The Infantile, Superficial Left

[rangerrebew]

Posted on May 16, 2019 by Steven Hayward

The Infantile, Superficial Left

If you are a glutton for punishment like me and you read a lot of leftist academic journals (but I repeat myself. . .), you discover quickly that for the left, everything is violence. Literally violence, especially free speech, but also capitalism of course. Violence is the instrument of racism and domination. Another peculiar feature of leftist academic jargon today is to talk about “bodies”—especially “black and brown bodies,” which is merely an updating of the Marxist critique of how capitalism supposedly “commodifies” everything. In other words, the fixation with “bodies” is just new language for the old—and discredited—labor theory of value.

Yes, you can be excused for noticing the violence done to comprehensible English prose in most such articles, which might read better if they were translated into French (preferably by Foucault) and then back into English. You might also be excused for wondering about the originality of this whole outlook.

Let’s take a look at a sample passage:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/the-infantile-superficial-left.php

[Fishrrman]

Whether they may be infantile or not, the left -- the democrat-communists and those who comprise their fellow travelers -- are far from being "superficial".

Indeed, their power and influence is growing, supplemented by "the long march through the institutions" (such as education and media).

They are a force with whom we must reckon, if the republic is to be preserved.