If only a handful of feminists are responsible for all that ails DU

[rrneck]

130. Liberals are all about cultural change.

Some change is slow, some change is rapid. Generally speaking, the more liberal you are, the more cultural change you want. There is a reason the word "revolution" appears so often in left leaning discourse.

It's my understanding that revolutionary movements have a fairly predictable life cycle. As success is achieved through change, there is always a group of revolutionaries who are more radical than the rest. Thus, there is a certain amount of tension between those revolutionaries that have achieved a measure of their revolutionary goals and those who feel that more change is in order. So now, the actual "winners" in the revolution become "conservatives" and thus enemies of the "true revolutionaries". Depending on the power dynamics there could be purges by the the radicals against the conservatives within the revolution, or the radicals could just become a contentious fringe.

So why doesn't this process of change through ideological purification continue until a utopia arrives? I think one way is that the more "radical" the radicals become the more they focus on ideology and doctrine than on how it will actually work in the real world. It becomes a litmus test to judge others instead of a plan for change. Whether the most radical of the radicals are actually able to enforce this adherence to their understanding of doctrine depends on how much real world power they have.

So now, consider the history of HoF here at DU. There was contention, a power struggle, an attempted coup, ideological splintering, demands that rivals be purged, and constant drum beating demands that others adhere to an ideological ideal.

You don't need a god to have a religion. And you don't need a holy book to have a sacred text. It all depends on the passion and objectives of the true believers. Is this a bad thing? Not really. There's nothing wrong with devotion to an ideal. Philosophers and shamans have devoted their lives to such things for millenia, and since politics is the religion of the enlightenment, that impulse continues right along with it.