Chapter 9. You Can't Defeat Negativity With Negativity Faced with the persistent negativity and often unreasonable stances of postmodern criticalist activists, there have been a variety of responses, from political withdrawal due to exhaustion, to intellectual analysis (I'm in this camp), to outright reaction. However, especially in the earlier stages, the reactionary component was quite dominant. This led to an essentially 'fight negativity with negativity' approach, heaping negativity on postmodern criticalism driven activism, without offering much in terms of an alternative positive agenda. The thing we must remember about this reactionary strategy is that it was not only unsuccessful in turning the tide against illiberal forms of activism, it actually pushed more people into their arms. I saw all this unfold right before by eyes, and I have become very frustrated about it, to be honest.
61
