Vibe Shifts

[Razgovory]

I've become quite disillusioned.  Politics has become strange and horrifying in the last 20 years.  Everyone has become more extreme it seems.

[Valmy]

I've become quite disillusioned.  Politics has become strange and horrifying in the last 20 years.  Everyone has become more extreme it seems.

We are looking for new solutions, or in my case a return to a more sane and rational time before Reagan.

[Sheilbh]

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.

I agree with a lot of this but, from a Euro-perspective, I'd cast it more as establishment parties v insurgents rather than left v right. And I think part of it is simply the decline of mass society and its institutions. Peter Mair's observation in Ruling the Void is, I think, key: "the age of party democracy has passed. Although the parties themselves remain, they have become so disconnected from the wider society, and pursue a form of competition that is so lacking meaning."

I think a non-trivial part of this (especially with Trump's rallies) is that if you're on that side. They look fun. A lot of the traditional parties are still playing out in the forms of 20th century politics. And with these ossified party structures there's a lot of clique-ishness.

I don't know if they have the same sense of fun yet, but I think you look at the movement around Melenchon and the Popular Front in France, or Jeremy Corbyn getting more than 500,000 people to sign up when he was Labour leader (and his new party is up to over 600,000) and had an even bigger campaign movement outside the party - so it exists on the left. But also when Macron launched his campaign he got hundreds of thousands signing up to his movement. I think there is a real appetite and demand to be involved in politics - but I'm not sure the traditional parties/party structures are interested in/capable of meeting that.

In the UK during Corbyn's leadership there was an interesting article and series of podcasts by someone on the left and quite sympathetic to Corbyn on how the Labour Party works - what the meetings mean, what you can do via motions, how you can use the rulebook etc. There were so many attacks from traditional Labour people (like the people around Starmer now) for encouraging people to participate and telling them how I'm not sure if that's capacity or lack of interest in actually meeting people's demand to be involved in politics.

Interestingly I have seen someone close to Corbyn and Sultana say they want to build other organisations/institutions too so it's not just all about a party but, for example, signing people up for tenant unions, food cooperatives, bill payers' unions. But also this bit:

I think it's important to remember that outside of Europe and North America, political meetings don't suck. They aren't boring. They're lively, participatory and rooted in popular culture – with music, food, even dancing. Normal people show up because they belong. There are different ways for people to participate. And that's because their purpose is to strengthen the bonds of solidarity and unity so that people can go out and engage in the construction of popular power.

I agree with basically all of it.

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.

I agree.

I would add that I think if you are doing that, then it is also important to build or engage in spaces or projects outside of politics.

[Oexmelin]

My thinking has evolved in many ways - at least I hope so - but that's not really what Sheilbh is after.

Back in 2000 (ouch), I had just stopped being involved in student politics, and the political game, being quite disillusioned by it. It was easier, then, to subscribe to the idea that looking at politics as a spectator, as an outside, dispassionate, observer, was a higher form of wisdom. That such a stance accompanied my entry into academia is probably no coincidence.

I no longer believe that. In fact, I have a lot less patience for it now - at least for the version that is rooted in a form of comfortable smugness. That it accompanied my disillusionment with academia, and my growing sense of the moral bankruptcy of the American higher education system, is probably no coincidence either.

I think it's easier, when you are young, to take close social relations for granted - family, friends, colleagues, coworkers. I always treasured them, despite being at times quite bad at maintaining long-distance ones in my personal life (having been raised in a very closely knitted society). Growing older, I have become even more passionate about them. I am still in wonder at the myriad and complex expression of collective life in historical documents. Which is good, because I still love doing what I do, and teaching it, and writing about it. It also means I have become a lot more opposed to everything I perceive to be aiming at the dissolution of social bonds.

[Sheilbh]

To break my own rule and speak about a specific issues with your mention of academia -tuition fees is one where I have shifted (though here I am a true conservative: I basically think the system I experienced worked and the subsequent increases/changes have been a disaster ).

They worked on their own terms but I think a lot of the side effects or other impacts have been bad in all sorts of ways (not a massive issue for the big, famous institutions - a serious problem for the newer ones/former polytechnics). And the incentives are producing unexpected outcomes now. I think we probably need to go back to a more centrally planned system.

[Sophie Scholl]

I've come to terms with a lot and moved leftward. Part of it is a matter of survival and part of it is a continued disillusionment with existing political parties in the US and internationally. I've lost immense amounts of hope and faith in my fellow man as well as the positive trajectory of society. I've solidified some of my spiritual and political beliefs, but like to think I stay open, if guarded, to them being changed and influenced. I have far, far less ability to sympathize or tolerate folks whom I find horrible in their actions and beliefs. I've stopped engaging in "debates", debates, and outright trolling as I just don't have the stomach or the spoons to do so anymore. Coming to terms with my gender, my politics, my family, my engagement with others, and the world as a whole has been an absolutely exhausting and incredibly trying experience. I don't think I'll ever be as hopeful for myself or for the world as I once was, but I'd like to be able to at least find some reasons to keep fighting and living. Existing without truly living, but in different ways from when I was younger, is no way to go through life.

[Valmy]

I've lost immense amounts of hope and faith in my fellow man as well as the positive trajectory of society. I've solidified some of my spiritual and political beliefs, but like to think I stay open, if guarded, to them being changed and influenced. I have far, far less ability to sympathize or tolerate folks whom I find horrible in their actions and beliefs. I've stopped engaging in "debates", debates, and outright trolling as I just don't have the stomach or the spoons to do so anymore.

Yeah I have come to accept that lots of people are just too far gone. And that sucks. Also there was a time I feel like when you were debating online it was with real people and you were slowly moving the ball down the field by having these discussions. You might just be making somebody out there better by engaging like this. But now most of the trolls out on the internet are bots and shit. Now it really is a waste of your time and energy.

[Josquius]

On the internet there used to be a lot more discussion.
You think X, I think Y, lets chat about why we think these different things and learn something from each other, maybe I can even sway you to my way of thinking in some ways.

Now though its all debate club. Truth and fact are irrelevant. The goal is to WIN. To CRUSH your ENEMY.

A bit rose tinted specs of course. This has always been there. But it just seems so much worse now.

[Grey Fox]

Because it's about money nowadays. There is no authenticity on the internet anymore. There's possible millions at stake, can't let anything to chance.

[Valmy]

Because it's about money nowadays. There is no authenticity on the internet anymore. There's possible millions at stake, can't let anything to chance.

Yeah, what is that Sinclair quote? Something about if somebody's salary depends on them not understanding something, they aren't going to understand it?

That is kind of the whole internet.

[Threviel]

I've been thinking about this and I think the biggest vibe shift for me is the view on refugees. Have changed from the view that we should try to take in as many as we can and help the people that are worse off to the view that we should take in as few as possible and find other ways to help the less well off.

This is probably due to the effects of a far too generous refugee policy are becoming very apparent in lots of very negative ways that weren't apparent 20-25 years ago. Except for the racists then, they were correct all along, just for the wrong reasons.

[Josquius]

I've been thinking about this and I think the biggest vibe shift for me is the view on refugees. Have changed from the view that we should try to take in as many as we can and help the people that are worse off to the view that we should take in as few as possible and find other ways to help the less well off.

This is probably due to the effects of a far too generous refugee policy are becoming very apparent in lots of very negative ways that weren't apparent 20-25 years ago. Except for the racists then, they were correct all along, just for the wrong reasons.

ehh....half right.
Open door immigration is of course not a good idea. But then thats a gross exaggeration of what most sensible people believe in. Surprised you actually would have been there.
They're seriously ignorant when it comes to stopping people actually making the journey in the first place though. They actively oppose foreign aid, safe routes and other sensible spend a little now to save a lot later policies.

[Threviel]

There are myriads of ways that the racists are wrong, that's the thing with racists, they are not nice and they are not well educated in the ways of the world.

But on not letting in a million+ uneducated middle eastern immigrants without a sensible integration policy they had a point. And on that debate I was very much on the other side back in the day, ridiculing them for their fears and mocking their views.

Today my wife wasn't allowed in the emergency room with her father at the hospital due to a no relatives rule that's due to clan violence from middle eastern immigrants. My views have changed so to speak, I did not want this.

[Jacob]

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.

Interesting.

Maybe my perspective is limited, but to me it seems that the Overton Window in the US has drifted rightwards since the 90s in fits and spurts. At the same time it feels like the left if it hasn't lost the culture war, has at least suffered a number of significant defeats and is fighting a rearguard action in the spheres of culture, pop-culture, entertainment, and academia.

[Oexmelin]

Liberals, in the US (and elsewhere) abandonned politics in favor of the courtroom. They scored major and important victories there, which they confused with political victories. They confused a general sense of apathy with assent. Which, again, is also a form of victory: if gay marriage doesn't produce the societal collapse it was prophesied to bring about, then it was indeed okay for most.

Except that democratic politics isn't really about some massive, collective, spontaneous movement, and it turns out people are also apathetically okay with many, many things, if you don't actually relentlessly fight to tell them, and show them, it's worthy of fighting. And a fight that is fought using only one type of weapon, and one type of arena, and one type of fighter (law, courts, lawyers) leaves you empty-handed when they are taken from you.

I think we became okay with a lot of things progressives fought for, and call progress : gender rights, LGTBQ rights, civic rights. To that extent, we succeeded in expanding for many people the idea of what humans worthy of empathy are supposed to be, and it's a real left victory. It's just that a misguided belief for the long arc of human history, or magic self-correcting pendulum, or the invisible march towards progress, left a lot of people to think each of these victory were but a rung on a ladder that could never be climbed down permanently. But politically? In the US the ground has been ceded to the Republicans for a very long time, and liberal parties elsewhere in the world have all succumbed to the idea that politics is dangerous and what you need is just the right combination of legal expertise, economic expertise, political expertise, and PR expertise.