General Discussion

Well, here is what I hope is a constructive response.

I did rec the responses ragging on you, because I am pretty trashy so if it is from DUers..eh. Otoh influencers are different.

I agree with you about a part of the political machine which specifically works to undermine the substantive stuff you want. That is the cottage industry of influencers and online clapbacks imo.

One of the journalists out there whom I personally trust and respect the most, Yasha Levine, refers to himself as one (almost certainly satirically).

This is one of his recent pieces I liked, because I have been trying to work out why we are here today:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/noam-chomskys-split-personality/

I am on the left and honed in on Chomsky as a possible reason for a portion of the dysfunction of the American left given the unpopularity of the right - he is an influential force who acted on the the American left.

I have read a little of Chomsky’s writings (mainly on chomsky.net - around 2021) and his intellect is undeniable, but I did used to feel a machinic note sometimes.

I never got around to reading Howard Zinn, but he may appeal to me more. I doubt it is tone and poetry though. I don’t know what it is. After all surely that can become futile politically too if machinic. Just a less grating and clunky machine and one that smoothly, harmoniously, even musically chaperones one into hellscapes.

I have thought a lot about what are known as thought terminating cliches (I am susceptible to many..sobriety for one) and wondered how so many intellectual heavyweights are terrible at outwitting the advertising/marketing class given that a little finesse in combination with honesty can work wrt preaching outside the choir without diluting anything.

Divide and rule is practised with every scandal I see. Attention is diverted away from the misdeeds of deregulated private sector entities and defense contracting and into what are safe for industry conflict lines - pitting humans against humans.

It is even easier for an academic like Chomsky than a political consultant to craft messages that wo losing any substance get registered better. And yet he didn’t. Animal or green activists learn fast not to step on toes as it is a cause more unpopular than any human-centric one. I wondered if that is it.

I saw it put very well in a piece on Peter Putnam. It really struck me:

Chomsky didn’t seem aware of a much larger world out there filled with all sorts of humans very different from those you find in the over exposed hells he is typically in.
One always assumed that they must be the “adults” and yet look where we are.

I am a woman and so Chomsky’s comments about “MeToo hysteria” set my back up considerably as well - from someone of his standing on the left that really angered me.

Influencers and the political noise machine of snappy comebacks, memes etc aside, the left has a lot of stressed out, upset people letting off steam. One thing is a sort of cottage industry endangering earth and people friendly policies. The other is just human.

I cannot really see the non-mercenary human part as not a quintessential part of the left.

Sure it is not very glamorous or romantic. But at a time when every part of human life is mined and commodified, it cannot be said to not be very much a part of real life provided all things industrial and political in any non-grassroots sense are kept at bay. Were that assured, then it is just human life.

Your second point is even trickier.

Yasha Levine, Christopher Ketcham and Ed Zitron are three of my favorite writers on the left. I am also fond of Nathan Robinson’s Current Affairs. But as rational as they are, some would smear them as conspiracy minded to the extent that they are outspoken against the status quo perhaps?

In fairness, you don’t need conspiracy theories to recognize that a lot of the mainstream press is owned by people who are unfriendly to lefties who are more aggressively pro-environment, anti-war etc. than average.

So much is perception, bias.. There does exist in human societies a sort of rough rationalist consensus. Even with something as complex as the “truth” to “conspiracy” spectrum, we are all here and not on Free Republic since we have concluded that rational humans prefer dems to republicans at the very least.

From what I have seen of your posts, though you are on the serious side (I can be both..serious and trashy) , I don’t take what you are saying the wrong way.

It would be cool to see serious and not unfriendly policy debates where people debate things in good faith without rancor, but importantly also without the kind of insipidity or disingenuousness that presents stylistic seriousness without real substance as the adult thing. I have rarely seen that online. But what would you expect with the way things are?

Even if some writers who exist on the left swear or write glibly it would be a mistake to see them as having less gravitas than someone whose seeming gravitas rests on rather dubious foundations given how often they “back the wrong horse” if you will. Such adults may be more invested in preserving broken parts of a status quo that worked out for them over examining their worldviews honestly. And the general disarray of the worse off would help reinforce a convenient worldview.

Many of us farther on the left already know the constraints pragmatically re how much traction is even feasible - we Greens know it. Constant discouraging feedback from a reality that ignores us even when we are right.

Usually when an insight becomes too obvious to ignore the credit is promptly handed over to the most centrist or industry friendly shill out there, e.g.: Shellenberger.

Education and reality have degraded to a point where many of us are now resentfully forced to “live by our wits” just to not feel like shit all the time.

You have touched on some fairly profound distinctions I ponder all the time-what is populism versus mob behaviour..

My own behaviours have been all over the place.

This is a philosophical rumination, but I tried to engage with both your points that stood out to me..