👏👏👏 WOW! That is all I can say. WOW! This article by Jack Ross will go down in history! Mark my words! This article in my opinion deserves a Pulitzer Prize and to be enshrined in the Halls of Congress as historically and culturally significant! Jack you have done an absolutely stupendous job chronicling the gradual descent of the American left into the madness of identity politics/intersectionalism, PC culture, call out culture, language policing, and censorship as well as charting the birth of identity politics and political correctness and how they first hit mainstream American society in the 1980s and 1990s and then came roaring back this time swallowing all of our institutions in the 2010s and 2020s. The New Left of the 60s and 70s descended into madness in the name of social justice and building a better world for all and the liberal, progressive and leftist activists on college campuses, in our institutions, within the mainstream Democratic Party, and out on the streets today are their ideological grandchildren if you will. The American left of the 1960s did much good for the country but as the decade progressed and the 1970s started, it was clear they had gone wrong somewhere along the way in their quest for a more just and fair society for all. They adopted toxic policies and dogmas not that dissimilar from what the Puritans and the Maoists in Communist China believed in. You diagnose what ails our universities and the activist left today pretty well, sir! The birth of wokeness came in the 60s and it gradually trickles down through the decades as Gen X, the Millennials and Gen Z came of age adopting the ideology as well and Donald Trump’s election to the White House and George Floyd’s tragic accidental death caused it to explode and reach new heights. You observed astutely how the ridiculous, very confusing and dangerous ideology of Intersectionality took hold in left-wing spaces. Intersectionality reduces individuals to empty vessels who’s only value is the different aspects of their arbitrary physical characteristics and creates a pecking order based on these characteristics of who’s lived experiences and opinions matter the most. It ignores that human existence and history is more complicated than that. For instance it ignores several groups that face challenges in their own right: Jews (in that they are also a minority group), people of color, women, LGBT people, etc. who are conservative or anything other than liberal or leftist, workers, people with autism or chronic illnesses, veterans, ex-Muslims, and people who were abused, lost a parent or were orphaned or abandoned as children. Nor does it recognize for example historical complexity like that mixed people, free blacks and Native Americans also owned slaves here in the United States or that the Atlantic Slave Trade couldn’t have worked without the complicity of African Chieftains and tribes. Nor that the Arabs (a non-white people) were the most prolific enslavers in history. How about discrimination against whites in Zimbabwe, Haiti and the Dominican Republic? How about how horribly the Mexicans treated the Native Americans? How about the atrocities the Japanese committed against other Asians in WWII? I could also bring up a number of stories from a coworker in the service about how when he was stationed in Hawaii, the Native people displayed a good deal of contempt and hostility towards his black shipmates, so much so they would never leave the ship when it docked in the Islands. They also detested not only white folks but the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc. You are also right to call out cultural appropriation as the ridiculous concept that it is. It should really be called cultural segregation. The far-left extremism that came out of the Sixties is definitely one of the negative legacies of that tumultuous time in American history. In my opinion, the Sixties were when the seeds of the America we know today were planted. The western political left must return to universalism and colorblindness! It says at the top of the article you are a socialist sir. I am a Rockefeller Republican and a big advocate for capitalism. But there certainly are figures from the radical left I admire such as Eugene V. Debs, Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Norman Thomas, Rosa Luxemburg, Kate Richards O’Hare, Mother Jones, and the great Helen Keller. I also admire the I.W.W. also known as the Wobblies for their principled stance against war despite the violence it brought upon them from vigilantes and the state. I would also agree about Eric Foner. I don’t consider him a reliable historian and would urge anyone to read his work with a HUGE grain of salt.
I use the word puritan to describe some left wing political radicalism too, except my use is different. I studied religion and sociology in college, so when i say puritan, i mean they are literally acting like some puritan communities in 18th century America. No sex talk, no bad words allowed, you will be censored if you dont speak as we say. The left has become more religiously fundamentalist than some right wing fundamentalist groups. Marx may have seen revolution as a form of purifying, but i think these modern social progressives actually do resemble the puritans in some ways. Mainly their use of shunning, excommunication, and mob punishment. Reminds me of the movie Scarlet Letter.
👏👏👏 WOW! That is all I can say. WOW! This article by Jack Ross will go down in history! Mark my words! This article in my opinion deserves a Pulitzer Prize and to be enshrined in the Halls of Congress as historically and culturally significant! Jack you have done an absolutely stupendous job chronicling the gradual descent of the American left into the madness of identity politics/intersectionalism, PC culture, call out culture, language policing, and censorship as well as charting the birth of identity politics and political correctness and how they first hit mainstream American society in the 1980s and 1990s and then came roaring back this time swallowing all of our institutions in the 2010s and 2020s. The New Left of the 60s and 70s descended into madness in the name of social justice and building a better world for all and the liberal, progressive and leftist activists on college campuses, in our institutions, within the mainstream Democratic Party, and out on the streets today are their ideological grandchildren if you will. The American left of the 1960s did much good for the country but as the decade progressed and the 1970s started, it was clear they had gone wrong somewhere along the way in their quest for a more just and fair society for all. They adopted toxic policies and dogmas not that dissimilar from what the Puritans and the Maoists in Communist China believed in. You diagnose what ails our universities and the activist left today pretty well, sir! The birth of wokeness came in the 60s and it gradually trickles down through the decades as Gen X, the Millennials and Gen Z came of age adopting the ideology as well and Donald Trump’s election to the White House and George Floyd’s tragic accidental death caused it to explode and reach new heights. You observed astutely how the ridiculous, very confusing and dangerous ideology of Intersectionality took hold in left-wing spaces. Intersectionality reduces individuals to empty vessels who’s only value is the different aspects of their arbitrary physical characteristics and creates a pecking order based on these characteristics of who’s lived experiences and opinions matter the most. It ignores that human existence and history is more complicated than that. For instance it ignores several groups that face challenges in their own right: Jews (in that they are also a minority group), people of color, women, LGBT people, etc. who are conservative or anything other than liberal or leftist, workers, people with autism or chronic illnesses, veterans, ex-Muslims, and people who were abused, lost a parent or were orphaned or abandoned as children. Nor does it recognize for example historical complexity like that mixed people, free blacks and Native Americans also owned slaves here in the United States or that the Atlantic Slave Trade couldn’t have worked without the complicity of African Chieftains and tribes. Nor that the Arabs (a non-white people) were the most prolific enslavers in history. How about discrimination against whites in Zimbabwe, Haiti and the Dominican Republic? How about how horribly the Mexicans treated the Native Americans? How about the atrocities the Japanese committed against other Asians in WWII? I could also bring up a number of stories from a coworker in the service about how when he was stationed in Hawaii, the Native people displayed a good deal of contempt and hostility towards his black shipmates, so much so they would never leave the ship when it docked in the Islands. They also detested not only white folks but the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc. You are also right to call out cultural appropriation as the ridiculous concept that it is. It should really be called cultural segregation. The far-left extremism that came out of the Sixties is definitely one of the negative legacies of that tumultuous time in American history. In my opinion, the Sixties were when the seeds of the America we know today were planted. The western political left must return to universalism and colorblindness! It says at the top of the article you are a socialist sir. I am a Rockefeller Republican and a big advocate for capitalism. But there certainly are figures from the radical left I admire such as Eugene V. Debs, Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Norman Thomas, Rosa Luxemburg, Kate Richards O’Hare, Mother Jones, and the great Helen Keller. I also admire the I.W.W. also known as the Wobblies for their principled stance against war despite the violence it brought upon them from vigilantes and the state. I would also agree about Eric Foner. I don’t consider him a reliable historian and would urge anyone to read his work with a HUGE grain of salt.
So glad you enjoyed it Noah! It’s so packed with insight
Extraordinary article. I’ll very respectfully suggest it might be tightened up a bit.
In particular the last third calls out for a substitute for “creedal passion.”
Fine job however.
I use the word puritan to describe some left wing political radicalism too, except my use is different. I studied religion and sociology in college, so when i say puritan, i mean they are literally acting like some puritan communities in 18th century America. No sex talk, no bad words allowed, you will be censored if you dont speak as we say. The left has become more religiously fundamentalist than some right wing fundamentalist groups. Marx may have seen revolution as a form of purifying, but i think these modern social progressives actually do resemble the puritans in some ways. Mainly their use of shunning, excommunication, and mob punishment. Reminds me of the movie Scarlet Letter.