Tuesday 22 May 2018

The Heart and Soul of Regressive Leftism


A question was put to me:
So Antifa advocates "Punch a Nazi". Would they still be OK with a male Antifa member punching a Nazi if she were a woman? Would Antifa, which is definitely very pro-feminist and committed to the principle of preventing violence against women, be conflicted by these two seemingly contradictory principles? That is the real question that is hard to answer.
It is easy to answer once you understand how the hard-line intersectional feminist mind actually works. The answer simply is yes, absolutely. Antifa have assaulted TERF feminists, why wouldn't they assault an actual Nazi woman?

Remember that antifa are the militant wing of the intersectional feminist movement. They're not anarcho-communists, whatever colors they may wave or fly or symbolism they may display. In the intersectional feminist ideology, identities are ultimately social, not biological constructs. This is very important to recognize, and clears up a lot of confusion surrounding their activities and beliefs.

Notice that these are the people pushing "trans women are women" narrative the hardest, even though they have male anatomy (unless they've had the full sex reassignment surgery and so on) "Woman" as a biological category is meaningless to them ideologically. Were you to suggest that women are defined by their anatomy and biology rather than social status and identity as marginalized people in a patriarchal society, they'd accuse you of being a misogynist, since you are "reducing women to their anatomy" and therefore "objectifying" them.

Unfortunately for you, were you to do this, this would be classified as Nazi, since the intersectional feminist regards as Nazi/Fascist that which threatens people with marginalized identity sets. You don't actually have to sympathize with Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini's actual ideology in order to be considered a fascist or a Nazi by Antifa. So they would probably punch you too. Hope you've been training on the heavy bag.

'Woman" is a socially constructed identity, and constitutes whatever is deemed marginalized relative to men. And it seems to be the case that people with marginalized identities can lose or forsake those identities if they take the side of those with privileged identities. Indeed, they're especially hateful towards women, PoC, trans folk and so on who go over to even moderate conservatism, let alone Nazism.

The mindset of the intersectional feminist regressive leftist is not often studied and understood by its opponents. The thing to keep in mind is that their outlook on the world is very different than ours. It's helpful to remember that:

1 - They don't believe in a common, objective reality that we all inhabit. They believe that much that we take for granted in terms of perception, conceptual thought and basic philosophical concepts such as metaphysics (the nature of reality), epistemology (ways of knowing that reality), morality (what is right and wrong) and so on are actually psychologically and socially constructed.

2 - They have a very manichean world view. This means that they see things in very stark good vs evil terms. It's all about those with marginalized (good) vs privileged (evil) identities or combinations of intersecting identities (hence the term intersectionality). So it's white vs PoC, male vs female, heterosexual vs LGBT, cis vs trans and so on. Given point 1 above, there's no room for any kind of common understanding between opposed sides. All interactions between those with marginalized vs privileged identity sets are "power discourses" meaning zero sum contests wherein one must win and the other must lose.

3 - Positive moral concepts - goodness, mercy, truth, right and so on are defined entirely in terms of what benefits those with marginalized identity sets and/or harms those with privileged identity sets. The reverse is also true - evil actions are rendered evil by who performs them, not by the characer of the actions themselves. This is why, according to the regressive intersectionalist, PoC can't be racist, women can't be sexist and it's not objectification when women ogle (or even assault or rape) men.  Thus, in defense of the marginalized and against the privileged, the utmost of ruthlessness and mercilessness is not only justified, but mandated.

4 - As kind of an aside, Marxist-Leninism and Maoism were basically like this as well, only with the proletariat and its self appointed Vanguard representatives filling in the role of marginalized, and the bourgeoisie filling in the role of the privileged. Lenin even coined a phrase for this exact concept - "Kto Kovo." Meaning who/whom? Who benefits? Trotsky embodied a similar concept in the question, "Towards socialism or towards capitalism?" This explains much of the character of these regimes.

5 - Not all sympathizers with regressive left ideologies go all the way in regards to the above. Fortunately, most are restrained to varying degrees by the prevailing moral order of the west, which implicitly holds that moral law is equally binding on all. To believe this while still proceeding in favor of social justice and fairness is the key indicator of the genuine progressive leftist as opposed to their regressive counterpart. In our currently free and liberal society, most intersectional feminists are not this fundamentalist in their interpretation of their ideology. I describe here the ideological system in its purest form, not as it is embodied with absolute consistency.

Antifa go farther than most down the dark path of regressivism, however. I suggest that they not be trusted, and resisted where possible. Perhaps against actual, bona-fide Nazis it's worth allying with people like this. Churchill and Roosevelt did that while allying with Stalin, after all. But other than that, these extremists of the regressive left are not to be trusted.

Understand the above, and you understand the heart and soul of regressive leftism.

Read The Regressive Left: History, Theory, Methodology: The Regressive Soul
Read The Regressive Left: History, Theory, Methodology: The Militant Mind

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