The Post-Left

[MoreauVasz]

So, I always used to think of the post-left as being people like Nick Cohen. People who were once active leftists but effectively cashed-in their chips in order to assume these weird positions whereby they are 'leftist' for the sake of newspapers being able to say they represent leftist views but in reality they spend all of their time shitting on the left before eventually emerging as Hitchens-style right wing talking heads.

Then I started hearing references to the contemporary post-left. Initially it was people like Aimee Therese and Angela Nagel, then it was podcasts like Redscare and forums like reddit's stupidpol and then, even more recently it's people like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.

Some of these people (most notably the last two) had chips to cash in and so we can view them as being similar to Cohen and Hitchens but a lot of the others seem to have staked out their positions right from the start. Positions that seem to be about wanting to do a racism, and being incredibly angry at both the left and the liberals who won't allow them to do a racism. While their loathing of the online left and their hostility to what they view as wokeness places them in the orbit of the right, the post-left continues to use leftist language to justify what are often horrendous politics. Some might argue that this is deliberate and that this is the much-fabled Chapo-to-fash pipeline but a lot of it seems to be personality based and all about cliques of people putting a political spin on personal fallings out.

Anyone familiar with any of this stuff?

[Fambo Number Mive]

It almost seems to have been normalised in society, this idea of people moving from being on the left to the right. I wonder if some people do it because most of the people with power and influence are on the right.

That stupid saying "'If you're not on the left when you're 25, you have no heart.  If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." which a lot of conservatives use, especially in America (and when they do they are calling younger conservatives heartless) helps do so, as if being left wing is like puberty. Lots of people on the right like mentioning how left wing they were when they were younger. It's weird how proud some of them seem of it as well, given their views now.

Apart from Tony Benn, I can't think of many people who have gone from right to left.

[Buelligan]

I don't think people are static, nor should they be.  Well, unless they're dead or lying or extremely stupid.  Life is and should be, IMO, an almost endless series of experiences, gates, we pass through, changing and, hopefully, learning in infinite and wonderful ways. 

There is no Left or Right or there shouldn't be, just people shoaling and swarming through the currents, as I see it, our job is to encourage more to move into the warmer, safer, cleaner, water, to understand that harm and self need abandoning but also understand the movement will continue forever.

[TrenterPercenter]

So, I always used to think of the post-left as being people like Nick Cohen. People who were once active leftists but effectively cashed-in their chips in order to assume these weird positions whereby they are 'leftist' for the sake of newspapers being able to say they represent leftist views but in reality they spend all of their time shitting on the left before eventually emerging as Hitchens-style right wing talking heads.

Then I started hearing references to the contemporary post-left. Initially it was people like Aimee Therese and Angela Nagel, then it was podcasts like Redscare and forums like reddit's stupidpol and then, even more recently it's people like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.

Some of these people (most notably the last two) had chips to cash in and so we can view them as being similar to Cohen and Hitchens but a lot of the others seem to have staked out their positions right from the start. Positions that seem to be about wanting to do a racism, and being incredibly angry at both the left and the liberals who won't allow them to do a racism. While their loathing of the online left and their hostility to what they view as wokeness places them in the orbit of the right, the post-left continues to use leftist language to justify what are often horrendous politics. Some might argue that this is deliberate and that this is the much-fabled Chapo-to-fash pipeline but a lot of it seems to be personality based and all about cliques of people putting a political spin on personal fallings out.

Anyone familiar with any of this stuff?

Where do you put people that are genuinely left but disagree with the direction of the current mainstream (mainly online) left?  Are they just "post-left" traitors or people wanting "to do a racism"?

Genuinely interested in your answer here.

Would also like some examples of leftist language to justify horrendous politics; how does this look and what is acceptable leftist language that can be used to disagree with current themes and movements currently occupying parts of the left.

[JaDanketies]

Apart from Tony Benn, I can't think of many people who have gone from right to left.

I went from right to left over my 20s, which probably isn't the age range you're thinking of.

The old comment about young socialists with no brain etc is probably less relevant nowadays. The right is now constructing a paper-thin narrative about how capitalism will save us all and is the best system we have yet created, and this doesn't hold up when you get older and wiser. It might've been in the past that the left had 'all the answers' but now the right pretends like it does, and the left admits that some things are scary and unknown.

Also a lot of people my age are looking like they're going to be in rented properties forever - or at a minimum until their parents die. So they're never going to be in a position where right-wing economics look like they could ever be beneficial to them. Perhaps they're realising they're not "temporarily-embarrassed millionaires" after all.

[Fambo Number Mive]

People who have left wing views on some things and right wing views on others, what do they count as? e.g. someone who is right wing on crime but left wing on the economy and most other social topics, would they be left wing?

[TrenterPercenter]

Most people who think they are rightwing loosely identify with the concept of nation states and the normal self-preservation and self-interest that is somewhat hardwired into humans but when you look at their policy schedule they are often economically left.

[Paul Calf]

People who have left wing views on some things and right wing views on others, what do they count as? e.g. someone who is right wing on crime but left wing on the economy and most other social topics, would they be left wing?

Left-authoritarian. If you want more police and tougher sentences, that's not a right wing view because you're asking for a bigger state.

[MoreauVasz]

Where do you put people that are genuinely left but disagree with the direction of the current mainstream (mainly online) left?  Are they just "post-left" traitors or people wanting "to do a racism"?

I posted about the 'post-left' as I think it is a thing. It's a scene, a vibe, a social network, a series of spaces. They have their own platforms and celebs. If you associate with that then good for you, if you don't then I'm not sure why I should have any opinion about you or insight into your politics.

If we're talking about alienation from the mainstream left then I would include myself in that bracket. As a non-British person living in the UK I have always been alienated from the Labour Party. Even under Corbyn.

[buttgammon]

I went from right to left over my 20s, which probably isn't the age range you're thinking of.

The old comment about young socialists with no brain etc is probably less relevant nowadays. The right is now constructing a paper-thin narrative about how capitalism will save us all and is the best system we have yet created, and this doesn't hold up when you get older and wiser. It might've been in the past that the left had 'all the answers' but now the right pretends like it does, and the left admits that some things are scary and unknown.

Also a lot of people my age are looking like they're going to be in rented properties forever - or at a minimum until their parents die. So they're never going to be in a position where right-wing economics look like they could ever be beneficial to them. Perhaps they're realising they're not "temporarily-embarrassed millionaires" after all.

This is the first thing I think when I see quotes like the one Fambo rightly criticised a few posts ago. For my generation at least (people who are in that late 20s/early 30s area where traditionally you could expect a more stable economic position and would be at risk of becoming right-wing), it's not going to happen that way, so it would be completely self-defeating for most of my peers to become more right-wing as they get older.

For what it's worth, I've been on the left since I developed a political awareness in my teens, and don't ever see that changing. That's not to say my politics have been static in that time - becoming more educated about and interested in things like trans rights and feminism over the last few years, for example - but there are core beliefs that are non-negotiable for me.

[MoreauVasz]

Left-authoritarian. If you want more police and tougher sentences, that's not a right wing view because you're asking for a bigger state.

The right of the Labour Party and the right of the trade union movement both fall under this rubric. More flags, more cops, more soldiers, British jobs for British people, exclusive identification of the term 'working class' with white people born in this country.

[TrenterPercenter]

I posted about the 'post-left' as I think it is a thing. It's a scene, a vibe, a social network, a series of spaces. They have their own platforms and celebs. If you associate with that then good for you, if you don't then I'm not sure why I should have any opinion about you or insight into your politics.

If we're talking about alienation from the mainstream left then I would include myself in that bracket. As a non-British person living in the UK I have always been alienated from the Labour Party. Even under Corbyn.

Hmmm not sure you've answered the question there;

I asked

Where do you put people that are genuinely left but disagree with the direction of the current mainstream (mainly online) left?  Are they just "post-left" traitors or people wanting "to do a racism"?

It's not a trick question just one that I think needs to be considered very carefully.

[TrenterPercenter]

Post-left also implies someone has left the left; whilst most of the growing criticism of certain identity focused elements of the left are from people that have not changed their politics they are just don't agree with these modern movements.

I mean is Cornell West now a post-left right-winger that just wants to "do a racism" in your view?

[JaDanketies]

For what it's worth, I've been on the left since I developed a political awareness in my teens, and don't ever see that changing. That's not to say my politics have been static in that time - becoming more educated about and interested in things like trans rights and feminism over the last few years, for example - but there are core beliefs that are non-negotiable for me.

I think one of the most attractive things to what is pretty much the economic far-right for me was the concept that you can't trust the government, and you definitely can't trust them to spend your cash properly. Something that is demonstrably true.

Austerity pulled the wool from my eyes and showed me how much the vulnerable needed the state (and how dumb the idea of philanthropic billionaires stepping in to cover the shortfall was). Working close to execs and the penny finally dropping about how capitalism favours psychopaths was probably the final nail in the coffin. You can't even trust these guys to treat their staff properly, so why would they give a shit about the needy?

I'm sure this all seems obvious nowadays. I suppose when I was a youngster, the embezzlement and corruption and lies of the state were plain-as-day, but I hadn't much experience of the business world or of the coalface of capitalism, so I couldn't spot the fundamental flaws in its arguments. I felt that the market was more of a democracy than the state. I wasn't opposed to unions either - I kinda felt like everyone should do what they like and it'll all work itself out in the end. Naïve.

[MoreauVasz]

It's not a trick question just one that I think needs to be considered very carefully.

I guess the answer is that I don't know.

The post-left is a thing. That's what the thread was about.

There's a broader question about people who have drifted right over their lives and the people who were once supportive of Corbyn and Sanders have now moved rightwards. I don't really understand what's driving them. I'm not sure why you'd move from supporting Sanders to supporting the post-Trump Republicans but then I don't understand the people who consider themselves socialist but supported Brexit.

Then there's another group of people who get turned off for whatever reason by aspects of leftist online discourse. I would include myself in that category, though the disagreements are generally over different issues, are often personality based, and none of those issues have pushed me into alignment with the right.

I have leftist views but have no ties of belonging to any movement or group so I can't speak to any form of boundary policing. I don't know who is in, who is out, and what constitutes proper leftist thought or who might determine what that might be.

[Sebastian Cobb]

These people were left in terms of the overton window and were happy to stay where they were in relation to it as it moved rightwards but less happy to follow it when there was an attempt to pull it back.

They're not left-wing, they're just socially liberal. Like the BBC was in the blair days.

[Kankurette]

It almost seems to have been normalised in society, this idea of people moving from being on the left to the right. I wonder if some people do it because most of the people with power and influence are on the right.

That stupid saying "'If you're not on the left when you're 25, you have no heart.  If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." which a lot of conservatives use, especially in America (and when they do they are calling younger conservatives heartless) helps do so, as if being left wing is like puberty. Lots of people on the right like mentioning how left wing they were when they were younger. It's weird how proud some of them seem of it as well, given their views now.

Apart from Tony Benn, I can't think of many people who have gone from right to left.

I hate that saying so much. Implying that compassion and kindness are for idiots and children.

Funnily enough, I have an American friend who DID move from right to left; she was very conservative, and part of it was because she's working-class and lived in an area full of obnoxious middle-class liberals, but the older she got and the more she saw how the Republicans were fucking people over, the more left-wing she became. Mum has moved leftwards since marrying my current stepdad, though I think working in M&S helped with that (and she's never been a Tory).

The right of the Labour Party and the right of the trade union movement both fall under this rubric. More flags, more cops, more soldiers, British jobs for British people, exclusive identification of the term 'working class' with white people born in this country.

Which is another thing I hate, because BAME working-class people absolutely do exist.

I can think of a reason why Corbyn attracted people on the right but it's the thing we're not allowed to talk about on here.

[TrenterPercenter]

I guess the answer is that I don't know.

In asserting what the post-left is don't you think it is important to know this!?  I mean is it not possible that someone has just come up with the idea of post-left to categorise a whole group of people that they just don't agree with whilst ironically moaning about these people grouping them into their own group.

The post-left is a thing.

Is it? Well can you tell me what it is; brief search says they are people that are hostile to the left; again we come back to this problem how can we discriminate between someone that is hostile to the left and someone that has valid criticisms of it.  The usual response here is to ignore this incredibly important element and in doing so either consciously or unconsciously promote the idea that no criticisms are valid (a completely untenable and unbelievable notion hence why it can't be discussed).

What are legitimate criticisms of the left? Seemingly a whole section of the left can't answer this question.  Once you agree on how to discriminate on this you can meaningfully progress things forward (and I would say rather than someone being "left" or "post-left" we judge this on behaviour and etiquette in communicating their ideas and the content and basis of their arguments) 

Then there's another group of people who get turned off for whatever reason by aspects of leftist online discourse. I would include myself in that category, though the disagreements are generally over different issues, are often personality based, and none of those issues have pushed me into alignment with the right.

You are assuming people have moved to the right; there is a vast difference between someone now supporting post-trump republicans and someone that thinks elements of the identity politics culture are actively harmful to progressing leftwing values.  The latter can clearly be coming from a leftwing perspective.  Just like being anti-EU like Corbyn and Tony Benn doesn't mean you are now on the rightwing. 

[Buelligan]

The reality is most of them were "Left" in the sense that Jimmy Savile was a "charity worker".

[greenman]

I went from right to left over my 20s, which probably isn't the age range you're thinking of.

The old comment about young socialists with no brain etc is probably less relevant nowadays. The right is now constructing a paper-thin narrative about how capitalism will save us all and is the best system we have yet created, and this doesn't hold up when you get older and wiser. It might've been in the past that the left had 'all the answers' but now the right pretends like it does, and the left admits that some things are scary and unknown.

Also a lot of people my age are looking like they're going to be in rented properties forever - or at a minimum until their parents die. So they're never going to be in a position where right-wing economics look like they could ever be beneficial to them. Perhaps they're realising they're not "temporarily-embarrassed millionaires" after all.

Yep I can see quite a lot of that online, the appeal of libertian capitalism has been pretty strong over the last 20-30 years for a lot of young people, especially young men and makes up quite a high percentage of the younger right wing vote I suspect.

I can see a lot of these people becoming disillusioned with there ideology when they increasingly don't find themselves in the position of wealth they expected or even that which their parents might have enjoyed.

[JaDanketies]

You are assuming people have moved to the right; there is a vast difference between someone now supporting post-trump republicans and someone that thinks elements of the identity politics culture are actively harmful to progressing leftwing values.  The latter can clearly be coming from a leftwing perspective.  Just like being anti-EU like Corbyn and Tony Benn doesn't mean you are now on the rightwing.

I would agree that we need to be clear that leftwing views are strongly critical of capitalism, and promote wealth-redistribution (and I'd also lump alleviating climate change in there too). Some guy on another forum was telling me 'almost all of the FTSE 500 are left-wing because they support BLM and LGBT'. The left should aspire for more than just 'not being bigots'.

I guess it's tough though, because in the US and the UK, the major leftwing parties embrace capitalism and a major differentiating point is how they treat minorities. But the real line in the sand is economic. And this might mean we end up with some shitheads on the left - so be it.

[TrenterPercenter]

Which is another thing I hate, because BAME working-class people absolutely do exist.

Who does this on the left though? This is massively overplayed when someone says "the working class" why is it assumed that this is the white working class.  There are mainly two people that do this right-wingers (UKIPPers mainly) and identity driven politics people.

There has been loads of resistance to class notions here on CaB especially the idea that class is foundational; this is Marxism but at the same time the same people want to say that "working class" is exclusively used to term white working class.  The whole point of it from a Marxist view is that it isn't based in anything but the commonality of work.

I can think of a reason why Corbyn attracted people on the right but it's the thing we're not allowed to talk about on here.

Well exactly; disagreeing with Labour's handling of anti-semitism on either side means you are either an anti-semite or a right-winger.

[TrenterPercenter]

Some guy on another forum was telling me 'almost all of the FTSE 500 are left-wing because they support BLM and LGBT'.

Yeah perfect isn't; people like myself and VKF2000 have been pointing these problems out for some time if you've noticed.

[JaDanketies]

I remember getting quote-tweeted by Francis Weetman just before election day with a claim that Nick Griffin and KKK Grand Wizard David Duke were both fans of Jeremy Corbyn. Unsurprisingly, this was disinfo spread by the Murdoch press.

Although in Griffin's defence, his economic position was solidly left-wing. Tbh 'far right' could probably be used to describe people like Engels nowadays. The term is completely divorced from economic arguments and is now just a synonym for 'racist fuckhead'.

[AllisonSays]

I think there's two related things going on here. One is the thing that JaDanketies is pointing too where liberalism is conflated with leftism and the absurdities of pro-capitalist, anti-racist and anti-LGBTQ politics are used as a stick to beat an imaginary entity called 'the left' with.

The other is a reaction against those absurdities which has got various poles, from the 'we're left-wing but sometimes we're rude to people' thing that incorporates Novara in the UK and the American left podcast scene, to the 'only class is real, any mention of intersectionality makes you a liberal' thing of which Aimee Terese is a particularly crazed example.

In real life rather than on the internet, it seems to me like most of the good organising that's going on is resolving the contradictions between those two things rather than becoming hyperfocused on one at the expense of the other, either through weird identity-based top trumps or through boring and limited class reductionism.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

There is enormous pressure against talking about class in every institution or media corporation (obviously). The sheer amount of resources thrown at "anything but class" has been staggering, even taking into account the fact that America is America and since the cold war primarily interacts with other nations by trying to quash class politics within them. In the age of NGOs and Non Profit "organising", this reached a feverpitch that has now broken. And with Orange Man Bad replaced with Mr President Sir, there isn't a single immediate political threat to warrant its maintainence.

The cultural/community focus of the contemporary left, and "right side of history" progressivism, was bound to fail eventually. Intellectually, it fell apart decades ago. The fact that it begins with boo-hiss villains like Greenwald and others is a sign that things are changing. People are saying "its just [obviously bad guy], you don't have to listen, we're on the right side of history..." is a sign that a lot of people who got comfortable with the binary landscape of Boo! Class! Boys in basements! and Yay! Rainbows! Pluralism! aren't really equipped to address things and probably never were.

Adorno's criticism of progressivism is relevant as usual.

[TrenterPercenter]

In real life rather than on the internet, it seems to me like most of the good organising that's going on is resolving the contradictions between those two things rather than becoming hyperfocused on one at the expense of the other, either through weird identity-based top trumps or through boring and limited class reductionism.

but using the term "class reductionist" isn't really helpful.  As has been pointed out loads of times if there is something missing from leftist discussions it is class and when I say class I mean it what is actually means and in the Marxism sense i.e. a classification of people that is created by a superstructure. 

The reason it is fantasy to go on about class reductionist as some polar opposite of race reductionism (and therefore we split the difference and everyone is happy) is race reductionism is a thing it is literally the notion that behaviour and psychological states can be reduced down to someones race; it has a massive negative history surrounding racial science that informs and influences these concepts.  Class reductionism is just a term devised by right-wingers and some modern identity driven movements to attempt to distract from Marxist approaches to problems; people aren't "reduced down" to class; class & class consciousness "emerges" from the constraints put on groups; class isn't something you own it is something that is done to you this is just basic Marxism and it's hard to take anyone seriously using the term that also claims to be knowledgeable about the left and it's history.

This anti-minorities labelling of things like Marxism is literally propaganda from the rightwing but there are sections of the left that are happy to engage with it because it suits their needs it seems.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

"Class reductionism" is nonsense, yes. It's just domino theory but applying to smaller groups and institutions and not nations. Revisionism.

When it comes to "post left" people online, I don't have social media accounts and I'm out on the loop, but from what I hear/read apparently a lot of these dunces are moving beyond the usual Aimee Therese circles and instead directly harassing and mobbing black leftists and feminists online, just like reactionaries were doing 5-6 years ago. If this is true, its something to get scared about.

[TrenterPercenter]

Adorno's criticism of progressivism is relevant as usual.

Ha - he was also pretty critical of "modern" music (a callback to the other thread).

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I'd recite the "identity principle" part of Negative Dialectics by heart but thats unacceptable because same guy also say jazz is exclusively for femboys and meant it in a bad way.