Being a leftist is an exercise in hypocrisy
The roots of leftist ideology are not in cohesion with the modern — and Marxist-influenced. — additions it has adopted. This makes the leftist idea a worldview that is illogical, contradictory, and implodes on itself. This inadequacy of the ideology to actually explain the world around us forces its “believers” to exert cognitive dissonance. And this, in turn, often leads to hypocrisies, often ones they do not realize are occurring.
One of the left’s main concerns is combatting oppression. Whether it be racial, ethnic, or gendered. The presupposition is that all groups of people are similarly competent and therefore should be treated equally. The left does want to “even the playing field” with initiatives such as affirmative action and reparations, of course, but they believe that without oppression every group is the same. You would then expect leftists in their daily lives to treat minority people the same as Whites (or Asians, for that matter.)
But it would be foolish to think that belief in this theory of oppression wouldn’t have real-world effects. The mind is a heuristics machine. The fine distinction between someone being less competent due to oppression and someone just being less competent is not easy to draw into practice. Thus, white liberals fail their beliefs when actually interacting with minorities.
Research shows that white liberals end up lowering their perceived competence when interacting with nonwhites. They act as if they’re not as competent because they believe the other person to be less so. This also applies to politicians in the Democratic Party. Their speeches delivered to nonwhites had fewer words considered “competent” and more “warm” words, as analyzed by researchers. This was not true with their speeches to whites, which had an average number of competent words and less emphasis on the others.
Perhaps this is not a failure of liberals themselves but of the contradictory worldview of leftist thinking and morals. But, where do leftist morals even come from?
Leftists believe in ideologies, but leftism inherently denies that there are any absolute morals. Just as it denies Enlightenment values of logic and the efficacy of the scientific method, it also denies any type of idea or explanation that explains some significant field of the world (for example, human history). Also called a metanarrative, this is exactly what leftists started creating following Marxist influence from the Frankfurt School and others. You could explain human history by looking at oppressor and oppressed. The world’s main driving force is power. Those were the ruling metanarratives for a time.
Nowadays, that narrative has not gone away. It just changed its definitions. The oppressors are no longer the capitalist class, but the racial group currently in power. This happens to be the white, heterosexual male, as identity is one of the foundations of the post-Marxist movement. Their worldview is oppressing and totalizing, so it needs to be torn down (and replaced with our totalizing worldview.)
Also read: Where does political intolerance come from?
And so, in their efforts to abolish metanarratives, the left has created the most pernicious and influential metanarrative of our time. That is the narrative that the West is evil, totalitarian, patriarchal, and many other faults that are perpetuated by evil white men. You can see now how this animosity would create racial tensions against white people. The very thing leftist would stand against.
The belief in relativism, especially cultural relativism, is also abandoned with this metanarrative. If all people groups are equal, why are we treating whites as if they’re inherently more likely to be oppressive? And, if all cultures are equal, shouldn’t all other societies be plagued by a racial elite oppressing everyone else? There certainly are examples of that, but those are the exception. Then, this seems to be a uniquely Western problem (if you consider it to be a problem or even real at all.)
But leftists refuse to treat different peoples and cultures through their own distinct lenses. There are no physical differences between men and women, that’s why transgender athletes can be allowed to participate in their preferred gender category. Certain Asian groups have exceptional academic achievement, that’s why we need to make their admissions more difficult (and totally not get sued over it!) A group cannot have a greater aptitude for something than another group. And let’s not even talk about differences in personality, lest we start discussing why men and women differ in the fields they go into and the positions of power they attain.
Also read: The myth of gender equality
This selective bending of leftist beliefs is what allows feminist types to embrace Islamists. The same ones who will advocate for Sharia Law. Feminists, like all leftists, make an exception to their relativist worldview when it comes to the West. So, they can be happy to protest against the patriarchy and for women’s rights. And when a conquering, chauvinist, totalitarian religion comes from abroad they happily receive it with open arms. All cultures are equal, after all.
With this background of how easy it is to bend leftist ideology, it’s not hard to identify and understand a number of other leftist hypocrisies. Climate activists, for example, are adamant about combating climate change and promoting sustainability. Yet they refuse to campaign for ideas such as nuclear power, which has been shown to be incredibly efficient and climate-friendly, by fear mongering about its safety.
Instead, they care more about the sociopolitical implications of this activism. If they actually cared about the environment, they would have better solutions than eating bugs and not having children. Solutions such as criticizing Neoplatonic elites — That is, the people whom Plato believed were “Elite guardians” that deserved to rule society — that are nowadays comprised of millionaires who take their polluting private planes everywhere. Average people don’t hold a candle to these people when it comes to their carbon footprint.
Other examples of the left’s Neoplatonic elites are the Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama types. Once quoted to say “there’s only so much you can eat”, the former president is in the same boat as the more direct Bernie Sanders when it comes to another of their hypocrisies: the wealth hypocrisy. Both Obama and Sanders are millionaires. Sanders himself caused controversy, even among his supporters, after he purchased his second mansion. All the while refusing to pay his campaign workers higher than minimum wage.
You can also see the double standards by looking at political actions they support (or turn a blind eye to), and ones they don’t. The nationwide BLM protests enabled violence and looting for months. Among the worst incidents was the one in which BLM-Antifa rioters attempted to burn Seattle police alive. There were even autonomous zones in Seattle and other cities.
In contrast, the January 6th Insurrection, which did have some vandalism and turmoil, was treated the way BLM should have been. Described as “one of the most extensive criminal investigations in US history”, the break-in was treated as if it could mean the end of democracy. Meanwhile, the loss of law and order and trust in institutions happening for months is completely ignored.
The common leftist can almost be forgiven for presenting such blatant hypocrisies. No ideology is perfect, and they’ve been given a particularly flawed one to deal with. On the other hand, the Neoplatonic elites are most definitely aware of these incongruences. In Part II of this piece, I will discuss the reasons these elites do what they do and all the implications.
