Vibe Shifts

[Sheilbh]

Prompted by another thread, I was wondering about how people's views have changed over the years we've been posting here?

I wasn't so much thinking about on specific issues as I think there's less of interest there - I've become wildly more left-wing over the last decade. But more how your outlook or way of looking at things has changed, if at all?

The big change I think in my own views that I think character and conduct really matter. I think this crystalised with Trump in 2016 and Johnson shortly after because my main issue with them was fundamentally that I think they are, as people, unfit for office on a moral level. But I think I'd always previously viewed that sort of language as basically a Trojan horse for social conservatives. Relatedly I've also totally shifted my view on Bill Clinton and his impeachment. I'm not taking it from the same place 1990s Republicans were but I think his behaviour was wrong and he lied about it on oath - and those are things that we should take seriously.

It sounds very pretentious (and it is) but I think a sort of "civic virtue" is really important and people in public life should be modelling and aspiring to it. And that especially in the world now we need to recapture some of that language of things being wrong, or that what is virtuous or ethical is good. I think it's sort of almost a "fake it till you make it", that even when it's hypocritical there is a value in the hypocrisy (the tribute vice pays to virtue) of suggesting that we are aspiring to virtue, ethical conduct etc.

[Zanza]

More left-wing, but your main gripe with Trump and Johnson is their personality, not their right-wing populism (or fascism in Trumps case)? Ok.

When it comes to politics, my personal shift is that I used to be more interested and passionate about politics, but these days I find the global and local developments so depressing that I try to emotionally distance myself by not spending too many thoughts about politics anymore.

[Sheilbh]

Character, not personality.

And yeah I was very strongly Blairite, New Labour. I believed in leaning into globalisation regardless of the sectoral or regional impact with very strong redistribution (particularly focused on the poorest), that it wasn't useful to get ideological/dogmatic about how public services were provided. I now think you need a very active state (maybe not full 1945 planned economy, but state planning) including nationalisations and industrial policy. The sectoral and regional impacts matter and redistribution isn't enough and also that the welfare state should be universal not just targeted to the people who "need" it. And I am dogmatic about how public services are delivered now, I think it does need to be the state and it's to do with state capacity (as well as democratic control). Maybe more left is wrong but certainly from Third Way/New Labour to far, far more statist and interventionist, maybe a little more Old Labour.

In part - which is more of an outlook shift - I think, like Blair, I did also basically believe there was a bit of a telos to history. That we were progressing along a path and while there could be the odd detour or playing around the edges, it was fundamentally fixed: technologically, economically, culturally. There was a direction of travel and I think for me (and Blair) in that era it was summed up with the idea of globalisation. I don't believe history has that direction of travel any more even if I still think most of what's happening is the result of fairly big structural economic (and increasingly climactic) forces.

[Josquius]

I don't know really.
I definitely have changed. But I think maybe more in depth than in positioning?

Less naiive and focussed on the high level ideal of where we should be, Star Trek level lets solve all the worlds problems, and more on the down on the ground tweak these policies and cut poverty x percent sort of stuff?


I've always been left and had my issues with the far left and the centrists and I think they largely remain intact.
Even on trains, I have been all for this stuff long before urbanism became such a thing online. Its rather nice to see people catching up (and enraging to see the reactionary response)

Maybe I've become more forgiving of liberals and the value in having sensible right wingers be a thing that exists in light of the wanton destructive insanity taking over there?

[celedhring]

When it comes to politics, my personal shift is that I used to be more interested and passionate about politics, but these days I find the global and local developments so depressing that I try to emotionally distance myself by not spending too many thoughts about politics anymore.

Find myself in the same boat, trying to focus on what I can do by myself to be better for those around me and those I can impact, but shutting off everything else. It hurts too much.

[Sheilbh]

So this isn't politics and might just be getting older. But I think I've had something similar with culture.

I saw someone online using the phrase "great books leftist - there are dozens of us!" and I do slightly identify with that. I think I had a fairly populist open sentiment towards books and film etc (I think a bit of this with Marvel but also the YA-ification of fiction). If some people are enjoying it it might not be for me but it's clearly doing its thing. And while I still have that view broadly - I've also swung more to a slightly more snobbish/high culture perspective where I think there is more reward from spending your time on good art/culture. Even when I just want something to slob out to, I find myself more often than not reaching for a middle brow thriller of the 80s or 90s which isn't exactly high art but is just that little bit more challenging/demanding of attention.

So not judging, but I've kind of decided not to spend my own time and energy on that and it's important that there are people out there doing it.

[Tamas]

Sheilbh, you have become more conservative, not left wing

For me, I think moving to a functional state 12 (!!!) years ago has mellowed me out on my economic right-wingedness.

Otherwise I don't think my vibe changed much past what aging and having a stake and roots (mortgage and a kid) does to you.

But that's been my view for a long while now: your circumstances inform your views, not the other way around.

[Grey Fox]

I am still left but a lot less than 20 years ago. I do not recognize myself in the radical left embrace of religions. Especially the Anglo-Saxon movement of making religious beliefs an identity.

In the Canadian context, theres too much immigration that are used to suppress wages and for the left that only good policy is more immigration. That's not something I wish for.

[crazy canuck]

Character, not personality.

And yeah I was very strongly Blairite, New Labour. I believed in leaning into globalisation regardless of the sectoral or regional impact with very strong redistribution (particularly focused on the poorest), that it wasn't useful to get ideological/dogmatic about how public services were provided. I now think you need a very active state (maybe not full 1945 planned economy, but state planning) including nationalisations and industrial policy. The sectoral and regional impacts matter and redistribution isn't enough and also that the welfare state should be universal not just targeted to the people who "need" it. And I am dogmatic about how public services are delivered now, I think it does need to be the state and it's to do with state capacity (as well as democratic control). Maybe more left is wrong but certainly from Third Way/New Labour to far, far more statist and interventionist, maybe a little more Old Labour.

In part - which is more of an outlook shift - I think, like Blair, I did also basically believe there was a bit of a telos to history. That we were progressing along a path and while there could be the odd detour or playing around the edges, it was fundamentally fixed: technologically, economically, culturally. There was a direction of travel and I think for me (and Blair) in that era it was summed up with the idea of globalisation. I don't believe history has that direction of travel any more even if I still think most of what's happening is the result of fairly big structural economic (and increasingly climactic) forces.

The views you post have become more right wing. interesting that you perceive yourself otherwise.

[garbon]

Torypologist

[Sheilbh]

I don't agree - I think it's more perhaps about the issues people care about and I think often here we all agree on a large proportion of things and the actual fights are around valence or which mean most to us. From that - like a reverse St Francis - where there is harmony we bring discord

But as I say I think the actual politics question is less interesting. You just change your views on that stuff as the world changes (and it has a lot - the 2010s, austerity and the Euro crisis particularly for me) or your analysis changes (and mine certainly has with the shelves behind me betraying an alarming taste for Verso books and Marxist theory). I was wondering more about sort of the foundations of how you look at things. As I say having viewed character as a fusty, conservative (frankly sort of John McCain fan coded) view, it's something I think is important. Who someone is as a leader matters and is also a valid ground to reject them or not - still not sure I have the language for it.

[Zoupa]

I don't think my views have changed too much, as I've been proven right in almost every instance 

But like Zanza posted above, I'm definitely less involved/interested/triggered in politics in general.

[Valmy]

I have become very left wing since 2003. All the bad things that left wing people here in Texas told me was going to happen as a result of the rejection of the New Deal ultimately came to pass, if anything far worse than they suggested.

My FDR worshipping Grandparents, who were farmers in a small town in Oklahoma mind you, tried to warn us if we let those business people back on top they would fuck us.  Last time I visited their graves in 2021, I told them they were right about everything.

It is kind of crazy to see all the trusts and monopolies and robber barons and corruption and all of it come back to life right out of a history book. The rampant populism and violence. All of it. It's all back. It is like 100 years ago only more dangerous and worse.

I just think we need to go back to a time when we actually tried to practically solve problems using whatever mechanism instead of just blindly accepting ideologically based free market ideas. Because left alone, it seems pretty clear that the market naturally consolidates into huge oligopolies and monopolies whose power is very difficult to break.

Other issues, most social things and science based issues like climate change, I am pretty much the same on. It is mostly my economic thinking that has changed. History seems to have proven the left correct after all. That honestly surprises the shit out of me, but that is how it went.

[Jacob]

But like Zanza posted above, I'm definitely less involved/interested/triggered in politics in general.

Me too, and I think that's part of why the fascists are ascendant (or perhaps more likely, it's symptom of the ascendance rather than the cause). Broadly speaking, I think the fascists and their fellow travellers have gained momentum in terms of involvement, interest, and activism - while broadly speaking for leftists it's the opposite.

For political movements to succeed they need a relatively clear message (or messages), they need means of getting their messages out (propaganda), they need small victories that provide a sense of forward momentum, they need an appealing idea of where they want to go, they need ecosystems where aligning with the movement also aligns with individual self-interest (i.e. you are more likely to gain rather than lose jobs/ money/ clout/ etc for taking a public stance).

From where I'm sitting, the left has been steadily losing all of those things over the years, while the right has gained them.

Obviously it's beyond one person to change, and it's exhausting and therefore demotivating. I think the best any one of us can reasonably do at this point is to follow Oex's advice - be as involved as possible in building local connections and organization, creating and maintaining local areas of decency and resistance so they can serve as seeds and inspiration for swinging the pendulum back again one day in the future. Basically, be as involved in civil society as reasonably possible.

[Valmy]

From where I'm sitting, the left has been steadily losing all of those things over the years, while the right has gained them.

I guess where I am sitting the left finally seems to be emerging from its grave it was buried in back in 1990 or so. I guess I missed the robust and energetic leftwing happening 20 years ago. Even the British Labour Party were pretty much just a right wing party. Though I guess they sort of are today.

But this is obviously from an American perspective. There were pretty much no leftists outside of a few cranks 15 years ago. Now they are some of our most famous and popular politicians.