The two reflexes that are breaking the left 

This article The two reflexes that are breaking the left  was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Last November, I watched the livestream of the founding conference of Your Party, a new left political force in the U.K. And it was chaotic in a way I found nauseatingly familiar, with boycotts, expulsions, procedural fights and “points of order” giving way to rants and finger-pointing, microphones being cut off and howls of “let them speak!”

It was familiar because after years in left-wing organizing, I’ve come to think of this behavior as just part of how meetings are. Not only the stuff that happens in person, but the forum wars, the snark in comments sections, the quiet fights that slowly poison groups until they collapse.

But I’ve realized only recently that at the core of these disagreements lies the same divide. You can see versions of it across the political spectrum, but the left depends so heavily on meetings, norms and moral language that the damage is especially visible there. I’m talking about a tension in how we approach politics: Do we start from values, or from material conditions? 

These aren’t two distinct “types” of left-wing activists; most of us can do both. Values and material gains are both vital for any left project, and a particular person may prioritize a values-first or a material-first approach depending on the topic.

The deciding factor is what you reach for under pressure. What you prioritize, instinctively, when you’re angry, scared, fighting an asymmetric battle against power, or just trying to get through the next meeting.

So, keeping that nuance in mind, let me try — as a material-firster — to describe these two reflexes, what they contribute to the work of activism and how, if not managed, they can harden into factions and mess everything up.

Values-first: keeping movements honest

A values-first reflex starts from the question of who is being harmed. It’s mainly concerned with ensuring everyone is treated equally and with dignity. (For a time people called this reflex “wokeness.” Since that word has become so loaded, I don’t find it useful.)

Values-first people tend to see bigotry — racism, sexism, Islamophobia, antisemitism and the rest — as part of how power reproduces itself. They worry, with good reason, that once you soften language about who belongs, or “compromise” on basic dignity, you normalize exclusion. And that the same groups always end up losing out.

Values-first people help keep left projects honest. They’re often the ones who notice double standards early, who catch the moment where “strategy” turns into abandoning your principles, and who insist that “winning” without equal treatment isn’t winning.

This reflex fails, though, when values-first becomes a social system. When language becomes the main battleground, and people gain status with their peers by spotting flaws in what someone else has said, declaring harm, and forcing an apology. We’ve all seen it: the purity tests and the unfounded accusations and the public shaming that can make fair questions sound like malice, and disagreement feel like betrayal. And soon, you end up with another kind of exclusion: with in-groups and out-groups forming based on who might be “problematic.”

In many activism and media spaces, this reflex became strong in the late 2010s. It has lost its steam, but it’s still present today.

Material-first: getting movements results

A material-first reflex starts from a different set of questions: What is daily life like for most people, what is pushing them politically, and what would actually make life fairer?

Material-first people look at rent, wages, bills, jobs, broken services, the feeling that those in power aren’t doing the basics. They’re concerned with strategy, persuasion and coalitions. Not because they’re cynical, but because they don’t believe you can protect anyone without first building power.

They don’t deny racism or scapegoating. They just think the fight is harder when people who are suffering feel insecure and abandoned. And they recognize that when the left refuses to talk about everyday life in plain terms, the public becomes more receptive to the simple explanations — and scapegoats — offered by the far right.

The material-first reflex helps ensure that a left project can deliver results for most people. But if it’s not kept in check, it can lead to that project never taking a clear stand, losing its moral compass, and turning the concept of “winning” into compromises that exclude the most vulnerable. You see it when a party wins on rents and wages, then copies right-wing lines on migration to look “tough” — and ends up punishing people who already have the least protection.

The bottom line is that any serious left project needs both reflexes. Most people ultimately want the same thing — a decent life, fair treatment and a future where the game doesn’t feel rigged. But these two reflexes disagree on the fundamentals: what’s causing the problem and what it takes to fix it.

And yes, in leftist activism, those disagreements can turn organizational life into hell.

The dark pattern in today’s big political fights

These two reflexes collide in almost every part of left organizing.

Take some of the major crises of the last few years. On Ukraine, for example, the split shows up in what people are willing to accept. One side can’t stand rewarding invasion or treating Ukrainian lives as bargaining chips. The other can’t stomach open-ended war or the risk of nuclear escalation, and they’re bothered by leaders who treat diplomacy as moral weakness — as if calling for talks is the same as surrender.

A similar dynamic can be seen with the response to COVID-19. Deep into the pandemic, values-first people prioritized protecting the vulnerable and collective responsibility (and often, getting everyone vaccinated). Material-first people focused on what lockdowns and mandates did to livelihoods, social trust, mental health and civil liberties — and worried that once the state learns it can do something, it rarely unlearns it.

On climate, the split is less about whether to act and more about how. One side leads with moral urgency and the language of emergency; the other leads with whether the transition can be made materially tolerable and broadly consented to.

On Palestine, these two reflexes have been more aligned than not — because the horror is so plain, and the machinery enabling it is visible. But they see the genocide through different frames. Values-first people focus on the human rights violation, and the racism and crushing double standards in how Western leaders talk about Palestinian lives. Material-first people take a broader view, focusing on the interests and alliances that are driving the genocide, and the way Western power works.

The same pattern in tactics and process

But the split isn’t just about policy disagreements. These two reflexes also clash on the mechanics of activism: theories of change, tactics, messaging priorities and even internal management styles.

On censorship: Values-first people are keen to push institutions to limit hateful speech because they see speech as a tool that can produce real harm. Material-first people are more likely to resist restrictions, because restrictions tend to expand — and then get used against dissent.

On the far right: Should we ban anti-democratic far-right parties from running (values-first), or beat them at the ballot box (material-first)?

On general political strategy: Should we set clear moral red lines (values-first), or try to win over as many persuadable people as possible — even if that means adjusting our language (material-first)?

On decision-making: Should we have clear roles for quicker decisions (material-first), or take a values-first approach and make sure everyone has a say, even if it slows things down (values-first)?

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This brings me back to the Your Party mess. Its two co-leaders have different reflexes: Zarah Sultana and her wing read as values-first; Jeremy Corbyn and his crew as material-first. That split showed up immediately: on the eve of the conference, some members/delegates were expelled over alleged dual membership of other left groups (notably the Socialist Workers Party), and Sultana boycotted the opening day in protest, calling it a “witch hunt.”

Once you have that split at the top, the divide tends to follow a familiar path: Factions form, and every procedural dispute becomes a proxy war over what kind of left project Your Party is meant to be.

A glimpse of how it could work

So what can we do? With everything else going wrong, can’t we avoid sabotaging ourselves?

There’s at least one example of a left project that won by holding these reflexes together without letting either one take over the whole operation: the recent election of Zohran Mamdani as New York’s mayor. Mamdani didn’t hide his Muslim identity; he answered identity-targeted attacks head-on, and he called out racism when he saw it. But he also kept pivoting, relentlessly, to a simple material pitch: affordability. He spoke in a way that material-first people recognized as serious, while still meeting values-first people on dignity and equal treatment (the memes when he won included “Woke is Back”).

What mattered in his campaign wasn’t just content — it was internal discipline. Mamdani’s bid had a tight message, an emphasis on practical delivery over performances of righteousness, and a team that understood that coalitions don’t hold themselves together — you have to run them, consciously, every day.

The question, of course, is whether that will hold now that he’s in office — and it’s already being asked. Winning is one skill; governing, while keeping your own side from turning on itself, is another.

Zack Polanski of the Greens is also trying a version of this in the U.K. In a recent clip, when accused of wanting open borders, he first concedes the moral baseline (“in an ideal world, yes, but we don’t live in that world”). And then he pivots to the lived reality for most people — housing, hospitals, wages — while insisting the real enemy is austerity, not migrants. He’s attempting to hold the language of dignity, without sounding like he’s ignoring pressure on services and how people feel about it.

I’m not sure it will work. For one thing, this line isn’t as easy to chant as a far-right pitch. But it’s at least an attempt to talk like someone who wants to win rather than simply be right.

Why “bridging” inside organizations keeps failing

However, I’m skeptical about trying to fold these two reflexes into one internal culture. Everything I’ve seen suggests that when you try, they end up either in open conflict or in a kind of permanent, low-level tension, just waiting for the right setting to explode.

One reflex will have to lead — and for me that has to be material-first.

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I believe this not because dignity is optional, but because power is not optional. We’re organizing to persuade, to improve daily life for most people, and we need power to do it. I just can’t see a path to power for a project driven by the values-first reflex.

Because as we’ve seen again and again, when a values-first approach is unchecked in day-to-day organizing, when it becomes an internal culture, it burns up a lot of activist energy — on process and meetings, on purity tests and status games. It ties everything in knots. It kills trust between activists.

And so, as someone who wants the left to stop being its own worst enemy, here’s what I’d propose:

Material-first leads the public offer, the outward-facing communications: the systems we will fix, the guarantees we will make, the concrete improvements people can hold us to. Values-first protects the baseline: equal treatment, no scapegoating, no casual cruelty, no treating “winning” as permission to discard people. Set a small number of non-negotiables, and mean them.

That’s where I’m landing so far. If you think I’m wrong, tell me where. But please, tell me in a way that makes you sound like someone who actually wants to win.

This article The two reflexes that are breaking the left  was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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