There are many truly compassionate people who adhere to the ideology of the political left. Indeed, the left-leaning rank-and-filer will insist that compassion is the primary emotion upon which the left's ideology is built.
There is obviously truth there. Compassion is a core human emotion, and the left offers a pathway for helping our fellow man that is, at least superficially, very appealing.
At its core, the ideology of the left is focused on the equalization of outcomes. To anthropomorphize the ideology for a moment . . . ‘it’ looks out at the world and says, “Isn't it sad that some people are doing so much better and others so much worse? We should do something about that.”
Fair enough.
Unfortunately, the average rank-and-file adherent of the left has not thoroughly thought through the moral implications of exactly how the ideology proposes to “do something” about inequality. (Spoiler alert: It always involves force.)
Furthermore, by design of the left’s intellectual leaders, the average rank-and-file adherent of the left is unaware of the left's history of serial failures and unprecedented genocides.
He just knows one thing: he wants to be compassionate, and the left has done an amazing job of marketing itself as the only choice for compassionate people.
Compassion is not the only emotional button that the left pushes, but it is the only good one. The rest of them, unfortunately, are far uglier…
Envy
Evidence is mounting that the Gini coefficient—the amount of income inequality in a given area—is a strong predictor of crime in that area. In some analyses, it is the only reliable predictor. For some biological or evolutionary reason (perhaps having to do with dominance hierarchies), people have a visceral reaction to a high Gini coefficient. Resentment of inequality may be very deeply rooted in our species.
In modern society—where we've done away with hereditary class and opportunity has been (reasonably well) equalized—income inequality poses no actual threat. To the contrary, the free-market system that has made some people fabulously wealthy has also done more to improve the lot of the lower-income ranks than any other force in history.
There have always been a small number of rich people, no matter what the system. But over the last 250 years, it is the lot of the poor that has improved the most. Inflation-adjusted human income is up by almost 3,000 percent since 1800. Standards of living have risen across the board.
The free market (in which human beings make their own economic decisions) is the only force that has ever done this. It is the only force that offers the opportunity to anyone to improve one’s lot in life without having to be born into the right family or to steal from others.
The free market has made the poor astronomically better off; it has created a middle class where none existed before; and it has made a lot more people a lot richer than hereditary titles alone ever could. But allowing the emergent order of the free market to do its thing leaves little room for politicians and activists to accumulate power.
Enter envy.
Envy is an ugly emotion, and though it may be rooted deep in our evolutionary psychology, it can easily be overcome by knowledge and reason. But rather than helping people move past our monkey brains, the left just keeps pushing the envy button.
“They’re doing better than you. What they have, they stole from you. Go take it back. Or better yet, vote us in and we’ll do it for you.”
This does not do the world—or the poor—any good. But it does help keep the leftist elite’s power structure in place.
Greed
This same ‘elite’ uses the word “greed” like a cudgel. You can always tell whom they are about to try to fleece when they start calling them “greedy.”
Of course, if a so-called ‘capitalist’ is greedy, he's greedy for things he's produced through his own efforts. The socialist is greedy for what other people have produced.
Leftism is not a system of production; it is a system for redistributing the fruits of what other people have produced. It is no coincidence that in the act of taking from the “rich” to give to the “poor,” those doing the taking get stronger and richer, and become ever-more entrenched.
Heck, they don't even have to give all that much to the poor—just enough to keep them barely subsisting. Meanwhile, the elites grow in wealth and power.
Who are the actual greedy ones here?
Fear
“The division into whig and tory is founded in the nature of men; the weakly and nerveless, the rich and the corrupt, seeing more safety and accessibility in a strong executive; the healthy, firm, and virtuous, feeling confidence in their physical and moral resources, and willing to part with only so much power as is necessary for their good government; and, therefore, to retain the rest in the hands of the many, the division will substantially be into Whig and Tory.”
—Thomas Jefferson
Among those not addled by the left's long-ago-discredited nonsense that all behavior is the result of “social construction,” there is discussion of the possibility that political inclinations may stem, at least in part, from innate personal and biological traits. There is a long way to go in this area of study before any dispositive claims can be made, but some intriguing work has been done.
A study on a college campus showed a correlation between higher sexual dimorphism (more manly men and feminine women) and conservative views. This echoes what simple observation has already shown. Look, for example, at the “out” conservative men in Hollywood. For a long time, it was the action heroes and Charlton Heston types.
(More recently, Hollywood's most macho may have learned to keep their mouths shut, as the climate becomes ever-nastier towards anyone who deviates from the leftist orthodoxy. And then there are risible outliers like Dwayne Johnson.)
Similarly, connections being drawn between r/K selection and political alignment may serve to reinforce what common sense has long suggested: Those who feel stronger and more self-reliant will feel far less need for a larger, paternalistic, coddling government. Those who are more confident in their ability to produce will feel less insecurity, and thus less need to find alleviation of insecurity from an outside source. Those same confident producers will feel less fear in the event that “creative destruction” of capitalism disrupts their industry.
Years ago, I began doing ad hoc surveys of people I encountered, giving them a choice: A) You can live free, but insecure in a state of nature, unsure of where your next meal is coming from, or B) You can live in a dystopian condition where you are fed and ‘secure,’ but unfree. So far, every conservative and libertarian I have asked has chosen A, and every person on the left chose B. (Some of the latter refused to answer, having sniffed out the nature of the question.) Righties would rather be free and take their chances. Lefties would rather be safe.
These are generalizations and conclusions drawn on incomplete or unscientific data, of course. Yet generalizations exist for a reason, and these data points are at least compelling.
Rather than focus on making people stronger and more confident, however, our leftist overlords tend to stoke the fear. Without coming out and saying it, their entire program seems to scream, You cannot do this without us. The system is out to get you. The rich are out to oppress and exploit you. (Actually, they do come out say most of that.)
No doubt the average leftist will howl here, noting that they are motivated by compassion, not fear—and that the deck really is stacked against certain people. There is some truth in both of those complaints.
But even if so, surely it would be better to focus on making people stronger and more confident. To cultivate genuine empowerment. To build the internal strength and confidence to produce for oneself, rather than the political might to take from others.
Instead of stoking the fires of fear and keeping groups mistrustful of one another, surely it would be better help everyone gain a greater measure of confidence. Avant-guard research is now hinting that people may even be able to alter their epigenetic makeup by changes in choices, behavior, and outlook—becoming more “K-selected” within a lifetime. Kindergarten karate, anyone?
Narcissism
The original dichotomy of leftism was the class struggle. That died the death almost 100 years ago, when it became clear that capitalism was making “the workers’” lives better, not worse. Instead of abandoning the fight against capitalism, however, stubborn ideologues decided to stoke new resentments as a means to overthrow the existing order. It’s no longer worker vs. capitalist; it’s ‘oppressed vs. oppressor.’
That isn't working either, at least not the way early western Marxists (claim to have) meant it to work. Capitalism is still marching merrily on. But so is the resentment-stoking, which now appears to be the left’s primary activity.
We hardly even hear the class-warfare stuff anymore. The front has moved almost entirely from the economic to the social, and the primary weapon is now four words: “You are a racist.” (Or a fascist, homophobe, xenophobe, sexist, cisgendered oppressor, and on and on, with new charges being created on a semi-regular basis.)
The ideology of the left has long been highly adept at pushing the narcissism button—establishing itself as the only choice for the compassionate and noble, and denigrating its opponents as hateful and selfish. Indeed, today’s rank-and-filer does not have to do anything at all—she merely has to publicly take the “correct” positions and then signal that virtue to the tribe.
That signaling is reflected back in a mutually reinforcing daisy chain of adulation. She can then go home and gaze at her exalted visage in the mirror, knowing she is one of the BeautifulPeople™. The leftist egregore—with its hegemonic grip on entertainment, academia, media, and now BigTech—is that mirror, making sure she knows, daily, that she is indeed the fairest of them all.
And it’s not just positive self-reinforcement. Today’s virtue-signaler is even more focused on elevating himself by denigrating his opponents. Conservatives no longer simply have a different view. They’re all Nazis. They’re all monsters, standing in the way of all the beautiful things that the beautiful people want to do.
Thus, the gap grows even larger—they make themselves even better by making you worse. They've been at this for a long time, but they have significantly ramped up the intensity in recent years.
But wait, there's more. What's the one thing that's better than being ideologically opposed to racism or fascism?
Being a warrior in the fight against it.
Why just be Jane the political activist when you can be Jane the Racist-Fighter? Jeremy the Fascist-Hunter? Increasingly, it's not just a virtuous image they're cultivating—it’s glory.
No need to put on a uniform. No need to train. The louder they scream that you’re a fascist, the more of a warrior they are. What better way to feed the narcissistic beast within than to style oneself as a soldier in the Great War Against the Ugly People.
How much further will this go? Time will tell.
One thing I have realized, however, is that it is neither moral nor possible to attempt to stop all this by taking over “the system” and then imposing our views on them. We just have to get away and build our own thing.
I can’t do this without you. For the cost of a cup of coffee each month, you can keep this train rolling. Heck, these days, the coffee costs even more!
Why do the democrats want large numbers of illegal immigration?
"To the contrary, the free-market system that has made some people fabulously wealthy has also done more to improve the lot of the lower-income ranks than any other force in history."
If only this were more generally understood! As soon as a society says, "Look at this giant pie! Let's cut it up and pass it around!", the pie evaporates.
"No doubt the average leftist will howl here, noting that they are motivated by compassion, not fear—and that the deck really is stacked against certain people."
True, the deck is stacked against white men: whatever their qualifications, they're often put at the back of the line so that some member of a favored Victim group can fill a slot, qualifications be damned. Ironically, this practice is destructive to the advancement of those favored by it, as unqualified people tend to stand out as unqualified, giving members of the Victim group a bad name, and genuinely qualified people are unjustly tarred with getting unfair help.
"We just have to get away and build our own thing." Right you are. Lead by example, show what works. Let them come to us, or not, as they please.