[ExI] Be nice to leftists

Anders Sandberg anders at aleph.se
Sat May 17 08:42:05 UTC 2014


Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> , 16/5/2014 6:54 AM:
Some time ago I posted here about what my understanding of "leftism" - that it is a current manifestation of the age-old human obsession with status. A leftist is a status-obsessed (i.e. envious) hypocrite, predictably attracted to the hierarchies of government bureaucracy, academia and mainstream journalism.
I sometimes claim that envy is to the left what greed is to the right (typically after somebody has claimed the political right is only self-serving greedy people). Strangely, this doesn't make the discussion more enlightened. It is hard to get people to realize that all the idiots/bastards cannot be on the other side, and all well-meaning people cannot be on theirs. Which of course shows the real problem with identifying with a political side: it is all about a biased self-serving perception to feel good, rather than figuring out how to get policymaking slightly smarter.
As for input to elites vs. spreading it around, it very much depends on the power basis of the elites. Many of the key groups and people are key because they have the strong support of large groups. If you want their ear, it sometimes works well to get their support group concerned with the issue. Typically agenda-setting requires this or a very focused effort at the key points in the elite network. 

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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