Posted on 01/27/2026 9:14:47 AM PST by algore
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM
Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.
But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist.
When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct" types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like.
But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist.
What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by "leftism" will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)
Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn't seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism.
We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th century.
The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call "feelings of inferiority" and "oversocialization."
Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.
FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY
By "feelings of inferiority" we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.
When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem.
This tendency is pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities. The terms "negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or "chick" for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation.
"Broad" and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents of "guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word "pet" and insist on its replacement by "animal companion."
Leftist anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate." They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own.
(We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftist anthropologists.)
Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society.
Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-class families.
Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior.
The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).
Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.
Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives.
They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization.
Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.
Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative", "enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs.
The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.
Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.
Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined
But it is obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs.
For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior).
The leftist's feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests.
Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is "inferior" it is not his fault, but society's, because he has not been brought up properly.
The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior.
But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.
Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism.
Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms?
Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal.
Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.
If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.
We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.
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The link doesn’t work. Can you repost it?
A study of the article's sentence construction yields that obvious conclusion.
The “Unabomber!”
tldr. AI....
Modern leftism reflects deeper psychological traits rather than just ideology.
Historically tied to socialism, it now includes feminists, activists, and politically correct groups.
Two main psychological drivers: feelings of inferiority and oversocialization.
Feelings of inferiority include low self-esteem, guilt, and hypersensitivity to perceived slights.
Activists often project their feelings onto causes representing “weak” or “oppressed” groups.
Leftists reject ideas of strength, success, or hierarchy, associating them with oppression.
They favor collectivism over individuality to find strength through group identity.
Hostility, moral zeal, and power-seeking often outweigh genuine compassion in activism.
The Unabomber? Fascinating.
Yes.
Was the author the unibonber?
Authoritarians and Useful Idiots
“Feelings of inferiority”? If so, they do a good job of hiding it. Leftists I’ve known are arrogant, extremely confident of their rightness, and pushy.
The article is bull shit. The real sad truth is that Godlessness leads to a persons thought processes being influenced by the evil in this world. Once their feeble minds are convinced that they are on the “right” side, the ends justifies any means.
yep, he lived in a cabin across the dirt road from one of my friends mothers in Montana.
She used to drive him into town to mail letters and get groceries.
Leftism is just narcissism, scaled up to cultural level.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of politically correct "conservative" Republicans out there who reject the notion of IQ heritability and IQ differences between racial/ethnic groups as vociferously as any liberal.
The Unabomber was a nutcase, but his grasp of "progressive" psychology was exactly on the mark. Of course, much of what he wrote was a rewrite of Nietzsche's diagnosis of 19th century radicalism (Marxists, anarchists) in Beyond Good and Evil as being driven by resentment of the weak and incompetent of the strong and successful.
Real leftists are socialists or communists.
What is in this article is a bunch of balderdash!
Ideologues who call themselves “leftists” but are not real socialists or communists are balderdash, too. They should get a life!
Stages of a color revolution...
Portray the target government as illegitimate, authoritarian, corrupt, or “fascist.”
Front-load allegations: accuse incumbent of planning the crimes the opposition intends to commit (rigging, regression, dictatorship).
Fund and train NGOs, student groups, and opposition politicians to repeat a unified message.
Create/amplify a unifying symbol or theme (e.g., Orange Man Bad).
Manufacture an electoral crisis.
Street mobilization.
Public appeals to and moral blackmail of the military and police: “You’re with the people, not the regime.”
Promises of immunity, future positions for defectors.
Threats to those who support target government.
Provoke a response, flood media with images of “peaceful protesters” being attacked.
International legitimation as foreign governments and media recognizes opposition leaders as “legitimate” authority.
Sanctions, frozen assets, diplomatic isolation applied to sitting government.
New elections scheduled under international supervision.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM can be stated in a simple sentence. The essence of leftism is this.
“Leftists equate fairness with equality”
And the world is inherently unequal, thus they see unfairness, ie, injustice, everywhere. And this truly gnaws at them and moves them to fix all these injustices by whatever means they can get their hands on.
In order to fix all these injustices and make things equal you need power, centralized, authoritarian power. And thus that’s what they’re after.
Here’s an excellent short story by Kurt Vonnegut depicting exactly this - “Harrison Bergeron”
It starts, “The year was 2081 and everyone was finally equal.”
You can read it here...
https://lecturia.org/en/short-stories/kurt-vonnegut-harrison-bergeron/8225/
I truly believe this “depraved taste for equality” as Tocqueville called it, has strong genetic components. It’s why it’s existed throughout history and why we haven’t been able to eradicate it.
Tocqueville profound quote on equality...
“There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”
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