Ellis answered his own question, arguing that:
The impulse to bring about social change was increasingly thwarted and distorted by a desire to maintain an unspoiled honesty or purity. The SDS worldview increasingly became one of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, the good within versus the evil without.
A similar process, according to Ellis, overtook two successive moves:
Characteristic of both radical feminism and radical environmentalism is the tendency to dismiss the choices people make as a product of false consciousness. Under conditions of inequality, Catharine MacKinnon emphasizes, female consent is merely concealed male coercion. Driving, say radical environmentalists, is an ‘addiction’, not a real choice.
Eric Kaufmann, a political scientist at the University of London and author of the book “Whiteshift” (and who referred me to Ellis’s book), argued by email that a key element in the struggle of progressive groups is “the elevation of emotion and the personal over reason, generalizable data and processes.”
Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor, argues that internal conflict on the left has become “a pervasive issue, especially for those of us terrified that the hard-won left will enable the resurgence of authoritarian populism by causing harm.” to the moderate left and center and by driving voters to the right.”
Pinker informed the case by email that
Much of the recent escalation is due to three entrenched beliefs on the waking left today: one is that progress comes from struggle – a good force beating an evil force, rather than solving problems – which is the inevitable diagnosing ailments of something as complex as a modern society (including people and factions that disagree with you) and implementing remedies. The second is the belief that systems of oppression are implemented not in overt policies like Jim Crow laws, but in subtle patterns of language and visual symbols that insidiously instill unconscious bias in everyone. To make things better, one must exterminate and marginalize the perpetrators of this ubiquitous oppression, rather than just contesting an opposing faction. A third, shared by their strange comrades on the populist right, is that democratic liberal society is beyond reform – the system is so corrupt and decadent that it must be razed to the ground, because whatever rises from the ashes will be better. than what we have now.
Pinker challenged the goal of many progressive groups to “match the demographics of the country”.
This, as Pinker sees it,
is an algorithm for infinite accusations due to an iron law of the social sciences: nothing ever reflects a nation’s demographic statistics. People of different genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations and religions will also differ on average in their tastes, life priorities, interests, educational histories, values, family patterns and other cultural traits, and there is simply no reason for a statistical miracle involving the members of an organization to duplicate national statistics.
Pinker agreed that “certainly there is prejudice, and it must be eradicated, but there will be unequal distributions of groups, even without an ounce of prejudice.”
In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the appointment of African-American chief executives and presidents of small and large foundations and nonprofit advocacy groups. “Many nonprofits, especially those that serve and advocate for people of color, felt like outsiders in the fray,” the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported in January 2022. “For many of those groups, part of the response has been to replace white leaders. by people of color.”
The foundations, charities, and nonprofits with black leaders run the gamut, including the Ford Foundation, Alliance for Justice, the American Association of University Women, the Institute for Policy Studies, the Center for American Progress, Demos, Emily’s List, the Tides Foundation, Greenpeace USA, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America – and this is just the first sight.