Carrying On From Last Night

[poliphilo]

It feels as though all the energy has drained from the left while the right is buzzing.

After she interviewed the sparking young alt-right guy- Milo Yiannopoulos- on Channel 4 News last night, Cathy Newman turned to a young lefty activist. Where Milo was all ideas, ideas, ideas the lefty woman began her statement, "Um, I mean..." and the rest was similarly flaccid. One side has the wit and daring and the other has the jargon. It's no contest.

The left has occupied the intellectual and cultural high ground for a long time now and has grown lazy. Its wisdom is the received wisdom- a set of unexamined doctrines- passed as a package from brain to brain. It despises the opposition and no longer expects to be attacked by smart people- and when that happens it is totally unprepared.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the interview you are talking about, so I won't argue with your interpretation in this case.

But, thinking about debates I am seeing in entirely different areas, I offer the counter-argument that it's easier to be clear and forthright if you are prepared to over-simplify, to discard evidence and propose simple solutions to complex problems.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think in this case the rightist had simple solutions and the leftist had pieties.

[topum.livejournal.com]

I think it would be quite an over-simplification to suggest that we on the left have not been prepared to over-simplify, to discard evidence and propose simple solutions to complex problems.