I'm neither Right nor Left. Just some mutt in the middle with a few drams of each coursing through his veins. And I don't know who the heck you are. But by my lights this is a righteous piece of writing and hits the proverbial nail squarely on the head. Nice screed. Props.
Well, the "conservative" agenda is not more dangerous than what the left is doing... The left is now against almost every form of social authority and hierarchy, laws and law enforcement, borders, and in short almost every institution that nations rely on for survival. But while we disagree on that point, you make some other very good points... In particular, that leftist conformism has made popular culture and entertainment boring and stifled. I couldn't agree more, and I can't see any way out of it, since the left controls both and has made them into echo chambers.
Well, the way out is easy: it's unsustainable and it's going to fall apart on its own. It's fashionable to publicly espouse lefty positions right now, but it won't always be. And as soon as there's no more money in it, watch how quickly the culture and entertainment industries will run away from it and pretend they were never part of it. And that's why I say the right's flirtations with authoritarianism are more more dangerous the left's, because political power is more durable than cultural power.
Maybe but not necessarily. Culture is flighty, but in the long term more lasting than politics. Religions are far more lasting than regimes. My guess is the cultural left could be ascendant for a long time.
I have to agree, it's hard for me to see any conservative proposal or policy that is nearly as dangerous as the simple fact that politics is downstream of culture, and the politics downstream of the continued dominance of the present left-wing culture is frightening to think about.
The Left is statist and authoritarian but Trump is more overtly so. That’s why we see attacks on free speech by left-wing governments as they seek to insulate “cultural socialism” (Eric Kaufmann) from criticism. They are still pulling the old hard left stunt of defining their rule as “true democracy”. When I look at past Marxist-Leninist attitudes towards bourgeois parties/intellectuals, I see the mentality of cancel culture at work. Yes, the Right does engage in cancel culture but this doesn’t negate illiberalism on the Left. Many old school liberals are appalled by the bigotry of the Wokels.
Way Back in the 1980s somebody remarked that the Poles were winning against Communism by "passive noncompliance". That phrase stuck with me. All culture wars seem to be dealt with by the actual public in the same way, by ignoring all of the earnest preaching, no matter how loud. It seems that (as of 2022) the Cultural Left managed to get control of all of the organizations, but they overlooked that the organizations don't really have the ability to control what the masses think and feel. If the cultural commissars try to enforce doctrine on the masses, the masses will vomit up the Right Answers whenever they are tested (just like we all did in high school) and then go on with their lives...
I’d like to see the left stop their crusades to tame art and clutter public discussion with jargon-choked orthodoxy and instead focus on winning elections and packing state houses.
What I worry about the most; important social justice victories in gender and race will be under threat because the Left has gone too far and continues to push a chaotic agenda that is becoming increasingly unpopular by the day. It feels like polarization and conflict is being injected by design now. The only way to counteract this will be authoritarianism. The UK is currently being utterly predictable in their response to unrest. It may quell things for a while until the next thing bursts forth. Unless politicians start accepting responsibility for their incompetence, lean into what the people are actually saying, and enact good faith policies, we’re in the new normal for the foreseeable future.
Former lefty here. You are right--there are lots of normies getting awfully friggin' tired of being lectured. The "lectures" get more absurd by the day (ever gotten a lecture about how 'some women have a penis'?) The Democrats lost my vote, possibly permanently, when they decided that it's OK for children to cut off healthy body parts in the name of "identity".
It seems like the left has won politically as well. The only aberration might be the supreme court which is the only thing keeping a semblance of balance.
How old are you? Independent music labels ie self employed people and bands that weren't signed and doing it on their own are Capitalists who refused to budge. You do know that. Even if they didn't at the time they were. You probably think Green Day is punk and this how only the left is punk would have gotten a few fuck yous from Johnny Ramone. Seriously how old are you?
I think your prognostication at the end could absolutely happen. There will always be people still fighting the last war — it's the easiest one to fight.
I'm neither Right nor Left. Just some mutt in the middle with a few drams of each coursing through his veins. And I don't know who the heck you are. But by my lights this is a righteous piece of writing and hits the proverbial nail squarely on the head. Nice screed. Props.
Well, the "conservative" agenda is not more dangerous than what the left is doing... The left is now against almost every form of social authority and hierarchy, laws and law enforcement, borders, and in short almost every institution that nations rely on for survival. But while we disagree on that point, you make some other very good points... In particular, that leftist conformism has made popular culture and entertainment boring and stifled. I couldn't agree more, and I can't see any way out of it, since the left controls both and has made them into echo chambers.
Well, the way out is easy: it's unsustainable and it's going to fall apart on its own. It's fashionable to publicly espouse lefty positions right now, but it won't always be. And as soon as there's no more money in it, watch how quickly the culture and entertainment industries will run away from it and pretend they were never part of it. And that's why I say the right's flirtations with authoritarianism are more more dangerous the left's, because political power is more durable than cultural power.
Maybe but not necessarily. Culture is flighty, but in the long term more lasting than politics. Religions are far more lasting than regimes. My guess is the cultural left could be ascendant for a long time.
I guess we'll see. This cultural trend offers very little to its adherents, and I wouldn't even give it ten years.
I have to agree, it's hard for me to see any conservative proposal or policy that is nearly as dangerous as the simple fact that politics is downstream of culture, and the politics downstream of the continued dominance of the present left-wing culture is frightening to think about.
The Left is statist and authoritarian but Trump is more overtly so. That’s why we see attacks on free speech by left-wing governments as they seek to insulate “cultural socialism” (Eric Kaufmann) from criticism. They are still pulling the old hard left stunt of defining their rule as “true democracy”. When I look at past Marxist-Leninist attitudes towards bourgeois parties/intellectuals, I see the mentality of cancel culture at work. Yes, the Right does engage in cancel culture but this doesn’t negate illiberalism on the Left. Many old school liberals are appalled by the bigotry of the Wokels.
Way Back in the 1980s somebody remarked that the Poles were winning against Communism by "passive noncompliance". That phrase stuck with me. All culture wars seem to be dealt with by the actual public in the same way, by ignoring all of the earnest preaching, no matter how loud. It seems that (as of 2022) the Cultural Left managed to get control of all of the organizations, but they overlooked that the organizations don't really have the ability to control what the masses think and feel. If the cultural commissars try to enforce doctrine on the masses, the masses will vomit up the Right Answers whenever they are tested (just like we all did in high school) and then go on with their lives...
I’d like to see the left stop their crusades to tame art and clutter public discussion with jargon-choked orthodoxy and instead focus on winning elections and packing state houses.
What I worry about the most; important social justice victories in gender and race will be under threat because the Left has gone too far and continues to push a chaotic agenda that is becoming increasingly unpopular by the day. It feels like polarization and conflict is being injected by design now. The only way to counteract this will be authoritarianism. The UK is currently being utterly predictable in their response to unrest. It may quell things for a while until the next thing bursts forth. Unless politicians start accepting responsibility for their incompetence, lean into what the people are actually saying, and enact good faith policies, we’re in the new normal for the foreseeable future.
Former lefty here. You are right--there are lots of normies getting awfully friggin' tired of being lectured. The "lectures" get more absurd by the day (ever gotten a lecture about how 'some women have a penis'?) The Democrats lost my vote, possibly permanently, when they decided that it's OK for children to cut off healthy body parts in the name of "identity".
It seems like the left has won politically as well. The only aberration might be the supreme court which is the only thing keeping a semblance of balance.
How old are you? Independent music labels ie self employed people and bands that weren't signed and doing it on their own are Capitalists who refused to budge. You do know that. Even if they didn't at the time they were. You probably think Green Day is punk and this how only the left is punk would have gotten a few fuck yous from Johnny Ramone. Seriously how old are you?
I think your prognostication at the end could absolutely happen. There will always be people still fighting the last war — it's the easiest one to fight.