I've been intimately involved with the organized left for over 40 years, ever since my college days started back in 1965. Now, however, my intimate partner, the left, has grown daft, paranoid and hostile, and so this blog is a wake-up call to the left to get its act together, and stop, utterly stop, its obeisance to Political Correctness.
The left has seemingly been irrelevant to lived life now since at least the early 1970s, much to the diminishment of political and social life since then. While certain left ideas are more relevant than ever, especially in economics and economic policy, other leftist ideas which have gained fasionable currency are not only irrelevant but actually harmful, and the left that is organized into various groups here in the U.S. is simply a disaster. We, the left, are now our own worst enemy.
This undermining of the left by the left itself comes from both the Right and the "Left" wings of the left, from the very leftists themselves. On the Right is the slavish tailing after whatever Obama offers, and craven submission to the Democratic Party. On the "Left," however, is ultraleftist disaster: Politically Correct adherence on cultural and social issues with no dissent or raising of caveats allowed, whether it be on feminism, racism, what constitutes left and "advanced' culture, what is retrograde and what is not, what is "working class" and what is not; with the result being the stifling of any honest discussion on the left of all kinds of issues, baiting of those leftists who do try to dissent as "retrograde" and still slaves to "'male' or 'white-skin' privilege," of being "elitist" or "offensive," and myriad other charges. This results, needless to say, with a left absorbed today not in the advancingof its ideas and in recruiting, reaching out, but in censorship and the imposition of self-censorship in the name of Political Correctness.
In concrete terms, this means the denial that, e.g., blacks and women are individuals with varying mixtures of virtues and faults, but instead the left insistence that their structural oppression does not deform them to various degrees, but rather, only makes them into Ideal Types who can never do or say anything wrong. It means romanticizing them, and painting a Manichean picture of them as forever struggling against another Ideal Type, the Forever-Evil white, educated male. Talk about regression to Rousseau's Noble Savage!
But an obvious political conundrum arises: if women and blacks (not to mention gays, Hispanics, "conscious" workers, and others) are so Ideal as a result of their structural oppression (a structural oppression which I readily admit), then why is capitalism, which socially created these Ideal Types, something to oppose? After all, its oppression is only creating--paragon Ideal Types full to the brim with virtue! That would only make capitalism a moral good, and its sturctural oppression merely a challenge to face and overcome through Politically Correct deference to the Ideal Types--especially if one is a white, educated male such as myself. (However, I would like to point out that my college education came from Michigan State and Indiana Universities, not the schools of the Ivy League or the elite state universities of, e.g., Ann Arbor and Berkeley, where many of my fellow leftists were educated.)
Most especially this white, educated male, despite 40+ years of devotion to the left, but now found to be hopelessly Politically Incorect by his fellow leftists because he asks too many Politically Incorrect questions and raises too many Politically Incorect objections. Never mind the substantive, logical and reasonable basis of these questions and objections. Even substance, logic and reason come under attack by today's left as being somehow subordination to capitalism, to the minions of the right. After all, according to our modern leftists (especially those infatuated with Postmodernism, or just going along with it because it's the trend), science itself is but a pernicious ideological construct of capitalism and repressive institutional structures! There is no Logic and Reason, because everything is really nothing but competing Ideology.
So I'm thrown back on believing with the most Politically Incorrect Liu Shaoqi: "Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Chairman Mao have all made mistakes." Yes, and so have Fidel and Raul Castro, Trotsky, Bukharin, Rosa Luxemburg, Cesar Chavez, Gloria Steinem, Al Sharpton and Michael Harrington. So has George Fish, the writer of this blog. But the ideal of leftism was expressed precisely in the third verse of the Internationale: "We need no condescending saviors." No, comrades and fellow friends of discussion and debate, we do not need to close off full and unfettered inquiry by canonizing infallible Popes of Revolution and demanding strict adherence to Political Correctness. If anything, what we need most of all is what was advanced (but never sriously implemented) bu the Chinese Communist Party in 1957: "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a thousand schools of thought contend." Open up the floor for full discussion and debate! Nothing is too sacred, or too Politically Incorrect, to be denied the floor! Let all say what they will, and let them all be judged by merit and truth, but never by adherence to Political Correctness. No censorship, but only responsibility for one's ideas and actions. And that's why this blog, "Politically Incorrect Leftist." Because my home is still on the left, despite the too-frequently obtuse and willfully ignorant characters I must now share my quarters.
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George, the biggest problem here is that you think you're 'white.' Not that you're alone, you've got millions for company.
ReplyDeleteAlong the same lines, although this one is anchored slightly differently, is that you think you're 'male.'
Time to set these burdens down. As Mao says, 'Cast away illusions, prepare for struggle.!'
Excuse me, but I've been both race-baited by the left because I'm born of two Caucasian parents, and gender-baited as well because I have the XY chromosones that make me biologically male. But I see your point. I respond that "white" and "male" are attitudes which I do not have, but too much of the left confuses biological categories with political attitudes. And being "black," for example, what does that mean in and of itself? After all, Clarence Thomas and Michael Steele are both "black" biologically! As for "male," I've been censored by the left and prevented from healing because I dare not talk about my abuse as a child--by my mother! However, it's perfectly "Politically Correct" to talk of
ReplyDeletemy abuse at the hands of my father! No, the left has these "white" and "male" problems, not I; and also, not a lot of well-meaning whilte males who've simply been cast adrift by the left. The standard left analyses of "white-skin privilege" and "male privilege" are only half-done analyses, analyses with vital half-truths, but not more than half-truths. But thank you for paying attention to "Politically Incorrect Leftist," and please continue to do so.
'Whiteness' is not an attitude; it's a social construct in the social nature of our selves designed for social control, which in turn rests on the political-social-economic structural of inequality in public and private life. Shaped in the period of 1630 to 1690 in colonial America, its intent was to convince European bondservants that they had more in common with their masters than the African bondservants. It started by forbidding inter-marriage and the ability of Africans to carry weapons, while a European bondservant could. About 70 years later, with hundreds on new structures in place, the terms of service of African bondservants was defined to be in perpetuity for themselves and their offspring, and European bondservants, with the badge of the white skin, excluded from this status, however low their status was otherwise.
ReplyDeleteSuch was the invention of the 'white race.' It has no significant basis in biology, despite claims for a 'Caucasian race,' 'Asiatic race,' and so on. There is only homo sapiens sapiens, ie, the human race, and the common ancestors of all of us come out of Africa.
I stopped using the term to refer to myself some time ago. Nowadays, I use Scot-Irish American hillbilly from Western PA. Many of these are social constructs as well, but at least they are anchored in something more than skin pigmentation, social control and status.
The 'male' social control identity is both similar and different. It, too, is more than an attitude. Some of it is indeed anchored in biology, and the debate is ongoing about how much is nature and how much is nurture, In any case, a key component of it still features dominance over the female which again rests on wider inequalities.
My point, George, is that it is all well and good to critique 'identity politics,' so long as you don't ignore the huge pink elephant in the room, white male identity politics, was is so pervasive, it's often treated as if it were not there.
Finally, I don't see why you consider some of the analysis on this topic 'half-done.' In fact , a great deal has been done--some excellent, some crappy, and some in between. But start with Ted Allen's two-volume 'Invention of the White Race' (Verso) for the Marxist and historical materialist mother lode on the topic.
Additional comment. In terms of support for me in my travail, it's indeed come. A left-wing professor I've long known commented pointedly, "I read this through. Frankly, I think you have better things to do than to be wrapped up with such a bunch of infantiles. Pearls before swine." He later commented, "You've spent too much time and moral energy stewing over jargon in the Indianapolis 'leftist' teapot."
ReplyDeleteAnother professor, also a self-professed "man of the left," called my tale a "sad, sad story," and also agreed with the first professor that I'm better off concentrating my energies writing the book on contemporary Taiwan they both encourage me to write. (And which I've started researching. While at Michigan State University in the 1960s I was a Chinese history major, and know the Chinese language. Further, I've previously published on China.)
Two old SDS buddies from the 1960s urged me to concentrate more on my music writing and, once again, call on me to eschew involvement with these "socialists." Also, much support has come for me from apolitical people who have good values, and would be valuable assets to a really effective left; unfortunately, were they to become involved, they would soon be subjected to what I was at the hands of these "leftists," "socialists," radicals" and "progressives. A good expression of this support is found in the "Comment" by Kevin above.
To date, although the three "socialists" actively involved in setting me up discussed my blog entry at their last meeting for 45 minutes, according to a report from Ron the H, they haven't seen fit to respond to me in any way. However,a small "revolutionary socialist" grouplet I'm a member of, Solidarity, wants to terminate my membership on the grounds that my falling out "discredits" the organization. In the motion presented to this effect, leaders of Solidarity further claim that the truth of the matter involved in this falling-out doesn't matter. Oh boy, just what we need! More kicking people out of the left in the name of leftism!
Needless to say, I stand exactly behind what I wrote, and state further that these Indianapolis "socialists" are the problem, not I. I pointedly note here that, as I related above, here in Indianapolis we once had a vibrant left movement in the form of the Solidarity Books collective, who were literally destroyed by the "religious progressives" who dominate here--and while this was going on, current "socialist leaders" just sat by and let it happen!
Back in my SDS days at Michigan State, we frequently arrogant young twerps were regularly, but appropriately, lectured by one of the campus workers sympathetic to the left. He'd say time and again, "You guys couldn't organize a f**k at an orgy." He was right, and his pointed remark applies exactly to this Indianapolis excuse for a left.
I just had a "censored" experience with one of the politically correct progressives here in Lexington, KY. I was searching for some articles on self-censorship for aid and comfort which turned up this blog post. I don't feel like the Lone Ranger now. Thanks!
ReplyDelete