I keep hearing people say that the far-left is significantly less organised, more fragmented than the far-right. Why is that? (And to be clear: I’m asking about the far-left, not just the left in general (though they may be linked)
It doesn’t help that the right infiltrates and murders left wing movements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars
I’m not a historian so I’m struggling to remember specific details. “People’s History of the United States” by Zinn includes many examples that went like “People wanted to organize for something better” -> “Capitalists said no, and had the police beat up and arrest people”
Apparently Gloria Steinem was funded by the CIA. Also, Jackson Pollock was a psy-op, more specifically, the supposed value of the dogshit he created.
That’s a dishonest oversimplification of Gloria Steinem’s situation, and you’re going to have to elaborate on Pollock. (But it sounds like you’re already biased against him too far to be objective, dismissing his contributions to modern art)
You sound like a bot. My opinions on Steinem and Pollock are based on recent revelations that they were both funded by the CIA. I couldn’t care less about either one 5 years ago. The whole modern art movement was apparently a psy-op in order to discredit anyone farther (further?) left than Hillary Clinton.
The “whole modern art movement”? I’m not disputing the CIA’s history of nefarious dealings or infiltrating groups to put their thumb on the scale, but the scope of that claim exceeds even COINTELPRO.
What they did was support a movement already in place because they felt it helped against Communism somehow. (And the USSR was doing pretty much the same thing the other direction) And it’s not like they’re signing a bunch of checks “CIA” and handing them out to artists and organizers, it was soft support through foundations and museums and stuff. It doesn’t detract from their work. It kinda sounds like you half-watched one YouTube video.
So you acknowledge CIA fuckery, but have to resort to ad hominem attacks and whataboutism just like Kirk, Shapiro and Peterson. You and assholes like you are exactly the reason Left-wing politics are so ineffectual, hence proving my point.
The far right is financed by billionaires. Guess who finances the far left?
To add to that, it’s “easier” to be in the far right then the far left. Due to promotion of the right it feels easier to fit into that group, and lizard brain likes them bad us good make bad go away. Even when they are totally bass ackwards on the facts. U can’t reason people out of positions that didn’t reason themselves into, and it’s easy to make people take up unreasonable positions when u flood them with misinformation campaigns and ruin the education system. This is u fortunatley appearing to be a global phenomenon, no doubt the global populace is headed toward Idiocracy.
Right-wing people embrace hierarchy. Left-wing people don’t.
Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.
We aren’t talking about Democrats.
Far left has a lot of good ideas and how to go about them is debated, often loudly and messily.
Far right has stupid people, which are happy to go confidently along.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell
It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves. - Franz Kafka
Adding on:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.From W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming
But at least the center can hold, right? Right?
The falcon cannot hear the falconer 😔
The right is always about clear hierarchy and obedience. The left is more about personal freedom to the point of anarchy. Guess which side organizes better.
Because, contrary to what they say, a lot of leftists are intolerant of opinions that differ from their own. A lot of them have a black-white mentality, where either you are 100% with them or otherwise you are against them and might as well be Hitler incarnate. They live in extreme bubbles which just enforces this behaviour. You can see this very well in some subreddits and also here on Lemmy, since Lemmy is very left leaning.
In german we have this saying:
“Treffen sich 2 Linke, bilden sich drei Splittergruppen”
“Two leftists meet, 3 splintergroups are formed”.
Two leftists meet in the forest. Both die.
Obligatory:
One reason is that people on the left are more inclined to disagree with each other, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and accepted as part of the political process. You figure things out by voicing differing opinions and reaching some kind of middle ground. There’s room for disagreement on the left.
People on the right (fascists in America) are more likely to do what they are told by their “superiors” and fall in line. Differing opinions, or lifestyles, are not readily tolerated and you will be excommunicated if you push the accepted boundaries too much.
You can say a lot of negative things about fascism, and you should, but fascists tend to have a lot of solidarity as long as they toe the line. That is, until the critical breaking point, which is usually everyone that isn’t a fascist realizing they actually have to deal with the fascist threat, at which point the fascists start collapsing because you have to be stupid to be fascist so fascism can’t really stand up against a united front against it.
I think the far-left has more diversity in its political positions and its factions usually don’t get along with each other simply because their projects are incompatible. That may cause a little bit of “disorganization” but I don’t think that’s bad per se. It could be seen as a sign of critical thinking.
its factions usually don’t get along with each other simply because their projects are incompatible
What do you mean by that? Can you give me an example?
For example, marxist-leninists have a very different approach to the anti-capitalist fight compared to most anarchists. Another similar example would be platformists anarchists and communizers (communization theory): generally, both are communists; however, platformists stress the importance of a mass organization that would engage with dual power structures, while communizers don’t.
Mit study said otherwise
For the most part it boils down to the right being largely status quo. They want to go back to a state that while in it’s own way is anachronistic and a fantasy is still based on something old and familiar and easy to envision. The left, at least in the places where it isn’t already the status quo, is always somewhat nebulous due to the desire for progress but there is a host of splits based around individual peoples comforts and privileges or their view of what new things and societies to attempt and what those things should look like. You see similar divisions in art spaces because there’s multiple visions and disciplines and means of achieving a similar goal.
A lot of the division on the left exists due to a fairly foundational theory held by some but not others : that minority rights and protections are nessisary in all cases because if you can argue effectively against removing one set of rights then that argument will prove effective in the removal of other civil rights. The most vulnerable need protection not just because it is the right ethical thing to do but because in the game theory of protections it’s the only locktight way to ensure safety for everyone’s rights.
However many prejudices exist. Many leftists want exceptions to protections because defending all is difficult. When you exist in a democracy one has to appeal to the many and the prejudice against “the undeserving” whatever state that implies is always a hard sell to people who cannot apply empathy. Hierarchy is important to many people even though they might not think of it in those terms. They want to be the “deserving” over the “undeserving” and with that moral authority strip the protection from others. The shattered left is not immune to this desire, it just tends to be more choosy. Some look at incremental change as abhorrent and as a moral and ethical betrayal, others see the sacrifice of the hardest to protect as a temporary means to buy time and power so that change can be made and you can see some of those people make too much peace with the literal blood toll associated with that action by doubling down.
To be leftist is to be aware of a multitude of pains and since we all individually have only so much mental space to triage everyone prioritizes differently.
Real-world problems are complex. Every solution to one problem affects other systems in unpredictable ways. When a large group of people agree on a solution, it is usually because it is simplistic and wrong.
Classic example: prices are high. The left blames actual scarcity, corporate greed, climate change, institutional problems. Any solution that might address high prices will be complex and will have side effects. This will cause people to disagree.
On the right, some jerkwad like Trump says “prices are high because of immigration - specifically, the immigration of brown people.” The solution is ICE! Simple, easy to understand, dead wrong. Everyone on the right cheers!!!
In other words: people hear what they want to, an easy scapegoat answer.
Yeah. It has happened over and over. For Hitler, it was the Jews: they cost Germany the war, they are the root of all social problems, etc. It is almost always some minority like immigrants or trans people. Scapegoats unify, complexity divides.
Authoritarians have endless enemies and boogie men, the Nazi went after way more than just Jews exactly like the US is against way more than just brown immigrants. It’s always all minorities, immigrants, queers, leftists, socialists, scientists, historians, they will just keep adding to the list until there is nobody left if they have control for long enough.
You are right! The Jews were their principal victims, but the Nazis feared and hated anyone who didn’t match their chosen in-group. It is the same in America.
It makes me realize why solidarity among those opposed to fascism is so important. I am not trans (for example), but I must stand in solidarity with trans people because the right wants to divide us. In fact, we should count that desire as one of the reasons the ‘left’ appears disorganized: the right sows chaos and discord among its enemies to make them easier to subjugate.
That’s an interesting point. I’ll definitely be more wary of scapegoat answers in party politics now.
These anarchists just need a good, strong leader.
Are you familiar with Fred Hampton or any other celebrated leftist organizer’s story? Most of them are remarkably similar.
Honestly, no. But I have to ask: are they far-left? Where on the left do they sit?
6ft below it, mostly.
Fair enough
The whole principle of right wing thought is strict vertical hierarchies. For their moral flaws, strict vertical hierarchies are a pretty efficient way to organize the average person. The whole principle of left wing thought is flattened, distributed hierarchies. For their moral virtues, decentralized flat hierarchies are pretty slow to organize. It’s a lot simpler to fall in behind an authority figure than participate in never ending sub-sub-subcommittees.
It’s hard to unify around a course of action when your whole thing is incorporating diverse perspectives and rejecting centralization. I’m not saying it’s not the right thing to do, it is, but it presents inherent challenges.
In other words, taking differing opinions into account and building things is hard. Deferring to what a “superior” is telling you is easy.
In short, yes
The Problem is oportunism vs. idealism.
