I've been meaning to make a post on the nature of what could be called the leftist hivemind for some time now, but I've never gotten around to it. Given my recent lull in posting, though (no doubt fueled by two to three months' worth of what have been, for me, outrageous levels of productivity), now's as good a time as any.
That practically every member of the left shares certain basic thought patterns that produce a relatively left-wing consensus with astonishing speed, I take as a given. Surely we can all recall how, within hours of Gabrielle Giffords' shooting, nearly every left-winger in America, without any evident coordination, all reached precisely the same conclusion: the right-wing Tea Party climate-of-hate was responsible. (That they then followed this up with bromides about the sheep-like disposition of right-wingers is, of course, such a flagrant perversion of all justice that it practically cannot be refuted). A few media pointers later, the demons were given physical form in the person of Sarah Palin and her map of U.S. House districts studded with bullseyes.
When shit happens, the left is always the first to go on the PR offensive. To some extent, I think, this involves a certain shamelessness: they don't care when they're wrong (they have been so very often) so they're not afraid about propagating whatever bullshit they can conjure up as soon as they're able to do it. But I think the hivemind is more important here. Leftists don't need leaders around whose words and opinions a consensus can gel; more often than not, the leftist leader merely parrots that consensus after the fact.
I'm not sure where this hivemind comes from. Perhaps there is something innate about the leftist, a very rigid and uncompromising pattern of thought paired with the conviction of superior reason that interacts with real-world events in specific ways to produce specific beliefs. What is clear, though, is that it is a very strong advantage for them. When crises unfold, there is no need for them to coordinate with one another to get on the same page; they've been on the same page for years. Where the right spins its wheels trying to come to an agreement, the left has already dominated the airwaves: fascists! bigots! murderers!.
I think a lot of this owes to the nature of leftism itself, the defining characteristic of which is its appeal to the common brotherhood of man qua man. It is thus coalitional in a way that conservatism isn't. The leftist who rejects all authority -- of government, of social expectations, of the market, of biological reality itself -- has nothing left with which to identify than with his beliefs, and thus with those who share them. He is therefore attuned to his ideological colleagues in a way that members of the right, who retain sentimental ties to and affections for their country, their employers, their families, and various local institutions, all of which color his manner of thinking, cannot be.
I'd go so far as to say that most of the left's political victories for the last several decades stem from the interaction of their hivemind with the ability to propagate their consensus to the rest of the country quickly, thanks to the advent of radio, TV, and the Internet. If I'm right, this means a very strong disadvantage for conservatives in the years ahead.
It also means one that will be rectified, at least in part, by the coming economic collapse.
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