My homie
The Goat and I have been having an exchange about Santa Cruz on his blog this morning. He took issue with my assertion that SC is a nice community. Most of our exchange is in the comments following his post.
I'm not so much interested in rehashing my thoughts on SC and racism, inchoate as those are. Instead, I'm reminded again of how weird it is to be somewhere in the center-right vis-a-vis many (most?) of my friends here. I think back to when I worked at the free-market-gone-mad companies I used to be at, surrounded by ex-military guys who thought all environmental laws were ridiculous and who loathed the very idea of organized labor, where I was the pinko commie tree-hugger, and then I think to now, where I'm the reactionary. It makes me think Deep Thoughts about what it means to be Left.
To be left is to have a sense of indignation at social injustice. It's a refusal to accept that everyone in the entire world can't be equal, or at least can't have equal chances. It's a belief that the just society must do its utmost to protect not only the rights of its citizens (please note my nationalistic use of "citizens" as the default kind of human being), but their possibilities to succeed in achieving happiness and comfort.
On paper, of course, the Right largely buys that agenda, but it believes that the free market is the proper mechanism for bringing it about. Ideally speaking, it's correct (I think) that all people starting from the same place would arrive at their station in life according to an aggregate of luck and ability, but what makes the left take issue with that concept is that never in human history has everyone started from the same place, and it isn't "luck" that prevents people from having equal chances, it's structural factors like racism, (neo-,post-,whatever-) colonialism, sexism, etc. that limit the chances of the many so that the chances of the few are dramatically improved. While many of the overtly racist / sexist / etc. doctrines have been shelved, at least in official rhetoric, the legacies remain in all of the ways that people in academia are constantly pointing out.
The problem is that it's really easy to be right and really hard to be left. If all you have to do to live a just life is try to get rich while staying more-or-less honest and honorable, it doesn't take a lot of analysis. Look at all the mouth-breathing morons in business programs. On the other hand, if justice is only achievable after the most careful study of history, economics, politics, sociology, and psychology, who among us can really claim to understand the Big Picture? Marxism has had such a long shelf-life because Marx was very, very smart, and he offered a total picture of life that leftists could cling to; he had already figured out the whole fucking world, and marxists obstinately clung to his explanations over a century after they no longer described the world accurately.
Another reason it's easy to be right and hard to be left is that the right doesn't have to worry about fixing problems; the market will take care of them. All the individual has to do is worry about his or her own financial situation and the proof-in-the-pudding of living the good life is money in the bank. The left, on the other hand, has to figure out how to fix everything and by what means. This fact lends itself to the endless in-fighting and bickering among leftists, as they try to clarify their positions and champion their solutions, often at cross-purposes with people who agree with their principles in theory (which is what brought this whole thing up for me today: ok, SC is largely white and racism is bad. Now what?)
It's frustrating. I know what I believe: the unrestrained free market plunders the earth and mercilessly exploits human beings, so the proper role of government is the regulation of the market. The environment must be protected because human life, and quality of life, depends on its continued healthy existence. Religion is a matter of personal choice and must not be forced on anyone, particularly on children. A group of certain "rights" represent the best working definition of civil freedom and must be treated as legal and ethical absolutes. Violence is only justified in self defense. Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
The problem is that, even if my "fellow" leftists agree with all of that, we'd still argue all night about the particulars, while the right is off getting rich and ruling the world.
In conclusion to a too-long blog post, I'll just say that "we" would do well to remember who are friends are; we have a lot of enemies, and we don't do ourselves any favors undermining and sniping at one another.
