What it means to be Left Now
And there's the thing.
If you take a tour around the high minded leftie blogs, you may well conclude that to be Left these days is the same as it always was, and the defining characteristic is a detestation of anybody else who professes to share your political leanings. It was ever thus, the most ferocious attacks, the deepest philosophising, has always been directed to the same side of the fence. The endless variations of Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist-Socialist-Communist of yesteryear now manifests itself without the mad labels, but with none of the invective lost. Thus, the Anti War Left is contemptuous of the Pro-War Left and vice versa. The Green/anti-Globalisation wing is scorned by everyone else, Chomsky is hated and revered in equal measure.
In the Blogosphere, the Right has a clear and unswerving agenda. They know their enemy. They may have their differences, the Libertarians and the Free Marketeers, the One Nation Tories and their radical bretheren, but you have only got to mention regulation, terrorism, Israel, the unions or asylum seekers and they speak as One.
Now look at those topics again. What is the Left's position on those subjects? Hm?
Go around, look at the blogs, note the passion and intellectual rigour which the Left uses up fighting itself.
Harry, the answer to your question is that to be Left means realising the world is not as it should be and then despising others who broadly share your view.