As a straight, white, middle-aged man, I've found it very difficult to find a comfortable place amongst the Left. At any moment I feel as if I could be marginalized at a moment's notice for infractions as minor as not remembering pronouns, not fully supporting every aspect of LGBTQ identity, daring to be attracted to sexy women in violation of body positivity efforts and anti-misogyny mandates; basically not toeing the line on whatever dogma each and every subgroup demands of me. What's more, it's almost heresy to raise objections to the status quo because so many people are so short-sighted that they can't fathom being out of step with a reasonable view of reality. And what's unreasonable is to expect everyone to know and adhere to every little rule so-called Progressive Ideology demands. It's taking away from the pool of energy needed to get progressive policies implemented to that we can all breath a little easier. Don't get me wrong, I love being woke but I don't want to be so awake that I get socio-political insomnia.
What the Left needs is two-fold; one, to move away from dogmatism and embrace as its core a robust (ego free) Humanist ideology that most can get behind, as a firm counter to the barbaric inhumanity on the Right. Two, it needs to get more behind honest union organizing efforts, but not as an end unto itself. It needs to be a means to an end, where the ultimate goal is a concrete worker's bill of rights, broadly applicable to many industries, and so robust that vomit stains like Bezos can't work around them to screw over the little guys.
Sure, I may never get the pronoun game right, but my Humanist values firmly inform that the middle third of the gender spectrum is just as human as the outer two thirds. Yes, I may enjoy sexy comic book covers, but my sense of wisdom informs me that reality matters and that it is important to make distictions between reality and fantasy, so as to stay aware of the impossibility of average women achieving the absurdly inflated sexual 'ideals' we have before us today. And even though I feel we need to stop approaching the issues facing the LGBTQ set in collective, and focus more on the individual challenges of each subgroup, because it's clear to me that some suffer more than others, it doesn't mean I want to neglect anyone's basic humanity. I just want a better world, but I want it to be governed by wisdom and realistic expectations. And even though we are a cut above the Right in terms of wisdom and reasonableness, we could still stand some improvements.
