Last week, a friend who follows my writing, pointed out that “progressives” have been the target of a lot of my ire recently. And it’s true. The reason being, and I can’t stress this enough, that I have nothing but the purest, white-hot disdain for what passes for “progressive” in 2022. It’s not just that I disagree with progressive talking points (although I often do), it’s not just that the rhetoric is meaningless, self-serving performance art (although it often is), it’s that today’s “progressives” are constantly centring themselves over the communities they’re supposed to be supporting.
I feel much the same as you here, Steve. Those we call progressives have sunk into the same sort of rigid conformity and orthodoxy as the other side. I believe this is what the other side calls "virtue signaling," showing that neologisms are an affliction at both poles.
But it's not new. The enlightened anti-racists in JFK's time were proud of themselves if they allowed a black person in their house. The bigotry was muted but it was still there.
I'm finding today's symmetries between the two poles to be increasingly disturbing. "Trump won" is no more absurd than "A man who declares one day that he's now a woman *is* a woman." Go against either in your respective group and you're anathema and blocked on social media.
This is not what I signed up for.
Yes Our Side is more open to a breadth of opinions but this orthodoxy seems to be more and more widespread.
I don't think you have a problem with true progressives; you have a problem with the Regressives, who style themselves progressives but have married the victim narratives (all of them!) and live in constant fear that some marginalized person somewhere might exercise some actual empowerment and responsibility.
I have as much disdain for those who self-/infantilize black people as well as those who do the same for feminism. You're fighting for genuine black pride (in yourselves, in your accomplishments) and I'm doing the same for women - who will need all the strength and personal power they can muster now that their body autonomy rights are about to fly out the window.
If they actually listened to them they might need to reconsider a lot of things. It feels so good to know you’re right - why should a little honest dialogue get in the way? I can’t stand the virtue signaling. The hypocrisy is palpable.
I forget the source, but the phrase ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood’ strikes me as the real necessity. Open ears and hearts.
In a nutshell: “Society benefits when the maximum number of human beings are living the best possible life, and this should be the goal. The end.”
How about this for practical? I'm just spit-balling but that's where all great ideas start. If there is cultural damage due to slavery or prejudice or exclusion, then let's brainstorm how to fix that.
1. Work on persuading the black community that education isn't white, that it is the thing that expands your universe, your options, and your possibilities - even your very humanity. Billboards? Websites? Other types of advertising? Use pithy slogans. How about: Don't hate, create! Too direct? (too bad because I own the domains for this slogan but have never had the time to build the website and media for a campaign plus I need a writer). How about: Get your mind on. How about: What do you wish you knew? I could go on. If these positive challenge messages surround black youth enough they will be influenced and over time their perceptions would change. Maybe they would begin to fight for themselves.
2. Provide free education for low-income people - whether in academia or trades - as a form of reparations.
3. How about a hotline - Ask me anything - that allows black youth to call a number and ask questions privately?
4. How about a problem-solving class using real-world examples that would build these skills in black youth or even adults?
5. How about free cooking classes? Free handy man classes? Free classes in anything that a parent typically teaches but which wisdom black youth don't receive because their parents are either working 3 jobs, drugged out, or otherwise unavailable to teach them. Create self-sufficiency and pride in oneself.
5. Provide free trauma therapy for anyone living in a poverty dominant zip code.
6. Provide free quality of life, money management, and/or family planning classes.
We could channel money into any of the above and get better results. These are just rough ideas and of course it would be challenging because - details. Plus, not everyone would participate, even at first. But some would. And as the successes mounted, it would spread. Also, some efforts would fail. But, good ideas have a way of achieving critical mass over time.
I'd rather see any of these initiatives tried than what's out there right now. Although, to be fair, there are some grassroots efforts that are having some success - see 1776unites.org for examples. Fund more of whatever is working.
Ignorance amplifies bias and leads us to make bad choices. We have to open ourselves up to new information if we want to better our situation. I don't see why we can't find a way to do at least some of the above of some of something else (don't care if it's my ideas just that it works). Just throwing money at the problem hasn't helped. Perhaps our approach needs to be more curated.
Most of my ideas are about teaching someone to have faith in themselves. I was a victim, I was hurt, I lost faith in myself. The way back was for me to lean on other people's faith in me until I could restore my own faith in myself. They had faith in me because I showed up and did the work. That's what it takes.
Right on point again, Steve! And great comments from the gang here, as usual.
I feel like we've made a multi-generational wrong turn (in the Anglophone world at least), and it saddens me. Today the neo-progressives have worked themselves way out an a limb of abstract and effete symbolism and virtue signaling with very little traction on real world problems. They are so far gone that the only thing they can imagine to address their lack of progress is to double down on the same weak strategy, on purity of dogmatism, and on eviscerating liberal democracy. There is now a self-perpetuating machine for converting good will and positive intentions into tribalism and unproductive conflict, and it's extremely resistant to any reform.
I read something a while back asking people about their ideal future world. The folks we might label as "woke" spoke not about peace, harmony, cooperation, human fulfilment, and opportunities; their vision was primarily one of ongoing conflict where their side was continuing to win by uniting all the oppressed into permanent struggle. What that cued me into is that people can get so addicted to The Struggle itself that they don't spend much time or emotional energy on how they want people to live well together - instead investing their imaginations into struggling forever to overthrow and suppress the cishetropatriarchy of white males as their end goal, their ideal society.
Or in short, fighting oppression is more engaging then actually ending oppression would be. If the current oppressions were somehow banished, others need to be created to keep the war going.
And if they accidentally succeeded, their core skillsets would immediately be turned on defeating the other coalition partners, because their toolkit is weak on cooperation, reciprocal rights, collaborative governance, conflict de-escalation, and win/win orientation in general. All swords and no plowshares. Without the fantasy of a perpetual shared enemy, it collapses into betrayals and infighting. The skills and mindsets needed for tearing down are different than those for building up. Valorizing zealotry does not beget cooperation and collaboration.
And yet, at least currently, most neo-progressives are starting with very positive motives. They want diversity (except of viewpoint) and inclusion (_of only the right people, with vigorously exclusion of the rest_) and equity (of outcomes, no matter how much discrimination of opportunity is needed to achieve that).
A while back, it struck me that "diversity is strength" is nonsense in a conflict-centric world, where it's a huge and usually violent problem; diversity is only a strength within a structure of collaboration and cooperation, where there is trust and a shared commitment to integrating the best ideas from diverse sources for shared benefits.
Regarding the original observation about focusing on problems with "progressives", I think that one of the factors which makes many of the folks here focus so much on neo-progressives is the frustration of seeing a potentially positive source of energy for creating a better world get hijacked into dogmatic conformity to a strategy leading more towards collapse than betterment. Or in other words: IT DOESN'T NEED TO GO THAT WAY! We see people with initial values similar to ours get taken over by a mind virus that points them in a counterproductive direction in many cases. Compared to, say, a committed white supremacist, whose self-perceived needs and desires are so different that traditional liberal progressivism has no good responses. So we get bothered when we see folks whose psychology once would have inspired them to move towards the minimization of race as a factor, today be channeled into perpetual race consciousness and unending conflict as the path to liberation.
Baldwin really at the center of matters again, no surprise. I'll never forget the closing of "a fire next time" where he laments the political fiction of "race" and muses whether or not we'll ever be able to accept that. (paraphrasing)
I feel much the same as you here, Steve. Those we call progressives have sunk into the same sort of rigid conformity and orthodoxy as the other side. I believe this is what the other side calls "virtue signaling," showing that neologisms are an affliction at both poles.
But it's not new. The enlightened anti-racists in JFK's time were proud of themselves if they allowed a black person in their house. The bigotry was muted but it was still there.
I'm finding today's symmetries between the two poles to be increasingly disturbing. "Trump won" is no more absurd than "A man who declares one day that he's now a woman *is* a woman." Go against either in your respective group and you're anathema and blocked on social media.
This is not what I signed up for.
Yes Our Side is more open to a breadth of opinions but this orthodoxy seems to be more and more widespread.
I don't think you have a problem with true progressives; you have a problem with the Regressives, who style themselves progressives but have married the victim narratives (all of them!) and live in constant fear that some marginalized person somewhere might exercise some actual empowerment and responsibility.
I have as much disdain for those who self-/infantilize black people as well as those who do the same for feminism. You're fighting for genuine black pride (in yourselves, in your accomplishments) and I'm doing the same for women - who will need all the strength and personal power they can muster now that their body autonomy rights are about to fly out the window.
Steve,
If they actually listened to them they might need to reconsider a lot of things. It feels so good to know you’re right - why should a little honest dialogue get in the way? I can’t stand the virtue signaling. The hypocrisy is palpable.
I forget the source, but the phrase ‘seek first to understand, then to be understood’ strikes me as the real necessity. Open ears and hearts.
In a nutshell: “Society benefits when the maximum number of human beings are living the best possible life, and this should be the goal. The end.”
How about this for practical? I'm just spit-balling but that's where all great ideas start. If there is cultural damage due to slavery or prejudice or exclusion, then let's brainstorm how to fix that.
1. Work on persuading the black community that education isn't white, that it is the thing that expands your universe, your options, and your possibilities - even your very humanity. Billboards? Websites? Other types of advertising? Use pithy slogans. How about: Don't hate, create! Too direct? (too bad because I own the domains for this slogan but have never had the time to build the website and media for a campaign plus I need a writer). How about: Get your mind on. How about: What do you wish you knew? I could go on. If these positive challenge messages surround black youth enough they will be influenced and over time their perceptions would change. Maybe they would begin to fight for themselves.
2. Provide free education for low-income people - whether in academia or trades - as a form of reparations.
3. How about a hotline - Ask me anything - that allows black youth to call a number and ask questions privately?
4. How about a problem-solving class using real-world examples that would build these skills in black youth or even adults?
5. How about free cooking classes? Free handy man classes? Free classes in anything that a parent typically teaches but which wisdom black youth don't receive because their parents are either working 3 jobs, drugged out, or otherwise unavailable to teach them. Create self-sufficiency and pride in oneself.
5. Provide free trauma therapy for anyone living in a poverty dominant zip code.
6. Provide free quality of life, money management, and/or family planning classes.
We could channel money into any of the above and get better results. These are just rough ideas and of course it would be challenging because - details. Plus, not everyone would participate, even at first. But some would. And as the successes mounted, it would spread. Also, some efforts would fail. But, good ideas have a way of achieving critical mass over time.
I'd rather see any of these initiatives tried than what's out there right now. Although, to be fair, there are some grassroots efforts that are having some success - see 1776unites.org for examples. Fund more of whatever is working.
Ignorance amplifies bias and leads us to make bad choices. We have to open ourselves up to new information if we want to better our situation. I don't see why we can't find a way to do at least some of the above of some of something else (don't care if it's my ideas just that it works). Just throwing money at the problem hasn't helped. Perhaps our approach needs to be more curated.
Most of my ideas are about teaching someone to have faith in themselves. I was a victim, I was hurt, I lost faith in myself. The way back was for me to lean on other people's faith in me until I could restore my own faith in myself. They had faith in me because I showed up and did the work. That's what it takes.
Right on point again, Steve! And great comments from the gang here, as usual.
I feel like we've made a multi-generational wrong turn (in the Anglophone world at least), and it saddens me. Today the neo-progressives have worked themselves way out an a limb of abstract and effete symbolism and virtue signaling with very little traction on real world problems. They are so far gone that the only thing they can imagine to address their lack of progress is to double down on the same weak strategy, on purity of dogmatism, and on eviscerating liberal democracy. There is now a self-perpetuating machine for converting good will and positive intentions into tribalism and unproductive conflict, and it's extremely resistant to any reform.
I read something a while back asking people about their ideal future world. The folks we might label as "woke" spoke not about peace, harmony, cooperation, human fulfilment, and opportunities; their vision was primarily one of ongoing conflict where their side was continuing to win by uniting all the oppressed into permanent struggle. What that cued me into is that people can get so addicted to The Struggle itself that they don't spend much time or emotional energy on how they want people to live well together - instead investing their imaginations into struggling forever to overthrow and suppress the cishetropatriarchy of white males as their end goal, their ideal society.
Or in short, fighting oppression is more engaging then actually ending oppression would be. If the current oppressions were somehow banished, others need to be created to keep the war going.
And if they accidentally succeeded, their core skillsets would immediately be turned on defeating the other coalition partners, because their toolkit is weak on cooperation, reciprocal rights, collaborative governance, conflict de-escalation, and win/win orientation in general. All swords and no plowshares. Without the fantasy of a perpetual shared enemy, it collapses into betrayals and infighting. The skills and mindsets needed for tearing down are different than those for building up. Valorizing zealotry does not beget cooperation and collaboration.
And yet, at least currently, most neo-progressives are starting with very positive motives. They want diversity (except of viewpoint) and inclusion (_of only the right people, with vigorously exclusion of the rest_) and equity (of outcomes, no matter how much discrimination of opportunity is needed to achieve that).
A while back, it struck me that "diversity is strength" is nonsense in a conflict-centric world, where it's a huge and usually violent problem; diversity is only a strength within a structure of collaboration and cooperation, where there is trust and a shared commitment to integrating the best ideas from diverse sources for shared benefits.
Regarding the original observation about focusing on problems with "progressives", I think that one of the factors which makes many of the folks here focus so much on neo-progressives is the frustration of seeing a potentially positive source of energy for creating a better world get hijacked into dogmatic conformity to a strategy leading more towards collapse than betterment. Or in other words: IT DOESN'T NEED TO GO THAT WAY! We see people with initial values similar to ours get taken over by a mind virus that points them in a counterproductive direction in many cases. Compared to, say, a committed white supremacist, whose self-perceived needs and desires are so different that traditional liberal progressivism has no good responses. So we get bothered when we see folks whose psychology once would have inspired them to move towards the minimization of race as a factor, today be channeled into perpetual race consciousness and unending conflict as the path to liberation.
Baldwin really at the center of matters again, no surprise. I'll never forget the closing of "a fire next time" where he laments the political fiction of "race" and muses whether or not we'll ever be able to accept that. (paraphrasing)
One-a *the* best, Steve. And I love Adam B. Coleman. Read his book and everything at https://wrongspeak.net/
Love the comments by Chris Fox, Nicole Chardenet and Jen. Will leave brief remark on Lightwings. Just a quick thank You, is all.