The Regressive Left

[Glacier]

[Poindexter]

Yeah the right hates to have competition when it comes to blocking out opinions they don't agree with. But I do agree, when the left starts behaving like the right when it comes to free thinking they've gone to far in isolating themselves from exploring other ways of looking at things.

[Merry]

This clip makes one think about the problem of people rushing to judgement on particular issues, without knowing the full story about what really happened. Or, to put it more simply, making decisions prior to hearing both sides about the reason why something happened the way it did. And there are folks on BOTH the right and the left who are guilty of that.

Part of the problem, is that media reporting is often not detailed enough, or unbiased enough, to provide the public with enough background information to make an informed decision. But, the other part of the problem, is that most of the public never takes the time to try to dig a little deeper and find out more of that information for themselves.

For those with access to the Internet, it really isn't all that hard to try to get more than one point of view about a particular story, and then decide for ourselves what we think really happened. But how many folks really take the time to do such research?

Unfortunately, far too many seem content to be "led around by the nose" by both politicians and the media, when it comes to making up their minds about certain issues. And this applies to people on ALL sides of the political spectrum, with many differing world views.

Why so many people prefer to behave like "sheep" rather than independent thinkers I have no idea. But unless, or until, that changes, we will continue to have people with serious misconceptions about what is going on in the world. And those very misconceptions, are what make it so easy for leaders the world over to manipulate their followers into certain beliefs and behaviours, that are often not in the best interests of even those who are practising them.

As this kind of group behaviour has gone on for as long as history has been recorded, I doubt very much it will ever change.
But we can always hope.

[Glacier]

Here's Ayaan Hirsi Ali explaining this same thing.

[Glacier]

Ophobophobia and the Religion of the Regressive Left

I'm going to start by introducing a term that sounds funny but isn't. Ophobophobia.

Ophobophobia is the irrational fear of being perceived a bigot (by self or others) by being deemed insufficiently sensitive to the experience of some identifiable group of others.

Ophobophobia is the strongest motivating animus in what we might call the Religion of Identity Politics, which, in its extreme forms, is now rightly being called Regressive Leftism. The most obvious example of an ophobophobic position is a rationally unjustifiable and rabid defense of obfuscation between Muslims, Islam, Islamism, and Jihadist Islamism, and it is the irrational fear of being branded an Islamophobe by being insufficiently sensitive in the discussions surrounding those terms. Such people exhibit Islamophobophobia.

In my recent book, Everybody Is Wrong About God, I make most of my case by proceeding from the observation that religions are a particular kind of societal object called a moral community. A moral community is a group of people who share similar moral attitudes. (Here, when I say moral, I do not mean it in the broad and nearly useless sense offered by moral philosophers, answering 'what is good?' but instead in the nearer, normative use often applied by moral psychologists--sets of beliefs, attitudes, intuitions, and social codes that enable and define communities. I will use the terminology framework-moral (or moral framework, depending upon syntax) to indicate that I'm referring to morals in this local sense.)

Link to balance of article
http://goddoesnt.blogspot.ca/

[Ka-El]

If we understand how a group is manipulative, we can resist it. That we should do -- if finding effective, reasonable solutions to our problems is a desired goal.

Good advice - for extremists from both sides of the ideological spectrum. For example, as biased the writing that we can find in The Tyee, what is presented as commentary from The Rebel actually imitates the absurd. Effective reasonable solutions in politics are found when people look to long term solutions, and are willing to actually listen to people with different opinions.

[Glacier]

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... round.html

[Ka-El]

Interesting. Although not sure how that discounts the perils of rigid extremism - or if that was your intent.

[Donald G]

by Glacier » Today, 3:52 pm

Ophobophobia and the Religion of the Regressive Left

I'm going to start by introducing a term that sounds funny but isn't. Ophobophobia.

Your extremely well thought out and written article exemplifies the power of melding theory with reality. It has to be one of the most concise and clear articles ever written on a topic applicable to the entire world community of man. Including the individual comments of any number of people who opine on Castanet.

[Glacier]

Interesting. Although not sure how that discounts the perils of rigid extremism - or if that was your intent.

I'm not sure what you mean by rigid extremism, but one cannot discount an entire publication because it leans heavily left or right. Politico is one such publication that has posted shamefully dishonest articles, but some of their other articles are quite good, providing angles than no one else covered, and thus a valuable service. Pretty much all media sources provide valuable insight. Sometimes the left view is the best view, sometimes the right view is the best one, and sometimes, it's a more centrist view between the two that provides the best view. Most of the time it's a matter of opinion who is the most correct.

[Ka-El]

... one cannot discount an entire publication because it leans heavily left or right.

I agree 100%, as long as one can recognize the bias and not, as so many around here do, simply presume that an article promoting a point consistent with your own bias is automatically completely true. We see that on these boards a lot.

[Glacier]

[LtZerge]

When ideology over-rides your reasoning skills it can manifest a lot of weird things. You see it so often in right-vs-left issues where the sides are basically talking different languages. Nothing constructive ever happens, no truth is found, eventually one side simply muscles out the other with little mutual understanding actually achieved. I see it on the far left all the time, people mis-interpreting things for an agenda or twisting stuff out of proportion constantly. It's something we're used to with the deeply religious, but the far left tend to be more secular/atheist in nature which makes it sort of surprising.

Perhaps, somewhere deep inside, humans are just really lazy thinkers. Nuance is hard and dogmatism is convenient. It's a weird sort of tribalism: "We'd have a perfect utopian society if only weren't for those people". Through this any amount of vitriol and intolerance is totally acceptable and justified.

When it comes to regressives, which exist on both sides of the spectrum, one has to be careful about assigning the label. It's really meant to tie into extreme authoritarian views and bigotry, with a splash of retro-grade mentalities. Often you will find them mirror the regressive right in goals or tactics, but not justification.

[Donald G]

Unread postby LtZerge » Today, 2:05 pm

When ideology over-rides your reasoning skills it can manifest a lot of weird things. You see it so often in right-vs-left issues where the sides are basically talking different languages. Nothing constructive ever happens, no truth is found, eventually one side simply muscles out the other with little mutual understanding actually achieved. I see it on the far left all the time, people mis-interpreting things for an agenda or twisting stuff out of proportion constantly. It's something we're used to with the deeply religious, but the far left tend to be more secular/atheist in nature which makes it sort of surprising.

Perhaps, somewhere deep inside, humans are just really lazy thinkers. Nuance is hard and dogmatism is convenient. It's a weird sort of tribalism: "We'd have a perfect utopian society if only weren't for those people". Through this any amount of vitriol and intolerance is totally acceptable and justified.

I agree with you up to that point in your comments with the exception that IMO atheists come from all points on the political spectrum. I am a live and let live atheist who is just slightly left of center on the political spectrum. It is why I support Canada being a "social democracy" with a limited number of social safety nets. PM Harper was a bit right of center for my liking and PM Trudeau (both of them) were far too theoretical and extreme leftist for my liking.

[Donald G]

Unread postby LtZerge » Today, 2:05 pm

When ideology over-rides your reasoning skills it can manifest a lot of weird things. You see it so often in right-vs-left issues where the sides are basically talking different languages. Nothing constructive ever happens, no truth is found, eventually one side simply muscles out the other with little mutual understanding actually achieved. I see it on the far left all the time, people mis-interpreting things for an agenda or twisting stuff out of proportion constantly. It's something we're used to with the deeply religious, but the far left tend to be more secular/atheist in nature which makes it sort of surprising.

Perhaps, somewhere deep inside, humans are just really lazy thinkers. Nuance is hard and dogmatism is convenient. It's a weird sort of tribalism: "We'd have a perfect utopian society if only weren't for those people". Through this any amount of vitriol and intolerance is totally acceptable and justified.

I agree with you up to that point in your comments with the exception that IMO atheists come from all points on the political spectrum. I am a live and let live atheist who is just slightly left of center on the political spectrum. It is why I support Canada being a "social democracy" with a limited number of social safety nets. PM Harper was a bit right of center for my liking and PM Trudeau (both of them) were far too theoretical and extreme leftist for my liking.