Talk:Regressive left/Archive 3

"Controversial and contested"
So I originally added that line at the end of the first paragraph, but now I'm thinking we should try to rework it, not only because of the spate of IP edits, but also because they have a point. It's not a verifiable claim as it's worded now. I'm open to any suggestions for improvements, but I wonder if that would be better dealt with in a criticism section? --Amateria1121 (talk) 16:22, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think the real thing to avoid is having the article become a collection of quotes for or against the term, and labeling people as such. GABHello! 16:33, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Exactly. --Amateria1121 (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I strongly support keeping the lede as is. No instance of the term "regressive Left" itself that I've been able to find, or that its users whom I have challenged have been able to provide, has a solid supporting citation referring to a specific utterance by a specific person in a specific forum/publication. It seems perverse to require a higher standard of corroboration for the very conservatively worded definitional reservation that exists than for the slipshod term it qualifies (entirely rightly, in my view), at the point where the reservation most needs to be seen. Obviously a strongly partisan view, but I think in this case well-supported in terms of the encyclopedic standards Wikipedia seeks to adhere to. Now clearly, a single verifiably pre-existing instance anywhere of the use of "regressive Left" in relation to an objectively verifiable referent would go some way to undermine my objection. Two would be enough for me to accept the move of the cautionary sentence to a "Criticisms" section. To be clear, by "objectively verifiable" I mean you can ask and reasonably expect to be able to answer the questions "did the person named say the thing quoted when/where claimed?", "is that person arguably in/on/of 'the Left', on any reasonable definition of that term?" and "is the utterance arguably 'regressive', on any reasonable definition of that term?". What I am mostly seeing is argumentation of the form: "regressive, therefore Left" -- guilt by mere accusation, with the whole Left defined and presupposed as "regressive" and as the sole repository for "regression". Most often, when a supposed "regressive" miscreant can be identified at all, it is a clearly Right-wing institution such as the police or corporate media which has displeased the complainer, yet the "regressive Left" is somehow said to be to blame -- with no explanation other than vague, untestable accusations -- not the visibly proximate Right-wing miscreant. As to whether the meaning and indeed the meaningfulness of the term "regressive Left" are contested: I hope that's taken as read. I would also note that these serial removals are all being done anonymously and unilaterally. Those making them do not avail themselves of this talk page to promote and explain their thinking. It would feel to me very much like giving in to bullying to change something arrived at collegially here in response to such edits. When I had a change reverted I immediately came to the talk page and have tried to conduct myself appropriately since, despite feeling extremely strongly about the subject; I do not just make changes (beyond reverts to un-discussed changes to the lede, in support of what I understood the collegial agreement to be) without discussing them here first. Now, having said all that, I'd still like to know: how do other pages with a subject whose very definition is hotly contested signal that fact? KindaQuantum (talk) 17:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * @GAB I think the page is already the collection of quotes you describe. None of them leads to anything objective as described just above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KindaQuantum (talk • contribs) 17:25, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You asked a good question at the end there:
 * "How do other pages with a subject whose very definition is hotly contested signal that fact?"
 * My intent is not to deny the term is controversial, but to provide evidence that supports the claim that it is controversial, and I think the best way to do that is with a bit of restructuring. Though, I will say that the second half of the sentence ("limited use") is the sort of thing that really does need to be backed up with sources.
 * Look at the Feminazi article for an example. It's a much shorter article, but there are two basic lessons from it; first, the lede just briefly describes the term and outlines its origin, and second, there are clearly separate "etymology and usage" and "criticism" sections.  I think drawing from this format would suit "Regressive Left".  If we merge "Concept" and some of the usage examples, and separate out the criticisms into their own section, I think we can better express the contentious nature of the term.  As a counter example, look at Social Justice Warrior.  The "Pejorative Use" section appears to consist almost entirely primary-source examples of people criticizing the term and its usage, and I think that what this article should avoid.
 * Unfortunately, the "Analysis" section in this article has that same problem, not so much putting undue emphasis on one POV (though there is definitely room to improve that), but over-reliance on primary sources without providing a thesis. If there were a separate section for criticism, in that section we could say the term is "controversial and contested", then directly go on to provide supporting examples, eg. people who dismiss the term as a right-wing concoction, or who defend their belief in multiculturalism.  In that section we could also address the "limited use" claim, not necessarily by providing sources to prove that (which I think is impossible, because how can you prove how widespread a term is?), but by providing relevant examples of critics who claim that nobody uses the term "regressive left".  And in the "Origin and Usage" section, as I said, we could basically keep the "Concept" section and add some primary sources to demonstrate that concept.  I hope that kinda makes sense.  --Amateria1121 (talk) 17:57, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I thought the original "by certain commentators" caveat conveyed the actual situation properly because as it stands in reality, despite lots of efforts by the people who deploy it, the term is neither that controversial nor highly contested yet. Instead it's just ignored or dismissed as an ad hominem attack by its targets. It's mostly used as an empty snarl word, a "gotcha!" word like SJW by some social media users. Apart from Harris, Nawaz, Dawkins, Rubin and Maher, no other high-profile commentator has given any thoughful justification for the term. So it's really about 5 commentators and their horde of one-liner youtube/twitter acolytes who are driving this term's evolution at the moment. By definition, it can't be controversial or contested. Zaheen (talk) 21:45, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I think the article has now reached a stage where we should be focusing on restructuring its content, as Amateria1121 suggested above. We cannot just endlessly attach quote after quote as they spring up in the media. The article needs a guiding structure which will lead the reader to understand the various viewpoints related to this term. Instead of the chronological and overly descriptive approach taken so far, I think we need to regroup similar arguments, ideas and concepts into solid paragraphs that convey one viewpoint at a time. At the level of arguments/ideas themselves, we need to consolidate them by getting rid of repetitive, unnecessary, parasitical details. Zaheen (talk) 13:33, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Alt-right and their view of Regressive left
I did a little research and found that the phrase "regressive left" is indeed very popular among 4chan /pol/ forum users, who are according to this rationaliwiki article mostly alt-right. There are about 1200 entries for RL link here. So the Buzzfeed article was correct indeed. Globally it seems that the alt-right people are happy that some centrists/center-left people are calling out the far-lefties/SJWs (just like the alt-right albeit in a more sophisticated way) and that the left is breaking up over this. They also seem to have appropriated the term "Regressive Left" in their discussion of SJW far-left. Zaheen (talk) 13:16, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you seriously consider BuzzFeed and RationalWiki reliable sources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.216.153.209 (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, there are no other so-called "reliable" sources talking about this epithet. It's such an alternative media/Net underground phrase. As far as I can see, it's being used by all kinds of net-based anti-SJW warriors against SJW-type people. If anyone wants to understand the term, Buzzfeed and Rationalwiki are some of the few websites talking about it. Zaheen (talk) 13:31, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

The phrase "regressive left" has also been used a lot since Nov-Dec 2015 by the conservative conspiracy-theory website infowars.com. This simple google search shows 79 results when one searches the phrase within that site. Probably 10 or more articles mention the phrase to bash the left, or a section of it. Zaheen (talk) 11:24, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Zaheen's Ownership behaviour
This user has reverted 8 edits made by other users in a period of under 2 months. This user plainly states that they revert edits that they actually cannot fault, merely that they personally felt there was nothing wrong with the previous state of the page. How can this person learn that they do not own the page? Japanscot (talk) 10:03, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I will partially copy what I wrote on your talk page: I am sorry if something gave you the impression that I am the "owner" of this article, but I can assure you that your worries are misplaced. It is true that I have been more or less regularly monitoring the page for the past few months, and it is also true that I have reverted some edits to the lede mostly made by one-time/infrequent contributors, but that in and of itself doesn't mean I own the page. Most of the content of the article at its current stage has been built by several active users over several months. Several other contributors have messaged me to thank me for my contributions. It has always been a collaborative effort. We have talked out many different issues in the talk page. As I have said, the current lede was arrived at after many discussions with many users on the talk page and the reverts I have made came after the wording of the lead section was more or less agreed upon by the majority of active contributors. And the wording of the lede is still open for discussion and improvement. You have been the first person in months to object to several of the words used in the lede. Don't you think you need to talk it out with other contributors on the article's talk page? That is why I have repeatedly requested you to take part in a discussion about it in here.


 * Now, let's get to the real issue. You have been bold and changed some of the wordings in the lede. There's nothing wrong with changing things. But when I saw the reasoning behind your changes, I reverted them back and maintained more or less the original wording. We can still discuss the wording issue over here. No need to get personal. We can work things out.


 * One of the things that you objected to was the word "leftist". You are the first person since months, after scores of contributors made hundreds of edits, to say that the word "leftist" is some sort of a non-neutral, loaded term, because, your argument runs, when somebody searches Google, the first result is from "conservopedia", where the word "leftist" has been defined in a pejorative manner denoting the far left. I left a message on your talk page saying that a Google result or Conservopedia is not a dictionary of reference. Leftist is a word that describes supporters of left-wing views, that's all. That's what all the well-known English language dictionaries say, no more, no less. In fact, no other contributor has had any problem with the word "leftist" so far except you. But you have deleted my message I left on my talk page where I gave my justification for not changing the term. Nevertheless, I have modified the phrasing from just "leftists" to "leftists and left-leaning individuals" to make the scope of the definition more general. Apparently, that is not satisfactory for you.


 * Another word that you objected to is "illiberal". Well, the people who invented and are using the phrase "Regressive Left" are really accusing the Regressive Left to be tolerating illiberal (that is, contrary to liberal values) ideologies. What's wrong with that? Again, no other user has objected to this terms in the last 8 months. Why does this need to change all on a sudden? Shouldn't you at least give the other contributors a chance to discuss this change of yours?


 * A third phrase that you seem to object to is my recent edit to the lede which mentions "radical Islamism" as an example of the illiberal ideologies that the so called Regresseive Left is supposed to be tolerant about. You have changed it to just "Islamism", the reason being there is no dedicated page in Wikipedia on "radical Islamism". Again, the people who coined and used the term Regressive Left, they all seem to refer to a radicalized extremist version of Islamism in their discussion of the Regressive Left, be it Nawaaz, Harris or others. So it actually corresponds to the analysis section of this very article. So why change?


 * I hope this will alleviate any kind of "ownership" worries that you have about me and I'd happy if you responded to my justifications for my reverts without resorting to unnecessary personal attacks. Thanks.
 * Zaheen (talk) 18:39, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Pinging ) Zaheen (talk) 18:49, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Please work in a friendly fashion with Zaheen. Thank you. There may be something to your points. But you would be best energetically working toward consensus by honing in on the actual issues. We are all fully aware that it can be particularly difficult in political articles to arrive at even-handed wording that everyone is going to feel is their individual preference. As a general approach, if there are issues, the community generally prefers the initial sourced word choice unless better sources are brought forward. However, the community also seeks out a form of words that is neutral and socially respectful, so nice dialog would perhaps make the case. A look at the edit history makes it abundantly clear that the editor is being exceptionally kind to you, acting in a very appropriate way, and repeatedly expressing a willingness to discuss. You have the option of bringing support to your ideas if you find good sources or make appropriate reasoned comments on this Talk page. Please consider doing so. Zaheen and the community at large will be pleased to consider any appropriate dialog about things. Pointing fingers or posting edit summaries / Talk page comments with repeated tenuous assertions of "bad faith" (sic) or "ownership" can be very upsetting and unintentionally intimidating and would not your best way of making headway. Hopefully the benefits of discussing issues and not attacking people is completely clear to you. FeatherPluma (talk) 19:01, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * P.S. The assertion that www.conservapedia.com presents as "top of the page" is counter-factual. That said, I see that some tweaking of the article may be appropriate. So I made a light modification that hopefully is appropriate. Further edits could be considered, subject to proper dialog. FeatherPluma (talk) 19:34, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
 * P.P.S. Zaheen did a very good job of bringing the three issues here and summarizing articulately the points of consideration. On issue 1, I would think that dialog should be able to resolve the issue - I have no specific preference. Issue 2 seems best handled by basing the choice of words on the sources, and I favor the text as it is. On issue 3, IMO the term should be disambiguated. The potential disambiguation targets are in discussion for merger / name change etc. so I chose one place for now, but over time that particular choice may be something to adjust further. I have no objection to being reverted on any of these points. FeatherPluma (talk) 21:21, 28 July 2016 (UTC)


 * "something gave you the impression that I am the "owner" of this article, but I can assure you that your worries are misplaced." 9 out of the last 50 edits in the history of this article are your reverts of others' edits. 18% of the activity on this page is you undoing others' work. I think such worries are adequately placed.
 * "I have reverted some edits to the lede mostly made by one-time/infrequent contributors". Translation, "I own this page because I have contributed to it more often than they have." "the majority of active contributors." (my italics) More ownership
 * Your claim : " You are the first person since months, after scores of contributors made hundreds of edits, to say that the word "leftist" is some sort of a non-neutral"? Quotation from on 19th July 2016, less than two weeks ago.
 * "I feel, 'leftist' is loaded language and a bit disparaging. 'Rightist' is similarly disparaging. I feel, 'people on the left' is more neutral."
 * This proves that your claim no-one has expressed a similar view in months is false. They did so 3 edits before my first one removing the loaded term. Less than 2 weeks ago, and fewer than 8 minutes elapsed before you reverted it. You yourself say this is a page you "have been more or less regularly monitoring", but you forgot reverting an edit 2 weeks ago. You do have a lot of reverts to keep track of. You won't have any more edits from me to revert, though. Who can be bothered?
 * Japanscot (talk) 20:53, 30 July 2016 (UTC)


 * OK, if I get it right, the central encyclopedic point you are making is that "leftist" is in some way perceived to be pejorative, and that "people on the left" is preferred. We already have used that substitution within the text in one place. It appears technically feasible and potentially appropriate to respond to your concern. I removed "leftist" from any text where the Wikipedia content is in the encyclopedia's own voice, and tried to use "more neutral" terms. The general principles we try to follow are that it is not Wikipedia's place to (on the one hand) support the label by using it within content which is in its own voice - or (on the other hand) to censor the use of the label in the world at large, or censor quotation of the real world use of the term as part of encyclopedically and neutrally discussing the political concept. Your concern legitimately applies to Wikipedia's own voice, but the real world use has as far as I know not been subjected to any intense real world negative analysis that could hypothetically have cast it as profoundly fringe or hate language. It is thus not possible to remove every allusion and quotation as it is logically a different matter as far as the use WITHIN QUOTES, where the label is the denotator used by those we are quoting. I have tried to be very evenhanded about this, and respond to your input, but it may not be possible to make everyone 100% happy despite the effort. Perhaps in the real world someone might have used other descriptors, such as "paradoxical reactionaries" or "paradoxical traditionalists" - but that's obviously WP:OR. FeatherPluma (talk) 08:03, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I know from your diligent work on the article that you are very familiar with the sources. Can you please take a look at what I have done. I think the changes remain concordant with the real world discussion of the concept while now avoiding Wikipedia adoption of any component of the potentially pejorative term in its own voice. Please feel free to revert me if I am missing some aspect. I acknowledge your forebearance in regards to the harshly repeated off-issue criticisms which you do not deserve in any way whatsoever. FeatherPluma (talk) 08:35, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your support. I will look at the links as soon as I can find some time. Give me a few days. Zaheen (talk) 18:21, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Possible new sources
Under consideration:

Gay Alcorn. Conservatives love to hate political correctness, but the left should rail against it too. The Guardian. 26 April 2016. 

Nick Cohen. Failure to confront Britain’s political ultras has cost us dear. The Guardian. 9 July 2016. FeatherPluma (talk) 09:39, 31 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Both articles clearly address the Regressive Left concept and can be incorporated in some way. But there is no new argument in these either. As I have suggested somewhere above, I think it will be better if we structured this article in terms of arguments rather than chronological citations. Zaheen (talk) 16:37, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I well remember that distinction. I am in complete support of it. These remain on the back burner. FeatherPluma (talk) 20:56, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Regressive left in Australian media
Interestingly enough, in the Australian media, since the beginning of this year, the mantle of spreading the concept/meme of regressive left is being carried by The Australian, a right wing newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch. Doing a simple google news search can verify this. Zaheen (talk) 18:58, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Regressive Illiberals and Illiberal Regressives
Why aren't these terms used as often? They perfectly describe the regressive left! They're regressive and they're illiberal! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:601:9200:1D0:C0D5:6E06:6174:9837 (talk) 05:35, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Word as word formatting issue
I have recently formatted the phrase Regressive left throughout the article following the guideline below:


 * 1) Use italics to denote "Regressive left" as words and do it consistently throughout the article (like this: Nawaz uses the term Regressive left a lot in his tweeter feeds). In my view, italics is preferable because quotation marks are already used for actual quotes.
 * 2) If "Regressive left" is not used to denote the term itself, then neither italicize it nor put it inside quotation marks (For example: The Regressive Left are a bunch of bad guys, according to Nawaz).
 * 3) If the phrase "Regressive left" is part of somebody's quote, leave it be inside quotation marks. Apply the italics rule only when using wikipedia's own narration of things (For example: According to Rubin, the "Regressive left" are like "Left's Tea Party").

Signing the message again. Zaheen (talk) 11:03, 27 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Dating this section. Pincrete (talk) 22:26, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Lead Conflicts : Epithet, Concept or both?
Editing conflicts continue to rage in the first lead paragraph. How "Regressive Left" should be defined and the language issues surrounding it.

Is "Regressive Left" a term/label/epithet or a fully developed topic rooted in reality? I have argued many times on this talk page that it is more of a pejorative epithet used to sling mud at a certain category of people. The concept that underpins the label seems to be unproven, uncontested, not universally accepted and often ignored by the target population. There is not a group of people in the real world who are saying "we are the "regressive left", we meet regularly and this is our ideology". It's absurd to think that such a thing exists. It's a pejorative accusatory label created by Nawaz for mud-slinging convenience, as evidenced by its prolific use on Twitter as a hashtag. It's more of a tag, a label.

The language in the lead paragraphs should reflect this.

Also, wikipedia articles don't have to be just about topics. There are many articles about pejorative political epithets, like Feminazi or Cuckservative. The article of Regressive Left belong to the same category. All my opinions. But with justifications. :)

Zaheen (talk) 05:14, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Pinging ).

I also agree with Equinox's recent edit that we should write just "Regressive Left" not "The Regressive Left". The former implies that we are talking about a phrase/label/epithet. The latter subtly implies that we are talking about a thing whose existence in reality is uncontested. I think it's more of an epithet. Zaheen (talk) 05:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I changed it for purely grammatical/semantic reasons. A dog is an animal; "dog" is a term; it's not right to say "a dog is a term". Equinox ◑ 05:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * : As I said above, I think you are right. I have removed the confusing "the". Zaheen (talk) 05:29, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I think "Regressive Left" (as I said somewhere above) is a late reaction to another epithet "Islamophobe" which has been used since the 1990s. Both of them are clever, convenient reductive labels that sound nice in a media soundbite, but don't really clarify. They both denote a set of alleged characteristics, but these characteristics are neither well-defined nor measurable/graspable. Certain actions can be deemed "islamophobic" or even "regressive leftistic". But a person being called an "Islamophobe" or a "Regressive Leftist" would find it absurd that such a thing exists and that he is such a thing. To him, it would probably justifiably sound like a mud-slinging insult. Zaheen (talk) 05:52, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I'd say that while the term "regressive left" is an epithet in the same vein as "islamophobe", the term does describe a real political movement (or at least a subgroup of one), whose members would probably call themselves "progressives" or "new leftists". I'd say this article should discuss the term as an epithet, and any more substantive issues should be addressed in a "Criticisms of Progressivism"-type situation.  The article on Progressivism is a train wreck though. --Amateria1121 (talk) 06:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The only word in the lead that I might want to have changed is 'often', since this indeed implies that some people use 'regressive left' to identify themselves with. We've not seen that happen (yet). It could be that at some point, some people will try, for whatever reason, to reappropriate the term to mean something positive, but that is yet to happen. It is clear that the term engenders criticism of a certain political, cultural or social attitude: 'regressive' means to go back, to roll back or undo certain cultural 'progress' that has allegedly been made but is now 'under threat'. For example, one who favours the emancipation of homosexuals could describe Putin's Russia (increasingly driven by nationalist and religious conservatism on this issue) as 'regressive' as opposed to Yeltsin's Russia. Now, according to what we might call 'progressive leftists', 'regressive leftists' try to excuse or justify the attempts to undo certain cultural 'progress' by certain groups, including mainstream Islam, but mainly Islamism and jihadism, for example the rights of homosexuals, women or the right to free speech. It may indeed be that those latter groups believe some rights should be 'rolled back', and even some ('regressive') leftists (especially some feminists) do argue that free speech has been stretched too far and needs to be restricted to some former standard. Religious conservatives themselves coined terms like 'fundamentalism' for this in de 1910s, which some would still proudly call themselves, though it's gotten a more negative connotation over time. Many of these people would indeed oppose 'progress' of any kind that diverges from the 'fundamentals'. But, until we find a substantial number of these people describing themselves as 'regressive' (which at the moment seems to be exclusively used by their detractors), we can safely write that it is always used pejoratively. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:12, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

It's an epithet, and is only ever used by sources that have a very overt pov/bias. We can't have the article suggest that this is a group or faction of people that actually exists. The article should make it clear that it's a pejorative term, generally only ever used by conservatives trying to discredit people on the left who would never identify or describe themselves that way. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:32, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

My point of contention is not about the substance of whether or not there is a real regressive left, but entirely about use-mention distinction and that wikipedia articles are not about words but about what the words refer to. Our article on unicorns manages to talk about unicorns, not the term "unicorn", without thereby implying the existence of unicorns, and many articles about contentious philosophical topcs do likewise. We need to do so here as well. See e.g. WP:REFERS. --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:16, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think this article is one of those grey-area articles about an epithet/pejorative/neologism/slang/etc. It's primarily about the phrase. But it also attempts to give an idea who uses it and where, when, how and why. I agree with your use of the quotation marks to clearly indicate that we are talking primarily about the term. Even inside the article, the phrase "regressive left" is always inside quotation marks. So it makes sense after all. Zaheen (talk) 12:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
 * As an aside, I think this discussion has been quite fruitful. We can now apply the same usage rules about use-mention distinction. These rules are
 * 1) the omission of "a/an/the" before the term,
 * 2) the use of quotation marks around the term) for all similar articles such as Feminazi, Cuckservative, etc.
 * I can see that the article on Social Justice Warrior already follows these usage rules. But I took a quick random look at about a dozen other "neologism/term/epithet" articles and none of them are following such rules. Lots of cleanup need to be done in this regard. Zaheen (talk) 12:28, 25 November 2016(UTC)

Recent edits
I today made a series of edits, which I would mainly characterise as 'tidying'. However, there are a few issues which I was loth to edit without input here.

One edit that might be controversial was changing 'Analysis' to "Use'. I'm not madly happy with my own edit, but what was being analysed? The term or the phenomenon and by whom? The section reads as a cluster of people using the term with very few of the uses warranting the description 'Analysis'.


 * 1) Since discussion appears to be resolved that this is an epithet, rather than a concept or political position, what is the relevance of the para: In 2013, the One Law for All campaign issued a report, Siding with the Oppressor: The Pro-Islamist Left.[12] James Bloodworth in an opinion piece published by The Independent, … … (Note that I have changed the credit to Bloodworth, not 'The Indy' as the piece is clearly identified as a comment piece). Neither the report nor the op-ed discusses 'Regressive left', though both criticise left-wingers for 'cosying-up' to Islamists.


 * Also the 'Sam Harris' para about "Head-in-the-sand Liberals" is off-topic IMO unless the article is about ALL liberal 'inconsistencies', or all inconsistencies that relate to Islam.


 * 2) Is the Engvar US or UK, it appears to use both.


 * 3) Probably for related reasons, full stops (periods, ie these .....) are often inside quotes (thus."), even when they complete the whole sentence, rather than just the quote, which I believe is not MOS.

I also set up archiving of this page (4 months), hope nobody objects. Pincrete (talk) 15:05, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanups. I am a bit busy but will soon get back to the points you raised. Zaheen (talk) 11:05, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Funny, that...
The Criticism section is 2 blog posts from liberal clickbait networks. I mean, we might as well quote the opinions on the blogs over at Alex Jones or on the Sun. --Dinosaurdracula (talk) 23:09, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * People using the phrase "regressive left" have been more or less preaching to the choir. It has stayed mostly an online phenomenon and has been circulating among a group of like-minded people. In Britain, apart from Nawaaz, hardly any mainstream political commentator talks about it. In the US, among the more mainstream commentators, only Sam Harris and Bill Maher bring it up, and they do it infrequently, from time to time. The phrase has also been hijacked by "clickbait right-wing sites" such as Breitbart, etc. who want to make the term mainstream, but they cater to a very specific alt-right public. Apart from that, the principal driving force of the phrase's usage has been a huge number of virulent Twitter posts, hashtags and memes from a limited group of people, such as Dave Ruben (and Twitter is, as we know, the go-to online cesspool of mudslinging opinions, much worse than any blog post). The target population seems to have adopted the strategy to ignore the pejorative, probably because it mainly resides online, not out in the real world, at least not often enough to merit attention; or may be they think it makes no sense and not worth any reply. Who knows? So it is not surprising that the only criticisms of this unfortunate quasi-stillbirth of a pejorative have been published by so-called liberal online outlets in only a couple of blog-style entries over the last 12 months. So what? This is how it is. If it gains more traction, we will probably see more criticisms. I doubt it. Zaheen (talk) 12:26, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Alt-left
The media trash-talk discourse has changed again. Now as of December 2016 there is a brand new smear term called "alt-left" which is apparently a reaction to "alt-right". Very popular in right-wing media now. Why now? Because the democrats are talking about "alt-right". This is getting ridiculous. Some users here are conflating "alt-left" with "regressive left". It only adds to the pile of messy trash talk terms. I am kind of beginning to see the value of not having an article on every single trash talk political term on Wikipedia. Zaheen (talk) 07:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Draft:Alt-left. Nothing on Wiktionary yet.199.7.156.128 (talk) 23:17, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The draft talks mostly about something new called the "core=left" and differentiates it from the "regressive left". The "core-left" described there seems to have a lot in common with libertarians (individual over communities) and alt-right/far-right (protective nationalism over globalization/multiculturalism). It actually sounds like alt-right to me. How is this "left", let alone "core left" I cannot understand? Who are these "core-left" personalities making marks in the left's political history? There's nobody like that. It is a newly invented term in 2016 engineered to obfuscate/reframe political orientation discussions. It's like fan fiction. Some social media people are inventing new labels on the fly, whether it makes sense historically/philosophically or not.Zaheen (talk) 23:31, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * To be fair, classical liberalism is a left wing position, and it sound like that's essentially what they're talking about with the "core left" (except perhaps differing in acceptance of the modern left's more socialist economic policies? In any case, still left). Will need to see RS to confirm notability vs neologism though, and the article talks more about what its title topic is not than the thing it's titled for. In any case between e.g. classical liberalism and social liberalism/modern liberalism in the United States I think the content is mostly covered already. --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:43, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * IMO this is revisionism in action. Classical liberalism hasn't been "core left" for more than a century. Why restart now? Why redefine it as "core left"? Why call the modern left "regressive"? Why suddenly create this artificial dichotomy now, in the decade of 2010s? This is a quite audacious political manoeuver, a kind of label hijacking. And the only beneficiary party here would be the right wing, of course. They are thoroughly enjoying it, and they would definitely stoke it to the maximum, as evidenced by the adoption of "regressive left" by a number of right-wing media outlets. Zaheen (talk) 09:54, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This whole thread is a bit 'general discussion', so here's my 2p. 'Regressive left' isn't only a neologism, it's also a misnomer in that those accused/described are not being accused of 'regressing', ie going back, they are accused of inconsistency in respect of one issue, their response to Islam, Islamic treatment of women, politicised Islam etc. The word 'regressive' appears to have been chosen more because it sounds unpleasant, rather than for any meaning it has. I can't judge whether I feel that the accusation of inconsistency is fair, since I don't know much about those accused, but personally I have never met anyone, left or right whose opinions and stances were not, to a degree, inconsistent. We all choose to care more about some issues than others and the idea that there are, or should be, a universally agreed set of liberal priorities is silly, even among people who share similar liberal values. Dawkins is as inconsistent as anyone, he is very critical of Islam, marginally less critical of certain branches of Christianity, but AFAIK fairly silent about Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism (at least the last doesn't have a God to be deluded about I suppose). So Zaheen, I sympathise and also wonder whether we should be bothering to write articles about every passing, political, mud-slinging term. Pincrete (talk) 22:21, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Like "regressive left", "alt-left" is a thing that does not actually exist. Instead it's a term simply used to smear political opponents. &mdash; Red XIV (talk) 20:57, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Criticism
Neither the Huffington Post nor BuzzFeed are quality sources that deserve to be mentioned. I suggest deletion. 77.47.74.232 (talk) 14:10, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * They're fine for opinions. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This is not an argument. These are low quality and prejudiced sources. BuzzFeed is for good reason not quoted when it comes to political termanology. Make a substantiated argument or please do not waste my time. 77.47.74.232 (talk) 15:02, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Reliance on primary sources
The overwhelming majority of sources in this article are op-eds and interviews (in bad sources) by non-experts. If content is notable, it should be sourced to reliable secondary sources. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:21, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I have brought back to the lead section the names of people who have used the term, supported by secondary sources (NYT, Guardian, Washington Times, etc.). --Zaheen (talk) 22:05, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Not going to edit war over this, but I disagree
The reversion of my edit adding Jeremy Corbyn's page as a link at the bottom of this page seems ill-spirited to me. The article makes it clear Corbyn's political behaviour is clearly being identified by Maajid Nawaz as a major source of "regressive left" behaviour. For that reason, I added a link to Corbyn's page at the bottom, so people could explore his political record more fully. I am being told in response that there is a link in the article and that's good enough. There are also numerous references to "cultural relativism" in the article, and a link to the page on cultural relativism is included at bottom, so readers can learn more about that. Unless the logic of that argument is carried further, I assume this means the link to the cultural relativism page should also be deleted. You know, because the point of the links at the bottom is only to discuss things that were not linked in the article?

Anyway, I suspect that the real reason the link at the bottom to Corbyn's page is not being included is that some may want as little light shown on Corbyn's behaviour as possible. There is nothing unencyclopedic about linking to a page discussing someone who is mentioned prominently in the article.

So what do we need to make this happen? Do other people prominently mentioned in the article need to have their link at the bottom, too? I'd be fine with that. More light should be shown on Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, etc. The same is true of those on the other side of this, more light should be shown on Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, etc.

Isn't the point of Wikipedia to focus attention on the facts rather than dissipate it? Zachary Klaas (talk) 14:43, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Too much focus on Islam?
I've come to know regressive left as an epithet for left leaning people who hold "regressive" views and not just the positivity towards certain values of Islamic cultures deemed to be regressive. This might be ideas such as "trans race" (one race identyfying as another; racist stereotping) or acceptance of paedophiles (continuing to conflate homosexuality and paedophilia but adopting a "tolerant" attitude). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:c7d:1fc5:8300:a5a8:cd19:a4db:4ac8 (talk) 15:11, 16 June 2019 (UTC)


 * because it reflects the reality of Leftist-Islamist nexus, Content pointing to this nexus well cited in the article from the verifiable, reliable and reputed sources. Dislike for the uncomfortable truth is not a valid objection. Communists/leftists became deprived of funding and ideological inspiration after the disintegration of Soviet Russia. Petro-dinar fueled funding especially from Wahhabist Islamist sources (zakat gets routed from legal and illegal sources after being laundered, Islamic banking has been pointed out as being nontransparent by FATF type orgs) gave the financial security to leftists, and to justify the continuation of funding many of them started to resort to "selective and subjective" leftist activism for hire. Siding with Islamists gave leftists a cover of playing the victim card by accusing their candid opponents of Islamophobia. This ploy sometimes works well on the mind of naive, neutral and people less familiar with the complexities of this nexus. Regressive Leftists use their activism for the universally appealing causes to legitimize their support for "Islamist" cause, at least try to make it "new normal" (creeping acceptance of radical misogynist intolerant aspects of sharia/islam) by desensitize the masses. An example of Islamo-leftism and Left-wing fascism nexus is Red–green–brown alliance (leftist, eco activists, and islamic radical). Please also see, Paradox of tolerance (a society that is tolerant of the intolerance gets destroyed by the very intolerance (entity) it failed to oppose). It is not a blanket attack on Islam or all Muslims, e.g. liberal or moderate Muslims are the biggest victim of Islamic orthodoxy and radicalism. One can oppose the ideology in a civilized manner, but we must still love the people/muslims/leftists/others (no hate). 58.182.176.169 (talk) 09:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)