# What leftism is Across history, the minority strong have *always* ruled the majority weak. [Human nature](humanity-universals.md) dictates that we will [choose](decisions.md) to follow people more [powerful](power.md) than us. Rightism isn't an abstracted ideal, but leftism is. There are two reasons for this: 1. All right-wing thinking fits easily into existing [religions](religion.md) and [conservatism](politics-conservativeliberal.md). 2. Left-wing thinking requires a secular viewpoint to carry it out. While leftism started with some ideas from intellectuals like Plato and Thomas More, Karl Marx emphasized the idea that people would live in coexistence with each other if everyone were to abolish [private property](people-boundaries.md), and the Progressive Movement starting in the 1890s brought many new ideas about human nature against established centuries-old beliefs. In practice, though, leftism *always* has the same mechanism: 1. Establish a powerful minority as a [capitalizing](economics.md) force. Historically it was the [wealthy](classes.md), but it can just as much represent along [gender](gender.md), sexual orientation, racial, [educational](education.md), [health](body-4_health.md), [family structure](family.md), or anything else. 2. Blame many of the current issues on the excessive ownership by that powerful minority. 3. Make political moves to take away that minority's elevated status and give it to the oppressed majority. 4. If the minority opposes the action, incite the majority to suppress and [persecute](hardship-persecution.md) them. ## Public goods Unfortunately, Marx's assertion doesn't address the tragedy of the commons. If *everything* is publicly used, everyone can use it, but nobody wants to maintain it. The typical solution would be to then create [rules](people-rules.md) that mandate the upkeep of something. However, like any other rules, people can cheat at them. Plus, the enforcer of the rules will have an unequal power over the person using the thing. Making rules never gets anywhere with human [desire](purpose.md). When something becomes illegal, it becomes a black market. If private property is illegal, people will simply hide what they [feel](mind-feelings.md) is "theirs". The entire conflict of private property comes from where leftists believe [evil](morality-evil.md) comes from. The claim, generally, is that evil people in [power](power.md) are trying to control everything ("means of capital"), so they make structures like [religion](religion.md) and [corporations](groups-large.md) to keep people compliant with conventional concepts of [morality](morality.md). Leftists are mostly correct that most [social movements](trends.md) have been [power](power.md) games, and most of our [culture](people-culture.md) is defined by it. However, they don't often realize they're merely adhering to another religion that [subordinates](addiction.md) to a vision of the [State](groups-large.md) running everything, without any sort of greater [moral aspect](morality.md) to it. ## State-run The concept of a State that runs society requires believing that people can't run themselves. Thus, [specialized experts](jobs-specialization.md) can run their lives more productively and people will be happier and find [meaning](meaning.md) from their needs being met. This also applies to geopolitical events. Instead of permitting human nature to wrestle it out in a [free market](economics.md), the general approach instead is that [large groups](groups-large.md) can be run by administrators in other large groups. This presumption, however, implies all things can be [known](understanding.md). [Empirically](science.md), the more we know, the more we're [aware](awareness.md) of what we *don't* know. Thus, to have overseers directing people to performing specific tasks (which they may not want to do) is far less reliable than each person working their respective tasks while [competing](people-conflicts.md) against their peers for personal gain. ## Trust People aren't concerned with inequality, but are tremendously hypersensitive against cheaters, especially when the cheaters get away with it. Most leftist leaders [blame](image-distortion.md) their opponents in power for every social issue. Unlike religion, though, they don't tend to treat it as a general [human](humanity.md) [moral](morality.md) issue, but more an issue with [bad leadership](mgmt-badsystems.md) where they're the solution. They do this with many well-placed choices of [language](language.md) that separate people into various [classes](classes.md): - Systemic racism - Social justice - Inequality/equity - Intersectionality The promises from leftist leaders create an [image](image.md) of complete equality of [outcome](results.md). This contrasts strongly with the natural law view of humanity's inherent equality of [essence](humanity.md) because it requires *constant* redistribution of [power](power.md). ## Faith People must operate on a few [presumptions](understanding-certainty.md) to believe the promises of leftist thought leaders: 1. Humanity is inherently [good](morality.md). All [evil](morality-evil.md) is a product of victimhood. Evil [decisions](decisions.md) started with people oppressing other people innocently, and humanity can save itself without [inner transformation](people-changes.md). 2. There is no absolute [morality](morality.md) or [truth](reality.md). The State defines [justice](morality-justice.md), not [God](religion.md). 3. As a product of the non-absolute nature of humanity, human nature can be changed directly, with enough centralized control over the process. 4. Everyone is either a [victim](hardship-ptsd.md) in need of rescuing or an [oppressor](slavery.md) who must be stopped. Attacking the oppressor will [morally](morality.md) balance it. 5. Even with central [control](people-rules.md), free-market [economies](economics.md) don't work because people don't want the right things. They must be told or steered toward [desiring](purpose.md) the correct things. 6. Once the right leadership is in power, goodness will prevail. This sharply contrasts with *anything* the current leadership are [deciding](decisions.md) or [doing](results.md). The practical effect of leftism is that the government should receive [power](power.md) to give the better [results](results.md) of the stronger to the weaker. Thus, everyone will have the same things. Their reasoning is that ordered [justice](morality-justice.md) is more important than the chaotic nature of many opportunities, which is a product of disbelieving in [natural law](politics-conservativeliberal.md). Since [power](power.md) is how we accomplish *any* [purpose](purpose.md), governments should have some involvement with *everything* a person can [choose](decisions.md) to do. Naturally, many people in the [lower and lower-middle classes](classes.md) will find this attractive, but many various demographics will have reason to [imagine](imagination.md) they could profit from a leftist revolution: - People who never transitioned through a [rite of passage](maturity.md). Many of them imagine they'll be more [respected](image.md) in a societal upheaval. - Self-[identifying](identity.md) [victims](hardship-ptsd.md) who let their past's [injustices](morality-justice.md) define their [decisions](decisions.md). - People who want free stuff, but don't consider [where it comes from](results.md). - [Upper-class](classes.md) leaders who [run society poorly](mgmt-badsystems.md), but want to [appear](image.md) benevolent. By doing so, their [image](image.md) is [risk management](safety-riskmgmt.md) against people taking their stuff. - Anyone who hates [reality](reality.md) or [their place in it](image.md), doesn't [understand](understanding.md) how much worse things could be, or wants to see [large-scale](groups-large.md) political [change](trends.md) without regard to its [risks](safety.md). ## The system's failure The breakdown in this system involves the transactions. Every Marx-like revolution has resulted in taking things taken away from the upper class, but the system has always been [corrupt enough](mgmt-badsystems.md) that the poorest people never seem to get those things. Often, the class revolution destroys many aspects of civilization, including the core mechanics of the [family](people-family.md). Further, once the new government is in place, nobody [creates](creations.md) with the same [passion](mind-feelings.md) they had compared to before. Once self-interested purpose is completely removed, people would *theoretically* work harder out of [love](people-love.md) for other people, but that goes against [human nature](humanity-universals.md) to not have personal gain mixed into it somewhere. Thus, the government must force people to work harder, which over time creates a cycle within society that forces everyone into a form of [slavery](slavery.md). Leftist government models also tend to give at least some overseers a centralized and unchecked authority. As long as people are human, *every* individual has the potential to perform [evil](morality-evil.md), and there need to be ways to cycle them out (e.g., [war](people-conflicts-war.md) [elections](politics-systems.md)). [Historically](stories-storytellers.md), leftism hasn't had a [safe](safety.md) track record. In the past 150 years, more people have been killed for political reasons (including [religious](religion.md) persecution) in leftist countries than almost all other written history combined. Leftist thought leaders tend to refer to an ideal instead of historical basis, but the model consistently fails in practice, from the Mayflower Pact onward. Most leftist apologists state that it's a working system that simply needs more re-engineering. However, most efforts to adapt leftism [distort its image](image-distortion.md) more than changing its [model](logic.md). Thus, it stays the same even as it keeps [renaming](language.md) and [re-branding](marketing.md). ## Rebranding leftism The leftist [narrative](stories.md) has expanded itself in recent history. Instead of merely calling low-income people the "oppressed", it has [classified](classes.md) society in other directions. The most prominent form of classification comes through [identity](identity.md) politics. Instead of grouping people by their financial "oppressor" status (i.e., poor proletariat vs. wealthy bourgeois), every person is demarcated by additional oppressive states of existence: - Race - Whites are the oppressor class of every other race, especially dark skin, with an occasional Asian demarcation included as part of the ruling class. - [Gender](gender.md) - males dominate females. - Sexual orientation - Heterosexuals dominate homosexuals, transgender, etc. - [Ethnicity](people-culture.md) - Western European/American culture dominates all other cultures. - Ability - the fully able-bodied oppress the disabled. - Mental state - Neurotypical people oppress the neurodivergent. - Nationality - fully naturalized citizens oppress foreigners. - Housing - property owners oppress renters and the homeless. - Metabolism - slim people oppress average and fat people. In practice, this means that the greatest authority on just about any subject is a Black, Native-American Muslim Palestinian [transgender](gender.md) who was a refugee from Israel, of African colonial descent. Their ancestors were slaves, they were raised in the ghetto, [formerly incarcerated](hardship-incarceration.md), with [ASD](https://books2read.com/autism/) and recurring [PTSD](hardship-ptsd.md), [anxiety](mind-feelings-fear.md) issues, [substance addiction](addiction.md), [morbidly obese](body-2_diet.md), and vegan. They had an alcoholic [mother and no father](people-family.md), never finished high school, and have never had a [job](jobs-1_why.md). By stating someone is born into a lesser class, everyone is a personalized [victim](hardship-ptsd.md) in need of rescuing that nobody can legitimately [understand](understanding.md). However, they tend to dismiss [how much we all have in common](humanity-universals.md) and are *insanely* prejudiced against the alleged oppressor class (i.e., heterosexual white neurotypical males within identity politics). Under identity politics, the claim is that a specific person is more fit to lead *only* by virtue of their race, gender, ethnicity, or whatever. It doesn't consider other elements like aptitude, [experience](results.md), or [wisdom](understanding.md). In effect, it's [bigoted favoritism](image.md). Often, their claims of divisions are poorly placed. Racism and gender, for example, hasn't *ever* had as much impact on demarcating [groups](groups-large.md) and [social trends](trends.md) as [ethnic](people-culture.md) discrimination. The concept of "diversity" mixes into the identity politics debate. But, they tend to mean diversity of background more than modes of thought. Having *both* diversity of thought *and* culture is absurdly difficult because long-standing [cultures](people-culture.md) tend to publicly [assault](morality-taboo.md) thoughts that extend beyond a certain difference from them. Take the most ethnically diverse group of people, put them together, and within months they'll form a culture that can easily eject ideas that "diverse" group doesn't like. The ideal domain is a diversity of thought, which requires constant organizational change, but it would mean an organization that also questions the shortcomings of leftist ideals as well. ## The climate cult Another topic the left has adopted is the [story](stories.md) that humanity is destroying nature ("ecocide"). The claim has moved around, but the general idea is that human-produced carbon emissions cause [instability](politics-leftism-sustainability.md) in the climate, which can cause extreme weather conditions. There are a few realities (mostly [scientifically](science.md) proven) that conflict with the climate apocalypse story: - [Nature](reality.md) has *many* self-correcting systems built into it that offset [technological](technology.md) waste (e.g., radiation/oil-eating bacteria, increased plant populations in high-carbon areas). - Water and every aspect of it (e.g., river/lake depths, cloud formation, ocean salinity) has a *much* more direct connection to climate systems than carbon. - Many of the things regarded as "bad" (e.g., plastic) are naturally occurring substances that don't necessarily create adverse conditions for the environment, contrary to the [image](image.md) most environmentalists like to advance. - If [God](religion.md) exists and this planet matters to him/her/it in the slightest, then this world is safely managed even if we can't see it. If macroevolution is true, anything we destroy or subdue is simply the survival of the fittest (with us being the fittest). If neither are true, then we have no cosmology and should therefore stop bothering with sweeping political concepts. - Humanity itself finds [creative](mind-creativity.md) ways to adapt, even when established [civilizations](people-culture.md) collapse from a climate change (e.g., a river that served as a major trade route for a capital city drying up). However, leftists can still politicize the weather because people are [afraid](mind-feelings-fear.md) of [uncertainties](unknown.md) about [what really runs the universe](religion.md): - The risks of climate change shift with [political](politics-conservativeliberal.md) fashions. It's sometimes global warming (especially in the summer), and other times global cooling (especially in the winter), and usually stays vague while implying it's a political opponent's fault. - They claim that our water supply is diminishing. In reality, we have [technology](technology.md) to desalinate any water we need if our water supply became [scarce](economics.md) enough. - They've claimed that man-made [industrialization](jobs-specialization.md) is causing the environment to permanently get cooler or hotter beyond normal cycles. However, a large volcano causes more emissions in a few hours than 100 years of industrialization, and stopping the industry (such as COVID-19) brings everything back within months. - One of the most common claims connected to climate change is that our population on this planet can grow to the point of taking all the planet's resources. Their call is often to depopulate or curtail the population, but [technology](technology.md) has always solved problems as they've arisen, and [generational cultures](people-culture.md) have a natural disposition to slow down on reproducing (i.e., having only 1-3 [children](people-family.md)) when the population reaches a certain density. The climate change story is ubiquitous for a simple, broader reason. We're highly capable at [predicting](imagination.md) future problems, but terrible at predicting solutions to those problems. Plus, we [feel](mind-feelings.md) more inclined to [believe](understanding-certainty.md) things we have [control](results.md) over can [address our issues](purpose.md) better. The cure for any potential forthcoming climate catastrophe is more abstract: give more [education](understanding.md) to more people for them to invent better technology. This requires more free [information](information.md), not fewer people, with government grants oriented toward performance. [Sustainability](politics-leftism-sustainability.md) is difficult to measure, so it quickly creates a [bureaucratic mess](mgmt-badsystems.md). The solutions proposed by leftist leaders are complete [misdirections](image-distortion.md). Extended surveillance, shrinking families, abortions, genocide, or any other form of population control almost always veers dangerously close to [evil](morality-evil.md) or, at the very least, making the [lower classes](classes.md) [angry](mind-feelings-anger.md) at their suppressed [freedoms](people-boundaries.md). While most leftists don't realize it, the leadership of the far left heavily endorses climate change because it's a [creative](mind-creativity.md) method to gain more [power](power.md). By closely tracking someone's "carbon footprint", they can see exactly where someone goes, what they [do](results.md), who they [interact with](people-conversation.md), and often [deduce](logic.md) with somewhat reliable accuracy what they're [thinking](understanding.md). ## Language Many leftist leaders adapt [language](language.md) to [fit their purposes](image-distortion.md): - "Economic inequality" can refer to "reducing poverty" or "getting rid of rich people". - "Climate change" can refer to either "man-made climate change", "man-made, adverse climate change", or "all climate change", depending on the circumstances. Typically, the Left uses [shame](image.md) to advance their [choice](decisions.md) of words. Sometimes, if they lose an election in their favor and have enough public support, they protest and break things. Now, with [technology](technology.md), the Left has the [power](power.md) to direct [conversations](people-conversation.md) with [social](people-friends.md) [media](creations.md). While *any* [large group](groups-large.md) with a [dysfunctional desire](mgmt-badsystems.md) can control conversations, leftism has been successfully [doing it](results.md) for decades. * * * * * ## Application Leftward thinking frequently leads to disasters. For the sake of the Party, people will use [vulgarities](language.md) and [violence](people-conflicts-war.md). [Mentally unwell](hardship-ptsd.md) people will destroy [beautiful](values-quality.md) things, [technology](technology.md), and priceless [creations](creations.md). It's all [justified](understanding.md) in their mind for what they [perceive](image.md) as a greater good. Attacking someone because they attacked you is two wrong actions, or at the very best one wrong action and a retaliation. Nothing [good](morality.md) comes of it, but the scope of the actions can destroy quite a lot. However, the Left frequently uses evil-for-evil to [justify](logic.md) a political revolution. A leftist requires more [faith](understanding-certainty.md) in the [government](groups-large.md) than their individual [perceptions](image.md), [strength](results.md), or [common sense](understanding.md). For that reason, successful people never sincerely believe in leftism (even if they [say they do](image.md)) because it requires [confronting and overcoming personal challenges](success-1_why.md). A [perfect society](politics-perfectsociety.md) has the [claimed](image.md) actions of leftism, but is driven by [love](people-love.md). Without that love, any leftward government is a totalitarian dictatorship under another name. Leftism is an inherently political religion, and absolutely everything connected to [the human experience](humanity-universals.md) can be affected by it. Since it [challenges](conflicts-inner.md) [viewpoints](image.md), diversity of thought requires *frequent* discomfort from everyone involved. It's necessary for [the good life](goodlife.md) and would be ubiquitous in a [perfect society](politics-perfectsociety.md), but leftism shuns it. The Left constantly redefines itself. The only time it ever succeeds is when people aren't [educated](understanding.md) about its history or methods. By principle of leftism's ideal, left-leaning people tend to hate a few things: - [Self-ownership](success-1_why.md) - anyone who asserts their separate wills isn't complying with leftism's mandatory [collectivist culture](people-culture.md). - [Competition](people-conflicts.md) - even though human [purpose](purpose.md) is driven by *many* [inner conflicts](conflicts-inner.md), leftism claims external conflicts are generally bad. - Civility - leftism indirectly opposes [cultural](people-culture.md) traditions because they value something as more important than the [State's](groups-large.md) [directives](people-rules.md). - [Devoted](understanding-certainty.md) work - working for an [unseen](imagination.md) internal [purpose](purpose.md) often defies the State's efforts to [define](people-rules.md) individuals' purposes. Many people may feel guilt from past sins, but the Left tries to shame people against [decisions](decisions.md) on that premise. [Morality](morality.md) aside, it's unreliable to [lead](groups-small.md) *anyone* that way, since they'll defy orders if they ever have [convictions](understanding-certainty.md) that aren't directed to the Party. At its farthest, leftism is a [cult](culture-cults.md), even though it does a great job [marketing](marketing.md) itself as a [moral](morality.md) movement. DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and ESG (environmental, sustainability, and governance) are [managerial-class](groups-large.md) implementations of leftist ideologies. Many of them involve keeping a score that defines how leftward a person is inclined to act, and rewarding people toward that end. The religious nature of neo-Marxism slowly shifts it to a form of neo-paganism. With [futurism](https://trendless.tech/trends/) involved, it may include [AI](computers-ai.md) worship.