So...this has been bothering me lately. And I guess what's really triggering me to write this is between that recent jubilee debate with Tim Miller being such a weak debater, and now Cenk seemingly getting his butt handed to him by his nephew (IMO), I really feel like it's time to approach this topic. What do liberals believe, why do they believe it, and do they believe anything at all?
For me, worldview is everything. When I was a teenager, I had to read "Understanding the Times" for 11th grade religion class. We learned about the importance of worldview, why it matters, and how to think coherently. I mean, in retrospect it was hardcore christian indoctrination, but they had a point. They were selling a worldview and contrasting themselves with mainstream society, and that's the root of a lot of our political differences even today. The reason Tim Miller did so poorly is because he was arguing against people who have this Christian worldview, whereas the conservatives he was arguing with might have been kinda cray cray, but ideologically, they had their ducks in a row. Cenk Uygur. I normally like Cenk. He's a progressive, he normally seems to stand for more than most libs do, but even then his discussion skills here were weak. It was all platitudes with no real systemic analysis. I know Cenk has been kinda iffy among the modern left, for failure to embrace certain purity standards (I'll get to that in a bit, that's ALSO a worldview thing), but normally I expect Cenk and TYT to have SOME standards. It's almost like a lot of libs barely believe anything at all...
Getting "those" libs out of the way
So...before we get started, let's discuss the establishment and centrist libs. As I've indicated time and time again, yeah no, I really do believe they stand for nothing. They want jobs in politics, and don't care what they do, so they end up with this wishy washy worldview. Centrists stand for nothing. Their entire existence is based on compromise, and meeting the right half way. Like, literally. When your entire worldview is driven by "political pragmatism", centrism, and meeting in the middle, you get this weird tepid version of the right's worldview. This is why a lot of more ideologically charged folks consider libs to be moderate right wingers. Because they basically embrace the same core moral convictions as the right, it's just that they water them down a bit. What do they water them down with? Arguably whatever other worldview is convenient at the time, but they dont believe in anything. Which is why many of them are flip floppers in politics and constantly shift their views.
But this is their core weakness. Because they run into the "uncanny valley of suck" problem. They end up compromising so much with the right, they end up alienating their own side, while at the same time, they don't win over the right, because they lack any sense of moral clarity or cohesion. It's just weird platittudes over a softer version of the conservative worldview, and the conservatives have no interest in what the right is selling.
So what...is the liberal worldview?
Well, that's the thing. The left doesn't have a singular coherent worldview any more. When I read understanding the times, I would have classified the MAIN liberal worldview to be secular humanism, but even then a lot of liberals are christian and just have milder versions of that christian worldview mixed with other worldviews, which is the problem. This is also one of the reasons that any time a non white person gains a certain prestige among democrats, like Obama or Zohran Mamdani, they freak out, because they recognize that someone who isn't white and nominally christian isn't part of the ideological club. Not only are they liberal, but they become whatever mix of worldviews that they want to impose on the left at any time. Like "Obama is an atheist communist islamist", even though those are three completely different worldviews in understanding the times. Either way, part of the reason POC freak out white christians so much is because not only are they left wing, but many of them don't share even the ideological background that a lot of whites in society have. It's like the mask comes off and they realize they just aren't dealing with some weird watered down version of the christian worldview any more, but something else.
When I read understanding the times in high school, it had 3 different competing worldviews at the time, although rereading it, there are 5, and "the left" is a multi headed hydra of all of them. To break them down:
Secular humanism- the chief ideological arch rival of christianity, and probably what I consider the pure form of modern liberalism. If liberalism is to have an ethos, it's this one. Basically its a rejection of the christian god, and the christian worldview, and an embracement of a mix of progressive libertarianism on social issues (so pro choice, pro lgbt+, etc.), economics tends to be a bit mixed, but I'd say social democracy and mixed economies are their things, rejecting both capitalist purism and socialism, but having some mix of the two. And yeah. Generally, a lot of mainstream liberal beliefs come out of a more secular tradition that directly conflicts with the fundamentalist christian tradition. And traditionally, the ideological spectrum of America is a tug of war between these two worldviews. This was also common when I was younger online. You had the conservative christians debating the liberal atheists, and that seemed to represent the ideological spectrum for much of my teenage and young adult life.
..which is why, when I left religion, I immersed myself in this secular humanist worldview, and still champion it to this day.
However, for modern lefties, even secular humanism is flawed and mild. Another group, the "postmodernists" will rip it for being somewhat "racist", even if secularists, more often than not, have elements of postmodernism in their worldview. And we know how "leftists" who embrace varying levels of the marxist-leninist worldview tend to bash liberals for their lack of moral purity as well.
As a humanist, I'm fine with integrating some aspects of these other worldviews into my own, but like with everything else, I'm fine with nuance. I recognize embracing any worldview too tightly can lead to fundamentalism, and among fundamentalists, humanists are the most chill. They're your typical r/atheism edgelord, whereas religious ones are theocrats, marxists turn into tankies, postmodernists turn into SJWs, etc. So let's discuss the others next.
Marxism-Leninism- This is the old left. The one based on Marx. You know, class consciousness, alienation, labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, all that jazz. One might dislike "leninism" mixed with it as they dont see the communists of russia as the purest form, but a lot of christians also say that about the fundies, so...I'm rolling with it. But basically the leninist version of "Marxist fundamentalism." At the time I read understanding the times, it was considered relatively defunct given it was the mid 2000s, before current politics and post cold war, but yeah, marxism has risen again.
However, thankfully, the modern form common in america isn't totally crazy. Old school marxist-leninists are basically what "tankies" are and considered crazy even by most leftists. Most have distanced themselves from conventional leftism and instead seek "democratic socialism." This was common with the rise of bernie sanders, and is now championed by the likes of AOC and Zohran Mamdani. I have a lot in common with these guys, but tend to interpret marx far less dogmatically, dont tend to really care much for "socialism" in general, and I just...go in my own humanist direction with it. But, policy wise, I gotta respect a lot of leftists, often more than a lot of liberals. Because AT LEAST THEY FRICKING STAND FOR SOMETHING! Seriously, they have their ideas. They have their problem definition, they have their solutions, and while I will disagree with them ideologically at times, and on specific policy prescriptions, I can at least respect a coherent worldview. Ya know? Given the choice between tepid liberalism and inoffensive democratic socialism (since, again, and this is VERY IMPORTANT, but most demsocs distance themselves from tankies and tend to embrace something more akin to "what liberalism should actually be". Seriously, most modern ones are socdems and new deal liberals, and a lot of modern liberal thought is still influenced by them. With Bernie Sanders being the standard bearer of the modern iteration of the ideology, we see another vision of what the left "should" be. Even if my views are akin to "human centered capitalism" based on a less dogmatic "humanist" approach to politics.
Postmodernism- Ugh...SJWs. Yeah. Basically SJWs. When the right screams about "wokeism", they mean these guys. But yeah, according to understanding the times, this brand of left originated in the halls of academia, and is basically obsessed with what we call "social justice." Another common name the right throws around is "cultural marxism", which does fit it given it's basically the ideas of marx and class conflict, but applied to race, gender, and sexuality. Basically mainstream society represents the views of straight white males, who are privileged, and the main conflict in society is not based on class, but over social justice groups.
Among leftists, postmodernism is basically an extension of conflict theory applied to social groups. Among liberals, it's often used as a convenient distraction from class and economic issues, and serves as a replacement of it. It was speculated that this "New Left" rose to prominence as a CIA op to distract people from class conflict in society, and to create a new detoothed left that was both economically conservative relatively speaking, but also socially liberal. Of course, being the humanist with some conflict oriented theory integrated into my own worldview, I saw through this stuff immediately, but it didnt stop the democrats from cynically using it to redirect the left toward unpopular social causes, which has just driven further divides in society, leading to the revival of fascism in America as a backlash to it.
And again, much like with marxism, I wanna recognize that these guys do have a point, like, the ideas are valid. But this stuff just isn't a HUGE part of my ideological DNA. I didn't fall for "the op" so to speak and still retain the majority of my pre 2016 views as a result. Although given the rise of fascism I have had to bury the hatchet somewhat with these guys since, well, cat's out of the bag, we "blowbacked" ourselves as a society, and the christian worldview has morphed into something worse. I'll address that later. Before I do though, I want to address the other 2 worldviews.
The other two worldviews are far less political and far more religious. They could have intersection with religion, but they typically don't.
Islam- Yeah, Islam is its own worldview, similar to christianity. And in its extremist forms, is just as, if not more dangerous than Christianity. However, at least in America, most muslims are more Cenk Uygur or Zohran Mamdani than....that....it's almost like many people have a deeper commitment to separation of church and state and that almost no one wants to implement sharia law on us! Trust me, if they did, I'd be opposed to that. But Muslims are such a small minority in the US they're literally not a threat. And they tend to adapt to our culture very well. Doesnt stop the right from freaking out about them.
I also do wanna bring some attention to conflicts between the humanist worldview and the postmodernist one in approaching the subject to islam. Humanists are critical of religion, and can be very scathing critics of islam, but given we tolerate those with religious views as long as they dont shove them in our faces, we're not gonna be too aggressive for the most part. But a lot of old school atheists, especially after 9/11, were very scathing critics of the religion. Postmodernists see this as "racist", seeing conflict along racial lines, and between the white european majority and the religion of a racial minority. This leads to a lot of interesting contradictions within liberalism where people ask why we're so harsh on christians but give islam a pass despite its social regressivism. As a humanist, I fully recognize that islam can be very socially regressive, and i despise it for that reason. but I despise it like I do christianity. I make it about the ideas, not the people, and i also recognize nuance like, GEE MOST AMERICA MUSLIMS HAVE LITTLE TO NOT INTEREST IN IMPOSING SHARIA ON US, CAN WE MOVE ON NOW?! Seriously, it kinda is punching down. The postmodernists have a point. Not saying we can't criticize the worldview and belief system, we absolutely should. But unless people are gonna be fundamentalist about it, just let them live their lives, is that so hard?!
Cosmic humanism- So these are your new agers, crystal ladies, tarot and astrology enthusiasts, etc. However, they rarely intersect with modern politics. There are a couple examples. Marianne Williamson was one of these guys. Ya know, strong spirituality infused with progressivism. And given I'm not...ahem...FULLY secular any more, yeah, my views align with these guys most closely on spiritual issues. Basically, they believe that God is like the source of all, that we are all part of god, that the universe is part of god. A lot of them believe in more woo wooey stuff, whereas I still embrace a level of skepticism toward some spirituality. But I believe that synchronicities happen, and some of them are too weird to ignore. I generally believe there is life after death, and some reincarnation loop. That our loved ones are normally our spiritual friends (not always though, the "soul group" thing can be complicated). I even believe that I'm here to spread certain spiritual messages and that my own spiritual journey out of christianity and into atheism was to give me the ideological grounding for my current worldview, and despite believing in some spirituality, I'm still mostly culturally atheistic and that's fine, because if anything it makes my message stronger when I can argue for it on its own merits rather than from a sense of godly authority.
But yeah, those two worldviews, not as influential in politics directly. Modern left wing politics is a mix of secular humanism, marxism, and postmodernism. my own views are humanist with leftist and postmodernist elements.
This can vary from a lot of mainstream liberals, who sadly still embrace a largely conservative and christian perspective, just mixed with these other elements. It's a spectrum, and it's complicated.
What about fascism?
I found it weird fascism was never covered in understanding the times, and did believe it to be its own strain of politics distinct from christianity, but I'm not sure about that. If anything, fascism is just a more extreme version of the conservative worldview. While fundies will say "well they were socialists" because they had the term "national socialist" in their names in the 1930s-1940s, eh...they really weren't. Rather, they represent another form of extremist conservatism.
Socially, they're VERY conservative, but tend to use religion more cynically. Everything is about like...a strong state, and they adopt socially conservative views to basically encourage high rates of reproduction and population growth. They may also believe in racial purity, and the idea that others are "not like us." They often intersect with religion a lot on issues, although kinda like the difference between humanism and say marxism, they kinda represent different branches of it. For christians, god is their ultimate authority, whereas fascists tend to put their trust in some human. Although that human can be said to be a representative of god. We see this with all the "GOD CHOSE TRUMP!" stuff, and I know in grad school when studying some of this stuff we watched videos of like, hitler coming from the sky and getting off of an airplane and it made him look all divine. That's nazi propaganda for you (we knew it was propaganda, that was the point, we were literally studying propaganda type stuff). And yeah, in a way....christian nationalism is kind of the useful idiot for fascism. It really is. Like, fundamentalist christianity is kind of use as a justification for fascist perspectives, which makes the alliance we're seeing between christian nationalists and fascists as fairly natural, and maybe even inevitable. They DO have similar goals, even if their ideologies are different. But again, it's kinda like the relationship between secular humanism and marxism. The right often criticizes atheism for "killing millions" when it was the marxist leninists who did that. They enforced state atheism since they recognized religion offered a different competing worldview, and that if anything, religion suppressed class consciousness. So atheism became a tool of this other, more radical and authoritarian ideology. The same is true with the relationship between fundamentalist christianity and fascism. Christianity is becoming part of the ideological justification for fascism. This is why Trump is directing his law enforcement to keep an eye on anyone who has anti christian or leftist views of ANY of these ideologies. Because they wanna use religion to further their own ideological goals. Religion has always been the justification of injustice for the masses. This is one thing marxists had a point about. It is the opium of the masses. Why worry about the injustices of this life when you'll be rewarded in the next?
I'm not saying christianity and fascism have an ironclad relationship. it doesn't. Christians have gone to the camps in prior fascist regimes for speaking out against the injustices of the fascists. And while conservative christianity represents the "fundamentalist" extreme of the religion, well, there are moderate christians out there who mix their views with other worldviews. I've been friends with christian democratic socialists before, for example. And a lot of mainstream christian liberals have at least some elements of humanism in there like, not believing that the world is 6000 years old, but it does seem like sometimes those brands of christianity seem like people trying to regularly compromise their beliefs with reality. Like, again, it leads to a complicated mess.
So...with that said, where do liberals stand?
Well, liberals represent a spectrum of beliefs ranging from milder versions of christian worldviews mixed with secularism, to mixing secularism with marxism and postmodernism, or alternatively christianity mixed with marxism and postmodernism. But it's generally a cluster of those 4 ideologies.
I would say "the left" is most purely represented by marxism-leninism on economics and postmodernism and secular humanism on social issues, although it is a spectrum.
Even I tend to fail the purity tests of those left of me, because I'm NOT a "socialist" or "leftist".
With that said, liberalism isnt intended to be a pure worldview, but a nuanced one between left and right.
I would say, however, secular humanism is the most pure and the highest expression of the ideology in the modern age. If Christianity represents the right, then secularism should represent the left. That's how I view politics. That's my own political lens.
I kinda view "leftist" lenses as kinda their own thing. i think embracing those worldviews in an extreme form is harmful, but that those worldviews do offer SOME value at the same time. hence why I've integrated some aspects of those belief systems into my views too. BUT...the ideological basis of my larger worldview IS secular humanism. That's the metaphysical backdrop of my politics, and the other worldviews operate within that paradigm.
Of course, liberals and leftists tend to vary in how much they embrace any of these worldviews. Which is why so much infighting exists. Leftists hate me because I'm not pure enough. Remember how they reacted to human centered capitalism? Because they hate all capitalism and see even my views as some sort of untenable compromise even if, in my own perspective it's coherent AF. Because they're ideological leftists before anything else, whereas im a secularist before anything else.
But then a lot of libs aren't even that. And it's sad to see. Like, okay, I can respect someone who has a different competing worldview to mine who I disagree with, even if I do disagree with them and trash them on this blog in the heat of the moment. But I also tend to have that "i like stuff hot or cold, if you're lukewarm I'll spit you out of my mouth" ethos to my worldview. Christians used that verse to encourage more ideological purity on their side, pointing out that those who were like half christian and half something else were "double minded" and "unstable in all their ways." Well...that's what a lot of libs are. A lot of mainstream libs are actually those double minded christians who don't have any coherent ideological worldview. And they always embrace what i consider "right wing" values, while then walking them back and compromising them with reality. Which pisses off the fundies, it pisses me off, it pisses leftists all, and that's why everyone hates them. It's the uncanny valley of suck as I call it. Just this weird brand of tepid centrism that doesn't stand for anything.
Like...we should stand for things. Have an ethos, have a coherent values system. Im not saying we have to represent any or all of these worldviews perfectly. BUT...we should at least stand for something. Which is why I'll respect "leftists" like bernie sanders, or AOC, or hasan piker, even if i do have sincere ideological disagreements with them, over these weird centrists who speak in platitudes and dont seem to know wtf they're doing or saying. It's like, pick a side, figure out what you stand for, crap or get off the pot. On this blog, i represent my worldview. It might not be for everyone, but you gotta say, I stand for what I believe in and struggle to advance my own vision for the world on it. I just expect that from other people and tend to look down on those who don't even seem to know wtf they stand for, and yet seem to have opinions on everything. Like...you're NPCs with dunning kruger effect if you do that. Really. That's how I see you. You think you know what you're doing. You have no idea what you're doing. Hit the books. Read something. Figure out what you actually believe in. And yeah, that's all I have to say on that.
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