Connected We Stand

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Far from putting itself at the forefront of the shift toward Connector culture, the left has neutralized itself by pushing the Connector agenda with one hand while embracing Divider values with the other: values like militarism, individualism, elitism, and utopianism.

Militarism: One of the oldest tenets of the left is that you cannot be a true radical unless you’re “militant”—that is, at war with representatives of the status quo, who must be demonized and dehumanized. (The fact that, given centralized power, leftist leaders tend to behave just like rightist leaders is excused and rationalized.) Though nominally antiwar, the radical left tends to embrace the militaristic values of the right. Environmentalists who try to help corporations move in an ecological direction are stigmatized for fraternizing with the enemy.

Individualism: Going it alone, seeing enemies all around, is the stance of the radical right. Yet leftists, too, often prove incapable of forming crucial alliances, even with other radicals—a failing beautifully satirized in the Monty Python movie The Life of Brian, in which the Judean People’s Party, ostensibly formed to resist Roman rule, spends all its energy attacking the People’s Party of Judea.

Elitism: One of the left’s most common flaws—intellectual elitism—alienates the working class. Environmentalists are particularly prone to this failing, too often ignoring the legitimate concerns of loggers, farmers, autoworkers, fishing industry workers, and others whose livelihoods appear to depend on ecological destruction. In the long run, these different interests often turn out to be less contradictory than they seem. Ecology groups and fishing fleets, for example, share the same desire—a sea full of fish. But progressives often prefer confronting “enemies” to finding common ground with people different from themselves.

Progressives also find it hard to discriminate between their various opponents, between the militaristic cowboys of the radical right, for example, and internationalistic corporate leaders. As predatory and destructive as corporations can be, they are the most powerful force on the planet today. Not to engage with them is as self-defeating as not engaging in the political process. Most business leaders today have a vested interest in a peaceful world. Yet for many radicals, they are merely evil bogeymen.

Utopianism: Democracy is an ever-evolving, self-correcting process, not a frozen final product. The radical right has mounted a rear-guard assault against this dynamism—trying to re-establish, with considerable success, an authoritarian state. Too many leftists, as well, see themselves as godlike architects of a “better” world, drafting blueprints of how things should be and attacking all who fail to agree with their specifications. They compete to be “more militant than thou,” and the grandiosity of their goals suggests that the ego investment in their ideas outweighs the desire for change. Some progressives are quite willing to see nothing achieved as long as their values remain unsullied. Such piety betrays a hidden belief in a sort of Radical Higher Authority who rewards true believers. Followers of this path can all too easily aim not at creating change, but at proving that they are Good and their opponents are Bad.

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