(no subject)

[anghraine]

Countrywank

Every time I see someone go on about how, apart from social issues, US liberals (or even US leftists) would be center-right in Europe, it's like ... damn is "social issues" doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

(So is "Europe.")

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

I think part of the problem is the definition of 'right' and left'. Because sometimes people really do just mean them to refer to economic politics, separate to progressive vs conservative, eg a racist, sexist, homophobic socialist is still considered left wing, just...a very conservative sort of left-wing.

At least that's how it works in Australia, which has some political similarities to England. That's how I tend to use the terms myself. I've seen people say "Leftist Americans would be considered right wing in Australia" a lot, especially smug Australians, and in and of itself am inclined to say that's true.

But for me the full true statement is "many European countries (and Australia) are more left-wing than the US, but just as conservative and bigoted and awful in their own way", when a lot of people mean "Europe/Australia is more left wing, and thus more progressive in general", like the rampant racism/homophobia etc is unimportant rather than simply not included under the narrow definition of left vs right.

EDIT: No argument on the heavy lifting being done by 'Europe' though.

Probably unnecessary and possible inaccurate rambling about cultural differences:
Leftist politics here and in Europe grew from trade unions and socialist organisations, and these groups still hold massive sway. And those organisations tend to be controlled by white straight working class men who very overtly consider issues like race/gender etc to be secondary to, or even a distraction from, the truly important issue of class. Leftists here generally do think that other leftists SHOULD care about racism etc but not doing so is seen as making you a bad leftist, not not a leftist.

Meanwhile in the US, even though obviously white dudes still control lot of the left, the abolishment of slavery and the civil rights movement still formed a more central part of progressive history, and so at the very least anti-racism is considered more core to what it means to be left wing, and this influences the overall attitude to social issues in general.

Like...I once read a history of feminism in Australia which talked about how it grew from socialist ideals and was about working together as a collective for the greater good...and then these WOC influenced by those CAPITALISTS IN AMERICA and their TOTALLY UNRELATED CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT were OBSESSED WITH INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY and kept complaining about RACISM. And the writer clearly expected the reader to sympathise with the poor put upon socialist white women having to deal with these UN-SOCIALIST SPLITTERS, and if someone suggested that not caring about racism made her LESS left wing she would be entirely baffled.

(I know you're talking about Europe, but Australia's what I actually know about)

[anghraine]

I think part of the problem is the definition of 'right' and left'. Because sometimes people really do just mean them to refer to economic politics, separate to progressive vs conservative

Interesting! I've often thought that the whole "oh, well, so-and-so is leftist here but would be centrist or conservative in Europe" thing seems underpinned by the assumption that the socioeconomic axis alone should and does define people's places on the left-to-right political spectrum. I didn't know it was deliberate, though!

But yeah, my experience of the political spectrum has always been that it's a sort of aggregate of various axes that each have (roughly) left-/center-/right-wing positions to be on. So "I'm a leftist" = "I'm very left-wing on a large number of issues." (Though, in fairness, there's a certain kind of US white (and usually male) leftist who is pretty clear that their vision of the left to right political spectrum begins and ends at class issues. But they're one of the smaller factions IMO, and generally "more leftist" and "more progressive" are fairly interchangeable.)

But for me the full true statement is "many European countries (and Australia) are more left-wing than the US, but just as conservative and bigoted and awful in their own way", when a lot of people mean "Europe/Australia is more left wing, and thus more progressive in general", like the rampant racism/homophobia etc is unimportant rather than simply not included under the narrow definition of left vs right.

Yeah, I've definitely noticed the eliding of "social issues aren't relevant to the current discussion" (dubious in itself IMO—I think the packaging of all issues other than class into one bundle is a major problem) and "social issues aren't important, really." :\

Also, I think it's ... hmm, even more countrywanky, but I've certainly seen studies suggesting that, overall, western European progressives are more conservative than US progressives on a number of "social issues" and not just comparably bad (I don't remember where Australia fit into this, sorry!), which makes the insistence that we're more conservative across the board both distasteful and false.

And those organisations tend to be controlled by white straight working class men who very overtly consider issues like race/gender etc to be secondary to, or even a distraction from, the truly important issue of class.

Interesting—I'm definitely familiar with that line of thinking, but more from academia than politics.

Like...I once read a history of feminism in Australia which talked about how it grew from socialist ideals and was about working together as a collective for the greater good...and then these WOC influenced by those CAPITALISTS IN AMERICA and their TOTALLY UNRELATED CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT were OBSESSED WITH INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY and kept complaining about RACISM. And the writer clearly expected the reader to sympathise with the poor put upon socialist white women having to deal with these UN-SOCIALIST SPLITTERS, and if someone suggested that not caring about racism made her LESS left wing she would be entirely baffled.

Oh wow! That sounds ... um, partly like a kind of academic I'm familiar with, and partly like Earth 2.

[alias_sqbr]

This is interesting!

So: Would you consider a conservative, bigoted communist dictator left-wing? Because I would and I suspect you wouldn't, though beyond what terms to use our opinions on the politics would presumably be similar.

I again can't speak so much for Europe but one problem with comparing the US to Australia is that we're less varied between states and regions, so the range of opinions tends to be smaller.

Still, bearing that in mind: I would say we do roughly similarly on treatment of cis women, a bit worse on treatment of lgbtq people (we took longer to get any same sex marriage and the laws are still pretty bad), disability is a mixed bag, and we are SO MUCH MORE RACIST. Which I have to admit even I was in denial about for a while, until I sat and stared at the evidence for a while.

Like...you guys can't ignore race very easily (though people try). With such a large POC population, what racism exists is RIGHT THERE ALL THE TIME because the people who experience it are right there all the time.

But Australia is like 90% white. As a direct result of something called The White Australia policy that ended in the seventies. People act like POC don't exist at all. And then white Australians see online racism discussions about, like, being awful to Black Americans, and go "Well I've never been awful to any Black Americans!"...because they've never met any. But if you asked them their opinion on Indigenous Australians, well D: Afaict the effect is often similar if you ask a 'there's no racism here' European about Roma. And the attitudes towards Black Australians of African descent, Asian Australians and even Greek Australians etc are also terrible.

When I first got into racism discussions online in the mid 2000s, I considered myself, and was considered, a Good Australian Anti-Racist. And the bar for US-based discussions was SO MUCH HIGHER. Some of that was genuine cultural/linguistic difference, with Americans not accepting that while racism is global the specifics differs, but most of it was just...there being actual POC in the conversation. Who the white Americans absolutely didn't WANT to listen to, but there were enough POC to make themselves heard anyway. Meanwhile even supposedly anti-racist stuff here tends to be run by white socialists whose really only care about their own pet issues.

SO YEAH.

[anghraine]

I've been thinking about this, and I'm not sure whether I would or wouldn't ... a generally conservative communist is an odd enough concept to me that I'd probably at least try to find a different term. I do think our politics are similar otherwise, though :)

What you say about Australia vs the US is really interesting, because in some ways, it reminds me of the corner of the US where I live, which is majority ~progressive but also very white (around 80% iirc). My best friend (who moved to a much more diverse area) often talks about how people here will pride themselves on how they're not racist to Black people ... and then it turns out they've never interacted with any, mainly because of historical anti-Black and anti-Indigenous policies that led to the region turning out the way it is, and meanwhile, their takes on Latinx people are ... whew. It's less the case than it used to be, though, or at least people are talking about it in a way that's closer to the rest of the country.

But yeah, more broadly, it has often seemed like a lot of people who go on about how conservative or center-right the US is by their standards a) have stunningly conservative views on race and immigration by contemporary US progressives' standards, and/or b) don't see those issues as very important, when they're defining issues for so many people. It's not that white US progressives deserve much credit for the differences, to be sure, but the discourse from a lot of more-progressive-than-thou types can make the claim pretty questionable IMO.