A New Dawn for the "Decent" Left?

Rhoda Klapp

I am tempted to mock this romantic left nonsense, but in fairness I will read some of it first. Then I'll mock it more effectively.

Rhoda Klapp

Nope. I read it, and I understand the words individually. Not the sentences though. It's just jargon. It doesn't have any relationship to the world I inhabit. It is beyond mockery.

However, maybe you can tell me something that may help. Where is the progressive end? What's the target. What would be the sunlit uplands? Where is all the progressiveness going? Try to answer in simple phrases, not leftist waffle or jargon trigger words.

paulg

There is no such concept as an anti-totalitarian left, by its very nature of collectivism the left must have an element of coercion.

Cuffleyburgers

Sorry Martin, but intellectual left?

I can understand wanting to be anti-authoritarian, I am myself, but if anybody described me as being of the left I'd thump him.

Socialism, collectivism etc have been proven time and again to fail, and the consequence of their failure is felt mostly heavily by the poor.

"Leftist intellectualism" is a grotesque con trick, played by people who are either stupid or evil.

My view is that the measure of a society is how it treats the most vulnerable. the only effective way to increase the wealth and well being of the whole population but most particularly of the poor, is via free markets, and de-regulation.

This is not an opinion. It is proven economic fact.

Beer Moth

How independent is a mind - or a journal - which declares before start of play, that it is of the left?

Vulture

Don't know so much abt America but in this country there are two intellectual heavyweight monthlies - Prospect on the centre-left ( so I can understand them getting batey abt Bright describing them as 'centre-right') and Standpoint on the centre-right.

Of the weeklies, the New Statesman is left-wing( no centre abt it) and the Speccie, which used to be centre-right, is now centre-centre, with a worryingly high proportion of pinko-greeno or straight lefto commentators such as Rod Liddle, Daniel Korski, Lloyd Evans, that Massie guy and the good Mr Bright himself. The only reliable rightist is old mad Mel.

And the only reliable Conservative journal left is the quarterly Salisbury Review.

AS for a new leftie journal, after a century in which Socialism in its various forms murdered scores of millions and impoverished and oppressed many hundreds of milions more - frankly, Mr B. who needs it?

Richard Manns

"...there has to be space for more diversity of thought."

Isn't that long-hand for "listen to us too!"

I'm sure the anti-evolutionists use the same message: "show both sides in the classroom", "don't hide the controversy", etc. If your ideas are so good, so radical, so blindingly obvious in the way of true genius, then they should shine through and beat competitors by their sheer quality.

Mind you, isn't that the point of the left? To demand from authorities what it cannot gain by merit?

blueharry

'The British journal Democratiya, which was set up in 2005 to be the voice of the British anti-totalitarian left.'

I think you've confused 'anti-totalitarian' with 'pro-war'.

Osming

The 'decent left' is a contradiction in terms. Socialism is the cause of nothing but misery and murder - how can anyone who espouses it be called 'decent'.

D ixon

By "decent" left do you mean concern for people before ideas, rather than the other way round?

I only ask because the project you refer to sounds like the usual pompous tripe coming out of the usual mouthpieces of ideology and bigotry of the mind.

terry fitzpatrick

Cuffleyburgers,

When I was growing up in the fifties there was wonderfully named philosopher called C.E.M Joad on Any Questions on BBC radio. He prefaced an answer to everything with, " It all depends what you mean by".

I would do the same with you and your definition of collectivism. All states apply an element of compulsion to maintain the cohesion of the state.

The trick is to have as little compulsion as possible. If collectivism is the compulsory state ownership of the means of production and distribution, usually by some form of forced theft, then I am most certainly against it. We have seen what happened in the former workers paradises of eastern europe.

If collectivism means education and health care free at the point of delivery, the right to an open trial when accused of criminal offences with, usually free legal representation and a host of similar things then I am for that and against an Ayn Rand view of society.

It was of course compulsion when Victorian engineer Bazalgette for his sewage system on London to prevent typhus and people had to start paying rates. I am of course being facetious but I think you get my drift.