Lefty despair

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Sep 20 03:30:07 PDT 2002



> >Why are so many LBO-talkers obsessed with finding fault with "the
>>left"? If leftists themselves don't like "the left," why should
>>anyone else? Self-flagellation and self-deprecation are
>>unattractive. It makes sense to flog "the left" ritually once we
>>cease to consider ourselves leftists, but, otherwise, it's
>>self-defeating. Suppose we are interested in winning friends and
>>influencing people, as everyone here says we should be; then it makes
>>sense to stop saying that "the left sucks," which is like a salesman
>>saying, "Never buy this product -- I won't use it myself."
>>- --
>>Yoshie
>
>Self-deprecation is a hell of a lot more attractive to me than
>self-righteousness. Someone genuinely trying to figure something out is more
>attractive to me than someone who appears to have all the answers (and
>apparently was born with them.) I'll cop to this: When I'm less sure, I'm
>more dogmatic. Enybody else wanna cop-out? (as Etheridge Knight says.)
>
>Jenny Brown

I've already said that it doesn't make sense to go to the opposite extreme, be it self-righteousness or mindless boosterism. What is futile is the kind of unanswerable charges without evidence that some leftists are fond of hurling at "the left in general." E.g., "the left" is humorless, self-righteous, etc., etc. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the charges are true -- that there exists a coherent left that is indeed humorless and self-righteous, as a number of LBO-talkers say habitually. If that's the case, you might as well give up on it, as humorlessness and self-righteousness are character flaws, rather than mistakes made due to lack of information, skills, experience, etc.

In short, criticisms should be concrete and fact-based, about the problems that actually exist and can be corrected. In my humble opinion, it's irrational to say that "the left" is a bunch of humorless and self-righteous losers, as is often said here, and to still be a leftist, unless you think of yourself as a humorless and self-righteous loser. Perhaps leftist critics of "the left" automatically exempt themselves in their minds? I'm genuinely perplexed. -- Yoshie

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