Opinion of the term "regressive left?"

[ingemann]

I prefer to use the term "the contrarian left" as it seem to choose to defend groups based on how horrible they are.

[Prince of Salem]

The phenomenon is clearly real, but the term itself is loaded. An alternative phrase should be found.

[ingemann]

I copied my post from the international subboard, because I think the Swedish Greens are a very good example of this phenomen. They select a member of a minority, who if he had been ethnic Swedish would have belong on the extreme right (to the right of SD), and they make him minister.

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http://www.thelocal.se/20160418/swedens-housing-minister-quits-after-row



Swedish Turkish leader resigns after "death to Armenians" speech

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6408898

Let's hope that the Swedish Green Party doesn't get 4% the next election.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's a great way to lump people who simply think that making sweeping blanket condemnations of vast world religions is inappropriate and kosher and halal aren't the worst things ever in with George Galloway-style useful idiots and antisemites of the left, so HT.

Speak of the devil.....

Considering that we’ve established and you’ve conceded in the past that I know what issues I do and don’t fit this description on better than you do, and that I don’t like the word ‘progressive’ or find it in any way offensive or upsetting to be accused of not being one, I’m not sure for whose consumption this sick burn is intended, but the reason I’m necroing this thread isn’t to respond to this, it’s to respond to this:

AYE!  If an aspect of culture is important or otherwise provides a benefit, it will stick around (and may be adopted and modified by others AND THAT"S OK TOO!), if it's not, it will go away just like it always has.  Same with languages.

Okay, see, this is exactly the sort of sentiment that leads me to lean ‘regressive left’ on some issues, because I don’t believe this is a morally acceptable understanding of language. There are many features of culture that it’s more or less fine to look at this way but language really isn’t one of them. To think this about language you have to assume that languages (or dialects) don’t have any unique or intrinsic merit at all—that the only function they serve is to communicate abstract ideas that could just as easily be communicated in any other language (or dialect), or else that they do have intrinsic merit but some are ‘better’ than others based on how they ~compete~ in the ~global marketplace of ideas~ or whatever. Either way is an incredibly un-literary and inartistic way of understanding language; only sociopathic ideologues and people who are secretly World War II-era BBC personalities admit to thinking these things. You don’t have to believe in kotodama or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or the fifty-words-for-snow factoid to know or at least suspect that there’s more to it than this.

That being the case, why the hell are we supposed to just lie back and think of Basic English and let entire frameworks and lenses for understanding the world pass away unrecorded and unmourned just because it goes against the dead0mans of the world’s hyper- [insert here: -rationalistic, -modern, -‘competition’-obsessed, or what you will] worldviews to lift a finger to do anything to prevent that? I’m not even making a call for any sort of ‘enforced diversity’ at this point (I enforce some vanishing Connecticut Valley dialectical features on my own speech, such as saying ‘tag sale’ instead of ‘yard sale’, but this is part of a general program of deliberate and strategic self-caricature that I don’t expect other people to follow or have any interest in for themselves), only assiduous historical recordkeeping and remembrance, and also maybe not deliberately hastening these processes by insistently shilling for mandatory linguistic centralization or standardization or for every exciting and new form of globalization going. I hardly think that’s too terribly much to ask.

I don’t really think of this as a leftist or rightist understanding of the subject. I think of it as an understanding based on my theological rejection of consequentialism and insistence that people-and-things-as-such have value, not only ‘utility’, which precedes and, if I’m doing things right, informs any leftist or rightist Issues views I have.

[RaphaelDLG]

Harris and Rubin use it as a lazy ad hominem against those who disagree with their neocon positions, hypocritical pro-Israel stance, and absurd belief that Muslims are uniformly inherently dangerous/ticking time bombs because of their religious beliefs (but somehow Jews and Christians are not also uniformly dangerous - they fail to understand the intersection of religious beliefs, culture, and politics).

There is an element of the left wing that sometimes equivocates and is culturally relativistic in inappropriate ways.  But hated term.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I can actually think of some people the term would accurately describe, though they're quite rare. Basically the sort of people who will sacrifice progressive values in the name of being anti-Western. George Galloway is the most famous and obvious example. Also any Putin apologists.

[catographer]

I've had some illuminating conversations with alt-righters. The way they use "regressive left" is to refer to multicultural liberals who refuse to be prejudice and discriminatory against Muslims.

I understand their argument for the term tho; that western liberals defend illiberal values of easterners. But that's just not true; western liberals fight would fight tooth and nail against racism and homophobia and repression and oppression in non-western countries, and frequently do.

Two issues come up that complicate that among liberal ideology: 1) Liberals tend not to view one culture as inherently superior or more civilized than another, and calling other cultures backwards and then trying to change them opens the door for feelings of supremacy and superiority in our culture. 2) Many progressives and left-wingers are opposed to 'cultural imperialism' and are in favor of open borders; they dont want westerners to sit on their high horse judging other peoples while also letting those people in with a welcome hand.

Personally I don't have a problem with this attitude because I don't buy the argument among conservatives that it turns a blind eye to the enemies we face. We can fight terrorism and terrorists without scapegoating religions and ethnicities and cultures; we can identify the nature of the terrorists as Islamic fundamentalists while also treating Muslims and immigrants in general with respect and dignity.

I'm with Hillary Clinton that we can call it "radical Islam" while also being tolerant and not bigoted, and I don't mind that Obama has chosen not to use those words because he is fighting the war with vigor and restraint that in my opinion hasn't been hampered by his terminology. Obama has never decided to avoid an airstrike against terrorists because he thought he'd be called Islamophobic; maybe he's avoided a strike because of potential for civilian casualties, but that isn't "political correctness" as Donald Trump says but simple human dignity.