How leftists endure periods of reaction
While a Democrat occupies the White House, it’s pretty clear we’re living through a period of reaction. You can see this in any number of ways, but I was recently struck by a Gallup poll that showed American acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships has dropped seven points in just the last year. The LGBTQ struggle is arguably the most successful progressive movement of recent decades, so it’s somewhat shocking to see such a dramatic backslide.
Tangentially, I’ve been thinking a lot in recent months about how leftists endure periods of reaction like the one we’re currently experiencing, which, in some cases, can last for decades. Obviously, I hope it doesn’t take us that long to emerge from the darkness. But a May article on The Call, a publication of the Bread and Roses caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America, brought the issue into somewhat clearer focus for me.
Dogmatism and Opportunism, or: How Not to Live a Life on the Left was written by Neil Meyer. In the article, Meyer establishes dogmatism and opportunism as the twin temptations facing progressives. I imagine no two people will agree on what strategies constitute one and which constitute the other, but I think it’s a useful way to think about things, especially during periods of reaction, when the temptation of both is even greater.
When I first became interested in the left, the only sin I recognized was that of opportunism. But as I got more experience, I started to notice the sin of dogmatism in some of the older activists I looked up to. For instance, many of the Baby Boomer Marxists I interacted with would have been thrilled if Bernie Sanders had run as a third-party presidential candidate. But, because he ran as a Democrat, they shunned him and his supporters.
It didn’t matter to them that Sanders helped establish a modern left-wing of the Democratic Party or that organizations like Democratic Socialists of America took off in his wake. It was clear that long ago, they had drawn a line in the sand, saying they would never support the Democratic Party under any circumstances. Perhaps that line had made sense at the time they drew it, but they weren’t willing to revisit the topic.
Similarly, many of the Baby Boomer animal activists I looked up to couldn’t bring themselves to support increased funding for cultivated-meat research. For those who aren’t aware, cultivated meat is grown from animal cells, without slaughter. It has the potential to dramatically reduce animal suffering, greenhouse-gas emissions, and pandemic risk. Again, it was clear that long ago, they decided supporting anything less than immediate, full veganism was selling out.
This dogmatism annoys me, but not as much as it once did. I recognize it as survival mechanism, a method through which these Baby Boomers held on during the lean years of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. I worry that, faced with a prolonged period of reaction, I will err in the opposite way, by engaging in opportunism. Maybe some of the choices I’ve made, which I regarded as pragmatic compromises, were steps in that direction.
As Meyer points out, ideally one can find a middle path between dogmatism and opportunism. That’s where activists are most effective. But I no longer see individuals failing to find that middle path as a deep moral failing. First, the middle path looks different to everyone. Second, especially in periods of reaction, the temptation for activists to engage in dogmatism and opportunism are tremendous.