I think the left/right formulation has completely broken down. The traditional divisions on matters of culture and economics etc. have yielded to a warped system with different axes altogether. Take the "woke" movement, easily as rigid and uncompromising as the worst of MAGA; that they have few values in common does little to mitigate …
I think the left/right formulation has completely broken down. The traditional divisions on matters of culture and economics etc. have yielded to a warped system with different axes altogether. Take the "woke" movement, easily as rigid and uncompromising as the worst of MAGA; that they have few values in common does little to mitigate their complete inflexibility. You cannot hold a view on even the most absurd matters of gender identity on what we once called the left any more than you can believe Trump lost the 2020 election.
The right used to be about strong defense, fiscal restraint, now it's the right running up the biggest deficits in history. The left used to be about lending a helping hand to those who need it, a diversity of viewpoints; now it runs in terror from any conviction of any kind.
Red and blue doesn't really cover it either. It seems more geography than outlook.
I call myself a leftist; I am more of an environmentalist and communitarian than anything else; but I would welcome the most brutal authoritarianism if it would halt the eulogies of extinct species, as long as it could be trusted, but it can't be. I revile the "woke" with as much disgust as I do the MAGA crowd.
The right once included ideological leaders, men like Buckley and Goldwater whose ideas were horrible but were at least sincere and coherent; their descendants are just haters and nothing more than that.
Whatever we call them, there is no common ground to be found anymore.
"I think the left/right formulation has completely broken down."
Yep, agreed. Or rather, as you say, it doesn't mean what it used to mean. The divide used to be about policies. About sincere, albeit different, visions of how to create a better society. Increasingly, it's about which fictitious version of reality you want to pretend is real.
The reality deniers on both sides will cause untold, albeit different, damage if left unchecked. The reasonable people, who I believe are a silent majority, have a common enemy.
Really well articulated. I get where you’re coming from on the imperative for some sort of cooperation mechanism to deal with global environmental issues of existential importance. I was an enviro nonprofit lawyer for nearly 25 years.
But arguably more important to my current daily life and that of my children in the near future is the freedom to openly adhere to what your good faith version of shared truth. (Your “lived experience” is your own damn business.).
That freedom is what is at stake. Thanks for your really helpful and insightful thoughts.
When words have no standard meaning all things become ambiguous. People who think like what you just expressed are moving away from parties or labels they once proudly proclaimed as their tribe with words to the effect of, "The [X] has moved away from my values."
My MAGA buddy calls Republicans who don't support Trump RINOs. In my thinking, Trump is the RINO when thinking of what Republicans once stood for. When Trump first ran, I opined that as a life-long Democrat he was a shill who would destroy the Republican Party. I took considerable heat from his supporters for expressing that opinion. I was probably wrong about him being a shill with a mission to destroy the Republican Party. He now seems more of a narcissist with total disregard for the Republican party, though I was probably right about his destructive nature. His supporters have forgotten what Republicans once stood for.
JFK would probably be too conservative to be a Democrat today. The same could possibly be said for the young tough on crime Joe Biden. Barack Obama ran on "change." We got it good and hard where the change is a bit dystopian. Not entirely blaming him for that, I had high hopes for him. He was an inspiring candidate, perhaps more a disappointment than a villain.
It was not all that long ago that the Democrats embraced racism for the southern vote and there was a strong liberal wing in the Republican Party. Probably everyone reading here is aware of the pivot that came with LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, though he was way off in his prediction of how long it was give the southern vote to the GOP.
The traditional conservative imperatives—strong defense, fiscal restraint, blah blah blah—are gone, Wm F. Buckley would be unwelcome and Goldwater's "shoot straight" would make him a pariah. What remains of the GOP is mostly crazy people and a few more who are not repelled enough by children in cages, or by Trump, to leave the party.
Aside: on the way home from the gym just now the traffic was backed up, one lane closed ... I thought it was some minor construction but then a grass mat over a lump in the road and a stream of blood coming out by a small hand. A dead child. Probably fallen off the back of a motorbike whose driver was playing too hard at "me first." Pardon if I have a touch of the horrors right now.
To your aside, yesterday I watched the internet news from Thailand with my wife. Severe flooding in the north. A capsized naval vessel with 31 missing sailors. Traffic carnage including a 14 year old boy killed on a motorcycle whose older brother died on a motorcycle two years ago. Horrors indeed.
I've been to Thailand. It is nothing like Vietnam. People drive sensibly, like a moving pattern of bikes maintaining the same distances and speed. In Vietnam it's all me first! Me first!; I even saw people zooming around dead bodies in the road, reckless as ever with the end result of such recklessness right in front of them.
In Thailand if you're walking toward someone on a sidewalk he will shift to one side. In Vietnam they don't; in America it would be a macho thing (YOU get out of MY way); in Vietnam it isn't, it's just a fundamental unconsciousness of cooperative order.
I was struck many times by the difference between behavior in the two countries.
The Lunar New Year (Tết) is coming soon; half the city will go visit relatives in villages, the other half will stay, get drunk, and drive craz[il]y. Great time to stay at home.
I think the left/right formulation has completely broken down. The traditional divisions on matters of culture and economics etc. have yielded to a warped system with different axes altogether. Take the "woke" movement, easily as rigid and uncompromising as the worst of MAGA; that they have few values in common does little to mitigate their complete inflexibility. You cannot hold a view on even the most absurd matters of gender identity on what we once called the left any more than you can believe Trump lost the 2020 election.
The right used to be about strong defense, fiscal restraint, now it's the right running up the biggest deficits in history. The left used to be about lending a helping hand to those who need it, a diversity of viewpoints; now it runs in terror from any conviction of any kind.
Red and blue doesn't really cover it either. It seems more geography than outlook.
I call myself a leftist; I am more of an environmentalist and communitarian than anything else; but I would welcome the most brutal authoritarianism if it would halt the eulogies of extinct species, as long as it could be trusted, but it can't be. I revile the "woke" with as much disgust as I do the MAGA crowd.
The right once included ideological leaders, men like Buckley and Goldwater whose ideas were horrible but were at least sincere and coherent; their descendants are just haters and nothing more than that.
Whatever we call them, there is no common ground to be found anymore.
"I think the left/right formulation has completely broken down."
Yep, agreed. Or rather, as you say, it doesn't mean what it used to mean. The divide used to be about policies. About sincere, albeit different, visions of how to create a better society. Increasingly, it's about which fictitious version of reality you want to pretend is real.
The reality deniers on both sides will cause untold, albeit different, damage if left unchecked. The reasonable people, who I believe are a silent majority, have a common enemy.
Really well articulated. I get where you’re coming from on the imperative for some sort of cooperation mechanism to deal with global environmental issues of existential importance. I was an enviro nonprofit lawyer for nearly 25 years.
But arguably more important to my current daily life and that of my children in the near future is the freedom to openly adhere to what your good faith version of shared truth. (Your “lived experience” is your own damn business.).
That freedom is what is at stake. Thanks for your really helpful and insightful thoughts.
When words have no standard meaning all things become ambiguous. People who think like what you just expressed are moving away from parties or labels they once proudly proclaimed as their tribe with words to the effect of, "The [X] has moved away from my values."
My MAGA buddy calls Republicans who don't support Trump RINOs. In my thinking, Trump is the RINO when thinking of what Republicans once stood for. When Trump first ran, I opined that as a life-long Democrat he was a shill who would destroy the Republican Party. I took considerable heat from his supporters for expressing that opinion. I was probably wrong about him being a shill with a mission to destroy the Republican Party. He now seems more of a narcissist with total disregard for the Republican party, though I was probably right about his destructive nature. His supporters have forgotten what Republicans once stood for.
JFK would probably be too conservative to be a Democrat today. The same could possibly be said for the young tough on crime Joe Biden. Barack Obama ran on "change." We got it good and hard where the change is a bit dystopian. Not entirely blaming him for that, I had high hopes for him. He was an inspiring candidate, perhaps more a disappointment than a villain.
It was not all that long ago that the Democrats embraced racism for the southern vote and there was a strong liberal wing in the Republican Party. Probably everyone reading here is aware of the pivot that came with LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, though he was way off in his prediction of how long it was give the southern vote to the GOP.
The traditional conservative imperatives—strong defense, fiscal restraint, blah blah blah—are gone, Wm F. Buckley would be unwelcome and Goldwater's "shoot straight" would make him a pariah. What remains of the GOP is mostly crazy people and a few more who are not repelled enough by children in cages, or by Trump, to leave the party.
Aside: on the way home from the gym just now the traffic was backed up, one lane closed ... I thought it was some minor construction but then a grass mat over a lump in the road and a stream of blood coming out by a small hand. A dead child. Probably fallen off the back of a motorbike whose driver was playing too hard at "me first." Pardon if I have a touch of the horrors right now.
To your aside, yesterday I watched the internet news from Thailand with my wife. Severe flooding in the north. A capsized naval vessel with 31 missing sailors. Traffic carnage including a 14 year old boy killed on a motorcycle whose older brother died on a motorcycle two years ago. Horrors indeed.
I've been to Thailand. It is nothing like Vietnam. People drive sensibly, like a moving pattern of bikes maintaining the same distances and speed. In Vietnam it's all me first! Me first!; I even saw people zooming around dead bodies in the road, reckless as ever with the end result of such recklessness right in front of them.
In Thailand if you're walking toward someone on a sidewalk he will shift to one side. In Vietnam they don't; in America it would be a macho thing (YOU get out of MY way); in Vietnam it isn't, it's just a fundamental unconsciousness of cooperative order.
I was struck many times by the difference between behavior in the two countries.
The Lunar New Year (Tết) is coming soon; half the city will go visit relatives in villages, the other half will stay, get drunk, and drive craz[il]y. Great time to stay at home.