Comment by n4r9

This essay feels shallow and dismissive to me. The sentiment is that you can't be a smart, independent thinker whilst going too far left or right. As with many of his essays, my take is that PG - who lives a highly privileged life - is basing this opinion on the caricature of reality that he gleans from the media and internet forums. It's easy to think what he thinks when the only representation you see of the far left is mindless "woke"ism.

Firstly, does he think that Marx was dumb? And leading left-wing figures like AOC, Sanders, Varoufakis, Zinn, or Zizek? No, for all you might disagree with them, they're smart and independent. They did not acquire their opinions in bulk. I even admit that right-wing figures like Shapiro, Bannon etc... are smart and independent, even though I think they're snakes.

Secondly, the essay overstates the degree of uniformity within the far left and right. Have you not seen the animosity between anarchists and Trotskyites? They only agree insofar as believing we can do better than capitalism. And those on the far right who have a global free market ideology will be at odds with those who want to restrict movement and apply protectionist tariffs.

[EDITED TO ADD] Thirdly, he presupposes that the distinction between right and left is purely one of logical competence. This is captured by him saying "both sides are equally wrong". But personal values also drive the polarisation. Those on the right tend to highly value tradition, loyalty, and family. Those on the left tend to highly value universal welfare and the environment. It's not really possible to label these "right" or "wrong", they are expressions of our fundamental desires for ourselves and the world. If you start from different axioms, you'll tend to get different corollaries even if perfect logic is applied.