71 Comments
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Walter Johnson's avatar

It amuses me when a term like "the Left" is invoked as a monolithic term. Same as "the Right." Makes opinion pieces easier I guess.

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

Hence the essay refers to “a deep divide among those who see themselves as being on the left”.

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

Left-progressives are a subset of the left. As is quite clear from other posts in this Substack. Hence very deliberately noting how serious social democrats don’t play this game.

Susan Knopfelmacher's avatar

You’re easily and inappropriately amused then.

Russell Palmer's avatar

Thankyou for this very informative and enlightening essay.

e.pierce's avatar

Warby of Oz hits the nail on the head, as usual. Brilliant deconstruction of the insanity and social parasitism of the woke/elite "left".

Mike Houlding's avatar

Perhaps Switzerland's example of citizen's referendums on demand needs to be coped.

DMC's avatar

I think Conas is in big trouble whn people find out he is the love child of Mitch McConnell

Jack Harper's avatar

“The Vision of the Anointed

Self-congratulation as a basis for social policy.”

Thomas Sowell is famous for his aphorisms but how apt is that book title for the permanently offended, oppressed and victimised race warriors who have circled the wagons around their fallen idol and sallied forth to scapegoat and defenestrate someone suitable to bully and vilify.

Martin T's avatar

Warby on the money as always. We assume or assumed that reality would one day reassert itself. Eventually, biology and the facts of life would provide a buffer to stop the runaway train. But what if facts and reason are not the point, the rule of the Anointed is to redefine and manage reality itself.

Nigel Bowen's avatar

Banger of a post!

Anon E. Mousse's avatar

It should come as a surprise to find any person or persons who do place trust in our institutions.

This is not a bad thing.

Brigid LaSage's avatar

"This selectivity on the part of elites is very visible and it is experienced by normal people as contempt. They feel that their elites treat them contemptuously and basically they’re correct in that assessment." Absofuckinlutely.

dennis hutch's avatar

"The worse a group or individual behaves, the more progressives like them. If a group is noted for high levels of violence or various social dysfunctions, left-progressives adopt them as moral mascots."

lololol since when did the Left start liking Trump?

Nothing worse than people misrepresenting themselves, don't know why they do it!

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

“Note, however, this group sacredness only applies when it supports the pose of moral heroism. A member of such an allegedly sacred group loses all protection if he or she dissents from, or undermines, the piety displays that show one to be a member of the Anointed in good standing.”

dennis hutch's avatar

So are you telling me this doesn't apply to the Trump sphere—that if someone goes against Trump's political diarrhoea, they're not suddenly cast out of the tribe?

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

“Yes but” whataboutism is always tedious.

dennis hutch's avatar

I'm bloody surprised, but it's really heartening to see someone like yourself, showing some self-awareness.

Congratulations Lorenzo, I take my hat off to you!

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

So, if anyone criticises the “right” you leap in with comment about similar problems on the “left”? The normal point of whataboutism is to change the subject.

dennis hutch's avatar

I dislike the faux Left (Elbow for starters, even more than Morrison) as much as the R.

There isn't a real L in politics anymore, the only part of it left (lolol) is the label.

Orson Carte's avatar

The problem with smug misrepresentation and conflation, is that it is smug misrepresentation and conflation.

dennis hutch's avatar

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.

Faux left political smugness is bloody hypocritical, but the RW smugness around here is nauseating..

Orson Carte's avatar

The good thing about nausea is that you can completely avoid it by either not consuming what caused it, or;

make a committment to the behavioural and cognitive adaptations, sufficient to alter your personal response to such.

The second option requiring a good deal more character of persistence and committment. Most tend toward a lack of character or the much easier, abstinence from the cause. Of course, there is always the third category......those that just love to be a pain in the arse and take pleasure from watching the world burn.

What's your choice I wonder?

dennis hutch's avatar

Or I could go with option four: acknowledge that some people are nauseating while retaining the emotional capacity to survive the experience.

Orson Carte's avatar

Good point you make! It never actually occurred to me that someone would choose to retain the conditions that caused the nausea.

Simply because it was somehow more comforting than the thought of introspective examination and change.

But hey! I'm not really progressive enough to stand still and demand the world change around me.

dennis hutch's avatar

I think you've demonstrated my original point rather well. I said RW smugness was nauseating; you've responded by explaining that the real problem is my insufficiently developed character. I don't think the world needs to change around me—I just think some people are smug bastards.

Lorenzo Warby's avatar

“I won’t actually make any argument, I will just accuse you of bad feels”.

Orson Carte's avatar

My responses were intended to be directed to Messers dennis hutch. Apologies if it appeared directed at your article or comments.

I am unsure how the error occurred in relation to linking dorectly to your comment rather than his. Apologies for the confusion.

Lidia's avatar

I infer the text was meant to say "both Charlie Kirk and Ann Widdecombe/Widdicombe were killed" but it uses Ann's name twice.. you may want to edit.

Helen Dale's avatar

Sorry, that’s my fault—I tried to fix a typo on my phone rather than using my desktop and it hasn’t worked.

Richard Seager's avatar

"Both Ann Widdecombe and Ann Widdicombe"

Huh?

Helen Dale's avatar

Sorry, that’s my fault—I tried to fix a typo on my phone rather than using my desktop and it hasn’t worked. I am deeply untechnical.

Susan Knopfelmacher's avatar

Well, choose yr own spelling… Helen has a progressive side too !

Richard Seager's avatar

"Cis" is a word that should be rejected unless you're doing Roman history and discussing the Alps.

Helen Dale's avatar

A man after my own heart. When—back in the dark ages—I first encountered the gender identity version of “cis” and “trans” I had visions of Hannibal and his elephants.

Richard Seager's avatar

Hannibal getting his elephants over the Alps to go and cause havoc with the Romans for a few decades is like the Normans getting thousands of horses across the English channel in 1066. And Hannibal getting those elephants across to Spain from Africa was also a logistical nightmare even before he got to the Alps (let’s not mention the Rhone).

I figure the Romans didn’t know the difference between African and Indian elephants…

Hannibal ad portas.

Graeme Cant's avatar

Not my reference and I suspect not the most common modern usage.

Cis and trans are common in organic chemistry as descriptors of two different forms of the same molecule. Where a molecule is made up of two or more pieces which can be combined in two different orientations, the forms are described as cis and trans versions.

Lidia's avatar

Check this out!! "Death of an unarmed black man!"

Not only wasn't he unarmed, he's not even dead! Wild!

https://x.com/0rf/status/2091739083282530388?s=20

Susan Knopfelmacher's avatar

Always a refreshingly telling and useful way of seeing things. Thnx.