How the Theory Left Drove People to the Reactionary Right | TaraElla Report Reset

Today, I'm going to talk about a controversial topic: how the political landscape of the English-speaking Western world came to be polarized between a theory-obsessed Left and a reactionary Right, and how we can start to change this, and build a practical progressivism that transcends Left and Right.

Having read plenty of political history, and having reflected on the topic for some time, I have come to the conclusion that it all began in the late 1960s, when a faction of the Left turned away from the workers and towards intellectuals for their support. This became the critical theory-based New Left, which presented endless theory-based critiques of the existing society. Over time, the cultural changes arising from this theory-based Left led to a cascade of social effects, which steadily drove a substantial number of people towards hardline reactionary conservatism. This process might even have accelerated in recent years, with a new wave of the Theory Left having come and gone in the past decade. The result is, there is now a lot of resistance to social justice reforms of all kinds.

The problem with the Theory Left is that they are rooted in theoretical philosophy, rather than the practical facts of the real world. This means they produce the wrong diagnoses of social problems, and provide the wrong solutions. Most problematically, they also have a strong bias against long-standing social institutions like marriage, family and other pillars of traditional communities, due to the critical theory worldview seeing them as upholding an 'oppressive' system. A major effect of Theory Left's ideas and practices, especially their attempts to deconstruct and 'liberate' everything, is that they have served to weaken the social fabric significantly over the past five decades. This, in turn, has deprived what many people need most, strong and stable family-based support networks, and a strong sense of community, as well as the sense of security this provides. These people are naturally going to be attracted to reactionary conservatism, which promises to stem the decline, and restore society to its former state. Even though in practice they have not been successful in doing this, the very promise, the very idea, has been attractive for many people, who have nowhere else to turn.

In the past decade, there was another wave of Theory Left activism that drove even more people to the Right in another way, through their unreasonable insistence that their ideas be accepted without debate. This attitude is rooted in the theory that knowledge and discourse is rooted in power and oppression, which totally goes against both practical common sense and the ideals of the Enlightenment. But more importantly, this attitude just isn't going to be acceptable to most people. During the past decade, I have read many stories about formerly moderately progressive people being turned to the hard Right after they encountered the unreasonable attitude of the Theory Left. Some like to deny this reality, but I believe it's something that actually happened to a significant extent.

So how can we begin to heal this mess, so we can get reformist progress back on the agenda? We need to put an end to the dominant influence of the Theory Left on our politics. Particularly, as long as the critical theory Left's zero-sum, deconstructive, essentially anti-society worldview even so much as lingers in our conscience, we can't really start to rebuild a strong social fabric. Without a stronger and healthier social fabric, there really isn't going to be the will to take on the reforms that are required to solve our problems. And so, every new issue and every new development just turn into more fuel for the culture wars, which just goes to benefit both the Theory Left and the reactionary Right, thus continuing the vicious cycle. There's no room, no appetite, to actually take an unbiased look at things like automation, racial equality, civil rights, the climate and so on. Hence, going forward, I will talk even more about how we can remove the influence of five decades of critical theory in our thoughts and our culture. This is something we need to work together on, because it has affected almost all of us, to differing degrees.

The other important thing to do would be to bring back those who have already fallen into reactionary hardline conservatism, because they see that as the only way to bring back a healthy society. We have to build a better alternative: a way back to a healthy society, but one that is forward looking rather than backward looking. And then we need to convince these people that our way will work, and we can fix the mess created by the Theory Left in a way that the reactionary ideology simply can't. Where reactionary ideology can only keep people nostalgic about a better past, we can give them something to actually hope for: an even better future. It is a long road ahead, so I think we should start getting to work as soon as possible.

Can Ranked Choice Voting Actually Save Democracy? It Depends. | TaraElla Report Reset

Today, I'm going to talk about the recently popular idea of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), and whether it could save democracy as its proponents say. Basically, in RCV, voters rank the candidates on their ballot paper, from say, 1 to 6 or 8, rather than just voting for one candidate, as in the more commonly used first-past-the-post method.

In recent years, RCV has received increased attention, as an increasing number of American elections have adopted it, including most recently the New York mayoral primaries, although a referendum of RCV in the UK was defeated about a decade ago. Meanwhile, Australia has had RCV for nearly a century now, and it is routinely used in basically all elections, from federal elections right down to student politics. I think the Australian experience demonstrates two points: firstly, RCV can be readily understood and accepted by the general public. Secondly, once RCV is adopted, it becomes the commonly accepted way of doing elections, and first-past-the-post becomes essentially obsolete.

But let's return to the value of RCV itself: can it really save democracy, get people engaged, and offer choices beyond the left-vs-right binary, like its supporters say? I think it also depends on the context. Using the Australian experience, we have mixed evidence. Australia does have high voting rates, but that's probably because voting is compulsory in Australia, and you get fined for not voting. On the other hand, Australia still has a largely two-party system, with the preferences of most minor parties funnelling into the two major parties. One thing that seems to have happened in Australia is that, since the major parties will get the preferences of the minor parties anyway, and there is no need to 'turn out the base', both parties behave in a more moderate way compared to America.

The Australian experience with RCV shows that, except for maybe a bit more moderation from both sides, the political landscape isn't that different from first-past-the-post countries like the US or the UK. Indeed, Australia is actually closer to the American two-party system than many first-past-the-post countries, because there is no minor party that is capable of capturing a significant number of lower house seats like the British Lib Dems or SNP, or the Canadian NDP. This is reflected in Australian election debates, in which only two candidates are invited, like the American debates, but unlike the British or Canadian debates. It is therefore clear that RCV is not a magic bullet that will automatically solve the left vs right, Democrat vs Republican, or Labour vs Conservative problem.

So what about the vision that RCV will allow voters to choose what they actually want, unrestricted by the left-right divide? Why has that not happened in Australia? I guess it's a cultural thing. You see, in Australia, most of the minor parties are basically a more extreme wing of one of the two major parties. Mapping this onto an American context, it would be as if the Squad and the Tea Party, as well as other smaller groupings, were parties in their own right, but since their preferences reliably flowed to the Democrats or the Republicans all the time, they are bound to be seen as similar to one of the main parties rather than having a distinct identity of their own. Australia has also had several non-aligned minor parties that have played interesting roles in some elections, but in general they have not lasted for very long. This just shows that being neither left nor right is still a difficult thing, even in an RCV system!

The thing I wanted to say is that, RCV is great. It's great because it's much fairer. But to break out of the two-party deadlock will require much more than RCV. It will require a change in the way we think about things. As long as most people still think about things in terms of left-vs-right, like the Left supports certain things but the Right is opposed, and vice versa, the only new options that will come with a RCV system would be more extreme versions of Left or Right, which ultimately serve to funnel votes back into the establishment version of Left or Right. Therefore, I think, besides supporting things like RCV, the more important thing to do would be to encourage independent thinking, and to encourage new visions that go beyond the conventional left-vs-right divide.

When Theory is Slavery: Why the Theory Left is Regressive | TaraElla Report Reset

Previously, I talked about needing to revive a tradition of 'practical progressivism', as opposed to the theory-based so-called progressivism we are seeing in the Western New Left these days. Today, I want to elaborate further on my problems with New Left theory, and why, as a Moral Libertarian, I simply can't accept a theory-based New Left.

As far back as 2018, I came up with the idea that 'theory is slavery', and I mentioned it in several episodes of my show around that time. However, I never really elaborated on why that is the case. Basically, the New Left of the West since around the 1970s has been very much a theory-based left. Several factors combined to cause this. The biggest was perhaps the fact that, around that time, a new faction of the Left broke away from the workers, to instead embrace intellectuals and academia, as a new revolutionary force. They were the faction behind the upheavals of the 1960s, including most famously May 68 in France, which the old workers-Left actually did not support (at least initially, it became more complicated later on). Another was that, among the young radicals of that era, there was the idea that following the correct theory was the most important thing. After the splintering of the Left in the 1970s and 80s, this idea fell out of fashion, but elements of it are still present in the attitudes of the Left today.

Anyway, the key point is, much of the Western Left today takes a theory-based approach to everything, and base their so-called progressivism on achieving the goals of their theory. They decide what is a good course of action, or what counts as success, not based on objective reality, not based on if the lives of people have actually been made better, but on their theoretical concerns. This, I think, is essentially being a slave to theory. Hence theory has actually become slavery, in the context of the 21st century Western Left.

Besides being unable to improve people's lives, what I'm most concerned with the theory-Left is that it effectively discourages independent thinking, which I value very much as a Moral Libertarian. Through building a movement that is enslaved to a whole suite of critical theories, which explain every social issue and cultural conflict with its particular philosophy, New Left activism actually creates a mass of people who think in lockstep on every issue, because they are informed by theory rather than their own observation of reality and their own independent thinking. In turn, this actually divides society into two sides, one side which thinks in lockstep with theory on every issue, and another side which comes together simply to fight what they correctly see as an illogical and contradictory coalition. I think this is a major reason behind the polarization we are seeing in the West today.

To avoid the pitfalls of the theory-based New Left, I believe the most important thing is to stay grounded in objective reality. Measure every idea and every course of action by their results in objective reality. If it has not really improved the lives of people, it is not progress at all. Another thing is, be ready to listen to unfamiliar ideas, and don't come to the table with obsessions and preconceptions rooted in ideological theories. This will prevent an objective understanding of anything. In short, to avoid being a slave to theory, always remain open-minded and objective.

Why I Left the Left and the Right #5: Who is a Progressive | TaraElla Report Reset

Last time, I talked about the origins of this project, what I want to get out of doing this, and where I'm going to go next. For context, you should watch that episode if you haven't already done so, link is in the description. Today, I want to talk about one particular idea I raised at the end of the last episode: 'a politics that is progressive, in the sense of forward looking, but also not tied to the dogma of the so-called theories'.

You know, the word 'progressive' literally means forward looking. So any forward looking idea can be considered 'progressive', and anybody who is generally committed to a forward looking, positive and constructive attitude to things can be considered a 'progressive'. I think this was actually how it worked historically, for example with the 'progressive era' in American history. But nowadays, the meaning of 'progressive' has been distorted by some people. Apparently, for them, 'progressive' means adhering to particular left-wing theories, particularly the various critical theories and postmodern theories. The problem is, these theories are generally developed in academia rather than from practical situations, and they are heavily rooted in 19th and 20th century thinking. I don't see them as forward looking or open minded, and I certainly don't think this is the way to progress the 21st century West. Which is why, I think, it's time to differentiate what I call practical progressivism from theoretical progressivism. More on this later.

Anyway, as I said last time, the popularization of a sort of 'New Left' dominated by critical theory and postmodern thinking has led to the deterioration of long standing liberal norms like free speech and freedom of conscience, which has made many of us quite uncomfortable in recent years. So far, it is mainly people on the Right, the conservative side of the political spectrum, who have been the most outspoken about this problem. As a result, more and more people have been attracted to the Right. The Right certainly makes very valid points about the problems with theoretical progressivism. However, I do have another problem with the Right: they are generally not forward looking or open minded. In fact, they tend to be overly nostalgic about a romanticized past, and also reactionary towards all sorts of new and unfamiliar ideas. It is one thing to oppose problematic ideas like criticalism and postmodernism, but it is another thing to reject almost all unfamiliar ideas by default. This is why, while I do appreciate very much the critiques of criticalism and postmodernism coming from the Right, I don't think I can ever find myself a political home on the Right. I'm way too progressive, in the original sense of the word, for that.

That's why I think we need to bring back progressivism, in the original sense. We may call this 'practical progressivism', in contrast to the theory-based so-called progressivism promoted by some in the 'New Left'. To practice a truly 'practical progressivism', I think the key is to engage with all sorts of interesting ideas, without theory-based preconception. That means being open-minded about ideas and solutions from all across the political spectrum, finding common ground where we can, and always keeping our focus on what is the best, most likely to be effective, way to solve the problems in front of us. This is why, going forward, I will be engaging with ideas, problems and solutions as they come, and join the conversations around these things as they are happening, without discrimination or preconception as to things like people's political affiliation or background, or their other opinions. I will try to look at everything, from an open-minded, forward looking and constructive perspective.