DeepSummary
The podcast host introduces the episode as a re-airing of a classic interview with Freddie DeBoer from two years ago, called 'The Anti-LARPers Manifesto'. The host reflects on how the left has grown since then but still needs strategic vision. He sees DeBoer's critique of campus activism and 'woke' censorship culture as valuable for that reflection.
DeBoer argues that the left's tradition is one of free speech and critical debate, contrary to current trends of shutting down dissenting views as a way to appear morally superior. He sees this as rooted in the 'enclave' mentality of elite college campuses disconnected from broader society. Real power, he says, comes from convincing a mass movement through appealing to self-interest, not virtue signaling or violence.
The host and DeBoer discuss how campus activists often make gains through administrative concessions that don't challenge core power structures. They critique the 'macho left' bent on confrontation and lack of explicit theory of social change. Both call for more openness to disagreement as the left grows, seeing overnight revolution as an unproductive fantasy.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The left needs to move beyond 'woke' censorship and violence, which are ineffective for building real mass power.
- Rather than virtue signaling, the left should focus on making appeals to self-interest to grow a mass movement.
- Campus activism often results in superficial administrative concessions rather than challenging core power structures.
- The 'macho left' revolutionary fantasy is disconnected from modern political realities and strategic thinking.
- The growing left needs to develop an explicit, coherent theory of social change to go along with its expanding base.
- Openness to disagreement and doing the work of politics is essential as the left grows its influence.
- The left should learn from its historical tradition of free speech and critical debate, rather than censorship.
- Enclaves like elite campuses breed disconnect from appealing to and organizing the broader working class.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “Unfortunately, rather than the current sort of trajectory being that leftists are helping to make woke liberals more class conscience, I think that liberals are making class conscious lefties more and more woke. And I say woke not in the sense that obviously, we need to be racially sensitive, sensitive to issues of sexism and gender, a sensitive to LGBTQ people. I mean, obviously those are all positive things. But when I say woke in this sense, I mean, specifically a kind of, like, performative, pro forma, sort of socially mandated oversensitivity.“ by Freddie DeBoer
- “The thing is, is you have to go back to the beginning and do what I would call building your politics. Part of the problem right now is that the way that we communicate on the left is the number one tactic, the number one way that we interact is with sort of these arguments of, I can't believe you don't already know that.“ by Freddie DeBoer
- “You'd like to hear what the plan is sooner or later, right?“ by Freddie DeBoer
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Dead Pundits Society
Dead Pundits Society
4/16/19