Why the Far-Left's Model of Change is All Wrong
But that doesn't mean that all hope for progressive change is doomed
Recently, I have been talking a lot about promoting a 'progressive conservative' ideal. If you want to know more about what 'progressive conservatism' entails, you can start by reading my 'Progressive Conservative Manifesto'. One of the biggest reasons why I'm talking about progressive conservatism now is because, in the face of the Trump-led reactionary right's assaults on long-standing civil rights, programs and conventions that are too liberal for their liking, I have come to the view that we must take a stand for what we believe, before it's too late. My other, more long-standing reason for talking about progressive conservatism is because, over the years, I've found that the left's model of change is actually a massive failure. Like I've said many times, it leads to the needless polarization of society, and the burnout of generations of young people, and also opens the door to dangerous waves of backlash. Indeed, these two things are clearly linked in the present moment: it is the backlash to the 2010s 'woke left' that has allowed the reactionary right to gain power, to be in the position they are in right now, to do the damage they are doing right now. My hope is that a program of progressive conservatism will solve both problems.
Before a progressive conservative program can actually move forward, it has to gain enough support. Some of the support is going to come from centrists, moderate libertarians, and genuine anti-woke liberals, all of whom were frustrated at the woke excesses of the 2010s, but even more worried about the reactionary right's authoritarian overreach under Trump. I count myself as firmly belonging to this category. However, we also need to pull people from the more progressive side of the political spectrum because, let's face it: right now, all the energy is with either those who identify as 'progressives', or the MAGA crowd, and any movement that can't accept MAGA-ism will have to find allies on the progressive side, if it is to grow. The reason why I am criticizing the left's model of change is because I want to convince progressives to come over to our side. I want to convince them to come over, because the far-left's model of change is flawed, and we have a better way to move forward, to achieve what they want. The rewards of having a better model of change will be, of course, in the form of actually successfully making things better, and also in the form of defeating the reactionary right.
I think the biggest problem with the far-left's model of change is that it wants to tear down the status quo entirely. This is counterproductive, because it is much harder to build something good from scratch. It also leads to massive backlash, because people don't like to see what they have always known get destroyed in the service of some arbitrary philosophical theory. What we should remember is that the backlash always falls most heavily on the disadvantaged minorities of society. This is why I actually believe that the continued pursuit of radical change using the far-left's model is actually immoral. Indeed, history doesn't contain a single example where this far-left model of change has successfully brought good outcomes, while it contains many cautionary tales as to the harms this flawed model could bring. That many progressives became sympathetic to this failed model in the past decade, despite its historical track record, was almost entirely because of the influence of postmodern critical theory, which itself is an objectively unsound worldview.
Rather than tearing everything down, I would argue that a better approach would be to make what we have better, by drawing on our long-standing values. Values like freedom, compassion, caring for each other, commitment to improving our understanding of the truth, meritocracy on a fair playing field, and so on, are all embedded within our collective conscience, but their application to the real world remains incomplete. The progressive conservative project seeks to more fully implement these values in all areas of our life. It therefore seeks to strengthen, rather than deconstruct, our traditional inheritance. Through this process, we can certainly advance civil rights, make society more inclusive of minorities and fairer for everyone, and so on. This is especially true, if we can argue against the politics of the reactionary right, on the grounds of these traditional values. This should be easy to do, given that the reactionary right clearly does not care about harming real life people, and does not care about science or truth either.
I believe the flagrant violation of our long-standing values by the reactionary right under Trump gives us a good opportunity to argue for a better world based on upholding these values. But we can only successfully do that if we truly leave the nihilistic ideologies of deconstructionist postmodernism and oppressor vs. oppressed identitarian critical theory behind. I think the choice is clear, as to which path we should take going forward.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Progressive Conservative Manifesto, the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series. She is also the author of her autobiography The TaraElla Story.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to actually give some examples of the dreaded "far left".
Assuming such a phenomenon actually exists how much real political power does the dreaded "far left" actually have both now, and potentially in the future?
Remember too that anything remotely associated with left wing ideas is anathema, especially in the US where in religious, cultural and political realms it could be said that the word left is a four letter word - enough to raise the hackles of any dreadfully sane red-blooded American.
It is also interesting to note that the Latin word for left is Sinister, and in Christian terms "salvation" is associated with existing/sitting in/on the right hand of "God".
Never mind that in Truth & Reality if you understand God as Indivisible Perfect Space then God does not have any hands, or perhaps as pictured in both Hindu and Buddhist Iconography thousands and even millions of arms and hands.