From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Mar 29 2003 - 20:52:50 MST
Damien Sullivan (welcome back Damien!!) writes
> > Why is it that liberals are for the most part unable to admit
> > that the old major network coverage, ABC, NBC, and CBS, have
> > a liberal bias? Why does some CBS insider like Bernard Goldberg
>
> It's because they completely disagree that mainstream media has a liberal
> bias. Coverage of Clinton and Gore, coverage (or lack) of the WTO and
> globalization issues... they don't see liberal bias. They see corporate bias.
> They don't watch TV and think "ah! these people are saying what I'm
> thinking!"
Could be. I'll try to keep that in mind.
> > I have two theories. One is that some liberals so deeply
> > question the legitimacy of conservative views that by fiat
> > all such views are "right wing extremist" and hence
> > negligible, no matter how often people like Reagan
> > or the Bushes are elected to high office.
> Do Reagan and the bushes acknowledge the legitimacy of liberal
> views? Bush the Younger who seems to be on a personal crusade,
> or Bush the elder who said atheists couldn't be good American
> citizens?
Are you kidding? Of course not. They're politicians. To them,
the opposition isn't to be hated; it's merely the total and
conscious Opposition. They don't think anything like normal
people at all.
I'm trying to unearth psychological differences between normal
left leaning people and normal right leaning people.
> > My other theory is that the left has inherited a tradition,
> > or aspects of a tradition, that goes all the way back to Lenin.
> > In revolutionary Russia, Lenin and his followers labeled
> > themselves the Bolsheviks, or "Majority". It was a conscious
>
> Lenin is not part of the memetic history of most US liberals.
> Really, he's not.
Here is why I think Lenin is. Remember: unlike the far right,
which was totally crushed in 1945, the far left was never totally
repudiated. Observe who the sponsors and organizers of the world-
wide recent peace protests are. At every turn you find old
Communist organizations at the forefront, no matter how many
non-Communist liberals are attracted to the marches.
> There may be some common roots between Lenis and social
> democracy, going back to the first people outraged at the
> condition of the poor in the 19th century, but that's it.
> This "Bolshevik" connection is a fantasy.
It's not. In terms of memes, organization, strategy, and
outlook, they're heirs of Lenin. You can follow the very
clear evolution of all the memes, slogans, and phrases
from "People's This" to "People's That", right down to
"Concerned Citizens for This", "Concerned Citizens for That".
The path leading from Vladimir Lenin to Noam Chomsky couldn't
be clearer. Now, I repeat again: hardly any of the left-leaning
today, of course, tolerate a huge number of practices, assumptions,
and many of the methods used by the Old Left---but the New Left
has its roots in them, that's for sure.
> > Ever since, many on the left appear to believe that they possess
> > a special dispensation from God or someone to have pre-eminence
> > in political matters.
>
> And the right doesn't have this?
Not in quite the same way. I'm excluding the shrill voices
you're liable to pick up on the airwaves these days, from the
right, and I'm excluding the religious types who really do
believe that God's on their side. I'm focusing on a large
number of people (including Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather,
and journalists beyond counting) who for forty years would
not admit the liberal bias of the American media. Now how
am I supposed to explain that? Except to posit that at some
level in their minds, voices of those such as Barry Goldwater
or William Buckley are not legitimate.
> I'd say the religious right does think it has a dispensation
> from God, pretty literally speaking. Ten Commandments in the
> courthouse, anti-sodomy law in Texas...
Exactly so.
> I'm once again amazed at how allegedly libertarian Extropians
> band together behind a secretive President who's been attacking
> civil liberties right and left and is allied with evangelicals
> who look forward to the 2nd coming and the end of the world.
Oh, there's a war on, you know. These infringements that
to many on this list signify the end of liberal democracy
as we know it were prompted by 9-11 exactly as former
infringements were caused by Pearl Harbor.
> > Vladimir Lenin! That they could embrace such a fantastical
> > notion that their views were nearly by definition *correct*
> > only bespeaks the degree to which this special dispensation
> > is and was entertained by them.
>
> That you think any such belief in correctness is primarily
> limited to the left seems fantastical in itself. And from
> what I've seen of recent history, American liberals have
> been almost hobbled by their own doubt, vs. the coherent
> self-righteousness on the right.
I think that you are making good points here. But you will
note the asymmetry. There is no way that "young conservatives"
or whatever could have ever evolved the "Political Correctness"
viewpoint. Inconceivable.
Yet the self-doubt of liberals is a reality. It comes from a
number of sources. The fall of communism is the biggest one,
because although extreme, it was an encapsulation of the socialist
dream, and to fully understand now exactly how bankrupt it was
is a numbing blow.
Secondly, the pendulum has started to swing back in terms of
a number of assumptions animating 20th century liberalism.
The incorrect anthropology of Franz Boas and Margaret Mead
(themselves a understandable reaction against even earlier
errors when the pendulum was way the other way) is slowly,
very slowly, being exposed for what it is.
Thirdly, the failed American utopian experiments of the "War
on Poverty", and the failures of so many other social programs
has left people unsure of how to use government power to
achieve social ends. Where to turn now? Exactly the degree
to which Europe clings to socialist solutions is precisely
the degree to which those otherwise hardworking and advanced
countries lag, and seem determined to lag, the United States.
And finally the advent of the strident right wing voices
themselves---silenced and denied a forum between 1960
and 1990---is something that liberals are having a hard
time getting used to. The comfortable good old days of
monopoly are gone, everywhere except at most universities.
> Not that there aren't those full of conviction on the left. But I don't think
> 'liberal' and 'left' are wholly synonymous, just as 'conservative' and 'right'
> aren't either... isolationist and small-government conservatives have little
> to do with the neocons dreaming of Pax Americana.
Yes. You're quite right. It's very difficult in short essays
here to address the full complexity.
Lee
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