Undercurrents: What does the right really want?

Sometimes on the left in New Zealand, or sometimes in response to these culture war issues becoming more prominent, you hear this idea that this is like an imported style of politics.

This is an importation of an American style of politics.

I'm interested in what you make of that.

Is that something that you agree with, or is that a way of pushing responsibility onto some shadowy foreign force rather than recognizing the forces

that are driving it

here?

I think it's a great question, Olly.

I do think there's something really limited when you say this is just stuff brought in from America because, you know, this stuff is having some traction here because it's linking to local political issues.

Yeah.

the politics of race relations in this country.

So it was being imported in some abstracted form that didn't kind of chime with those local issues.

They don't have no sort of traction.

So I think that's, you know, that is a line that you often hear from a certain kind of left, center-left politics that sees itself as not wanting to engage with the culture wars.

And I understand that at one level because culture wars game-playing can get you very easily entangled in your opponent's sort of narratives and sort of imaginaries.

So one of the things you have to do, you have to play a version of cultural war politics, but in a subtle way, where you're not getting entangled in some of the glib stereotypes that can be projected onto the left.

Actually, I was talking about this to students this morning.

At one level, a term like wokeness is this sort of really stupid term because it's used in this sort of ridiculous, sort of ridiculously promiscuous way.

And it's clearly doing all this propaganda ideological work for the right.

But at the same time, it does kind of conjure up some image of a sort of moralising, holier-than-thou sort of leftist figure.

And I think one of the reasons why this stuff lands is because people can think of examples from their own life of these kind of characters.

So I do think the left needs to think about its own communicative

politics sometimes.

Like Bryce, there's a similar desire for a kind of left populist politics that can appeal to people that go beyond the world of the left.

Because if the left is just talking to itself, well, it's not very effective as a sort of political project.

I mean, it's very...

Sometimes on the left in New Zealand, or sometimes in response to these culture war issues becoming more prominent, you hear this idea that this is like an imported style of politics.

This is an importation of an American style of politics.

I'm interested in what you make of that.

Is that something that you agree with, or is that a way of pushing responsibility onto some shadowy foreign force rather than recognizing the forces

that are driving it

here?

I think it's a great question, Olly.

I do think there's something really limited when you say this is just stuff brought in from America because, you know, this stuff is having some traction here because it's linking to local political issues.

Yeah.

the politics of race relations in this country.

So it was being imported in some abstracted form that didn't kind of chime with those local issues.

They don't have no sort of traction.

So I think that's, you know, that is a line that you often hear from a certain kind of left, center-left politics that sees itself as not wanting to engage with the culture wars.

And I understand that at one level because culture wars game-playing can get you very easily entangled in your opponent's sort of narratives and sort of imaginaries.

So one of the things you have to do, you have to play a version of cultural war politics, but in a subtle way, where you're not getting entangled in some of the glib stereotypes that can be projected onto the left.

Actually, I was talking about this to students this morning.

At one level, a term like wokeness is this sort of really stupid term because it's used in this sort of ridiculous, sort of ridiculously promiscuous way.

And it's clearly doing all this propaganda ideological work for the right.

But at the same time, it does kind of conjure up some image of a sort of moralising, holier-than-thou sort of leftist figure.

And I think one of the reasons why this stuff lands is because people can think of examples from their own life of these kind of characters.

So I do think the left needs to think about its own communicative

politics sometimes.

Like Bryce, there's a similar desire for a kind of left populist politics that can appeal to people that go beyond the world of the left.

Because if the left is just talking to itself, well, it's not very effective as a sort of political project.

I mean, it's very...