Left debate culture: Let’s argue properly again

I I remember a room on the second floor of an autonomous center. Too small for the twenty people sitting there, chairs in a circle, jackets over radiators. The windows were steamed up and someone had left the coffee machine on. One talked for too long, two demonstratively stopped listening, someone only objected when the thought was actually over. It became restless, then surprisingly concentrated again. Nobody was right, everyone struggled. In the end they didn’t agree – but they were wiser.

This is how I got to know politics: in self-governing spaces, at Küfas, at open meetings, in discussions that were strenuous and therefore productive. Arguments were not seen as a danger, but rather as a prerequisite for being able to understand the world at all. Maybe that’s why I notice so strongly today that something has changed. Maybe I’m partly imagining this change – memory is, as we all know, selective, and nostalgia is a convenient filter. But even with this caveat, the feeling remains that something is missing.

I increasingly experience political debates as moral, pointed and short-winded. Conversations break down quickly, positions are established early on, contradictions are perceived as disruptive rather than clarifying. This is not a personal accusation and not a “settlement with the left”. Rather, it describes a shift in political culture that affects many – including me.

Even if it quickly seems like a nostalgic transfiguration, it’s worth taking a look back. The Specifically-Congress 1993 of the radical left-wing magazine of the same name is still considered legendary today: loud, polemical, full of friction. Certainly not harmonious, often chaotic – but supported by the common assumption that political knowledge arises from debate. There were arguments, arguments and contradictions. Not everything was smart, some was probably hurtful. But a conflict-filled debate was not a flaw here, but rather the core of left-wing politics.

Errors must be allowed

Events like that SpecificallyCongress were by no means exceptions, but rather an expression of a time in which political socialization took place primarily in real spaces. There you learned that you have to endure contradictions in order to be able to deal with social contradictions. That knowledge does not come at the beginning, but only emerges in a process in which positions are fought for.

My own politicization began at the end of the 2000s: with the global financial crash, the protests against crisis policy, with the Blockupy movement against the Frankfurt Stock Exchange – and with the simultaneous strengthening of right-wing structures, especially in southwest Germany. Politics was suddenly no longer an abstract question, but part of everyday life. Like many others, I was looking for answers. As a teenager, it was initially a rather rough and, looking back, somewhat embarrassing closeness to authoritarian communist role models – less analysis than the need for clarity and systematic anger. Other stations followed later: anti-German debates, anarchist contexts, and finally council communist perspectives. Not as an identity, but as a learning process.

For me, politics always meant examining positions, rejecting them, rethinking them – and also enduring errors. Blockups was a defining moment for many of my generation. Different left-wing currents came together and argued about strategy, goals and forms of protest – often harshly, but rarely morally. It was about how we become capable of acting together. Looking back, Blockupy seems like one of the last major attempts to bring together collective debate and practice. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it makes sense.

Today, political conversations often arise under different conditions. Many are initiated or continued via social media. These rooms work as debate spaces different from analog ones: They reward speed, clear attributions, clear attitudes. Anyone who hesitates, asks or differentiates can easily fall behind. This not only shapes online debates, but also has a noticeable impact on analogue political spaces.

I experience again and again that discussions are not opened properly. Much remains unsaid because insecurity is seen as weakness or because there is concern that conflicts could divide people. Conversations end before they begin – not out of ill will, but out of time pressure, exhaustion, caution. It remains to be seen whether this should immediately be called “problematic”. But it is politically unproductive – and tiring in the long run.

A political movement that avoids conflict loses its ability to understand social conflicts. Of course, if you don’t argue anymore, you can’t learn together. Moral clarity then replaces analysis, and as a result political depth is increasingly lost. This is not a completely new finding, but one that obviously needs to be remembered again.

Of course, it would neither be possible nor right to simply return to the old culture of debate. Not everything used to be better, many things were harder, more unfair, harsher, louder. But there was at least a shared understanding that insisting on political clarity prevents us from thinking productively together. Maybe that’s exactly what we need again today: spaces – real and digital – in which debates can have time. Where you can disagree without being singled out. In which you don’t have to know immediately where you stand, but can find out together.

The question is not how we return to old forms, but how we learn to argue again under today’s conditions – not against each other, but with each other.