Groucho Marxism

Being a leftist feels like a thankless task sometimes. Over the years I have been called naive, ignorant, intolerant, arrogant, racist, a cultist, a terrorist, and probably many other things I have chosen to forget, simply for putting forward and defending left-wing views. It’s bad enough when these insults are made by strangers, but often they come from friends and family, the very last people you would expect to attack you in this way. I know many on the left have had similar experiences – which is all the more baffling when you consider that the vast majority of us are motivated by trying to make the world a better place. In fact my fellow leftists are generally some of the nicest people I know. So what’s going on here? Why such vitriol?

It’s important to say first of all that not everybody hates the left. Over 12 million people voted for Labour at the 2017 General Election when they stood on a leftist platform, which suggests that at least a quarter of people in the UK are willing to vote for a left-wing party. I also want to make clear that I am not complaining about people disagreeing with me when I put forward left-wing positions; everybody is allowed to have an opinion on anything, and we should welcome challenge as it forces us to check that our opinions are backed up with evidence. The problem is that when presented with a left-wing view, critics will often refuse to even engage with the argument and will instead launch into sometimes vicious ad-hominem attacks.

One thing I think characterises the left is an unwillingness to take arguments at face value and a desire to understand the root causes of social and political issues; this entails a kind of humility and an acceptance that you might not already have all the answers. Conversely, those most critical of the left seem to lack this humility. I’m thinking particularly here about a subsection of society that might be referred to as ‘bourgeois centrists’: well-off middle-class people, usually white, usually with a degree from a prestigious university, who believe that their superior education, intellect, and social standing make them uniquely qualified to comment on political matters. Their arguments usually take the form: ‘I think X, and I am clever, therefore X must be true’.

Faced with someone who presents them with a counterargument backed up by facts and logic, these people feel affronted. ‘How dare this lesser-qualified person challenge me! And not only that, they have the temerity to do so using facts and logic! Don’t they understand that to have an opinion on politics you need to defer to an expert like me?!’ To them, a well-thought-out counterargument isn’t just a challenge to their opinion; it’s a direct assault on their ego. Faced with such an assault, and with no way to combat it intellectually, they resort to ad-hominem attacks as a subconscious way of to level the playing field and bring the debate down to an emotional level where think they might still be able to win.

What’s particularly interesting about these ad-hominen attacks is that the people who make them are almost always guilty of very the things they accuse us leftists of. They accuse us of naivety, but take articles they read in the mainstream media at face value; they accuse us of ignorance, but never bother to check whether their views are backed up by evidence; they accuse us of intolerance, but are unwilling to accept any challenge to their opinions; they accuse us of arrogance, but believe they are uniquely qualified to comment on political matters; they accuse us of racism, but often seem indifferent to the suffering of dark-skinned people; they accuse us of being a cult, but then idolise obviously corrupt politicians like Tony Blair; they accuse us of being terrorist sympathisers, but support governments that spread terror around the world. As the saying goes, when someone points a finger at you, they are really pointing three fingers back at themselves.

I think as leftists we need to understand that as soon as someone starts attacking us in this way, they are subconsciously signalling that they have lost the argument. We can then learn to see straight through these attacks to the insecurities they mask. So the next time somebody calls you naive, ignorant, intolerant, arrogant, racist, a cultist, or a terrorist, simply for expressing your views, don’t sweat it – in fact, take it as a compliment.