[morgante]

That goes entirely too far. There is certainly a subset of "leftist" thought which is about searching for offense, but you shouldn't paint the whole progressive left with that stroke.

Plenty of progressive movements (including the original Progressive Era) did not make racial causes central or important.

[jmorphy88]

In regards to historical progressivist movements, I agree with you. I was referring only to the current progressive dispensation. Perhaps I'm not using the correct term for it... whatever you want to call the dominant American university ideology of today.

I do think it's appropriate to think of this ideology primarily in racial terms. Virtually any issue supported by the left today is, in its essence, about stripping white people of power, identity, and autonomy, and giving that power to other groups.

Diversity, equality, multiculturalism, globalism, "one-world"-ism, pro-mass-immigration, all of these terms mean "not white". It's perfectly easy to see that, because all "white" cultures are treated differently in this paradigm, as "oppressor", "colonialist" nations/peoples, "majority/minority", "privileged", etc. These terms don't apply to other groups.

The amorphousness and formlessness of this ideology and its lack of coherent theoretical basis (as opposed to something more rigidly principled like Marxism, libertarianism, etc) is what provides cover for its true aim, which is political power for its adherents.

[dragonwriter]

> Perhaps I'm not using the correct term for it... whatever you want to call the dominant American university ideology of today.

I don't think that the ideology people complain about actually exists; I think its a mélange of different things that the objecting parties don't like, that are held by different people, and not subscribed to as a whole by any coherent group.

> I do think it's appropriate to think of this ideology primarily in racial terms.

I think that's more telling about you than any coherent ideology.

> Virtually any issue supported by the left today is, in its essence, about stripping white people of power, identity, and autonomy, and giving that power to other groups.

Equal pay for women (and women's issues generally)? Raising the minimum wage (and economic justice issues generally)? Voting rights (and political reform generally)? LGBTQ rights and related issues?

If all you see of the left is racial issues, that's says a lot -- but more about how you look at the world, than about the left that actually exists.

> The amorphousness and formlessness of this ideology and its lack of coherent theoretical basis

...is a product of the fact that you are creating something out of things you don't like, and pretending its a single ideology. There's lots of different ideologies, many of which are rigidly principled, but "the Left" (like "the Right") is a big umbrella under which there exists lots of ideologies with a certain degree of commonality, not a single ideology.

[AnimalMuppet]

> The amorphousness and formlessness of this ideology and its lack of coherent theoretical basis (as opposed to something more rigidly principled like Marxism, libertarianism, etc) is what provides cover for its true aim, which is political power for its adherents.

But see, their ideology is postmodernism, which teaches that all truth claims are not really true in any universal sense, but are only valid within certain sociological groups. It also teaches that all speech is about power, and only that. So they are in fact acting consistently with their ideology.

It certainly is amorphous and formless, and lacks a coherent theoretical basis, though, I'll give you that.