Morality and the left

[Rabaula27]

excuse the ramblings but my thoughts on this are not entirely clear yet and I am looking for the opinions of others to help me clarify my own.

There seems to be a general belief in society that the progressive left are a morally good force and morally superior to the right.

I have never really believed this myself but I have met many people who seem to see the right as bad or morally defective in some way.

I believe that this is wrong and that it comes from the decline of Christianity and the left appropriating and twisting some previously held Christian moral assumptions from the 1960’s onwards with scriptures such as ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’ or ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’ being twisted to mean things like ‘the stronger of the two parties in any dispute is automatically the oppressor’ or poverty being seen as a virtue.

When I look at the world today I just don’t see the left as particularly moral at all. Here are some of the things that really jump out at me:

1. While many left wing people genuinely do want to help the disadvantaged some of them are no doubt also driven by envy, resentment and a desire to appropriate that which they did not earn. It’s not like the mainstream right want people to be poor or hungry is it? They just disagree on the best way to create wealth and prosperity. That might make them wrong but it doesn’t make them bad.
2. The scandal of PIE in the U.K. that happened in the 1970’s and early 80’s wasn’t an isolated incident and it hasn’t gone away, it has been with the post-modern left since the beginning and there are still elements of the left that are ideologically sympathetic towards that sort of thing today and there always has been.
3. There are obviously sections of the left that are anti-Semitic and again there always have been.

These are just three random examples of the left being an immoral or at least no better than the right. What do others think about this?

I’m wondering if the left are just wrong because their view of human nature is wrong and all their mistakes flow from that?

PIE doesn’t exist anymore and I can’t think of any groups that are supportive of paedophillia in that sense. Plenty of nonces on the religious right / Church institutions / and positions of power are traditionally held by by people on the right / right wing parties have overwhelmingly led us here in the UK…

So I don’t agree at all with you OP.

Some of the historical school sex abuse scandals were perpetrated by establishment figures in institutions of great privilege.

They’d never do that, it’s a ridiculous and unworkable notion. I don’t think the headlines properly reflected what that announcement was about - so if I assaulted someone or harassed them, then the ‘misgendering’ becomes an aggravating factor. that’s how I interpreted that headline.

Being left wing generally means they are more interested in creating a compassionate and humane society. Through more spending on welfare, less poverty, more spending on education.

This is more morally superior than someone who lives their own pockets and gives jobs to their mates.

This source goes through a lot of polling.

Who Doesn’t Want to Hear the Other Side’s View?

People with left-wing/liberal views are more likely to block or unfriend their ideological counterparts than those with right-wing/conservative views

https://noahcarl.medium.com/who-doesnt-want-to-hear-the-other-side-s-view-9a7cdf3ad702

The left still have the excuse, "We are the tolerant side", "We just don't tolerate the other side's intolerance", "Of course we shouldn't be friends with bigots".

'The left' covers such a broad range of views that it's quite hard to make blanket statements about what it believes/doesn't believe.

I think the group that have had most influence on institutions in the UK today are people who are socially AND economically liberal. Sections of the left are traditionally quite socially conservative. Politicians like Tony Benn often held different views to traditional Labour voters on topics such as the role of the Royal Family.

Most voters don't have strong views either way on gender identity. The agenda has been driven by influential groups within ALL the main political parties. The strongest example of this are the Greens for whom it seems to be more of an article of faith than climate change.

And Starmer has said he's not going to spend more on these. So how does that help your argument? By this definition, he's not Left wing. And thus pretty pointless as a choice.

First thing here, you are comparing a policy on the left, maybe also a motivation on the left, with right-wing politicians being personally corrupt.

Let's say that in practice, right-wing politicians are way more likely to be corrupt and just selfishly out for themselves.

That reflects on their personal morality sure. They would be worse people than left-wing politicians. But it's not really telling us much about right-wing policies or ideology as it's advocated for. Maybe in theory you could argue that the ideology encourages personal corruption, but I think even that would have limited meaning.

So anyway, there is no reason you can't have (a) more personal corruption on the right-wing, combined with, (b) right-wing policies are still better for the country, and maybe do reflect a superior morality.

If we actually look at examples of socialist governments, we may be able to find quite a lot of corruption, but again, even if we can, it wouldn't tell us that much about their ideology.

The other thing I would comment on, is the assumption that lefties are well meaning and care about the wider society. They may well do sometimes. But there are plenty of criticisms around here that they can be guilty of "virtue signalling", "luxury beliefs", or really just outright hateful as people.

I agree in a liberal vs conservative a balance should be achieved; people do need some sort of rule and structure to their lives to provide a framework, but I don't think that individual freedoms should be too curtailed. I don't think it's morally defective to want society as a whole to have more rules in place, but I do think wanting to have more control over your population is morally defective (especially when people in power tend to like exerting control over the people but want to retain freedoms for themselves).

Completely agree with you on the ultra individualistic society; personally I think it's capitalism that's fuelled it (which you could argue is right-wing), but also unfettered liberalism (which is arguably left-wing).

Definitely too complex to boil it down to "left" and "right".

I think it's more that the people holding the power tend to be morally dubious, and us plebs are the ones left bickering, when generally, regardless of people's personal views, people are kind of OK on the most part? (Or is that my left wing idealism speaking 😜)

The main difference between the two groups, on these kinds of questions, is around how they think a better society is best achieved, what the trade-offs are of particular approaches.

Exactly.

Not quite true actually a lot of the ground work was laid by John Major in his years as PM.

And I'm saying that I don't mean to detract from Tony Blair's contribution which was massive, but there were many many players from all sides and creeds and ideologies who brought the peace agreement to Northern Ireland.

Imho the only place women have is the center.

The left or right, conservatives or progressives, all hate or dismiss women in equal measure. We're not allowed ownership of our bodies and boundaries be it in the form of abortions or sex based rights. Our opinions are dismissed, we are dismissed as either feminazis or terfs.

Our loyalty is taken for granted and expected from the left like an abusive boyfriend who expects you to stick around even after he treated you like crap. The right isn't any better.

Women need to be loyal to women only. That is the center and picking and choosing any side, any party that will benefit us the most at the moment of election. We need to punish disrespect towards us.

The past years have been more than clear that no one deserves our blind devotion and we need to be constantly vigilant of the protection of our rights that have been such a struggle to get in the first place.

In 1972 John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote the song "woman is the n*** of the world". While not PC it still applies. Things might have changed but in the end we are still where we started.

The most painful thing about this, for me though, is to see so many women and young girls forget our history, our struggles, and have so little respect for it and themselves.

Men do not care about us even if they say they do. Just look at the state of the porn industry and the wide spread pornification of social media. The impact on women is known. The abuse is known. The violence towards the women in porn is for all to see. Do any of you really think that if men really cared and respected women this would exist to the extend as it is now?

Stop supporting parties or sides.

There is one side, women's, that should preoccupy us.

I recently saw some idiot calling Lennon/Ono racists for writing that song. Absolute fetishism of a word without taking any notice of the content of the song.

This is the way these ideologies think about language, and other similar things. It's why they are always misunderstanding humour that is meant to be ironic.

There was a prominent, hugely respected news anchor in my country who ultimately was let go over incidents of using that particuar word in a meeting when quoting the title of a book by someone they were planning to interview in a show on anti-racism, and some other similar situation where it was a quote. Someone attending the meeting made a complaint that they were harmed by hearing it. She apologized in a pretty groveling way, but in the end the final word was that the context wasn't relevant.

similarly there was an academic near me who wrote some kind of paper on the history of blackface, in which he concluded that it's meaning depended on the historical and other contexts. Students demanded that he be fired claiming this was some kind of apology for racism. He wasn't fired but it sure didn't do anything for his career, which is now fucked.

Firstly OP, sorry for the Rude posters that replied initially. Your points are interesting and I certainly agree with them. I'm haing very similar thoughts myself.

some current thoughts:

The left is for utopia: free everything, all the refugees, no more prisons, money for everyone, men can be women, etc. Nice ideas but how would they actually work

The Right go for practically and slow change.

The left want radical change, to tear things down, new ideas, CHANGE NOW!! Big change. Everything is fucked the way it is. Oppression.

The right go through trial and error. mistakes are made, things are rectified. Change is slow. Changes are evidence based and not emotionally fuelled.

I think being centre would be a great aim for society. Take the practicality fron the right, with the ideas from the left and make something in the middle. Both ends respected for their valued input. In Buddhism the 'middle road' is always the aim .

On both sides there needs to be an awareness or corruption, greed, power plays, psychopathy l, etc. The snake must always be rooted out.

I think the left can cover a whole load of snakes; paedophiles, malignant narcissists, psychopaths, authoritarians, who just want to control people and shut people up and destroy them.

Because if the left is 'morally superior' these anti-social people can cover their behaviour by just making out it is for the greater good.

Where as if you are on the right, conservative, it's an unpopular place to be. No one is giving you kudos for that, no one is thinking you have automatic moral high ground, it's not the place to hide If you want to be a complete dick and get away with it

Aw bless your simplistic little head if you actually believe that.

If you think paedophilia is linked with left wing politics how do you explain Jimmy Savile? He was given the freedom and the keys to do whatever he wanted by the Tory party of the eighties. They knew.

Wondering about the agenda of this post as this is so far fetched.

Shouldn't people be allowed to do with their own bodies what they wish - Like using substances, or being a sex worker. As long as people aren't being harmed it should be personal choice.

Are people really trying to use PIE (a vile vile thing) that happen 50 years ago to smear the left?
If we are looking at traditional left and rights surely the church falls into the right. You know the church that has housed and covered up decades of blatant child abuse.

I think collectivism has the moral high ground over individualism, and I think there is a correlation (0<p<1) between those things and left/right wing affiliation. I think the current distribution of wealth is obscene, unjust and lethal. I have no confidence that UK Tory politicians are driven by a desire for a better society for all, only for a better society for people in their circles, which on odd occasion graciously extends to making an effort to get re-elected. This sometimes overlaps with creating a favourable economic climate, but our financial system unfortunately decouples the overall economy from the ability to make huge amounts of money gambling on it. I do believe NATALT, but far too many of the current crop are.

Curiously, although wisdom has it that people grow more right wing with age, does it not seem as though when you hear interviews with old conservatives that they grow more collectivist with age? When you watch interviews with politicians from the Thatcher era, this strikes me. Even Gove seems to be making a conscious effort to rebrand as a man of the people. Or is this just because their party has moved further right over the past few decades?

It's really interesting that you think that way, because I see the left as much more likely to interfere with personal liberty for (what they've decided is) the good of society, e.g. junk food tax, banning smoking, both of which I think of as more left wing policies. "Nanny state" stuff I suppose.

I don't think you're wrong though, I think it depends what angle you're looking at it from.

I'm not sure left and right are good shorthand descriptors though. I think there's at least three axes to consider:

Economic (left/ right is probably the best way to describe this, though the current government is not particularly right wing on this axis IMO - as far as I know taxes haven't really fallen while they've been in power).

Social (I would say the best description is liberal/ conservative. Again, I'm not sure how conservative a government that's seriously mooting a ban on "conversation therapy" is.)

Authoritarianism (so whether they think their view of society should be enforced legally. For instance, everyone I think agrees that smoking is bad for you. The authoritarian response is to ban it. There's a range of other responses, including taxing it, offering support to people to stop, attempting to make it less socially acceptable, restricting the conditions under which it can be sold, or just doing nothing.)

I struggle to see much difference between the Conservatives and Labour on the first two axes at the moment, but I see Labour as more authoritarian.

But people are harmed, cantthink. The relatives and friends of substance users, society as a whole which has to support such people and the crimes that drug addiction causes are all harmed, hurt, devastated. As for 'sex work', it is not work but exploitation of women's (and men's) body parts for the gratification of someone else. And their exploitation harms others, their families, and those who are aware of prostituted women (and men) existing and being fed the lie that it is a viable way of life. Prostitution includes the explicit selling of pornography which taints our society and suggests that 'anything goes'. Our children have the idea that 'gagging' (pushing the penis into a woman's mouth till she chokes) is part of normal sex as is strangulation, anal intercourse (harmful to women who have much less robust anal tissue than men, and not a lot of fun, either) and other acts, such as ejaculating in a woman's face, peeing on people, all humiliating and degrading of the recipient. Prostitution allows people to think BDSM and other kinks are normal and harmless, when they are anything but. Boundaries are important.