Actually, we are pretty much on the same page, and I agree with all that you have said.
I did not mean to give any impression that "we shouldn't point out what's going wrong on the *other* side". It was more about the tendency to avoid consideration of one's own side by changing the subject to the more comfortable topic of the other side…
Actually, we are pretty much on the same page, and I agree with all that you have said.
I did not mean to give any impression that "we shouldn't point out what's going wrong on the *other* side". It was more about the tendency to avoid consideration of one's own side by changing the subject to the more comfortable topic of the other side's faults.
I am today somewhat of a rogue progressive liberal, who strongly dissents from the direction that neo-progressives have taken the movement. And I direct a lot of my critical thinking at the neo-progressive left ("woke", "successor ideology", "PC", "the elect"), because as you say, there is more need for it, at least where I live. Critiques of the right (even exaggerated critiques) are the water we swim in here. Voices from the left or center, with measured criticism of the neo-progressive ideology (or religion as McWhorter frames it) are in serious undersupply by comparison. Also, having been on the progressive left for half a century, I know the roots of this subculture, and hope to be able to speak to it.
I sense a substantial authoritarian undercurrent to the current neo-progressive approach, so I am concerned about where that is leading if they get and use more power to remake the world in their vision. But I also fear that they are going to trigger an over-reaction which brings right wing authoritarianism into power. If voices more in the middle cannot bring the neo-progressives into more sanity, then force from much further to the right may do so. Or the attempt from the right will trigger & justify the latent authoritarianism of the left.
So I agree about the need to pay attention to the log in our own eye, not just the mote in the eye of the other. (Except I'd say they are both logs, albeit differently shaped ones).
I will note that in addition to citing the long ago Tuskegee experiment as a reason to avoid medical care today, another supposed gross injustice often cited in the same breath is the case of Henrietta Lacks. She was not publicly credited as the cell donor from whom a line of research cell cultures was derived, and she herself did not give permission nor receive compensation (other than free health care). But that's hardly a logical reason to not get vaccinated! She was not harmed in any way, and did not receive bad care.
I used to be very much in favor of digging out "the seamy underside of democracy" and exposing every historical injustice, with the belief that this would help us improve the future. I am coming to doubt that it's having a net positive effect, because every example is being exaggerated and weaponized to support a narrative of perpetual oppression; it's not used to rebalance and reflect, but to gain power and twist the popular understanding, albeit in a different direction. I think that I may be another in the long list of casualties from failed expectations of rationality.
Actually, we are pretty much on the same page, and I agree with all that you have said.
I did not mean to give any impression that "we shouldn't point out what's going wrong on the *other* side". It was more about the tendency to avoid consideration of one's own side by changing the subject to the more comfortable topic of the other side's faults.
I am today somewhat of a rogue progressive liberal, who strongly dissents from the direction that neo-progressives have taken the movement. And I direct a lot of my critical thinking at the neo-progressive left ("woke", "successor ideology", "PC", "the elect"), because as you say, there is more need for it, at least where I live. Critiques of the right (even exaggerated critiques) are the water we swim in here. Voices from the left or center, with measured criticism of the neo-progressive ideology (or religion as McWhorter frames it) are in serious undersupply by comparison. Also, having been on the progressive left for half a century, I know the roots of this subculture, and hope to be able to speak to it.
I sense a substantial authoritarian undercurrent to the current neo-progressive approach, so I am concerned about where that is leading if they get and use more power to remake the world in their vision. But I also fear that they are going to trigger an over-reaction which brings right wing authoritarianism into power. If voices more in the middle cannot bring the neo-progressives into more sanity, then force from much further to the right may do so. Or the attempt from the right will trigger & justify the latent authoritarianism of the left.
So I agree about the need to pay attention to the log in our own eye, not just the mote in the eye of the other. (Except I'd say they are both logs, albeit differently shaped ones).
I will note that in addition to citing the long ago Tuskegee experiment as a reason to avoid medical care today, another supposed gross injustice often cited in the same breath is the case of Henrietta Lacks. She was not publicly credited as the cell donor from whom a line of research cell cultures was derived, and she herself did not give permission nor receive compensation (other than free health care). But that's hardly a logical reason to not get vaccinated! She was not harmed in any way, and did not receive bad care.
I used to be very much in favor of digging out "the seamy underside of democracy" and exposing every historical injustice, with the belief that this would help us improve the future. I am coming to doubt that it's having a net positive effect, because every example is being exaggerated and weaponized to support a narrative of perpetual oppression; it's not used to rebalance and reflect, but to gain power and twist the popular understanding, albeit in a different direction. I think that I may be another in the long list of casualties from failed expectations of rationality.