Is there anyone on the Left with a following?
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Some.
Obviously, given the constant arguments between various leftists, there's many misunderstandings of theory to point to.
But nothing on the scale of those examples, that I've seen.
It'd be like a leftist calling Marx a capitalist.
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Leftist distortions are of different orders than those committed on the right.
It's a centrist fantasy that the distortions are *similar*, but it's a universal partisan fantasy that there aren't gross distortions on all sides.
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It makes sense..
To be a leftist in a neoliberal hegemony, you have to have either seek out and learn theory, or learn from people who learned theory.
To be a liberal or conservative, one merely needs to exist in your community and voice your opinion.
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M-hm. But death-by-theory isn't constrained to the left. You also see it with libertarians.
There's the same expectation that you have some perverse obligation to read X thinker before you can have an opinion.
Even if there is no reason at all to rate said thinker.
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Abstraction of a conversation I've had a few times too many in my life:
"This theorist, who only coincidentally happens to inspire/align with *my views*, is required reading."
"What is your proof that they're credible?"
"What is your proof that they AREN'T CREDIBLE?"
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But yeah, the alt-right and neocons are more po-mo.
There are a few scattered facts, a lot of definitely-not-facts, and a whole bunch of narrative reconstruction that relies on a smattering of shibboleths and in-group credibility.
It's not even wrong.
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"Soy boys", "NPCs" et al. are essentially fanfic. It has all the credibility of someone's headcanon of a fantasy setting.
But then, credible influence is not the goal - memetic appropriation and Overton-shifting is, as well as the ever-present intellectual inferiority complex.
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I have a pet theory (obviously, just a pet theory) that the alt-right "50 tweets about nothing"-style comes from a deep insecurity.
It's the fear of being caught with your pants down intellectually, a la Rand, Hayek and all the others. Rather make unfalsifiable non-statements.
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It's funny how they marry a deep anti-intellectualism with a desperate need to have an intellectual veneer.
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It's almost like that's exactly the expected outcome of an unacknowledged lack of covert self-esteem.
I sometimes have to stop and wonder how many forms of social compensation being insufferably arrogant in some areas has actually saved me from.
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If anything, I've started developing issues with a superiority complex after realizing how much of my old ideas were just cocky young bluster.
It's *now* I have to stop myself from trying to sound cleverer than I think I am, not before. Before I just thought I was that smart. ;)
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And when it's Peterson they land on, with his Jungian nonsense, you really see how far that insecurity reaches,
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Pretty much 80% of the alt-righters I follow/have followed hate Peterson, and those are mostly of the ironic/thought-spewing kind.
There are quite a few good ideas, too. The aesthetics (with accompanying ethical implications) are just rotten to the core.
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