An Expedition To The Left Pole

Like most people I know, I’ve been on the political Left my whole life.

This doesn’t mean that I think that people on the political Right are evil, just that we, as John McCain tactfully put it, have disagreements on fundamental issues.

But in the past five years or so, something’s shifted. And it’s not me.

I still disagree with the politics of the Right just as often. But now, I disagree, even more strongly, with some of the ideas coming from the Left. My political home has been taken over by authoritarian, puritanical zealots.

And frankly, I’ve had enough.

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In 2015, at Harvard University, a cognitive scientist named Stephen Pinker identified a place he called the Left Pole.

Just as at the North Pole, every direction is south, and at the South Pole, every direction is north, at the Left Pole every disagreement appears to be coming from the right. 

Pinker has even found himself on the wrong side of this divide. 

Despite being one of the biggest Democratic donors among Harvard faculty, possessing an extensive literary track record advocating for liberal ideals, and performing this unmistakably left-leaning jig, when the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden, he's been mischaracterised as "right-wing" by various sources, denounced for pointing out that making truths unutterable makes them more likely to be uttered, and even equated with fruitcakes like Alex Jones and Candace Owens.

At the Left Pole, ideas (and people) aren't judged by whether they're logical or factual or helpful. If you reject race essentialism, if you acknowledge biological reality, if you value free speech, you're out in the cold.

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Of course, the left side of the political aisle doesn’t have a monopoly on lies and nonsense. The fringes on the political Right are just as fond of alternative facts and conspiracy theories and calling everybody they dislike "pedophiles.”

But that's the point. The political spectrum isn't a line, it's a circle. If you go to the extremes on the political Left, if you abandon truth and reason and integrity, eventually you find people who look and sound an awful lot like the worst people on the political Right. 

They just disagree about who to hate. 

Take, for example, Steven Shaviro, a professor at Wayne State University who said it is "far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down." 

Or trans activist, Shanu Varma, who bragged about putting together a kill list of 50 prominent "TERFs" (read: women who said "no" to his demands). Just one example of a disturbing trend of rhetorical and real-world violence.

But fear not, the Left Pole isn't all about misusing terms like "racist" and transphobic and "Nazi" to justify murdering people you disagree with. Sometimes it's just about being hopelessly out of touch with the people you're supposed to be helping. 

For instance, Lisa Bender, Minneapolis City Council president. Here she is arguing that the desire to call the police if someone breaks into your home “comes from a place of privilege.”