One aspect which I find interesting is the extreme purity focus, which Haidt ascribes more to the right.
The neo-progressive ideology can be incredibly puritanical (although without redemption).
There appears to me to be positive delight in discovering even the tiniest mistake from years ago, which otherwise would be deeply buried and forgotten by 99.999% of the world - so that one can reframe a person's entire life trajectory as "racist" based on that mistake. The punishment is remarkably disproportional to the actual harm, so to me the "accountability" or "boycott-like" framing appears to be more of a cover story or rationale for behavior with a different primary motivation or payoff.
I acknowledge that this verges into imputing possible motives to others, so understand that I am owning the possibility of subjectivity and misunderstanding on my part. Yet it can be valid to question why a behavior becomes far more common than it's nominal rationale would logically support; in those cases, there could be additional motives or payoffs. The "delight" I describe perceiving above, is an example. As is the vindictiveness you mention.
One of the top half dozen issues I perceive in neo-progressivism (or wokism if one prefers), is the intoxication it offers to those who feel they have the unquestionable moral high ground. That sense of moral superiority causes people to numb out their empathy and feel guilt-free or even righteous when wallowing in schadenfreude. Racists (of which there is an adequate supply only if you cast your net absurdly widely, like including anybody who ever used the wrong word or made a bad joke) don't deserve decent treatment, and so "treat others as you would wish to be treated"* can be summarily dismissed as a moral guideline. By making a bad joke years ago, they have lost their human status and become a morally valid target for disproportionate vengeance.
(*The disdain neo-progressivism has for mutual benefit, mutual respect, reciprocal rights, win/win aspirations and other equality-based interactions is also on my top problems list. It's deeply wedded to win/lose and zero-sum-game framings of the world.)
One of the things which I believe illustrates the questions of true intentions of accountability is the highly selective nature of it. On one hand, somebody with a history of violent crime is supposed to be given many, many chances and judged very sympathetically (if a member of certain designated population groups). We must not be so judgemental, we must understand it from their viewpoint, we must be generous in our interpretations. However, for somebody who we seen as resisting the ideology, we should spend hours combing their history to see if there is the least mistake that we can unforgivingly highlight and exaggerate, to justify righteous punishment.
As you say, it's about power. The neo-progressive ideology sees the world and the human experience through mud colored glasses, as almost entirely being about power and conflict; cooperation is only a temporary tool for getting enough people together to take power. The way to create "justice" in this ideology is to invert the power structure - with the former oppressors now experiencing treatment which would be called "oppression" except that concept doesn't apply to people we have dehumanized and numbed out any empathy for. They are the bad tribe, and it's good when bad things happen to them, that's how we reduce oppression - pull down the oppressors and boost the oppressed, in all ways under our control or influence.
So having an extraordinarily generous view of "accountability" when assessing a marginalized person, while having an outright uber-puritanical concept of "accountability" when assessing a privileged person, is deliberately assymetric and a double standard - justified because its one of the main prescribed tools for generating justice.
One aspect which I find interesting is the extreme purity focus, which Haidt ascribes more to the right.
The neo-progressive ideology can be incredibly puritanical (although without redemption).
There appears to me to be positive delight in discovering even the tiniest mistake from years ago, which otherwise would be deeply buried and forgotten by 99.999% of the world - so that one can reframe a person's entire life trajectory as "racist" based on that mistake. The punishment is remarkably disproportional to the actual harm, so to me the "accountability" or "boycott-like" framing appears to be more of a cover story or rationale for behavior with a different primary motivation or payoff.
I acknowledge that this verges into imputing possible motives to others, so understand that I am owning the possibility of subjectivity and misunderstanding on my part. Yet it can be valid to question why a behavior becomes far more common than it's nominal rationale would logically support; in those cases, there could be additional motives or payoffs. The "delight" I describe perceiving above, is an example. As is the vindictiveness you mention.
One of the top half dozen issues I perceive in neo-progressivism (or wokism if one prefers), is the intoxication it offers to those who feel they have the unquestionable moral high ground. That sense of moral superiority causes people to numb out their empathy and feel guilt-free or even righteous when wallowing in schadenfreude. Racists (of which there is an adequate supply only if you cast your net absurdly widely, like including anybody who ever used the wrong word or made a bad joke) don't deserve decent treatment, and so "treat others as you would wish to be treated"* can be summarily dismissed as a moral guideline. By making a bad joke years ago, they have lost their human status and become a morally valid target for disproportionate vengeance.
(*The disdain neo-progressivism has for mutual benefit, mutual respect, reciprocal rights, win/win aspirations and other equality-based interactions is also on my top problems list. It's deeply wedded to win/lose and zero-sum-game framings of the world.)
One of the things which I believe illustrates the questions of true intentions of accountability is the highly selective nature of it. On one hand, somebody with a history of violent crime is supposed to be given many, many chances and judged very sympathetically (if a member of certain designated population groups). We must not be so judgemental, we must understand it from their viewpoint, we must be generous in our interpretations. However, for somebody who we seen as resisting the ideology, we should spend hours combing their history to see if there is the least mistake that we can unforgivingly highlight and exaggerate, to justify righteous punishment.
As you say, it's about power. The neo-progressive ideology sees the world and the human experience through mud colored glasses, as almost entirely being about power and conflict; cooperation is only a temporary tool for getting enough people together to take power. The way to create "justice" in this ideology is to invert the power structure - with the former oppressors now experiencing treatment which would be called "oppression" except that concept doesn't apply to people we have dehumanized and numbed out any empathy for. They are the bad tribe, and it's good when bad things happen to them, that's how we reduce oppression - pull down the oppressors and boost the oppressed, in all ways under our control or influence.
So having an extraordinarily generous view of "accountability" when assessing a marginalized person, while having an outright uber-puritanical concept of "accountability" when assessing a privileged person, is deliberately assymetric and a double standard - justified because its one of the main prescribed tools for generating justice.
What could go wrong?