I also suspect there is a thoroughgoing methodological individualism to US leftism that is absent in the more collectivist right-wing hive mind (ironical, if true, yes). A few months ago Doug had someone on his show, Jodi Dean I think was her name, who is an academic and also writes a blog. She talked about the trouble of individualism in the Left, and “archipelago”s of blogs, so on. But somehow, all this analysis occurred without any acknowledgement (or awareness?) that she too was writing on her own, individual blog. When the Left (space here _____ for Carrol to point out, quite correctly, that there isn’t a Left, only leftists; and perhaps that’s the same point!) does get together, they form, as she calls it, archipelagos, perhaps out of unwillingness to compromise their ideals, or because of a strange notion of pluralism. Result: there is Crooker Timber, Econospeak, this guy’s blog, the other guy’s site, etc.
Regarding uncompromising radicalism and mental rigidity and inability to attract others, I am often reminded, when confronted by the Left’s seemingly boilerplate approach to analysing problems or events, of Peter Medawar’s point about rationalism in his Advice to a Young Scientist (especially applicable to Western skepticism/atheism):
"Rationalism falls short of answering the many simple and childlike questions people like to ask; questions about origins and purposes such as are often contemptuously dismissed as non-questions, or pseudo-questions, although people understand them clearly enough and long to have an answer. These are intellectual pains that rationalists — like bad physicians confronted by ailments they cannot diagnose or cure — are apt to dismiss as “imagination”.(*)
Except Leftists dismiss questions not as “imagination” but as bad faith (or in a different context: “conspiracy theories”).
—ravi
P.S: If Woj took to writing a polemical blog, I’d subscribe! When I read Woj’s posts, I don’t miss Carl Remick as much.