Decline of the left, part 4: Ferguson, Baltimore, and race

Since the previous post in this series it has become ever clearer that left-wing commentators are wise to the failings of the left that I have been describing. This article by Owen Jones, as well as this one, for instance, seem to grasp the nettle – if politics is about persuading people, then the left’s assumption that left-wing beliefs are self-evidently morally right, no argument necessary, is obviously bad, dead-end politics that won't persuade anyone. It is heartening to see commentators like Jones see the problem for what it is – and I will enjoy a small feeling of vindication for having reached this conclusion before a whopping electoral defeat made it throbbingly obvious for all to see.

While it may seem that there is no need for me to keep on pointing out problems that the modern left are addressing themselves – which would be problematic as this stuff is all pre-written and I’ve got to offload it somehow – I’ve still got an axe to grind with the identity-political left, which is increasingly distinct from the Labour left (though, again, so do left-wing commentators, as here. From now on, then, ‘modern left’ will refer quite specifically to the identity-political left ). 

Test case no.3: the Ferguson disturbances 

To recap: previously, I argued that, despite good intentions, modern-left arguments concerning discrimination are so badly conceived that they are self-defeating, and are more likely to harm than serve the interests of those to whom the left has appointed itself guardian.

I’m interested in why the issue of race in particular causes the modern left's moral compass to spin so wildly. Arguments about the corrosive effects of colonialism in the third world, for instance, despite being well-intentioned, invariably career towards the colonialist’s own premise that the peoples of Asia and Africa are infantile and unfit for responsibility, usually because the modern leftist’s attempts to diminish third-world responsibility inevitably also diminish third-world agency. This is hopelessly self-defeating.

The same genius for the self-undermining argument is seen in the debate surrounding cultural appropriation (white women ‘twerking’ e.g.). When white Brits appropriate American blues, say, they are at some level affirming its cross-cultural, cross-ethnic value as art – it expresses human universals of sadness, love, stoicism, etc. that we can all get. But when the anti-appropriationist denounces this appropriation, and says that blues only has its true value in the ethnic and cultural context in which it originated, then the blues’ universal value is diminished and it is made narrowly parochial, a mere intra-ethnic shorthand.

Given that the anti-appropriationist's stated intention is to protect the value of black-American culture, this is another profoundly self-defeating argument – a crystal-clear example of cutting off the nose to spite the face (even worse, it’s usually someone else’s face). It protects black culture by making it not worth stealing in the first place. Great art says much more important things about us than our ethnicity. Shakespeare does, and so does Howlin’ Wolf – that’s why they belong to all of us, not just to white Britons or black Americans.

Now take the modern left’s response to the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri provoked by the shooting of Michael Brown. The recent events in Baltimore are also relevant, though I’ll focus only on Ferguson – it’s anyway the commentariat’s reaction that I’m interested in. First things first: I read the Department of Justice report on the killing in as much detail as I could, and as a result my basic opinion is:

• that the shooting of Michael Brown was regrettable but justified;
• that the Ferguson police are corrupt and racist, and that Ferguson’s black community was therefore justified in its anger;
• but that nevertheless, that anger did not justify the violent rioting, which was anyway misplaced (it very likely was not a racist killing in this instance).

What interests me is why modern-left commentators were so often unable or unwilling to concede basic truths that they would normally agree to as a matter of course: namely, that anger can be justified but does not justify, and that the interests of Ferguson’s black community were not well served by rioting. In fact, modern leftists were contorted into all sorts of odd and self-defeating postures in their attempt to avoid at all costs the conclusion that, while understandable, the actions of the rioters were unwise and wrong.

Ok, consider this. We all agree that, in addition to the (premature, as it turned out) assumption that Michael Brown was unjustly killed, there were very valid socio-economic and criminal-justice reasons for Ferguson residents to be angry. 

Granted, yes?

What is the best way, then, of making an economy and a criminal-justice system fairer – consensual politics, or violent coercion? 

We’d all go for the former, I hope. 

And should a political solution be imposed on Ferguson’s black community by a white political elite, or would the solution work better if the community were involved in the process of their own healing? 

Unquestionably the latter. 

And if America’s political processes are, or should be, strictly non-violent, then surely Ferguson residents’ violent rioting pushed them away from this desirable goal, rather than pulled them towards it? Surely it did more harm than good, was a step in the wrong direction?

The rioters’ violence was assuredly a bad thing, then, and an unwise choice. Understandable, mitigated even, but unhelpful and harmful to their interests – cementing the dysfunction that did so much to prompt the disturbances in the first place.

If all this holds good, then why did so many people find it so hard to say that, whatever the legitimate feelings of the rioters, rioting was a bad idea? Why, indeed, could they not bring themselves to be true friends to the black population of Ferguson, and instead waved them on them as they sped headlong towards more dysfunction, more violence?

People who would say that every violent death should be followed by an inquests, a trial, due process, not by immediate violent retaliation – why were they unable to keep hold of this principle regarding Ferguson? Why did they, extraordinarily, parrot the rumour that Brown had his hands up when he was shot – they surely knew that rumours spread by angry crowds (even justifiably angry crowds) are not reliable, and certainly not reliable grounds for accusing someone of the callous murder of a defenceless victim? (But then, as we've seen, disproportionate accusation is a modern-left forte).

Even more culpably, why was the modern left happy to normalize violence as a form of political expression appropriate for black Americans, but not one they would adopt themselves? Remember, if the series of conclusions above is correct (and I think it is) then violent political expression can only lead black America away from success and equality. What is it about race that so consistently leads the left into self-defeating arguments?

Perhaps I need to be more even-handed. There is an argument for saying that we should go easy on the rioters, even though their actions violate our legal and political norms, because society failed them in the first place by excluding them from the benefits of living in America. Seeing as America excluded them from the good things such as wealth, why should America only decide to include them when it comes to bad things like legal sanction and punishment? Wouldn’t this be arbitrary? Wouldn’t America in fact be punishing them twice – impoverishing them in every way, and then punishing them for reacting in the only way they could react to their impoverishment?

Provided that two wrongs do indeed make a right, this is a compelling argument. However, two wrongs do not make a right, and it is a wretched argument. 

If the exclusion of black Americans is bad, how could we possibly remedy that exclusion by creating, as the left do, another exclusion in which black Americans are accorded a separate moral and legal and political status? How could this 'gift' of a double standard, by which black America is cut some slack, be anything but a poisoned chalice?

We know, surely, that this is a bad idea. This whole problem was caused by segregation and double standards, and it is clear that nothing has changed such that, this time around, it would be a good idea to have a legal and political system determined by double-standards based on racial difference. Moreover ethnic minorities would almost certainly end up being the victims of such a system. Isn’t the modern leftist making race as dangerously determinative as the racist ever did – making Ferguson’s citizens black first and citizens second?

If democratic non-violent legal and political systems are good things, nothing but bad is likely to result from exempting black Americans from them: we know that failure to equally share America's wealth is a bad thing, and I think we know too that failure to share access to its consensual, non-violent political and legal systems is an equally corrosive denial of a common good. 

Here, I think, lies the rub: if our non-violent legal and political systems are good things. I have no doubt that they are – or at least, that non-violent laws and politics are much better than the violent sorts. The modern leftist, however, feels an intense squeamishness here, because to say that rule of law is better than mob rule, to say that the black population of Ferguson did something unwise, and should instead be urged to participate in legal and political systems – for the modern leftist, to say these things is to line up on the wrong side of the ideological barricade, to identify with hegemony. In fact, to sound like a racist.

When there is such danger of resembling a racist, and thereby being denounced, why take that tightrope walk across uncertainty and difficulty? Why think carefully when there is the much easier option of automatic anti-racism, even if it is unreasoned, self-defeating, and ultimately harmful to victims of racism? If careful thought incurs the danger of resembling a racist – superficially, wholly falsely – then it is much safer to be thoughtlessly anti-racist, because the risk of denunciation is much greater for the modern leftist than the risk of absurdity.

And so we see the intellectual spinelessness and short-termism of so much modern-left thought: building society’s long-term anti-racist values on shabby, unreasoned foundations merely to avoid the immediate risk of denunciation, of being called a name, of losing face.

Worst of all, at its heart is fear: fear of denunciation, but also fear of being forcibly misrepresented, of having thoughts imputed to us and words put in our mouths because of a merely coincidental resemblance. This is what I call the fear of guilt by resemblance, and it will be the topic of the next and final entry in this series.