A handy guide to Left-wing people for the under 10s

The Spectator supports the working class like the noose supports the hanged man. It's a British conservative magazine sympathetic to a British conservative party that is currently promoting a budget that hits the working poor disproportionately harder than any other sector in society. In fact, it's cuts are almost exclusively directed at the working poor. Why? Because most of them don't vote conservative. And it's not just me saying that, it's also Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions minister who resigned for that stated reason.

Anyhow, the left, in the UK at least, is supported and made up of plenty of working class people especially in the North. And not all of them eat Haribos and drink a lot as the Spectator would have us believe (in a crude attempt at stereotyping that sees them hoist by their own satirical petard). But really what it comes down to is: "They would say that wouldn't they". If there's any British institution that's anti-left, it's the Spectator. And it's not just middle class hypocrites they have contempt for either. Finally, no, it's not particularly funny or witty. Right wing attempts at satire almost never are.

(And the reference to George Orwell is cringeworthy. Andy Shaw, you are no George Orwell.)

And yet it's largely accurate, so it seems to me. At least if we take "Left-wing" in one of its ordinary, current senses.

I know you're not denying any of this, but for the record:

• The Spectator opposed American slavery in the 1850s and 60s and came into conflict with the conservative establishment because of this.
• In the late 1920s it ran a campaign to raise money for the miners of Aberdare, where unemployment was 40%.
• It opposed Britain's involvement in Suez.
• It has supported the decriminalization of homosexuality since 1957 (perhaps before).
• It opposed America's involvement in Vietnam.

And in general it's always been a promoter of liberty against authoritarianism, has always questioned power, and has always had good, interesting, original writers, not all of whom are Tories or even sympathetic to them (Nick Cohen and Rod Liddle are Old Labour, and it's saying something that they've found a home at the Spectator).

Of course, I'm not saying it's a Marxist journal in disguise or anything like that, and I'm not even denying it's a pillar of the establishment. What makes it particularly interesting now is that it is a pillar of the old, fading establishment, which has largely been ousted by a new one since the 90s. This gives it a refreshing, contrarian attitude. The New Statesman, by contrast, is quite boring, for some of the reasons given in the Spectator's light-hearted piece.

I don't live in Britain, but I greatly enjoy the Spectator. Douglas Murray, Nick Cohen, et al are brilliant. I'm to the left of this newspaper on economic issues, but on civic and foreign policy issues, I couldn't agree more. It represents one of the last bastions of classical liberalism which has effectively been emasculated by the so called "progressive" left. To label this newspaper "conservative" is a misinformed slight.

Unfortunately the link didn't work for me. At least they had a novel "404" message.

Just a quick perusal of their site (couldn't read much without subscribing) made me think it was kind of a NEW YORKER type magazine -- longish (too long) articles, cartoons, upscale advertising, that sort of thing. I would expect it to be at least sort of liberal.

Quoting Bitter Crank

I would expect it to be at least sort of liberal.

I doubt many would characterize it as even "sort of" liberal in its current form. The Spectator's most well-known author and former editor is Boris Johnson, one of the favourites to be the next leader of the aforementioned Conservative party, scourge of the working poor. @jamalrob's statement that it's not a Marxist journal in disguise is like me saying Fox News are not Bernie Sanders' supporters in disguise. Let's not state the obvious to make it seem less obvious. To be fair, I am deliberately poisoning the well here because of my antipathy to all things Tory. But there's not much to argue with in the article. There are no real arguments. It's just a poor attempt at satire that's vaguely flirts with half-truths while dancing self-congratulatorily to the usual Tory tune.

(None of this is to say there aren't good writers working for the magazine, of course, but Andy Shaw is apparently not one of them).

Quoting Baden

There are no real arguments. It's just a poor attempt at satire that's vaguely flirts with half-truths while dancing self-congratulatory to the usual Tory tune.

There is nothing particularly Tory or right-wing about the article's observations.

Quoting jamalrob

The Spectator opposed:

• American slavery in the 1850s and 60s and came into conflict with the conservative establishment because of this.
• In the late 1920s it ran a campaign to raise money for the miners of Aberdare, where unemployment was 40%.
• It opposed Britain's involvement in Suez.
• It has supported the decriminalization of homosexuality since 1957 (perhaps before).
• It opposed America's involvement in Vietnam.

These are not exactly contemporary issues. Over a century and a half one would expect editorships and dominant themes to change somewhat.

The New Yorker is a Spectator-type local magazine with a national following; glossy paper, excellent editing, publishes sometimes too long thoughtful articles, poems, cartoons, and lots of local NYC event info, is way too posh (appealing to those with substantial disposable income in an expensive city) to be a truly 'liberal' paper. It's an "A list" magazine. It appeals to the elite. Regular elite readers will be better informed, but that doesn't make them less elite. The interests of the elite limit their liberality.

Media that cater to the prospects and problems of the elite do have plenty of interesting material to work with, like the problems of upward-mobile young elite families struggling to find just the right property in the best neighborhoods, the joys of the local bistros, restaurants, fine merchandise stores, the travails of long vacations, fascinating shows at the theater, remarkable art work at galleries, yada, yada, yada.

One doesn't hear about the problems of the folks at the other end of the economic scale, except for the occasion feature story about some poor, but interesting, slob in the long balance of the economic continuum--where most of us live, like it or not.

There are magazines for the quite well educated, reasonably comfortable poor slobs -- the Nation, Mother Jones, the Progressive, In These Times, Z, and some better-paper heavy duty Marxist publications. Maybe it's the times we are in, maybe they are running out of cash (they rely on non-advertising sources of income, like donations, subscriptions, etc.) but they aren't all that interesting -- the furrows their plows turn over are pretty much same old, same old. It isn't their fault, of course, that the lives and problems of the sub-elites are monotonous. "Not enough rent money", "empty cupboards", "car-broke-down-lost-job-now-homeless", war, war, war have the same flavor from decade to decade. Exploitation of the masses is a game of Monotony.

So let's talk about how to find a really nice weekend cottage in a quaint New England village (or a quaint village in Olde England).

THE CRITICAL PROBLEM for leftist papers of all shades of pink and red is finding a strategy to achieve economic justice that has better than a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

Quoting Bitter Crank

THE CRITICAL PROBLEM for leftist papers of all shades of pink and red is finding a strategy to achieve economic justice that has better than a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

Maybe, but note that it's not a problem for the Spectator, which is not Leftist. As Baden's been saying, it's a conservative publication.

Reply to Baden Look, someone's upset the article's about them (notice that the working class is "them").

Reply to jamalrob But it's not. They have liberals and conservatives writing for them. Maybe "classical liberalism" just is conservatism nowadays, but I never got that memo.

Reply to Thorongil Well, it's popularly known as a conservative publication and its strongest and longest affiliation has been to the British Conservative Party. But it's true that the party political affiliation is informal and traditional rather than dogmatic, and as it says of itself, it doesn't hold to any party line.

Because liberals have abandoned liberalism, it's sometimes left to conservatives to defend it, so there's often a confusion between conservatism and classical liberalism.

Quoting jamalrob

Because liberals have abandoned liberalism, it's sometimes left to conservatives to defend it, so there's often a confusion between conservatism and classical liberalism.

That's a fair point. I honestly don't read it enough to judge to what extent it represents the classical liberal tradition. Anyhow, as I admitted earlier, I was addressing the messenger rather than the message. I'm happy to talk about said message if someone who can present a clear position worth debating is willing to lay it out. Plenty of worthy souls here I'm sure.

I read the article and found it a good case study in why right-wing people - like the author presumably - find it so hard to be funny. The article was just a long, lazy sneer based on a stereotype of a small minority of people on the left. From start to finish it says 'left-wing people are like this' or 'left-wing people think that' as if there were some authoritative source on which the claim was based. Lazy generalisations are not often funny, because they don't have that essential grain of truth behind them. Everybody knows they are just a straw man.

It could have been funny, if the author had had a bit more imagination. Instead of writing it as a generalisation, he could have described an encounter with a self-righteous, ideological zealot of the type that he wants us to believe fits all left-wing people. Nobody disputes that some people like that exist. Tim Minchin shows how this is done well, and very funnily, in his song 'Storm'. Another good example is Bill Hicks' spiel about a zealot who wants American flag burning to be criminalised ('My daddy died for that flag!' 'Really? I bought mine. You know you can get them for three bucks at K-Mart').

In both cases, the author protrays with excruciating wit and accuracy a repellent type of sanctimonious ideologue, without erring into the lazy, preachy territory of saying 'and everybody that does yoga / is upset by flag-burning is like that'.

Sure, there are also left-wing comedians that make lazy, unfunny generalised accusations about right-wing people. Listening to them is like listening to a sermon in church - urk. So they tend to be the less successful ones. What I wonder is, where is the right-wing Bill Hicks or Tim Minchin? One thing is certain. It isn't Andy Shaw.

Reply to jamalrob I'd say it run deeper than just right-wing conservatives defending it. Classical liberalism is understood to be incapable of dealing with many issues important to the modern Left, for it fails to describe and deal with how the social environment impacts on the individual.

In many contexts it would not be amiss to say that the classical liberal is a conservative and is targeted for failing to consider important issues.

Reply to andrewk I know a lot of left-wing people and read a lot of left-wing journals and stuff, and although the piece is a caricature of a certain type of left-winger, I think it's an accurate one, of a type that has come to dominate the left (even if it's a minority). And if you think Tim Minchin and Bill Hicks are funny, well, there's no accounting for taste!

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness It's true that conservatism is relative, and changes over time, but I think it's more complex. The Left has mostly abandoned the progressive and emancipatory in classical liberalism, without properly confronting its central conservatism, which is economic.

Reply to jamalrob Wow, I got an email saying you replied. I tried for years to persuade PF to do that, with no success, other than an email at the end of the week saying who had replied - up to six days ago!
Nice.

Reply to jamalrob Classical liberalism is sometimes economically conservative too. It's only progressive and emancipatory at certain points when it's demanded (e.g. socialism, workers rights, Marxism, economic polices which focus on building society). In the modern neo-liberal economic environment, it's also part of the politics which is doing nothing on economics. Classical liberals aren't confronting central conservatism on economics either.

The disregard for classical liberalism goes to its understanding of the individual as without reference to identity. Out of post-moderism, the Left is describing many issues which the classic liberal dismisses or even considers contrary to principle to recognise. All too frequently, it outright suggests we ought to ignore issues (sometimes they are even economic) because all that matters is the universal identity of economic freedom. The classical liberal is considered "conservative" because they do not accept the distinctions of identity which allow the description of many social issues.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

The classical liberal is considered "conservative" because they do not accept the distinctions of identity which allow the description of many social issues.

But there are those on the Left, such us many Marxists, who do not accept identity politics either. I guess you would then say they're conservative, I don't know, but if so then your idea of what it is to be conservative has diverged from mine.

Reply to jamalrob

Many would consider them part of the conservative team, yes. I'm not so sure I would call them conservative so readily because it doesn't fit their position so much. Classical liberals, since they tend to envision society as a question of free individuals interacting, share a certain distance from the social context in a manner similar to some conservatives-- if we just give everyone some basic freedoms, society will sort itself out and we won't have to think or describe too much about it.

Marxist don't share this approach. Marxism actually one of the first instances of modern identity politics, where description of how society impacts people of particular identities becomes paramount. Their (part) rejection of identity politics tends not to be on the grounds it doesn't make sense (as with the classical liberal), but rather on a misattributed blame for the rise of neo-liberalism. Supposedly, identity politics (unless it's Marxism of course) has splintered society and got everyone so worried about trivial things that it can't effectively oppose neo-libealism. Meanwhile the neo-liberals are laughing all the way to the bank with how they've developed an economic culture where the involvement of government or socially concern economic policy is considered poisonous, to a point where even some Marxists are more worried about attacking proponents of identity politics than dealing with the economy.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

Marxist don't share this approach.

But some think that despite the shallowness of classical liberalism and its self-serving focus on property and formal freedoms, its emancipatory potential, such as it is, is under threat from identitarianism. From this point of view--my own, obviously--identity politics is conservative. And this is not just mud-slinging: one can see much in common between, for example, the identitarian notion of group rights, and communitarian conservatism. The reification of group identity is a related example: both the identitarian Left and traditional conservatives treat the individual as essentially black, white, etc., where these are understood as cultural essences. For both, the instinct is to slot an individual in his/her/etc place. Whether this is punching up or down is not in end fundamentally important, because they are reciprocally bound in the preservation of difference and the limitation of human potential.

But you and I are not going to agree on that, I know.

Reply to andrewk Yeah, I really like the whole notification system in general.

Reply to jamalrob Far more than you suspect, I think.

Slotting people matters because every individual is someone who occupies a place. Classical liberalism appeals to a fictional everyman which has nothing to do with any person place in society. It's is a myth. People believe they are not someone with place, but they always are. As an understanding of people in society, classical ignores them entirely.

So the problem isn't a question of punching up or down. The issue is classical liberalism imagines a fantasy land which is never reflective of people's lives. I would go as far to say it has almost no emancipatory power or potential at all.

Even the victories it is supposed to have won were actually made on the grounds of putting people in a social place-- all the different people are equal under the law, all the different people have freedom of movement, etc.,etc. It worked by slotting different people in to places.

To exist, by definition, means to be different. I am not you. You are not me. If society is to work for all of us, then it must provide an work for these differences. Difference is exactly what we cannot remove if we are foster human potential. It is to take out the people or understanding of people society is supposed to be providing for and protecting. Our instinct must not be to place people (i.e. difference) apart from society, but to place them within it, treated as they ought to be.

I just noticed that Andy Shaw has since written another of his handy guides:

A handy guide to the Greens for the under 10s

Reply to andrewk I've a feeling this one may prompt you to have an even bigger rant. ;)

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

To exist, by definition, means to be different. I am not you. You are not me. If society is to work for all of us, then it must provide an work for these differences. Difference is exactly what we cannot remove if we are foster human potential. It is to take out the people or understanding of people society is supposed to be providing for and protecting. Our instinct must not be to place people (i.e. difference) apart from society, but to place them within it, treated as they ought to be.

Again, I don't want to indulge in name-calling, but I really have to say it: you can hardly get more traditionally conservative than this. In particular it reminds me very much of Roger Scruton, my favourite conservative (of course I disagree with most of what he says). Providing for? Protecting? As they ought to be? Really? It's straight one-nation conservatism.

Reply to jamalrob If you are content to ignore all context, for sure. I mean where is classical liberalism if it does not care for how society treats people? Is it one-nation conservatism to think society is mean to treat people under the law? What about the provision of services? Is thinking society ought to provide people with healthcare a conservative policy that doesn't fit with classical liberalism? What about considering the government ought to have some role in maintain social economic equilibrium?

Is the classical liberal vision of society one where their are no standards or expectations on society? And if that is the case, how is it any use as a political philosophy?

If we were to indulge in name-calling, I'd get you for one nation conservatism too. Along with a whole host of contradictions and/or political irrelevance.

Quoting jamalrob

It's straight one-nation conservatism.

They have that slogan - 'To each according to his means, from each according to his needs'.

Reply to jamalrobI've a feeling this one may prompt you to have an even bigger rant.
Pass. I'm open-minded, but not silly. I gave him his chance, with five minutes of my attention. He blew it. He's not getting another five.

Reply to jamalrob Everyone, pretty much, who believes in anything is at least a little susceptible to satire (or worse, travesty) because beliefs are also blinders. Of course, satirists also have blinders on, and in order to ridicule have to overlook solid virtues and very complex flaws. Besides, there is usually a pit of cruelty in the best jokes, satires, and ridiculing diatribes.

"Greens" as protectors of the environment have minor flaws, major flaws, and some compound complex flaws.

The biggest of these compound complex flaws -- it isn't their flaw so much as damned reality -- is that shifting from adding CO2, methane, etc. to decreasing the amount of CO2, methane, etc. in a short period of time (say, 40 to 60 years) effectively means not the end of life but the-end-of-life-as-we-know-it.

Not just slowing the increase, but achieving actual decreases of green house gases requires the immediate and radical changes in the way we make our livings, manage or societies, produce our food, obtain clean water, and so on.

40 to 60 years is barely enough time, and may be way short of the time required to re-engineer agriculture, heating, cooling, transportation, production, consumption, recreation, and perhaps reproduction as well. Since most large societies are making phlegmatic progress toward coping with global warming, at best, it's safe to say that we will all continue to dilly dally around until it is too late to re-engineer society ourselves, and the brute forces of nature will do it for us.

Recycling glass, metal, plastic, paper, yard waste, organic kitchen waste, etc. is a good thing and we should all do it. To the extent that it is offered as THE solution, it is of course a lie. What we have to do is consume less; fewer wasteful products, produce fewer wasteful products, produce food that is less of a burden in terms of CO2, and all that sort of thing -- and it still might not be nearly enough.

Greens are impaled on the horns of a dilemma: Honest descriptions of the problems and the solutions amount to doomsday preaching, and people don't like that. Presenting palatably manageable problems and solutions will get one heard, but will fall far short of what seems to be necessary. Actually, we are all stuck on the horns of that dilemma, whether we are Greens or not.

Reply to Bitter Crank Greens are impaled on the horns of a dilemma: Honest descriptions of the problems and the solutions amount to doomsday preaching, and people don't like that. Presenting palatably manageable problems and solutions will get one heard, but will fall far short of what seems to be necessary. Actually, we are all stuck on the horns of that dilemma, whether we are Greens or not.

I don't think there needs to be a dilemma. The dilemma is only sure to exist if technology doesn't change. If we could make nuclear fusion work, or make some similar breakthrough to produce abundant clean energy, the deterioration could be stopped, without having to halt the rise of standard of living in developing nations. We are currently nowhere near such a solution because the resources poured into solving it are pitifully small. But if we could get a credible global carbon pricing scheme running, the financial incentive to solve the problem would be immense and capitalism would be able to do what it is so good at - finding innovative solutions to complex problems that offer high financial rewards.

I am confident that within ten years of the introduction of a proper carbon pricing scheme that included the US and Europe we would have the problem of safely producing cheap, clean energy beaten. What's needed is the political will in legislators to implement carbon pricing. That is a difficult thing to do in the US - not so much in Europe. But it's a whole lot easier than telling people they have to stop consuming.

The US political environment is so dominated by plutocratic vested interests that I have no confidence that even a modest carbon pricing scheme could be introduced there - at least until such time as climate change is causing serious economic disruption - by which time it will be too late. But that's because the controllers of US public opinion are so extreme, not because the proposals are impractical.

I think the bigger threat at the moment, which requires more urgent attention and resources given to it, is militant jihadism. Greens, and human beings in general, face being literally impaled by a nut screaming Allahu Akbar, which is much more imminent than whatever is supposed to happen due to climate change. The majority of climate change's most deleterious long term effects are irrevocable now anyway, so there's no use crying over spilled milk. Annihilate the violent maniacs trying to kill you first, then worry about how to maintain your posh, materialistic lifestyle and rampant consumerism indefinitely. The former is eminently more achievable than the latter and will in fact better aid in its maintenance.

Reply to andrewk I am confident that technical solutions exist or can be implemented, but the technical solution is only one part of the problem (as I see it). Producing abundant, clean energy is the supply side. Consuming energy that isn't a fossil fuel presents its own set of problems, led by infrastructure and a massive installed base. The world's installed base of trains, trucks, planes, and cars run on oil. Heating and cooling buildings (offices, factories, homes) is also based mostly on fossil fuels too, as does the whole plastics industry.

Even if fusion started working tomorrow morning, it would take a long time (50 years, most likely) to complete the shift from fossil to fissile to fusion fuel, or sun, wind, and waves. This requires a huge re-assignment of wealth and resources, and a huge organizational project.

The Axis and Allied powers massively reassigned productive resources to wage WWII, but even massive climate change doesn't seem to quite match a major war for motivation. There is a vast amount of wealth all over the planet invested in fossil energy production and consumption. Disinvesting and reinvesting will also take a long time--before large amounts of production and consumption can change.

BTW, the developing world has the smallest installed base; in some ways they are in a much better position to shift gears than the developed world is.

Quoting Thorongil

[we] face being literally impaled by a nut screaming Allahu Akbar

And we really, really hate it when that happens. If anyone out there has a sure fire method of predicting who the next Allahu Akbar-screaming jihadist lunatic will be, please notify your local defense department.

Quoting Thorongil

your posh, materialistic lifestyle and rampant consumerism

Or our posh, materialistic lifestyle and rampant consumerism? If you missed out on the lavish, luxurious lifestyle that the rest of this philosophizing crew rolls around in, I am sorry you were standing in the wrong line.

Reply to Thorongil Greens, and human beings in general, face being literally impaled by a nut screaming Allahu Akbar, which is much more imminent than whatever is supposed to happen due to climate change.

Really?

What would you say the odds are of your being killed by a militant jihadist? And how does that compare to your odds of being killed by a car, a preventable disease, a drive-by shooting, a police shooting (silly me, reaching for my wallet to show my licence) or a workplace accident?

Sources for probabilities quoted would be of special interest.

Quoting andrewk

What would you say the odds are of your being killed by a militant jihadist? And how does that compare to your odds of being killed by a car, a preventable disease, a drive-by shooting, a police shooting (silly me, reaching for my wallet to show my licence) or a workplace accident?

None of those things have to do with climate change.

Reply to Bitter Crank I meant the industrialized world and the aspirations of the developing world, summarized and spoken to in the second person, since I don't live or care about such a lifestyle. I want nothing to do with it.

Quoting Thorongil

I meant the industrialized world and the aspirations of the developing world

Some people think that we should all aspire to a lifestyle of high consumption, and that with cheap and clean energy, there will be enough of everything for everybody.

An old joke (from the 1960s...

First the good news: The water is 100% polluted.
Now the bad news: There won't be enough to go around.

Even IF we had as much cheap clean energy as we wanted, we can not conjure fish from the sea that are not there, grain from harvests that have failed, and apples from orchards for which there are no bees. The mass of the earth may have more of every mineral than we could possibly use, but that doesn't mean it can be extracted without high cost in terms of capital, pollution, destruction. No environment will support an indefinite number of people living high consumption lifestyles.

So, "the lifestyle you want nothing to do with" might be the lifestyle which we should all have nothing to do with, if we are to make it through to the other side.

The view that we should live with less materiel is anathema to many. "No, no, no." they say; "technology can solve all supply problems. There will be enough for everybody's wants and wishes." The only reasonable response to this approach is "Bullshit!"

What aspirations can be met, should be met, and what can not be met is something that we really need to settle.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Some people think that we should all aspire to a lifestyle of high consumption

I'd say most people think this, sadly.

As David Harvey says, the current economic system is predicated on 3% annual growth forever, which is impossible given the finite resources of the planet, some of which are nearing complete exhaustion. This means that at some point, probably several decades from now, we will be forced into thinking about a zero growth economy.

In the meantime, let's please try and get as many people and countries on board with the secular rule of law and the respect for human rights.

Reply to ThorongilNone of those things have to do with climate change.

Neither do terrorists, so why did you bring them up?

Reply to andrewk It was just a general comment. You'll notice it wasn't directed toward anyone in particular.

Reply to andrewk Btw, if you highlight a piece of text, a quote button will appear and allow you to quote someone so it's clear who wrote what.

Quoting Thorongil

As David Harvey says, the current economic system is predicated on 3% annual growth forever, which is impossible given the finite resources of the planet, some of which are nearing complete exhaustion. This means that at some point, probably several decades from now, we will be forced into thinking about a zero growth economy.

In the meantime, let's please try and get as many people and countries on board with the secular rule of law and the respect for human rights.

Totally agree.

I care not a whit whether the Spectator is right wiing, left wing, or something else. Its analysis of the contemporary Left is sadly true.

The left is definitionally pro working class.

The problem recounted in the article is that people and organizations that used to be left have drifted right in their old age, and don’t recognize that.

There are still people advocating for the working class, who are to the left of what the establishment considers “the left”.