There are 3 common responses to these critiques:
1. For the past ‘what about X statement from Y person?’
2. Leftists may have believed that then but not now
3. You believe X things so why not identify as a leftist
These are flawed critiques
They’re actually all roughly flawed for the same reasons—they:
1. Focus on ideas, slogans & beliefs not actions, behaviors, policies, material conditions
2. Isolate some ideas but not others
3. Idealize the left as an abstraction separate from the people themselves
However, in recognizing these flaws, there actually lies a legitimate set of rebuttals to my arguments, which is ironic, but since I try to portray multiple sides of a debate, I will enumerate then
1. The first is to simply say, “the left is a genealogical & ecuwomenical term, that’s always comprised a contradictory, loosely affiliated, set of people, has no idealistic abstract content, so, in that sense you, Yungneocon, are a leftist”
2. The second is to say “this all may be true, but it’s all we got, so work with it and try to change it”
3. Is to say “are you Yungneocon, not Also focussing on ideas, personalisms, resentments, slogans, accusations of hypocrisies & abstractions that you usually criticize?”
4. Is to say that my critiques apply to only online leftists or to many irl ones, but who tend to be noobs & not committed yet, or to professionals & pundits on the left, or left academics or left political parties etc.
5. And the final is to say “whatever YOU may identify as, it is not friends, but enemies, that define us. The right & the state will make no such distinctions, so your critique will buckle under than pressure”
I consider these all legitimate & valid rebuttals, based on relevant empirics, theories & values, that are self consistent. I do not think they succeed in obviating my points though, so I will got through each
1. Is undoubtedly true, but it doesn’t undercut my critique, because it *is* my critique, generalized, rather than applied to a specific case. I accept the genealogical linkage & broad ecuwomenical nature, but I think this destroys idealizations of the ~*left*~
2. Doesn’t work, because my critique is aimed to do exactly that, to separate wheat from chaff, find like minded people, throwing off the yoke of a label & moniker & actually change minds, & challenge sentimental unthought cliches & prejudices.
3. Is also true, in part, but my critiques extend to these AND to behaviors, organizations, material conditions & so on. It’s just that these are easiest to index through concrete intellectual references. Thus this rebuttal doesn’t exhaust my claims.
4. Is a variation of 3—Again it’s the sampling & prominence issue & the context of the conversation, but my critiques apply to all of the things listed, (which is already much of what people consider ‘the left’), & to irl leftists historical & present of many types
5. Is true, and, on the face of it, is the strongest one—it however places the rebuttal to a potential object lesson in the future & overstates how much simply saying oneself is a leftist makes one a target. But there’s another reason I find that this rebuttal fails.
Namely, inasmuch as it is *valid*, and it is our enemies not friends who define us (or at least our enemies who make our friends), & so on, it is my desire to weed out those I cannot trust.
But my contention is precisely that there is a set of people who have my back & i have theirs, and there’s a set of people who identify as the left, and these two categories do very well overlap for irl people (i don’t trust any of you fuckers on the other hand) but
there’s a very sizable portion of each set that do not fit into the other. Indeed, I doubt most leftists would have my back, if push came to shove, Because in true experiences of terror etc, solidarity is usually defined by affinity & proximity, not slogans & self definitions.
All of this is very self serious & cringe, I know, so I do want to emphasize I do not think Twitter is real politics or organization. And I don’t think use of twitter or self definition as a leftist will determine who or who isn’t at risk in some future crisis scenario.
Indeed, what usually defines that is what people DO and where they are, and thus, this goes back to my main point. We need to think in terms of actual lived realities not slogans & statements.
Once we do that,much of what passes for the left becomes humorous to even name it as such, considering that your avg professional pundit, left journo,19 year old Twitter ML etc are lumped in a massive category that also contains terrorists, guerilla fighters, dictators & rioters
The very fact that the category spans such a broad unrelated group of people—indeed people who it is even comical to compare—underlies my point. Think of how funny it is when internet MLs take credit for Lenin & Mao.
Ultimately we can’t really dispense with reified labels & abstractions entirely & thus I am somewhat forced to use the terms leftist & radical in genealogical sense. And I continue to use labels I find useful, like anarchist, communist, and so on.
But this is why I prefer to define myself in terms of my commitments—namely to universal human emancipation, to the commons, to defense of life, to opposition to cages, domination, destruction, & oppression, and to reaffirming my desire to see a world where
living beings are not thrown in the cages, the planet is not destroyed, the state & capital are overthrown, where retribution & bloodthirst don’t define the day, and where millions of humans & billions & trillions of non human animals die for no reason.
I extend this even to the shittiest people, who normally people consider enemies or evil. While I have no qualms with self defense or militant actions & revolutions, these are necessities, realities, instruments & tools, not ends in themselves.
