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Can the Left Disagree Without Being Disagreeable?
Prashad, Vijay
http://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/20/can-the-left-disagree-without-being-disagreeable/Date Written: 2022-12-20 Publisher: CounterPunch Year Published: 2022 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX24785 Addresses the lack of nuance amongst the Left and calls for more meaningful dialogue. Abstract: - Excerpt: Second, the picture was interpreted as a sign that I am a full-scale supporter of the government in China and all its policies. To be sure, I am impressed by the Chinese government’s many policies, such as the way it handled the pandemic, the way it has eradicated absolute poverty, and the way it has managed the social development of the population. If you compare China with India, you will have no problem seeing the impressive developments in the former. There is a noxious way in which Western media claims about China are taken as completely correct, and then these claims – often exaggerated – are put before one as a litmus test: what do you think about this or that policy of the Chinese government, and based on one’s answer, one is measured for ones correct leftism. What is your view on Xinxiang? What is your view on Hong Kong? What is your view on Taiwan? I have never been interested in these kinds of litmus tests. I am interested in discussion and debate, not in treating left discourse as a multiple-choice exam where there is only one correct answer to every question. History is a bundle of contradictions; social policy is fraught with difficult choices: to believe that history is a sequence of questions with one pure answer is erroneous and it creates a fratricidal culture in the left. We need to be far more generous with each other, able to hold conversations without resort to insults and abuses. Out of disagreement comes understanding. But out of malicious slander only comes disorientation. Subject Headings |