So, I've talked about this before, but just going back to 2016 and the moral landscape there vs the modern day really made me realize how much had changed in the past 8 years. In some ways things were better back then, but in others, not so much.
A lot of it really seems to come down to worldview. In the pre 2016 world, the primary division in society culturally seemed to be religion. The right was fundamentalist christian, and the left was a mix of liberal christians and a smaller contingent of secualarists. If anything, it seemed to me that the primary political divide of the day was that the right were fundie christians, the center left were more moderate christians, and then the left was mostly humanists.
I mean, in the pre 2016 world, I felt like I was radically far left, like left of the left. I looked at the liberalism of the day, felt it was incredibly lacking and mediocre, and looking at the underlying ideological assumptions, it seemed like it had more in common with the right than with me.
We see this mostly clearly with how I viewed HRC at the time, and how her more liberal christianity was injected into every aspect of her politics. Her pro choice stuff was mostly out of feminism and social justice politics, her connection to the left mostly came through the SJW crap. She had her finger on the pulse in terms of being pro woman, and pro minority, but she didn't really have a strong ideological backing along those grounds. And she leaned hard into that, outflanking Bernie and myself to the left by simply being more progressive on SJW crap, when on literally everything else, she seems insufferably moderate. She seemed uncomfortable with abortion, uncomfortable with gay marriage, and when progressive lefties like myself called her out on it, we were told "well you see you white progressive, you don't understand the black vote" and crap like that, going on about how minorities were actually religious conservatives and blah blah blah, we need to be more racially sensitive.
But...uh...my connection to the left came from secular humanism and that explicitly "white progressivism." it wasnt that minorities werent able to have the same experiences, in humanist circles we had discussions about black people leaving the faith for years and the like and we DID note that it was harder for a lot of them to leave. But, we also saw it as the right thing to do. But, for these kinds of social justice leftists, it's not about the morality of the matter, they didn't want to debate the issue with you, they just wanted you to shut up while they lectured us about how we had to be more sensitive to their experiences, and that doesn't go over well for me.
Because here's the thing, for a lot of us secular lefties, it really was about the morals, the deeply held convictions, and we werent interested in being lectured ourselves, our goal was more "are you with us or not", and they most decidedly were not.
But even on economic issues, we diverged. I approached it from what could now be described as a more progressive form of human centered capitalism, mixed with my humanism. Heck, I would say that human centered capitalism, properly understood, comes FROM humanism and an explicitly humanist understanding of the world. But...here's the thing, Clinton and the like, she was an old school centrist liberal. She herself had this weird protestant work ethic thing going on with her methodist background, and to me that was intolerable.
Because long ago, I came to this conclusion. If we only live once, and this is the life that we have, why should we spend any more of it working than we had to. I don't care about "god given potential" and blah blah blah. That's literal protestant work ethic bullcrap. I care about freeing people from that stuff and establishing a new form of economics around an economic bill of rights, or what I called it at the time, the new new deal. I wanted to see more discussion on UBI, medicare for all, free college. Bernie did a decent job at least sparking conversation about it, even if I have some disagreements with his vision, but yeah. I really was there in 2016 just trying to pull the overton window left so we WOULD discuss these ideas more seriously. And Clinton's whole thing seemed to be to stop it, to tell america this is the best we can do and we better get used to it. And that's why I found her so intolerable at the time.
Like really, this is deep existential crap for me. I see our society as like the myth of sisyphus. We work and work and work and it feels so pointless, and like its supposed to be a punishment from god (in the christian worldview it literally is), and honestly, I just had this insatiable desire to break from that. I still do. But at the time, the dems were stopping us. They still are, although I've come to realize the battle lines have changed.
Which is what I'm wanting to talk about too. The lines HAVE changed. Hillary's SJW politics went from fringe to dominant. it's been said that SJW politics have literally destroyed the old atheist movement,. i don't believe it. Some people say it's because the atheist movement didn't offer anything that led to a decent worldview, or a cause to fight for. I disagree. My views are an EMBODIMENT of that. Even if I have "found god" again, I still carry the mantle of pushing humanist ethics in politics, as opposed to separation of church and state. The thing is, postmodernism, SJW politics, whatever you call it, kinda took over as this weird mind virus or political zeitgeist at the time, and kind of has the same weird tribalistic qualities of fundamentalist christianity. Say what you want about secularism, but it tried to deprogram people from that stuff, to teach people that there's more to life than religion. To act as a bulwark against indoctrination, and to serve as a platform for free thought. It was to encourage skepticism. it was to encourage making our lives better, whatever that may mean (I admit, we don't always agree about what that means).
What SJWism acted as was a mind virus. A hyper fixation on a handful of issues, taken to an extreme degree, and injected with the same stuff that made religious fundamentalists so psycho. Now the left is obsessed with ending racism and sexism and blah blah blah, which are, admittedly, noble goals in and of themselves, but doing it in a way that is extremely authoritarian and polarizing. And either you embraced the mind cult, or you didn't. And I never did. Because I knew if i adopted that zeitgeist i would be manipulated and probably abandon my core ideological goals. So I rejected it to protect myself and my own ideals, which i crafted and cultivated virtually from scratch.
Of course, most lefties werent so lucky. Because here's the thing. Clinton's tribalism broke peoples' minds. They did a psy op on us, either you vote for her, or you enable trump, and because the left has this almost cultish devotion to low standards and refusing to vote third party, they ended up just...abandoning their goals. They got brain worms, and they ended up just becoming incredibly deranged in the years since. The SJW religion really grew out of that. You're privileged, you're white male, you gotta vote for the women and the minorities and the LGBTQ+ (and yes, they gotta go on and on about each individually like that almost as a reflexive virtue signal), and to me it was like...wait....back in 2016, Clinton was too MODERATE for me on LGBTQ+ issues, AND abortion, but now you're weaponizing this crap against me? THis is why i always walked this weird line of being progressive on these issues myself, but hating their kinds of progressivism. Because my views come from humanism, theirs comes from the weird SJW cult crap that I don't like. And that's why we've never gotten along, despite professing support toward similar things. because that worldview difference matters.
The same thing happened to the bernie left. Except they went full on into actual marxism. Bernie talked of "democratic socialism", which i interpreted as social democracy at the time, and was probably intended to be basically social democracy. But...since then, a lot of his supporters read leftist theory and became radicalized into literal marxism. And much like postmodernism, it comes off as cultish. And now they're talking about abolishing capitalism and going much further than bernie wanted, which...when i said that, i just meant i wanted a UBI, these guys want literal communism. You NEVER go full communist, because that crap doesn't work. It has so many logistical issues i dont wanna touch it with a ten foot pole. But...when i watched people in 2020 start screaming that yang's UBI was a neoliberal/techno libertarian trojan horse, I was like wait, what? Neoliberal? Libertarian? Yes, there are some people who wanted to push UBI as an alternative to all welfare back in the 60s-80s, but these days, it's mostly a progressive movement, and my own support came from a mostly progressive place (as in, humanist). And it just got worse from there. So now the left is CRAZY left, going into crazy territory I won't even touch.
Admittedly, the establishment is moving left. Are they left enough for me? Not really. Biden is just a much better Hillary Clinton, but the policy gains we got out of him, even if congress undermined most of them, made my 2016 gambit worth it to me. We did tell the dems they needed the left to win, and that's one of the reasons im able to hold my nose and vote biden now. I understand that given the circumstances, this is the best we can get. This is like deal or no deal. The left was able to play games in 2016 and 2020 to drive the party left, but in 2024, it's like that million dollar case went bye bye and our best offer went way down. So it's like "well...deal". It's not that I've changed. I mean, to a small extent I did, but most of the differences between 2016 and 2024 comes from circumstances, ya know? I did investigate all the alternatives to Biden this election cycle, and if the data led me to a different conclusion, I'd think differently on it, but I feel like I have to vote for Biden right now. Maybe 2028 will be different but we won't know until we get there.
But yeah, is the 2024 left better or worse than the 2016 left? Well in some ways better, in other ways worse.
I feel like the secular humanist left got destroyed. it's mostly a bunch of old guards treated as pariahs for being too centrist these days, especially on cultural issues (which is where I'm at, more in the bill maher/richard dawkins camp that was big 10 years ago but has since gone our of style). The post modernist left is ascendant, although some are wondering if we're hitting "peak woke" as since 2020ish, things have shifted a bit to the right on crime, immigration, etc., but yeah it's still a huge cultural force. The marxist left is kinda irrelevant, but they're LOUD. And they're the ones screaming about gaza. And the progressive humanist left is just...gone. Like everyone is either becoming a liberal or a leftist and while i lean closer to libs at this point, I have disdain for both groups and dont feel like I belong anywhere.
Pre 2016 at least I felt some sense of belonging with the secular progressive left. Of course even then, I've changed too, and ive changed on the biggest issue of all to those people: belief in God. Yeah, I'm a believer these days. Not a religious one, but still one regardless. And while my actual ideological worldview hasnt become massively different due to this revelation of sorts (because im not professing christianity or any religion with an ideological worldview that forces me to take certain stances on issues i wouldnt otherwise take), and I still consider myself a CULTURAL atheist or secular humanist, yeah the little experience I've had with those communities since has led to them treating me like a pariah. So...yeah. I mean, they get really dogmatic over the god question. Like INSANELY dogmatic. Like openly hostile to anyone who seems to seriously consider the possibility. Doesnt matter if I agree with them on the other 95% of issues, they just go all in with this idea and are literally hostile to considering alternative possibilities.
Of course, that is the key idea that links it all together, at least in their mind, and without that, they probably think they have nothing. Maybe people were right in that most people just dont find a movement dedicated to atheism, a single position on a single issue, compelling. Never mind you CAN make a whole worldview out of it that still holds even without that issue.
So yeah. I guess to conclude this article though, in 2016, i felt the world was more black and white, and I kinda knew my place in it more. In 2024, things are more complicated and I dont fit in anywhere. Still, tracing stuff like this does allow me to investigate where I came from relative to these other groups and where I stand with them now.
No comments:
Post a Comment