Another fine example of the degenerate ethics and reasoning of the sanctimonious, allegedly ‘progressive’ Left. The reaction to this from James, below, is very interesting. He proudly self-identifies as a “leftwinger“. Yet his struggle to reconcile this unambiguously racist public incident with his conviction about the inherent moral excellence of the premise behind it is palpable.
This highlights precisely the threat posed by the cultural phenomenon of ‘progressivism’: The willingness to privilege ideological premises over self-evident, objective truth.
Poor James is trying desperately to adhere to the standard “leftwinger” conception of “teaching moments”… in which people who take the perfection of their own beliefs for granted impose their will on those they deem to be in need of their superior insight.
The problem for James is that unlike the majority of people who share his intellectual commitment to the ideology of the ‘progressive’-Left , he hasn’t yet completely abandoned his capacity to recognise hypocrisy:
James: How is the volunteer racist? As a leftwinger, I confess that this baffles me if this article is accurate. Having white people move back as an exercise could be a teaching moment, but not with acceptable means unless you plan to, say, return people to their old spots after a few minutes.
Breaking equal-treatment rules isn’t acceptable. This is a grotesque caricature of the left that rightwing blogs constantly circulate (no, most leftwingers aren’t worried about dissenting opinions). Don’t ask people of one race to move back for people of another race for your concert.
Going to Getugly:
James, it’s anything BUT a “gross caricature of the left”. This is the Left in all of it’s irrational, hypocritical, circular reasoning glory! And your statement that this would be a “teaching moment” is a symptom of the same irrationality. You don’t subject people to the very thing you claim to so strongly oppose to fulfill your narcissistic belief in the righteousness of your own opinion.
Indulging in bigotry because you tell yourself it’s for ‘all the right reasons’ is not DIFFERENT to bigotry. It’s just bigotry! This is the blind spot of people such as yourself who self-identify as “a leftwinger” that folks who are not captured by ideology keep trying to get you guys to recognise! You are NOT better than the people you imagine yourselves to be superior to! The problem is that people on the Left… people like YOU… never bother to go through the process of examining YOURSELF before imagining that you occupy the lofty position to pass judgement on people who don’t conform to your ideology.
Another commentator, Nathan, inadvertently emphasises the truth about this impulse to privilege a commitment to prefabricated, ideological conceptualisations over independant thinking with this comment:
Nathan: I’m a liberal who spends more time confronting the stupidity of the type defined here than conservatives.
These aren’t isolated incidents. Head to any university in the country and you’ll find people that think making white people move is noble.
So I posed the obvious question:
Going to Getugly:
Nathan, why then do you persist in self-identifying with an ideology that you recognise is so flawed and corrupt?
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