How do you know when you’ve won an argument with a leftist? If it’s online, they block you; if it’s in the real world, they’ll stop talking to you. Probably forever. In between, there’ll be a whole of screaming about “phobia”, “racism”, “fascism” and “Nazis”.
And, in a stunning display of un-self-awareness, the leftist will talk up a storm about your supposed “fragility” (especially if you’re white).
Progressive Fragility is on full display when those holding Left-leaning values opt to shut themselves off from different viewpoints in echo chambers of their own making. This trend makes progressives dumber since they are rarely exposed to strong formulations of arguments outside their current belief structures and results in an increasingly on edge society where everyone is walking on eggshells to accommodate the fragility of the progressive wing.
What’s been particularly notable over the last decade or so is how those of us who once considered ourselves to the left of centre are, without radically changing what we actually believe, stridently screamed at that we are now “far-right”.
Elon Musk shared the above visual as representative of his political journey and many can relate. Even if one wants to dispute the accuracy of the visual itself, there’s little room for doubt the Left, especially its progressive wing has grown increasingly intolerant of different viewpoints.
Don’t just take a funny meme’s word for it, though. No less than the furiously progressive Bible The Economist has published a handy graph, based on Pew Research data, that validates Musk’s meme.
The above graph from The Economist indicates the median Democrat has shifted further left on issues than the median Republican has shifted right on issues; this data was sourced by findings from the Pew Research Center. That explains one part of the graphic Musk shared: the Left shifting further left to the point the entire spectrum moves so the one-time moderate is now considered Right-wing. The next part of the graphic is the ostracism from the Left-winger […]
Republicans are more willing to maintain friendships regardless of political differences compared to Democrats. This reflects the secondary claim that the Left has grown intolerant of belief structures that diverge from their own and why the Left is often mocked as promoting every type of diversity except diversity of thought. Leaked clips of Twitter employees confirm intolerance from the Left results in increased censorship of Right viewpoints on the site which Tim Pool paraphrased as: “Because conservatives tolerate leftist speech and leftist won’t tolerate the right, Twitter opts to censor the right as balance.”
Because leftists are so averse to different viewpoints, when it comes to employment, leftists will only hire fellow leftists, while the right are far more equal-opportunity. That intolerance has a self-reinforcing feedback effect: over time, companies and academic faculties become more and more completely dominated by the left.
It also explains the steady drift towards censorship.
Even if it’s a slight edge, Twitter opting to favor the pro-censorship side will result in slow steady removal of Right-leaning content on the site until there are only Left-leaning viewpoints available.
This doesn’t just harm the right, it equally harms the left. As J S Mill said nearly 200 years ago, silencing a dissenting opinion robs even those who silence it. “If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
Iron sharpens iron and when Twitter promotes censorship it directly contributes to the intellectual degradation of the Left.
The Rabbit Hole
In other words, if you’re wondering why the left believes obviously ludicrous things, such as that a man can become a woman, or that “Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian disinformation”, it’s because they literally do not know any better.
Accommodating leftist fragility is only making them stupider than ever.
Which, come to think of it, might well be exactly what their masters want.
