7 thoughts for a new radicalism

It’s time to move radicalism beyond the old, deadening left-right spectrum. If you’re on the left, you’re not radical. You’re as trapped in the old spectrum as the right. Here are my thoughts for a new radicalism, one that I hope disregards all current allegiances.

1. Favor every form of “cultural appropriation” in every direction. Carry the integrationist torch to an extreme that would appall today’s progressives and conservatives equally. Bust open the cultural lockboxes and play with each other’s stuff, continually wear the other’s shoes – black, white, female, male, every ethnicity and sexual orientation – incorporate, collaborate, and share a laugh when cultural cross-pollination becomes clumsy, as it often will. Distrust any form of liberalism or conservatism that says we need to respect walls of separation. Better to throw open all the doors and windows than to build barricades around your turf.
2. Never dissuade artists from representing characters and events outside of their own demographic. When creatively identifying with people from other races, genders, etc., becomes the #1 cultural sin, we have pretty much lost everything the Civil Rights movement fought for. Celebrate each other in every direction. Never stay in your lane.
3. Go with Obama on free speech: “I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect.” This doesn’t mean infinitely free. Harassment laws have a place. But be prepared to engage dissent, not stifle it. As genetic variation pushes the species forward biologically, multiple voices at the table push us forward socially and culturally. Try to find the good in those with whom you disagree.
4. Recognize continuing inequalities, racial and otherwise, and join hands across demographic lines to fix them, without regard to whether the hand in yours is white, black, or other, and whether that means flaws to be noted or sins to be expiated. Just join hands and cherish each other. Just say no to those who would play the old shame and division game.
5. Take care of the environment. This is not a partisan issue.
6. Forget everything you learned about politics, especially if you went to college. Throw it off like the dead snakeskin it is. Start over by engaging your neighbors near and far with the only tools left after those preconceptions are tossed – heart and imagination.
7. Remember our shared humanness. We are all on spaceship Earth together and will flourish or crash together.

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Never trust any ideology that …

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that emphasizes division between races rather than our shared humanness.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that uses shared humanness to avoid viewing and fixing racial inequality.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that encourages us to visualize and bring out the bad in each other rather than the good in each other.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that encourages you to prejudge anyone of any color by their race.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that says we should respect walls of separation between races.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that ignores the human consequences of wealth inequality and environmental destruction.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that ignores the human consequences of unequal access to education, health care, and natural resources.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that says that we cannot fully identify with all our fellow human beings because some stupidly reified concept of race prevents it.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that says we cannot creatively identify with people from other demographics in our artistic expressions. When putting oneself in the shoes of other races and demographics becomes the #1 cultural sin, we have pretty much lost everything the Civil Rights movement fought for.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that suggests we should not celebrate cultural cross-pollination in every direction, continually playing with each other’s cultural stuff, continually wearing the other’s shoes – black, white, female, male, every ethnicity and sexual orientation – incorporating, collaborating, and sharing a laugh when the cross-pollination becomes clumsy, as it often will. Better to throw open all the doors and windows than to build walls around your turf.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that vilifies one race or demographic to elevate another.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that says only people who “look like me” can relate to my struggles.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that does not inspire you to celebrate our differences without denying our shared humanness.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that does not welcome different and dissenting opinions to the table.

Never trust any ideology, left or right, that obscures the fact that we are all on the same spaceship Earth with limited time and a shared fate; whatever our surface differences, we will sink or swim together as the mothership flourishes or founders.

Never trust any ideology. Turn off the news and love your neighbor.

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