Eyre Lines

Over the last couple of months, I’ve seen a lot of very favourable words written by left-leaning sources firstly about Pope Francis and then about Bernie Sanders, followed by some push-back from people who don’t think they measure up to the ideal of a leftist which the commentators would like. I grant that in neither case is that criticism anything like notable compared with the howls of conservative anger, but it is definitely there

Francis, for instance, is criticised for not pushing the church in the direction of equality for women, abortion or homosexuality.  I have no idea whether he would want to, and frankly that doesn’t matter to me; the fact is that he is saying some things about poverty, climate change and global capitalism which I think are thoroughly in accordance with the teachings of both Jesus and his sainted namesake. Even if he wanted to move towards a more liberal position on sexual equality or abortion, he has stirred up quite enough controversy in the traditionally very conservative halls of the Vatican already, and to stir up more would be distinctly a bridge too far.

Bernie Sanders has similarly received criticism for not being left wing enough. (Yes, for my US readers, Sanders is in fact not very left wing at all by international standards). He’s not, apparently, sufficiently loudly in favour of black Americans, nor is he a wholly believable anti-Zionist. (Actually, I think he’s adequately to the left on those issues, just not rabidly so). Apparently, in order for “liberals” to support him, he needs to tick every possible liberal-progressive-radical box, just as does Francis. (Incidentally, I’m using “liberals” in the US sense there – “liberals” in the UK are centrists, often with a somewhat anti-big-government tinge to them).

I really have no time for this “bounded set” thinking, where unless you tick every box, you’re not “one of us”. I far prefer the idea of a centred set, where there are one or several markers, and anyone who is moving toward any of them is a member, even if they may be slightly further from the absolute centre on other points. The left should thank it’s lucky stars that they have in Francis and Sanders two people who are moving closer to their ideal location than has been seen in either of their institutions in generations. If the left regards itself as a tribe with rigidly defined boundaries as to who is out and who is in, they will never succeed; if they regard themselves as following general directions, they will find a lot of people walking in the same direction.

I say that as someone who by US standards is definitely well to the left myself – though in UK terms, I’ve been a centrist since my teenage years, although the centre of gravity of UK politics has moved a long way right over that time and I haven’t.

My irritation here is not by any means confined to the left, however. The right, and particularly the religious right, also do it and have been doing it for a long time. I spare some thoughts of sympathy for the Reverend Rob Schenck, whose credentials as a conservative evangelical are stellar, and with whom I disagree on almost every subject. Rev. Schenck has recently taken the entirely logical step of deciding that if he is against abortion in any form due to a high view of the sanctity of life, he must therefore also be in favour of gun control. Many of the conservative evangelical tribe are busily disowning him. Apparently in order to be a conservative Christian in the States, you also need to be in favour of unrestricted ownership of deadly weapons, and he is not any more.

There is absolutely no danger that the progressive left tribe are going to take him to their bosoms and welcome him into the fold of true believers, as this is only one of the many markers he would need to adopt, so he is left in the uncomfortable position of being in the middle.

Uncomfortable, that is, only if you feel the need to belong to one of the two tribes (both of which would prefer to see everyone as one or the other). Actually, just like Francis and Sanders, Schenck is in the position of most of us, not agreeing with everything which either extreme puts forward.

Welcome to post-tribal humanity, where you can (and should) look critically at all the sacred cows of both left and right!