Sorry for the delay in reply, I’ve been off of social media lately. Thanks for the cogent reply, I appreciate the time you put into it.
I think you make a solid case, except for one central fallacy. I am galvanised away from the right by the atrocities you list. However, you smuggle in the assumption that pushing away from the selfish, parochial right must push me towards the contemporary political left—both the formal political parties, and the informal zeitgeist of leftist culture/ideology. I can (and I believe morally should) reject that too.
The space of alternatives is much larger, and varies on many more dimensions, than the current political dichotomy. I believe that insistence on that dichotomy, that you must pick between left and right, does far more long term harm than even right wing bigotry does. I’d even go as far as to let the selfish right wing bullies win, whatever the immediate costs, if I believed it would eventually bring about a system that is fair and just for future generations, to escape this historical trap of perpetually short-sighted left-right swings. My views are more nuanced than this, but that’s beyond the scope here.
This position makes me a centrist, because I support neither contemporary political party and oppose both. However, I find that zealots from both sides insist that it means I must be on the side of their enemies. You’re with us or you’re against us, if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, blank and white, no alternatives. It’s that kind of thinking that keeps the pendulum swinging, prevents conversations about long-term, global solutions and dooms future generations to more vicious bickering about which bathroom 0.1% of the population should use while the world around them burns.
Sorry for the delay in reply, I’ve been off of social media lately. Thanks for the cogent reply, I appreciate the time you put into it.
I think you make a solid case, except for one central fallacy. I am galvanised away from the right by the atrocities you list. However, you smuggle in the assumption that pushing away from the selfish, parochial right must push me towards the contemporary political left—both the formal political parties, and the informal zeitgeist of leftist culture/ideology. I can (and I believe morally should) reject that too.
The space of alternatives is much larger, and varies on many more dimensions, than the current political dichotomy. I believe that insistence on that dichotomy, that you must pick between left and right, does far more long term harm than even right wing bigotry does. I’d even go as far as to let the selfish right wing bullies win, whatever the immediate costs, if I believed it would eventually bring about a system that is fair and just for future generations, to escape this historical trap of perpetually short-sighted left-right swings. My views are more nuanced than this, but that’s beyond the scope here.
This position makes me a centrist, because I support neither contemporary political party and oppose both. However, I find that zealots from both sides insist that it means I must be on the side of their enemies. You’re with us or you’re against us, if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, blank and white, no alternatives. It’s that kind of thinking that keeps the pendulum swinging, prevents conversations about long-term, global solutions and dooms future generations to more vicious bickering about which bathroom 0.1% of the population should use while the world around them burns.