Leftist Headspace: The Beginning

Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) tweeted out this morning:

Once you see that Democrats can't tell the difference between sarcasm and thinking, you can't unsee it. https://t.co/bMKz2z4kQg

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) December 2, 2020

Which got me trolling through the Twitter archives to look for the first time I recognized that the Left Can't Discern. 

Here is a good candidate. The account I was debating is now suspended, but enough context remains for me to recall that they were posting political cartoons suggesting they were evidence of... something.

I love how the Left can't tell the difference between a cartoon and a photograph.

— Todd of Mischief (@AndToddsaid) April 2, 2018

But that's more of an early inkling. I found also the moment I first put into words "The left can’t make distinctions." Reproduced below (from Aug 12, 2019):

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@brainfertilizer I’ve been having trouble reconciling the hype-individualist aspects of leftism with their overall collectivism, as well as the conforming (i.e. collectivist) aspects of rightism. But I think I’ve resolved it…

Consider this: To the left, you don’t get to be an individual unless you join the collective. Outsiders are homogenous (i.e. white). That’s how nonconforming minorities “lose” their minority status in the eyes of the left.

Contrarily, to the right, you are an individual by default and it is up to you whether you want to be a part of the collective (i.e. community). 

Incidentally, this reveals the left to be, not a purity cult, but not exactly the opposite, either. It is a cult only for those with some admixture, purely for the impure. White symbolizes, as it always has, purity, and the left rejects it.

Thoughts?

@brainfertilizer responded: Seems like you might be overthinking it.  Or I might be missing what you see.  I don't see individuality on the Left, or collectiveness on the right.

What I see on the right is *community*, and that's not the same as collective.

On the left, its selfishness,  not individuality.

but maybe I'm not looking deep enough.

Don't shy from pushing the point whenever it seems appropriate.

@AndToddsaid: What I’m seeing is a need to at least account for things that look like they run counter to the left/collectivist vs right/individualist conception. More specifically, to account for how elements of the opposite function on each side.

Of course neither side is pure. This needs explained to the purists so the paradigm isn’t dismissed out of hand. I think it falls mainly on explaining the apparent individuality on the left. People expect collectivists to all wear Mao suits, not dress like Gaga’s little monsters.

@brainfertilizer: Ah, Now I think I'm following you.

@AndToddsaid: I think maybe you are. The main reason for attributing some degree of collectivism to the right is for balance and to avoid accusations that “community” is used to avoid facing rightist collectivism. It’s to occupy the headspace of the antithesis.

Yeah, I don’t mean “explain” as in apologetics. I mean it as in, how do I shut up the nabobs?

@MichaelHIrelan synthesized some of it in more classical terms for me. And raises some interesting points about rightist collectivism (or what seems to be it).

Here’s a thought. Socialism, and thereby communism, states that it is a goal to abolish hierarchical “classes” and impress equity upon all.

— Michael Irelan (@MichaelHIrelan) August 13, 2019

(Michael launched into a thread, see below.) 

@brainfertilizer: Even if I don't fully agree (and I'm not sure I do or do not at this point), you clearly have a good enough point I don't think you're wrong.

I'm also not sure I consider it a problem enough to worry about having to answer.  But then, I do not have identical interactions as you.

@AndToddsaid: If you’re looking to explain the collective/individual paradigm to rightists, then there in no problem. If you’re looking to explain it to people who observe “but the left is a multi-culti, pansexual, freak-flag flying circus” then it is a problem.

Here’s the challenge: how can the clowns be a collective when they all wear different clothes? The obvious answer is, they’re all clowns. Now explain that to someone who was taught from kindergarten that “clown” is just another word for “individual.”

@brainfertilizer: They don't have individual freedoms. They have to be clowns to be able to choose their own clown clothes.

The only have the right to be clowns, assigned to them by the Elite.

@MichaelHIrelan adds: It’s all very Stalinist. You have the freedom to choose to do what the State determines would be best if you chose, or be stripped of all party protections.

@AndToddsaid: Now contrast that to the apparent conformists who all dress alike. Is it because they’re mindless slaves? It because slacks and polos are terribly versatile? There is a unifying affect to freedom as more people gravitate to what’s most useful.

@brainfertilizer: This isn't on point, but it might be helpful: The difference really comes in by how the conformity comes about. Choosing to conform to a style because it is the way to succeed (and earn great agency) is an individual freedom. The consequences of not conforming are not succeeding.

Whereas conforming because an authority compels you isn't an individual freedom.  The consequences are being expelled from the group, and/or punishment.  There's nothing about natural consequences, it's being *enforced*.

@MichaelHIrelan: InB4 “enforced monogamy”

@AndToddsaid: Then there’s the distinction between social enforcement, which is naturalistic, and government enforcement, which often is not. The left can’t make distinctions.

@brainfertilizer: Damnit. there you go again with that. Can't deny it, but wish *I'd* thought of it.

@AndToddsaid: It festered in my brain for years before it found articulation.

Also, the inability to distinguish explains why superficial diversity is so important to them. Discerning people are hard to collectivize. The undiscerning can be bought with baubles.

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Here’s a thought. Socialism, and thereby communism, states that it is a goal to abolish hierarchical “classes” and impress equity upon all.

But the results are always a defined steepening of inequality where the small ruling elite accrete more and more power and and everyone else becomes less powerful.

Conversely, republicanism and free markets hierarchically organize everything in order of some value set, and literally place the future of the country and economy at the feet of the hierarchy. The base assumption being that, even with inequality, all will be better off.

The results of which have been, so far, a defined increase in elasticity of class, and a substantial flattening of inequality distributions over time. And anyone who doesn’t see that ought to take a close look at middle age monarchs and Cold War era party members.

Because in any environment outside the free market and embrace of hierarchies the inequality has been substantial. Some have log lean-tos, some have castles.

The reason I bring this up here is it seems that if you replace “currency” as the form of power in the economic formulation I described with “individuality” in the social formulation you are pondering, the input-outputs are the same.

Leftism et al creates an environment where the thing it claims to oppose, which is unfortunately doubtlessly an inescapable truism of humanity, is exaggerated and those who benefit from it form an increasingly narrow group (power inequality OR individualism).

Whereas the freedom minded political/social/economic side of the isle accepts the hierarchical nature of things, and assumes that alongside the unavoidable inequality of things will come a mutual benefit and therefor community gain.

Here’s the rub though, in order for the freedom idea to work everyone has to play along. This is where freedom people fall themselves into a sort of groupthink. It’s true that people who question total freedom are a risk to the system in varied degrees, but hierarchies stagnate.

People on the right find themselves reflexively arguing against anything, with one voice and completely unthinkingly, against anything that smells like reduced freedom. But since absolute freedom isn’t freedom at all for anyone, there are fair criticisms that must exist.

But the right will inevitably gather in unison to decry perceived threats to their freedom, since they have accepted that freedom is a fundamental good and are skeptical at least of ANYTHING that might topple this historically unique state.

Wow. sorry for the thesis paper here Todd. Didn't think I had ranted that long.