Eighteen theses against anti-intellectualism on the left
For a smarter, and more importantly, wiser, left.
The final exam theory of history. Especially popular with Leninist sects. History is going to be a kind of “final exam” in which you have to have all the right positions on all the issues, or else the capitalists will win because revisionism/liberalism/ultraleftism, etc., has snuck into your doctrine. Fetishizes Lenin as a guy who got all the questions of his period right, got full marks on the final exam, and so was able to lead a revolution. Similar to those religious sects that think that unless you agree with them on every point of theology, you’ll go to hell, as if there’s a final quiz at the pearly gates. Paradoxically anti-intellectual despite being highly doctrinal, as it leaves no room to think.
Hoping AI will go away has become an alternative to theorising how we should respond to AI. Even putting aside my own views, there is clearly a real possibility that AI becomes very powerful indeed, and we are utterly unready. Coping by making fun of those stupid AI summaries that come up whenever one Google searches is not a sensible response; they’re about 3 years behind the state of the art for one thing.
Little DIY spirit for art. People in leftist spaces wait for works like Andor to drop from heaven as opposed to making leftist art { on second thoughts, maybe I am unwise to suggest this… }
Likewise, we need more political output that amounts to more than a single tweet or status update. Where are our streamers? Substackers? etc. Good on Breadtube for giving it a go. Every movement has people funded by mommy and daddy, such as Nathan Robinson (no offence intended). Among the left, though, why aren’t more of the Robinsons of the world trying to set up magazines, websites, etc? Why aren’t we making better use of these latter-day Engels?
We have important works like Society of the Spectacle that could be used to help make sense of, e.g., Instagram, especially if applied imaginatively with an eye to changing circumstances and media. I am sure some people are doing this work, but I never see anyone talk about it in public online spaces.
Left-wing attempts at engagement with mainstream economics rarely rise beyond the level of “economics says everyone is rational and that’s wrong”. This is despite the presence of numerous resources for left-wing analysis and critique in mainstream economics, both empirics and theory. Marx was responding to the best economics of his time. If he were alive today, I believe he’d be deeply engaged in theorising marginalist economics. Even Post-Keynesianism is obsessed with rereading history, as if proving that this or that intellectual was treated unfairly or misunderstood would solve the situation. An open, confident yet critical posture towards mainstream economics is necessary.
This “Whites are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from racism, men are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from sexism, straights are an oppressor class like capitalists who are overall winners from queerphobia” nonsense is itself a reflection of anti-intellectualism. It takes the conflicts of everyday life at facile appearance, and doesn’t go deeper into the underlying social structure, and even more importantly, possibilities.
People cite passages from theorists as if they were theological proof texts.
Lack of engagement with contemporary analytic philosophy and other research programs in the humanities and social sciences. History is important, no doubt, but history is massively prioritized by the left over other social sciences and humanities.
Passivity in the application of old tactics- a seeming lack of interest in seeking alternatives afforded by new platforms, technologies, and media. For example, no attempts to create community alternatives to the six websites that dominate the internet (with the noble exceptions like Mastodon), and few attempts to organise the users of these six websites with demands for democratic participation by the public in setting algorithm parameters and moderation rules. The truest sign punk is dead is that so few are trying to apply the DIY approach to the internet.
Substituting moral expression for calculated moral action. The point of morality is to improve the world, not judge it.
An anti-intellectual failure to enforce standards. People just freelance and say absolutely insane and nihilistic stuff, and no one disciplines them. People speak so nihilistically because they are expressing desperation, not trying to change the world. Cries of desperation are okay, but not when they undermine action on the problems they’re aimed at. Not being in an organisation is not an excuse; we can collectively set standards.
Aestheticisation of politics. It is infinitely better to stand with the oppressed and be cringe than to stand cool and hot on the sidelines.
Failure to engage intellectually with religion in a way that goes beyond “Jesus was a socialist” or “religion is a tool for controlling people”.
Almost no one is thinking about the problems of structuring a socialist commonwealth. Trying to wing it as you go along is not a good idea! Noble exceptions include my former supervisor, Mike Beggs, who is working on a book about the economics of a socialist society, and my friend Kieran Latty, who is working on a PhD thesis on socialist policy design.
Consider the “we’re the jocks, the conservatives are nerds who studied the blade” framing introduced by Chapo. Yes, it’s charming and often useful; heaven knows I use it. However, a lot of people seem to take it too seriously and employ it as an alternative to thinking. Chapo are useful. Their cut-rate imitators and idolators generally are not.
A refusal to think deeply, strategically, and tactically about the contradictions within the ruling class. Often this leads to a kind of status quo bias- since everything political is treated as initiated by a unified, malicious ruling class action, politics becomes opposing whatever has been most recently proposed. In practice, this means small-c conservatism. This is the posture of a defeated movement. Even stuff that seems obviously beneficial, like a land value tax, is seen as coming from the outside, and therefore, somehow, a plot to enforce ruling class power. Divisions among the ruling class are to be exploited! Earlier, I spoke against quoting proof texts, but I can’t help myself here: It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten hours bill in England was carried.”
A consistent underestimation of the power of patiently, thoughtfully, and sympathetically making the argument to people, most especially with a heart willing to learn.
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This isn’t super related to the topic of the article (sorry), but the “economics says everyone is rational and that’s wrong” quote in point number 6 made me think of a few things I heard this past month.
The first is a valuable piece of advice I’ve received:
“Theoretical models (economics or otherwise) are not taken seriously enough. Models are simplifications of reality, the world is too complex to have anything but a model of how it works. Some people dismiss models as a matter of principle because the world is too complex, but they just use worse models as a result. Other people read models too literally and then dismiss them. Take models seriously, not literally, and focus on whether or not the simplifications help you think clearly about the relevant thing you're trying to understand.”
The second is a quote from the econ blogger Noah Smith, talking about non-economists’ tendency to occasionally call the discipline “not a real science.”
“[E]conomists have developed some theories that really work. A good scientific theory makes testable predictions that apply to situations other than those that motivated the creation of the theory. Slowly, econ is building up a repertoire of these gems. One of them is auction theory, which predicts how buyers will bid for things like online ads or spectrum rights -- Google’s profits are powered by econ theory as much as by search algorithms. Another example is matching theory, which has made it a lot easier to get an organ transplant. A third is random-utility discrete choice theory, which is used in everything from marketing to transportation planning to disaster preparedness.
Nor are econ’s successful theories limited to microeconomics. Gravity models of trade, though fairly simple in nature, have proven very successful at predicting the flow of international trade.
These and other successful economics theories can be used confidently in a wide-variety of real-world situations, by policy makers, engineers and businesses. They prove that anyone who claims that econ theories will never be reliable, because they deal with human beings instead of atoms, is simply incorrect.”
Finally, I want to add that the behavioral economists (well, basically founders of the field of behavioral economics) Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have put a ton of (Nobel prize-winning) work into looking at the role of irrationality in people’s actions, and their paper on Prospect Theory is one of the most cited papers in economics and established our understanding of multiple cognitive biases. And they’re not the only ones doing this; behavioral economics is an ever-growing discipline.
Anyway, I hope these were interesting thoughts/pieces of information for anyone reading.
"Little DIY spirit for art. People in leftist spaces wait for works like Andor to drop from heaven as opposed to making leftist art { on second thoughts, maybe I am unwise to suggest this… }"
I find this one confusing. The works aren't "dropping from heaven", the reason why so much contemporary art has leftist themes is because the writers working on them are leftists.
Off the cuff examples: Parasite, The Boys, Andor, Spiderman into the Spiderverse, Train to Busan, The Wire, Both Knives Out Movies, 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, Don't Look Up, The Lorax, The Incredibles. All of these have some kind of leftist political sentiment attached to them (though varying in how much it is emphasized).
By contrast, I can't think of a single serious artistic work this century that has themes that are clearly aligned with a Conservative agenda or worldview. At best you could point to Cormac McCarthy, but all of his best works are from the 20th century and although he was a Conservative they are mostly apolitical anyway.
As somebody who grew up in a Conversative household (and used to be conservative) I was always jealous that leftists got so many great works that reflected their worldview and Conservatives had nothing more recent than A Clockwork Orange. And no, I don't count Daily Wire movies.