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The smug style in American liberalism


Pong Messiah
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Perhaps too long and repetitive (or perhaps I no longer have the attention span for articles that take more than 3 minutes to read?), but several excellent and accurate points: The smug style in American liberalism

 

tl;dr: the American left's reaction to losing the near-monopoly it once had on the working class vote has not been to ask "What did we do wrong? Why are they leaving? How do we get them back?" but to simply write off "those people" as intellectually and morally failed creatures -- fools running to the river like rats led by the pied pipes of Jesus, big business, etc. This attitude has manifested itself on the left in the form of a condescending sneer and incurious lack of empathy, and has been amplified by social media. The result is that both sides have doubled down in their disdain for one another, and since the 1990s, the working class (especially white working class) in America wants nothing to do with even the word "liberal," and would vote to napalm their own cities than support Democratic/liberal candidates.

 

There are lots of words, and then a warning that The wages of smug is Trump.

Trump capturing the nomination will not dispel the smug style; if anything, it will redouble it. Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the **** happened?

Good stuff, well worth a read.

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This turned up in my facebook feed today. A bit of a read but good overall.

I don't see any good guys in this scenario, however. On the one hand you have the smug urban progressives. On the other you have whack-jobs who are inclined to believe that Obama is the Antichrist and stuff like that.

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I read it. Not bad, but seems to have its own layer of smug on it.

I am suggesting that they instead wonder what it might be like to have little left but one's values; to wake up one day to find your whole moral order destroyed; to look around and see the representatives of a new order call you a stupid, hypocritical hick without bothering, even, to wonder how your corner of your poor state found itself so alienated from them in the first place. To work with people who do not share their values or their tastes, who do not live where they live or like what they like or know their Good Facts or their jokes.

I'll admit I've never tried to look at the situation from the other side. The article used the Kim Davis case as an example. I don't really know what life looks like from her (and others like her) perspective. What's their motivation? What do they want? What did happen to alienate them, and would understanding why they're alienated do any good? Wouldn't it just count as further liberal knowing (as the author so annoyingly put it)?

 

I have a hard enough time understanding EU fans and their desperate cries for more mediocre content; trying to stretch my little bit of empathy to see things from the perspective of Kim Davis might snap my sanity.

 

But sanity is overrated.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I'd love to see your thoughts in a thread about the "Stubborn, Contrarian, and Arrogant style in American Conservatism," Pong.

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Couldn't do it justice, Chalupa, as it would be 90% theoretical.

 

Virtually everybody I know in real life who is vocal about their politics is far, far left (in the American sense). I have to filter my social media in favor of people I don't actually know for the conservative/libertarian stuff I've been posting in the "Crazy Political Status Updates."

 

So what this author says really rings true, and I can back it up with dozens of personal experiences -- many recent -- of obnoxiously smug folks acting exactly as he describes.

 

For what you suggest, at best, I could reflect perhaps on a few Internet flame wars? How last time I was in Texas people were rude and noisy and it was obvious they had much lower IQs than people in the northeast and northwest? How it's funny so-and-so bought a house, saw his property taxes and fees and is suddenly -- selfishly and arrogantly -- considering voting Republican for the first time in his life? lol... I just don't got much, sorry!

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Couldn't do it justice, Chalupa, as it would be 90% theoretical.

 

Virtually everybody I know in real life who is vocal about their politics is far, far left (in the American sense). I have to filter my social media in favor of people I don't actually know for the conservative/libertarian stuff I've been posting in the "Crazy Political Status Updates."

 

So what this author says really rings true, and I can back it up with dozens of personal experiences -- many recent -- of obnoxiously smug folks acting exactly as he describes.

 

For what you suggest, at best, I could reflect perhaps on a few Internet flame wars? How last time I was in Texas people were rude and noisy and it was obvious they had much lower IQs than people in the northeast and northwest? How it's funny so-and-so bought a house, saw his property taxes and fees and is suddenly -- selfishly and arrogantly -- considering voting Republican for the first time in his life? lol... I just don't got much, sorry!

Oh, very vocal far leftist are annoying, for sure. I was curious for a compare/contrast there.

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For me at least, what leads to the annoyance isn't so much the ideologies themselves, but to the unmistakable whiff of groupthink, self righteousness, copy-pasta sloganeering, swaggering condescension towards nay-sayers, preoccupation with ideological purity and true scotsmen that so often accompany ANY sort of movement culture, be it a (anti) religious revival, identity politics of the left OR right, conspiracy theory or economic theory touted as the cure for all ills (Randroids and Marxists alike) when and where they are popular, going concerns. This is as true of an entire electorate rapidly embracing slash and burn conservatism circa 1994, accepting mass amounts of Syrian refugees in our time, or swooning like teenyboppers over a prime minister either in 1968 OR his son in 2016 - as of some tiny online autistic subculture obsessed with the minutae of the non-aggression principle, intersecting marginalized identities or the racial genealogy of northern Europeans. Politics is serious business and people need to not have their brains in neutral when engaging in political activity. I get annoyed when people treat it like a fad.

 

I felt the same way about the republican revolution back in the 90s as I do about the SJWs now, and it's much less about the actual tenets of the ideologies (which are deeply flawed) than the fawning sycophantry displayed by academia and media that has a responsibility to scrutinize ideas that are being put forth to guide national policy on critical issues, rather than mindlessly pandering to them in order appease the advertisers or keep loyal constituencies coming back. Bad policy rooted in "popular delusions and the madness of crowds" has serious and lasting consequences, so support or opposition to either a single politician, party or ideology needs to be seriously considered on its merits, not embraced or rejected merely as a kind of in-group status signalling.

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I'd love to see your thoughts in a thread about the "Stubborn, Contrarian, and Arrogant style in American Conservatism," Pong.

I don't think you're going to find it. The sort of pervasive groupthink coupled with public condescension in order to fit in with the in-group is unique to liberals.

 

Conservatives have their own problems, of course. But the type of phenomenon the author is talking about doesn't really exist among conservatives.

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The key part of this article was here:

 

"If the smug style can be reduced to a single sentence, it's, Why are they voting against their own self-interest? But no party these past decades has effectively represented the interests of these dispossessed. Only one has made a point of openly disdaining them too.

 

...

 

The rubes noticed that liberal Democrats, distressed by the notion that Indiana would allow bakeries to practice open discrimination against LGBTQ couples, threatened boycotts against the state, mobilizing the considerable economic power that comes with an alliance of New York and Hollywood and Silicon Valley to punish retrograde Gov. Mike Pence, but had no such passion when the same governor of the same state joined 21 others in refusing the Medicaid expansion. No doubt good liberals objected to that move too. But I've yet to see a boycott threat about it."

 

I can't think of a more succinct explanation of what I've observed over the past 15 years or so than this right here. The reason why liberals not only created Trump (in the first para.), but in fact, created the original conditions that could make a Trump possible (in the second para.)

 

I remember a few months ago I was trying to explain this to MG; I think it may have been in my Trump thread. Her reaction was a combination of "No I didn't!!!" and confusion over what my point was. It was remarkable, like trying to explain calculus to a baby. I might as well have been speaking a foreign language.

 

It was then that I realized there would be few things that would make me happier than seeing Trump get elected. The shock and denial that we'll see in liberal circles will be simply beautiful.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

 

I'd love to see your thoughts in a thread about the "Stubborn, Contrarian, and Arrogant style in American Conservatism," Pong.

I don't think you're going to find it. The sort of pervasive groupthink coupled with public condescension in order to fit in with the in-group is unique to liberals.

 

Conservatives have their own problems, of course. But the type of phenomenon the author is talking about doesn't really exist among conservatives.

 

Oh RLY??

 

 

 

So 25+ years of AM Radio and 24/7 cable news hasn't produced " pervasive groupthink coupled with public condescension in order to fit in with the in-group" among conservatives?

 

Granted it may not be found in the same places as liberal social-conformist bullies and SJWs (for example, academia), but conservatives definitely have their own versions of obnoxious, rabid, foaming at the mouth blowhards, from Wall Street to po-dunk Sh*tkickerville. To be sure, not all conservatives, like not all liberals are that way, but to claim conservative don't have their version of extremists is just a silly thing to say, CM.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Yawn.

 

Reread my post. It will be clear to you the point I was making is that I disagree with you, and that it is clear that everything smug American liberalism is accused of in the article (which I happen to agree with most of it), exists in some form with conservatives, as well. Modern conservatism also has group think, stigmatization, public condensation and shaming of people not being "conservative enough" (be it lib-ruls, or even their own not being conservative enough), politicization of every topic, etc.

 

Tactics may be different, and venues where each side can be found can vary, but the end result is the same.

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Well Chalup, why didn't you just say that instead of the one-word snarky response, before you edited your post?

 

What you said just now (in your edited post) is not what you wrote in your earlier post (the one with the Rush pic). If you had written what you wrote now, instead of flying off the handle and making irrelevant points, then my response would've been different.

 

 

In light of your new response- first, I'm not particularly sure why you're yearning for a hit-piece on conservatives in response to this article. To be honest, it comes off like butthurt- that the curtain was raised on liberal shenanigans, and you don't like what you see, so you want the subject to change back to conservative-bashing so you don't have to address the issues the article brings up. I'm not saying that's necessarily your intent, but that's certainly how you're coming off, like you're butthurt about this article.

 

Second, I don't think the phenomenon the author talks about exists with conservatives. More on that in a second, but the very fact that you're trying to equate the two sorta proves the author's point. That liberals are quick to point out how awful certain conservatives are, especially working class members that follow them, because they don't possess the right facts, or the knowing, or what the article calls the "Good Facts," etc., and so on. I mean, you're doing it in this very thread- responding to the article by suggesting that conservatives are just a bunch of idiots that have no idea what's good for them and listen to "blowhards" like Rush and Coulter and so on, and they're rabid, and obnoxious, oh and I forgot- foaming at the mouth. It's just unbelievable, you're basically falling into the same trap the author talks about, and the unfortunate thing is I don't even think you realize you're doing it.

 

But be that as it may, again, this phenomenon does not typically exist among conservatives. Sure, there is some amount of groupthink, especially among sub-groups within conservatism. And there are certainly times you can find conservatives that are being condescending. But this article isn't just talking about groupthink. Or condescension. It's talking about those things combined with the SJW mentality- the need to attention whore in avenues like social media to prevent any debate on a topic by hammering people over the head with belittling comments (usually ultimately ending up in accusations of racism or Hitler), the need to remove certain people from the public square (e.g. trying to get people fired who don't hold the "correct views"), the outright disdain and hate for entire classes of the US population, and of course- all of this being led by people who don't even necessarily believe in these things but feel the need to be part of the 'in-group' and have some odd masturbatory need to feel solidarity with an oppressed group, even if the group has to be manufactured.

 

It's all those things combined that the author is talking about and you just don't see the same type of thing among conservatives. Sure, you got people like Rush I suppose, but he doesn't reflect a way of thinking that dominates conservative thought (more on this in a bit), and while he can certainly be annoying, what he talks about isn't really in the same vein as SJW crusades. Stuff like the removal of the Mozilla CEO, the whole incident with Kim Davis, the gamergate fiasco, and so on. There isn't a conservative parallel to this Chalup, no matter how badly you want it to be true, those sorts of tactics are used almost only by SJWs and liberals. I can't think of one CEO conservatives have gotten rid of because they were too liberal, or pro gay or whatever. It just doesn't happen. Rush may b-tch about moderate Republicans on his show, but he isn't going out there leading these uprisings to root out people who supported Jeb and get them fired and rake them over the coals and so on.

 

Second, conservatives are just more ideologically diverse in many ways. People that vote Dem basically fall into one of two camps- either poor minorities, or SJWs. I guess there are a few other people who just don't have anywhere else to go. But it's mainly those two groups- the smug style the author talks about is rapidly becoming something of a liberal orthodoxy, and if you don't follow it chapter and verse, then god help you. Just take a look at how far Jim Webb went in these primaries for an example of this. To the extent Sanders and Clinton disagree on issues, it certainly isn't over any SJW dogma- no no no, both candidates are basically racing each other in how progressive they can appear to groups like BLM and what not. Now compared to conservatives, there really isn't any dogma of the same type- there's considerably more diversity in opinion on a whole host of issues. Perhaps the only thing that's close to a pure litmus test is abortion, but even then, notice how basically no one except a couple of the Jesus candidates really harped on the issue, it's more of a quiet pronunciation of being pro-life, and then trying to change the subject as quickly as possible.

 

Finally, this phenomenon is marked by a disdain, more than that- an outright hate for an entire class of the US population. That's just not prevalent in conservative circles. For example, in the article the author talks about that Gawker writer who writes rants about how 'dumb hicks' are the greatest threat to America.. the hate that is dripping in those articles is just remarkable, the writer is talking about these people, these 'dumb hicks' as if they aren't even f-cking people. I can't recall any mainstream conservative writers that talk that way about an entire class, especially an underprivileged and generally worse-off class, people that don't have much going for them. Even people like Rush and Hannity- I've never heard them say things like a whole class of the US population are dumb, stupid, the biggest threat to America, even worse than terrorists, etc. Sure, there may be a few conservative crazies out there, but you won't see mainstream conservative writings (like the National Review, etc) talking that way, in the same way you see liberals writing on Gawker, and Huff Post, and what not. At the worst you get a little mild ribbing, some poking fun at latte liberals here and there, but the absolute vitriol you see in SJW writings- nah, just not typically a part of conservative writing.

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I think if you were to find something comparable in conservatism, the key question to ask would not be 'where' but 'when." As somebody who actually remembers the Moral Majority, I can tell you that the parallels to the SJWs were many - though there differences too, as perfect parallels don't exist in history - except that the MM was actually far more dangerous because they were much better organized and connected, by and large. Even as recently as the early 90s, liberals were all about cultural and civil libertarianism - I pretty much cut my political teeth on listening to Jello Biafra lectures condemning censorship and many of the same kinds of tactics that, 20 odd years later, progressives were eagerly embracing when it came to Kim Davis or Gamergate (not to take the side of either, they definitely had their own problems).

 

In terms of smugness, yeah. You betcha. Conservatives very much had the initiative and were setting the agenda back in the days when the hammer+sickle had only just been lowered from the spires of the Kremlin, and the same kind of victor's arrogance we're seeing with the SJWs today following the legalization of gay marriage was very, very prevalent on the right in those days. Yup - a brave new world of free wheeling minarchist global capitalism was right around the corner, enabled not only by the collapse of communism but the advent of internet technology, and all that was required for something out of an Ayn Rand novel to finally take shape was for those antiquated, stodgy, stupid liberals and their taxes and red tape to get the hell out of the way. My, how the times have changed. And they'll change again because they always do.

 

The other factor has been the growing fusion of academia and leftist advocacy, something that really didn't kick into high gear until after the implosion of socialism and the decline of organized labor, and the post-graduate mix of critical theory, postmodern philosophy and identity politics that distilled into political correctness came to replace it. Academia has always been smug, but it hasn't always been politically left wing. It hasn't always been and it won't always be, and nor should it be. The fusion of scholarship and activism, at least in certain quarters of the ivory tower, have been both bad for scholarship and bad activism, as is evidenced by the fact that offensive words cause more outcry than corporate abuse and corruption does.

 

Point is, yes the progressives do possess a smugness that is currently without parallel elsewhere on the political spectrum. I think, though, that this is more a temporary state of affairs than something intrinsic to the tradition of liberal thought.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

So, CM, you gleaned all that from my original post to Pong, and the two others that total barely a paragraph, did you? There is no "yearning" for any hit piece on my part. Like I said above I was looking more for a compare/contrast of the two from Pong because I think his writing style is humorous, and wanted to get his take. Pong basically stated he didn't have the same frame of reference because he didn't know any crazy conservatives, like he does with crazy leftists. Which kind of ended it there. And where is this idea of butt hurt coming from? I don't classify myself among the far, smug left. You really think the point of my posts was to leap to the defense of SJWs or extreme leftists? Really? You think that? I find them as annoying as what I see as their counterparts on the right.

 

Just a few comments because I don't want to spend all day here.

 

 

Sure, there is some amount of groupthink, especially among sub-groups within conservatism.

Some? If espousing low taxes, being pro big business, worrying about gay marriage being legal, and wanting the border shut down , calling out conservatives who aren't "conservative enough", just to name a few, isn't pervasive through all brands of conservatism, I don't know what is. That pretty much is the definition of group think, and it is common with most conservatives, from moderate to extreme.

 

 

 

Second, conservatives are just more ideologically diverse in many ways

 

Diverse how? Being the party of either big business or Christian values isn't really diverse.

 

 

 

 

Finally, this phenomenon is marked by a disdain, more than that- an outright hate for an entire class of the US population

 

You're joking, right? Trump's campaign is based on disdain or hatred of entire classes of people (immigrants and muslims). Whenever the GOP wants to rally the rural base, out comes the hate on the gays. Saying that just is defying reality.

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Trump's campaign is based on disdain or hatred of entire classes of people (immigrants and muslims). Whenever the GOP wants to rally the rural base, out comes the hate on the gays. Saying that just is defying reality.

but the very fact that you're trying to equate the two sorta proves the author's point. That liberals are quick to point out how awful certain conservatives are, especially working class members that follow them, because they don't possess the right facts, or the knowing, or what the article calls the "Good Facts," etc., and so on. I mean, you're doing it in this very thread- responding to the article by suggesting that conservatives are just a bunch of idiots that have no idea what's good for them and listen to "blowhards" like Rush and Coulter and so on, and they're rabid, and obnoxious, oh and I forgot- foaming at the mouth. It's just unbelievable, you're basically falling into the same trap the author talks about, and the unfortunate thing is I don't even think you realize you're doing it.

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Straight shooting Vox piece.

 

If the leftist army had even a moment of honest self analysis (instead of stroking about how "correct" they are), said analysis would allow them to admit their role in the rise of Trump. After all, extreme presidential candidates / winners is the result of a cycle--overreaction to a perceived cultural / political threat.

 

If one pays attention to the liberal media, no such self analysis exists. Instead, their habitual finger pointing kicks in, boxing all Trump support as "they (whites) feel their country is being taken from them," "look at them--these people don't like gays, don't like Muslims," etc. Yes...its all the fault of those primitive, God-loving, Mexican-hating right wingers.

 

On that note, the left--feeling they have won the culture war with support from On High (Obama--they would be offended if I mentioned God) and feeling quite confident that all resistance will be punished--are begging for a November upset for the ages, just as the right begged for one during the height of the Bush / right wing media years.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, there's this article refuting the "Smug style in American liberalism" that brilliantly makes the original's point for it...

 

We must shame dumb Trump fans: The white working class are not victims

 

 

"The Liberal creed, in practice, is one of live-and-let-live, of toleration and freedom so far as public order permits, of moderation and absence of fanaticism in political programmes. Even democracy, when it becomes fanatical, as it did among Rousseau's disciples in the French Revolution, ceases to be Liberal; indeed, a fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible, as appeared in England under Cromwell and France under Robespierre. The genuine Liberal does not say, 'this is true,' he says 'I am inclined to think that under present circumstances this opinion is probably the best.' . . .

"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way in which opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology."

 

- Bertrand Russel, Philosophy and Politics

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Pong! Next time you're in Texas I promise to treat you right!

 

Trump is the liberal version of something running on a GOP platform simply because he's pro-business. It's why the GOP is kinda wonky right now. They don't know what to do. It's scary. And I think that conservatives do have something akin to that liberal position you guys are bemoaning. This may end up being like an abortion argument. There are two sides and no one will look at the other. They just sit stubbornly staring each other down in their own self-righteous smugness. I think we can see the smugness in this thread alone, that is, CM's posts - but that maybe personality and writing style mistaken for conservative smugness. So a big fat meh. I'm just saying that both sides have their own set of smug jerks. We're just cycling through liberal smug jerks at the center of attention because the GOP is on such disarray it can't even decide what to do about Trump.

 

When I was traveling in West Texas there is not a lot of radio to listen to but there's a lot of AM stations and the people calling in to these talk shows were not liberals but people aiming their point about being an emasculated white male screeching about how they're losing their position in society. They've got time to call in to radio shows or troll facebook or local news response discus boards because in reality they can't really manage their time because they're so focused on this one thing to bring their message to the world! You just hear more liberal cries because they're against the message you normally embrace or believe and so the are in your face more with their opinions. It's relativity is because it's different from your position.

 

So in essence I believe this is manufactured bias and you people are loyal to your base and I'm sorry Texas was rude to you Pong.

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I'm just saying that both sides have their own set of smug jerks. We're just cycling through liberal smug jerks at the center of attention because the GOP is on such disarray it can't even decide what to do about Trump.

This. Well said.

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