#BTColumn – Vladimir Lenin’s Left

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Adrian Sobers

“Bringing workers into the committees is not only a pedagogical but a political task.. . . I support the view that for every two intellectuals committees ought to have eight workers.” – (Lenin at the Bolshevik Third Party Congress)

Writing for The New Criterion (April 2022), James Panero “Going under with the overclass”, observes “In the interest of “safety,” this fetish for sanitation, this program of social justice, grants the opposite of just access. Instead it places limits on the art we can see, books we can read, ideas we can think, words we can say, votes we can cast, food we can eat, energy we can use, and people we can befriend.”

Panero’s piece reminded me of an unread title on my list, Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class: “The Left political establishment swallowed a poisonous brew of economic and social liberalism. They have come to despise traditional working-class values of patriotism, family and faith and instead embraced globalisation, rapid demographic change and a toxic, divisive brand of identity politics.”

Panero cites Christopher Lasch (The Betrayal of Democracy) who warned that the “chief threat” to civilisation will not come from an aggrieved underclass, but “those at the top of the social hierarchy”, “who control the international flow of money and information, preside over philanthropic foundations and institutions of higher learning, manage the instrumentsof cultural production, and thus set the terms of public debate.”

It is clear that words like “tolerance”, “diversity”, and “inclusivity” – noble in and of themselves when used in the traditional sense (like liberal) – mean something completely different in today’s cancerous cancel culture.

“For all the talk of ‘expanding the narrative,’” writes Panero, “the results always seem to be an editing down of the complexities of the human condition to the same short story of oppression.”

(Or, if we believe the Democrats: Racism and Russia!)

The pandemic unmasked several frauds, especially the idea that the Left cares about the working class and the oppressed. (Minor digression, who do you think benefits most financially from quantitative easing? Hint: It’s not the people whose purchasing power is collectively squeezed by a perversion of monetary policy.)

An example of the disconnect was documented by Caleb Dunson, a black undergraduate opinion columnist. Dunson’s title contains a clue that the seeds of cancel culture’s destruction are contained within.

In “Abolish Yale” (Yale Daily News, December 10, 2021) he recalls a two-night revel with masked dining-hall workers pushing a “Parade of Comestibles” – loaded with lobster and lamb chops – for the unmasked patrons.

“They grabbed turkey legs the size of my forearm and munched away at them too. We all feasted like royalty. Just two blocks away, on the city’s Green, homeless people froze and starved in the bitter New Haven night.”

Dunson said he left the dinner feeling disturbed and disheartened, “There’s something unsettling about Yale, about the way it operates, about its very existence.”

“This idea of individual-driven change reeks of false meritocracy and trickle-down theory, and gives the University the cover it needs to hoard wealth and resources.”

Panero asks if Glenn Loury and John McWhorter, or the Somali-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be allowed to speak at these institutions?

Despite the constant virtue signaling about “inclusivity” and “diversity”, we know the answer.

On the odd chance we had forgotten, a recent reminder came from Yale Law School when students disrupted conservative speakers in an uncivil manner, at a debate over, you guessed it, civil liberties. Chalk up another one for “tolerance”.

The episode prompted Senior Judge Laurence Silberman to pen a letter to his fellow Article III Judges.

“The latest events at Yale Law School in which students attempted to shout down speakers participating in a panel discussion on free speech prompts me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted.”

He ended, “All federal judges — and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech — should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified for potential clerkships.”

Imagine if Ayaan Hirsi Ali were to open her talk at one of the “inclusive” august institutions thus: “Anti-racism is the disease that it purports to cure. Its narratives of resentment are dividing us once again by race, weakening our hard-earned freedom and mutual trust, and threatening our children’s future. We have no option but to fight it as we once fought white supremacy.”

The New Criterion is one of the few publications that call things by their name: “Harvard’s motto, after all, is Veritas — stop sniggering—and Yale’s is Lux et veritas. Does anyone believe it any longer? Those words are empty at most colleges and universities because the institutions have bartered truth for “wokeness” and the imperatives of identity politics.”

One wonders if Lenin’s proposed ratio would fly at a party congress today. I suppose, but only if the workers’ carbon footprint meets the criteria.

Adrian Sobers is a prolific letter writer and commentator on social issues.