Mary Harrington Article on the Omnicause

[TempestTost]

https://unherd.com/2024/05/why-is-greta-wearing-a-keffiyeh/

I thought some might find this interesting. I know it's been mentioned here before that it sometimes seems like all "progressive" causes are all merging into one, and we've had discussions plenty of times about the way in which it seems like to be a good leftist you need to sign up for a whole list of right-think views.

MH has some ideas about the origins of this, or maybe the trajectory of it in the 20th century.

^When the current conflict in Gaza began, the climate activist group, Just Stop Oil, known for polarising, clickbait-friendly protests, such as blockading the M25 or throwing soup at Van Gogh paintings, promptly organised a sit-in at London’s Waterloo Station.
This sort of campaign creep is far wider than just climate and Palestine: all contemporary radical causes seem somehow to have been absorbed into one. A protean animating energy seems to ingest every progressive issue it encounters, to create a kind of ever-spreading, all-encompassing omnicause.^

Correction. It pisses off and alienates the electorate.

Often for valid or important points but poorly dealt with because of 'omnithink' aka a total lack of nuance or critical thought.

They have the unique ability to make seasoned long term vegetarian want to see work experience at an abattoir due to the sledgehammer to a walnut tendancy

It’s all Puritanism of the type that believes no-one should be happy or joyful

I doubt that myself. This is the ultimate gesture politics.

They are all about photo ops. They are sure (and they are right) because it looks dramatic it will get media attention.

Ultimately they dont care about the cause, it is the photo op, the selfie.

I think a lot of young people honestly believe that you just have to say something is, and that changes it.

I think they have no idea of having to work to achieve something and having a working alternative to offer.

And as I said in my first posts it seems too many parents egg them on to be their own virtual realty show star. Getting the likes etc..

I dont understand why not just parents but apparently universities are encouraging young people to think making change happen is just about posturing.

Though many Lefties and radical students, and I was one myself, preach all of this from the comfort of their 'western privilege'; in between multiple flights to far flung, 'developing' countries; eating out at trendy vegan restaurants, purchasing cheaply manufactured shemags, and whilst permanently attached to their lithium dependent battery devices such as phones, lap-tops and electric scooters.

All these things are not the same though. Personally I think that anyone who professes to care about climate change should avoid flying if at all possible or really limit it. But what's wrong with trendy vegan restaurants? And I really hate the smug gotcha of "ha, you can't have an opinion because you have a phone, or wear shoes which are plastic-based so made of fossil fuels". I expect you've seen this meme before.

There was a good article in the US press about 4-5 years back about something similar.

I can't remember where now but it was about all the young House and Senate Democrat hopefuls only being able to launch political careers with financial/influential backing. In return they basically had to sign up to support a range of causes and be told what stance they must take on them. It was a package deal - no picking and choosing.

This is probably why you get otherwise sane people insisting they can't see any difference between 'Lia' Thomas and young women athletes.

Whilst the article only focused on the US left I suspect there's similar deals going on with the Republican side too.

Or how about this. Some people might think the climate is important, but might not agree that it's linked to global capitalism in the way you claim. They might point out, for example, that communist countries tend to have horrific environmental records. Even many of the socialist "utopias" aren't really any better.

My point here isn't to argue about climate change, but to say that while it's perfectly legitimate for individuals to support a variety of causes, it's by no means clear, in most cases, that all political causes, or social justice causes, are linked in the way that the progressive left seems to assume.

I suspect this comes back to the tendency of this group to also assume that people who have differernt political views are evil, or dim. The idea that all conservatives don't care about social justice or poverty, for example, which is manifestly untrue. The truth is they typically have different views about the causes, and what effective solutions might be.

I think one of the most foundational differences is the Utopianism mentioned above - I had never heard Camus on that but I think he is spot on. Progressives have inherited a mystical faith in the progress of the World Spirit, albeit in a materialized form defined mainly by Marx. The final goal is utopia and so they are always looking for the total perfect solution, the right side of history inevitably moving to its perfect end.

Conservatives don't have that view, they typically see pragmatic problems, often related to limits of human nature or the environment, that can't be changed in any fundamental way. Policy approaches to mitigate them have to work within those limits, and also usually involve trade offs of one kind of another. Good politics and good policy means navigating and balancing the interests of individuals and groups in society while managing the trade offs and limits of nature.

Progressives can't accept that those limits exist, this is why they are so drawn to various kinds of constructionism. If there are limits, that means their Utopian end of history can't manifest through perfect policy decisions.

Some people might think the climate is important, but might not agree that it's linked to global capitalism in the way you claim. They might point out, for example, that communist countries tend to have horrific environmental records. Even many of the socialist "utopias" aren't really any better.

I think that is similar to the point I was trying to make. That any issue is valid in itself, but some people who are convinced their world view is corrrect then parachute in, an coopt it to be another strand of their overarching view.

And they usually get away with it because they present themselves as being experience campaigners, and the actual committed founders of the campaign group gradually get sidelined.

And the irony of this is that the left are far worse at doing this, than any right wing faction. And of course they then presume to have the "correct" position on how to further the campaign, which is the end is just a slightly adjusted version of every other campaign they have parachuted into. (Or in the words of the left colonised)

This happened quite quickly even with Greta Thunberg. In the early days of being interviewed she was idealistic and a bit naive.

Then somehow a sort of support group was formed to "help her" and with weeks she was spouting leftist comments.

Who knows what she could have done, even if making a few wrong turns if she had been allowed to construct her own approach. Its a real shame the left got their hooks into her, and worse she conformed to the whiny young its all the fault of the old. When she could have looked to an older woman who was and still regarded as a pioneer Wangari Maathai http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3726084.stm

Someone who unlike current campaigners that think standing on a platform or performing for the media is "campaigning". Wangari Maathai showed that to achieve change you have to find ways of making it happen.

Compare what she did to the self aggrandising individualistic approach of XR.

@TempestTost The closest right wing equivalent would probably be the people pushing "shock doctrine" on the former USSR in the 90s - there were opportunists but I think there were also American economists who really truly believed that this was the chance to really show what unbridled capitalism/economic liberalism could do. It was fairly disastrous. Or possible the techno-utopianism that was so prevalent in silicon valley - lots of excitement about how the internet was going to change the world and make everything better. No-one really thinking about the possible downsides. But its definitely more of a left wing thing.

Ah, yes, that's interesting. There is an element that is often considered conservative, although sometimes I think that's not quite the right term - who has that kind of view. Like the people who are into transhumanism. Silicon valley types very often.

I think a lot of them are really libertarians more than conservative. Which makes me wonder - is it the element on the left that is into this also, perhaps, liberal?

Some types of left thinking are really very close to the small c conservative type - more grass roots, communitarian stuff. Things like E.F. Shumacher's Small is Beautiful - today I think is probably more likely to be appreciated by conservatives than people on the left. This is the EU skeptic, protection of industry, protection of workers type of leftism. Often very involved with the church, particularly Catholicism, like the Catholic Workers Movement.

But liberalism has significantly affected both conservatives and the left, and turned them into differernt things altogether.

I don't think liberal is the same as libertarian. But liberal means so many different things - particularly across the pond it gets confusing. Burke was a liberal in some ways. But he was also pragmatic and not an idiot about human nature. Personally I think its a human weakness - wanting to believe that you can make things not just better but perfect and being blinkered in how you go about it.

The right (in America at least) is more associated with individualism - so I guess someone like that would be ploughing all their money/the family savings into bitcoin/gambling etc in order to make themselves/the family millionaires and cure their money troubles overnight. Rather than trying to fix all of society (which also means they only ruin their own/their families lives usually). Or the right is more religious focused - which can tip over into the good old fashioned religious nutcasery but that's familiar and easier to spot. While if you are secular and really want to improve all of society/the world for the better (not in themselves bad at all) you are more likely to be left wing.

@TempestTost Also, it seems the American right in particular is always really eager to label stuff that isn't communism as communism and that led to a reaction from the left and everything got very confused, e.g. trade unionism or the living wage isn't automatically Marxist (arguably traditional Marxism would oppose it) or companies "owned" by the workers/customers (which as you said was often linked to Catholicism or non-conformists). That sort of moderate, sensible but quite solidly left wing movements got crowded out.**

**This is based completely on me reading American media/analysis etc. Someone who is actually American might be able to tell me I'm completely wrong

I'm vegetarian myself, and have been for over 42 years, but a lot of modern vegan products are heavy on water use plus are super manufactured/processed ( oat milks for example); plus - eating out/ordering take-aways to be delivered to your home entails more food miles and energy use than eating and preparing your own at home from scratch.

Personally I don't use a smart phone and never have - so I'm not being smug about that, but I do see many young eco warrior/anti colonial people engaging in protests and stuff, but living lifestyles which are just as tied into all of these exploitative practices as anyone else.

I recall during the time when the BLM protests were the most favoured cause, watching someone who was protesting colonialism and the wrongs of the slave trade ( whilst dancing up and down on the destroyed statue of Colston) whilst wearing a Nike sweatshirt. Honestly, if you're being anti colonialism and slavery you ought to follow through with some awareness, at least, of modern day slavery practices, and cease from wearing, so overtly, the symbol of a company which has been shown many times to use bonded labour in poor countries in the production of your 'must have' fashion accessories and labels.

And the anti colonial/anti capitalist protestors who pop into Mcdonald's or KFC on the way home.........

Brought back memories. I always look out for the SWP placards and they print lots so if you turn up without a placard, they'll have a spare one for you

Yes. And it infuriates me, as someone who cares very deeply about the very real issue of climate change, that I'm supposed to subscribe to the absolute baloney that is gender ideology.

FWIW, I think, though, that she's partly wrong. Not that issues don't get bundled up together, but, in reality, I think people are more likely to make their minds up one issue at a time. I get the Yougov survey emails and it's plain from that that there is actually a spread of opinion on most subjects, and that issues that get bundled up together in popular perception don't actually get the same level of support.

I don't think anyone expects other people to be perfect.

But it is very grating when you see people who are being very high and mighty about the lack of virtue others have, while they themselves are oblivious.

It's like, take that beam out of your own eye, comrade. Which, it occurs to me, is very much like the current, ironic use of the term "woke" - people who think they see it all clearly but actually are so blinkered they don't know the narrowness of their own perspective.

I have mixed feelings about Americans and use of the term communist. Sometimes I would say it's a little broad and colloquial. But then, groups like BLM have explicitly called themselves communist and Marxist in their perspective. Not in the classical sense, clearly, as they are wholly identitarian, which destroys and concept of class in their analysis. Neomarxist I guess is the best term, but I can forgive the average Joe who doesn't really differentiate them.

Just out of interest, however we think this group of people arrived at the point where they behave in the ways described, isn't if primarily about people who have been to university?

As an inner city dweller there are a number of radical community groups dealing with and challenging the LA and central Government about housing, racism, disability support.

Strangely enough no SWP banners have appeared at any of their demonstrations.

If all these people who think there is an overarching oppresive form of politics that is creating inequality, how come they never get involve at the micro level.

That's why I published the link to the short biol of Wangari Maathai. Not only was she active on a national and global level, but she also achieved change by helping grassroots groups create an alternative future to the one the state wanted them to remain stuck in.

To often now what passes for political activism (in the west) is just as fashion driven as which music you listen to and who you get your food delivered from.

I sometimes wish the mainstream media was a bit more thorough in its reporting, and didn't themselves egg on this performative politics by sharing huge photos of the tiny minority who do something stupid and worse.

It totally seems to come from universities

I think this may be a part of the reason it seems to be so many women, universities, especially in the arts and social sciences, are very female dominated.

It totally seems to come from universities

But in a rather sad way doesn't this just confirm that the influential part of society (NOT virtual "influencers"!) continues to only take an interest in those they see as their own kind. ie the (over) educated white middle class, and they distort the importance of these posture politics activists. ie why do we care what spoilt indulged middle class people engross themselves in.

I'll never forget during one of the XR sit ins in central London, when everything was snarled up, wwhich was getting loads of media coverage, a local news report casually mentioned with a brief image, that quite a large march of women who had lost children to knife crime etc., were also protesting and nobody was interested. And yet the politicians wring their hands in public about knife crime etc., but couldn't be bothered or didn't think this group of women were important enough to be listenined to.

Its just another example of something that once had an intinsic value to those who first protested or campaigned, from Wat Tyler to the general strike and many others, were all an expression of the actual experience of something they live.

Now its been coopted by the "educated" middle class who try to re-enact something real, but in appropriating it, make it an invalid construct.

And have given "demonstrating" such a bad image that those who really need to be out on the street dont even consider doing it.

I must admit that, much as I feel strongly about climate change, I have never protested and would not go on a protest march. And that is because I have this nagging feeling that it’s performative and not very effective. Perhaps I’m wrong and I expect it would have been more effective in the past (more shame on me for not doing such things as a student a long time ago), but certainly now it feels a bit false. I know others will go and feel very committed and have a sense of integrity about it, and I respect that, but it does seem a bit.. pointless. Which is a pity. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to make decisions in your own life (such as not flying anymore) and sometimes talk about them with your friends, rather than make big gestures that probably won’t change anybody’s mind.

I think you are right Catboy.

Particularly with climate change, I don't believe the main thing is convincing people, or even policy makers or industry, that it's serious. Most of them believe that already. The real problem is what to do that is actually effective and what the secondary effects of those actions might be.

No one really has any clue how to do that, and so nothing gets done. And that includes the people doing the protesting - Greta there as a young girl crying to "listen to the scientists" which of course is no help, they don't know what to do. The protestors themselves, wearing their industry made clothes, living their normal western lives. Maybe buying a horribly environmentally destructive low emission electric car.

In a lot of ways it's also had negative consequences with the public they want to convince. Some who would have been sympathetic are turned off by the more extreme people doing things like preventing them getting to their jobs. Some are disgusted by the seeming hypocrisy. Some are driven by the more hysterical to think the whole thing is just hysterical.

But eve a lot of the more intellectually capable conservatives, who agree that there is a problem, end up dismissing the activists because of their lack of seriousness about talking about real solutions.

I do agree. Protesting achieves little, apart from a feeling of action on the part of the protesters. But in a world where we appear to have so little control or power, I don't begrudge a protester their protest. If virtue signalling helps you sleep at night, knock yourself out.

I'm not sure there is anything we can do about climate change at this late stage apart from prepare for it. Start adjusting now. Get used to a life with as few fossil fuels as possible. Prepare for changes. Collapse now and avoid the rush, if you like. A lot of the current crazes are a sign of societal decadance - like the last gasps of the Roman Empire. We are slowly unravelling back to the historical human norm.

Yes. It’s painful to see the Green Party squandering its hard-earned credibility right at the moment when we need strong and competent Green leadership.

Climate change will get resolved by very clever, very dull nerds making technological advances, not by Greta T crying on TV and waving Palestininan flags about.

It is also is not going to get solved by the UK Greens, who are as big a waste of space as I've ever seen. They basically don't seem to be in favor of anything that is actually going to help counter climate change.

They seem to be split into two wings; there's the urban wing, which is about young people with weird fashion choices and strange made-up pronouns doing the whole hard-left thing.

And then there is the rural wing ("Tree Tories") who have been winning councillor seats at the local level by assuring wealthy village-dwelling types that they won't have to have a nasty solar farm, wind farm or electricity pylons next to their detached village house (with its three cars parked outside), lest it spoil the chocolate-box views out of the window that they currently enjoy.

Here is Canada the Greens went through quite an interesting period where they were very focused on approaches that didn't really fit into the right-left boxes. Lots of focus on small communities and business, lowering consumerism, low production economies, and grass roots organizing. They had a policy of allowing their MPs to vote freely on all votes, as representatives primarily of their constituencies. They were the only party I ever heard say, maybe socialized child care isn't the answer to what to do with children, but looking at why wages (and housing prices) won't support a family to have a parent at home.

They became captured however by the people who had in the past voted for the NDP - a party similar to but perhaps a bit left of todays Labour Party. Their policies quickly all changed to reflect what you would expect from a left party, and they have now fallen completely apart due to battles over identity issues. They even subverted their free votes policy which was one of their core party values. Because, it could potentially mean that an MP might vote the "wrong" way - against the right minded values of the left. They can still technically vote freely but the party leader promised that no one who would vote the "wrong" way would ever be admitted to the party. (Not sure how that works with respecting the constituents.)