Which left is your favorite?
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  Which left is your favorite?
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Pages: [1] 2
Poll
Question: Well?
#1
The Old Left (1864-1956)
 
#2
The New Left (1956-1989)
 
#3
The Postmodern Left (1989-2011)
 
#4
The Emerging Left (2011-)
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 49

Author Topic: Which left is your favorite?  (Read 3080 times)
TNF
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« on: February 27, 2015, 07:32:26 AM »

The Old Left, or "The Folks that Brought You the Weekend and the Welfare State" I've placed roughly between the founding of the International Workingmen's Association in 1864 and the invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union in 1956.

The New Left, or "Stalin bad, Mao good" I've placed between the invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union and Tienanmen Square.

The Postmodern Left, or "Academia uber alles" I've placed between Tienanmen Square and Occupy Wall Street.

And of course, the Emerging Left, or "I don't know if I'm class conscious or stuck on Tumblr" began more or less with Occupy Wall Street, and continues on to this day.


Ranked:

1. The Old Left
2. The Emerging Left
3. The New Left
4. The Postmodern Left
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2015, 07:35:49 AM »

Old Left, ie those who actually got sh*t done.
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TNF
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« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2015, 07:44:20 AM »

Old Left, ie those who actually got sh*t done.

I'm always surprised by how much you and I agree when it comes to this sort of thing, but I feel like we honestly are on the same page, policy-wise, we just totally disagree from a tactical standpoint.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2015, 08:00:45 AM »
« Edited: February 27, 2015, 11:04:48 AM by L.D. Smith, Knight of Appalachia »

New Left got the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and started the quest to improve mental health.

The Old Left is a narrow second (and my own spectrum results are definitively more of this mold), but ultimately it failed to combat racism.

The Post-Modern left is okay, if a bit elitist and economically disgusting.

F%^ the "Emerging Left".
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TNF
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« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2015, 08:02:18 AM »
« Edited: February 27, 2015, 08:05:16 AM by Senator TNF »

New Left got the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and started the quest to improve mental health.

The Old Left is a narrow second, but ultimately it failed to combat racism.

The Post-Modern left is okay, if a bit elitist and economically disgusting.

F%^ the "Emerging Left".

[citation needed]

The Old Left organized across racial lines in the Depression-era South, bringing black and white workers into militant labor unions. The entire critique of racism as an ideology emerged from the Old Left itself, and there were plenty of Old Leftists that gave their lives on the battlefield during the American Civil War to end slavery. This idea that only the academic left ever confronted racism is ahistoric hogwash. The CIO did more for building power in minority communities than bourgeois institutions in those communities ever did.
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Marokai Backbeat
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« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2015, 08:06:18 AM »

Old Left, ie those who actually got sh*t done.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2015, 08:10:09 AM »

New Left got the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and started the quest to improve mental health.

The Old Left is a narrow second, but ultimately it failed to combat racism...meaningfully

The Post-Modern left is okay, if a bit elitist and economically disgusting.

F%^ the "Emerging Left".

[citation needed]


What do you mean "citation needed", anyone could tell you FDR dropped the ball on anti-lynching bills left and right. And anyone could tell you about Jim Crow which lurked away until '54 brought some of it to light with Brown v. Board of Education.

Oh yeah, the New Left also had the War on Poverty.
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TNF
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« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2015, 08:11:00 AM »

I'm not talking about the Democratic Party. This is the 'left', i.e. the socialist movement throughout the years.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #8 on: February 27, 2015, 08:34:26 AM »

Old Left, ie those who actually got sh*t done.

I'm always surprised by how much you and I agree when it comes to this sort of thing, but I feel like we honestly are on the same page, policy-wise, we just totally disagree from a tactical standpoint.

Yes, I've always thought the same. The economic policies that I would advocate (if they were feasible in the current context) are probably not too far from yours. Especially as I think I've moved slightly to the left over the past 5 years. I just think that, while keeping sight of our major goals, the left should also strive to improve the condition of the working classes here and now, on a more incremental basis. Like Bernstein, I care about the movement more than about the end result.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2015, 08:49:51 AM »

I'm not talking about the Democratic Party. This is the 'left', i.e. the socialist movement throughout the years.

There's also the Free Speech Movement, the beginning of environmental awareness such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the banning of DDT, the EPA.

It's the New Left that brought these, along with Civil Rights, and the growing inequalities to light in the first place that even got LBJ's attention.
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H. Ross Peron
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« Reply #10 on: February 27, 2015, 09:47:39 AM »

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Murica!
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« Reply #11 on: February 27, 2015, 09:50:31 AM »

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« Reply #12 on: February 27, 2015, 10:07:33 AM »

I'd prefer the Old Left, even though I'm considered part of the Emerging Left.
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ingemann
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« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2015, 10:14:47 AM »

I prefer the Old Left, but I don't think the split here is fair. First of all the new, postmodern and emergent lefts are obnoxious niche products, they have never dominated the left like the old left did and to some extent still do. Also when it was at it height, it wasn't like there wasn't obnoxious purist, who called the old left for "Social Fascists".
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TNF
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« Reply #14 on: February 27, 2015, 12:44:43 PM »

I'd prefer the Old Left, even though I'm considered part of the Emerging Left.

No you wouldn't. You're a liberal.
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« Reply #15 on: February 27, 2015, 01:37:25 PM »

Is Emergent Left an actual self-descriptor? When I type it in google all I get is a bunch of reviews of a book by Ralph Nader that is something completely different.
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Cranberry
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« Reply #16 on: February 27, 2015, 01:41:19 PM »

If I may ask, why did you specifically choose the invasion of Hungary as turning point? Just because it generally "fits" with the time of the change within the left, or because there was some change within the left specifically in reaction to this specific event? I cannot think of any, but you could surely tell me if there did occur such...
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TNF
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« Reply #17 on: February 27, 2015, 01:45:04 PM »

Is Emergent Left an actual self-descriptor? When I type it in google all I get is a bunch of reviews of a book by Ralph Nader that is something completely different.

No, I chose the term to reflect the revival in the interest in left-wing thinking since the economic collapse. I guess I could have chosen a different descriptor. Horizontal Left or Intersectional Left probably would have worked just as well.

If I may ask, why did you specifically choose the invasion of Hungary as turning point? Just because it generally "fits" with the time of the change within the left, or because there was some change within the left specifically in reaction to this specific event? I cannot think of any, but you could surely tell me if there did occur such...

1956 was the year that the illusions among those in Western communist parties were more or less shattered about the nature of the Soviet Union. That, plus the reconciliation of social democracy to capitalism more or less during the same period makes it a good marker, in my opinion, although I personally would contend that World War II pretty much ended the Old Left
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Cranberry
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« Reply #18 on: February 27, 2015, 01:57:05 PM »

If I may ask, why did you specifically choose the invasion of Hungary as turning point? Just because it generally "fits" with the time of the change within the left, or because there was some change within the left specifically in reaction to this specific event? I cannot think of any, but you could surely tell me if there did occur such...

1956 was the year that the illusions among those in Western communist parties were more or less shattered about the nature of the Soviet Union. That, plus the reconciliation of social democracy to capitalism more or less during the same period makes it a good marker, in my opinion, although I personally would contend that World War II pretty much ended the Old Left

Okay, thank you for your answer.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #19 on: February 27, 2015, 02:00:46 PM »

The definition of "postmodern left" here seems hopelessly confused and sketchy; I'm not sure what it means beyond just being an extension of New Left thinking that had the bad fortune to exist in an age of Third Way strategic retrenchment.  In any case, all of these options are responses to the challenges and opportunities of their particular time and as such I'm uninterested in playing the generational-warfare game of pitting one against another.

Anyway, all these Old Left votes are pretty predictable given how white and male this forum is.  Yes, its achievements were very important, and have the most widespread acclaim today.  But they were also in many ways the low-hanging fruit; I'm not going to fault Einstein for failing to discover Newton's laws of motion, nor will I fault today's physicists for not coming up with E=mc2.

...Eh.  Guess I'd vote New Left.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #20 on: February 27, 2015, 02:11:55 PM »

Personally, my chronological and ideological distinctions would be a bit different. I'll give it a try:

- The Original Left: Lasting from the foundation of the Second Internationale to the end of WW1 and the foundation of the Third Internationale. Marked by a distrustful if not outright hostile relationship with the State, by a prevalence of labor activism (but also strong local politics in many countries), and by an enduring debate between vulgar Marxism and revisionism. Its main figures include Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, Jean Jaurès, Eugene Debs, etc.

- The Transformative Left From 1921 to the 1959 (the Bad Godesberg Programme seems like a good cutoff point). Marked by the divide between Communism and Social Democracy, with the latter adhering to the Soviet model while the former learns (with varying success) to exploit the tools of parliamentary democracy to advance its policies. Eventually, the latter is responsible for the rise of the Welfare State and an unprecedented improvement in living standards. Main figures include Vladimir Lenin, Antonio Gramsci, Léon Blum, Clement Attlee, Per Albin Hansson, etc.

- The New Left 1959 to 1989 (fall of the Berlin Wall). Marked by an effort to expand Social Democratic appeal beyond the traditional class barriers and include the middle classes in a broad progressive coalition. This attempt entails emphasizing issues beyond the traditional "bread and butter" ones, such as racial and gender equality. Its success has generally been scarce and temporary, insofar as, for every middle-class vote gained, there usually was a working-class vote lost. Nonetheless, this era saw the rise to power of the Left in countries where it had been marginalized for several decades (France, Spain, Portugal). Main figures include Willy Brandt, Olof Palme, Robert Kennedy, etc.

- The De-ideologized Left 1989 to... this day? Its end might be close, but it's not dead yet. This left is marked by the "end of ideology" feel that followed the fall of the USSR, as well as by the scars inflicted by the rising neoliberal movement. As such, it has given up to a lot of its previous goals and generally tried to rebrand itself as a "pragmatic" alternative to the right. It de-emphasizes its historical legacy and outright denies its roles as the representative of a social class. Main figures include Tony Blair, Gerhardt Schröder, Felipe Gonzalez, and possibly Matteo Renzi.
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Cory
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« Reply #21 on: February 27, 2015, 02:12:10 PM »

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TNF
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« Reply #22 on: February 27, 2015, 02:28:33 PM »

The definition of "postmodern left" here seems hopelessly confused and sketchy; I'm not sure what it means beyond just being an extension of New Left thinking that had the bad fortune to exist in an age of Third Way strategic retrenchment.  In any case, all of these options are responses to the challenges and opportunities of their particular time and as such I'm uninterested in playing the generational-warfare game of pitting one against another.

Anyway, all these Old Left votes are pretty predictable given how white and male this forum is.  Yes, its achievements were very important, and have the most widespread acclaim today.  But they were also in many ways the low-hanging fruit; I'm not going to fault Einstein for failing to discover Newton's laws of motion, nor will I fault today's physicists for not coming up with E=mc2.

...Eh.  Guess I'd vote New Left.

Yeah, it has nothing to do with the fact that the Old Left was far more successful in every way than the student Maoists of the 60s, the aging academics, or the tumblr social justice warriors Roll Eyes
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Comrade Funk
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« Reply #23 on: February 27, 2015, 03:43:58 PM »

The old left. I'm not a communist, but I'll gladly take the people who got sh**t done rather than a bunch of college professors.
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« Reply #24 on: February 27, 2015, 03:44:02 PM »

old left despite blank slate/egalitarian cancer. of course 'cultural marxism' frequent have very little to actually do with marx. if he was alive now all the social justice and antifa losers would be crying about how racist and antisemitic he was. same goes for che. actually i kind of like che, he was fairly intellectual for a latino
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