The Horseshoe’s Penumbra

People who’ve read The Meaning Wars series might recall that in book 2, The Stolen: Two Short Stories, the novella “Wordthieves” depicts a society that has some of the trappings of leftist and liberal groups — meditation, organic food, yoga, vegetarianism, basic housing and healthcare — yet behaves like Christian extremists. To wit, they exert behavioural control over members, demand obedience and a lack of questioning,

Part of my goal with this was to vent frustration at the controlling behaviour and culture present in the Health Sciences faculty I was studying in, under a now (thankfully) deposed Department Head. The other purpose of the depiction was to criticize an unsettling behaviour I noticed — the way the trappings of the left and liberals (yoga, vegetarianism, Buddhist iconography, incense, crystals, etcetera) sometimes came with behaviour that matched oppressive philosophical standards from the right — name, Christian Evangelical-style refusal to countenance criticism. In other words, people could get real defensive about their spirituality and lifestyles, and be strangely hostile to science in ways that I normally encountered at the hands of casual Christian extremists (aka members of the Canadian Bible belt). I figured it was because changing one’s external beliefs doesn’t unteach the behavioural standards of the restrictive religious culture.

What’s the difference between a leftist and a liberal, anyway?

It would be easier to define this answer if it wasn’t for the vicious and contemptuous purity-testing present among segments of the left. The broad left is fractious, rowdy, and often disagrees with itself to the point of self-parody. Never mind extreme standards of orthodoxy; merely forging an orthodoxy from the heterodoxy can be difficult at best. Certain stances, like the idea of universal healthcare, education, childcare, and reproductive rights access are popular; however, the manner in which these things can be accomplished is often an issue of great debate. The uplifting of voices of marginalized groups is held as important; exactly who gets to speak when, and who is most correct or most important in a given circumstance, is often the kind of debate topic that ruins friendships. (This is not a joke; I’ve seen it happen, and it’s a lot less funny when it happens to you.)

Some seek to reference historical applications of the term. During the Cold War, being “liberal” and “conservative” meant supporting capitalism…