I’ve started thinking about the problem with progressive/left politics. As I’ve said before I come from the left and I remain committed to many ‘progressive’ causes, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated with what I regard as an increasingly incoherent ‘left’ and even a ‘left’ that has betrayed the very idea of progress. So I’ll be attempting to collect my thoughts on this blog and maybe translate it all into a more formal article.
Most of the problem began when Marxism collapsed. The ‘left’ was socialism/communism/anarchism. There was a ‘relatively’ clear ideology and a program of change with specific targets. The defeat of socialism means that the left is now devoid of a clear ideology and a clear program. What we have is an incoherent smorgasbord of causes. In contrast the right has been ‘generally’ unified under the ideology of neo-liberalism (although there are important differences on the right).
With the abscence of a unifying ideology and political program the left no longer engages in serious debate and analysis and this has allowed a number of incoherent, self-contradictory and therefore irrational ‘beliefs’ to arise. It is these beliefs I want to address.
The first is a irrational set of beliefs around the idea of racism and human rights. Progressive politics quite rightly condemns racism, but I now find that the term racism is completely misused. Racism is the idea that people act in certain ways based entirely on their race. In crude terms Negros are inferior to Caucasians. They can’t help it, they are ‘born’ inferior by virtue of their race. We now know through modern genetics that racism is completely discredited. The problem is that ethnocentrism and sociocentrism still exist and uncritical people label ethnic and cultural discrimination as racism. I believe I may have already cited this example but I’ll use it again because it is a perfect example of how the term racism is misused. The controversial Grand Mufti (now ex-Mufti) Sheikh al-Hilali condemned his critics as being racist. Why? Because they had condemned his conservative religious views. Attacking religion is not racist and besides, Islam embraces every race. Of course he used the term racist because he knew it would have a certain resonance and emotional impact. It was a polemical device.
The problem however, is that significant numbers of people who align themselves on the ‘left’ fail to make the distinction and react automatically in support of any charge of racism. It is this uncritical acceptance of any charge of racism that plagues what I call the ‘oppositionists’, those members of the left who are ‘reactionary’ and who feel they need to react in opposition to ‘perceived’ injustice. The word ‘perceived’ is very important because this is another failing of the oppositionists – they do not seem to bother to analyse whether or not the injustice is imagined or real. It is enough for someone to ‘believe’ they have been unjustly treated. This is often the case with Muslims like al-Hilali, who interpret criticism of what is clearly a problematic position as an attack on their rights.
Another part of this complex is the uncritical application of ’special victim’ (SV) status to groups of people. The process whereby a group or person becomes an SV is extremely vague and seems to occur by word of mouth and the uncritical acceptance of the views of certain key figures. It is a bit like Chinese whispers and it is difficult to investigate where the attribution of SV comes from and therefore difficult to challenge the unspoken and often irrational assumptions behind the decision. The attribution builds momentum and then it becomes a doctrine that you dare not question.
The attribution of SV status then makes another fatal error, it generalises. The specific instance where the group was actually a victim becomes generalised into a belief that this group is always a victim and that their behaviour can be explained as the ‘fault’ of an oppressor. The victim then becomes a permanent victim and is defined by their victimhood. This process denies the complexity of most issues and the reality that in some instances the SV is also an oppressor and that their oppression is not caused by their victimhood, but by their indigenous beliefs.
The next error of the complex is the assumption that cultures and groups of SVs have rights. This is where we enter the debate about social holons. I do not accept that social holons exist. Societies, cultures and sub-cultures are heaps, collections of memes/tropes, signs, symbols and beliefs. They are ideologies of varying coherancy and ideologies do not have rights. Ideologies are simply a heap of ‘ideas’ and ideas are either rational or irrational, right or wrong.
I need to loop back to the error of placing the idea of race into the same category as ethnicity and culture. Ethnicity is not based on race, it is based on culture. Ethnicity is simply another word for tribe or group, or even nationality. For example, Serbians and Croatians are two distinct ethnic groups, but they are genetically and physically indistiguishable. The distinction of Serb or Croat is an idea based simply on place of birth and cultural beliefs. The Serbs generally belong the Eastern Orthodox religion and the Croats are generally Catholic. Another example of an ideological distinction is that between an Irish Catholic and an Irish Protestant. The difference is not genetic or racial, it’s purely ideological.
The one that really drives me crazy is treating Muslims as if they are a race and an ethnicity. I cite a small example to indicate how pervasive this error is. There is an exhibition of Islamic art on in Sydney from a private collection belonging to, of all things, an ex-Iranian Jew. The collection is maginificent and I hope it comes to Melbourne, but the interview with the owner of the collection unfortunately revealed him to be an apologist, and an obsequious apologist at that. The ’small’ problem I had was that he called it ‘Islamic’ art, yet most of it seemed to have nothing to do with Islam. Most of it seemed to be Persian or Arab art. My point is this, we may use the term Christian or Buddhist art to describe art that deals with Christian or Buddhist themes, but mostly we refer to art by nationality or school. If we refer to something as Islamic art or Islamic science we have a right to ask what was the specific contribution made by the doctrine of Islam, why is the art Islamic and not Persian, why is the science Islamic and not just science? I said this was a small point, but it’s actually a significant one because in many cases we find that Islam actually contributed nothing of much consequence. As Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens both point out, religion has not created art, it has only provided narrative themes for art.
Why I find this so annoying is that uncritical members of the left buy into this category error and treat certain ideologies as races and therefore as SVs. I reckon I will scream the next time I hear someone talk about the magnificence of Islamic culture (what of Catholic, Protestant or Mormon culture?). It was not the religious doctrine of Islam that created the golden age, it was the openess of specific rulers to pre-existing cultures. As it did under Christianity, art and science struggled under the shear stupidity of Islamic religious doctrine. Under Islam there were severe restrictions on representational art, particularly of the human form, because of the purely religious belief that any representation of God’s creation was blasphemy. Similarly science was beholden to religious doctrine. What can we say about the alleged greatness of Islamic science when so many clerics are ignorant of even the basics? Up until the early 90’s some Wahhabi clerics in Arabia were still teaching that the earth was flat.
The fear of being called a racist, even though that claim is clearly misapplied and ridiculous, leads many on the ‘oppositional’ and ‘reactionary’ left to be uncritical of other cultures, particularly if they have been given SV status. This is most hypocritically and outrageously applied to Islam, which is often given a ‘get out of jail free’ card simply on the basis of it being appointed a SV (I flatly deny that Islam is a victim of anything, it is a perpetrator and oppressor). There is appaling abuse of human rights and fundamental freedoms under Islam yet so many on the left betray progressivism by refusing to be critical because they believe Islam is a SV that has a ‘right’ to be respected, and perversely, that to be critical of Islam is somehow being racist.
The same perverse logic is applied to Aboriginal Australia. The abuse of women and children in Aboriginal communities has been going on for many decades. I’ve seen it first hand when I worked with an Aboriginal community centre in the late 70’s. There was always a reason why such abuse was excused. Aborigines had been given SV status and therefore could not be held responsible for their own actions. The violence against women and children was never due to indigenous cultural beliefs and practices but due to anger over white colonisation. As the logic goes, when Aborigines are given land rights and self-determination the cycle of abuse will stop.
And so, by a long route we come to the reason why the left is partly to blame for the current crisis – because they excused and denied the abuse out of a misplaced cultural sensitivity to a group that had been given SV status. They shut off their critical faculties and indulged in fantasies. They supported the idea of self-determination even when there was clear and ugly evidence that in some communities self-determination was used by violent and abusive men as an excuse to get away with it and that some communities were dysfunctional and couldn’t self-determine themselves out of wet paper bag. There has been a code of silence, but current events have broken that code. Over the next few months we will hear stories of how white doctors and police said nothing for fear of breaking the code, of how Aboriginal women and children were intimidated and how it was the men in charge of the community that perpetrated the crimes, and how Aboriginal activists and intellectuals in the cities placed their political agenda above the rights of remote women and children.
The silence of the left because of a mistaken belief in cultural sensitivity is a complete betrayal of all progressive principles. I think it was the Cape York indigenous leader Noel Pearson who said that the current crisis has created a new generation, we had the ’stolen’ generation, now we have the ‘lost’ generation, children who have been psychologically damaged and have missed out on valuable education and who are effectively illiterate and dependent.
We face a similar betrayal of progressive principles in the cause of appeasing and excusing Islam.
Cultures do not have rights, they are collections of ideas that should be examined with a critical eye. Nor do cultures deserve respect as of right, they must earn respect on the basis of their effectiveness and accuracy. Many cultural memes are irrational, absurd and based on mistaken beliefs, many are lies portrayed as truths. Real progressivism is the systematic removal of irrationality and lies. If that means change then so be it. Who said that cultures must be conserved? Isn’t that the task of conservatives, to conserve tradition? When did progressives become conservatives?
“The same perverse logic is applied to Aboriginal Australia. The abuse of women and children in Aboriginal communities has been going on for many decades”
ok, then this “progressive” blogger thesis says that if we “recreate an Aboriginality that can engage the postmodern world”, this problem will be solved; to prove the degree of irrationality of his conclusion it is enough to see ourselves in the mirror; sincerely it is not simple to discern who is he talking about, the Aboriginal Australians or ourselves?
that’s what i call outter-directed-unidirectional-lenses, the antidote is a good self-reflection, a clean and body-size mirror
well, given the flagrant self-contradiction of this blogger, by itself a measure and example of irrationality and self-lying, maybe after all i can be called a “progressive”, (whoa !!!), what a complex and convoluted world we live in…(smiles in background)
H,
I think you are attacking a straw man, a person purely of your invention. If you mean to say that there has been abuse of women and children in Western society then you are correct. However, I don’t think you understand anything at all about the current situation in Australia. The abuse in ’some’ Aboriginal communities is at a crisis stage and is a good degree more serious. How do I know this? Well, from the mouths of Aboriginal leaders themselves. The Cape York leader Noel Pearson has framed the issue this way (I’ll paraphrase). “We shouldn’t worry about paternalism. If a child is cowering in a corner because the household has erupted in drunken violence and she fears another round of abuse, ask her if she’d like some paternalism. What she wants is protection.”
Don’t think that my views are the views of a privileged and arrogant ‘whitey’, there are many Aborigines who agree with me, including the need to engage with the modern world. As I said, I don’t think you have a clue about how bad the situation is. In some communities only 20-30% of students attend school. I suppose you think its okay for an Aboriginal child to grow up illiterate, inumerate and unable to speak English?
a last remark, i suspect this blogger doesn´t really read my messages:
let’s have a look:
i said:
“my answer: sure it is not because we are white, it is because we have improved our rational intellect quicker than them, we have developed more suitable and complex systems and strategies to take profit from natural resources, yes we have “impressively progress†in our technological enterprises and used them efficiently to our advantage;”
in a later message he says again:
“Don’t think that my views are the views of a privileged and arrogant ‘whitey’, there are many Aborigines who agree with me, including the need to engage with the modern world.”
well, maybe my use of language is not clear enough;
however he is using another tactic: an efficient way to discredit someone ideas is using stereotypes, not the real argument, but distorted stereotypes, clichéd versions; a traditional way to discredit critics of the western dominance has been precisely this, shift the load of blame to some trivial feature of western people, for example the “whiteness”;
sure some critics have done this, in my view it is the wrong argument; this is not my case, i would like this blogger to answer my “real” arguments;
To be honest I don’t understand your argument. You seem to think I support imperialism. I don’t. What I have said is that imperialism is a stage of development. My reference for this is the work of Earle and Johnson. You say you are from South America. This is a continent that provides a good example of how cultures expand and then create empires. I am of course thinking of the Mayans and Aztecs. Of course South America suffered under the Spanish, but were the Aztecs and Mayans any better?
In regard to whiteness – this is not trivial at all because there is an academic discipline called whiteness studies. I’m guessing you haven’t heard of it? I think the problem may be that you actually aren’t aware of many of the things I’ve been talking about. Have you heard of Jared Diamond and his two books, ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ and ‘Collapse’? Are you aware of political anthroplogy and the work of Johnson and Earle? If not then we are not on the same page.
I suspect you have taken a dislike to me simply because I have said things about Palestine you don’t like to hear.
now i want to focus on your curious definition of the characteristics of progressives and conservatives in terms of their consideration of cultures;
“Cultures do not have rights, they are collections of ideas that should be examined with a critical eye. Nor do cultures deserve respect as of right, they must earn respect on the basis of their effectiveness and accuracy. Many cultural memes are irrational, absurd and based on mistaken beliefs, many are lies portrayed as truths. Real progressivism is the systematic removal of irrationality and lies. If that means change then so be it. Who said that cultures must be conserved? Isn’t that the task of conservatives, to conserve tradition? When did progressives become conservatives?”
i have already answered the first part regarding the “rights” you deny to cultures;
let’s see the second part:
“Isn’t that the task of conservatives, to conserve tradition? When did progressives become conservatives?”
conservative and progressive are just two labels that mean nothing by themselves separated from the real phenomenon, in this case two distinct ways of see the world, ourselves and the other; as such, to define them i will rest on observation;
every conservative group society, not only from the first world (conservatives are all around the world), seek to conserve their own traditions, way of life, worldview and everything related to his own traditional expression; what is useful, good and known to them;
now, what do conservatives think and do regarding “alien traditions and cultures?, well, at best they tolerate them provided they do not perceive any threat or menace to their identities or security; at worst they seek actively to destroy them and in the middle they simply ignore them;
do conservatives seek to preserve ALL cultures and traditions?
the answer is NO, they are highly selective, they conserve their own tradition and tolerate, ignore or try to destroy (literally or via transformation to closer versions of their own) the alien cultures;
what about progressives?
progressives are a little more complex:
“Progressivism is a term that refers to a broad school of international social and political philosophies. The term progressive was first widely used in late 19th century America, in reference to a general branch of political thought which arose as a response to the vast changes brought by industrialization, and as an alternative to the traditional conservative response to social and economic issues. Political parties such as the American Progressive Party organized at the start of the 20th century, and progressivism made great strides under American presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[1]
Progressivism historically advocates the advancement of workers’ rights and social justice. The progressives were early proponents of anti-trust laws and the regulation of large corporations and monopolies, as well as government-funded environmentalism and the creation of National Parks and Wildlife Refuges.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
it seems that progressives rely heavily in the creation of institutions, legislation and regulation at global scale to achieve their aim to create a better world and society;
do progressives seek to conserve and protect ALL cultures and traditions?
the answer is NO, whenever these cultures values interfere with their ideas of progress they are attacked and criticized; progressives perform strong attacks and critiques of them; their critiques are much like the critic you make to australian aborigins cultures;
now return to your argument:
“Isn’t that the task of conservatives, to conserve tradition? When did progressives become conservatives?”
how can this be understood?, you seem to believe this two categories to be opposites alternatives; a simple observation of their ideologies shows this is not the case regarding the consideration for the alien and different, for alien cultures and traditions;
answer: progressives never became conservatives, instead both groups show some degree of disrespect, critique and intolerance to cultural expressions that doesn´t match with their ideal consideration of the world and reality; the difference lies in the origins of their ideas;
violence stems precisely from this subjective consideration of reality, this need to preserve and protect an idealized version of reality, a modeled, illusory reality that precisely leaves outside everything and everyone that doesn’t match the model;
to find the opposite to both regarding the preservation of the differences you will have to look in another group, one that today is regarded with contempt, accused of being irresolute, useless, inefficient, dysfunctional and several more disadvantages;
some call them retro-romantics, other calls the MGM (Mean Green Meme), though i do not agree with this kind of generalized use of SD;
as can be easily seen, violence can easily come from both, conservatives and progressives;
in fact, you can see real world expressions of both;
do you know that some us neocons ideologists were once upon a time fervent communists? how can it be?
my explanation shows easily how;
a last remark:
you said:
“I suspect you have taken a dislike to me simply because I have said things about Palestine you don’t like to hear.”
i don’t have a dislike for you, i don’t know you;
i have a dislike for SOME of your ideas, not ALL your ideas but the ones i have criticized, i believe them to be dangerous;
As I’ve said, I think you misunderstand and therefore misrepresent my position. I am also unclear about what your position actually is. I suspect you have adopted some form of cultural relativism.
All ideas should be open to critical examination, including my own. When they are found to be erroneous they should be abandoned. I don’t think this process should be imposed on people. It must be decided by mutual agreement. If we take aborigines as an example we find that many have adopted Western ideas and most agree that their children should receive a Western education and have access to Western medicine. The most popular music amongst Aboriginal youths is black American rap. The problem is not too much Westernisation, but not enough. Of course they want to control the process.
You say my ideas are dangerous. It may surprise you that I understand your reasoning. They would be dangerous if they were used to impose my ideas by force. That would be totalitarianism. But I’m talking about the process of reason and critical thinking.
By contrast I think your view is the truly dangerous view because it excuses traditional cultures from confronting reality and change. There are many practices in traditional societies that violate human rights. I need only mention the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation.
As a progressive I believe in rights for women, homosexuals, in sustainable living, in action on climate change and environmentla degradation, in social justice, income redistribution, worker’s rights, etc, etc. What I notice with some on the left however, is that they sacrifice these principles on the false altar of cultural respect. It is more important apparently to preserve traditional ways even if those traditional ways support violence against women and non-conforming sexualities. In traditional aboriginal culture homosexuals were taken into the bush and killed. There is a aboriginal gay scene in Sydney and Melbourne because there is no place for them in the bush. It is Western progressivism that has given them the right to exist.
The danger in your apparent approach is that you make excuses for the ignorance and intolerance of cultural tradition.
The problem is really that despite clear evidence to the contrary people cling onto their old beliefs. When you dig deeper you find that these beliefs support a system of power and privilege. The tribal chief does not want to discard the belief that gives him his power, the cleric will not agree there is no god because his living depends on the belief there is. Religions will not voluntarily disband. I don’t expect the Pope to quit and admit Catholicism got it all wrong.
Now, what about the violence used by those who want to preserve their tradition?
“By contrast I think your view is the truly dangerous view because it excuses traditional cultures from confronting reality and change. There are many practices in traditional societies that violate human rights. I need only mention the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation.”
i has never excused their practices; i have pointed out that we, as evolved as we believe ourselves to be, are not free from this disease, are side by side with them, except for our technological progress;
i said that something is wrong with humanity, we must study this people shortcomings but we must do the same with ourselves, by far the great danger rests in believing we have moral and ethical authority and use a paternalistic approach to them;
your material has precisely this scent, paternalistic, arrogant and lacking self-knowledge and self-critic;
why do i say that your ideas are dangerous?
you should know that in this modern western civilization, where intellect has been overstimulated and overdeveloped to the point of hypertrophy, intellectual theories, models and appreciations of reality have a great prestige and ranks high in the hierarchies;
don’t you talk about “think tanks?
they are the perfect support, basement and excuse for the criminal campaigns of our pathocratic hierarchies and rulers;
this hypertrophy of intellect has been done at the expense of the feeling function, without it we are doomed;
meyerhoff has said something similar in his debate with you:
“The powerful and dominant usually find a way to clothe their dominance in righteousness or self-defense; intellectuals shouldn’t be helping them. Harris finds a slightly new approach to rationalize the mighty over the weak using integral theory. His flinty and facile, PC-denying, inconvenient truths are actually the slightly reconstructed nineteenth-century hubris of bringing civilization to the barbarians.”
http://www.integralworld.net/meyerhoff7.html
Given that it many of my articles I have turned a critical eye on our own culture your argument that I take an arrogant ‘the West is superior view’ is just plain wrong.
Meyerhoff extrapolated a fantasy picture of my beliefs from our debate on Israel/Palestine. The main thrust of my Israel/Palestine argument is that despite the well-intentioned hope for a secular Palestinian state the reality is that the Palestinians are divided and that a Palestinian state will essentially be a failed state highly dependent on ‘Western’ aid. Meyerhoff generalised from the particular to the general and assumed that I support US foreign policy. I don’t. Iraq was a clear sign of US incompetence.
I will say it again. I believe in rational inquiry based on evidence. The West most certainly has its own myths, nationalism and patriotism being one. And the US is ‘infected’ by religiosity.
What I am saying is that we should not be making any exceptions on the basis of privileging special victims, that there are certain cultures that are above criticism.
I completely reject Meyerhoff’s characterisation and those that know me better understand that Meyerhoff is wrong.
I find this debate frustrating because it involves a great deal of ‘projecting’ on DePayens (and Meyerhoff’s) behalf.
But we now have a clearer idea of where DePayens is coming from. What he is critical of is what he calls the ‘hypertrophy of intellect’ and what he wants is that this hypertrophy be balanced by applying the ‘feeling function’.
It was Jung who first used the term (I believe) and I understand Jung well – given that my own Temenos system extends the Jungian system.
So let me say that I agree that the ‘feeling function’ is important and that in my personal life I am sensitive to ‘feeling’ to the point of intuitiveness, so much so that it is actually a problem for me, simply because I can read people’s emotions very easily, including emotional sub-texts and sub-sub texts.
But fair cop mate, how do you do that on the internet? ‘Feelings’ are mostly communicated by non-verbal cues. People look sad, happy, puzzled, etc, etc.
Further to that – I also write fiction, which necessarrily involves conveying emotion. In fiction the emotional development of characters is important and I can assure you I clearly understand this.
So let me summarise my position this way. When I want to interact emotionally I do so with real people face to face. When I want to describe ‘the feeling function’ and explore narrative I write fiction. When I want to discuss ideas and abstractions I use the internet, because it is the appropriate medium for exploring the mental function.
It is unreasonable for DePayens to assume that because I write ‘intellectual’ pieces on this blog that this means I am deficient in the ‘feeling function’. Far from it – I just understand the limitations of the medium.
Having said that, unfortunately facts are facts no matter what one ‘feels’ about them. One can be empathic and sympathetic to how members of other cultures ‘feel’ about colonization and the change it brings. And of course if you were dealing with people in that situation ‘face to face’ empathy is vital. But we are not in that situation and there has to be space to discuss ideas in abstraction. This is that space.