A Free Left Blog

This is the second set of notes and fragments I have collated in the hope that there may be some value in my random scribblings on scraps of paper, Post-It notes and paper pads. The first set of these notes, principally on the environment and politics , has been notable only for the lack of page views it has attracted – a measly 27 at the time of writing. I think there’s some value both in them and in these, but I guess you can’t argue with the readers... The left’s rationalism The left’s rationalism excludes or delegitimizes feeling by re-categorising it along the same lines as knowing, thereby judging feelings on the same terms as knowledge – as right and wrong . By doing this, it enables you, as a person, to be wrong in your whole being – in the way you feel and experience the world. There is no escape. [ N.B. Of course this isn't a lefty preserve. It is shared across the liberal spectrum by what we might call 'neo-liberals', who treat human beings rather...

The liberal-left is in a terrible muddle over immigration at the moment largely because of a pervasive and highly-judgemental rationalism which completely fails to engage with people as they are. This rather arrogant, dogmatic form of rationalism assumes that who we are, our opinions and our feelings, are all derived from thought, reflection, decisions and judgements. Hence the discomfort someone might be feeling about lots of outsiders moving into their neighbourhood is viewed as being derived from a thought and ultimately a judgement that outsiders, or certain types of outsiders, are bad by definition. In this way this sort of rationalism takes theoretical, universalistic thinking as primary to human existence, and assumes we are formed and come to be who we are primarily by thinking and judgements made from thinking. So, we would assume the person who is discomforted by lots of outsiders moving in to their area has done some thinking and concluded that outsiders ...