Egolitarianism - the Core Disease of the Left

But we did, Nathan. And that's precisely the problem.

In the unlikely event that Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs magazine and I were ever to sit down and discuss policy we'd like to see implemented, I'm sure we'd agree on a great deal. We Need to Revive the Fight for Overtime Pay, reads a July 9, 2019 headline. No argument here.  Doubtlessly Robinson is an advocate of universal single payer health care, preferably with basic dental and eye care included. Probably an advocate of renewed vigor in the union movement. Probably for ending neoconservative petrodollar warfare in the middle east. Probably for overturning Citizens United and getting money out of politics. You get the picture.

At times his enlightenment goes beyond that: Discipline, Strategy and Morality, or why beating up unarmed writers is a poor way to advance left-wing ideas… reads another article, regarding antifa's recent violent assault on right leaning author Andy Ngo. While Robinson has no kind words for Ngo, he rightly condemns antifa's assault on him: "The attack on Andy Ngo does not, to me, meet the criteria for justified violence. A Quillette writer with a GoPro is a nuisance. Punching him might be satisfying (to some, not me). But it is gratuitous and unjustified. It’s wrong. It does nothing helpful, and actually harms the cause of the left." Agreed, though to be fair and in the interests of equal time, it's worth pointing out that there are those who claim that Ngo is no innocent angel or martyr here either.

But I digress. As far as left wing pundits are concerned, expect good stuff from Nathan Robinson. Most of the time.

However, in a recent piece in Current Affairs, Don't Believe What They Tell You About the Left, he drops the ball, and does so in a manner that reveals the heart of what's wrong with so much leftism, both past and present. The article criticizes Intellectual Dark Web pundit Bret Weinstein for asserting that the left's ongoing demonization of white people will drive more and more of them to the embrace of white nationalism.

I am not naturally sympathetic to the “Black Studies made me become a Nazi” position. Partly this is because, as a straight white male myself (and a college Black Studies major), I have no idea what these guys are even talking about. I’ve never been told “fuck you for being a straight white man.” Nothing of the kind. The closest thing I’ve ever gotten is “perhaps as a straight white male you should exercise a bit of caution and restraint before loudly giving your opinion on matters that other people may have somewhat more personal experience with.” But when people insist they “won’t apologize for being white,” I still wonder who has been asking them, because nobody has ever asked me to do anything but show respect for marginalized people’s perspective and critically examine my own assumptions and advantages. Which seems a fairly modest ask. 

Robinson goes on to insist that there are no such voices on the left condemning white males categorically, and that these claims come exclusively from right wing sources. The article favorably quotes one Sam Adler Bell: "These people are not getting the message “everyone hates white straight males” from left wing media. They’re not watching left wing media!! It’s absurd. They’re getting that message from right wing media *interpreting* left wing media for them."

He then goes on to suggest: "Don’t get your understanding of left concepts from Prager University videos. Get them from books! Or from leftists. Go to a DSA meeting and meet some people and listen to what they have to say."

Okay. I like the idea of going to the source. Get your views on the left from right wing sources, and what you'll get is a telling glimpse of the private obsessions of the right wing mind. The vast majority of the time, these have little to do with the obsessions of the left. What you'll get instead is a Shapiroesque gish gallop or a Petersonian word salad, wherein you can count on one hand the number of inhalations the speaker takes before getting into the evils of communism, government intervention in the economy, the need for high income tax cuts and deregulation, one hundred million dead in the 20th century, and no small number of mentions of Venezuela and of course endless hosannas exalting endless private wealth accumulation and concentration. Whatever the Koch Bro's pay them to say, basically.

And that hasn't changed in decades now. Listen to the right wing on any format, and what you'll get is the clear sense that the western world reached its absolute satori around 1981 or so, when Maggie and Ronnie were slashing taxes, privatizing and deregulating left and right, and sticking it to the unions at home and the commies abroad. From there, what we have to look forward to is a millennium of glory, as outlined in the gospels of Rand, Mises, Friedman and Hayek. If this actually sounds pretty lame, that's because it is. An endless future of sweatshops, indebtedness and boom and bust cycles doesn't sound that exciting to me. Sorry guys.

Plus, I should hope that we're all smart enough not to be enticed into white nationalism, no matter how shrill and stupid the anti-white rhetoric on the left gets. Too wrongs don't make a right, after all. And let's especially give Adolf Hitler's resurgent fan club a pass. Let's not forget that he did start a war that got tens of millions of Europeans and white males killed, that devastated the nations of Europe and permanently ended their global hegemony. With friends like Adolf, white guys certainly don't need enemies. Fortunately, this groundswell of neo-fascist reaction against social justice culture doesn't seem to be a huge big thing. And no, Trumpism doesn't count. Neither does the Tea Party. Reactionary politics tap into impulses in the American (and European) body politic that are decades, centuries even, old. It reincarnates on a decade, maybe a generational cycle, but there's nothing here that hasn't been here in numerous different forms for ages now. So a surge white supremacism as a response to social justice excess isn't a thing, in any event.

So if you want to see what's going on on the left, check out leftist sources. Agreed, and the reverse is true. Don't just believe that Jordan Peterson is a Nazi and that Sam Harris is a genocidal neocon. See for yourself (said no leftist ever). Unfortunately for Nathan J. Robinson, doing precisely that actually damns his basic claim. Frustration with the left of the kind he's criticizing isn't coming from the Heritage Foundation or Liberty University. It comes from people like myself and many others who've had countless encounters with left wing people online and in real life and report having very similarly frustrating experiences. Common themes include:

• Robinson has had good luck with leftists if the only anti white, anti male hatred he's encountered is strictly tongue in cheek, or hyperbolic expressions of frustration with white and male privilege. If such expressions abound, that should tell us something about the character of the left in the social media age, and that something isn't good. If expressions of hate for anyone (except the legitimately horrible; Hitler etc) have become acceptable on the left, that's a pretty clear indicator that we've lost the plot. Remember when we hated racism, not white people? When we hated sexism, not men? This was the cant on even the radical left as recently as the 1990s. If you don't think the left has a white hatred problem and a misandry problem, you're not paying attention to a host of sources: twitter, tumblr, a host of woke blogs, r/socialism, most of leftbook, a good portion of breadtube, most online feminism, etc etc. It takes a glaring dose of willful blindness not to see that the left has become about flagrant racial and gender partisanship. It shouldn't be.

• Leftists are too often not direct and honest in conversation. One wonders if protest is the only way they actually have of communicating with other people. In encounters with ideological rivals, the tendency online is to post vague expressions of disapproval in a scolding and parental tone, intended to gaslight their target into assuming a purely rational, "what did I do wrong?" kind of stance. And then eat them alive. Another is a "whew boys, look at this" sort of post, followed by mocking laughter. This is the entire format of The Majority Report with Sam Seder on YouTube. You know, the channel with the cackling asshole in the background at all times. Chapo Trap House is largely about this as well. While satirizing the right is fun and easy, if that's all they do, one starts to come away from media like this with the impression that what leftists stand for is how smart, clever and funny they think they are. Are actual ideological and policy positions expressed on these shows? Or is it ALL gaslighting? I don't honestly know. We'd do well to learn from the brilliant Kyle Kulinski, who always lets you know exactly what this is - or should be - about policy wise.

• Leftists have a love of sloganeering, thought stopping rhetorical tricks, witty portmanteaus and reciting, sometimes word for word, official dogmas. I've read the same copy-pasta, word for word, on gender related subjects I don't know how many times now. And as bad as the intersectional feminists are for this, they have nothing on the classical Marxist Leninists and (worst of all) the Maoists. Now these are a thankfully small minority on the left, but do show how we're not immune to the ills of flagrantly cult like thinking.

• Closed ideological systems, which contain within themselves easy means to dismiss any and all criticism of themselves. Critics are simply white males defending their privilege, reactionary capitalist roaders, kulaks, etc. They all have a stake in the maintenance of the present "oppressive" system. That the cherished dogmas of the left, like Marxist Leninism once upon a time and intersectional feminism today, could be flawed (while still making some correct observations) is inconceivable.  

• Related to this is a tendency to display "moral relativism in monstrous incarnation."  Which refers to the tendency of leftists to judge actions on the basis of the "classes" of people who perform them, or whether they belong to a "marginalized" vs a "privileged" group. Leftist hating of white males isn't really hatred because hatred is "power plus prejudice" and since feminists and minorities have no power (according to their own self referencing dogmas) they can't be bigots. Violent actions visited upon the kulaks or other enemies of the people are okay. Kto Kovo, right? 

• Frequent expression, or at least implication, of truly bizarre and extreme views. Consider, for instance, the occasionally cited Schrödinger's Rapist, which implies that all women everywhere should at all times avoid all men, because they have no way of knowing which men are the rapists and which are not. This has clearly not been thought through, and doesn't reflect the way that virtually all progressives and feminists live their lives in the real world. Gee, I wonder why? Yet even if such ideas are not meant to be taken at face value, what does their popularity among leftists and feminists say about their underlying mindset? Most of them may not all really hate all men and white people, but their doctrines certainly open the door to legitimizing such hatred, and anti white male exacerbation is a recurring motif in leftist spaces in a way that would not be tolerated (and rightly so) were the racial and gender identities switched. Are we to believe that only white males have flaws in their character that require self reflection and repentance? At what point do "power" and "privilege" simply become legitimizing rationalizations for why it's okay when the left's charmed circle of preferred identities hate?  I guess the idea that we should not be discriminated against based on our race or gender isn't really the idea after all. This all says something, whether the Nathan J. Robinsons of this world want it to or not. If men, white men especially, are put off by this ongoing pandering to female moral vanity, can we really blame them?

• Fragility. Put up serious arguments against leftist dogmas, and watch their adherents fall to pieces, or go into full on attack mode. You've caused them personal injury, and they're damn well going to let you - or your employers or people you do business with - know it. They sure the hell let Andy Ngo know it, among others. Of course, they're the first to accuse their opponents of likewise being fragile, with "white fragility" being a common thought stopping slogan among critical race theorists to denounce the tendency among whites to dislike being held collectively responsible for historical mistreatment of minorities. 

I should like to point out that I, and many others, were not told about any of the above second hand by Bret Weinstein or Dave Rubin. We weren't all good, dutiful socialists until Stefan Molyneux or Carl Benjamin somehow brainwashed us into falsely believing all of this. They are experiences that I and countless others, including some of these very "right wing" YouTubers have had, and they aren't isolated occurrences. They are the rule and not the exception, I'm afraid.

And I hate to say all of this, because I am a leftist at heart. I don't even completely disagree with the tenets of today's left: intersectionality and so on. Robinson is right in that we'd do well to listen to those with more experience with particular kinds of discrimination, and not be so quick to get defensive. The problem is the weaponization of intersectionality and the inflation of standpoint theory into claims for full blown infallibility. Plus, we can reasonably question just who the intersectional ideologues are speaking for, and how repesentative professional journalists and academics really are of the downtrodden and marginalized? We're not stupid, Nathan. We know when these ideas are being manipulated so as to establish social dominance. We've been through it with hip, politically correct ideologues time and time again, and the fact our frustration with it gets chalked up to the "alt right" simply compounds the problem.

Where Robinson gives himself, and the mainstream left away, however, is in this pair of quotes:

I am not naturally sympathetic to the “Black Studies made me become a Nazi” position. Partly this is because, as a straight white male myself (and a college Black Studies major), I have no idea what these guys are even talking about. I’ve never been told “fuck you for being a straight white man.” Nothing of the kind.

 One of my colleagues, for instance, has a tendency to joke that all men should be fired into the sun. (At least, I believe she is joking.) Men sometimes email to complain, saying they do not feel “welcomed” into the left and that these jokes are hurtful because they imply that all men are bad. I am not very sympathetic to the men who write these notes, because I am of their gender and I do not feel wounded about remarks advising that men be fired into the sun.

In short, Nathan J. Robinson has not himself ever been told to fuck off for being a straight white man, so we're to assume that never happens. Nathan J. Robinson himself doesn't feel wounded by remarks advising that men be fired into the sun. Therefore, such remarks are well and good.

Well, I hate to have to say this, Nathan, but it isn't all about you. Maybe, just maybe, it's not wise for leftists to countenance white male bashing in their ranks because doing so drives away a huge potential base for support. Support the left needs to actually win elections, take power and actually implement policy that can really help poor and marginalized minorities. Maybe that support and the politics it can achieve is more important to the broader cause than professional educated professional activists getting to be right and dumb rightists being wrong about a cherished point of dogma, such as 'power plus prejudice' or of the ego stroking satisfaction of displaying their unbound feminist wittiness in the face of yet another neanderthal male.

But many leftists will never consider this, and thus the core of the problem on the left reveals itself, and why self reflection (except a vain sort of self criticism of one's own ideological shortcomings, itself a very totalitarian and cultish concept) seems never to be on the table with most leftists:

The left has an egocentrism problem.

Too many leftists are caught up in a kind of narcissism wherein their projected self-concepts as warriors fighting on behalf of the underdog (the precise origin of the derisive use of the phrase social justice warrior) must be shielded at all times from any kind of doubt or criticism. Thus, their reactions to disagreement are always ones of emotionalism, hostility and defensiveness. Never due consideration of what their opponents actually have to say, even if the end result of such consideration would reveal the critics being incorrect and the left's position vindicated by the facts. One gets the sense that, like the religious fundamentalist, many leftists demand blind faith, and the very notion of fact checking thus offends them. To doubt is to be racist, misogynist etc.

It's so much easier just to handwave any and all dissent as the shrill hysteria of this or that right wing pundit, and maybe even call for their deplatforming, milkshaking or the like. So much easier than meeting the challenge head on. The bubble of self satisfaction doesn't get burst that way. Not to say that right wing pundits on YouTube or elsewhere are correct in their own world views. The right has its own problems. However, the lack of self awareness among so many on the left is simply breathtaking.

Perhaps this is why most of the intellectual and activist vigor on the left is poured into digging in their heels over metapolitical dogmas aimed at asserting a kind of ideological infallibility: standpoint theory, power plus prejudice, white male fragility, dissension from feminist and race theory equating to racist and sexist oppression, "hate" speech as a form of actual violence (justifying censorship). As opposed to fighting the good fight for actual policies that will help real people in the real world: universal health care, free education, a living wage, ending petrodollar warfare, a new new deal,  getting money out of politics and so on.

Witty leftists so love their portmanteaus, so I have one of my own: too many leftists are egolitarians. Its meaning should be obvious. So if you are reading this, Nathan J. Robinson, or whoever else on the left who's reading this, let's work at not being egolitarian. Let's make this about the policies we all know we need, that Kyle Kulinski and Bernie Sanders so love to repeat so often. I'm not calling for perfection, purity testing or vigorous tone policing. Rather, let's try to make this about ourselves and our self concepts a little less and about achieving good political results for the most needy and the most marginalized a little more, if we could?

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The Means and Limitations of Argument

An important article appeared in Current Affairs on March 16, 2017 entitled "Debate vs. Persuasion" written by Nathan J. Robinson.  I say important because it reveals important facts about ideological competition that anti-regressive political forces need to be aware of.

The most important thing anybody could ever understand about political debate is contained within the first paragraph.

"A common argument on the left runs as follows: one should not have an excessive confidence in the power of “rational debate” to solve political disagreements. There is, after all, no reasoning with some people. They are beyond argument, and thinking that you can reason with them is delusional. Any attempt to do so is likely to hurt your political fortunes, because it misunderstands how power works. Politics is not a university debating society, in which each side offers its premises and conclusions and the team with the tightest logic wins. It is “war by other means,” a clash of interests that is won by gaining the ability to push your agenda through, not by showing the other side how reasonable you are."

It has been bolded and the font changed for emphasis.  Read that again.  And again.  And again.  The only thing I'll add is that this kind of thinking isn't really unique to the left.  The Tea Party, for instance, was prone to thinking that way.  Obama, the Muslim Nazi communist antichrist that he was, simply could not be reasoned with.  Total obstruction was the only option open to congressional Republicans in the Obama era who had angry and vocal Tea Partiers - convinced that FEMA camps were just around the corner - to answer to back home.  

But it does come naturally to leftists, who have a tendency to see politics in the Manichean terms described in the last sentence of the paragraph.  This has been especially true since Trump's win, who while not a communist or a Muslim (obviously) is also a Nazi, as well as a whole basket of other deplorables besides. One out of four ain't bad, I guess.  And while he's not the antichrist in the minds of his Women's March opponents - all together too Christian and hence Republican and hence white male for the Women's Marchers, the concept of the antichrist is, he is likened to Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter legendary, who I surmise is the next worst thing.

Whichever dark lord happens to sit in the oval office at any given time (I seem to recall frequent comparisons of George W. Bush to Sauron, for example, or Anakin Skywalker after his fall to the dark side) the important thing is that reference to mythological imagery and archetype is indispensable to the creation of a political movement aspiring to long term success.  If the movement does not cast its enemies in the role of evil villains, how can its supporters be, or at least feel, heroic?  The problem with demonizing your opponents, though, is that it becomes harder to reason with them and maintain your credibility.  Hence the perception of politics as a "war by other means" rather than as a "university debating society."

Here it is again, just in case you missed it.

"It is “war by other means,” a clash of interests that is won by gaining the ability to push your agenda through, not by showing the other side how reasonable you are."

This cannot be emphasized enough.  Political factions characterized by a high degree of rationalism, usually indicated by a tendency to not regard their political opponents as fantasy novel villains, and the alt-left is such a movement, too often fail to realize this.  This leads to exchanges between alt-leftists and tea partiers or intersectional feminists being frustrating exercises in futility.  Why won't they listen to reason?

This is where Nathan J. Robinson's excellent article continues to deliver.

"It’s important, in considering these questions, to clear up what “debate” is to begin with. Many of the criticisms of “debating” people seem to assume a narrow definition of debate: they criticize those who think pure logic can successfully counter right-wing [or regressive left] political points. The idea here is that “debate” consists of rational argumentation: I present my points, with evidence, you present counterpoints with evidence, I rebut your counterpoints, you parry my rebuttal with some more evidence, and one of us wins through superior logic."

I hope you're making a note of that.  Because formal logic does have an important place in rhetoric (notice that term), it is be no means the total extent of what debate is.  Believing that logic, facts and reason are all debate comes down to is a very common mistake made by otherwise bright young people who rightly prize reason and factuality as being of crucial importance in deciding political differences.  It's a mistake I've made many times.

"In making the decision as to whether to debate someone, and how, it’s that effect on the audience question that should be crucial. It’s all about the audience; you’re never going to persuade your opponent, your job is to persuade the person watching." [emphasis mine]

This is crucial.  I've all but given up on internet flame wars for this reason.  When engaging in a flame war, ask yourself who are you trying to convince?  I really do hope by now that we're all well past believing that paleo-cons or intersectional feminists can be persuaded.   But sometimes there's an audience - a younger brother or other family member at a family gathering, a friend on Facebook who's kind of on the fence between going SJW and going Alt-Left, an alt-right guy on YouTube who's seriously wondering if social safety nets aren't necessary after all, and in the not too distant future, perhaps, a university auditorium or lecture hall.  It's worth it then.

TIP: The best way to "win" a debate is to have said debate before an audience of your own choosing.  Taking the fight to /pol/ on 4chan or the comments sections on Everyday Feminism's Facebook page is a good way to get dogpiled, no matter how sound your arguments.  Unless it's your intent to troll, of course.  Sometimes it's impossible to resist.  

Robinson then harkens back to Aristotle, who defined successful rhetoric as consisting of three components, of which pure logic was but one, called logos.  There were also pathos and ethos, meaning emotion and character.  Let's consider each briefly.

Logos, as mentioned above, logical soundness.  The law of non-contradiction rules here: a thing cannot both be X and not be X.  Prove that your opponent commits logical flaws that result in this kind of fundamental contradiction, and you should have the argument in the bag.  You'd be surprised at how effective that isn't against dug-in regressive opponents.  But remember, it's not about your opponent, it's about the audience.  Show them that your logic is sound, or at least that opponent's logic is more fundamentally flawed than yours and the battle is one third won.

TIP: It's useful to brush up on your logical fallacies regularly if you wish to be successful at this.  There's a good list of them here, and you an even download a PDF poster of logical fallacies from the site for free!  What are you waiting for?  Wikipedia has a good list also.

Knowledge of logical fallacies is a good way to prevent yourself from being fooled, and if you can score points with your audience by using fallacies successfully (be careful when doing this, mind you), have at 'er.  You don't want to have the wool pulled over your eyes by an SJW or a tea bagger, don't you?  No, you don't.

TIP: logos goes beyond simple logical cohesion.  Word choice is crucial.  Use of language to frame issues in ways that favor your side is an art form worth studying, for it can well pay off.  It is vital that you know your audience and, at least to some degree, speak their language.  Meaning their turns of phrase and, importantly, their values and the words that best capture those values.  Use them, and make damn good and sure that it is you and not your opponent that best embodies those values.

Pathos refers to emotion, and appeals to emotion in rhetoric.  This strikes many as cheating, especially since I just mentioned logos and knowing your logical fallacies, of which appeal to emotion is one.  Don't believe it.  Your opponents are going to make all kinds of emotional appeals, and the audience - remember, it's all about the audience - is much more likely to be moved by appeals to emotion plus otherwise sound logic than they will by sound logic alone.  Rouse sympathy towards yourself by portraying your points as fair and just, while rousing disdain and anger towards your opponent's. 

It's also not easy to do well.  Be too flagrant and obvious in your appeal to emotion and you will come across as maudlin or emotionally manipulative and end up falling flat.  Again, knowing your audience is crucial.  If you don't know your audience at first, stick to logos until you do. Also be aware of external factors that can make an audience more susceptible to emotional appeal.  The mere existence of an audience is one such factor: crowd psychology can augment an emotion aroused by a skilled rhetorician.  Political rallies are full of this, quite intentionally.

Ethos refers to character and reputation.  This is about you appearing to be competent and having integrity.  Or your opponent appearing incompetent and lacking in integrity.  If you can't exactly win, at least try not to lose.  Remember what I've said about knowing your audience, and especially knowing what your audience values?  This is all about portraying your side as being the better exemplar of those values.  Subcategories of ethos include:

• Decorum: Represent yourself as being in alignment with your audience's expectations of leadership and competence.
• Virtue:  Represent yourself as being in alignment with your audience's values.
• Practical Wisdom: Represent yourself as pragmatic, practical, mindful and in possession of common sense.
• Disinterest:  Important.  Showing yourself as having minimal personal vested interest in your position.  You take the stance you do because it is demonstrably right, not because you will benefit from it personally.

Of course, you will want to do your best to make sure that your opponent's position fails in any or all of the above regards.  Be careful about making personal attacks upon or impugning the character of your opponent, however.  It is usually best to regard your opponent as well meaning but misguided or misinformed.   Most audiences frown upon personal attacks, unless you have smoking-gun evidence to back such attacks up, or your audience actually likes to see people of particular political stripes get a good roasting.  I wouldn't recommend respecting intersectional antifa protesters as well intended but just a tad bit off the mark on an anti SJW page.  

Am I suggesting you fight dirty, so to speak?  I would suggest that you lie and cheat at your peril, and at peril to the cause you represent.  If you feel the need to misrepresent yourself or misrepresent your beliefs in any exchange with a political or ideological opponent, I'd suggest that you reevaluate the stance you're taking.  If it's worth advocating and defending, you won't need to be dishonest to do it.

Do not expect to convince an opponent, though it could happen.

Using ethos and pathos as well as logos to persuade an audience isn't lying or deception of any kind.  Rather, it's appealing to the whole human character of your audience rather than just their minds.  Respecting their intellect through solid, but not overly pretentious reasoning is important.  But human nature is driven much more by values - or by the ego stroking that professing good values gives people - than by pure logic alone.  The conclusion of Robinson's article puts it succinctly, and I present here in slightly altered form for my own ideological purposes:

"The other side understands this. Conservatives and regressive leftists know how to appeal to people’s guts, to their feelings of bitterness, suspicion, and fear. If the alt-left is going to respond, it needs a message of equal power. Not mere facts, though of course we want those. But something that appeals to the nobler emotions: to solidarity, and joy, and the spirit of human kinship. We have effective emotional appeals, we just need to use them. 

There’s nothing inherently shameful about political rhetoric. In fact, it’s essential. You should be appealing to the heart as well as the brain. You should have a character people can trust, not just arguments they can agree with. And it’s the only way you’ll win."

Convince your audience that they are good people who value good things, and that your proposals better represent those good values than your opponent's proposals, "well intended as they are" and you will go far.