Fwd: Welcome to the land of the politically correct

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:24 AM 6/12/01 -0400, John wrote:
>Yoshie writes:
>
>"American leftists are in fact among the most disorganized &
>decentralized in the world, with little to show for all the leaflets,
>phone trees, etc. There is no political party on the Left to speak
>of in the USA, not even a social democratic one. American leftists
>are in a position to lecture neither British nor Palestinian
>leftists. If American leftists were so well organized, they would be
>able to stop the US aid to Israel, Plan Colombia, etc."
>
>
>Amen to that. As should be apparent from the obsessively narrow focus of
>my postings recently, the question why this is the case is really, in my
>opinion, pretty much the only one worth asking these days.  And if leftist
>intellectuals are going to be worth anything at all, they should be
>investigating this question in the same way as a pathologist diagnoses a
>chronic disease.
>
>"Political correctness,"  depending on how one defines the term is
>potentially one aspect of the problem and it is worth discussing more
>generally how this plays out in practice.
>
>Other potential symptoms or causes:

I think all the symptoms you list point into one direction - that what
passes for the 'left' in this country is but an aspect of the cranky US
religiosity.  For historical reasons, US is a hodge-podge of religious
sects, and that includes 'left' or progressive' sects as well. Despite
their superficial diveristy, religious sects (including leftish ones) share
the fundamental features of a religious outlook: (i) the supremacy of the
ideal/spiritual over the real (hence symbolic issues are more important
than "bread and butter" issues); the sharp ingroup-outgroup distinction
between true believers and infidels (hence policing and attacks of fellow
travelers you mention); the belief that individual virtue is a key to
making social change (hence the moralizing, or "political correctiness" as
you call it); and millenarianism or a belief that a fundamental change of
the current world order is near (hence the "stock markets are crashing, the
end of capitalism is near" mantra).

This cranky religiosity of the US 'left' is is a major obstacle to
organizing, because it is repulsive to serious left of the center thinker
or activist.

wojtek