I am ashamed to be (not) a leftist
Being left-wing used to be cool. People were against nuclear power and war, for the rights of the working class and against oppression and injustice. The worldview of us on the left was clearly structured and divided. On one side there were us who showed solidarity with the minorities and fought for justice and on the other side there were the philistines who had stolen their wealth through exploitation, corruption and lust for power. It was all so beautifully simple.
By Serdar Somuncu
By Serdar Somuncu
Today, being left requires the recognition of several beliefs at once. Leftists are vegan, they know more than two genders, they are for arms deliveries, pro-Ukraine and anti-Israel and have nothing else against exploitation as long as it is useful to you. For example, you can easily carry the symbol of prosperity as a smartphone in your pocket, leave pompous comments on social platforms and be a fan of some stupid influencer without being held liable in any way, let alone morally, for these contradictions and dubiousness must have remorse.
In contrast to us poor dreamers back then, the leftists of today are late pubescents who are spoiled by prosperity and who have never had to work for or fight for anything in their lives. Even as three-year-olds, they were pushed over the cobblestones of Prenzlauer Berg in a five-thousand-euro stroller and were pampered with spelled muffins and frozen yogurt until they found a new field for their rebellion. Namely their former ideals and role models, their parents and their anti-socialization. The neo-left of today defends itself against everything that it considers old-fashioned or outdated. Whether it's the usual cow's milk or a film in the arthouse cinema. Not only is he allergic to lactose and white flour, sugar and yeast, even though he smokes weed and does coke, but above all he is also intolerant of other views and resistant to better beliefs, whereas back then we were just stubborn and at most moderate.
Today's leftist would rather go to an electro concert with his buddies and celebrate the Marvel heroes of his youth as style icons of modern literature than worry about who is behind the ideas that he considers to be politically correct. He goes shopping in vegan organic markets and pays with his Applewatch, he drives an electric car and demonstrates against brown coal mining in Lützerath. He is a little bit of everything and nothing of most things. His profession is indignation, his hobbyhorse is hypocritical morality, his education is limited to foreign words that he inserts at random to conceal his alienation from the world, and his perception of right and wrong is always controlled by whether he is in a group of like-minded people who appreciate his lifestyle.
In all this artificial equilibrium, it is difficult to define oneself today as someone who is truly and credibly left-wing. So someone who stands up against xenophobia and anti-Semitism, against the power of capital and for the freedom of art. Being a leftist used to be a lot easier than it is now. Because being left-wing today is a mixture of aggro and arrogant. Nowadays, as a leftist, you don't even have to explain how to explain to others the contradictions that you take for granted.
Is it a new attitude to life, an insight, a development of the times, or am I just stuffy, old and too stupid? But then I would be on the right again. Although being legal is no longer as clear as it once was. Today, anyone who asks unpleasant questions that shouldn't be asked is considered right-wing. How can one defend Western values in the Donbass and the Hindu Kush and at the same time support a misogynistic terrorist regime like Hamas? How can you be against arms deliveries and demand heavy weapons for Ukraine? And why are you automatically a friend of Putin if you doubt or question things and even if you understand Russia, what would be bad or reprehensible about that? Are you too close to the right again? Paradox. Today, as an original leftist, you have to endure a lot and suppress a lot in order to fend off phrases that were once reserved for the Nazis and use them for your own benefit. "One will probably be allowed to say something against Israel" is much more common in the mouths of the left today than it was among the post-war Nazis and German nationalist philistines.
So it's a complicated environment in which you operate when you try to give yourself a political direction or represent your views these days. In any case, it is no longer a question of attitude as it used to be, but rather a question of survival in the maelstrom of the proportion of public opinion. It's about career, power and existence. Today, leftists are nothing other than employees of their beliefs who say and do as long as it brings them material benefit. They are vapid swearers whose only ambition is to multiply themselves sufficiently and act as if they have an ethos. Each of their actions shows that loyalty to reason is only worth something to them as long as it corresponds to the spirit of the times. Tomorrow the leftist can go astray again because he has looked for another field in which his loud gestures can be noticed. Anyone who opposes or criticizes will be destroyed. Because recently it is public tribunals that decide what can and cannot be said. And instances do not consist of professionals who deal with this all day long, but rather the Internet has created an army of amateur judges and prosecutors who presume to judge good and evil, right and wrong every day.
So in the end you are left exposed to yourself and your opinions and can only hope that one day even the oat milk drinking smoothie kidds will realize that they are more extreme than they perhaps never wanted to be.
04/29/24
©Serdar Somuncu
Current program "Seelenheil" now downloadable in Shop
*Serdar Somuncu is an actor and director
In contrast to us poor dreamers back then, the leftists of today are late pubescents who are spoiled by prosperity and who have never had to work for or fight for anything in their lives. Even as three-year-olds, they were pushed over the cobblestones of Prenzlauer Berg in a five-thousand-euro stroller and were pampered with spelled muffins and frozen yogurt until they found a new field for their rebellion. Namely their former ideals and role models, their parents and their anti-socialization. The neo-left of today defends itself against everything that it considers old-fashioned or outdated. Whether it's the usual cow's milk or a film in the arthouse cinema. Not only is he allergic to lactose and white flour, sugar and yeast, even though he smokes weed and does coke, but above all he is also intolerant of other views and resistant to better beliefs, whereas back then we were just stubborn and at most moderate.
Today's leftist would rather go to an electro concert with his buddies and celebrate the Marvel heroes of his youth as style icons of modern literature than worry about who is behind the ideas that he considers to be politically correct. He goes shopping in vegan organic markets and pays with his Applewatch, he drives an electric car and demonstrates against brown coal mining in Lützerath. He is a little bit of everything and nothing of most things. His profession is indignation, his hobbyhorse is hypocritical morality, his education is limited to foreign words that he inserts at random to conceal his alienation from the world, and his perception of right and wrong is always controlled by whether he is in a group of like-minded people who appreciate his lifestyle.
In all this artificial equilibrium, it is difficult to define oneself today as someone who is truly and credibly left-wing. So someone who stands up against xenophobia and anti-Semitism, against the power of capital and for the freedom of art. Being a leftist used to be a lot easier than it is now. Because being left-wing today is a mixture of aggro and arrogant. Nowadays, as a leftist, you don't even have to explain how to explain to others the contradictions that you take for granted.
Is it a new attitude to life, an insight, a development of the times, or am I just stuffy, old and too stupid? But then I would be on the right again. Although being legal is no longer as clear as it once was. Today, anyone who asks unpleasant questions that shouldn't be asked is considered right-wing. How can one defend Western values in the Donbass and the Hindu Kush and at the same time support a misogynistic terrorist regime like Hamas? How can you be against arms deliveries and demand heavy weapons for Ukraine? And why are you automatically a friend of Putin if you doubt or question things and even if you understand Russia, what would be bad or reprehensible about that? Are you too close to the right again? Paradox. Today, as an original leftist, you have to endure a lot and suppress a lot in order to fend off phrases that were once reserved for the Nazis and use them for your own benefit. "One will probably be allowed to say something against Israel" is much more common in the mouths of the left today than it was among the post-war Nazis and German nationalist philistines.
So it's a complicated environment in which you operate when you try to give yourself a political direction or represent your views these days. In any case, it is no longer a question of attitude as it used to be, but rather a question of survival in the maelstrom of the proportion of public opinion. It's about career, power and existence. Today, leftists are nothing other than employees of their beliefs who say and do as long as it brings them material benefit. They are vapid swearers whose only ambition is to multiply themselves sufficiently and act as if they have an ethos. Each of their actions shows that loyalty to reason is only worth something to them as long as it corresponds to the spirit of the times. Tomorrow the leftist can go astray again because he has looked for another field in which his loud gestures can be noticed. Anyone who opposes or criticizes will be destroyed. Because recently it is public tribunals that decide what can and cannot be said. And instances do not consist of professionals who deal with this all day long, but rather the Internet has created an army of amateur judges and prosecutors who presume to judge good and evil, right and wrong every day.
So in the end you are left exposed to yourself and your opinions and can only hope that one day even the oat milk drinking smoothie kidds will realize that they are more extreme than they perhaps never wanted to be.
04/29/24
©Serdar Somuncu
Current program "Seelenheil" now downloadable in Shop
*Serdar Somuncu is an actor and director
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