On paper, the capacity for radical criticism of what exists is part of the DNA of the left. In the same way that daring to doubt everything constitutes, in the face of dogmatists and fanatics of various stripes, one of the defining traits of those who consider themselves progressive. But both things, luminously clear on paper (which, as is known, can withstand whatever is thrown at it), become confusing, if not completely obscured, the moment we move to the plane of reality. Possibly because then variables of all other order enter the equation with respect to which both criticism and doubt easily come to be considered as elements not only inappropriate, but directly harmful.
In times of discursive scarcity like the current one, perhaps the specificity of what happens lies in the fact that hegemony at the level of ideas, when it occurs, has a more negative than positive character. In fact, for conscious and committed citizens, who once liked to define themselves as leftist, the crisis of the great stories, of the great visions of the world, does not seem to have left them any other option than to define themselves, much more than by what they they propose, so they reject. Note that, in times defined in this way, it is not always easy for these citizens to find those to direct their attacks, to the extent that it is common that those who are supposed to defend a different model of society do not seem to have a theoretical framework either. global to refer to. Hence, in the absence of the political opponent, the tendency of many of our leftists is to redirect their attacks towards the most recalcitrant cavemen, who allegedly threaten to ruin all the good achieved so far and propose a return to the worst of our past.
It is in this context that many of the attitudes promoted by the postmodern left and, more specifically, by woke thought, must be registered, to be properly understood, attitudes of which cancellation probably constitutes the most prominent and controversial. The writer Carmen Domingo and the Turkish political scientist Umut Ozkirimli have dedicated their respective books to its analysis. Their perspectives are not entirely the same, but they do share the same underlying assessment. In both texts we can find a similar concern about the effects that the generalization of certain argumentative resources with which it is intended to justify the cancellation operation may be generating in the public debate, all of which present, for now, the common denominator of a certain exasperation. .
One of the variants of this exasperation – with a decidedly woke perfume – takes place when the discursive strategy of altering the scale of determinations is chosen, overloading the everyday and small objectionable with features of what deserves the maximum reproach. One of the most common procedures to carry out this operation is to generalize the micro prefix to justify that a behavior of very dubious significance can receive the maximum social condemnation. And so, what began as a perfectly pertinent observation – I am thinking of the denunciation of micro-machismo, which served the function of highlighting the sexist sign of many daily behaviors, considered almost – ancestrally normal – has ended up functioning as a resource of universal step that makes it possible to equate behaviors of a very different nature and importance, giving rise to confusing practical effects, comparable to those that in the legal field would have, for example, renouncing the distinction between crimes and misdemeanors.
But anyone who thinks that the exaggeration or tendentiousness of the alarmist today reclassified as woke constitutes a mere rhetorical resource to reinforce his positions, making them appear in the eyes of everyone as little less than indisputable. It's not that, far from it. Their attitudes respond, first of all, to the ideological-political purpose of tense the debate until their demands are unattainable by their traditional adversary, in order to be able to put them in the same bag as the most obscurantist, reactionary and caveman sector (which would be paradigmatically represented by the worst populists, of which Trump and others of his same ideological family would constitute the most prominent cases).
However, it is not as frequent as the left would like that its electoral adversaries align themselves with the toughest positions, understood as those that call into question practically all of the advances in the various social spheres. From this point of view, the situation is characterized more by reciprocal influence than by clear contrast. As historic projects, both the right and the left can score important victories. On the one hand, it seems clear that capitalism has produced unprecedented levels of wealth in developed countries, while at the same time it has lifted millions of people in other parts of the world out of the most extreme poverty. On the other hand, although inequality in the world has not disappeared by any means, the emancipatory project that the left presented in the 19th century has been fulfilled. In fact, as Félix Ovejero likes to repeat, the history of the left is the history of a dying of success, to the extreme that a good part of its old demands (such as the consolidation of welfare states or universal suffrage as a conquest of political representation) have not only been materialized, but have come to be considered as inalienable by all parties without exception.
Naturally, this situation has a direct impact on the political positions held by citizens. Without a doubt, there is a conservative reflection in people who, starting from objectively subaltern real situations that led them to align themselves with leftist formations, have reached certain levels of material progress (in terms of salary, some property or savings) and They fear that this model of prosperity, with which they have the feeling that they have done so well, could be in danger. In the same way that there is no shortage of those who, initially belonging to a conservative mental universe, have ended up openly assuming positions – for example, on matters of customs and rights – originally claimed exclusively by the left. In fact, putting things more generally, this is what the British thinker Mark Fisher pointed out when he wrote that neoliberalism had been able to triumph by incorporating the desires of the post-1968 working class.
I am not sure that this transformation in the classical allocation of political positions is being adequately metabolized by those forces that would be most obliged to do so. Thus, it is evident the discomfort that all of them usually feel when they realize that the adversaries who had confronted them politically, sometimes even fiercely, have ended up accepting their theses. Perhaps this becomes particularly evident in the case of the left, which tends to show a special resistance to admitting that its achievements may have been perfectly assumed by the right, so combative with them at the time.
It must be recognized that sometimes the discomfort is fully justified, to the extent that the acceptance of a claim of progressive origin by conservative sectors not only makes it difficult to continue drawing them with the usual caricature (as retardants, puritans, obscurantists... .), but at the same time it largely deactivates the disruptive radicalism with which the demand seemed to be adorned when it was almost viscerally rejected by the right. Some recent debates contribute to feeding this ambiguity, certainly uncomfortable for the left, from which it is not clear that it is managing to escape well.
Thus, to give just one more example, it is not unusual for the denunciation of the sexualization of women's bodies in public spaces to be replicated by some of those referred to – especially if they are placed on the conservative spectrum – with the argument of that his behavior constitutes a sign of empowerment on his part. A case that achieved a certain notoriety at the time was that of Beyoncé's performances on her 2016 tour, in which she appeared in a frankly skimpy outfit in front of a screen on which “FEMINIST” could be read in giant letters. The question to which, almost inevitably, a situation like this gives rise seems clear: does there cease to be objectification of women due to the fact that the supposedly objectified woman interprets the sexualized display of her body as a demonstration of strength? feminist?
One way to escape the apparent mess could well be to follow the suggestions of the aforementioned Mark Fisher in the sense of completely rearranging the placement of the pieces on the board. And in the same way that we said that at a certain moment the right had the ability to assume – obviously to turn to its advantage – the demands of the left, so it can also be affirmed that a left with a desire for renewal should begin to build itself on the desires that neoliberalism has generated but has not been able to satisfy.
We are faced with an indication that is undoubtedly suggestive, but one that the truly existing left does not seem to have paid much attention to, to the point that the sensation it conveys is that of having chosen to go in exactly the opposite direction. It is important to emphasize that such a drift follows largely as a consequence of the premises presented up to this point. Or, if one prefers to formulate this from just this other angle, they respond to the fear of an important sector of leftism – particularly that of more postmodern inspiration – of being left without an adversary in relation to whom – although perhaps it would be more accurate to say against the which– to be able to define itself without losing its alleged disruptive specificity.
Now, beyond the fact that the aforementioned fear may be fully justified, it is important to highlight that, in turn, the purpose of tense the debate of ideas is based on a fundamental conviction that cannot in any way be ignored, that the present is permanently threatened both by the return of the caves of the past (paradigmatically exemplified by the rise of the extreme right throughout the world) and by the arrival of an apocalyptic future (of which climate change would constitute the clearest example). The postmodern leftist's fondness for the thick line ultimately responds, unequivocally, to the internalization of a defeat. From his perspective, everything there is, including the least bad, can only be read in terms of the worst, in such a way that being benevolent to some degree – instead of intransigent – with what there is is still one way like another. anyone to begin to recognize the irreversibility of said defeat. He defeats which, by the way, would also bring with it the defeat of politics as such, as the American political scientist Ben Ansell has pointed out.
Unlike the shepherd in Aesop's fable, the constant warnings of the woke leftist can never be contradicted by reality because everything that happens, no matter how small it may be (or however micro it may be considered), verifies its most pessimistic predictions. According to him, the wolf has been living among us for a long time and the best we can hope for is to avoid the most ferocious bites from him. Cancel to survive, one would say that is the slogan by which this leftist's existence is governed.
