I must say it's very refreshing to read your even handed take on the madness that seems to have overtaken society on both sides. Your essays have consistently given me hope for the future. Thank you!
Thanks! This essay provides a refreshingly accurate look at the bifurcated or even multifurcated nature of of power today. You prove an important caution for each of us to keep in mind as we write and speak on issues, wherever we stand.
"the people who, when I criticise right-wing illiberalism, indignantly redirect me back to the left as if only one form of illiberalism can exist at a time, as if I haven’t spent over a decade critiquing the illiberal left, and as if that’s not precisely why they followed me in the first place." - You are the best, Helen! Love it! Keep telling'em like it is!
“By perceiving itself as being an enlightened collective who can see The Truth to which others are asleep (not woke), it was able to justify the authoritarian way it was imposing its own worldview on everyday people, especially the workers whose interests the left had always stood for. Because it needed those oppressive systems to exist to have relevance and purpose, it saw them everywhere and in everything and became increasingly unhinged and detached from reality.”
Well, what can I say? Another excellent, rational, principled essay. Have restacked several excerpts.
Thank you!
I must say it's very refreshing to read your even handed take on the madness that seems to have overtaken society on both sides. Your essays have consistently given me hope for the future. Thank you!
🥰
Thanks! This essay provides a refreshingly accurate look at the bifurcated or even multifurcated nature of of power today. You prove an important caution for each of us to keep in mind as we write and speak on issues, wherever we stand.
>read your even handed take on the madness
What is madness is that "both sides-ism" is an epithet by default and not, y'know, something to aspire to do correctly.
"the people who, when I criticise right-wing illiberalism, indignantly redirect me back to the left as if only one form of illiberalism can exist at a time, as if I haven’t spent over a decade critiquing the illiberal left, and as if that’s not precisely why they followed me in the first place." - You are the best, Helen! Love it! Keep telling'em like it is!
Spot on and well said:
“By perceiving itself as being an enlightened collective who can see The Truth to which others are asleep (not woke), it was able to justify the authoritarian way it was imposing its own worldview on everyday people, especially the workers whose interests the left had always stood for. Because it needed those oppressive systems to exist to have relevance and purpose, it saw them everywhere and in everything and became increasingly unhinged and detached from reality.”