"Toxic culture of the left"

[Saxondale]

From the Independent. 

 

Not my words Lynn, the words of, err.. .Bailey Lamon, a self-professed left-wing activist.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-this-radical-activist-is-disillusioned-by-the-toxic-culture-of-the-left-a6895211.html 

 

I've been involved in activism since the Occupy Movement of 2011. Over the years this has included anti-capitalist, labour and feminist organising, as well as coordinating a local Food Not Bombs chapter, a number of direct actions against big oil (in solidarity with First Nations people), and prisoner justice campaigns.

 

While I will always be part of the movement and believe in creating a better world through people power, over the years I have become increasingly frustrated with modern activist culture and the way that today's left conducts itself.

First of all, I’m tired of watching people turn into pretentious assholes who think their activism makes them better than everyone else, even the oppressed and marginalised groups with whom they claim “allyship”.

 

If you’ve ever worked with oppressed groups, such as people who are homeless, abused, addicted or suffering from mental health problems, there's one thing you learn straight away. They usually don't frame their worldviews in terms of academic theories students learn in gender studies classes in university. For the most part, they tend to not analyse their experiences in terms of systemic power and privilege, concepts such as “the patriarchy”, “white privilege”, or “heteronormativity”.

 

While many of these folks know that they're directly impacted by class inequality, they don't sit around pondering capitalism, reading Marx, or tackling the effects of “problematic behaviours”. They are not concerned with checking their privilege. No. They are busy trying to survive. Getting through the next day. Meeting their basic needs. They don't bother with policing their language and worrying about how their words might unintentionally perpetuate certain stereotypes. They are more concerned with their voices being heard.

 

Yet I witness so many “activists” who ignore the realities of oppression despite saying that they care about those at the bottom of society. They think that being offended by something is equal to experiencing prison time or living on the streets. They talk about listening, being humble and not having preconceptions. Yet they ignore the lived experiences of those who don’t speak or think properly in the view of university-educated social justice warriors, regardless of how much worse off they really are. 

 

This isn't to say that we should accept bigotry in any form — far from it. But I would go as far as saying that the politically correct mafia on the left perpetuates a form of bigotry on its own because it alienates and “otherises” those who do not share their ways of thinking and speaking about the world.

 

I've witnessed incidents where people have lost their jobs because of mistakes they've made in the eyes of left-wing activists. I've seen relationships and friendships destroyed. I've known people who have been banned from participating in certain places, and become so alienated from “the community” that they are afraid to go out in public at all. This has caused serious mental distress to people I've worked alongside, and has even resulted in suicide.Social "justice" indeed.

 

These incidents tend to happen over allegations that rest on each person's word. Yet only one party is allowed to tell their story, while the other one is told to sit down, shut up, and accept the potentially life-destroying consequences. And if anyone tries to step in or question how things are being done, they are immediately silenced and threatened with the same fate if they don't comply.

 

I'm sick of the cliques, the hierarchies, the policing of others, and the power imbalances. I am exhausted by the fact that any difference of opinion will lead to a fight, which sometimes includes abandonment of certain people who are consequently deemed “unsafe”.

 

It's disgusting that the left claims to be fighting for a better way of dealing with social problems, but if a person makes a mistake or says something wrong, they are not even given a chance to explain their side of what happened. This is because the process of conflict resolution is now driven by ideology rather than a willingness to understand facts. In today’s activist circles one is lucky to be given any sort of due process at all. Meanwhile, everyone is put under social pressure to believe everything they are told, regardless of what actually occurred in a given situation.

This is not freedom. This is not social justice. There is nothing “progressive” or “radical” about it.

 

There is a disturbing trend on the left nowadays of rejecting free speech that could possibly be hurtful to someone, somewhere. This is not only dangerous but it also works against us. As leftists we are often labelled as threats by the state and at the very least, we are unpopular by society in general.

 

Does this not mean that freedom of thought and expression are crucial to our struggles? That we should always defend our right to question what we’re taught, our right to be different? As Noam Chomsky put it: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

 

 

We have the right to challenge other people's speech, but what many people are seeing is the shutting off of dialogue entirely for the purpose of “safety”. What could possibly be safe about censorship? What could possibly be safe about a group of people who claim to be freedom fighters dictating who can speak and what can be said, based on whether or not we agree with them? Study any kind of history and you will find that censorship has never been on the right side of it.

 

The world is not a safe place. It is extremely dangerous, flawed, full of bloodshed and corruption. By sheltering ourselves from its harshness we are doing nothing meaningful to change it. If we are serious about confronting power we must throw ourselves into the danger that so many people have no choice but to live with. While self-care is necessary to sustain us in the long run, avoiding the darkness entirely is nothing more than a cop out.

 

So folks on the left – do the world a favour and get serious about changing the world. And enough with the safe spaces and trigger warnings. I used to love the idea of safe spaces, but eventually realised that they did not protect me from humanity’s flaws. Escapism is necessary once in a while, but if we are serious we need to avoid hiding behind ourselves. It is extremely naive to think that we can just walk into a room, declare it a safe space, and expect it to magically become one. Unless you and your safe space enforcing friends plan on isolating yourselves from the world rather than engaging with it, it is not realistic at all and pretending it is will only hurt you further.

 

As for trigger warnings, as a rape survivor and someone who deals with PTSD, how is writing something like “TW: Rape” not inherently triggering? I simply don’t get it. Anything can be triggering to someone, and there is no way of knowing what that will be. Personally, I think we are better off working out how to support someone who becomes triggered in a given situation rather than triggering them ourselves in an attempt not to.

Our ideas cannot be forced on other people, but must be adopted voluntarily. This requires patience and a willingness to work with others as they explore themselves. We need to be there to answer their questions, and make it clear that no question is a stupid one.

 

We are not always going to enjoy the process! But without freedom of thought, speech, and expression, no other freedom can exist. Bigots and hateful people in general will make fools of themselves, and again, our freedom to speak means that we can and definitely should challenge and outsmart them. But the idea of being so self-righteous that we think we deserve to be authority figures in all of this is soul-crushing.

 

[Harry - LCFC]

Articles like this one are becoming more common. Good. The hypersensitive, ultra-racialised, ultra-PC view of the world discussed here will quickly fall apart if people have the courage to say 'no' to it.

[Rincewind]

Do we not have a toxic culture of the 'right' then?

 

Just wondering. It is always the left that are depicted as loony or evil for daring to speak up for a disadvantaged person.

Sometimes people have to take what help they can even if it is the wrong kind of help. When I hear somebody say they are not my problem I am reminded of the final line of a well known poem.

'Then they came for me but there was no-one left to help.'

[leicsmac]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the amount of disparate groups and ideas within the 'left' (as nebulous and undefinable a group as that is) means that there is always infighting, and when you allow ten thousand different voices, this is the result. People trying to shut each other down and so defeating the entire idea of what they stand for. And some of them are flat out authoritarians, whom I have zero time for.

 

It's sad.

[leicsmac]

As an addenum, I think that "right" and "left" are beginning to lose their significance in terms of what they actually mean. It's no longer a clearly delineated split: for instance, UKIP and their nationalist platform have taken voters from both parties.

[Rincewind]

As I have said before I do not look on social issues as political. Just as to what is the fair thing to do. The more people are put down the more the wrong elements get involved.

 

Is this what would be described as part of the toxic left? The government has fast forwarded the equalising of the pension age. It was first proposed in 1995 and in 2011 they said it women would now have a pension age of 66 so those nearing 60 would have little time to make arrangements. A commons vote resulted in zero votes for it yet they had a second vote which was also defeated despite there also being a 100,000 signed petition. So how many women know of this or would not know of it if it was not for some 'loony leftie' speaking out?

 

http://www.thecanary.co/2016/02/25/uks-youngest-mp-just-demolished-tories-scathing-attack-yet-video/

[ozleicester]

right and left, different sides of the same coin.

 

There are innumerable words written from "within" both sides and anyone who thinks that one side is all good and the other all bad, is not just stupid they are a danger to themselves and society.

 

edit, by the way, the pic in my signature says it all. Its not about equality, its about justice and fairness.

[Harry - LCFC]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the amount of disparate groups and ideas within the 'left' (as nebulous and undefinable a group as that is) means that there is always infighting, and when you allow ten thousand different voices, this is the result. People trying to shut each other down and so defeating the entire idea of what they stand for. And some of them are flat out authoritarians, whom I have zero time for.

It's sad.

I agree that the title for the article is poorly worded. It should've said 'a segment of the left'. These views are in the minority among progressives.

[Finnegan]

"Self professed left wing activist", "I've been involved with activism since Occupy 2011."

[Finnegan]

They're not really talking about politics, to be fair, they're talking about the fact that protest groups are largely full of attention seeking, white, middle class, clueless, hypocrite students who have turned up because it's cool.

The sort of people who think hashtagging a slogan on Twitter and telling that moron woman from the Apprentice that she's a bigot is changing the world.

Pretty sure most adults knew these people were wankers already.

[Webbo]

 

edit, by the way, the pic in my signature says it all. Its not about equality, its about justice and fairness.

I wish I could do the socialist version of that pic where the tall kid has his legs chopped off at the knee so he doesn't have an advantage over the short kid.

[Jon the Hat]

I must say the rise in power of some groups to impact the lives of proper thinking adults has been rather scary in recent years.  Universities banning certain speakers, people losing their jobs for not meeting the PC brigade's idea of what is right.  Student / youth activism is fine, but when through social media it takes on a power to ruin lives and negatively influence a generation it is out of control.

 

I suppose I inherently dislike those on the left more as I don't agree with their politics, even if I agree with their alleged causes, but there are groups on all sides who are ignoring the realities while making a lot of noise, and that doesn't help anyone.

[Steven]

Do we not have a toxic culture of the 'right' then?

 

Just wondering. It is always the left that are depicted as loony or evil for daring to speak up for a disadvantaged person.

Sometimes people have to take what help they can even if it is the wrong kind of help. When I hear somebody say they are not my problem I am reminded of the final line of a well known poem.

'Then they came for me but there was no-one left to help.'

 

Of course there is. Best expressed by this cvnt.

 

San Francisco tech worker: 'I don't want to see homeless riff-raff'

In an open letter to the city’s mayor Ed Lee, entrepreneur Justin Keller said he is ‘outraged’ that wealthy workers have to see people in pain and despair

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/san-francisco-tech-open-letter-i-dont-want-to-see-homeless-riff-raff

[Vlad the Fox]

But their aggressive self righteousness has people running scared. I've known of people get into serious trouble at work for stuff like calling someone 'darling', he called everyone darling, yet one women took exception to it and he was pulled in disciplined forced to apologise and given a warning. I also know of a case were another women was dragged over the coals for thinking another women was pregnant, she was absolutely mortified that she'd made that mistake but a simple 'I'm so sorry' wasn't enough she had to disciplined and an official warning given. It seems that sometimes the first level of the complaints process is too scared to suggest that someone is being a touch over sensitive and should let it go because the next level will come down on them for not taking action. There is no common sense allowed for dealing with these situations and these kind of people.

[Captain...]

I wish I could do the socialist version of that pic where the tall kid has his legs chopped off at the knee so he doesn't have an advantage over the short kid.

 

The proper socialist version would be the tall kid picking apples for the small kid, and the small kid foraging for nuts on the ground for the tall kid. 

 

Socialism is not about making everyone equal from a skills point of view, but about using everyone's strengths for the good of the whole society, just because it has been implemented badly in a number of places doesn't change the theory.

 

I'm also getting sick of these generalised "left" and "right" bashing articles, they are completely pointless.

[Alf Bentley]

As an addenum, I think that "right" and "left" are beginning to lose their significance in terms of what they actually mean. It's no longer a clearly delineated split: for instance, UKIP and their nationalist platform have taken voters from both parties.

 

 

I suppose "left" and "right" have tended to be defined in terms of economic and social policy: wealth redistribution v. rewards for entrepreneurship; higher tax & better social provision v. lower tax & private rewards/incentives for success/risk/hard work.

 

There have always been deeply authoritarian groups on left and right with no respect for democracy or tolerance. That's nothing new, even the studenty "no platform" stuff, dispiriting as it is (if someone expresses a view you strongly disagree with, er, disagree with it and seek to disprove/discredit it, don't ban it, as you only create victims! People inciting active hatred/violence are the exception to that - but that's a crime, anyway).

 

You can also have left or right-wing nationalism - or rather, nationalism isn't inherently right-wing, even if we've come to think of it as such.

 

I tend to view UKIP as being like Trump, in a way: opportunistic populists preying on genuine concerns/fears about insecurity, loss of income, change, immigration etc. Though I'd still rather have UKIP as an outlet for that and not a bunch of neo-Nazis like the BNP. UKIP did start off as a right-wing party - Tory Eurosceptics for whom the Tories weren't right-wing or Eurosceptic enough - but are more populist than purely right-wing now.

[Jon the Hat]

 

Of course there is. Best expressed by this cvnt.

 

San Francisco tech worker: 'I don't want to see homeless riff-raff'

In an open letter to the city’s mayor Ed Lee, entrepreneur Justin Keller said he is ‘outraged’ that wealthy workers have to see people in pain and despair

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/17/san-francisco-tech-open-letter-i-dont-want-to-see-homeless-riff-raff

 

 

Not really comparable is it? This bloke is just being a complete twat, he isn't bullying others into being complete twats and align with his ideology.

[Finnegan]

Not really comparable is it? This bloke is just being a complete twat, he isn't bullying others into being complete twats and align with his ideology.

True but he's probably not a twenty something year old only child with daddy issues that's flown the nest for the first time, is having to work out who they are and is desperate to look cool for all their new friends.

Whether there is or isn't a "toxic culture" of "THE LEFT©" it isn't really what's up for discussion in the article.

The title is a misnomer deliberately attempting to be provocative and apparently succeeding. What they're actually talking about, as I've said, is the ridiculous contemporary trend of being outraged to look cool.

As someone who is both inherently left wing but also incredibly difficult to offend and with a pretty robust sense of humour, I find the notion of these bedwetting PC arseholes being considered representative of me and my politics about as irking as having Rincey be considered the voice of my beliefs.

[Saxondale]

Whether there is or isn't a "toxic culture" of "THE LEFT©" it isn't really what's up for discussion in the article.

The title is a misnomer deliberately attempting to be provocative and apparently succeeding. What they're actually talking about, as I've said, is the ridiculous contemporary trend of being outraged to look cool.

As someone who is both inherently left wing but also incredibly difficult to offend and with a pretty robust sense of humour, I find the notion of these bedwetting PC arseholes being considered representative of me and my politics about as irking as having Rincey be considered the voice of my beliefs.

 

Whether or not there is a toxic culture within the left is exactly what's up for discussion, whether you like the author's conclusion or not.

 

Clearly the author is trying to convey almost exactly the same point that you've made, i.e. that as a leftist he opposes the 'bedwetting PC arsehole' behaviour and the appalling trend of righteous indignation. 

 

However, the point is that he/she DOES consider this behaviour - call it toxic - to be prevalent amongst his left-wing political peers, which is his/her cause of frustration. 

[Nick]

Whether or not there is a toxic culture within the left is exactly what's up for discussion, whether you like the author's conclusion or not.

 

Clearly the author is trying to convey almost exactly the same point that you've made, i.e. that as a leftist he opposes the 'bedwetting PC arsehole' behaviour and the appalling trend of righteous indignation. 

 

However, the point is that he/she DOES consider this behaviour - call it toxic - to be prevalent amongst his left-wing political peers, which is his/her cause of frustration.

Whether or not there is a toxic culture within the left is exactly what's up for discussion, whether you like the author's conclusion or not.

 

Clearly the author is trying to convey almost exactly the same point that you've made, i.e. that as a leftist he opposes the 'bedwetting PC arsehole' behaviour and the appalling trend of righteous indignation. 

 

However, the point is that he/she DOES consider this behaviour - call it toxic - to be prevalent amongst his left-wing political peers, which is his/her cause of frustration.

I'm wondering if you read the headline or the article.

[Saxondale]

I'm wondering if you read the headline or the article.

 

Do you want to explain why you think that instead of just being patronising?

[Nick]

Do you want to explain why you think that instead of just being patronising?

Not really but I'll happily refer you to posts 4,9 & 10.

[Finnegan]

Whether or not there is a toxic culture within the left is exactly what's up for discussion, whether you like the author's conclusion or not.

Clearly the author is trying to convey almost exactly the same point that you've made, i.e. that as a leftist he opposes the 'bedwetting PC arsehole' behaviour and the appalling trend of righteous indignation.

However, the point is that he/she DOES consider this behaviour - call it toxic - to be prevalent amongst his left-wing political peers, which is his/her cause of frustration.

I think you're missing my point, which isn't surprising given you're going to want to defend the article you've found.

What I'm saying is that "the left" (I don't like the phrase, for the record, even when used correctly - which isn't the case here) is an enormous political spectrum that encompasses endless beliefs, concepts, theories, people, groups, parties, etc.

The author of this article (and by extension, you) is erroneously using "left" as a synonym for a pop culture movement fueled by social media. It's akin to me putting up an article about the EDL smashing in shop fronts and titling it "the violent nature of the right." I'm pretty sure Jon the Hat would be quite justifiably irritated.

[Jon the Hat]

I think you're missing my point, which isn't surprising given you're going to want to defend the article you've found.

What I'm saying is that "the left" (I don't like the phrase, for the record, even when used correctly - which isn't the case here) is an enormous political spectrum that encompasses endless beliefs, concepts, theories, people, groups, parties, etc.

The author of this article (and by extension, you) is erroneously using "left" as a synonym for a pop culture movement fueled by social media. It's akin to me putting up an article about the EDL smashing in shop fronts and titling it "the violent nature of the right." I'm pretty sure Jon the Hat would be quite justifiably irritated.

 

To be fair I would dismiss it out of hand as you are.  Given the wide spectrum we see even within our major parties, of course you cannot generalise.  The problem I think is the level of noise these twats are making is drowning out the sensible.  Partly due to stupid media coverage, and partly as they are media savvy all those media degrees I expect*.

 

 

 

 

*blatant stereotyping alert

[Guest MattP]

They're not really talking about politics, to be fair, they're talking about the fact that protest groups are largely full of attention seeking, white, middle class, clueless, hypocrite students who have turned up because it's cool.

The sort of people who think hashtagging a slogan on Twitter and telling that moron woman from the Apprentice that she's a bigot is changing the world.

Pretty sure most adults knew these people were wankers already.

 

This pretty much sums it up.

 

The problem is now these people seem to have worked their way into a lot of places and now have some clout rather than just being laughed at on the fringes, barely a week goes by wihout some daft NUS group barring someone from speaking, Seamus Milne is the perfect description of the above and he's now the senior advisor to the leader of the opposition.

 

I think the more moderate left will defeat them in time as they are becoming so ridiculous now even to the point of "no platforming" the likes of Peter Tatchell and Germain Greer due to their supposed "bigotry", but it's going to be pretty hilarious while it lasts one the less.