I was raised in the SF Bay Area by parents who modeled equality in the home.  I grew up in the late 70's, the 80's, and the early 90's surrounded by hippyish leftists who stood firmly against racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, religious discrimination, and any other form of prejudice or oppression.  My parents and many of their friends, though fair-skinned, participated in the civil rights movement.  In school we read books like "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Color Purple" and had mandatory assemblies in which we were taught about the plight of blacks, latinos/as/ex's, gays and Lesbians, women, etc.  In short, while I am fair-skinned, hetero, and male, the world I grew up in was very much a progressive, anti-prejudice, anti-oppression, and pro-diversity world.  Even the Reaganite private K through 8 I attended (which wasn't my parents' first choice, you understand), nevertheless taught us to celebrate diversity and made some efforts toward having a diverse student body. 

 

My background is very different from, say, growing up in a rural part of the deep South, being raised fundamentalist Christian, or something like that.  So it's a significant question as to whether our perspectives are shaped more by our identities or our backgrounds.

 

Rather than understanding perspective as a predictive model.  Rather than thinking of there as being one "white perspective", "male perspective", "straight perspective," and so forth.  I'd like to suggest that we think of there as being many of each of these, as we remember that that perspective may be only one part of each individual's makeup, which includes their background, the parenting they received, and their life experiences.

 

Finally, it's clear to me that we, as intelligent beings, can think for ourselves and our not bound by any perspective.  Whether our identity, our political model, our background, or our life experiences affect our opinions more, we are always able to bring reason and intelligence to bear on the issues, so we may very well come to opinions that none of our perspectives would predict.

 

In this way, we're all free.  While we all have a different, unique mixture of perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, etc., we can all contribute equally to the dialogs and discussions of our time.  So, the non-liberal idea that we "straight white men" should shut up and let others express themselves, because we have the "wrong" perspective, loses all meaning for me.  Of course, none of us knows what it's like to be someone else, but, when I realize that we are all just as qualified to contribute to the discussion, my liberalism is renewed, because only liberalism allows us to do that.  In order to participate in society, we must be free.

 

It seems to me that it's more important to make sure that oppressed groups have the same opportunity to express themselves as the rest of us, than to stifle the free expression of people outside of those groups.

 

Privilege vs Human Rights

 

I've been told that, as a white person, as a man, etc., I have certain "privileges".  Among these, or so the claim goes, are that the cops will treat me fairly, justly, and even mercifully, that the I can walk down the street at night and feel safe, that I don't particularly have to worry about being sexually assaulted (more than being victim of any other crime, I suppose).

 

All true, however I can't think of a single example of such "privilege" that could not be better expressed in terms of rights.  Among human rights are the rights to justice, fairness, and basic respect (egalitarian respect, not deferential respect).  It's everybody's human right to have our justice system treat them justly, fairly, and with basic respect.  I also think we have a basic right to mercy.

 

I have a quibble with the notion of "privilege" as opposed to the notion of human rights.  The California DMV defines driving a car as a "privilege not a right".  That's what the term privilege means to me.  If that's not what it means to you, you're either miscommunication or deliberately trying to confuse people.  So, when people tell me that it's, say, a "white privilege" to be treated fairly by the police, it makes it sound like they're endorsing a police state.  In other words, it sounds to me like they think that the police SHOULD be unfair.  I don't get the impression that that is what they intend to imply, but that's why I'm baffled by the use of the word "privilege".  It's a human RIGHT to be treated fairly by the police.

 

Now, certainly, some sort black perspective comes into play here.  (Well, I don't totally dismiss the notion of perspective, I just have the concerns about it I've already stated.)  Of course, we should take the reports of police brutality and killings seriously.  My point is merely that I think it's much clearer and more liberal to frame this failure of our civilization in terms of human rights than in terms of "white privilege".  Ditto with the right of women to equal protection under the law from assault, for another example, for gays and Lesbians to be treated with respect, or for someone with a penis and an Adam's apple to walk down the street in a dress and still be respected.

 

As a liberal, I support human rights for all.  The struggle of the oppressed, which I understand myself as supporting, is a struggle for human rights, rather than a struggle against privilege.

 

In order to participate in society, we must be free.

 

Liberalism vs Social-Authoritarian Leftism: Why Liberalism?

 

Today, I'm finally getting back to my series "Liberalism vs Social-Authoritarian Leftism".  Today, I explain what I think liberalism is and why I think liberalism is important.  The backdrop of this is a left-on-left debate about whether we want a liberal left or a socially-authoritarian left.  In my earlier posts, I defined social authoritarianism as the use of social violence and abuse as a may to manipulate politics to leftist ends and how I oppose that approach.  I'm arguing that a liberal left is better than a social-authoritarian left.

 

There's more than one way to be on the left.

 

What is Liberalism and Why is It Important?

 

Simply put, there is one and only one alternative to authoritarianism and that's liberalism.  In America, we think of the word liberalism as meaning social liberalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism).  Liberalism, broadly speaking, simply means the political philosophy that we are all free individuals and that we all have inalienable rights.  America was founded by liberals (classic liberalism).  Human rights are liberal.  Liberalism spans everything from traditional American progressivism in the left-center, to anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism on the far left, to right-wing libertarianism.  Obviously, I'm a left liberal, so I tend to disagree with right-wing libertarianism, but I still recognize that we have a lot in common, even if we disagree on a lot of issues.  The freedoms that all forms of liberalism offer stand in contrast to authoritarianism, which is much worse, in my opinion, than right-wing liberalism.  Right-wing liberals are the loyal opposition.  I want my team to win, but I respect theirs and can play with them under the terms of good sportsmanship.  Authoritarians, right, left, or center, are the traitorous opposition and the enemies to freedom.  Another way to think about it is that liberalism is an alternative to civil war.  Let me explain...

 

The Religious Wars

 

For approximately 150 years, the Religious Wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion) waged across Europe and Britain during the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries.  Catholics fought against Protestants.  Protestants fought against other types of Protestants.  Countless innocent people were put to death merely for being the "wrong" kind of Christian.  John Calvin, founder of Calvinism, lured Michael Servetus, founder of Unitarianism, to Amsterdam and had him burnt at the stake for "heresy".  The Puritans assassinated the King of Great Britain and abolished Christmas.  Such were the times.  Why?  Because everyone thought they were absolutely right and everyone else was absolutely wrong.  All sides thought they had a right to violence and to force everyone else to conform to their beliefs.  In other words, they were authoritarian. 

 

The Enlightenment

 

The heroes who stepped forward and righted these wrongs were the philosophers of the Enlightenment.  Did they lay evil low?  Better!  They created a new way of thinking about politics, religion, society, and humanity called liberalism.  It held that everyone is equal, that we're all free individuals, and that we all have inalienable rights like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to justice, etc.  Slowly, the old monarchies began to give way to republics like America and France, which were later to become even more democratic.  The UK experienced a series of reforms that lead in the same direction.  Self-governance and personal freedom were the hallmarks of the Enlightenment. 

 

Why is it so important?  It keeps us from killing each other.  It's a better way.  Instead of every side thinking, "we're right and they're wrong, so they must die," it enabled various groups with diverse philosophies to talk to each other.  They might still think they're right and the other group is wrong, but they couldn't just kill the other group.  They had to learn to live with very important type of diversity: philosophical diversity.  This new way enabled people of different religions, creeds, and political persuasions to coexist in peace and maybe even learn from each other for the overall betterment of humanity.  Peace and Liberty to the rescue!

 

Today, liberalism has championed women's rights, gay and Lesbian rights, trans rights, queer rights, religious rights, class rights, disabled rights, and many other rights as inalienable human liberties.  So, let's be liberal.

 

Human Rights

 

Among human rights are all the rights we're used to in America, like freedom of expression, of religion, of due process in by our justice system, etc.  Many Americans also count the right to bear arms among these (though in other free countries, like the UK, they may not).  In addition, we also ALL have the right to be treated with basic respect and dignity as human beings, we ALL have a right to justice, etc.  These rights are too numerous to name, but the idea is that we are all essentially equal individuals.  All human rights apply equally to all people everywhere regardless of race, genealogy, religion, creed, philosophy, class, gender, sexual orientation, disability, eye color, hair color, etc., etc.

 

VERY IMPORTANT POINT

Human rights are distinct from legal rights.  Legal rights are simply those that the state gives you.  The idea of human rights is that EVERY HUMAN BEING has them.  If the state won't honor those rights, their rights are being oppressed.  States that do grant those same rights as legal rights are liberal states that support human rights, like America with its Bill of Rights.

 

Authoritarian Leftism

I see a major problem on the left, today, which is that there's a new type of leftism that I'd consider to be socially authoritarian.  I don't mean that this movement wants to put anyone on forced marches to Siberia or into "reeducation" camps or anything, but, as I've discussed in earlier blogs, this movement is willing to use social violence and emotional abuse to get its way.  Althrough I am a left-liberal, I stand against this movement.  I consider it to be illiberal and anit-freedom.

 

Liberalism vs Social-Authoritarian Leftism: Social Authoritarianism and the New Left

 

I'm continuing my once-a-weekend blog post on how I feel that the left has left me, and why I think the new left has abandoned its liberal roots.  I'm a liberal, and as such I think for myself. 

There's more than one way to be on the left.

 

What I've been seeing in the new left is a slow growth of social authoritarianism.  Rather than hearing a group of liberals voicing their opinions about oppressed groups and what we, as a society, can do to change, I'm seeing a group of leftist authoritarians busy trying to force everybody to adopt their ways.  This group has its own terminology, which is often appropriated from academia, but then changed.[1]  It viciously attacks and defames all outsiders as being prejudicial and immoral, simply for voicing a differing opinions.  The new leftists try to persuade people by claiming that only they know the truth and that anyone who's not them is somehow seeing things falsely.  If you complain about them, you're simply talked down to, told you're part of the problem, and that you shouldn't complain.  Dissenters are shamed.  The new left seeks to suppress logic and expects everyone to take their message on faith.  Apart from their pseudo-academic jargon, which creates the illusion of authority, they rarely appeal to reason to convince anyone of anything and instead resort to emotion to either appeal to our compassion or lash out at us with rage.  They call themselves social justice warriors, but I call them the social violence warriors. 

 

Just because a group does not have the force of the state behind it, does not mean it's not authoritarian.  The Nazis, at first, did not have the support of the state, but later seized power.  They were always authoritarian, they just couldn't act on it as effectively as they had been until they seized control of the state.  If any political group that is philosophically and socially authoritarian came to power, we have every reason to expect that it will use the force of the state to force its authoritarian designs on the rest of us.

 

Here's a list of some of the things I'm seeing that have brought me to these conclusions...

 

Enforced Labeling

 

My aunt Midge served as a public high school teacher from the 1950's through the 1990's.  Ever the progressive, she wanted nothing better than to instruct her students in which terms for black people were respectful and disrespectful.  Being a little before the hippy generation, though, she wasn't hip enough to have received the memo when these terms changed.  In the 50's, "negro" was the respectful word and the N word, of course, disrespectful.  "Black" and "colored" were both considered disrespectful.  Then, "colored" was considered respectful and negro, black and the N word were all bad.  Later, "black" was considered good and colored was listed along with negro and the N word as bad words.  For a brief period "Afro-American" was considered correct and black, colored, negro, and the N word were all bad.  Quickly, Afro-American was listed among black, colored, negro, and the N word as bad and replaced by "African American".  I remember that myself, because, when I applied to college in 1992, I asked my interviewer if they were so PC that people would jump down my throat for saying "black" instead of "African American".  She laughed and assured me that they would not.  Shortly after I started college, the terms switched and African American was listed along with Afro-American, colored, negro, and the N word as disrespectful and black was brought back as the good word.  The result of all this as that my aunt, although desperately trying to be respectful, was constantly embarrassed and shamed for being behind the times on the ever-changing list of respectful and disrespectful terms.

 

Today I see much the same thing with people saying we should say "First Nations People" instead of "Native American", while, when I was in high school, all the progressives were saying we should say "Native American" as opposed to "Indian".

 

Constantly changing the "in" term like this serves no purpose that I can see other than to shame anyone who's not "cool" enough to have received the memo.  Much of it seems arbitrary.  "Native American" always made sense to me, because it refers to the natives of the American continents, though I can understand that it might be even better to refer to them by tribe, if possible, since they're not actually a single culture, but many cultures.  Whatever term you use it's never good enough for the new left, it would seem. 

 

A liberal, on the other hand, would be open to a discussion from anyone who sincerely respected the oppressed group the term referred to.  If the new left really wanted to use respectful terms and not disrespectful ones, they would have settled on one set of terms a long time ago.  The only reason I can see to constantly change them is as a mode of control: to signal to its members who's "woke" enough to have gotten the memo and who's out enough not to.

 

Shaming

 

I see a lot of this going around.  It seems that whenever a European American, a man, a hetero-, or whatever says anything at all, even if this person is just trying to be helpful and supportive, the social violence warriors jump down their throats with a litany of "you don't understand...", "you need to hear this...," "you have so many privileges you don't even know about...," "you're fill-in-the-blank-splaining...," "you have a fill-in-the-blank perspective," "oh that term you used, fill-in-the-blank, is such an archaic and offensive term, because... reasons," etc.  The upshot of this is that the person is shamed.  Shaming is abusive.  When a political movement is abusive, it's authoritarian, because it's using emotional abuse to punish and control people.

 

While we should certainly express ourselves politely and respectfully, liberalism holds that we all have a right to express our opinions.  Others have the right to disagree with us, but not to oppress our freedom of expression or abuse us over it.

 

Stacks

 

As near as I can tell, a stack is a brainwashing technique that I've seen used in panels and "facilitated discussions".  The way it works is that, when hands go up, people of color who look like women are called on first, then fair skinned people who look like women and male-looking people of color, and finally fair skinned people who look like men.  It's all line of sight, so gays and Lesbians don't factor in.  Neither do trans or queer, apparently, because anyone who looks like a woman is presumed to be one and anyone who is a man is likewise.  The stated goal is based on the presumption that members of oppressed groups are heard less often than people who are not.  Fair skinned people who look like men are never called on if anyone from any other category ever raises their hand, even if he (or she) has been waiting patiently for half an hour.  Even if all of the original volley of hands have been called on and new hands are going up, will he (or she) be ignored.

 

This is oppresses free speech.  First of all, I hear people of color, women, gays and Lesbians, trans folk, etc. all the time.  They're very vocal.  So, I find it hard to believe that they need a "stack" in order to be heard, particularly when the person implementing the stack is a woman of color, which was the case in every situation in which I've personally seen it used.  Can't a female moderator of color be trusted to simply call on people in the order that hands go up?  I can see that some people might claim that a white person or a man might "see" the order wrong, due to prejudice, but that's not the case with a woman of color who's using line of sight to make sure people of all groups are allowed to speak.  Secondly, and more importantly, the only liberal solution that's fair and equal for all is that hands are called in the order in which they're raised.  Anything other than that is the oppression of somebody's free speech.  If you oppress free speech, you're an authoritarian.

 

Bullhorns

 

I have read numerous news reports of speakers at universities being physically prevented from speaking by leftist protesters coming in with bullhorns and making so much noise no one could hear them.  Lest you think these speakers were just neo-Nazis and neo-Fascists, think again.  I mean, as liberal as I am, there's part of me that would love to see neo-Nazis and neo-Fascists shutdown.  Unfortunately, it's ordinary speakers that they're shutting down. At Reed, the Lesbian professor lecturing on Sappho was shutdown from lecturing at the required freshman humanities class, on the grounds that it was "westo-centric".  Isn't a Lesbian lecturing on Sappho exactly the kind of diversity they want?  The moderate feminist Christina Hoff Sommers and her more leftist feminist opponent in a debate were both shutdown, because the protestors liked the leftist opponent and didn't like Sommers' views.  Sommers now has universities provide her with a security detail whenever she lectures.  Harvard cognitive scientist Stephen Pinker has similarly been shut down and reported that his colleagues have as well.  He's a very middle-of-the-road and not-terribly-political intellectual.  These are our precious universities!  They're supposed to be places of learning, in which different scholars can freely express different views.

 

This is oppression of free speech and oppression of free speech is a form of authoritarianism.  The liberal way is to let people speak, picket outside the auditorium, and speak out ourselves, but not shut down everyone else.

 

Jumping Down People's Throats

 

Finally, I'm often shocked by the rudeness, the animosity, and even the physical loudness with which the social violence warriors will jump down my throat for daring to voice an opinion, even a helpful one.  They'll often interrupt me before I can make it clear how full and thoughtful my point is.  What I think they basically object to is the very fact that I'm expressing an opinion at all. 

 

Well, like everyone else, I have a right to express my opinion.  You may disagree and my opinion may make you emotional, but jumping down people's throats is a subtle way of attacking their freedom to express an opinion.  I won't go so far as to call occassional outbursts like this social authoritarianism, but when people consistently do this to a member of a particular group (even if it's not an oppressed group, by their reckoning), that's an abusive pattern of behavior.  When you abuse other people's freedom of expression, that is social authoritarianism.

 

The liberal solution is to be the change you want to see in the world by respecting everyone and their opinions.  You can always dialog with people you disagree with, too.  Freedom of expression goes both ways.  I just think the key is to be respectful and tolerant.

 

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[1] An example of this is the term "trigger".  My understanding is that it originally came from the real psychology of PTSD.  From what I understand, people with actual diagnoses of PTSD experience heightened anxiety when certain things happen that remind them of the trauma that caused the PTSD.  These are called "triggers".  Real triggers are almost impossible to predict.  When I was in a car accident five years ago, I became anxious when I was in someone else's passenger seat, because that's where I was when the accident happened.  There's no way for someone else to have predicted that that would happen with me, and, fortunately, it faded after about a year.  That's not how I hear people using the term in leftist circles, however.  They seem to use it to mean something that can be predicted and not something that's necessarily because of actual, diagnosed PTSD, but mereley because of any negative experience in the past that they associate that thing with.  So, that's an example of a term that originated in the field of psychology and then got appropriated to mean things it didn't originally mean.