#NoLabels actually.
Really, I dislike the idea that someone's required to sign up to an established political ideology in order to have a coherent worldview. I have no ideological affiliation. Insofar as I
approach being a member of an ideological faction it's only by virtue of opposing terrible things like conservatism, nationalism, socialism, identity fetishism etc. Death to the -isms. It's particularly clear from perusing some of the posts here that ideological labels are both utterly meaningless and stifle argument - people wear them like phony war medals. Oh, you're a heterodox liberal? Fascinating!
Urgh - labels are great for conveying complex ideas with very few words but my convictions do not neatly fit under any of them. I guess a longer list is needed?
Abolitionist (death penalty, nuclear arms), allophile, anti-authoritarian, anti-dominionist, anti-imperialist, anti-islamist, anti-zionist, bourdieuan / weberian, civic nationalist, civil libertarian, constitutional republican, constructivist (foreign affairs), continentalist, cosmopolitan, decentralist, democrat (representative), democratic socialist, egalitarian, elitist, federalist, fiscal conservative, globalist, green, humanitarian, individualist, interculturalist, leftist, liberal feminist, liberal internationalist, market socialist, ordoliberal, personist, pluralist, pragmatist, preservationist (environment), pro-choice, pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-reunification (Korea), radical, red, reformist, secularist, sentiocentrist, social liberal, socialist, universalist, and world federalist.
Several are probably missing from here but it'll work I guess. In local politics I use "democratic socialist" and accept that most folks won't understand what it means.
Fúcking hell! Case in point!
Anyway, I think Hash briliantly broke down this debate in a thread on this kind of topic a few years back. One of my favourite posts, and makes the case far better than I could. Emphasis mine.
I would like to think that I have a coherent set of beliefs and political opinions, even if they may change and even if I keep pretty quiet about them because I dislike political debate. I am not a Moderate Hero, I don't adapt my opinions to circumstances and in some cases I feel pretty strongly about certain issues. Push comes to shove, I lean more to the left than to the right.
But why is there an absolute necessity to attach a label to me? Why is there a need to conform to established ideological labels? One of the reasons I don't identify with any of the existing labels is because I feel that I do not 'conform' to the main ideological labels out there ('social democrat', 'social liberal' etc), in addition to the fact that those labels are pretty useless and increasingly devoid of meaning. Given that those ideologies (like most) are quite vague, what constitutes a 'coherent set of beliefs' which conforms to said ideology? I'm pretty sure there is no one 'coherent set of belief' which defines you as a social demcorat and nothing else.
Besides, even I did have a label attached to me, what good would it be? An ideology is not like food and water, it is not something which I 'need' to have, it's not some kind of consumer product either. I'm some random poster on some internet forum who writes a blog. Why would anyone give a sh**t about what my ideology is? Certainly only few people are genuinely interested about your random opinions about political issues and even fewer people will reconsider their own random opinions based on my own random opinions. What purpose would it serve to have an ideological label attached to my beliefs? It's not like I'm a politician or something, there's no need for me to attach myself to labels.
Again, I do have an ideology: anti-reactionary Mustafinism-Komovism. It's not one of the prepackaged products on the markets? Well, that's really too bad.
EDIT: I just had a sudden moment of clarity - a lot of us treat ideological factions the way BRTD treats religion.
