Reactive reactionaries

All political factions are, to varying degrees, reactive—that is, their positions are often a (negative) reaction to an opposing faction's positions.

This is hardly news, and examples abound. Consider Milo Yiannopoulos, who used to mock gamers but then joined Gamergate because "SJWs" hated it. Or consider the way some American leftists will deny or minimize the crimes of whatever dictator American warmongers currently have in their crosshairs.

The Gamergate controversy is a perfect example of this phenomenon. In a 2014 article, David Auerbach described the controversy as follows:

There are no less than 16 factions actively involved on either side, by my count, each with their own particular agendas and resentments. At this point the sides are defined less by ideology than by a) antagonism toward some faction on the other side and b) the willingness to accept (or despise) the Gamergate label:

Loosely Pro-Gamergate	Loosely Anti-Gamergate
Hardcore and “mantle” gamers Revanchist movement misogynists Heterodox social justice heretics Disgruntled game journalists and devs Heterodox feminists Anti-identity politics liberals Libertarians Anti-librul media conservatives	“Middlebrow” gaming media Indie gaming scene Social justice orthodoxy (Tumblr, ShitRedditSays, etc.) Gawker, Vice, and other “hipster” media Progressive media (e.g., Vox, Verge) Geek-culture celebrities (e.g., Joss Whedon, Wil Wheaton) Gaming studies academics Mainstream progressives

For his Gamergate coverage, Auerbach got a lot of angry pushback from the left. As far as I can tell, the reason was that Auerbach's articles did more than just say "Gamergate sucks" over and over.

However that may be, his description of Gamergate seems spot-on to me, especially his statement that "the sides are defined less by ideology than by a) antagonism toward some faction on the other side and b) the willingness to accept (or despise) the Gamergate label".

In other words, both sides in the Gamergate controversy were reactive (which is not to say that both sides were equally wrong).

For example, principled libertarians should have nothing to say qua libertarians about Gamergate. Individual libertarians might have opinions about Gamergate, just as they might have opinions about musical genres or soap brands, but there is nothing inherently libertarian about a pro- or anti-Gamergate stance. Yes, Gamergaters got angry when mainstream discussion boards "censored" Gamergate discussions, but that "censorship" had nothing to do with the government censorship that actually violates libertarian principles. Yet I noticed (along with Auerbach) that libertarians as a group were fairly sympathetic toward Gamergate. Why? Mainly because the libertarians were reacting against those dastardly SJWs.

But you know what's an even more perfect example of political reactivity? The alt-right.

The alt-right is pure reaction. First they reveled in anime boobs and sexy video game characters on 4chan. But now the alt-right is embracing Jordan Peterson of all people, a psychologist and amateur philosopher whose life-advice includes "stand up straight" and "clean your room", and who has advocated a more traditional, less sexualized culture—not just for women but for men as well. Why does the alt-right like him? Because the left dislikes him.

How alt-rightists reconcile all this in their minds is beyond me, but this contradiction is just one manifestation of what seems to be a basic feature of human thought.