Comment by LaurensBER | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LaurensBER | Hacker News Reader

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> they all blocked each other in the purity battle

I listen to a bunch of (far) left podcast to balance out my media consumption and the amount of bickering about purity is both amusing and slightly scary. Both the wide span of subjects (from racism, to sexism, to ablism, there's something new every day!) and depth ("it's not my job to educate you and here are 5 books about lived experiences that you should read before talking to me") is scary and genuinely interesting. For some people it almost seems like a full-time job.

We even see it in some other, non-political, social circles (knitting famously had a purity competition/obsession a while ago).

I'm still struggling to explain why this is such a focal point for some people. Perhaps this is a modern replacement for religious fundamentalism for some people?

> Perhaps this is a modern replacement for religious fundamentalism for some people

I would say it’s narrower, loosely a sort of heresiology. It would be motivated by a strong internal sense of insiders vs. outsiders. Which isn’t saying much, but I think that’s that.

Listening to Mike Duncan's "Revolutions" podcast I was distinctly struck with the idea that the main thing leftists like to do, even more than fighting rightists, is fighting other leftists.

Aye.

My (literally, and self-proclaimed) communist former partner noted left-wing infighting. The Monty Python Life of Brian scene about The Popular Front of Judea ("he's over there") are, according to her, totally accurate in spirit.

Ironic, the right does strength through unity, the left talks about it and then argues with itself about who else used the phrase; the last time the left really did it was when trade unions still had teeth.

Jameela Jamil put this out pretty well: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOvh4_UDHGy/ (sorry for the instagram link, couldn't find the original clip)

Basically the gist of it is that if you want to be "on the left", you need to have the exact, correct, and up to date opinion on every single micro-issue or you're literally a fascist hitler paedophile and will be ostracized.

Meanwhile "on the right" as long as you agree on maybe one or two bigger things and you can deal with or tolerate the rest while you move on with winning elections.

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