Creating Through the Crisis #14

This week, I’ve been thinking about left political sensibility…and about how I’m worried that mine is not the best suited for the era that we’re entering.

I’m not a big believer in generational explanations for political things. Sure, your age, or your life stage, or the fact that you’re a Boomer or a Millenial or whatever might have some relevance to some things. But mostly, I don’t think those things have much explanatory power outside of very specific circumstances.

But I do think that there is some truth to the idea that for those of us on the left, some of the political sensibility that we carry with us through our lives is irrevocably shaped by the moment in which we were first politicized. I, for example, was politicized in the mid and late 1990s. It was a time after the end of the Soviet Union, when neoliberalism and unchallenged US power were at their peak, when movements against right-wing policies and governments were plentiful and rowdy (at least here in Ontario), and when the global justice movement became the defining grassroots current, at least in the Global North.

I’ve also had the pleasure, in my work, of interviewing people who were first politicized basically in every decade from the 1920s up to today. And, of course, being politicized in a left way in a given era can look very, very different depending on who you are, on where you are, on what kinds of groups you were part of, and so on. But, still, it’s pretty common, in my experience, to talk or work with someone, and to just be able to feel that, oh, yeah, this person came up in the ‘60s or this person came up in the ‘80s or whatever.

I’ve been thinking about this because it kind of feels like we’re entering a new era, politically. I mean, who knows, it’s silly to make grand proclamations like that when you’re in the middle of it. But, still, I think if you look at the rise of the far right, at the increasingly multipolar character of the world, at what the genocide in Palestine has done to the international system, and at the very aggressive steps the new Trump regime is taking to shift in some respects from liberal modes of domination at home and abroad to more directly reactionary ones…well, it just feels very different from the unbridled confidence of the unipolar neoliberal order that ruled in the 1990s. And I’m very aware of having moments where I react to something in a certain way, and then I realize, oh, wait, that’s based in gut-level common sense formed in a world that no longer exists. And I worry a little bit about navigating what’s to come.

Except, I don’t actually worry that much. There are certainly people that I’ve interviewed or that I’ve worked with who give the impression of being stuck in the sensibility and the priorities and the debates that initially politically shaped them, and disconnected from what is urgently happening now. But I’ve also interviewed and worked with plenty who are inspiring in their ability to keep listening, to keep learning, and to certainly bring with them their experience of earlier decades but also to engage the current moment with a radical openness and curiosity. I hope I can do that, as this frightening new era unfolds.

(Not that anyone is reading these, but, still, sorry for posting this a day late. I totally could’ve put it up yesterday, but I forgot!)