Why does the Left patronize and sneer so much? Comment from Nick Cohen

[heylilbunny]

It is true that on MN and the Guardian comments section and everywhere in the UK left there is a sneering derision for our own traditions and nation. And I would never vote for the Tories or UKIP but I hate the Left's "discourse" most of the time.

A quote: "It could not because Labour’s leadership of former special advisers does not look like the people it wants to represent and does not look as if it likes the look of them either. In this, it is typical of the wider educated left in England, which almost alone in the world, makes a virtue of denigrating its own people.

The universities, left press, and the arts characterise the English middle-class as Mail-reading misers, who are sexist, racist and homophobic to boot. Meanwhile, they characterise the white working class as lardy Sun-reading slobs, who are, since you asked, also sexist, racist and homophobic. The national history is reduced to one long imperial crime, and the notion that the English are not such a bad bunch with many strong radical traditions worth preserving is rejected as risibly complacent. So tainted and untrustworthy are they that they must be told what they can say and how they should behave."

That last line is so familiar on this board.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/labour-left-miliband-hating-english

Thanks for the quote op, its brilliant summing up, brilliant.

The intellectual left deplores racism but uses “white” as an insult. It lambasts the sexism of the right, but stays silent as Labour candidates run meetings where Muslim women’s inferiority is confirmed by stewards who usher them into segregated seating

Two hugely important points that are routinely ignored or explained away patronisingly on these boards.

The sooner Labour stop alienating their own people, and stop sounding like an over-excited fifth-form debating society, the sooner they might be taken more seriously by the huge silent majority who made their feelings perfectly clear last week.

'White' as an insult. It would be really funny if it wasn't so positively OrwellIan.

"The intellectual left deplores racism but uses “white” as an insult"

Really?
As a personal insult?

Or as a description of an institution, pointing out its non-representativeness?

I think there are more accurate sociolo-economic descriptors to define a demographic or an institution than making it all about skin colour. Whatever colour.

It's sweeping and inaccurate IMHO. And I think it's racist too.

Boulevard, from the same people who bring you "anyone who discusses male privilege is a man-hating, sexist harpy who use 'male' as an insult".

Of course discussing privilege can make people benefitting from the privilege uncomfortable. That's just how it goes.

That's not a reason not to discuss it, though.

And it's not a personal insult to do so.

And I agree with you both.

There are many descriptors that can be applied to any institution.

And depending on the discussion, the relevant ones can include "largely white". Or "largely female", "largely Catholic", "largely childless", etc. It gives a broad-brush starting point for which experiences might be well-represented in that institution, and which less so.

It doesn't make me racist to acknowledge that racists exist and affect people with their behaviour.

Hmm. So if I said, 'Wow, everyone who stood for the council this year is white, I wonder why that is?' that would be racist? I'm not really feeling that...

And presumably 'Wow, everyone who stood for the council this year is male, I wonder why that is?' would be sexist, by the same logic.

Again, I think they're both sensible questions to ask, and the answers could be interesting. I don't think political correctness should stop us from asking them.

Brendan O'Neill in Spiked, as so often, on the money again.

"The fury of the elites: when the little people reject Labour

Behold the oligarchical contempt for the demos, and for democracy itself.
...
"The more parties of the left become dislocated from the people, the more they come to view those people with derision. And they end up asking, ‘Why won’t these stupid, ungrateful idiots vote for us when we only want to care for them?!’, in the process answering their own question."

www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-fury-of-the-elites-when-the-little-people-reject-labour/16964#.VVPVqqLbKic

'And it's not a personal insult to do so.'

That of course depends on how you discuss it.

Pointing out that people are heartily fed up with the lawyer/political adviser types and their privilege is less insulting than 'stale males' for example.

Looking at the map of where Labour actually got elected it's pretty clear that they are no longer the party of the working class. The only place they made gains is London, where New Labour cultural values dominate and there isn't really and industrial or post-industrial working class to speak of.

I don't think 'the Left' is monolithic, or sneers and patronises as a bloc. But New Labour cultural values, dominant in London, definitely sneer and patronise. And they hate and fear most of the people who are theoretically their core vote, ie the industrial working class. Polly Toynbee after the election called them 'weak readers', the Express called them 'gloop-brained' and Owen Jones was on about how to a man they'd been duped by Murdoch, as clearly they are too thick to make their own minds up. (This was, incidentally, the argument used against the Chartists and Suffragettes: that women and the working class were too emotional and easily led to make sensible voting decisions and would be manipulated by vested interests and hence shouldn't have the vote).

The Left is as broad and diverse as the Right. But the New Labour left, which is what we were left with when Blair recognised the redundancy of trying to represent an industrial working class that has all moved to Asia and ditched Clause Four in favour of consumer capitalism with a heavy side order of redistribution and dogmatic political correctness, is condescending to the rump of its old core support because - I think - it's ashamed of no longer really supporting or representing them. Instead it tries to manipulate them into behaving the way it thinks they 'should' with endless parenting classes, healthy living interventions and other statist bollocks, and then once back in London cheerfully bitches about how sexist, racist and homophobic they are.

I say all this as a natural lefty who has ended up going Tory in disgust as, frankly, I think they are more honest and at least have some vestigial regard for self-reliance and individual responsibility.

There is a massive gulf now between the cultural values of Metropolitan Britain and those of much of the rest of the country. It rips right down the middle of the Labour Party. Hence the sneering, and hence also UKIP. I don't know what the solution is but it's not more sneering and it's almost certainly not Chuka Umunna.

the financial markets, the economy and the power of the pound are what the entire security, welfare and lives of 63 million folk hang on

That's a self fulfilling prophecy that some of us would prefer not to buy into.

Brilliant post OTHM

That was a good post OTheHugeManatee.

Less good were the posts citing as oracles Nick Cohen and, remarkably, Brendan O'Neill.