>Why do you keep caricaturing the fantasies of bored suburban
>teenagers and attributing them to some "left"?
>
True, what I described was a caricature, but the caricatured tendency is, imho, not limited to bored teenagers. This tendency, the preference of cultural symbols over realistic political action, is quite common among many leftists, and often expressed on this list.
One example would be the religious worship of the idea of a 'revolution' "protest' or 'socialism' which you tend to ridicule in your own postings. The way many on the left see these things resembles the so-called cargo cult that developed after 2nd world war in certain Pacific islands. These islands were used by the US as bases for their operations against the Japanese. To pacify the indigenous population, the Army provided them with food and other products that were brought to those isalnds on planes. This "manna falling form the sky" ended when the Army left the islands. In aftermath, the local started building airplane-shaped fetishes from wood and straw, as a part of magic ritual to bring the past prosperity back.
In a way, today's left often acts in a similar way. Revolutions, and protest actions did bring desirable social changes under certain social-historical conditions. However, those conditions do not exist anymore - but many on the left still ritualistically use them to achieve a desired social change. The recently discussed protest agains a nazi march in DC is a case in point. Another example of a left fetish is death penalty. Opposing it made a lot of sense for the Left in the time of Sacco and Vanzetti - but today this issue is mostly a shibboleth, a spirit of the past struggle Marx talks about in the "18th brummaire" - which at best has a marginal significance for the working class, but at worst alienates left activists from working class who see this position as being 'soft on crime' (rememeber that crime disproportionally affects the poor and the minorities).
I see all that as a form of idealistic world wiew in which products of the mind (symbols, and culture in general) are seen as more important than material reality. I attributed that attituide to oppostiong of gentrification which started this thread. People oppose gentrification because of its symbolic dimension (yuppie lifestyles), while diregarding its positive impact on urban economy. Or, as Max pointed out, if the disenfranchised people start mobilizing, the liberal left dismisses them as fascists merely because of the presence of certain shibboleths that are not considered "kosher" by the left.
I think it is precisely this idealistic world view that that is ridiclued as political correctness (a belief that using "proper" language will change the reality itself) and alienates the left from its natural allies. I think that the slogan of the 19th century German philosophers "back to reality" is in order again.
wojtek