I've often dumbed it down to the body-count. "Murder will out" and where stats are shaky, the number of dead is more reliable than trying to count concussions and broken limbs.
Watts Riots, 1965: 34 dead (violence in Los Angeles)
Detroit Riots, 1967: 43
Rodney King, 1992: 63 (L.A. again)
BLM, 2020: 25 (combined, all over America)
....there is just no sign of left-wing violence rising in response to all these threats from the right. Most of those BLM marches happened after they'd been threatened with federal troops. Helicopters overhead. Marchers bloodied on TV. And, obviously, the Heather Heyer vehicular murder left 5 in critical condition, injured 35.
That's a lot of provocation for very little violence, and of course, the dead in 2020 were more often marchers than people assaulted by marchers.
I'd like to see the argument against the statement that the Left has done nothing but moderate since the Weathermen and Black Panthers. Black protests have never again gone the Black Panther route of armed Black men patrolling neighbourhoods. I can't remember the last left-wing bombing or shooting.
So, there's Justin, having to resort to the subjunctive: "IF the left feels" [they must], they MAY take...".
Call me when the first Lefty militia has formed, JL. The right has been forming them in numbers since, oh, about Gingrich.
I think that's all fair. I think there's a few dimensions to this: One being that 'left' (or at least anti-right) violence doesn't tend to look like right wing reactionary violence. Rather than violence against civilians or government institutions, it tends to be mass protest which *might* target property. In rare cases, it's violence against police/politicians. (2016 Dallas police shooting, 2017 Congressional baseball attack.) So it does happen.
There's no guarantee it will get worse, but I think there are plenty of indicators that it will — growing urgency amongst climate activists, e.g.
But all to say, yes, the right tends to be more prone to political violence. But it goes back to one of my axioms: Polarization manifests differently on different sides.
Thank-you; I was not thinking of lone-wolf violence when writing that; my mind's eye was on militias (def: *organization* for committing violent acts) and mass-actions like protests.
Of course, I also forgot antifa, but I'm unaware of any actual hospitalizations from them, much less murders. I don't think they've ever been more-armed than sticks? Or planned actions beyond showing up at other demonstrations.
You mercifully didn't open the can of worms as to whether all Islamic terror is left-wing by a right-wing definition: it's against imperialism. The American political left-wing was basically forced to sign off on the Iraq War so that they could disassociate themselves from terrorists. They were called "soft-on-communism" for decades, and knew they had to get way out ahead of the accusations of "soft-on-terror", "terrorist sympathizers", etc. Obama didn't close Guantanamo, it might have cost him ObamaCare.
For what it's worth, I think we can say that the current state of the far-right militia movement — that is, actual paramilitary groups with proper command structures — is probably less than it was in the 90s. Now we've got a lot of militia cosplaying.
And yeah, like I wrote, we also need to realize there's more than single axis. Yes there's left/right extremism, but also religious/environmental/animal welfare/etc extremism (which may or may not be left/right)
And if one of these sides has fascistic tendencies, look out. We've been taught to fear the wrong bogeyman since shortly after the Allies won the second world war.
We didn't defeat fascism....we sent it underground for a few decades. It's a mindset.
And hard to eradicate. Wilhelm Reich wrote a book about it, and I remember his claim that all you have to do to bring out the fascist is tighten the economic screws ever so slightly. We're hard wired to be fascists he claimed.
I hate to believe that..........but recent activity around the world has me worried. Because economically, given the degree to which we're in overshoot as a planet, it can only get worse.
I might venture to suggest that left-wing violence seems to manifest more in actions like doxxing, cancellations, riots and so on. No armies or deaths (?) involved, but a lot of damage done nevertheless. Having said that, those have become right-wing tactics as well these days.
As I understand the word "cancellation", it's the same as ancient ostracism, shunning, excommunication: nobody will work with you, buy from you. That's not violence.
"Doxxing" can be alarming, but only in the context where it might lead to violence, the victim must have concerns that there are left-wing attackers out there who will use the address, as "Gamergate" journalists were made to fear physical attack by multiple threats.
Letting a fascism-proponent's boss know that they have a fascism-proponent on the payroll is a sort of "doxxing", but not violent.
I’m curious to know more about the “Political financing regimes that remove the power from... angry small donors would be good,”. What examples are there of this and how has it improved/curbed the rise of polarizing candidates or party platforms?
The simple answer is: Public financing of political parties. This actually used to be more-or-less the norm in the Western world. France and Germany give public subsidies to their parties. Canada used to, but killed it in the mid-00s — and I think you can actually trace the corrosive effect of relying on small-time donors. The U.S. is obviously a different beast altogether, but the Presidential election campaign fund checkoff — a subsidy Americans can opt into on their tax returns — used to be a version of that public subsidy, but has been more-or-less dead since ~2008.
So we have the mechanisms! We're just not using them.
Don't know that you're missing anything Justin.......but for me, polarization is also characterized by black/white thinking, and most recently I see it most clearly in some of the discussions about Ukraine.
Once we think we've found the villain, it almost seems as if we stop following the details of any situation...we've reached our 'conclusion' and what doesn't fit our conclusion becomes invisible, gets washed away, or is treated as if it never happened. I see that with America and NATO's role in the war.
People I respect act as if Iraq never happened....as if the Syria mess was something the west washed her hands of, as if foreign policy around the world is irrelevant.
So I'm coming to believe that in many issues that we face today, people don't have the time or the inclination to do their homework..........but are compelled somehow to 'take a side'.
To be honest, it scares me. Because the truth is all the problems we face as a planet are complex, dire and growing worse with every month we dither. But dithering is almost the only thing many people feel safe doing.......once the battle lines are drawn.
When the real emergency is the climate emergency and as far as I can tell, the Great Mother doesn't give a rat's ass about our certainties, our hatreds or our grievances. She wants a stable climate, and she's going to kick ass until she's got it, or everything falls apart as she reacts to our profligate consumption of hydrocarbons.
Everything else seems academic to me. But perhaps we could fight about that!
I do not suggest that your observations are uninteresting. Or that controversies in the United States are irrelevant to what goes on in Canada; since, of course, we share a news and information eco (echo?) system. Indeed, we are deluged by American news media and drowned in America popular culture. So, we cannot avoid the political and economic influences that slip over the boarder, like the illegal handguns that fuel gun-crime in our cities. And the fact is: there is much to be said for Pierre Trudeau’s “sleeping with an elephant” metaphor.
However, I would have welcomed your assessment of what this “polarization” means in the Canadian context - which, with respect (and because of its different history and constitutional arrangements), simply does not automatically mimic US political behaviour. And in the result, problems like racism, have a different texture in Canada, as Joseph Heath tried to do in this piece:
Accordingly, I would have welcomed something more like that; and less like something that I can read in the Atlantic or in the New York Review of Books (that is, if I were interested in the role of yet another Kennedy in the goofy US electoral system).
So I hope that at some point, you have a follow up piece which adds that perspective.
Great piece Justin. I would add that there is a growing responsibility for serious folks on both sides to do a better job of calling out their own side. Especially those who do that without selling out their own ideals. I think of the good folks at TheDispatch.com in the US, for example.
"But polarization needs a way to resolve itself: It needs to enact change, spark a constructive debate, and propel a change in popular sentiment." I might add that it also needs to have some sort of end-point goal by which an issue is understood to be "solved". I think you may even have written somewhere that several good (and polarizing) movements today don't seem to realize they have accomplished what they originally set out to do, so they just keep moving the goal posts.
Another thought regarding the danger of polarizing, I would assume it makes it easier for interference from hostile governments to choose a side. Makes their targets easier to ferret out for their focus.
Now I better actually read Zimmer before I stick my foot in my mouth.
I don't disagree with Mr. Ryerson's observation., nor downplay the corrosive potential of these social trends. I merely observe that I would have preferred that the writer apply his analytical eye, at the situation here is Canada, which is not the same as that in the US; and I am a paid subscriber, precisely because I value Mr. Ling's views, as an independent journalist. Just as I do "Paul Wells" or the folks at "The Line" . In other words, I encourage and welcome his analysis of polarization, HERE, where citizens can do something about it, rather than in the US, where Canadian influence is minimal.
The problem is that the situation in America is vastly more entertaining (horror movies entertain, too) than Canada. Michael Adam's book on Trump frankly *proves* "it can't happen here", so they rarely mention that book, and do harp on how American poison tends to seep North, which is, alas, true.
Well, I can neither agree, nor disagree, without more delineation of what the "it" that "can't happen here" concretely refers to; for we are certainly seeing lots of American ideas permeate our social, political and (my own bailiwick) legal space and culture. No doubt fueled, in part, by the power of the internet. My recollection is that you are in Vancouver now, but (??) were in Alberta at one time (although perhaps I am wrong about that); and in any event, we can certainly see in western populism, and its political manifestations, strains of the American version. Although to be fair, the west has always spawned such politcal currents, be it the lore of social credit or the agrarian socialism of saskatchewan. Thanks for the book tip though.
Finally, as perhaps a counterfactual: I would never have predicted that in our stoutly British system of parliamentary government, anyone would be able to "sell" the kind of Americanized political transformation, wrought by the Charter, transferring such political power to an unelected judicial elite, whose handiwork routinely eclipses that of elected legislatures.
Who moderates? is very much the challenge when even a former GG is taken down. Finding common values still remains the best hope if we can stop "calling out" long enough.
Well I think the past few years has led to a real decentralization around who moderates. That, I think, is what has fed some of this breakdown in trust. But we're in a period of recalibration. I do think it'll get resolved, but we'll need to decide how fast that happens and what that new moderation looks like.
Just had a discussion with an academic about the divide on "parental rights " issues between religions. My thought is to use Indigenous processes, circle, listening, ritual and respect to allow discussion and learning vs yelling at each other.
I've often dumbed it down to the body-count. "Murder will out" and where stats are shaky, the number of dead is more reliable than trying to count concussions and broken limbs.
Watts Riots, 1965: 34 dead (violence in Los Angeles)
Detroit Riots, 1967: 43
Rodney King, 1992: 63 (L.A. again)
BLM, 2020: 25 (combined, all over America)
....there is just no sign of left-wing violence rising in response to all these threats from the right. Most of those BLM marches happened after they'd been threatened with federal troops. Helicopters overhead. Marchers bloodied on TV. And, obviously, the Heather Heyer vehicular murder left 5 in critical condition, injured 35.
That's a lot of provocation for very little violence, and of course, the dead in 2020 were more often marchers than people assaulted by marchers.
I'd like to see the argument against the statement that the Left has done nothing but moderate since the Weathermen and Black Panthers. Black protests have never again gone the Black Panther route of armed Black men patrolling neighbourhoods. I can't remember the last left-wing bombing or shooting.
So, there's Justin, having to resort to the subjunctive: "IF the left feels" [they must], they MAY take...".
Call me when the first Lefty militia has formed, JL. The right has been forming them in numbers since, oh, about Gingrich.
I think that's all fair. I think there's a few dimensions to this: One being that 'left' (or at least anti-right) violence doesn't tend to look like right wing reactionary violence. Rather than violence against civilians or government institutions, it tends to be mass protest which *might* target property. In rare cases, it's violence against police/politicians. (2016 Dallas police shooting, 2017 Congressional baseball attack.) So it does happen.
There's no guarantee it will get worse, but I think there are plenty of indicators that it will — growing urgency amongst climate activists, e.g.
But all to say, yes, the right tends to be more prone to political violence. But it goes back to one of my axioms: Polarization manifests differently on different sides.
Thank-you; I was not thinking of lone-wolf violence when writing that; my mind's eye was on militias (def: *organization* for committing violent acts) and mass-actions like protests.
Of course, I also forgot antifa, but I'm unaware of any actual hospitalizations from them, much less murders. I don't think they've ever been more-armed than sticks? Or planned actions beyond showing up at other demonstrations.
You mercifully didn't open the can of worms as to whether all Islamic terror is left-wing by a right-wing definition: it's against imperialism. The American political left-wing was basically forced to sign off on the Iraq War so that they could disassociate themselves from terrorists. They were called "soft-on-communism" for decades, and knew they had to get way out ahead of the accusations of "soft-on-terror", "terrorist sympathizers", etc. Obama didn't close Guantanamo, it might have cost him ObamaCare.
For what it's worth, I think we can say that the current state of the far-right militia movement — that is, actual paramilitary groups with proper command structures — is probably less than it was in the 90s. Now we've got a lot of militia cosplaying.
And yeah, like I wrote, we also need to realize there's more than single axis. Yes there's left/right extremism, but also religious/environmental/animal welfare/etc extremism (which may or may not be left/right)
And if one of these sides has fascistic tendencies, look out. We've been taught to fear the wrong bogeyman since shortly after the Allies won the second world war.
We didn't defeat fascism....we sent it underground for a few decades. It's a mindset.
And hard to eradicate. Wilhelm Reich wrote a book about it, and I remember his claim that all you have to do to bring out the fascist is tighten the economic screws ever so slightly. We're hard wired to be fascists he claimed.
I hate to believe that..........but recent activity around the world has me worried. Because economically, given the degree to which we're in overshoot as a planet, it can only get worse.
I might venture to suggest that left-wing violence seems to manifest more in actions like doxxing, cancellations, riots and so on. No armies or deaths (?) involved, but a lot of damage done nevertheless. Having said that, those have become right-wing tactics as well these days.
As I understand the word "cancellation", it's the same as ancient ostracism, shunning, excommunication: nobody will work with you, buy from you. That's not violence.
"Doxxing" can be alarming, but only in the context where it might lead to violence, the victim must have concerns that there are left-wing attackers out there who will use the address, as "Gamergate" journalists were made to fear physical attack by multiple threats.
Letting a fascism-proponent's boss know that they have a fascism-proponent on the payroll is a sort of "doxxing", but not violent.
Okay, I guess we're in the realm of opinion now and I'll leave it there.
Not very different opinions, either. "Well, that's not reallllly violence, just alarming" is still highly reprehensible.
In due course.
I’m curious to know more about the “Political financing regimes that remove the power from... angry small donors would be good,”. What examples are there of this and how has it improved/curbed the rise of polarizing candidates or party platforms?
The simple answer is: Public financing of political parties. This actually used to be more-or-less the norm in the Western world. France and Germany give public subsidies to their parties. Canada used to, but killed it in the mid-00s — and I think you can actually trace the corrosive effect of relying on small-time donors. The U.S. is obviously a different beast altogether, but the Presidential election campaign fund checkoff — a subsidy Americans can opt into on their tax returns — used to be a version of that public subsidy, but has been more-or-less dead since ~2008.
So we have the mechanisms! We're just not using them.
Don't know that you're missing anything Justin.......but for me, polarization is also characterized by black/white thinking, and most recently I see it most clearly in some of the discussions about Ukraine.
Once we think we've found the villain, it almost seems as if we stop following the details of any situation...we've reached our 'conclusion' and what doesn't fit our conclusion becomes invisible, gets washed away, or is treated as if it never happened. I see that with America and NATO's role in the war.
People I respect act as if Iraq never happened....as if the Syria mess was something the west washed her hands of, as if foreign policy around the world is irrelevant.
So I'm coming to believe that in many issues that we face today, people don't have the time or the inclination to do their homework..........but are compelled somehow to 'take a side'.
To be honest, it scares me. Because the truth is all the problems we face as a planet are complex, dire and growing worse with every month we dither. But dithering is almost the only thing many people feel safe doing.......once the battle lines are drawn.
Polarization=Conflict=constant ideological bickering=Snailmate.
When the real emergency is the climate emergency and as far as I can tell, the Great Mother doesn't give a rat's ass about our certainties, our hatreds or our grievances. She wants a stable climate, and she's going to kick ass until she's got it, or everything falls apart as she reacts to our profligate consumption of hydrocarbons.
Everything else seems academic to me. But perhaps we could fight about that!
I do not suggest that your observations are uninteresting. Or that controversies in the United States are irrelevant to what goes on in Canada; since, of course, we share a news and information eco (echo?) system. Indeed, we are deluged by American news media and drowned in America popular culture. So, we cannot avoid the political and economic influences that slip over the boarder, like the illegal handguns that fuel gun-crime in our cities. And the fact is: there is much to be said for Pierre Trudeau’s “sleeping with an elephant” metaphor.
However, I would have welcomed your assessment of what this “polarization” means in the Canadian context - which, with respect (and because of its different history and constitutional arrangements), simply does not automatically mimic US political behaviour. And in the result, problems like racism, have a different texture in Canada, as Joseph Heath tried to do in this piece:
https://induecourse.utoronto.ca/against-the-racialization-of-everything/
Accordingly, I would have welcomed something more like that; and less like something that I can read in the Atlantic or in the New York Review of Books (that is, if I were interested in the role of yet another Kennedy in the goofy US electoral system).
So I hope that at some point, you have a follow up piece which adds that perspective.
Hey Richard, I'd say that this dispatch is really just an American-oriented riff on my report, which is specifically about the Canadian context of polarization! https://ppforum.ca/publications/polarization-democracy-canada/
PS: thanks for the link to your report, which I had not seen, and look forward to reading; because it is ostensibly precisely what I was looking for.
Let me know what you think!
The same trends are happening
across Europe, I think Canadian media have played down the risks to us. That it takes a slightly different flavourful is irrelevant
Great piece Justin. I would add that there is a growing responsibility for serious folks on both sides to do a better job of calling out their own side. Especially those who do that without selling out their own ideals. I think of the good folks at TheDispatch.com in the US, for example.
It's a good point. I've written about that here-and-there, but maybe this merits a whole meditation onto itself.
I would welcome that. And having done a bit of it on my side (with scars to show), happy to chat if that’s helpful.
"But polarization needs a way to resolve itself: It needs to enact change, spark a constructive debate, and propel a change in popular sentiment." I might add that it also needs to have some sort of end-point goal by which an issue is understood to be "solved". I think you may even have written somewhere that several good (and polarizing) movements today don't seem to realize they have accomplished what they originally set out to do, so they just keep moving the goal posts.
Another thought regarding the danger of polarizing, I would assume it makes it easier for interference from hostile governments to choose a side. Makes their targets easier to ferret out for their focus.
Now I better actually read Zimmer before I stick my foot in my mouth.
I don't disagree with Mr. Ryerson's observation., nor downplay the corrosive potential of these social trends. I merely observe that I would have preferred that the writer apply his analytical eye, at the situation here is Canada, which is not the same as that in the US; and I am a paid subscriber, precisely because I value Mr. Ling's views, as an independent journalist. Just as I do "Paul Wells" or the folks at "The Line" . In other words, I encourage and welcome his analysis of polarization, HERE, where citizens can do something about it, rather than in the US, where Canadian influence is minimal.
The problem is that the situation in America is vastly more entertaining (horror movies entertain, too) than Canada. Michael Adam's book on Trump frankly *proves* "it can't happen here", so they rarely mention that book, and do harp on how American poison tends to seep North, which is, alas, true.
Well, I can neither agree, nor disagree, without more delineation of what the "it" that "can't happen here" concretely refers to; for we are certainly seeing lots of American ideas permeate our social, political and (my own bailiwick) legal space and culture. No doubt fueled, in part, by the power of the internet. My recollection is that you are in Vancouver now, but (??) were in Alberta at one time (although perhaps I am wrong about that); and in any event, we can certainly see in western populism, and its political manifestations, strains of the American version. Although to be fair, the west has always spawned such politcal currents, be it the lore of social credit or the agrarian socialism of saskatchewan. Thanks for the book tip though.
Finally, as perhaps a counterfactual: I would never have predicted that in our stoutly British system of parliamentary government, anyone would be able to "sell" the kind of Americanized political transformation, wrought by the Charter, transferring such political power to an unelected judicial elite, whose handiwork routinely eclipses that of elected legislatures.
Who moderates? is very much the challenge when even a former GG is taken down. Finding common values still remains the best hope if we can stop "calling out" long enough.
Well I think the past few years has led to a real decentralization around who moderates. That, I think, is what has fed some of this breakdown in trust. But we're in a period of recalibration. I do think it'll get resolved, but we'll need to decide how fast that happens and what that new moderation looks like.
Just had a discussion with an academic about the divide on "parental rights " issues between religions. My thought is to use Indigenous processes, circle, listening, ritual and respect to allow discussion and learning vs yelling at each other.