I See Horseshoes Everywhere

The enemy of my enemy is... also my enemy?

I sometimes describe my blog as consisting of mostly “anti-woke, anti-trad feminist takes”. But I’m really not just trying to grab the middle ground all the time. It’s just that on some of the issues I’m most interested in, the far left and far right really do look more similar to each other than they do to those on either side of the center. I’m planning to write about the degree to which the term “woke right” can be justified in an upcoming post, but I wanted to highlight a few examples where horseshoe theory, whether it’s getting at anything important in general or not, seems to fit.

Consent and women’s agency

In my post on consent I talked about how both the left and right seem to be very concerned about women’s ability to say no to sex when they don’t want it:

The worry is similar, that young women are often pressured into having sex that either they don’t really desire at the time or know, in some way, isn’t good for them. But the explanations for why they have this sex are different. Those to my left question whether women can meaningfully consent in situations involving a power imbalance, and the more radical claim that sexual choices, “under patriarchy, are rarely free”¹. Those to my right worry about women having sex out of “politeness”, which they see as a downstream consequence of liberal sexual norms coupled with relatively higher female agreeableness. The left-wing concern is that consent is complicated when sexual partners are of different ages, incomes etc. and more broadly that all of women’s sexual choices are complicated by their feelings of responsibility for men’s pleasure and their fears of male violence. The right-wing concern is that in a sexually liberal culture, with few guardrails, and in which women are told sex is empowering, men’s desire for casual sex ends up dominating.

Or to put it graphically:

And, predictably, I disagree with both of these positions:

We simply cannot have it both ways. We cannot be equal, liberated, and at the same time claim an inability to make our own decisions. This is true regardless of whether we lay the blame on “patriarchy” or on “sex differences”. [...] While I accept that women are on average more agreeable, that doesn’t exempt us from internalizing the consequences of our actions. Just as men being subject to more violent impulses doesn’t exempt them from being held accountable when they act on those impulses. [...] I expect that while sex differences contribute to these situations these behaviors are also influenced by social expectations. Women need to hear that they are agents, expected to be held responsible for their actions and inactions.

Racial identity politics

Both the far left and far right are way more into talking about race than your average Joe. I’d bet that Coleman Hughes’ case for colorblindness as the ideal we ought to strive for is simply assumed to be true within the middle ~70% of the distribution.

For those on the far extremes of either side however (white nationalists / black separatists), race is THE variable of concern when it comes to organizing, finding allies and determining political aims. But for those who subscribe to “softer” versions of these ideologies, it’s only one of many variables around which coalitions are formed. An individual’s “intersectional identity” is therefore defined not only by race, but also by various other identity characteristics, and this way of constructing a sense of self is seen among members of both the left and right.

Almost all of us identify with something, but the interesting difference is between those of us who primarily build identity based on our values, ideology, interests etc. versus those who identify based on immutable characteristics like race. Identity politics versus politics based on a shared ideology.

While the far right openly embraces racial essentialism, the far left rejects it in theory but not really in practice. The concept of “strategic essentialism”, which originated from comments Gayatri Spivak made during an interview in the 1980s, is defined here as “an anti-essentialist act of strategic resistance against essentialism by means of strategically embracing essentialism.” Very straightforward.

The charitable interpretation of this idea is that if the other side is defining you based on your identity and is essentializing members of your group, organizing on the basis of that identity and speaking of a common group experience, can be strategically useful. In reality, I think the identification with race often goes beyond “strategic” on the left as well, and has resulted in racially segregated spaces, affinity groups and occasionally arguments in favor of race based health policy. Both sides can claim that their focus on race is mainly reactionary, but either way, both sides end up heavily leaning into racial identity.

While I think there can be specific cases where it’s justified to organize on the basis of identity characteristics like race, particularly when other groups are explicitly discriminating against you on that basis, I think it’s a dangerous path to go down and that color blindness must continue to be the ideal we strive for.

Sex based resentment

While extremists on the left use feminist theory and a history of unequal legal rights to justify misandry, extremists on the right abuse evolutionary biology to justify misogyny. Both groups pour their time, attention and energy into complaining about the ways in which the interests of men and women sometimes come into conflict. They notice areas where there’s an asymmetry in the desires of the average member of each sex, and conclude that the opposite sex is immoral, depraved, and unethical.

Most heteros will recognize some truth behind the themes they bring up, and might playfully complain about the failings of the opposite sex from their gender’s perspective. Maybe a woman comments on how men not being able to find anything in the kitchen is a form of weaponized incompetence or a man notes how “women be shopping”. But ultimately, most people are very interested in participating in positive sum relationships with the opposite gender. MGTOWs are just the male version of lesbian separatists, but worse because they get even less sex!

In the case of consent and women’s agency, both sides reach the conclusion that women need protection and that consent is complicated, but for very different reasons. But in the other examples, racial identity politics and in particular sex based resentment, the underlying logic is more similar. I’m not arguing that the centrist position is always right or that horseshoe theory is of particular use to understanding how views on either side are formed in general. But I do think it’s interesting to observe the places where the enemy of my enemy is… also my enemy.

If you enjoy my writing and find these kinds of explorations valuable, please consider supporting my work with a pledge. I'll be introducing some paid subscriber-only content soon!

Btw, I’m actively learning how to tweet! Follow me to witness my ongoing transformation from boomer poaster to e-girl.