#GamerGate Political Attitudes Part Two: Old Liberals vs. New Progressives wrote:December 30, 2014 - Allum Bokhari
This is the second (and final) article in a series analyzing the political attitudes of GamerGate, based on online polling conducted between the 18th and the 22nd of December. The full data tables can be found HERE, and an overview of the results can be found HERE. An archive of the original survey questions can be found HERE.
In my last piece, I looked at data that indicated GamerGate remained predominantly left-leaning, but also appeared to be increasingly adrift from the left-wing media. In this article, I will look at some of the potential reasons for this divide.
One of these is undoubtedly the fact that left-wing media sources took an overtly hostile stance towards GamerGate, giving a platform to many of its most prominent critics, and repeating claims that the movement was inhabited by everyone from right-wing bigots to pedophile apologists and serial doxxers. Compared to the relatively positive coverage of GamerGate by right-wing sources, it is unsurprising that GamerGate shows reduced levels of trust with the left.
As we shall see however, it is unlikely that the left chose to become hostile to GamerGate on a whim. GamerGate has genuine disagreements with the mainstream left on some of their more controversial beliefs and causes, and it is these divisions that may lie behind the latter’s hostility.
1. GamerGate supports feminism, but not the media’s feminism
source: imgur.com
One of the questions which attracted the most negative feedback from respondents was the question of whether supporters of GamerGate now "trusted conservatives more than feminists." Many respondents refused to answer the question, arguing that conservatism and feminism were broad churches, and the question was too reductionist. This was, of course, the point of the question – to judge the relative health of the feminist and conservative brands.
Those who responded were fairly evenly divided. Thirty-six (36) percent said they did not trust conservatives more than feminists as a result of GamerGate, while 25 percent said they did. Of these, the majority (75 percent) identified as liberal or left-leaning. This is an interesting result, as it is unusual for self-identified liberals or left-wingers to trust conservatives on any issue. However, it is also worth noting that over half (52 percent) of those who now trust conservatives more also said that GamerGate had made them question their left-leaning political identity. Although they are comparatively small in the larger picture of GamerGate, it is this group’s attitudes – to conservatism, feminism, and leftism – that has undergone the most change.
Many observers will be surprised that there remains a persistent bedrock of support for the feminist brand among GamerGate (or at the least, a refusal to condemn it wholesale). This may be due to the efforts of equity feminist Christina Hoff Sommers, and libertarian-leaning feminists Cathy Young and Louise Mensch, all of whom have spoken out in favor of the movement. GamerGate’s early support for The Fine Young Capitalists, a feminist game development project also suggests that the movement is not hostile to every single variant of feminism.
A clearer picture emerges when we look at GamerGate's opinions on issues rather than labels. By 67 percent to 6 percent, GamerGate rejected the belief that there is an "epidemic of sexual assault on US campuses." They also agreed, by 69 percent to 10 percent, that "if there is a feminist movement there should also be a men's rights movement." On the other hand, respondents also indicated a suspicion of identity politics in general, agreeing (68 percent to 15 percent) that "movements designed to advance the interests of particular genders, races, and orientations are inherently divisive."
While GamerGate supporters are not prepared to reject all forms of feminism, they are very much out of step with the feminist causes that have been at the forefront of left-wing media & political narratives over the past few years. The feminists who they do have common cause with (particularly Sommers and Young) are notable for being vocally critical of these narratives.
2. GamerGate is also at odds with the mainstream left on key social issues
source: imgur.com
One of the clearest results in the poll was the question of whether men, women and minorities should be held to the same standards, with an overwhelming 98 percent of respondents agreeing that they should. 80 percent of respondents also agreed that 'equality of outcomes is a misguided goal,' and 78 percent agreed that "positive" discrimination is little better than any other form of discrimination.
GamerGate supporters are also extremely suspicious of the common rhetorical and argumentative devices of the left. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a group repeatedly accused of the worst possible motivations, 83 percent agreed that words like racism, misogyny, and homophobia are "losing their meaning through increasing misuse." Eighty-seven (87) percent agreed that "safe spaces and trigger warnings are convenient masks for policing speech, art, and culture."
It’s also safe to say that GamerGate doesn’t buy into the “punching up vs punching down” mantra popular in the left-wing blogosphere. Ninety-two (92) percent agreed that "nothing, no matter how offensive, should be off-limits to art and comedy." Given GamerGate’s recent celebrations over the greenlighting of controversial isometric shooter Hatred, this endorsement of uninhibited creative freedom is unsurprising.
A further point of division with some (but not all) elements of the left is political freedom. While GamerGate strongly supports progressive causes like abortion rights (80 percent support) and gay marriage (89 percent support), 79 percent of respondents also said that opposition to either of these causes should not negatively impact a person’s career or business venture (79 percent). GamerGate appears to be strongly opposed to Brendan Eich-style witch hunts, a stance which puts them at odds with progressive activists who are increasingly wedded to “call-out culture.”
There has never been unanimous support for affirmative action or diversity quotas, even on the left. Complaints about the use of concepts like racism and sexism as political footballs are also nothing new. Nevertheless, the near-unanimity of GamerGate’s opinion on these topics is striking. If we are looking for the political fault lines dividing GamerGate from their progressive critics in the media, these issues are likely candidates.
6. Libertarianism, but not as we know it
source: imgur.com
Tying all these anti-censorship and politically tolerant attitudes together is a general theme of small-l libertarianism. Collectively, those who identified with right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism, centrist libertarianism, and classical liberalism amounted to 50 percent of all respondents.
However, their responses to questions on taxation and government spending do not indicate the typical “free market” views you might expect from mainstream libertarians. Respondents were evenly split on the issue of whether privately-run services are more efficient than government-run services (40 percent to 35 percent), and only 38 percent agreed that cutting spending was preferable to raising taxes. Only 26 percent agreed that the free market could fix most social problems, compared to 53 percent who disagreed.
On the other hand, GamerGate also has a healthy wariness of cultural elites that mainstream libertarians can applaud. Eighty-five (85) percent of respondents agreed that "those who try and define what is socially acceptable and unacceptable often have authoritarian instincts and should not be trusted."
When GamerGate supporters say they are libertarian, therefore, it is safe to assume that most of them are talking about their attitudes to society and culture as opposed to economics. I used Pax Dickinson’s "Grey Libertarianism" concept (see here for the precise definition used in the poll) to denote a form of libertarianism that is more concerned with social and cultural freedom than economic freedom. Sixty-nine (69) percent of GamerGate supporters said that the concept appealed to them – 19 percent more than those who identified with some form of libertarianism in the first question of the poll.
The idea that cultural and social freedoms can be separated from economic freedoms, is, of course, an argument that would no doubt be fiercely contested by many mainstream libertarians. Indeed, many libertarians argue that economic liberty is the foundation of every other liberty. Late 20th century libertarian theories have focused almost exclusively on issues such as taxation and government intervention in the economy, and have paid comparatively little attention to the realms of culture and society.
Analysis: Liberals vs Progressives?
Political historians have often remarked that the right won the big economic arguments of the 20th century, while the left won the social and cultural ones. Neo-liberalism rolled back economic socialism in the 1980s, and the cultural left beat the moral majority in the 1990s.
In GamerGate, however, we see a different story. Where once social and cultural issues were a source of unity for the left, they now appear to divide it. While many left-leaning GamerGate supporters continue to show strong support for core “cultural left” positions such as abortion and gay marriage, the results also show that they are completely turned off by any of the more recent additions to the progressive agenda – positive discrimination, “call-out culture,” trigger warnings, safe spaces, etc. And, as we saw in my last piece, their level of trust in the left has been severely shaken.
It would be foolish to assume that debates on these issues are limited to gaming. In the past two years, there have been growing signs of quite serious division on the cultural left. It wasn’t just conservatives who were up in arms about Brendan Eich’s firing – liberal publications like The Atlantic and Slate sounded the alarm as well. Alan Dershowitz is no right-winger, nor is columnist Emily Yoffe, yet the former is leading a campaign of Harvard lawyers against the university’s interpretation of Title IX laws, and the latter’s 9-page critique of the same policies went viral. Guardian columnist Nick Cohen is a leading liberal in the UK, and yet an increasing number of his columns are devoted to critiquing what he sees as a growing culture of censorship and “call-outs” [1, 2, 3].
Battle lines are being quietly, warily drawn in the culture wars – not between conservatives and liberals (although conservatives are certainly aware of what’s going on [1, 2, 3, 4] ) – but between liberals and progressives. These two groups, who once appeared indistinguishable, are becoming more so. Liberals are increasingly concerned by what they see as progressives’ embrace of vigilantism. Progressives, by contrast, seem increasingly concerned with the need to change culture by any means possible.
The politics of GamerGate (in particular the question of why left-leaning gamers are fighting left-leaning media commentators) cannot be understood in isolation from these wider political divisions. In this context, GameGate supporters’ embrace of “Grey Libertarianism” can be seen as less of an attempt to genuinely break with left-liberalism, and more of an attempt to differentiate themselves from progressive activism.
In this, the politics of GamerGate mirrors the divided politics of the cultural left in 2014. Although the polite columns of Cohen and Yoffe seem a world away from the brutal hashtag wars of Twitter, the issues and beliefs being fought over are much the same. And as the divide between the old liberals and the new progressives grows deeper, it is likely that we will see more fighting.
About the author: Allum Bokhari is a political consultant, writer, former Parliamentary intern, and a regular contributor to TechCrunch. You can find him on Twitter at @LibertarianBlue.
[Disclaimer: The opinions and data presented in this article are the author's and do not represent the opinions of GamePolitics or its staff .]
