# Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.



## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

It has been suggested that we need a thread specifically to discuss identity politics.  In order for it to have a fighting chance of not collapsing into chaos as people talk past each other, I thought the OP needed a brief exposition of some of the basic issues as I see them.  No doubt others will want to similarly outline what they see as the basics.  This is not intended as exhaustive, and I have written elsewhere on the boards about my views.  It is, however, intended as a starting point for discussion.


In today’s ‘radical’ politics there is an assumption, sometimes stated, sometimes unstated, but either way underpinning much of the thinking one comes across, that identity and politics are a continuum.  We can see this continuum as analogous to spacetime.  We’ll call it _identitypolitics_.  In this model, identity is politics and politics is identity. The one is but an aspect of the other.  In this model, it is assumed that certain people will _necessarily_ be drawn to ‘radicalism’ because of their identity, and that certain others will tend towards ‘reactionary politics’ because of theirs.  This is essentialism.

Furthermore, because of the pervasiveness of this model, it is now the widespread common sense that the _only_ way to respect the struggles of marginalised people is through this model.  In this now dominant common sense,_ identitypolitics_ is just a synonym for anti-racism, for feminism, for opposition to homophobia and transphobia and so on.  Just as top down Multiculturalism is seen by so many as just a synonym for respecting diversity and inclusivity.  And so, if one criticises _identitypolitics_, one is seen by many as opposing anti-racism, as opposing feminism, and so on, because_ identitypolitics_ has become seen as the _only_ way of doing those things.

In this thread I hope we can discuss yes whether_ identitypolitics_ is the only way of doing these things, and whether, in fact, it _really does_ those things, but more importantly whether there are other, better, ways of doing them.

And here we will hit another issue these debates often hit.  There is a category error that invariably comes up.  It is often assumed by_ identitypolitics _practitioners that critics are arguing that “class is more important than race (or gender, or sexuality, or whatever)”.  This is a misrepresentation that comes about because people have become so used to seeing _identity_ as _the_ basis for politics that they can only see competing identities, nothing else.

If I say I am interested in class analysis, I am not putting forward some identitarian conception of class; I am talking about understanding social structures that prevent us from achieving social justice; social structures that prevent us, ultimately, from achieving self-government.  I am_ not_ setting up “working class” (or, worse still, “white working class”) as an identity.

“Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex”. (Marx and Engels, the Communist Manifesto).​
This is not saying that class is an identity and “more important” than “age or sex”; it is saying that capitalism has resulted in social structures that place us  - all identities together - in a particular economic relationship.  Age and sex (and we would now add race and sexuality and gender identity and so on) are a _different thing_ to that economic relationship.  Arguing which is “more important” is like arguing whether apples are more important than gravity.  It’s not a discussion even worth having.  It’s not a discussion any reasonable person_ is_ having.

It is important to reiterate here that I’m not suggesting that class structure is a thing and identities aren’t; I’m suggesting they’re _different_ things.  Different _sorts _of things.

Nor am I saying that identity is unimportant: identity is an essential part of what it is to be human.  We cannot be without it.  Nor am I saying the struggles I referred to above (the sight against bigotry and racism, against sexism and misogyny, against homophobia and transphobia, and so on) are unimportant.  Far from it.  Those struggles are vital, those causes are just, and they must be supported not diminished.  And it should be pointed out that there is nothing that I gain from class struggle that doesn’t apply to everyone.

The question I want to ask is the best way of going about fighting those oppressions, and whether _identitypolitics_ is helpful or counterproductive.

So how did we come to a point where _identitypolitics_ has replaced structural analysis?

This blogpost offers a worthwhile perspective:


“Roots of this can be found in neoliberalism and its agenda of dissolving society into individuals and commodities. Of course, neoliberalism does not dissolve classes within production or the division of labour, but it dissolves the political potential of the working class through the individualisation of class. Which is why the left of today, in its inability to cope with the complete destruction of its historical counterpart through the 20th century, has decided to turn towards ideology and strategies of the far right, with its emphasis on the individual, its identity, ethnic romanticism and defence of culture and has replaced the class with it. The class interest of the working class is not what drives the left politics of today as the working class is viewed mainly as one of the ‘underdog’ identities.”

(Tzadik)  “American Thought”: from theoretical barbarism to intellectual decadence​

So, for me, despite its origins in decent endeavour, _identitypolitics_ is not now of the left.  It is not socialist (even in the broadest sense). It is not an opposition to structures of oppression, because it doesn’t tackle those structures.  But, further than that, it belongs alongside other reactionary and biological determinist viewpoints, because it uses biology to divide us, it apportions responsibility according to biology and identity, and in using the ideas of the reactionary right, ends up only serving the purposes of the ruling class.


There are other points and arguments that I could have covered but have decided to leave for the forthcoming discussion.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 20, 2017)

I'm going to repeat a point I made on a more recent thread: much of what we call identity politics is not only a politics of identity, but one of brokerage, in which the leaders (self-appointed or otherwise) of this or that identity group become brokers who deliver the votes or political support of their identity group to this or that hegemon in the society of which they are a part.

This is a specifically American thing, dating back to the days of mass politics and mass immigration in nineteenth and early twentieth century America - and not only has it failed to deliver for those oppressed by the American system, it's relevance to non-American situations is questionable at best. And with regard to DLR's point about ID politics not tackling the structures of oppression, well the brokerage of identities takes for granted the continued existence of those structures.


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> I'm going to repeat a point I made on a more recent thread: much of what we call identity politics is not only a politics of identity, but one of brokerage, in which the leaders (self-appointed or otherwise) of this or that identity group become brokers who deliver the votes or political support of their identity group to this or that hegemon in the society of which they are a part.
> 
> This is a specifically American thing, dating back to the days of mass politics and mass immigration in nineteenth and early twentieth century America - and not only has it failed to deliver for those oppressed by the American system, it's relevance to non-American situations is questionable at best. And with regard to DLR's point about ID politics not tackling the structures of oppression, well the brokerage of identities takes for granted the continued existence of those structures.


I think that's a really good way of looking at it. I would suggest that the top-down multiculturalism of the UK is then an adaptation of that system of brokerage. So maybe it is relevant because it has been made relevant.


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## bemused (Sep 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> [..] well the brokerage of identities takes for granted the continued existence of those structures.



Do you think this explains the apparent stack ranking of identities in terms of oppression? Does it increase the power of that brokerage?


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## Idris2002 (Sep 20, 2017)

bemused said:


> Do you think this explains the apparent stack ranking of identities in terms of oppression? Does it increase the power of that brokerage?


"The two rules of New York politics are "all Ireland must be free", and "Trieste belongs to Italy"". As someone once said - and went on to say that it was in that order because the Irish got to the Big Apple first.

Turns out I read it first in Christopher Hitchens:

[CTRL] Pak-Pac


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## Borp (Sep 20, 2017)

The ultimate problem I have with identity politics is that the evidence doesn't stack up. Identity does not equal behaviour. That's just obvious from the evidence. People with all sorts of different identities have all sorts of different opinions. 

The evidence to me says we're individuals existing in various political structures. 

The solution for me is summed up as: 
Political equality, cultural freedom, economic co-operation. Liberty, equality, fraternity. How those three things interact is where the struggle is.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> "The two rules of New York politics are "all Ireland must be free", and "Trieste belongs to Italy"". As someone once said - and went on to say that it was in that order because the Irish got to the Big Apple first.
> 
> Turns out I read it first in Christopher Hitchens:
> 
> [CTRL] Pak-Pac


my first thought on reading your post above was 'tammany hall'.





danny la rouge said:


> “white working class”


this one I've noticed has crept unquestioned into papers/tv/news/commentators. If thats an identity attempted to be constructed top down to fit into that multicultural model who then do they imagine to be the brokers in the brokerage system? Thinking on it I imagine its believed to be ukip or a sufficiently racist tory party. And who is 'in'? I'm pretty sure those using it on the Daily Poilitics or whatever aren't counting polish people in are they, and why not? yeah its full of unasked assumptions imo.


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## seventh bullet (Sep 20, 2017)

'Socially conservative white working class.'


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## Brainaddict (Sep 20, 2017)

It's worth recognising the good impulses behind it - there's an 'injury to one is an injury to all' thinking behind it that says we can't be free without everyone being free. And there's also been a realisation that political movements are often led by privileged people and this has inhibited their radicalism.

But there are a few more problematic assumptions that I see behind it all;
1. That you know how 'oppressed' someone is by their stated identity (even worse, it sometimes comes down to their visible identity)
2. That the most oppressed person in the room knows the most about fighting oppression
3. That focussing on the specific oppressions is the core of liberatory thinking. This implicitly contains a rather liberal negative view of freedom and offers no positive vision of what a different world might look like.


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## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> So how did we come to a point where _identitypolitics_ has replaced structural analysis?
> 
> This blogpost offers a worthwhile perspective:
> 
> ...


Thats one perspective, no doubt with a massive chunk of truth in it.
There is another dynamic though I think...a lot of institutions, including those of the left which focus on class oppression, seem to have a 'blind spot' around issues of racism, patriarchy, gender not to mention hierarchy. One of the reasons this has all come about is that those institutions are being increasingly challenged on that behaviour...that process of attempting to bring justice to unjust institutions does throw up a lot of awkward questions - awkward in the sense that they're not easily resolvable and can bring up more subtle inequalities.

yes theres less focus on taking on the bigger structural roots of inequality (as in the quote above), but these struggles within smaller institutions aren't meaningless/pointless I don't think
(similar/better post above from brainaddict as i wrote it)


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> ..a lot of institutions, including those of the left which focus on class oppression, seem to have a 'blind spot' around issues of racism, patriarchy, gender not to mention hierarchy


Indeed; I've brought that up myself in the past. It's part of what I meant when I said _identitypolitics_ arose from honest endeavour.


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## chilango (Sep 20, 2017)

I have a FB friend who seems to be beginning to get into radical politics, activism etc. They've very quickly started sharing and posting ID politics type stuff, coming from the female, BAME bits of their identity but not their privately educated, boarding school and posh uni bits.

Doesn't prove anything, but illustrates an issue that I'm sure others have encountered in this approach.


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## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> Indeed; I've brought that up myself in the past. It's part of what I meant when I said _identitypolitics_ arose from honest endeavour.


at what point does it stop being honest, and is it possible to clearly define whats is "acceptable" or not? Brainaddicts post draws some lines


chilango said:


> I have a FB friend who seems to be beginning to get into radical politics, activism etc. They've very quickly started sharing and posting ID politics type stuff, coming from the female, BAME bits of their identity but not their privately educated, boarding school and posh uni bits.
> 
> Doesn't prove anything, but illustrates an issue that I'm sure others have encountered in this approach.


Theres nothing to make it mutually exclusive to class struggle/analysis, but maybe in practice it too often is


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## Miss-Shelf (Sep 20, 2017)

The current focus on identity politics discussion (outside of urban I mean) is very enlightening in throwing light on the structural inequalities in instructions mentioned by ska above


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## Idris2002 (Sep 20, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> my first thought on reading your post above was 'tammany hall'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I was going to respond that the American model of broker politics can't be transferred to non-American contexts, but then I thought. . . the professionalisation of (for example) British politics produces a professionalised political class (or _shicht _or stratum) who can occupy a position in the wider political system that takes the form of brokers.

Oh, and before we chuck the baby out with the bathwater, I'd also argue that things like this are part of the rise of idpol as well:

The White Paper, 1969

"Presenting the White Paper in 1969, Chrétien and Trudeau proposed to deal with Indigenous issues definitively. The paper saw policies that pertained to First Nations were exclusionary and discriminatory, as they did not apply to Canadians in general. Trudeau and Chrétien’s White Paper proposed to eliminate “Indian” as a distinct legal status – therefore making First Nations “equal” to other Canadians. They also proposed to dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs within five years, repeal the _Indian Act_, and eradicate all treaties between First Nations and Canada. The White Paper would convert reserve lands to private property owned by the band or its members, transfer all responsibility for services to provincial governments, appoint a commissioner to settle all land claims and provide funds for economic development. At the same time, Chrétien and Trudeau saw the White Paper as a way of eliminating the rising cost of administering Indian Affairs and treaty responsibilities.

*Response*
		 The backlash to the 1969 White Paper was monumental. Major opposition emerged from several organizations, including the National Indian Brotherhood and its provincial chapters. Many felt the document overlooked concerns raised during consultations and appeared to be a final attempt to assimilate Indigenous peoples into the Canadian population."

Such assimilation would have been next door to extinction - and the form "the politics of identity" took in this case was an assertion of the right of Indians and their identities to exist. Which is not something I'd argue against.


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 20, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> It's worth recognising the good impulses behind it - there's an 'injury to one is an injury to all' thinking behind it that says we can't be free without everyone being free. And there's also been a realisation that political movements are often led by privileged people and this has inhibited their radicalism.
> 
> But there are a few more problematic assumptions that I see behind it all;
> 1. That you know how 'oppressed' someone is by their stated identity (even worse, it sometimes comes down to their visible identity)
> ...


Yep. I think often there is confusion about the nature of classes (I mean here not just economic or social class, but any defining group, so including race, gender, sexuality, etc) and what class analysis tells you. Class analysis tells you that certain classes in society fare better than others. But when you then have an individual who fits into that class in front of you, all your analysis gives you is probabilities as to their situation. And chilango's post above makes a good point - how does a person's underprivileged status as part of one class interact with their privileged status as part of another? I think it's tempting to downplay the latter in our own self-assessments.


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## LDC (Sep 20, 2017)

Miss-Shelf said:


> The current focus on identity politics discussion (outside of urban I mean) is very enlightening in throwing light on the structural inequalities in instructions mentioned by ska above



How is it more useful than what has existed for centuries in the radical left?

One of my personal bugbears with some people that shout the praises of ID politics is that they often totally neglect the fact that these things have been analyzed and acted upon for many years, whereas they talk like it's all a new thing they and their lot have discovered.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 20, 2017)

.


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## chilango (Sep 20, 2017)

I'm wondering whether there's an important distinction between _experience_ and _identity_.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm wondering whether there's an important distinction between _experience_ and _identity_.


The latter is constructed out of the former, surely?

And another thing . . . 

It was common in the north of Ireland (and may well be still, for all I know) for people to say "you can't eat a flag", meaning that economic issues couldn't be solved by the particular form the politics of identity took in that particular little patch of heaven.

To which someone responded, "yes, you can't eat a flag - which is why you don't want to have one shoved down your throat".


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## chilango (Sep 20, 2017)

I'm interested in the process of experience becoming identity and the implications of that.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm interested in the process of experience becoming identity and the implications of that.


Yes, this interests me too particularly in the light on recent threads.

To me it illustrates part of the political problem I have with ID politics. _Individual_ experience becoming the basis for identity - there becomes no such thing as society

EDIT: Posted by butchers on a different thread but worth repeating here IMO



butchersapron said:


> Two quick points on the _personal _end of this from over the weekend  - the stuff about how we even talk about this as posters on here - both dealing with the _you haven't had my experience so you can't and shouldn't talk about it. _
> 
> First, no ones experience is discrete and and owned by the individual alone, all experiences are social - and they are not incommunicable. If they were we would have no drama, no literature etc or, indeed any of the past political movements that people here would claim to be supportive of, gain inspiration from took part in.
> 
> Secondly, posters here are - quite rightly, and with every right to do so - judging other peoples politics _as put down on here_ , not the basis of who has had those experiences but on where the logic of those posts leads politically not _only _on what has lead people to them. It's seeking to _extend _the political debate around this stuff rather than stopping it and cutting it off at a _now_.. So peoples experiences are not being dismissed, the logic of their positions and reflections on those experiences are being politically interrogated - and to seek to stop people being able to do this would be to seek the death of the forum as place of substantive political discussion. I think that is, in fact, something, well in train now.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Yes, this interests me too particularly in the light on recent threads.
> 
> To me it illustrates part of the political problem I have with ID politics. _Individual_ experience becoming the basis for identity - there becomes no such thing as society
> 
> EDIT: Posted by butchers on a different thread but worth repeating here IMO


Experience is hardly ever not social though.


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## Red Cat (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> Experience is hardly ever not social though.



No, it's not, but it is sometimes conceived as such, and that is part of the problem.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> Experience is hardly ever not social though.


What Red Cat (and BA in the post above) said - this is _my_ experience, something that _you_ can't appreciate - an atomised understanding of experience.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> at what point does it stop being honest, and is it possible to clearly define whats is "acceptable" or not? Brainaddicts post draws some lines


I agree, Brainaddict's post was very good, and goes some way towards answering at what point it stops being "honest" (my word, and perhaps not the best choice).

As I've said in other threads, pointing out that left politics was ignoring or downplaying important issues was a valid and worthwhile point, but identity has ultimately been the source of reactionary politics:



danny la rouge said:


> Now, I understand where the roots of ID politics comes from: it comes from a good place, too. People wanted to ensure that socialist and radical politics weren't blind to issues of race and gender and so on. This was a good and vital point that was raised in the 60s and 70s. And it was needed. But instead of revitalising the left, this led to reactionary impulses entering radical movements until those reactionary elements of identity had supplanted what I'm going to broadly call socialism, until you get this idea that the working class can't possibly unify. The races can't have common cause.
> 
> Just like the point the OP wanted opinions on, the end point of ID politics is a division based on race. A self-inflicted racism. (Or whatever census category).



It's been around now in "radical" politics for decades, and while its "successes" have led to diversity in the managerial class, these successes have not filtered down, and have been outweighed by the fact that a focus on identity has led to main-streaming of reactionary ideas about biology and identity.

See, for example, Asad Haider: “we will have to rethink an anti-racist strategy that has served mostly to diversify the professional-managerial class”.  Logging Out - Viewpoint Magazine


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## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm interested in the process of experience becoming identity and the implications of that.


When society Others you it becomes a more natural step for those experiences to become part of an identity. Its forced on you to some degree, negatively so, so the next step in overcoming that is to wear it with pride. Thats my experience anyhow.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> No, it's not, but it is sometimes conceived as such, and that is part of the problem.





redsquirrel said:


> What Red Cat (and BA in the post above) said - this is _my_ experience, something that _you_ can't appreciate - an atomised understanding of experience.


Sure, I don't want to deny that that is happpening. But I think it's worth keeping in mind that many, perhaps most identities are explicitly social, whether that's age, gender, race, religion and so on.

So, when redsquirrel wrote "_Individual_ experience becoming the basis for identity - there becomes no such thing as society" I see that as slightly muddled way of thinking about it. If experience is by nature social, then it stands to reason that identity as a product of experience is inherently social too, whether or not people always realise that. Even at the most atomised level of individuality - say that of a consumer - that's still something you hold in common with pretty much everyone else.

Not sure where I'm going with this  probably up my own arse


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## Pickman's model (Sep 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm interested in the process of experience becoming identity and the implications of that.


The things that divide and not the things that unite...


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## bimble (Sep 20, 2017)

In my experience a lot of this stuff gets handed to people by their parents / families (or whatever immediate influential others) when they're small children, and I imagine that's really common for people growing up in some way apart from the mainstream dominant culture - be that children of immigrants or in an ethnic minority at a predominantly white /christian school or whatever. I think its a mistake to frame this so much as individual choice, a sort of voluntary consumerist type thing.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 20, 2017)

bimble said:


> In my experience a lot of this stuff gets handed to people by their parents / families (or whatever immediate influential others) when they're small children, and I imagine that's really common for people growing up in some way apart from the mainstream dominant culture - be that children of immigrants or in an ethnic minority at a predominantly white /christian school or whatever. I think its a mistake to frame this so much as individual choice, a sort of voluntary consumerist type thing.


Yeh parents have no choice how to bring their children up


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## redsquirrel (Sep 20, 2017)

bimble said:


> In my experience a lot of this stuff gets handed to people by their parents / families (or whatever immediate influential others) when they're small children, and I imagine that's really common for people growing up in some way apart from the mainstream dominant culture -


A lot of what stuff? Identity politics? Such politics has only been around for a few decades, it's hardly something that has been passed down the ages.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 20, 2017)

I'm in a minority of _one_, fuck you all


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## bimble (Sep 20, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh parents have no choice how to bring their children up


They fuck your up .. etc. One of the several reasons I'm not having kids is this though, wouldn't want to pass on a load of 'you are this type of person' stuff, for them to have to carry around.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> A lot of what stuff? Identity politics? Such politics has only been around for a few decades, it's hardly something that has been passed down the ages.


As Idris2002 said above, it goes back much further in other countries. India is another example, where identity politics is just part of the scenery, especially when it comes to voting.


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## bimble (Sep 20, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> A lot of what stuff? Identity politics? Such politics has only been around for a few decades, it's hardly something that has been passed down the ages.


When would you date it from, civil rights movement?


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

bimble said:


> When would you date it from, civil rights movement?


Identity politics? I actually think a lot of the anti-racism in the 60s was grounded in socialism. I'd put what I'm referring to a little later, maybe the 70s and certainly by the 80s. Not that there's absolute geological stratification or anything.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 20, 2017)

It's obviously a massive thing in the USA because it's such a deeply racialised society. Ditto any other place (India mentioned above) where your social status really does depend not just on skills or even wealth, but on your cultural background and _what you are_. And then I see _what I am_ (socially) and _who I am_ (personally) being conflated quite widely, and that's easy to do so it's no surprise, but it's really unhelpful IMO.

It would be better in any case if we treated people based on what they _do _rather than what they _are_. But I see things going the other way at the moment.


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## Borp (Sep 20, 2017)

Are our identities just what's given to us though. And nothing is self created. I know this goes into the rabbit hole of philosophy where there aren't really too many answers. But doesn't the evidence show we're a bit of both. 

I would say that insofar as our identity isn't questioned by us it's a given. But I think it is possible to question our given identities or beliefs fundamentally and to come up with our own conclusions. I think it's in those areas that we become individuals rather than a group identity. 

That's certainly how I experience other people and myself. Part given identity, part individual.


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## bimble (Sep 20, 2017)

I'm ill and not up to saying anything very sensible this eve so instead here's a photo from the annual reparations march at Brixton a couple of summers ago. I kind of love this for the madness of where people can end up when thoroughly disappeared down certain rabbitholes. i know, not really on topic, soz.


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## Red Cat (Sep 20, 2017)

Identity sounds static to me, like the reification of experience, which is dynamic, contradictory, in relation to others.


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## sunnysidedown (Sep 20, 2017)

Worth a read for some discussion of '_American thought',_ relating somewhat to this thread subject.

Intellectual imperialism: On the export of peculiarly American notions of race, culture, and class


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## mojo pixy (Sep 20, 2017)

I do think identity is mostly what we're given, with a little of what we choose mixed in. More _what we choose_ as we get older perhaps, but I think a lot of us suffer from some kind of sunk costs fallacy when it comes to who we think we are. I'm pretty sure I do.


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## chilango (Sep 20, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Identity sounds static to me, like the reification of experience, which is dynamic, contradictory, in relation to others.



Yes!!!

I was going to post that "identity might be the reifucation of experience" earlier but bottled it in case I was using reification wrongly


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Identity sounds static to me, like the reification of experience, which is dynamic, contradictory, in relation to others.


I agree, but I also think that we're biologically predisposed to acquiring identity as a way to not go mad. It's basically the same principle behind stereotyping, if we don't do it there's too much information and too many decisions to handle.


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## Red Cat (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> I agree, but I also think that we're biologically predisposed to acquiring identity as a way to not go mad. It's basically the same principle behind stereotyping, if we don't do it there's too much information and too many decisions to handle.



This is interesting. Undifferentiated formlessness feels like madness, yes. So we do need some shape, contours and boundaries in order to have some sense of self, and a large degree of integration of all aspects of our personality, integrity. But rigid border control of what is allowed into our identity and what is kept out seems to me to be based on a weak sense of self not a strong one. 

I think madness is a kind of breakdown in one's sense of self into fragments, which is why I wonder if the increasing proliferation of social identities feels like a kind of madness, and in contrast to the integrity and strength of solidarity based on universal ideas of humanity.


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## LDC (Sep 20, 2017)

But we're not just chatting about personal identity and where we get that from here, but the manifestation of identity politics as a political project, something very different.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 20, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I do think identity is mostly what we're given, with a little of what we choose mixed in. More _what we choose_ as we get older perhaps, but I think a lot of us suffer from some kind of sunk costs fallacy when it comes to who we think we are. I'm pretty sure I do.


I'm Irish now. But I can remember a time when I was Canadian.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 20, 2017)

sunnysidedown said:


> Worth a read for some discussion of '_American thought',_ relating somewhat to this thread subject.
> 
> Intellectual imperialism: On the export of peculiarly American notions of race, culture, and class


That was really good, but there were a few points where I had to disagree! I'm on a phone now though,  so a proper response will have to wait.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But we're not just chatting about personal identity and where we get that from here, but the manifestation of identity politics as a political project, something very different.



Yes, and isn't that illustrative of the problem. People conflating/confusing challanges to their identity politics with attacks on their identity is post of the cause of the rancour.


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## Jonti (Sep 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm wondering whether there's an important distinction between _experience_ and _identity_.


I liked this post by kabbes in the other thread 






			
				kabbes said:
			
		

> There is another important facet of identity that has seemingly been overlooked, or at least downplayed, a lot in the talk in this specific thread. Identity is normally seen as the interplay of the assumed and the assigned, and you can't just divorce the two. As a gross oversimplification, the self is formed by its reaction to the assigned identity, and how it interprets this through its assumed identity. This is a key element of the TERF case, and it can't just be wished away even if the way that the TERFs react to it is frequently problematic in its own right.


The assigned in this case being experiential (as it's the one that's forced upon you), in my reading, and the assumed being what one finds within oneself.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

If you're a member of a group that's being oppressed in a particular way you probably (if you're fairly enlightened) want two things - the eventual destruction of the system that sustains that oppression, and two - as much resistance, breathing room, and progress as you can muster in the meantime.  Always (ALWAYS!) it's the people suffering alongside you in that particular manner who are keenest to the needs of the situation, most willing to take action, and best placed to help create a culture of change that's effective in the here and now, not just some theoretical future.
I've seen some fantastic cross-cultural support and activism over the years, but surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall, or urgently remind the world that Black Lives Matter or whatever.
I'm suspicious of the whole opposition to identity as a tool for resistance.  It feels a lot to me like people feel uncomfortable replacing their existing model, in which there is a clear outside enemy oppressing the group they belong to, with a more complex model in which we all have to deal with our own small (or otherwise) part in facilitating other people's oppression.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall, or urgently remind the world that Black Lives Matter or whatever.



for real?


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> If you're a member of a group that's being oppressed in a particular way you probably (if you're fairly enlightened) want two things - the eventual destruction of the system that sustains that oppression, and two - as much resistance, breathing room, and progress as you can muster in the meantime.  Always (ALWAYS!) it's the people suffering alongside you in that particular manner who are keenest to the needs of the situation, most willing to take action, and best placed to help create a culture of change that's effective in the here and now, not just some theoretical future.
> I've seen some fantastic cross-cultural support and activism over the years, but surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall, or urgently remind the world that Black Lives Matter or whatever.
> I'm suspicious of the whole opposition to identity as a tool for resistance.  It feels a lot to me like people feel uncomfortable replacing their existing model, in which there is a clear outside enemy oppressing the group they belong to, with a more complex model in which we all have to deal with our own small (or otherwise) part in facilitating other people's oppression.



This suggests that all people fighting oppression are ultimately socialists. They aren't. Some are liberals, some are Nationalists.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> for real?


Yeah, I'm coming at this from my own personal experience, not some massive analysis of every movement that ever existed or whatever, but taking the Black Lives thing - it's raised awareness in a way that nothing else did.  I'd say it's even impacted on the issue in a front line way.  What can you point to that was widespread and lefty and going on before that?  Genuine question.


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## Red Cat (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> Yes, and isn't that illustrative of the problem. People conflating/confusing challanges to their identity politics with attacks on their identity is post of the cause of the rancour.



I agree we've moved away from the political realm but maybe we need to look at the possible causes of that conflation because just telling people that they have made a category error isn't that helpful. Surely the development of a strong sense of self, knowing who one is, with whom one belongs, is a social and political issue. What kind of social organisation makes it more likely that people will feel that they belong? Not feeling a sense of belonging and looking for a home (having a weak sense of who one is in relation to others) can lead people into nazism or isis as well as the SWP and psychotherapy trainings.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> we all have to deal with our own small (or otherwise) part in facilitating other people's oppression.


Who are you oppressing and why?


----------



## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> I agree we've moved away from the political realm but maybe we need to look at the possible causes of that conflation because just telling people that they have made a category error isn't that helpful. Surely the development of a strong sense of self, knowing who one is, with whom one belongs, is a social and political issue. What kind of social organisation makes it more likely that people will feel that they belong? Not feeling a sense of belonging and looking for a home (having a weak sense of who one is in relation to others) can lead people into nazism or isis as well as the SWP and psychotherapy trainings.



Agreed.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> Yeah, I'm coming at this from my own personal experience, not some massive analysis of every movement that ever existed or whatever, but taking the Black Lives thing - it's raised awareness in a way that nothing else did.  I'd say it's even impacted on the issue in a front line way.  What can you point to that was widespread and lefty and going on before that?  Genuine question.


How far back do you want to go? The Black Panthers, W.E.B. Du Bois, Hubert Harrison, Harry Haywood, Claude McKay, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Audre Lorde and so many others were all clear they were fighting capitalism in order to fight racism.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But we're not just chatting about personal identity and where we get that from here, but the manifestation of identity politics as a political project, something very different.


Sure. But you can't have one without the other, and there's no point pretending only the political-economical side matters.

edit - what Red Cat said better


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## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But we're not just chatting about personal identity and where we get that from here, but the manifestation of identity politics as a political project, something very different.


Could you clearly define the difference between the two?  
How would, for example, the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity differ from a manifestation of identity politics in her?


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> Sure. But you can't have one without the other, and there's no point pretending only the political-economical side matters.
> 
> edit - what Red Cat said better



Of course you can have one without the other. Everybody has an identity; not everybody subscribed to identity politics.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> Of course you can have one without the other. Everybody has an identity; not everybody subscribed to identity politics.


I should have said you can't learn about identity politics without also considering personal identity. You don't have to subscribe to identity politics in order to wittingly or unwittingly practice it or participate in it though.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> Who are you oppressing and why?


The people who made my computer components  for a start.  Those that are starving while i scoff my (basically unnecessary) pan au chocolat come to mind also.


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## LDC (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> Who are you oppressing and why?



And that's one of the key issues I have with identity politics. In that it flattens out systemic/structural oppression by capital and the ruling class to being something we all do to each other, consciously and unconsciously, and equates them as all being of equal importance and also one largely of choice.


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## LDC (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> The people who made my computer components  for a start.  Those that are starving while i scoff my (basically unnecessary) pan au chocolat come to mind also.



No, you're not oppressing them, capitalism is. Down that road lies the fucked up mess (much of) the left is in now.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 20, 2017)

I'd never heard of identity politics before joining these boards. From the way the phrase has been used I gathered it was some sort of put down or insult.

I appreciate danny la rouge's OP - but must confess you have lost me some what. Do I need a PPE degree to understand it?  or should I have done some specific homework first?


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## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> How far back do you want to go? The Black Panthers, W.E.B. Du Bois, Hubert Harrison, Harry Haywood, Claude McKay, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Audre Lorde and so many others were all clear they were fighting capitalism in order to fight racism.


I totally acknowledge that.  I meant something different.  I meant what urgent and immediate (and effective) work was being done to prevent racially-aggravated police killings in the few years leading up to BLM.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> I should have said you can't learn about identity politics without also considering personal identity. You don't have to subscribe to identity politics in order to wittingly or unwittingly practice it or participate in it though.


Both true (but different to what you said originally).


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## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, you're not oppressing them, capitalism is. Down that road lies the fucked up mess (much of) the left is in now.


I stand by what I said in that people who are starving probably want two things - 1) The destruction of the system that denies them food, and 2) (and significantly more urgently) a bowl of maize meal and gravy.  I could choose to provide a bit of that food if I gave up my luxuries.  It serves me not to.  Oppression.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> Both true (but different to what you said originally).


I don't agree with that I'm afraid. Maybe my the initial post of mine you quoted was a bit wider, but it made essentially the same point.

Anyhoo.


----------



## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I'd never heard of identity politics before joining these boards. From the way the phrase has been used I gathered it was some sort of put down or insult.
> 
> I appreciate danny la rouge's OP - but must confess you have lost me some what. Do I need a PPE degree to understand it?  or should I have done some specific homework first?


Here's one take on it that doesn't presume too much background knowledge

In a society too short of common goals, identity politics are an imperfect answer | Kenan Malik


----------



## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> I don't agree with that I'm afraid. Maybe my the initial post of mine you quoted was a bit wider, but it made essentially the same point.
> 
> Anyhoo.



It's not essentially the same, or 'a bit' wider. It suggested that you can't have an identity without identity politics, which is untrue (although the reverse is).


----------



## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> > LynnDoyleCooper said: ↑
> > But we're not just chatting about personal identity and where we get that from here, but the manifestation of identity politics as a political project, something very different.
> 
> 
> Could you clearly define the difference between the two? How would, for example, the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity differ from a manifestation of identity politics in her?


Anyone?


----------



## killer b (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> "The class interest of the working class is not what drives the left politics of today as the working class is viewed mainly as one of the ‘underdog’ identities.”



I was involved in a frustrating conversation elsewhere a few weeks ago: all involved, of all backgrounds seemed to think of class purely as an identity.

A friend, a man in his early 40s who works a poorly paid clerical job with minimal prospects of advancement, lives in a damp expensive private let flat, relies on public transport and has no savings or pension, considers himself middle class because he had a middle class upbringing and his folks have bailed him out once or twice when he was on his uppers.

He seemed to think that because he didn't grow up on a council estate or experience extreme poverty as a child, he wasn't allowed to consider himself working class, despite the fact that his material conditions and interests now and for the foreseeable future, are those of the working class.

With what used to be the lower middle classes increasingly finding themselves in less secure, less well paid work and less secure housing, there's huge numbers of people like him who to all intents and purposes are working class, but who don't consider themselves so - because class has been sold them as only  an identity.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> It's not essentially the same, or 'a bit' wider. It suggested that you can't have an identity without identity politics, which is untrue (although the reverse is).


Name one identity that doesn't involve politics then, somehow somewhere.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> Name one identity that doesn't involve politics then, somehow somewhere.



That an identity has a political dimension is not the same as identity politics.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Anyone?



Isn't that addressed in danny la rouge 's initial post?


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> That an identity has a political dimension is not the same as identity politics.


It is these days.

e2a that's the insidious nature of ID-pol, it swallows up every social nuance and rams it onto the ladder of oppression.


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## weepiper (Sep 20, 2017)

killer b said:


> huge numbers of people like him who to all intents and purposes are working class, but who don't consider themselves so - because class has been sold them as only  an identity.


Deliberately so, in a divide and rule kind of way.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> It is these days.



Then you must have a different understanding of what identity politics is.  I think that's true of many people, and part of the reason posters often talk part each other on this topic. My understanding is along the lines set out in the OP; what's yours?


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## chilango (Sep 20, 2017)

killer b said:


> I was involved in a frustrating conversation elsewhere a few weeks ago: all involved, of all backgrounds seemed to think of class purely as an identity.
> 
> A friend, a man in his early 40s who works a poorly paid clerical job with minimal prospects of advancement, lives in a damp expensive private let flat, relies on public transport and has no savings or pension, considers himself middle class because he had a middle class upbringing and his folks have bailed him out once or twice when he was on his uppers.
> 
> ...



Yep. An illustration (and a very central one) of how basing politics on personally "felt" identity excludes rather than includes, and of whose interests it ultimately serves.

For every person who feels strongly enough about their identify to build a political engagement around it, how many more don't fit strongly enough?


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## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> It is these days.
> 
> e2a that's the insidious nature of ID-pol, it swallows up every social nuance and rams it onto the ladder of oppression.


If by social nuance you mean things like race, gender, sexuality, etc., they are already on the ladder of oppression, they don't need to be rammed there, simply recognised where they lay.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> If by social nuance you mean things like race, gender, sexuality, etc., they are already on the ladder of oppression, they don't need to be rammed there, simply recognised where they lay.



But why is ID pol the only/best way to do so?


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## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

killer b said:


> With what used to be the lower middle classes increasingly finding themselves in less secure, less well paid work and less secure housing, there's huge numbers of people like him who to all intents and purposes are working class, but who don't consider themselves so - because class has been sold them as only  an identity.


The Mike Savage et al survey on class attitudes concludes with just this, that people are increasingly actively shunning their traditional (not necessarily Marxist) class status as identity because of perceived social stigmas. Working class people don't want to be prejudged as working class and nor do middle class people want to be judged as middle class. Only the upper classes remain clear on their class position and status


Athos said:


> Isn't that addressed in danny la rouge 's initial post?


No. Are you able to define the difference? Because if there is one I don't understand it. LynnDoyleCooper says its "something very different". and you enthusiastically agreed Athos.


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## killer b (Sep 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> Yep. An illustration (and a very central one) of how basing politics on personally "felt" identity excludes rather than includes, and of whose interests it ultimately serves.
> 
> For every person who feels strongly enough about their identify to build a political engagement around it, how many more don't fit strongly enough?


It works in both directions - the borders of class are sometimes quite rigidly defended by those of more traditional working class backgrounds, as it's identity to them too.


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> Then you must have a different understanding of what identity politics is.  I think that's true of many people, and parry of the reason posters often talk part each other on this topic. My understanding is along the lines set out in the OP; what's yours?


That's a fair question. I don't agree with everything danny says, but his OP was a good starter. When I read this from the OP:



> In today’s ‘radical’ politics there is an assumption, sometimes stated, sometimes unstated, but either way underpinning much of the thinking one comes across, that identity and politics are a continuum. We can see this continuum as analogous to spacetime. We’ll call it _identitypolitics_. In this model, identity is politics and politics is identity. The one is but an aspect of the other. In this model, it is assumed that certain people will _necessarily_ be drawn to ‘radicalism’ because of their identity, and that certain others will tend towards ‘reactionary politics’ because of theirs. This is essentialism.



my take is that identity and politics *do *form a continuum. I also agree that in today's ID politics there's a tendency towards essentialism. But I don't think that the latter invalidates the former, simply because essentialism is a consequence of the way ID politics has emerged in the West over the last few generations, and _identitypolitics_ runs much deeper than that, right down to the core of who we are as a species in my opinion.

Does that help you see where I'm coming from?


----------



## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> That's a fair question. I don't agree with everything danny says, but his OP was a good starter. When I read this from the OP:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not really. Can you explain in more detail everything after "my take...", please?


----------



## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> But why is ID pol the only/best way to do so?


I don't think its the only way, and I really do wish that the kinds of identity-based protest you see today was still linked to wider ideological struggle, and cross-struggle unity; but I do think there's a time and a place for uniting around your common oppression as a group and fighting back. I see the practical results of self-determination and cultural identity, and also the truth in compounded oppressions as they hit different groups.  I think it's fucking odd that left wing people are all of a sudden seeing these movements as some kind of threat instead of a great opportunity to try and develop left thinking.  People are risking their lives to oppose the actions of the state - do you not see that as a more likely breeding ground for socialist ideas and ideals than your average library group meeting or whatever?


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> Not really. Can you explain in more detail everything after "my take...", please?


Right.

No.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> I stand by what I said in that people who are starving probably want two things - 1) The destruction of the system that denies them food, and 2) (and significantly more urgently) a bowl of maize meal and gravy.  I could choose to provide a bit of that food if I gave up my luxuries.  It serves me not to.  Oppression.



Those being structurally oppressed by the state because of their identity often just want parity with those not being oppressed (rights) - I don't know where you get this idea they're all revolutionaries.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> The Mike Savage et al survey on class attitudes concludes with just this, that people are increasingly actively shunning their traditional (not necessarily Marxist) class status as identity because of perceived social stigmas. Working class people don't want to be prejudged as working class and nor do middle class people want to be judged as middle class. Only the upper classes remain clear on their class position and status
> 
> No. Are you able to define the difference? Because if there is one I don't understand it. LynnDoyleCooper says its "something very different". and you enthusiastically agreed Athos.



I would define identity politics pretty much as Danny has.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> Right.
> 
> No.



Oh... ok, then. I was genuinely trying to understand. But no matter.


----------



## killer b (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> The Mike Savage et al survey on class attitudes concludes with just this, that people are increasingly actively shunning their traditional (not necessarily Marxist) class status as identity because of perceived social stigmas. Working class people don't want to be prejudged as working class and nor do middle class people want to be judged as middle class. Only the upper classes remain clear on their class position and status.


I think that's talking about something different tbh. My mate isn't shunning being working class because of stigma - it's because he would feel fraudulent to claim it, because his parents have a nice house in Oxfordshire.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Those being structurally oppressed by the state because of their identity often just want parity with those not being oppressed (rights) - I don't know where you get this idea they're all revolutionaries.


In my first post (which I'm now echoing) I did say 'if they are somewhat enlightened'.  I am aware that many people fighting inequality are not trying to smash the system, hence things like a focus on Black entrepreneurship, etc.  But I'm making the case that the immediate-term is very important if your basic rights are absent.  I would phrase it something like - 'Thanks for the pamphlet brother, now would you just get your foot off my neck...?'.


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## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> How far back do you want to go? The Black Panthers, W.E.B. Du Bois, Hubert Harrison, Harry Haywood, Claude McKay, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Audre Lorde and so many others were all clear they were fighting capitalism in order to fight racism.


Could go back even farther - Marcus Garvey for example:

"He believed that the Communist Party wanted to use the African-American vote "to smash and overthrow" the capitalistic white majority to "put their majority group or race still in power, not only as communists but as white men" (Jacques-Garvey, 1969). The Communist Party wanted to have as many supporters as possible, even if it meant having blacks, but Garvey discouraged this. He had the idea that communists were only white men who wanted to manipulate blacks so they could continue to have control over them. Garvey said, "It is a dangerous theory of economic and political reformation because it seeks to put government in the hands of an ignorant white mass who have not been able to destroy their natural prejudices towards Negroes and other non-white people. While it may be a good thing for them, it will be a bad thing for the Negroes who will fall under the government of the most ignorant, prejudiced class of the white race" (Nolan, 1951).[24]"


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## TruXta (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> Oh... ok, then. I was genuinely trying to understand. But no matter.


It's late and I haven't had enough sleep lately. I'll try again another day.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

TruXta said:


> It's late and I haven't had enough sleep lately. I'll try again another day.



Cool.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> I would define identity politics pretty much as Danny has.


i see nothing in Danny's OP that answers my question. If its clear to you and you also see this massive difference then please help me understand it. How is the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity different from a manifestation of identity politics in her? What is the difference? I really don't see one.


----------



## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> I don't think its the only way, and I really do wish that the kinds of identity-based protest you see today was still linked to wider ideological struggle, and cross-struggle unity; but I do think there's a time and a place for uniting around your common oppression as a group and fighting back. I see the practical results of self-determination and cultural identity, and also the truth in compounded oppressions as they hit different groups.  I think it's fucking odd that left wing people are all of a sudden seeing these movements as some kind of threat instead of a great opportunity to try and develop left thinking.  People are risking their lives to oppose the actions of the state - do you not see that as a more likely breeding ground for socialist ideas and ideals than your average library group meeting or whatever?



You've acknowledged identity politics aren't the only way to tackle those inequalities; I think others are better.

I don't believe that uniting around a common feature is necessarily always identity politics. Take Marxist feminists for example. 

The dangers of identity politics were set out in the op.

Fascist's have risked their lives to oppose the state on certain issues. There's nothing intrinsically socialist about doing so.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 20, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> In my first post (which I'm now echoing) I did say 'if they are somewhat enlightened'.  I am aware that many people fighting inequality are not trying to smash the system, hence things like a focus on Black entrepreneurship, etc.  But I'm making the case that the immediate-term is very important if your basic rights are absent.  I would phrase it something like - 'Thanks for the pamphlet brother, now would you just get your foot off my neck...?'.



There's a danger though in focusing on identity alone that the groups you're supporting are anything but progressive. For example I'm supportive of black liberation groups but that doesn't mean I'd support nationalists or separatists.


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## Athos (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> i see nothing in Danny's OP that answers my question. If its clear to you and you also see this massive difference then please help me understand it. How is the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity different from a manifestation of identity politics in her? What is the difference? I really don't see one.



Her identity is that she is a Palestinian girl (amongst other things).  Her politics needn't be identity politics (as Danny described); she could be a Marxist, for example.

It's like comparing pity with pineapples; identity and identity politics are different classes of thing.

Everybody has an identity, but that doesn't mean everyone's politics are identity politics.

None of which is to deny that people's politics are informed by their experiences, of course.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> i see nothing in Danny's OP that answers my question. If its clear to you and you also see this massive difference then please help me understand it. How is the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity different from a manifestation of identity politics in her? What is the difference? I really don't see one.


Well, what are you actually asking?

Identity is something we all have, or we wouldn't be functioning individuals. Identity isn't just one thing (being Palestinian, being into jazz, being short tempered), but the range of things that make you who you are. Nor is identity homogenous across groups. There is no such thing as one true way to be Palestinian, for example.

But that's isn't politics in and of itself; it's identity.

I presume you chose that example because there is oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli state. Yes, there is. But as I outline in the OP, it I said not necessary to resort to identity politics in order to oppose oppression. Indeed, I argue you're better not to.

Identitypolitics is about ignoring social structure and instead focussing on an appeal to recognise and validate an individual or a group identity. In that way structural challenges are pushed down the priorities and replaced by recognising individuals abstacted from their class position. An identitypolitics response in Palestine might be to try to get an individual Palestinian into an elevated business position, or to be on some committee the Israeli state can deal with, while lives for the mass of Palestinians remain unchanged.

An identitypolitics response to Leo Varadkar's elections in Ireland is to say "hurray! The gay son of an Indian immigrant is Taoiseach!" but not to inquire what his politics are and how the lives of gay people and children of Indian immigrants will be improved. It is seen as something worth celebrating in itself.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I'd never heard of identity politics before joining these boards. From the way the phrase has been used I gathered it was some sort of put down or insult.
> 
> I appreciate danny la rouge's OP - but must confess you have lost me some what. Do I need a PPE degree to understand it?  or should I have done some specific homework first?


I don't have a PPE degree and I understood it. 

I'm sorry if I didn't explain myself clearly; I didn't realise I wasn't. What in particular didn't you understand?


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 20, 2017)

sorry Mr La Rouge - most of it. Maybe I'm just tired, will re read tomorrow.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

killer b said:


> It works in both directions - the borders of class are sometimes quite rigidly defended by those of more traditional working class backgrounds, as it's identity to them too.


That's class as culture as opposed to class as structure. This is the issue of base and superstructure. They are related of course, but different things.


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## killer b (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> That's class as culture as opposed to class as structure. This is the issue of base and superstructure. They are related of course, but different things.


Yes absolutely - I guess my point was, that the identarianism has encouraged people to view class _only_ as culture.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> sorry Mr La Rouge - most of it. Maybe I'm just tired, will re read tomorrow.


Maybe I didn't explain very well. I'm not offended!

It might also be that what identitypolitics is actually _proposing_ is often pretty nebulous.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

killer b said:


> Yes absolutely - I guess my point was, that the identarianism has encouraged people to view class _only_ as culture.


Yes, indeed. We're agreeing here - I'm just explaining my thinking aloud for anyone who is reading.


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## Red Cat (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> You've acknowledged identity politics aren't the only way to tackle those inequalities; I think others are better.
> 
> I don't believe that uniting around a common feature is necessarily always identity politics. Take Marxist feminists for example.
> 
> ...



Yes, a difference for Marxist feminists is that their theory involved an expansion of the concept of production and described how the oppression of women, control over the reproduction of the labour force, could be made sense of in the context of capitalist exploitation. So an expansion of categories rather than fragmentation and division.


----------



## campanula (Sep 20, 2017)

But I can swap identities like coats. Depending on quite a large range of positions, the most venal being, 'how does this benefit me', I can cheerfully bring my addict identity to the fore while dismissing this when I prioritise my parent identity...or a broader (and not uncontested) 'woman'. In some ways, I like to pretend I have more choice/power/agency than I probably do. How fixed or mutable is class though? I have certainly never meandered a centimetre out of working class range...and it isn't really as clear as economic material position either. God, I used to be so certain and now I am in the land of the vague.
Am going to bed to think hard...fairly sure something obvious is eluding me and my brain is a little numb.


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 20, 2017)

Athos said:


> Isn't that addressed in danny la rouge 's initial post?





ska invita said:


> No.



It is. ->



danny la rouge said:


> In this model, it is assumed that certain people will _necessarily_ be drawn to ‘radicalism’ because of their identity, and that certain others will tend towards ‘reactionary politics’ because of theirs. This is essentialism.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> I presume you chose that example because there is oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli state. Yes, there is. But as I outline in the OP, it I said not necessary to resort to identity politics in order to oppose oppression. Indeed, I argue you're better not to.
> 
> Identitypolitics is about ignoring social structure and instead focussing on an appeal to recognise and validate an individual or a group identity. In that way structural challenges are pushed down the priorities and replaced by recognising individuals abstacted from their class position. An identitypolitics response in Palestine might be to try to get an individual Palestinian into an elevated business position, or to be on some committee the Israeli state can deal with, while lives for the mass of Palestinians remain unchanged.


I chose that as an example because the oppression linked to identity is crystal clear and as good as inescapable for the hypothetical girl. Leaving the sexism she would experience aside for a moment, this hypothetical girl whilst forming her identity will inevitably have her politicised 'Oppressed-Palestinian' identity marked on her, whether she wants it or not. She cant choose not to have it.

The example you gave that an identity politics response necessarily = something like getting a Palestinian into an elevated business position <<<<is a very specific and shit thing. Thats not the way I understand identity politics though. If a Palestinian worked effortlessly to stop illegal settlements in what they understood to be Palestinian lands, that would fall under identity politics. It doesn't in anyway require thinking about larger social structure. Its still justified. 

Fighting for token positions within capitalism is shit, clearly. But thats a complaint about something else. The goals maybe smaller than smashing capitalism, but there are fights there that still need fighting.



TruXta said:


> Here's one take on it that doesn't presume too much background knowledge
> 
> In a society too short of common goals, identity politics are an imperfect answer | Kenan Malik


What I take from that piece is theres nothing wrong with "identity politics" per se - it was good and important in the 60s he seems to suggest, as it ran concurrently and overlapping with a wider struggle. Whats fucked is that the wider universalist liberation politics Malik talks about has faded and so this is all thats left, and within that vacuum it becomes problematic.

But whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about. 

 To me the problem with the attack on identity politics is it seems to blame those already experiencing oppression beyond/additional to their class oppression for not doing something about The Grand Injustice of the Superstructure. Somehow being selfish and wrapped up in their own problems. Thats how it comes across. And usually the people complaining about it are not experiencing these particular oppressions themselves.


----------



## campanula (Sep 20, 2017)

killer b said:


> I think that's talking about something different tbh. My mate isn't shunning being working class because of stigma - it's because he would feel fraudulent to claim it, because his parents have a nice house in Oxfordshire.



But having already had a secure and reasonably privileged upbringing, this does tend to give you a different set of expectations. I am not advocating some magical aspirational thinking - the universe is what you expect and make of it etc,..but it must be different for someone who has never gotten further than a council estate (social capital?).
In my efforts to devolve from personal experiential stuff...and take a wider structural viewpoint, I am somewhere feeling a bit erased myself to be honest.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 20, 2017)

campanula said:


> But I can swap identities like coats. Depending on quite a large range of positions, the most venal being, 'how does this benefit me', I can cheerfully bring my addict identity to the fore while dismissing this when I prioritise my parent identity...or a broader (and not uncontested) 'woman'. In some ways, I like to pretend I have more choice/power/agency than I probably do. How fixed or mutable is class though? I have certainly never meandered a centimetre out of working class range...and it isn't really as clear as economic material position either. God, I used to be so certain and now I am in the land of the vague.
> Am going to bed to think hard...fairly sure something obvious is eluding me and my brain is a little numb.


Not sure anything's eluding you. Class is a tricky one as it's certainly fluid for a person through their lifetime, or can be. My take on that is that for political discussion, it's important not to think of, say, Alan Sugar as working class. That he has a working class background would be a better way to describe him, which is frankly irrelevant when considering his role and that of the class to which he now belongs in the workings of economies. Going the other way around, I used to have a neighbour, fifty-something, skint, with drink problem and some MH issues, just about getting by in a council flat, who spoke kind of posh and went to a private school. He had a middle-class or upper-middle-class background, but that certainly wasn't his status by the time I knew him. 

Defining class is another huge can of worms. God help me I more or less agree with phildwyer on this one in that today, many people have a mixed relationship with the means of production, being to some extent both workers and bourgeois with potential for income from owning stuff. Easiest and clearest way to work out your economic class is to have a look at your bank account and see how much comes in every month, plus add-ons like stuff you own, stuff you might inherit, and social capital like education status or who you know.


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## campanula (Sep 20, 2017)

Yep,littlebabyjesus, I did that political popquiz  on here and despite my (last minute) education (which I longed out for years), I am still depressingly firmly wedged in the precariat.


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Could go back even farther - Marcus Garvey for example:
> 
> "He believed that the Communist Party wanted to use the African-American vote "to smash and overthrow" the capitalistic white majority to "put their majority group or race still in power, not only as communists but as white men" (Jacques-Garvey, 1969). The Communist Party wanted to have as many supporters as possible, even if it meant having blacks, but Garvey discouraged this. He had the idea that communists were only white men who wanted to manipulate blacks so they could continue to have control over them. Garvey said, "It is a dangerous theory of economic and political reformation because it seeks to put government in the hands of an ignorant white mass who have not been able to destroy their natural prejudices towards Negroes and other non-white people. While it may be a good thing for them, it will be a bad thing for the Negroes who will fall under the government of the most ignorant, prejudiced class of the white race" (Nolan, 1951).[24]"


That crams a lot into a short space. What evidence is there that 'the communist party wanted as many supporters as possible, even if it meant having blacks'? In the 1920s and 30s, there was support for various black activists in the States from the Soviet Union, as I understand it because they saw black Americans as those who would drive a revolution there. Not as an add-on, but at the core. 
What Happened to the Dream of a "Separate Negro State" in America?


----------



## alsoknownas (Sep 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> But whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about.
> 
> To me the problem with the attack on identity politics is it seems to blame those already experiencing oppression beyond/additional to their class oppression for not doing something about The Grand Injustice of the Superstructure. Somehow being selfish and wrapped up in their own problems. Thats how it comes across. And usually the people complaining about it are not experiencing these particular oppressions themselves.


Very much my own  experience of it.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> Very much my own  experience of it.



Surprise, surprise, mine too. 

I have arrived at the point that I believe that because of their own 'identitypolitics' and lack of _those_ experiences, some people can't imagine what it's like. Others simply aren't interested in trying to understand.


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## Puddy_Tat (Sep 21, 2017)

I must admit to some confusion over this.

I've considered myself fairly 'left' (actual party allegence has moved about a bit) since I started giving active thought to such things (somewhere around late primary school / early secondary school years) which was at the time of what was dismissed by many as 'loony left' with ideas like opposing racism and homophobia and so on as well as standing up for groups of workers under attack by the bosses / thatcher government, and i have been a trade union member (and at times activist) for most of my working life.

At its simplest, i suppose the 11-ish year old me saw it as a choice between siding with the overgrown playground bullies in the form of the bosses, the racists etc, or standing up to them.

As a trade union member, there's the old adage about 'an injury to one is an injury to all' - so i believe that unions and their political parties should come to the defence of whatever group of workers is under attack - whether that's workers in one sector, of one employer, or across the workplace structure if it's workers under attack because they are whatever minority.

to me, the working class i recognise includes people from ethnic minorities, people who are lesbian / gay / bi / trans (and so on), people who are disabled - and some who are any combination of these.

and by 'working class' i mean the 'workers by hand or brain' (to quote the old clause 4) - the "you're not working class enough to be in our gang" approach of some far left types suits the divide and rule of the tories and their tame press very nicely. 

Have I been doing it wrong all this time?

Am I really just a soggy liberal?

As I said on the other thread, some of the the noises coming from left (or at least some of the the white, straight male bits of it) seem to be saying that those pesky minorities should just shut up.

And that challenging racism / homophobia / trans-phobia and so on is 'divisive'

And then you get some people who claim to be 'left' celebrating Trump's election win over 'liberal identity politics' hilary clinton.

Seriously?   

Challenging prejudice is divisive, coming out with it isn't?   Bollocks to that.

Pretending to talk to (some of) the working class by scapegoating other bits of it?   Bollocks to that as well.

Having said that, there's a lot wrong with the new labour style of 'left' (and it's equivalents in other countries) and just shouting 'racist' at people or calling them 'deplorables' for being taken in by right wing bullshit doesn't seem to be the best way to do the agitate / educate / organise thing...


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita said:


> But whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about..


I might have this wrong, but I don't think the attack on id politics is about attacking those fighting homophobia or police prejudice. But there is certainly a danger of campaign groups being coopted into the state structure in a way that supports it rather than challenging it, an obvious example being the corporate event that is Gay Pride nowadays.


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## Miss-Shelf (Sep 21, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> sorry Mr La Rouge - most of it. Maybe I'm just tired, will re read tomorrow.


I'm finding it all slow going too F.O.D. as I'm having to read each post for meaning and I'm not sure I've got them right


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I might have this wrong, but I don't think the attack on id politics is about attacking those fighting homophobia or police prejudice. But there is certainly a danger of campaign groups being coopted into the state structure in a way that supports it rather than challenging it, the obvious example being the corporate event that is Gay Pride nowadays.



But there is widespread opposition from within the LBGTQ+ community against this corporatism too. It's not an either or thing.


----------



## DotCommunist (Sep 21, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> some of the the noises coming from left (or at least some of the the white, straight male bits of it) seem to be saying that those pesky minorities should just shut up.



literally no one has said this. Why would you say that? Can we have quotes and examples rather than feels or seems please? 

I'm started to be reminded of 'berniebros' type chat for some reason and I thought this conversation was doing better than that.


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## Miss-Shelf (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita said:


> I chose that as an example because the oppression linked to identity is crystal clear and as good as inescapable for the hypothetical girl. Leaving the sexism she would experience aside for a moment, this hypothetical girl whilst forming her identity will inevitably have her politicised 'Oppressed-Palestinian' identity marked on her, whether she wants it or not. She cant choose not to have it.
> 
> The example you gave that an identity politics response necessarily = something like getting a Palestinian into an elevated business position <<<<is a very specific and shit thing. Thats not the way I understand identity politics though. If a Palestinian worked effortlessly to stop illegal settlements in what they understood to be Palestinian lands, that would fall under identity politics. It doesn't in anyway require thinking about larger social structure. Its still justified.
> 
> ...


Thank you for this clarity (edit)


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> literally no one has said this. Why would you say that? Can we have quotes and examples rather than feels or seems please?
> 
> I'm started to be reminded of 'berniebros' type chat for some reason and I thought this conversation was doing better than that.



Are we only allowed to reflect on things that are posted on this thread then? Or can we also bring in our wider experiences? The Op wouldn't exist without wider context and experiences Dotty.


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> But there is widespread opposition from within the LBGTQ+ community against this corporatism too. It's not an either or thing.


I'm sure there is. I like Red Cat's point that none of this stuff is static and it's right to think of much of it as constantly contested ground. Idris's point about brokerage is a key one, I think, and the more I think about it, the more I think it's relevant to today's Britain because it is precisely the project begun by Blair/Brown - the attempt to coopt or create identity groups into the state structure as form of control and to make division formalised and permanent.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Only we only allowed to reflect on things that are posted on this thread then? Or can we also bring in our wider experiences? The Op wouldn't exist without wider context and experiences Dotty.



Of course I don't say what anyone is allowed to say but it would be nice if people talking of noises could flag up those who are side lining, or denying minority voices. That is preferable to just vague talk of the left.


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 21, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> Of course I don't say what anyone is allowed to say but it would be nice if people talking of noises could flag up those who are side lining, or denying minority voices. That is preferable to just vague talk of the left.


Yeah, on this particular thread, it would be useful to respond to the ideas of the thread, I would have thought, especially given danny's long OP.

/thread cop


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> Of course I don't say what anyone is allowed to say but it would be nice if people talking of noises could flag up those who are side lining, or denying minority voices. That is preferable to just vague talk of the left.


I know what you mean. There is lots of vague talk about id politiickers and their toxicity around here of late... Can't remember when I last saw an actual example of anyone being that 'guy' though.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not sure anything's eluding you. Class is a tricky one as it's certainly fluid for a person through their lifetime, or can be. My take on that is that for political discussion, it's important not to think of, say, Alan Sugar as working class. That he has a working class background would be a better way to describe him, which is frankly irrelevant when considering his role and that of the class to which he now belongs in the workings of economies. Going the other way around, I used to have a neighbour, fifty-something, skint, with drink problem and some MH issues, just about getting by in a council flat, who spoke kind of posh and went to a private school. He had a middle-class or upper-middle-class background, but that certainly wasn't his status by the time I knew him.
> 
> Defining class is another huge can of worms. God help me I more or less agree with phildwyer on this one in that today, many people have a mixed relationship with the means of production, being to some extent both workers and bourgeois with potential for income from owning stuff. Easiest and clearest way to work out your economic class is to have a look at your bank account and see how much comes in every month, plus add-ons like stuff you own, stuff you might inherit, and social capital like education status or who you know.



Can of worms indeed. If someone is earning money from property then they're perhaps more bourgeois than they'd care to think, if they merely own property then that isn't really an indicator. Anyway this discussion is way off topic for a thread about identities and organising around that.


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## seventh bullet (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That crams a lot into a short space. What evidence is there that 'the communist party wanted as many supporters as possible, even if it meant having blacks'? In the 1920s and 30s, there was support for various black activists in the States from the Soviet Union, as I understand it because they saw black Americans as those who would drive a revolution there. Not as an add-on, but at the core.
> What Happened to the Dream of a "Separate Negro State" in America?



That article doesn't include Communist Harry Haywood, who was also informed by Soviet-developed nationalities policy vis-a-vis 'socialism' within the USSR, and the late 1920s Comintern positions on self-determination in the colonial parts of the world and armed national liberation.  He lived and studied with such revolutionaries when in Moscow.  It also sees people as dumb and stupid, being hoodwinked by the  Soviet Union.


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## likesfish (Sep 21, 2017)

While ID an be a useful tactic dealing with a specific problem that effects a  specific ID it should not be the only tool in the box.
 If you see every problem through the lense of your specific ID then your going to come a cropper.
 A bme/ lgbt/ feminist / approach to transport policy would be ridiculous


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## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

Trite oversimplified example said:
			
		

> if as a (e.g) black worker who do you turn to for support at work? Your white co-workers or your black boss?



Trying to illustrate this simply...


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, on this particular thread, it would be useful to respond to the ideas of the thread, I would have thought, especially given danny's long OP.
> 
> /thread cop



Danny's OP brought in a lot of aspects of the wider context and perspectives. He laid out his beliefs and provided context as he sees it.

Why can't we respond to that with personal examples, experiences etc? They are afterall how we  make meaning of it all so they inform our beliefs.

Why are you policing the conversation in this way?


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

chilango said:


> Trying to illustrate this simply...



It's pretty simple already. I suppose it depends on the point you are trying to make.

Is it:

1. You should always turn to your colleagues because a boss is a boss regardless of any common traits and experiences you might share?

ETA chilango


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## mauvais (Sep 21, 2017)

Isn't the biggest threat of IDP akin to the old religious denominations bridge joke? i.e. that if the approach to every issue becomes primarily defined by your identity, it becomes increasingly difficult to work with people outside that group who would otherwise have a very high degree of commonality with you as regards that issue, indeed perhaps more significantly than in terms of the identity-centric element of that cause. Thus another very useful divide and conquer mechanism for authority.

Not that it is mutually exclusive from cooperation, just that it's probably a trap that's easily fallen into.


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## emanymton (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita said:


> i see nothing in Danny's OP that answers my question. If its clear to you and you also see this massive difference then please help me understand it. How is the experience of a young Palestinian girl growing up in Jerusalem forming a personal identity different from a manifestation of identity politics in her? What is the difference? I really don't see one.


I don't believe that all forms of resistance to a particular oppression, are necessarily identity politics. Rather identify politics is a particular way of conceptualising and engaging in resistance. I think the precise nature of the distinction between identity politics and other forms of resistance, and whether identity politics is even an effective form of resistance is part of what this thread is about.

For my part one aspect of identity politics I dislike is the fetishism of difference. It focuses on what divides rather than unites us. 

This is why I don't like the talk of allies. I don't see myself as an ally of black people fighting rascsim, as that implies I am somehow outside their struggle. But their struggle is my struggle. Anything that moves society in a more equal, fair and just direction benefits us all. Obviously black people will benefit far more and more directly, but their struggle is not separate from mine.


----------



## seventh bullet (Sep 21, 2017)

Can we have less of this?

_I feel..

It seems...

It appears...
_
And when pressed, nothing.

Repeat a few posts later.


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## Puddy_Tat (Sep 21, 2017)

in response to some of the above, no i'm not going to turn this into a call-out thread


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## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

And for many identity politics people that do consider themselves revolutionaries the concept they have of what a revolutionary outlook, structure, and struggle look like is one of lumping all these groups together to form a 'movement', rather than something entirely different. Similar to activists where a 'movement' is often taken to mean just gathering all the single issues together.


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## Athos (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> It's pretty simple already. I suppose it depends on the point you are trying to make.
> 
> Is it:
> 
> 1. You should always turn to your colleagues because a boss is a boss regardless of any common traits and experiences you might share?



I'm not speaking for Chilango, and, as it happens, I don't think it's very helpful to simplify to that extent.

But, I see it as more like: by always looking to your boss just because he's black, you'll undermine solidarity with your fellow workers such that you'll never move beyond the circumstances that are the cause of your oppression, including the specific oppression you experience because of your race (since racism serves the interests of ruling class).

Importantly, that's not the same as recognising that, in the immediate term, some aspects of your interests align with your boss's such that you might achieve some gains from working together.

I think sometimes we misunderstand (to the point of caricaturing) each other.  Some exponents of ID politics seen to believe that critics require them to suffer in silence and overlook the importance of fighting race, sex, etc. discrimination;  whereas, maybe some of the critics are too hasty to dismiss as ID politics things which aren't. 

To some extent, the left must take some blame for that; it's failure to listen to the experiences of minorities created the conditions for ID pol to thrive.   But, equally,  I wonder if you'd agree that some of the polarisation has arisen from the practices (as much as the ideological basis) of ID politics e.g. decisively emphasising difference where it's not necessary, and making spurious claims to authority on the basis that experience should trump reason?

I know you've not been talking to me recently, but I hope you see this post as a genuine attempt to understand and be understood.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> But there is widespread opposition from within the LBGTQ+ community against this corporatism too. It's not an either or thing.



Yes because some people in the LBGTQ+ community have identitypolitics and some don’t. 

This is exactly the point. Andrew Boff is a gay Tory. Nicky Crane was a (closeted) gay Nazi. I’ve got friends who are gay anarchists, etc. 

So there isn’t a single gay politics, a politics which is genetically welded to you because of your sexuality.


----------



## Red Cat (Sep 21, 2017)

I have to go to work now but I think it would be great if we could continue to struggle on this thread with understanding the different viewpoints and to move beyond the stuckness that has been here lately.


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 21, 2017)

bimble said:


> When would you date it from, civil rights movement?


Late to it but what danny said - last 30 years or so. I don't disagree that ethnicity etc have been used as a political for far longer than that but the identity politics than danny talked about in the OP, one that is bound up with multiculturalisms is a recent thing.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2017)

emanymton said:


> This is why I don't like the talk of allies. I don't see myself as an ally of black people fighting rascsim, as that implies I am somehow outside their struggle. But their struggle is my struggle. Anything that moves society in a more equal, fair and just direction benefits us all. Obviously black people will benefit far more and more directly, but their struggle is not separate from mine.


On the other hand, counter to this idea of IDP being unnecessarily divisive, how do you avoid co-option, ownership and dilution of a cause? So to give a possibly unhelpful example, a black-led BLM turning into some primarily white-led 'all lives matter' thing through the integration of all comers? Is that acceptable or positive?

If you take any one type of oppression, as you already indicate, there's a spectrum in terms of the effect on individual people's lives that runs from severe & tangible detriment through to intangible big political picture stuff, and even potentially into deriving benefits from that oppression, intentionally or not. So why do you not need to recognise a parallel spectrum of organisation that includes allies, accomplices and even unwitting enemies?


----------



## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about.



The wider universal liberatory project isn't currently enough I agree.

But this isn't a mistake or something that's 'just happened', it's partly due to the form of identity politics taking its place in some ways. And this hasn't happened in some neutral vacuum, it's been encouraged by capital and complicit members of the left.

I think you're also creating a bit of a straw man case there, not sure anybody has said those examples (homophobia/police prejudice) you give are 'bad' per se, but limited and sometimes problematic (depending on what they do) if you're coming from a wider revolutionary perspective. 

What the fuck is all this talk about fault too? That's one of my bugbears, loads of people in the identity politics scene are basically moralists.


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 21, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> Always (ALWAYS!) it's the people suffering alongside you in that particular manner who are keenest to the needs of the situation, most willing to take action, and best placed to help create a culture of change that's effective in the here and now, not just some theoretical future.


I'm sorry but not only this quite clearly false (you really think the WEP are the best placed to help create a culture of change w.r.t. sexism - give me a break) it also attacks the idea of solidarity - that an attack on one is an attack on all.

You say "but surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall", I think you should watch this. 'Lefty' organisations did take up the fight for gay rights - yes they were too slow about it - but they did fight and fight because of solidarity.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Yes because some people in the LBGTQ+ community have identitypolitics and some don’t.
> 
> This is exactly the point. Andrew Boff is a gay Tory. Nicky Crane was a (closeted) gay Nazi. I’ve got friends who are gay anarchists, etc.
> 
> So there isn’t a single gay politics, a politics which is genetically welded to you because of your sexuality.


I know which is why I made the point I did.


----------



## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I might have this wrong, but I don't think the attack on id politics is about attacking those fighting homophobia or police prejudice.



No it very definitely isn't, and it's dishonest for people to paint it as such.


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 21, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> As I said on the other thread, some of the the noises coming from left (or at least some of the the white, straight male bits of it) seem to be saying that those pesky minorities should just shut up.
> 
> And that challenging racism / homophobia / trans-phobia and so on is 'divisive'
> 
> And then you get some people who claim to be 'left' celebrating Trump's election win over 'liberal identity politics' hilary clinton.


I'm sorry but can you give examples of these things? 
I've not seen anyone claim that challenging racism or homophobia is divisive. People might criticise politics that claims to challenge oppression while actually reinforcing it (I'll use the example of the WEP again). 

As for the Clinton thing, there's only one poster on U75 that would claim to be left and celebrated Trumps win and loads of P&P regulars have repeatedly criticised him for being a racist, sexist, homophobic wanker of the first order.


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## inva (Sep 21, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The wider universal liberatory project isn't currently enough I agree.
> 
> But this isn't a mistake or something that's 'just happened', it's partly due to the form of identity politics taking its place in some ways. And this hasn't happened in some neutral vacuum, it's been encouraged by capital and complicit members of the left.
> 
> ...


the pre-80s (or whatever) universal liberatory project wasn't enough either. the working class rightly rejected our shit organisations and shit ideology as well as pretty much destroying the basis on which they functioned. that the 'new politics' repeats much of those old failings while maybe contributing some different ones of its own is something that we can and should criticise without trying to reconstruct the decrepit politics of the past.


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## bimble (Sep 21, 2017)

Magnus McGinty posted this the other day on another thread:
Sex, race and class - Selma James

I've just noticed that it was written back in 1973 - and she seems to be working to translate between / reconcile these issues already back then, from within a marxist framework.
She concluded (44 years ago):
"How the working class will ultimately unite organizationally, we don't know. We do know that up to now many of us have been told to forget our own needs in some wider interest which was never wide enough to include us. And so we have learnt by bitter experience that nothing unified and revolutionary will be formed until each section of the exploited will have made its own autonomous power felt."
That doesn't seem dated at all, rather prescient.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 21, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> I'm sorry but not only this quite clearly false (you really think the WEP are the best placed to help create a culture of change w.r.t. sexism - give me a break) it also attacks the idea of solidarity - that an attack on one is an attack on all.
> 
> You say "but surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall", I think you should watch this. 'Lefty' organisations did take up the fight for gay rights - yes they were too slow about it - but they did fight and fight because of solidarity.


In my post I acknowledged both the importance and history of


alsoknownas said:


> ...fantastic cross-cultural support and activism over the years...


but there it is - right there in your line 'yes they were too slow about it' - that the problem lies.
To go back to the Black Lives Matters thing - Black people in the US were being disproportionately targetted by the police in attacks that in many cases lead to their deaths.  The BLM thing came out of a grassroots movement led most visibly by Black women.  It's been pretty successful - it's now much, much harder for racist police to hide behind the mechanisms of departmental indifference and protection (of course the problem hasn't gone away).
So how would the anti-identity left have had things played out?  Should those Black communities have waited for the great rallying call of the Party?  Or should they have sought guidance from the enlightened on how to protest properly with a focus on class or what?  
These are real issues affecting people in the here and now, and as I stated it's ALWAYS the people affected who are most keenly tuned to identifying what needs to be done to resist.  It's actually because other people often don't understand this, or miss the nuances, that identity becomes such an important rallying point.


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## crossthebreeze (Sep 21, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> If you're a member of a group that's being oppressed in a particular way you probably (if you're fairly enlightened) want two things - the eventual destruction of the system that sustains that oppression, and two - as much resistance, breathing room, and progress as you can muster in the meantime.  Always (ALWAYS!) it's the people suffering alongside you in that particular manner who are keenest to the needs of the situation, most willing to take action, and best placed to help create a culture of change that's effective in the here and now, not just some theoretical future.
> I've seen some fantastic cross-cultural support and activism over the years, but surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall, or urgently remind the world that Black Lives Matter or whatever.
> I'm suspicious of the whole opposition to identity as a tool for resistance.  It feels a lot to me like people feel uncomfortable replacing their existing model, in which there is a clear outside enemy oppressing the group they belong to, with a more complex model in which we all have to deal with our own small (or otherwise) part in facilitating other people's oppression.





redsquirrel said:


> I'm sorry but not only this quite clearly false (you really think the WEP are the best placed to help create a culture of change w.r.t. sexism - give me a break) it also attacks the idea of solidarity - that an attack on one is an attack on all.
> 
> You say "but surely it has to be acknowledged that no lefty organisation was about to take up the fight at Stonewall", I think you should watch this. 'Lefty' organisations did take up the fight for gay rights - yes they were too slow about it - but they did fight and fight because of solidarity.


Surely people who experience a particular form of oppression _are_ best placed to identify that oppression is occurring and to take action against it - but not everyone who fights against their oppression has the same analysis, and some analyses lead only to a fight for breathing room (or progress for some people) not to the destruction of the system that sustains the oppression - and not everyone who experiences oppression has the same class interests.  Solidarity is essential for change to happen, but lefty/radical/working class organisations are not the class itself - so as new struggles are identified by parts of the working class those organisations may or may not be structured to include them and the effectiveness and speed of the solidarity response can vary.  The struggle against oppression often includes the struggle for solidarity and changes in structure of these organisations (or forming new working class organisations) and change in the analysis of how society is structured to facilitate that oppression.  But thats very different to individualising oppression or divorcing it from class struggle which is what identity politics does.


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## ska invita (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I might have this wrong, but I don't think the attack on id politics is about attacking those fighting homophobia or police prejudice. But there is certainly a danger of campaign groups being coopted into the state structure in a way that supports it rather than challenging it, an obvious example being the corporate event that is Gay Pride nowadays.


 I think the problem for The Impasse of the thread title is that there are a whole bunch of things being talked about understood differently within the the label identity politics. The lack of clarity causes a lot of fights.

Heres a list of negative things that get used against "identity politics" (brainaddicts points verbatim) that have come up
1. That you know how 'oppressed' someone is by their stated identity (even worse, it sometimes comes down to their visible identity)
2. That the most oppressed person in the room knows the most about fighting oppression
3. That focussing on the specific oppressions is the core of liberatory thinking. This implicitly contains a rather liberal negative view of freedom and offers no positive vision of what a different world might look like.
4. Community brokering - where an individual can claim to represent a community because of a shared identity (even though not having shared politics) - and the bigger political system that supports that.
5. Offer other degrees of weak, tokenist, ineffective, if not counterproductive, solutions to deeper problems

But here's where the problem comes in from the other side. Take Chilango's facebook friend from page 1. All she posts about is stuff that relates to her ethnic minority status and affects her as a woman. This is effectively laughed at because Where's the (self) class analysis. Chilango suggests she comes from a privileged financial background. And this is the problem. Lots of posters here liked that post and seem to agree. And from the picture painted she is probably a little naive, and we've all seen people posturing on the internet (surely not!).

But she probably has experienced a lifetime a racism and sexism. Its a good thing she is challenging that. If she isn't doing one of the five things above then is there a problem? Yes, it would be great if she had the correct class analysis and was helping to rebuilding the wider class struggle. But if she isn't is she necessarily part of the problem? LDC above suggests that kind of activity is actively to blame:

"The wider universal liberatory project isn't currently enough I agree.
But this isn't a mistake or something that's 'just happened', it's partly due to the form of identity politics taking its place in some ways"

It reads that political activity challenging racism and sexism is getting in the way and "taking the place" of proper (class) struggle. That's how it comes across. Do you see what I'm getting at? I reckon that is the heart of the antagonism and hence the impasse...the overlap of those arguments.

Now Chilangos friend may well be doing #3...no wider vision/understanding. But if not committing the other faults that in itself isn't necessarily a problem...there are lots of examples of people standing up for themselves without having #3 and not doing the other things. I've given some already.

Interesting thread, hopefully i can get some clearer understanding out of it. Not going  to be able to post much the next week after today but look forward to reading it.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita said:


> If a Palestinian worked effortlessly to stop illegal settlements in what they understood to be Palestinian lands, that would fall under identity politics.


Would it? Necessarily? On what basis are you making this claim?



ska invita said:


> But whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice?


Of course not, but nobody has made any such claim



ska invita said:


> To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about.


Well I think that's the problem, no offence but you seem to be tilting at windmills. I certainly don't see those as examples of indentitypolitics, and from what others have posted I  don't think they would either.

 I've not seen anybody ever claim that 'gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia' or 'black communities who are fighting police prejudice' are identity politics. I don't think such statements even make much sense. It's possible the the political response of particular individuals/groups might fall into the category of identity politics but that's a very different thing.


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## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita you're mixing all sorts of things up. Identity politics _isn't _just any people fighting against specific concerns under capitalism. It has a particular form and outlook that we're getting at here.

Within BLM, for example, there's a whole host of perspectives, some I would consider identity politics, some not.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 21, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> To go back to the Black Lives Matters thing - Black people in the US were being disproportionately targetted by the police in attacks that in many cases lead to their deaths.  The BLM thing came out of a grassroots movement led most visibly by Black women.  It's been pretty successful - it's now much, much harder for racist police to hide behind the mechanisms of departmental indifference and protection (of course the problem hasn't gone away).


Well I don't can't speak for others but I don't see BLM as an example of the identitypolitics that is being criticised so your following questions start from a false premise. 



alsoknownas said:


> These are real issues affecting people in the here and now, and as I stated it's ALWAYS the people affected who are most keenly tuned to identifying what needs to be done to resist.


I don't disagree at all. But that doesn't mean that the political response has to be one that is based on identitypolitics or that such a response based on identitypolitics is not problematic.


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## killer b (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Take Chilango's facebook friend from page 1. All she posts about is stuff that relates to her ethnic minority status and affects her as a woman. This is effectively laughed at because Where's the (self) class analysis. Chilango suggests she comes from a privileged financial background. And this is the problem. Lots of posters here liked that post and seem to agree. And from the picture painted she is probably a little naive, and we've all seen people posturing on the internet (surely not!).
> 
> But she probably has experienced a lifetime a racism and sexism. Its a good thing she is challenging that. If she isn't doing one of the five things above then is there a problem? Yes, it would be great if she had the correct class analysis and was helping to rebuilding the wider class struggle. But if she isn't is she necessarily part of the problem? LDC above suggests that kind of activity is actively to blame:
> 
> ...


It isn't that it is 'getting in the way', but that some ways of challenging oppression which don't include a class analysis -_ more women in the boardroom, _for example - actively reinforce wider class-based oppression.


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## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> As I stated it's ALWAYS the people affected who are most keenly tuned to identifying what needs to be done to resist.



I think this is often a load of bollocks actually, although it often gets repeated so much it gets taken as unquestionable fact. People come up with all sorts of complete shit as to what to do to challenge their own oppression, and that includes situations outside the 'political sphere'.

It's also actually one of the cornerstones of identity politics I think as it means any challenge from outside the identified 'group/identity' can be dismissed as not valid. And often challenges from more radical elements within the group get dismissed as well as 'not the correct XXXXX' view.

I'd actually add that I think that view is quite dodgy and can be borderline racist as it assumes that everyone from a certain group (whose boundaries are often policed quite ruthlessly) has the same perspective. And that's one of the odd contradictions with identity politics, it's quite a reactionary perspective at heart.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 21, 2017)

killer b said:


> It isn't that it is 'getting in the way', but that some ways of challenging oppression which don't include a class analysis -_ more women in the boardroom, _for example - actively reinforce wider class-based oppression.



Under the banner of equality!


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## killer b (Sep 21, 2017)

If instead of working together to abolish the boardroom, we work to ensure there's better representation of women and minorities in the boardroom, we're actually endorsing the boardroom.


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## bimble (Sep 21, 2017)

I am really surprised to see how narrow the definition seems to be here, it looks like people are talking about a particular kind of tokenism (more women / black people on the board/ as bosses etc).
Is that really all that is generally understood as identity politics? Thought it was a whole lot broader than that.


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## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

ska invita said:


> I think the problem for The Impasse of the thread title is that there are a whole bunch of things being talked about understood differently within the the label identity politics. The lack of clarity causes a lot of fights.
> 
> Heres a list of negative things that get used against "identity politics" (brainaddicts points verbatim) that have come up
> 1. That you know how 'oppressed' someone is by their stated identity (even worse, it sometimes comes down to their visible identity)
> ...



To look at the example of my FB friend a little more (and I'll leave out some specifics  - such as how I know that she hasn't suffered racism for example - if thats ok, cause it's not fair on her, and it is very individual) the general point about her, and others like her that I've encountered, and I'm guessing (though of course I could be wrong) others have too, is that she has already had a more privileged life than me (who happens to be a whitecishetman) and will go on to reap the rewards of those throughout her life and yet was (re)posting stuff denouncing the privilege of others (men, whites) many of whom (the majority of whom?) will have far less life chances than her.

But it was just an example, an illustration. As I said it doesn't "prove" anything.

Another example (we like real examples don't we?) from my life is back when I first started teaching, I had a woman colleague who suddenly started treading all over her friends in the workplace and and acting with a real lack of solidarity in order to get a promotion to management. Her justification when challenged was that she was a woman and it was important to have women bosses (and I remember this bit vividly) a glare at her male friends and a support seeking glance at her female friends.

Now, again, that doesn't prove anything. And isn't necessarily ID politics per se. But it's an illustration of how sometimes things are playing out, in my life at least.


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## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

bimble said:


> I am really surprised to see how narrow the definition seems to be here, it looks like people are talking about a particular kind of narrow tokenism (more women / black people on the board/ as bosses etc).
> Is that really all that is generally understood as identity politics? Thought it was a whole lot broader than that.



For me it's a cluster of identifiers and perspectives, and yes it's much wider than that IMO.


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## killer b (Sep 21, 2017)

bimble said:


> I am really surprised to see how narrow the definition seems to be here, it looks like people are talking about a particular kind of tokenism (more women / black people on the board/ as bosses etc).
> Is that really all that is generally understood as identity politics? Thought it was a whole lot broader than that.


It is broader, but that's the area where class & identity politics clash most significantly, so it's unsurprising that it's come up a few times.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 21, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Well I don't can't speak for others but I don't see BLM as an example of the identitypolitics that is being criticised so your following questions start from a false premise.


Fair enough.  There are a lot of ideas being conflated here, so that might be a part of it.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 21, 2017)

bimble said:


> I am really surprised to see how narrow the definition seems to be here, it looks like people are talking about a particular kind of tokenism (more women / black people on the board/ as bosses etc).
> Is that really all that is generally understood as identity politics? Thought it was a whole lot broader than that.


It is, it's just a good, simple and very common example of how identitypolitcs manifests. 

But of course it's much broader than that and linked in with multiculturalism, so other examples are (for me at least) would include things like 
- trying to equalise pay of male/female directors/CEOs (while ignoring the differences at the bottom of the scale)
- the promotion/creation of 'community leaders' and their establishment with political power structures 
- the creation of faith schools or other schools based on some type of identity. 
- making class into an identity


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## belboid (Sep 21, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> ska invita you're mixing all sorts of things up. Identity politics _isn't _just any people fighting against specific concerns under capitalism. It has a particular form and outlook that we're getting at here.
> 
> Within BLM, for example, there's a whole host of perspectives, some I would consider identity politics, some not.


It does sound rather like any anti-oppression politics that you (the general 'you') don't like is written off as 'identity politics' but anti-oppression politics you approve of is...something else.


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## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

belboid said:


> It does sound rather like any anti-oppression politics that you (the general 'you') don't like is written off as 'identity politics' but anti-oppression politics you approve of is...something else.



You could say 'don't like' or 'approve of' but it'd be better to understand it as fitting in with a political perspective (or not) rather than trying to make it about personal likes or approval surely?


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## killer b (Sep 21, 2017)

belboid said:


> It does sound rather like any anti-oppression politics that you (the general 'you') don't like is written off as 'identity politics' but anti-oppression politics you approve of is...something else.


Sounds about right. I don't think there's a problem with this is there?


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## bimble (Sep 21, 2017)

To help clarify, can someone maybe give an example of feminist activism which would be seen as definitely not what you'd call identity politics?


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## inva (Sep 21, 2017)

is identity politics distinguishable from liberalism? for example how should radical left wing class-based (nominally anyway) groups who adopt intersectionality be labelled? or is that something different?


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## Idris2002 (Sep 21, 2017)

bimble said:


> To help clarify, can someone maybe give an example of feminist activism which would be seen as definitely not what you'd call identity politics?


This, from a few days ago outside Dáil Eireann:







(The 8th amendment to the Irish constitution prohibits abortion)


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## kabbes (Sep 21, 2017)

Is it even possible to discuss the types of politics in a society without including a discussion of the nature of that society itself?

From some point post industrial revolution until up until some time in the 1970s, Britain was an industrial society.  One of the features of industrial societies is that people tend to define themselves by _what they do_, and the most important freedoms are political in nature (such as the right to unionise or to vote).  It is therefore unsurprising that the chief politics coming out of an industrial society would be those relating to class analysis.

At some point from the 1970s onwards, however, Britain has moved towards being a consumer society.  In consumer societies, people tend to define themselves by _what they are into_, which is associated with the consumption of goods and services being extensions of the self and identity being created via a magpie accumulation of these extensions.  The most important freedoms derive from this identity-creation, meaning they are market freedoms (such as the right to choice).  It is therefore unsurprising that the politics coming out of a consumer society would be those relating to identity analysis.

I'm not sure any of that clears any of the roadblocks discussed in this thread, but it is important context in understanding why those who have entirely grown up in a consumerist society might be dominated in thought by identity rather than class.  It's axiomatic to their whole social ordering.


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## kabbes (Sep 21, 2017)

As a separate point, it seems pretty clear that the explosion of identity politics we are now seeing could not have happened without the connecting force of the internet and its ability to allow individuals facing similar issues to find each other in a way that had never been possible before.  That's great, but it also makes those finding each other extremely vulnerable to groupthink and other classical group biases.  The more that groups segment, the bigger the problems when the assumptions underlying each side's groupthink come into conflict with each other.


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## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

kabbes said:


> As a separate point, it seems pretty clear that the explosion of identity politics we are now seeing could not have happened without the connecting force of the internet and its ability to allow individuals facing similar issues to find each other in a way that had never been possible before.  That's great, but it also makes those finding each other extremely vulnerable to groupthink and other classical group biases.  The more that groups segment, the bigger the problems when the assumptions underlying each side's groupthink come into conflict with each other.



It also allows a greater "choice" about who one is active with. Instead of (or maybe as well as) your workmates and neighbours you can go online and find a bunch of people with whatever shared identity you like and be active online with them. Hence the twitter and tumblr type based stuff we see on these threads.


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## emanymton (Sep 21, 2017)

mauvais said:


> On the other hand, counter to this idea of IDP being unnecessarily divisive, how do you avoid co-option, ownership and dilution of a cause? So to give a possibly unhelpful example, a black-led BLM turning into some primarily white-led 'all lives matter' thing through the integration of all comers? Is that acceptable or positive?
> 
> If you take any one type of oppression, as you already indicate, there's a spectrum in terms of the effect on individual people's lives that runs from severe & tangible detriment through to intangible big political picture stuff, and even potentially into deriving benefits from that oppression, intentionally or not. So why do you not need to recognise a parallel spectrum of organisation that includes allies, accomplices and even unwitting enemies?


I am absolutely not in favour of diluting cauaes, having an all lives matter campaign or whatever. The murder of black people by the police is an issue deserving of a campaign if ever there was one. In fact I am trying to suggest almost the opposite. Those campaigns have an impact wider than the specific issue. 

Take BLM apart from anything else, any campaign against the murder of black people by the police that has any success will invariably make the police more accountable across the board, and make it harder for them to get away with murdering anyone regardless of their skin colour. And I know it has been said before, but this is also an issue that demonstrates the weakness of identity politics. If the police murder back and white people equally then identity politics would have nothing to say. Yet there could still be plenty of room for a campaign against Police violence.


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## mauvais (Sep 21, 2017)

emanymton said:


> I am absolutely not in favour of diluting cauaes, having an all lives matter campaign or whatever. The murder of black people by the police is an issue deserving of a campaign if ever there was one. In fact I am trying to suggest almost the opposite. Those campaigns have an impact wider than the specific issue.
> 
> Take BLM apart from anything else, any campaign against the murder of black people by the police that has any success will invariably make the police more accountable across the board, and make it harder for them to get away with murdering anyone regardless of their skin colour.


Sure, but this is the easy bit - without doing anything, you're passively deriving a benefit from their campaign, so of course you are aligned to it, but that's a one way relationship. The difficult questions come once it's necessary to prod at whether and how you yourself might do anything useful towards that campaign, rather than the broader one you're talking about, without introducing dilution or other problems. If not, then you _are_ outside it, even if working in parallel for the same higher level goal.



emanymton said:


> If the police murder back and white people equally then identity politics would have nothing to say. Yet there could still be plenty of room for a campaign against Police violence.


Yes. But that's a big 'if', and arguably only a situation that arises as the product of that identity-driven campaign. Y'know, effectively, 'IDP would have nothing left to say if it won'. Well, yeah.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

> If the police murder back and white people equally then identity politics would have nothing to say. Yet there could still be plenty of room for a campaign against Police violence.


 Why is using a fantasy situation to prove a point helpful here? Why can't we focus on how things actually are as a way of deciding and exploring what approaches are necessary/helpful?


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## Idris2002 (Sep 21, 2017)

In America they have #blacklivesmatter.

In Kenya they have this:



Why the difference? Because in the former country there is an added factor, that of anti-black racism, which makes it easier for the police to, literally, get away with murder - and this is what makes the simple assertion of the worth and value of black lives a deeply political act.


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## Red Cat (Sep 21, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> These are real issues affecting people in the here and now, and as I stated it's ALWAYS the people affected who are most keenly tuned to identifying what needs to be done to resist.



Why do you say this with such confidence? 

I don't like this distrust of anything that isn't experienced personally. I'm all for looking at how knowledge is created, who gets to say what counts as knowledge, how that knowledge is used, but it's almost as though any expertise outside of an individual's experience is seen as oppressive in itself, a pretence of objectivity that represents power and control. And of course knowledge can be used in this way, but we do also need experience beyond ourselves.


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## LDC (Sep 21, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Why do you say this with such confidence?
> 
> I don't like this distrust of anything that isn't experienced personally. I'm all for looking at how knowledge is created, who gets to say what counts as knowledge, how that knowledge is used, but it's almost as though any expertise outside of an individual's experience is seen as oppressive in itself, a pretence of objectivity that represents power and control. And of course knowledge can be used in this way, but we do also need experience beyond ourselves.



Also one of the complications with this reliance on experience within identity politics is the conflict it creates even within the identity politics scene where people are fighting over who has the most authentic voice/position for the ******* community.

I've seen it rip groups and scenes apart where, for example, someone claims something is racist/transphobic, and then that's denied by other members of the group and then those people are denounced as complicit with white supremacy/transphobia.

So if personal experience is so crucially important, how on earth do you pick whose experience and perspectives to listen to and take on board, even from just within the community you're talking about?


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## alsoknownas (Sep 21, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Why do you say this with such confidence?
> 
> I don't like this distrust of anything that isn't experienced personally. I'm all for looking at how knowledge is created, who gets to say what counts as knowledge, how that knowledge is used, but it's almost as though any expertise outside of an individual's experience is seen as oppressive in itself, a pretence of objectivity that represents power and control. And of course knowledge can be used in this way, but we do also need experience beyond ourselves.


I don't mean to dismiss other perspectives or voices, that's not my thing at all.  I'm more trying to highlight the way that when groups face unique aspects of struggle there's often a significant period where they have to work hard just to convince people outside of that situation that the problem actually exists, and then the urgency of it, and then that it might be a good idea to try and do something about it. Are we gonna kid ourself that we live in a world where (for instance) blokes are just as keenly tuned to the nuanced ways that discrimination works its way into the lives of women?  That's why I think it can be really valuable to organise around shared identity.  Of course there can be negative outcomes as a result of this, but there can be negative outcomes from people trying to organise in the name of Socialism too.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 21, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Also one of the complications with this reliance on experience within identity politics is the conflict it creates even within the identity politics scene where people are fighting over who has the most authentic voice/position for the ******* community.
> 
> I've seen it rip groups and scenes apart where, for example, someone claims something is racist/transphobic, and then that's denied by other members of the group and then those people are denounced as complicit with white supremacy/transphobia.
> 
> So if personal experience is so crucially important, how on earth do you pick whose experience and perspectives to listen to and take on board, even from just within the community you're talking about?


Just because these things are difficult to pick apart doesn't mean they're not the right conversations to be having.  Just because people have the ability to hijack these ideas and use them to promote their own power within the group doesn't mean the ideas themselves are not valid.  It seems strange to me that anyone interested in Socialism wouldn't recognise this, as the same bullshit takes place in many lefty groups with people accusing each other of all manner of state complicity etc.


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## mauvais (Sep 21, 2017)

Very likely pointing out the obvious but there are two things going on here. Being the subject of oppression may well inform you about the realities of oppression more than if you were a bystander, so experience has its unique value. But that's independent from being knowledgeable or in a position they can leverage as regards tackling the root causes. Just as, say, being in a plane crash doesn't make you qualified in or well placed to improve aviation safety, and conversely those who do fit that description don't necessarily require the personal experience to effect a change. There may be overlap,  and it may be a problem that there isn't _more_ overlap between experience & power, but in the absence of it, collaboration of those two things is probably required rather than simply conflating the two.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

Trite oversimplified example said: said:
			
		

> if as a (e.g) black worker who do you turn to for support at work? Your white co-workers or your black boss?





chilango said:


> Trying to illustrate this simply...





Rutita1 said:


> It's pretty simple already. I suppose it depends on the point you are trying to make.
> 
> Is it...
> 
> 1. You should always turn to your colleagues because a boss is a boss regardless of any common traits and experiences you might share?



chilango

Did you miss this question or do you not want to discuss it anymore? I personally found it interesting.


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 21, 2017)

God I hate the term co-worker. What's wrong with colleague? Even just that little term seems designed to me to stress separateness - someone who works next to me, that's all. 

Probably overreacting, but it's one of those terms that makes me cringe just reading it.


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## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> chilango
> 
> Did you miss this question or do you not want to discuss it anymore? I personally found it interesting.



Sorry, got distracted!

The answer is (of course) it depends.

But, and obviously this remains oversimplified,  I'm looking at the default "if all else is equal" response. Who does one tend to have more common cause with?


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> God I hate the term co-worker. What's wrong with colleague? Even just that little term seems designed to me to stress separateness - someone who works next to me, that's all.
> 
> Probably overreacting, but it's one of those terms that makes me cringe just reading it.



Fair enough. I prefer "workmates" but that (for me) has an implication already of shared interest whilst "colleagues" (again, for me) implies a certain distance. I tried to pick a neutral  (for me) term.

Tricky business language innit?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

chilango said:


> Sorry, got distracted!
> 
> The answer is (of course) it depends.
> 
> But, and obviously this remains oversimplified,  I'm looking at the default "if all else is equal" response. Who does one tend to have more common cause with?



The 'all else is equal' response takes us into the realms of hypothetical though doesn't it? Unless you have a particular example/context in mind that you'd like to discuss where all else is equal? I am interested in having these conversations in the context of how things actually are because I don't think we can get anywhere with regard what approach is better for x, y, z reasons unless we stay in 'default' which is now.


----------



## Red Cat (Sep 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> God I hate the term co-worker. What's wrong with colleague? Even just that little term seems designed to me to stress separateness - someone who works next to me, that's all.
> 
> Probably overreacting, but it's one of those terms that makes me cringe just reading it.



But colleague can be your manager, co-worker implies a more equal status. I think.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> The 'all else is equal' response takes us into the realms of hypothetical though doesn't it? Unless you have a particular example/context in mind that you'd like to discuss where all else is equal? I am interested in having these conversations in the context of how things actually are because I don't think we can get anywhere with regard what approach is better for x, y, z reasons unless we stay in 'default' which is now.



Well, I would always turn to my workmates. But as a whitecishetman who takes a marxish approach to the workplace that doesn't really help us much  I'm interested to hear what others think.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 21, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> But colleague can be your manager, co-worker implies a more equal status. I think.


To me, co-worker is American for colleague. But I may be out of step.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

chilango said:


> Well, I would always turn to my workmates. But as a whitecishetman who takes a marxish approach to the workplace that doesn't really help us much  I'm interested to hear what others think.



Which takes us to the _depends_ realm doesn't it?...because I always turn to my colleagues too...but surely there are reasons why either of us might not, and the boss being Black could have naff all to do with a lot of reasons why we might or not surely?


----------



## emanymton (Sep 21, 2017)

chilango said:


> Fair enough. I prefer "workmates" but that (for me) has an implication already of shared interest whilst "colleagues" (again, for me) implies a certain distance. I tried to pick a neutral  (for me) term.
> 
> Tricky business language innit?


Comrades, obviously.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2017)

Why would you (this person) seek to define and apply a one-size-fits-all dogmatic approach in the first place?

You can presumably make a situational judgement about what's likely to constitute the greater help/impediment to whatever you're trying to do, like a possibly upside-down Maslow. After which something resembling identity politics may or may not be useful to you.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 21, 2017)

mauvais said:


> Sure, but this is the easy bit - without doing anything, you're passively deriving a benefit from their campaign, so of course you are aligned to it, but that's a one way relationship. The difficult questions come once it's necessary to prod at whether and how you yourself might do anything useful towards that campaign, rather than the broader one you're talking about, without introducing dilution or other problems. If not, then you _are_ outside it, even if working in parallel for the same higher level goal.
> 
> Yes. But that's a big 'if', and arguably only a situation that arises as the product of that identity-driven campaign. Y'know, effectively, 'IDP would have nothing left to say if it won'. Well, yeah.


Well I thought my first post made it obvious that I wasn't talking talking about being passive. I guess many people will benefit in a passive fashion, but I was thinking about those of us who are active participants, however big or small. Which is why I mentioned not liking the term allies.

This comes back to the importance of the principals of solidarity and an injury to one being an injury to all. These principles mean that we should not just Stand up against oppression or injustice because it is the right thing to do, which of course it is. But because an injury to one really is an injury to us all. Rather than subsuming, particular oppressions into some homogeneous mass as is sometimes claimed, they infact, emphasis the importance of us all standing against any form of oppression or injustice.


As for you point about the police. Well you neatly demonstrate the problem I think. A victory for Identity politics could mean absolutely nothing in absolute terms. Stunning victory.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Which takes us to the _depends_ realm doesn't it?...because I always turn to my colleagues too...but surely there are reasons why either of us might not, and the boss being Black could have naff all to do with a lot of reasons why we might or not surely?



Well you said



> You should always turn to your colleagues because a boss is a boss regardless of any common traits and experiences you might share?



I'm wondering when/if/how those "common traits and experiences" come into play. They don't for me. But then why would they?


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2017)

emanymton said:


> This comes back to the importance of the principals of solidarity and an injury to one being an injury to all. These principles mean that we should not just Stand up against oppression or injustice because it is the right thing to do, which of course it is. But because an injury to one really is an injury to us all. Rather than subsuming, particular oppressions into some homogeneous mass as is sometimes claimed, they infact, emphasis the importance of us all standing against any form of oppression or injustice.


Agreed, I think. But while I imagine your version of this solidarity is probably an honest loan of your efforts directed on the oppressed's terms with their consent, the practical reality of alliance is often a much muddier thing involving dilution, co-option, a lack of experience, etcetera, which can ultimately destroy the entire thing. So how do you keep that at bay? Arguably the easiest option is resorting to identity and exclusion.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm wondering when/if/how those "common traits and experiences" come into play. They don't for me. But then why would they?



Actually, I can think of examples (close to this) in my life.

I had a fairly big problem whilst working with n Italy, did I turn to my English speaking British boss? Or the my Italian speaking, Italian union comrades? 



Spoiler: Answer



The union, obviously



...but I still don't think that's an equivalent example. Whilst working abroad I always had more common cause with my non-British workmates than I did with my British bosses.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

chilango said:


> Well you said
> 
> 
> 
> I'm wondering when/if/how those "common traits and experiences" come into play. They don't for me. But then why would they?


No i didn't say it,  I asked if that was what you were getting at.

You seriously can't imagine any situations in the workplace when someone may feel the need to turn to their boss rather than their colleagues?


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> No i didn't say it,  I asked if that was what you were getting at.
> 
> You seriously can't imagine any situations in the workplace when someone may feel the need to turn to their boss rather than their colleagues?



I don't want to imagine them, I want to hear about them.


----------



## alsoknownas (Sep 21, 2017)

emanymton said:


> As for you point about the police. Well you neatly demonstrate the problem I think. A victory for Identity politics could mean absolutely nothing in absolute terms. Stunning victory.


It would mean quite a bit to the people who's deaths were prevented, and others actually effected by the direct threat of brutality.  I imagine they might be quite eager to challenge your definition of 'absolutely nothing'.


----------



## The39thStep (Sep 21, 2017)

Miss-Shelf said:


> The current focus on identity politics discussion (outside of urban I mean) is very enlightening in throwing light on the structural inequalities in instructions mentioned by ska above


Institutions or instructions?


----------



## alfajobrob (Sep 21, 2017)

Jesus my eyes are bleeding..maybe I can identify as a non hand ex Christian  stigmartist?

Who knows - in today's brave new world it all seems possible?

Sorry - I've changed my mind. I'm a 3 legged dog with cancer now and would appreciate whatever correct pronoun applies..

You can just call me a cunt!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

alfajobrob said:


> Jesus my eyes are bleeding..maybe I can identify as a non hand ex Christian  stigmartist?
> 
> Who knows - in today's brave new world it all seems possible?
> 
> ...



How nice of you to parade your choices in front of us and imagine we actually care?


----------



## alfajobrob (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> How nice of you to parade your choices in front of us and imagine we actually care?



I give less of a fuck than you about this shit...stop whingeing constantly and I won't comment....otherwise call me Rover.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 21, 2017)

The39thStep said:


> Institutions or instructions?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

alfajobrob said:


> I give less of a fuck than you about this shit...stop whingeing constantly and I won't comment....otherwise call me Rover.



Yep, that's what I do, whinge constantly...24-7. I don't work, I whinge, I don't socialise, I whinge, I don't have personal interests and hobbies, I whinge. 

You sir are a fucking legend. Yep, take a bow.


----------



## alfajobrob (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Yep, that's what I do, whinge constantly...24-7. I don't work, I whinge, I don't socialise, I whinge, I don't have personal interests and hobbies, I whinge.
> 
> You sir are a fucking legend. Yep, take a bow.



Your whingeing again...


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 21, 2017)

alfajobrob said:


> I give less of a fuck than you about this shit...stop whingeing constantly and I won't comment....otherwise call me Rover.


Tu Stultus Es.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 21, 2017)

alfajobrob said:


> I give less of a fuck than you about this shit...stop whingeing constantly and I won't comment....otherwise call me Rover.


You are banned from this thread.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

alfajobrob said:


> Your whingeing again...


You are. HTH.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 21, 2017)

You're.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 21, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> I don't have a PPE degree and I understood it.
> 
> I'm sorry if I didn't explain myself clearly; I didn't realise I wasn't. What in particular didn't you understand?





danny la rouge said:


> So how did we come to a point where _identitypolitics_ has replaced structural analysis?


 Has it? Not sure quite what you mean by either _identitypolitics_ or _structual analysis_.
I've never read Marx but then I've never met a Marxist who didn't tell me I was misguided or wrong in whatever I was doing at the time. Can a dead white man talking about the industrial age really be relavant to my life now?

Must admit I probably don't have a structural analysis - I'm not looking at this academically I've just been trying to survive.




ska invita said:


> But whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that wider universal liberatory project isnt there enough? Is it the fault of gay men who continue to campaign against homophobia? Is it the fault of black communities who are fighting police prejudice? To me those are two examples of identity politics - people responding politically to oppression that they experience directly due to their identity - an identity they have no choice about.
> 
> To me the problem with the attack on identity politics is it seems to blame those already experiencing oppression beyond/additional to their class oppression for not doing something about The Grand Injustice of the Superstructure. Somehow being selfish and wrapped up in their own problems. Thats how it comes across. And usually the people complaining about it are not experiencing these particular oppressions themselves.


Thanks - well put Ska

I recall straight a straight man I met, espousing marxism and dismissing issues to do with sexuality as 'just a personal matter'. This was back in the 80s, when oppression of queer people was rife and still entenched in law (eg you could be sacked for it, arrested for kissing in the street etc, imprisioned if you were a man for sex with a man under 21) For me the personal was political. The patriachy was a structure I was against. Many trade unionists then still thought that queer issues (and black issues and womens issues) weren't their issues, but I supported _L&Gs support the miners_ because I could see we all suffered oppression. We were all oppressed by Thatchers govt back then.

We're all still oppressed by govts following Thatchers evil ideas. I feel characterising the struggle of any group of people based on their common oppression whether thats gender, race or whatever as 'identitypolitics' and 'not an opposition to structures of oppression' sounds like a dismissive attitude. We can all listen and can learn from each other.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Sep 21, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Has it? Not sure quite what you mean by either _identitypolitics_ or _structual analysis_.
> I've never read Marx but then I've never met a Marxist who didn't tell me I was misguided or wrong in whatever I was doing at the time. Can a dead white man talking about the industrial age really be relavant to my life now?
> 
> Must admit I probably don't have a structural analysis - I'm not looking at this academically I've just been trying to survive



When I think about identity politics it is the lack of structural analysis that frustrates me the most.  As a perpetual-student type I follow a lot of students and academics on twitter and have plenty of classmates on fb etc so I get an insight into the prevailing politics.  These are people who are smart, educated, but still draw upon very identity-focused conception of society which, most annoyingly, just doesn't make sense.

I'm talking people who view themselves as fierce left-wing activists but absolutely disregard 1) any form of class/structure analysis, and 2) their own clear privilege as middle-class academics.

For example, on the topic of rising wages in the senior management of universities, their take will focus on how these positions are mostly white men.  So we need to do something about white men.  BUT we're in a city where white men are also sleeping on the streets in record numbers and dying in shop doorways.  So is focusing on the fact that university management are white men the best analysis, or would it be better to focus on the way in which economic/social opportunities are structured as a whole?  The white man sleeping on the streets occupies the same structural position as the immigrant sleeping on the streets.  The senior board member occupies a very different structural position.

That is what I think of when I hear 'structural analysis'.

To pick up on something you've said: when people invoke marx they are talking about his ideas of how society is structured (which is still relevant of course) rather than his identity as a 'dead white man' - it's nothing to do with his identity.

None of what I am saying is a criticism of the genuine struggles for equality faced by minorities, but I am reading these abysmal analyses of structural inequality which seems to think that a certain _type of person_ is responsible rather than examining the structures through which material resources are distributed.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

chilango said:


> I don't want to imagine them, I want to hear about them.



I find this a genuinely strange answer because you can imagine this scenario;



> if as a (e.g) black worker who do you turn to for support at work? Your white co-workers or your black boss?



and also this one;



> I'm looking at the default "if all else is equal" response. Who does one tend to have more common cause with?



But can't imagine a worker turning to a boss and not colleagues? 

Also, have you never worked somewhere where there wasn't a union presence?


----------



## mojo pixy (Sep 21, 2017)

This idea that someone might side with their boss over their colleagues because they share ethnicity with the boss but not the colleagues, am I reading the proposition right?

If I am, I think it's bollocks. I can't imagine any scenario where I'd side with a boss over colleagues, unless the colleagues in question were acting stupidly. In which case I'd just not take sides, and I'd have a quiet word with some of the colleagues. Assuming they'd listen to me, as of course I'd be from a different ethnic group or whatever.

I'm not seeing the_ ah-ha_ inside this scenario. Colleagues over bosses every time, basically.

ETA - for support is maybe harder. A boss might (might) be in a position to support me more, as a worker. Someone might get day-to-day moral/emotional/practical support from colleagues, but bosses sadly are in a position to materially alter working conditions so sometimes you have to be nice.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I find this a genuinely strange answer because you can imagine this scenario;
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm looking to hear people's experiences here, particularly about who they've found common cause with, and why. Maybe that would answer my imagined scenario (which, note, was a question not a statement). Maybe it wouldn't. 

I've given a few examples from my experience. But on their own they're a bit useless.

Have I worked anywhere without a Unuon presence? Yes. Why?


----------



## mojo pixy (Sep 21, 2017)

I should add that just about everywhere I've ever worked has been mainly non-unionised, sometimes casual, and usually socially/ethnically/nationally mixed. Factories, hospitals (unionised then, but it was in the contract as I remember) , schools and care homes. Shops, pubs (lots of those). A few offices, but I don't like offices very much.

Stand with colleagues, or don't stand. Can't stand with the boss because the boss will never really have my back. And if they would have my back just because of prejudice then doubly fuck them.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> This idea that someone might side with their boss over their colleagues because they share ethnicity with the boss but not the colleagues, am I reading the proposition right?
> 
> If I am, I think it's bollocks. I can't imagine any scenario where I'd side with a boss over colleagues, unless the colleagues in question were acting stupidly. In which case I'd just not take sides, and I'd have a quiet word with some of the colleagues. Assuming they'd listen to me, as of course I'd be from a different ethnic group or whatever.
> 
> ...



How has ' turn to'  become 'side with'? 

At least you can imagine that the colleagues could be the problem. Something I suppose.


----------



## mojo pixy (Sep 21, 2017)

I was imagining situations of conflict or support, as both happen in the workplace. Either way, colleagues first as default.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Stand with colleagues, or don't stand. Can't stand with the boss because the boss will never really have my back. And if they would have my back just because of prejudice then doubly fuck them.



I wonder who you are speaking to.

Also as much as bosses are bosses they have a duty of care and can be held accountable. People don't go to bosses demanding solidarity ime, they demand fairness!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 21, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I was imagining situations of conflict or support, as both happen in the workplace. Either way, colleagues first as default.


No one has said differently.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 22, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> For example, on the topic of rising wages in the senior management of universities, their take will focus on how these positions are mostly white men.  So we need to do something about white men.  BUT we're in a city where white men are also sleeping on the streets in record numbers and dying in shop doorways.  So is focusing on the fact that university management are white men the best analysis, or would it be better to focus on the way in which economic/social opportunities are structured as a whole?  The white man sleeping on the streets occupies the same structural position as the immigrant sleeping on the streets.  The senior board member occupies a very different structural position.
> .


UK unis are a good example because they have fundamentally changed their status in the last 20 years. The commodification of university education pretty much made the change in pay structures within them inevitable. So yes, clearly focusing on the race and gender of those benefiting from that commodification is missing the point that the commodification is the cause, or rather the opportunity now being taken advantage of: they are now competing with one another to sell a product, and their management can quantify 'success' more clearly with money to justify taking a bigger wage packet. Today, the fact of university expansion can be taken to be a function of the operations of a market. Previously it was a managed situation in which government decided how many places there would be according to social need, the market limited to overseas students, who were of course squeezed as hard as they could be. Now it's everyone who can be squeezed. No wonder the vast majority of university managers lobbied so hard for tuition fees.

And that's not entirely unrelated to the fact of the people on the street. All these systems that allow those at the top to take a bigger share mean that everyone else is squeezed. And those at the bottom are squashed. With the uni example and with any other example of privatisation and commodification of life, it is those already at the top who benefit, who get to take a bigger share of the wealth than they previously took, while others stagnate. Capitalism has worked like this for a long while now, since the 70s at least, with a steady decline in wages as a percentage of GDP, staying afloat with growth so that the minority can take a bigger share without the majority getting poorer. As growth shrinks or disappears, the process, which was already going on, is made harder to conceal, as those at the top continue to take a bigger share and get richer on real terms and everyone else gets poorer.

You'd hope that this kind of analysis would gain traction where people can see how they're being squeezed.


----------



## DotCommunist (Sep 22, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> as much as bosses are bosses they have a duty of care and can be held accountable.


power balance means they often don't attend to the former and the latter, well, yeah. Can doesn't mean are. Thats why we have unions, if you are lucky enough to be in a unionised private sector workplace. Its a fundamentally unequal relationship. I'm sure some of them are lovely people really.


----------



## mojo pixy (Sep 22, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I wonder who you are speaking to.



Myself I suppose, but I'd _advise _anyone to do likewise. Whether they did or not would be their choice.


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 22, 2017)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You are banned from this thread.


Cheers FM.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 22, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Has it? Not sure quite what you mean by either _identitypolitics_ or _structual analysis_.
> I've never read Marx but then I've never met a Marxist who didn't tell me I was misguided or wrong in whatever I was doing at the time. Can a dead white man talking about the industrial age really be relavant to my life now?
> 
> Must admit I probably don't have a structural analysis - I'm not looking at this academically I've just been trying to survive.
> ...


I don't think your experiences here are identity politics (not what I mean by identity politics anyway).  You might not be a marxist, but you do seem to have a structural analysis - of patriarchy, of oppression by governments and thatcherite capitalism.  You supported a solidarity project, despite homophobia and sexism from straight male trade unionists (and would have helped push queer issues, anti-sexism, anti-racism into the unions by doing this).  I've also come across socialists (and anarchists) (specific individuals and specific groups) that were sexist, homophobic, (or at least dismissive of sexism and homphobia) or just wankers frankly - I do think that Marx is relevant to understanding the way society is structured though.  I also don't see anything wrong with oppressed groups organising autonomously against the oppression they face, and I don't think that organising efforts against oppression have to have a perfectly formed structural analysis for me to have solidarity with them.  I agree that listening and learning from each other is important.

I think you said in another thread that you thought that Pride had been stolen from us.  I think by analysing what is wrong with identity politics and how it has been used by neoliberal capitalism we can see why and how this has taken place, for example.



Brainaddict said:


> It's worth recognising the good impulses behind it - there's an 'injury to one is an injury to all' thinking behind it that says we can't be free without everyone being free. And there's also been a realisation that political movements are often led by privileged people and this has inhibited their radicalism.
> 
> But there are a few more problematic assumptions that I see behind it all;
> 1. That you know how 'oppressed' someone is by their stated identity (even worse, it sometimes comes down to their visible identity)
> ...



I think this is a good starting point for what people are getting at when they criticise identity politics.  I don't just think the onus for this is on oppressed people fighting oppression.  I think in many cases these assumptions have been adopted by "radical" or "left-wing" groups, well-intentioned people who do not experience those particular oppressions, along with boss class and [edit:] conservative  members of oppressed groups, and can actually undermine organising by working class oppressed people who in many cases might not share these assumptions.

I would add:

4. That oppression can be erased through personal action - obviously its important for people to stop being racist, sexist, etc, and for sexism, racism, and other bigotry to be criticised, and calling for solidarity is an important part of organising, but lots of identity politics goes further than this and there's often a belief that if enough people stop being racist/sexist etc that oppression will disappear - without looking at the structures that would remain underpinning the oppression.  Conversely I can't smash patriachal capitalism through my personal actions no matter how "empowered" I become through my chosen hobbies.

5. Essentialising political attitudes- so assuming that the actions people suffering a particular oppression will always be radical, or writing off huge swathes of working class people as social conservative whose views can never be changed and who are incapable of acting towards social change

6.  Asking people to become allies rather calling for solidarity - so discouraging the linking of struggles and the view of "an injury to one is an injury to all", but it also often tends to mean certain people from outside an oppressed group, often those who are able to express their anti-oppressive attitudes and guilt at their privileges in the correct way, are listened to while others are dismissed.

7. What others on here have called community brokering - I would add that as well as this being by certain members of oppressed groups (usually those who are not working class) to advance their own interests and being used by the state to control us [and steal stuff away from us], this is also a way that "radical" or "left wing" groups often act against the interests of people actually fighting oppression (ie anti-racist organisations that rely on working with "community leaders" without interrogating their class position or wider politics or investigating the various organising efforts and controversies within those communities).

8. The politics of representation (ie how many women managers/mps/etc there are) and ignoring class or turning it into another identity.

9.  Reducing political struggles against oppression to our rights to be free to make choices, with no analysis of what actually limits those choices.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 22, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> UK unis are a good example because they have fundamentally changed their status in the last 20 years. The commodification of university education pretty much made the change in pay structures within them inevitable. So yes, clearly focusing on the race and gender of those benefiting from that commodification is missing the point that the commodification is the cause, or rather the opportunity now being taken advantage of: they are now competing with one another to sell a product, and their management can quantify 'success' more clearly with money to justify taking a bigger wage packet. Today, the fact of university expansion can be taken to be a function of the operations of a market. Previously it was a managed situation in which government decided how many places there would be according to social need, the market limited to overseas students, who were of course squeezed as hard as they could be. Now it's everyone who can be squeezed. No wonder the vast majority of university managers lobbied so hard for tuition fees.
> 
> And that's not entirely unrelated to the fact of the people on the street. All these systems that allow those at the top to take a bigger share mean that everyone else is squeezed. And those at the bottom are squashed. With the uni example and with any other example of privatisation and commodification of life, it is those already at the top who benefit, who get to take a bigger share of the wealth than they previously took, while others stagnate. Capitalism has worked like this for a long while now, since the 70s at least, with a steady decline in wages as a percentage of GDP, staying afloat with growth so that the minority can take a bigger share without the majority getting poorer. As growth shrinks or disappears, the process, which was already going on, is made harder to conceal, as those at the top continue to take a bigger share and get richer on real terms and everyone else gets poorer.
> 
> You'd hope that this kind of analysis would gain traction where people can see how they're being squeezed.



Just coming back to this, a further thought on a mistake that id politics can make in its looking at a thing, in misidentifying the problem:

Within a society there may be a structural inequality such as one in which black people do worse than white people on average. You need to be careful with those kinds of stats as the children of immigrants from different groups have quite widely varying outcomes, but the thing doesn't disappear - there is racism in our society. But the mistake can then be made to reduce this process to the result of something done to black people by white people, hence the idea of 'white privilege' that I've seen applied to all white people regardless of their situation, which is absurd. Looking at the kinds of things such as the process outlined above, the class aspect of the exploitation becomes clearer. Something some people are doing to everyone else, where those some are disproportionately white, will produce a situation where you can demonstrate truthful stats showing that black people on average do worse than white people.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 22, 2017)

crossthebreeze said:


> You might not be a marxist, but you do seem to have a structural analysis - of patriarchy, of oppression by governments and thatcherite capitalism.


And there was me thinking I was just ranting about Thatcher...


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 23, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm looking to hear people's experiences here, particularly about who they've found common cause with, and why. Maybe that would answer my imagined scenario (which, note, was a question not a statement). Maybe it wouldn't.
> 
> I've given a few examples from my experience. But on their own they're a bit useless.
> 
> *Have I worked anywhere without a Union presence? Yes. Why?*



I asked about this because your answer to your own example above was 'the union, obviously'. 

I once worked in a restuarant as a waitress that had both a female and male manager. There was no union presence. Over a period of time the sexualised comments/banter from the a few of the kitchen staff got so regular I decided to tell one of the managers in the hope that them having a word in the right ears would put a stop to it. Every attempt I had made to reason with them had failed. Explaining why I didn't like it was met with 'can't you take a joke' like comments. Trying to get them to understand just how fucking sexist and objectifying the comments were was met with comments like me taking things too seriously would get me anywhere in the real world. That I thought I was better than them because I was at university  etc. etc. 

Which manager did I approach and why?


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## emanymton (Sep 23, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I asked about this because your answer to your own example above was 'the union, obviously'.
> 
> I once worked in a restuarant as a waitress that had both a female and male manager. There was no union presence. Over a period of time the sexualised comments/banter from the a few of the kitchen staff got so regular I decided to tell one of the managers in the hope that them having a word in the right ears would put a stop to it. Every attempt I had made to reason with them had failed. Explaining why I didn't like it was met with 'can't you take a joke' like comments. Trying to get them to understand just how fucking sexist and objectifying the comments were was met with comments like me taking things too seriously would get me anywhere in the real world. That I thought I was better than them because I was at university  etc. etc.
> 
> Which manager did I approach and why?


The one you found the most approachable? The one you felt was the most likely to to listen to you, and take your complaint seriously. The one you felt would be able to deal with it in the best way. Since all we know is that one was a man and one a woman. I don't see how we can tell really.


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## killer b (Sep 23, 2017)

I just saw these two quotes on Twitter from Ralph Miliband, which I though might be helpful for the thread. 

(They should be the other way round but i can't get them to display correctly from my phone)


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## chilango (Sep 23, 2017)

To return to the Union. Another experience that is pertinent (perhaps) is of when we were negotiating some new deal and we fought for the p/t Philipino cleaners to get the same childcare rights as the rest of us. If they'd fought as Philipino women they'd have lost (just on numerical grounds) if the majority of the Union had fought on the grounds of being Italian citizens who already had these rights and actually risked losing a very beneficial deal by stick their heels in for the handful of Phliipino cleaners. And some members did argue to accept the deal on those grounds. The argument that won, both the meeting, and ultimately the whole deal, was the basic "injury to one is an injury to all". We all won.


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## Idris2002 (Sep 23, 2017)

For what it's worth, the Maori party in New Zealand seems to have been badly hit, or even wiped out, in this weekend's election, which must mean, I suppose a lot of Maori voters returning to Labour.

This is probably the (partial) result of things like this:







Which doesn't necessarily mean that the things that inspired the Maori Party have gone away, mind. . .


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 23, 2017)

chilango said:


> To return to the Union. Another experience that is pertinent (perhaps) is of when we were negotiating some new deal and we fought for the p/t Philipino cleaners to get the same childcare rights as the rest of us. If they'd fought as Philipino women they'd have lost (just on numerical grounds) if the majority of the Union had fought on the grounds of being Italian citizens who already had these rights and actually risked losing a very beneficial deal by stick their heels in for the handful of Phliipino cleaners. And some members did argue to accept the deal on those grounds. The argument that won, both the meeting, and ultimately the whole deal, was the basic "injury to one is an injury to all". We all won.


Why were all the p/t workers Pilipino?


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## chilango (Sep 23, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Why were all the p/t workers Pilipino?



For the same reasons migrant labour is prefgerd for certain roles by bosses across the world.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 23, 2017)

chilango said:


> For the same reasons migrant labour is prefgerd for certain roles by bosses across the world.


So I wonder why those workers would not also have been supported by the rest if they had identified that the bosses were exploiting them on those terms and argued their case?


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## chilango (Sep 23, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> So I wonder why those workers would not also have been supported by the rest if they had identified that the bosses were exploiting them on those terms and argued their case?



We won.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 23, 2017)

chilango said:


> We won.


So you said. This doesn't answer my question though about why the wider union support was 'conditional'.


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## chilango (Sep 23, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> So you said. This doesn't answer my question though about why the wider union support was 'conditional'.



It wasn't. That's the point.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 23, 2017)

chilango said:


> It wasn't. That's the point.


You said they would not have gotten support/ numbers by arguing that as Pilipino/migrant workers they were being exploited. Maybe I have misunderstood?


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## chilango (Sep 23, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> You said they would not have gotten support/ numbers by arguing that as Pilipino/migrant workers they were being exploited. Maybe I have misunderstood?



No, they didn't have the numbers to organise separately.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 23, 2017)

chilango said:


> No, they didn't have the numbers to organise separately.


Were they not members of the union then?


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## Idris2002 (Sep 23, 2017)

"Neoliberalism is running into its historical limits, exhausting its ability to stabilise capitalism and pacify those to whom it has doled out poverty and misery. An identity politics that is detached from material and historical questions cannot help us now; neither can faithfully repeating the left tactics of the twentieth century. The process of reconstituting something new, something that addresses the unique situation in which we find ourselves, has begun. We must let go of defeatism and nostalgia, reject crumbs thrown off the table by capital, and watch carefully for openings and opportunities. Anything could happen. Let’s make it something good."

Intersectional Identity and the Path to Progress


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## chilango (Sep 23, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Were they not members of the union then?



Yes. They were.


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## ViolentPanda (Sep 23, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Late to it but what danny said - last 30 years or so. I don't disagree that ethnicity etc have been used as a political for far longer than that but the identity politics than danny talked about in the OP, one that is bound up with multiculturalisms is a recent thing.



In the UK it was born in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Academe, and quickly spread to the political classes and those who wanted to be members of the political classes.
Back then a friend in Lambeth dropped me after I made a joke questioning the logic of her belonging to a black bi womens' caucus - I basically said "you're spreading yourself a bit thin there, how many of you are there, three, four, more?" (there were two). Intersecting identities should be, can and are used to illustrate the cross-cutting and multiplying effects of numerous oppressions, but if you take those oppressions and represent them as qualifiers - as keys to get through doors - then you generate a new set of exclusivities that could in the future generate their own oppressions.

This is why I favour the class narrative as an over-arching "basket" into which these other oppressions can be placed.  Our social and economic relations are the primary front on which we, as the working class, are attacked, and currently all other oppressions are informed by that.  I'm not claiming that 10,000 years of patriarchy are subservient to class, or that the history of the triangular Atlantic trade should be set aside, so that class can take pride of place, I'm saying that understanding how we relate to capitalism as a class informs how we can deal with those other oppressions here and now, and to treat class merely as another facet of identity risks missing a very apt tool for dealing with those other oppressions.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 26, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> "Neoliberalism is running into its historical limits, exhausting its ability to stabilise capitalism and pacify those to whom it has doled out poverty and misery. An identity politics that is detached from material and historical questions cannot help us now; neither can faithfully repeating the left tactics of the twentieth century. The process of reconstituting something new, something that addresses the unique situation in which we find ourselves, has begun. We must let go of defeatism and nostalgia, reject crumbs thrown off the table by capital, and watch carefully for openings and opportunities. Anything could happen. Let’s make it something good."
> 
> Intersectional Identity and the Path to Progress


This article is not wholly dismissive of the politics of identity.  Even in the quote above, when she says "...neither can faithfully repeating the left tactics of the twentieth century", and "nostalgia", she is surely referencing -


> ...the danger of imposing a predetermined form of universality—one based on the glorification of implicitly white, implicitly male industrial labour—onto a twenty-first-century proletariat that is extremely different in character.


I found myself in agreement with most of the article, and still very much of a mind that the dismissals of identity politic actions, ideas and spaces are misguided.


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## likesfish (Sep 26, 2017)

Problem with ID politics in the UK especially Black identity is its 2per cent of the population so its a tiny minority of a minority it may be useful in a very local struggle but nationwide its going no where


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## mojo pixy (Sep 26, 2017)

And then again, 'black' as an identity isn't necessarily useful to people whose background is say Ghanaian, or Kenyan. As opposed to American.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 27, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> I found myself in agreement with most of the article, and still very much of a mind that the dismissals of identity politic actions, ideas and spaces are misguided.


How is it misguided for those with a political philosophy based on class politics to criticise* identity politics

On a previous thread killer b asked a good question for those that consider them socialists and supporters of identity politics.


killer b said:


> Can class and ID politics actually be allied? They seem to offer two very different ways of viewing the world, and two very different solutions.


I mean I think it's very hard to argue that identitypolitics isn't used to attack class politics, there are plenty of examples of it on U75 alone.

Even the slight move to the left in the Labour and Democratic parties (which I wouldn't describe as class politics) was opposed on the basis of identitypolitics.


*I'm deliberately not using your "dismiss' as I don't think socialists dismiss indentitypoltics, rather they see it as part of the problem.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 27, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> I found myself in agreement with most of the article, and still very much of a mind that the dismissals of identity politic actions, ideas and spaces are misguided.


Incidentally do you maintain this view even when the it is the (far)right using/promoting idenitypolitics?


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## alsoknownas (Sep 27, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Incidentally do you maintain this view even when the it is the (far)right using/promoting idenitypolitics?


No, and neither do I maintain it when people are using it to abuse their position within groups, exclude other voices, or isolate themselves.  But all ideologies and organisational practices are vulnerable to misuse, co-opting, warping out of all recognition, using as a mask for genocide, etc. as everybody on the left well knows (or should do).


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## alsoknownas (Sep 27, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> And then again, 'black' as an identity isn't necessarily useful to people whose background is say Ghanaian, or Kenyan. As opposed to American.


Or you could say it's more useful because it unites the experience of both African Americans and Kenyans who might have developed useful strategies to resist similar challenges.  As Many non-American black people were disappointed with the transition from Black ---> African American as it broke with the diaspora-wide identity link.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 27, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> No, and neither do I maintain it when people are using it to abuse their position within groups, exclude other voices, or isolate themselves.  But all ideologies and organisational practices are vulnerable to misuse, co-opting, warping out of all recognition, using as a mask for genocide, etc. as everybody on the left well knows (or should do).


Right so you accept that criticism "of identity politic actions, ideas and spaces" are not misguided per se.

I also don't agree that the BNPs (and the like) use of identitypolitics was/is warping it out of all recognition. Instead I'd argue that it follows from the premises that liberal proponents of identitypolitics accept and argue for. If the white working class are an identity (as more than a few have argued) then it's a nonsense to argue that they are not discriminated against (for example the oft quoted stat that white working class men are the only group with the decreasing life expectancy in the US) and thus need the same political actions and spaces that other minority groups do.


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## kabbes (Sep 27, 2017)

Not to mention that the imagined identity of the nation-state is one of the most prevalent notions of identity we have, which leaves the door wide open to a nationalist adoption of the ideas of identity politics.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 27, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Not to mention that the imagined identity of the nation-state is one of the most prevalent notions of identity we have, which leaves the door wide open to a nationalist adoption of the ideas of identity politics.



Exhibit A: 

 

(Apologies if images are frowned upon in here).


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## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

I read this thread from Rob Ford in response Angela rayner's mooting of racial quotas for teaching yesterday - it has some interesting stats about democratic support for racialised policies: it drops off a cliff. In his study, there was less support for (race based) affirmative action here than there is in even the United States.

Now... that isn't to say that teachers shouldn't be more reflective of the body of children they're teaching - but it does say that - even from just a tactical point of view - this is not the way to go about achieving that aim.


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## doodlelogic (Sep 27, 2017)

Why is it that almost all the women world leaders of note are somewhat right wing in one way or another?

The Queen
Thatcher
May
Indira Gandhi
Golda Meir
Angela Merkel
Clinton
Aung San Suu Kyi

The Soviets put a woman in space but often couldn't manage one in the Politburo.

It's fine to say that class should be the centre of the argument and that solving class oppression would necessarily solve other forms of oppression.  But even within organisations that left-wingers control, like the Labour party and the Unions, there is a problem getting women to the top.  So it's not surprising if women doubt the argument that class identity politics is the panacea.

I don't think the answer is to support the conservatives.  I think the answer is to support women and people of colour to lead progressive movements.


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## alsoknownas (Sep 27, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> How is it misguided for those with a political philosophy based on class politics to criticise* identity politics
> 
> On a previous thread killer b asked a good question for those that consider them socialists and supporters of identity politics.
> 
> ...


I suppose for me that is the crux of the matter - it's how these important fights around say women's right to be a part of major decision-making processes, or Black people's right to not live under the threat of police brutality, are actually addressed.  I mean really addressed - by people taking an active and nuanced look at what needs to be done, and going out and challenging the existing structures.
To an analysis where only class-based whole-system-toppling actions are relevant, I can see how much of those developments might seem concessionary and incremental.  But these are issues that effect people at the heart of their existence and where action needs to urgently be taken.  The problems I have with theorists who don't see the power of people coming together around their own experiences and creating learning and response out of that, is that these campaigns get continually deferred otherwise.  
Of course it's true to say that most socialist groups and individuals are wholly committed to anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc., and I know and have been witness to the bravery of those who have fought and stood up against those forces.  But who was organising to go lie down in the street when Black people were being murdered by police?  Who is it that is actually going to try to promote an equal space for women's voices in meetings?  If we all have to wait for the left to get on board with every action, or for communities to include a class-based analysis in order for protest to be legitimate, then we'll be waiting a bloody long time.
It's pretty easy to say you shouldn't campaign for more Black faculty members, when the issue doesn't effect you in the same way (and you may not even have a complete picture of how that kind of exclusion wroughts its effects).  It's easy to say you shouldn't have a women's group whilst simultaneously benefiting from an easier route to speaking platforms, etc.

My ideal for grouping and campaigning around identity is that it serves as a university for thoughts and actions around the issues.  We'd never of had feminism without women getting themselves the fuck out of shared spaces, getting their heads together, and working out what was unique about their struggle.  And the results of that have been, on the whole, brilliant.
I think the left needs to take a more pragmatic (and less dogmatic) approach to these movements.  They are ripe for politicising in the best possible way.  Look what's happened to Black Lives Matter - true, it was seeped in academic culture from the very start - but this will be the very first time that many of the grassroots activists involved will have seen their own struggles tied up with those of First Nation people (BLM has been active in supporting indigenous land issues), white victims of police brutality, gay and disabled rights issues, etc.  That came out of a movement focussed really exclusively on identity at first, but which has a) achieved results, and b) widened its scope.


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## inva (Sep 27, 2017)

doodlelogic said:


> Why is it that almost all the women world leaders of note are somewhat right wing in one way or another?
> 
> The Queen
> Thatcher
> ...


all world leaders are right wing. being at the top makes you right wing.


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## doodlelogic (Sep 27, 2017)

Hard to make a case for Attlee and FDR being right wing, or Nehru or Mandela for that matter, but I take your point and now is a different time in world politics.


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## chilango (Sep 27, 2017)

doodlelogic said:


> Hard to make a case for Attlee and FDR being right wing, or Nehru or Mandela for that matter, but I take your point and now is a different time in world politics.



It wouldn't be hard, but it would be a digression...


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## seventh bullet (Sep 27, 2017)

doodlelogic said:


> Why is it that almost all the women world leaders of note are somewhat right wing in one way or another?
> 
> The Queen
> Thatcher
> ...



Class isn't an identity, it's a condition.  What class are these 'progressive' women and people of colour, and what interests do they have?


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## doodlelogic (Sep 27, 2017)

Angela Rayner gave a good speech yesterday.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 27, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> Or you could say it's more useful because it unites the experience of both African Americans and Kenyans who might have developed useful strategies to resist similar challenges.  As Many non-American black people were disappointed with the transition from Black ---> African American as it broke with the diaspora-wide identity link.



That would suggest that ''white'' as an identity would be useful for everyone with a British, Spanish, Greek or Russian background. Or ''asian'' for everyone with a Chinese, Pakistani, Thai or Khazak background. I'm not sure either is the case (ETA - not to mention all the people who are mixed.)

I see 'black' and 'white' as words of apartheid-speak that suit cultures built by such a system, but not cultures which have other kinds of outlooks.


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## pengaleng (Sep 27, 2017)

all white people are the same tho and are responsible for the worlds ills so fuck them, no one cares what they think.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 27, 2017)

Every single one of them.


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## pengaleng (Sep 27, 2017)

they fuckin stink, should be sent to camps imo.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 27, 2017)




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## pengaleng (Sep 27, 2017)

no, not eurocamp. a proper concentration camp. just round em up, no karaoke.

white people need to be eradicated from the planet.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 27, 2017)

TBF it has been tried that other way before. Didn't work out too well IIRC


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## pengaleng (Sep 27, 2017)

thats because white people did it that time, they fucked it up cus they are too stupid and white not to hide it properly.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 27, 2017)

It's a great example of where the Politics of Identity can lead though so worth including here.


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## pengaleng (Sep 27, 2017)

the nazi party are legit identity politics. 

still fuck white people tho.


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## NoXion (Sep 27, 2017)

There's no such thing as White people.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

pengaleng said:


> the nazi party are legit identity politics.
> 
> still fuck white people tho.


 FFS! shut up! are you high? not high enough? listen to yourself


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## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

Fascism is (a form of) identity politics tbf.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

I recall when I was young, hetro nuclear family normality was the only option on offered to me. My not wanting to get married when I was young was seen as a bit odd by many of my family and my peers.

In my upbringing being single, unless you had a religious vocation, was not viewed as an acceptable option and was generally considered to be sad. Married women without children were pitied. Unmarried women with children were scandalous and a problem. Intersex children were a medical problem often subjected to surgery. Everyone had to be either totally male or totally female, and being either would limit your life choices. Being a gay male was barely legal, in no way socially acceptable and was a media joke. Lesbians were hidden by total invisibility. I'd never heard of bi or trans then. This was before recent equality legislation, mostly before the equality acts of the early 70s.

A lot of the movements and actions that changed that statis quo have been called here 'identity politics'. or have I misunderstood that?  Can someone please explain to me how some other movement or 'structural analysis' could have brought about the change we see in societies acceptance of people like me, other queer people or BME, thats what I don't understand. 

I understand neoliberals and libertarians may have joined many organisationa now (where were they when putting your head above the parapet was dangerous - but does is there a need to demonise the whole history of our struggles?


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> Fascism is (a form of) identity politics tbf.


and you! FFS!


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## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

it is though. it isn't a particularly controversial point.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 27, 2017)

It has to be, because it needs tightly defined in-groups and out-groups in order to make sense. _Identitypolitics _is all about in-groups and out-groups.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 27, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> and you! FFS!


Are you seriously denying that (far) rightists use (have used) indentitypolitics as a basis for organising? There are plenty of examples (some already mentioned on this thread) to the contrary.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 27, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> I suppose for me that is the crux of the matter - it's how these important fights around say women's right to be a part of major decision-making processes, or Black people's right to not live under the threat of police brutality, are actually addressed.  I mean really addressed - by people taking an active and nuanced look at what needs to be done, and going out and challenging the existing structures.


Don't think there would by too much disagreement with that.



alsoknownas said:


> To an analysis where only class-based whole-system-toppling actions are relevant, I can see how much of those developments might seem concessionary and incremental. But these are issues that effect people at the heart of their existence and where action needs to urgently be taken. The problems I have with theorists who don't see the power of people coming together around their own experiences and creating learning and response out of that, is that these campaigns get continually deferred otherwise.


Hang on, that's a strawman. A class based politics approach doesn't mean not fighting for gains in the here and now, hell many of the improvements that workers have obtained have been because socialists* were instrumental in fighting for them. 



alsoknownas said:


> Of course it's true to say that most socialist groups and individuals are wholly committed to anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc., and I know and have been witness to the bravery of those who have fought and stood up against those forces.  But who was organising to go lie down in the street when Black people were being murdered by police?  Who is it that is actually going to try to promote an equal space for women's voices in meetings?  If we all have to wait for the left to get on board with every action, or for communities to include a class-based analysis in order for protest to be legitimate, then we'll be waiting a bloody long time.
> It's pretty easy to say you shouldn't campaign for more Black faculty members, when the issue doesn't effect you in the same way (and you may not even have a complete picture of how that kind of exclusion wroughts its effects).  It's easy to say you shouldn't have a women's group whilst simultaneously benefiting from an easier route to speaking platforms, etc.


 I certainly don't want people to wait around for "the left" to organise things, nor would I argue that socialists should wait for communities to develop the "correct" analysis before getting involved (in fact in a recent thread when I argued exactly the opposite it was implied that I was excusing racism). But none of that implies that people have to organise on the basis on identitypolitics.



alsoknownas said:


> My ideal for grouping and campaigning around identity is that it serves as a university for thoughts and actions around the issues.  We'd never of had feminism without women getting themselves the fuck out of shared spaces, getting their heads together, and working out what was unique about their struggle.  And the results of that have been, on the whole, brilliant.


 But feminism can, and does, exist within a class based framework, see Sylvia Pankhurst and Emma Goldman. And the fight for women's rights (or any other group) are most effective and important when this is the case. Syliva Pankhurst did far more for the majority of women the in the UK than her mother and, especially, her sister.

*I'm using socialist here in a very wide sense, basically all those who consider the class to be the fundamental relationship under capitalism.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 27, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> A lot of the movements and actions that changed that statis quo have been called here 'identity politics'. or have I misunderstood that?


Yes I think you have.

You (and others) seem to be confusing any organising/fighting against racism/sexism/homophobia as identitypolitics. That's not what is being argued, what's been argued against is fighting against racism/sexism/homophobia _within an identitypolitics framework _because the outcomes delivered do not really address the problems, and can even be counter-productive.


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## pengaleng (Sep 27, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> FFS! shut up! are you high? not high enough? listen to yourself




my point is solid actually. 

I love it. I love that people have an obvious problem with people who take drugs. disagree with me > focus on invalidation using the drug habit. such a bait tactic.

-8 liberal points.

you listen to your own self cus I aint really got time to.


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## BigTom (Sep 27, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Yes I think you have.
> 
> You (and others) seem to be confusing any organising/fighting against racism/sexism/homophobia as identitypolitics. That's not what is being argued, what's been argued against is fighting against racism/sexism/homophobia _within an identitypolitics framework _because the outcomes delivered do not really address the problems, and can even be counter-productive.



Yep, I think this is really important. I'm not sure about sexuality but with sexism and racism, it's about the analysis - why do these things exist? Class analysis gives one set of answers - essentially/crudely based around how capital uses these labels and structures to divide the working class in order to be able to more fully exploit certain sections of it. Identitypolitics seems to have little to say, women are oppressed because they are women and historically have been oppressed and still are (yes of course there is detail at a less abstract level but in the abstract I have found identitypolitics very shallow - intersectionalism not so shallow interestingly). Class analysis then leads to certain things being seen as more important or issues to organise around - unpaid housework & childcare and equal pay at work spring to mind - and that this is workers organising against capital. identitypolitics looks at things in a different way, and leads to a different set of issues and organising, and often this is women organising against men.

So when you organise around getting equal pay for women, class struggle analysis will tend toward attempts to unionise workplaces and take industrial action to force employers to pay equally. identitypolitics will tend to organise around women working together to sort themselves out. At the bad end of this it's about women in the boardroom and the idea that if a women is the CEO then they will pay women equally, about getting legislation in place, and things like the articles saying women have to ask for payrises if they want them and don't get paid so much as men because men are better at asking for more (this is an individual, not collective action - as so often I find the solutions from identitypolitics proponents are). At the same time there's plenty of identitypolitics activists who would see unionising as the way forward, but that's because they see class as an identity and recognise that in the workplace situation, class matters and/or they know it works and it's essentially a tactical play.

Remembered Alexandra Kollontai wrote about this stuff and feel this quote is relevant to this discussion, from The Social Basis of the Woman Question, 1909



> The women’s world is divided, just as is the world of men, into two camps: the interests and aspirations of one group bring it close to the bourgeois class, while the other group has close connections to the proletariat, and its claims for liberation encompass a full solution to the woman question. Thus, although both camps follow the general slogan of the “liberation of women,” their aims and interests are different. Each of the groups unconsciously takes its starting point from the interests and aspirations of its own class, which gives a specific class coloring to the targets and tasks it sets for itself . . . however apparently radical the demands of the feminists, one must not lose sight of the fact that the feminists cannot, on account of their class position, fight for that fundamental transformation of society, without which the liberation of women cannot be complete



(note: "cannot be completed" means we can make gains within capitalism, but cannot ever completely liberate women. It doesn't mean revolution or nothing)

I have to admit I'm unsure about how sexuality/gender / homophobia/transphobia relates to this exactly, but I'm sure there must be plenty of class struggle analyses of homophobia, apologies as I'm not about to go looking right now.


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## Treacle Toes (Sep 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> it is though. it isn't a particularly controversial point.


As if the nazi comments were the only ones that were irksome/ clearly planned to rub people up the wrong way...ffs really? You have someone trolling the thread with 'all White people are x' comments and you choose to pick on the one person that got pissed off with that? Odd.


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## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

'pick on'?


----------



## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

Are you tone-policing me?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> Are you tone-policing me?


Are you trolling this thread too or what? Who mentioned your tone? Twilight zone bullshit.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 27, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> As if the nazi comments were the only ones that were irksome/ clearly planned to rub people up the wrong way...ffs really? You have someone trolling the thread with 'all White people are x' comments and you choose to pick on the one person that got pissed off with that? Odd.



How are they planned to rub people up the wrong way? White Nationalism IS identity politics. For sure they're not liberation politics but both the identity politics of the left and right serve similar divisive ends.


----------



## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Are you trolling this thread too or what?


All my posts on this thread have been on topic & courteous, you're the one who keeps trying to pick fights. 

How am I 'picking on' anyone?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 27, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> How are they planned to rub people up the wrong way? White Nationalism IS identity politics. For sure they're not liberation politics but both the identity politics of the left and right serve similar divisive ends.


Read the comments. I am not arguing that White nationalism isn't id politics ffs.  Just can't fathom why anyone would get nippy with fod getting pissed off with obvious trolling of the thread and build a non-argument around that.


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## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

I wasn't building a non-argument, just replying to a post. 

This, however...


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 27, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Read the comments. I am not arguing that White nationalism isn't id politics ffs.  Just can't fathom why anyone would get nippy with fod getting pissed off with obvious trolling of the thread and build a non-argument around that.



I don't understand how killer b pointing out that fascism is identity politics (if I were being picky I'd argue it isn't necessarily, but dividing people by identity is in its toolkit) is trolling the thread.

E2a: actually I was thinking race, but Nationalism always features so scratch that in the brackets.


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## pengaleng (Sep 27, 2017)

jokesssssss

that was worth unignoring 

'mnerrrrr trolling' - classic.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 27, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I don't understand how killer b pointing out that fascism is identity politics (if I were being picky I'd argue it isn't necessarily, but dividing people by identity is in its toolkit) is trolling the thread.
> 
> .


Fod didn't argue that White Nationalism and/or fascism isn't id politics to begin with though. She got rightly pissed off with the bullshit comments/trolling. But you know...accuse her and build an argument all the same.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 27, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Fod didn't argue that White Nationalism and/or fascism isn't id politics to begin with though. She got rightly pissed off with the bullshit comments/trolling. But you know...accuse her and build an argument all the same.



The 'trolling', as far as I can tell, was taking the piss out of privilege theory, itself a subset of identity politics.


----------



## Red Cat (Sep 27, 2017)

I don't think he did accuse her.


----------



## chilango (Sep 27, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> I don't think he did accuse her.



This. 

I didn't read anything like that into killer b 's post either. Just an attempt to discuss.


----------



## alsoknownas (Sep 27, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Don't think there would...


Appreciate the post, and I'm enjoying the debate.


redsquirrel said:


> Hang on, that's a strawman. A class based politics approach doesn't mean not fighting for gains in the here and now, hell many of the improvements that workers have obtained have been because socialists* were instrumental in fighting for them.


I have acknowledged that on this thread (twice actually - I feel compelled to keep acknowledging it just in case people think I don't know and support the role that socialist ideas can have in liberation struggles).


redsquirrel said:


> I certainly don't want people to wait around for "the left" to organise things, nor would I argue that socialists should wait for communities to develop the "correct" analysis before getting involved (in fact in a recent thread when I argued exactly the opposite it was implied that I was excusing racism). But none of that implies that people have to organise on the basis on identitypolitics.


I also don't think that people *have* to organise around identity politics; I just think that it's often both necessary and productive.  It would be great if wider movements were perceptive and motivated enough to consistently address the needs of communities in struggle, but unfortunately that just isn't always the case. 


redsquirrel said:


> But feminism can, and does, exist within a class based framework, see Sylvia Pankhurst and Emma Goldman. And the fight for women's rights (or any other group) are most effective and important when this is the case. Syliva Pankhurst did far more for the majority of women the in the UK than her mother and, especially, her sister.
> 
> *I'm using socialist here in a very wide sense, basically all those who consider the class to be the fundamental relationship under capitalism.


I agree, and I think we both have a similar 'ideal case' scenario in mind, but there are other times when feminism has had to, out of necessity, find it's own spaces to operate in.  I would not be at all dismissive of the cases singled out earlier in the thread who wanted to vibe with other bi, Black women (iirc), or organise to challenge a lack of Black faculty members, because I think there is definitely a time and a place for that.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 27, 2017)

chilango said:


> This.
> 
> I didn't read anything like that into killer b 's post either. Just an attempt to discuss.


Oh yeah, let's discuss something you never said, just because, you know, it'll be fun.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 27, 2017)

Of course feminism often has to find its own space to operate in but that doesn't mean that all feminism is progressive. And that's the problem with organising around identity alone. I don't share common interests with other English people on the basis I'm English or other men on the basis I'm male. So why would a working class single mother, for example, share interests with a socialite of aristocracy stock, for argument's sake, on the basis of shared gender identity?


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## chilango (Sep 27, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Oh yeah, let's discuss something you never said, just because, you know, it'll be fun.



*sighs* I don't think anybody is "accusing" friendofdorothy of anything nor suggesting they said something that they didn't. But rather, that it was a good point in the discussion- for whatever reason - to mention the far-right's use of identity politics. I'd contemplated mentioning the "rights for whites" campaign earlier, but hadn't gotten around to it.

It's an interesting angle. Worth looking at imo. I don't see any reason to see any beef in this as it were.


----------



## snadge (Sep 27, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Oh yeah, let's discuss something you never said, just because, you know, it'll be fun.




Not everyone that you class as allies need to have the same thoughts as yourself.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 27, 2017)

chilango said:


> It's an interesting angle. Worth looking at imo. I don't see any reason to see any beef in this as it were.


Who said it isn't interesting? The point was that it isn't what fod was objecting to! So yeah, sigh indeed.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 27, 2017)

snadge said:


> Not everyone that you class as allies need to have the same thoughts as yourself.


Fucking hell. You win. I surrender to nonsense.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 27, 2017)

Can we move past it now then? As it's starting to look convenient for the derailing of the thread.


----------



## killer b (Sep 27, 2017)

the fuck is this?


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Are you seriously denying that (far) rightists use (have used) indentitypolitics as a basis for organising? There are plenty of examples (some already mentioned on this thread) to the contrary.


This idea of identity politics is doing my head in. I've read this thread, and I obviously still don't know what it really means and no one has yet explained it in a way that I can understand.



redsquirrel said:


> Yes I think you have.
> 
> You (and others) seem to be confusing any organising/fighting against racism/sexism/homophobia as identitypolitics. That's not what is being argued, what's been argued against is fighting against racism/sexism/homophobia _within an identitypolitics framework _because the outcomes delivered do not really address the problems, and can even be counter-productive.


  Yes I'm really confused. I thought that was what people had said the idea of organising with similar people suffering the same oppression was identity politics, and that was the wrong way to go about it? 
What framework should we be fighting within -  was what I was asking in my post #282


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

BigTom said:


> I have to admit I'm unsure about how sexuality/gender / homophobia/transphobia relates to this exactly, but I'm sure there must be plenty of class struggle analyses of homophobia, apologies as I'm not about to go looking right now.


This is exactly what I'm asking. How do we fight homophobia /transphobia with everyone shouting us down as its identity politics and we are wrong to organise together on those issues.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 27, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> This is exactly what I'm asking. How do we fight homophobia /transphobia with everyone shouting us down as its identity politics and we are wrong to organise together on those issues.



Because it can often draw the wrong conclusions. For example, some forms of feminism concludes that Men are the problem. So you've just wiped out a significant proportion of allies in one fell swoop. Or the problem with poverty and/or racism is white privilege. Which presumably includes white people experiencing poverty themselves or have also been subjected to colonialist oppression.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Because it can often draw the wrong conclusions. For example, some forms of feminism concludes that Men are the problem. So you've just wiped out a significant proportion of allies in one fell swoop. Or the problem with poverty and/or racism is white privilege. Which presumably includes white people experiencing poverty themselves or have also been subjected to colonialist oppression.



Is it just me, or does that make no sense, and a repetition of what you said before? 

I conclude that for example I gave before of the fight against homophobia /transphobia I need to listen to people who are suffering from ill effects homophobia /transphobia about what is needed and then find to people who are not homophobic or transphobic and organise with them. Is that wrong? 

So who are all these 'allies' who will help and how will they help? Didn't notice them taking to the streets against clause 28 or in the fight against AIDS when it was still seen as the 'gay plague'. Are they ready and waiting somewhere now?


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2017)

There were a whole bunch of teachers, trade unionists and socialists etc who got out on the streets to oppose clause 28.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> There were a whole bunch of teachers, trade unionists and socialists etc who got out on the streets to oppose clause 28.


You may be right, but thats not the way I recall it - will look again at my old photos. But I do remember the manchester clause 28 march was notable by a small number of parents standing on the pavement with banners saying things like 'we love our lesbian and gay children' brought a tear to my eyes. So many of my friends had been rejected by their parents.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> You may be right, but thats not the way I recall it - will look again at my old photos. But I do remember the manchester clause 28 march was notable by a small number of parents standing on the pavement with banners saying things like 'we love our lesbian and gay children' brought a tear to my eyes. So many of my friends had been rejected by their parents.



I was in Manchester that weekend to see a mate and had a lovely train journey back to London in a carriage full of people who’d been on the march.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 27, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> There were a whole bunch of teachers, trade unionists and socialists etc who got out on the streets to oppose clause 28.


Actually I do recall the SWP used to turn up to anything, everything, every march going,  usually with more banners than members. I had forgotten that.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Sep 27, 2017)

and it's also fair to say that the trade union movement hasn't always been entirely supportive of 'minorities'

the reluctance of the Bristol Omnibus Company to employ "coloured labour" (that led to the 1963 Bristol bus boycott) was, according to the management, in part due to staff / union resistance 

There were at least unofficial strikes at some depots on the buses in London post-1945 against the continued employment / recruitment of women conductors after they had initially been taken on as a wartime emergency measure (bus conductors of military age were liable to conscription, drivers were a 'reserved occupation' as it was broadly thought that women could not do the job)

And then there were the London dockers who struck / marched in support of Enoch Powell in 1968


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2017)

I can’t help feeling that if you weigh a few shameful examples of unions being shit in the balance, they still come out on top with this stuff, historically and in the present day. 

Maybe that’s just me though.


----------



## xenon (Sep 27, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> In the UK it was born in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Academe, and quickly spread to the political classes and those who wanted to be members of the political classes.
> Back then a friend in Lambeth dropped me after I made a joke questioning the logic of her belonging to a black bi womens' caucus - I basically said "you're spreading yourself a bit thin there, how many of you are there, three, four, more?" (there were two). Intersecting identities should be, can and are used to illustrate the cross-cutting and multiplying effects of numerous oppressions, but if you take those oppressions and represent them as qualifiers - as keys to get through doors - then you generate a new set of exclusivities that could in the future generate their own oppressions.
> 
> This is why I favour the class narrative as an over-arching "basket" into which these other oppressions can be placed.  Our social and economic relations are the primary front on which we, as the working class, are attacked, and currently all other oppressions are informed by that.  I'm not claiming that 10,000 years of patriarchy are subservient to class, or that the history of the triangular Atlantic trade should be set aside, so that class can take pride of place, I'm saying that understanding how we relate to capitalism as a class informs how we can deal with those other oppressions here and now, and to treat class merely as another facet of identity risks missing a very apt tool for dealing with those other oppressions.





alsoknownas said:


> I suppose for me that is the crux of the matter - it's how these important fights around say women's right to be a part of major decision-making processes, or Black people's right to not live under the threat of police brutality, are actually addressed.  I mean really addressed - by people taking an active and nuanced look at what needs to be done, and going out and challenging the existing structures.
> To an analysis where only class-based whole-system-toppling actions are relevant, I can see how much of those developments might seem concessionary and incremental.  But these are issues that effect people at the heart of their existence and where action needs to urgently be taken.  The problems I have with theorists who don't see the power of people coming together around their own experiences and creating learning and response out of that, is that these campaigns get continually deferred otherwise.
> Of course it's true to say that most socialist groups and individuals are wholly committed to anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc., and I know and have been witness to the bravery of those who have fought and stood up against those forces.  But who was organising to go lie down in the street when Black people were being murdered by police?  Who is it that is actually going to try to promote an equal space for women's voices in meetings?  If we all have to wait for the left to get on board with every action, or for communities to include a class-based analysis in order for protest to be legitimate, then we'll be waiting a bloody long time.
> It's pretty easy to say you shouldn't campaign for more Black faculty members, when the issue doesn't effect you in the same way (and you may not even have a complete picture of how that kind of exclusion wroughts its effects).  It's easy to say you shouldn't have a women's group whilst simultaneously benefiting from an easier route to speaking platforms, etc.
> ...



 Both of these are great posts. Not contradictory. 

 It's that bloody wheel of oppression thing,  tick box oppressions. Top trumps ,  that the phrase ID politics brings to mind.   Where as a nuanced  understanding and examination of how different groups of people  are specifically fucked over, is necessary.  I am mostly reading this thread but these two posts stood out.  from my own perspective, as a disabled person,   allbeit be   Working class.  Discrimination, in the form of employment prospects, social attitudes,  can't really be tackled by deferring to Marxion   Analysis. Not on any practical level anyway. Yes I know I put that a bit crudely but I'm sort of thinking aloud.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Sep 28, 2017)

The point is 'Marxists' will often champion causes on the basis of solidarity as opposed to generating mutual suspicion. It doesn't claim to be able to answer questions regarding specific oppressions of the individual. It recognises capitalism as the vehicle driving oppression and criticises capital. Identity politics has no such analysis so often just seeks parity within the system as opposed to challenging it.


----------



## BigTom (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> This is exactly what I'm asking. How do we fight homophobia /transphobia with everyone shouting us down as its identity politics and we are wrong to organise together on those issues.



I'll reply to this and your question above to redsquirrel (i think) when I'm at a keyboard later, maybe tonight if work is busy. To properly explain my issue with idpol i will have to get philosophical about it because the outcomes are mixed, it's in the theory it becomes clear to me where it goes wrong and why class analysis tends to give better answers resulting in better practice. 

But i want to say that nobody is saying you shouldn't organise together. The basic concept of solidarity - an injury to one is an injury to all - is a core idea of any practical application of class analysis. Sometimes people need to be shown/reminded that solidarity isn't just a workplace thing. 

When i come to post later about the theory you'll see my main objection is based around how idpol individualises things which should be collective.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 28, 2017)

xenon said:


> I am mostly reading this thread but these two posts stood out.  from my own perspective, as a disabled person,   allbeit be   Working class.  Discrimination, *in the form of employment prospects, social attitudes,  can't really be tackled by deferring to Marxion   Analysis. Not on any practical level anyway.* Yes I know I put that a bit crudely but I'm sort of thinking aloud.


xenon Can you expand on this please? Which approach do you think is more appropriate?


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 28, 2017)

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism ARE all structural problems because (while they may have pre-existing oppressions before capitalism) capitalism utilises these oppressions.  Sexism/homophobia/transphobia result from the gendered division of labour.  Racism is the result of colonialism, slavery, and capitalist expansion (and has been utilised by capitalists to divide the working class and create a stratified labour market (ie workers with full rights, migrant workers with rights but some restrictions, migrant working illegally or the stratifications resultant from slavery in the USA).  Ableism results at least partly from class society, the labour market, and the value placed on work (ie if you are working class but you can't work as fast as is needed or you need adjustments, or some you are unable to do some types of work or need care) and the individualisation of society. Where some of these oppressions have reduced in their impact or changed in how they are structured in the last years/decades its is partly because of our organisation (whether anti-oppression or class based) but also because capitalists has found a way to incorporate some of these demands in neoliberalism.

None of us (including the unions, the left, radicals, feminists, anti-racists, LGBT activists) are outside the structure of this society.  We are all inculcated with racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist attitudes because we are socialised into this society - and it takes a process to overcome this.  Therefore it is not surprising that despite believing that "an injury to one is an injury to all" some trade unionists and left and radical people have acted or organised in racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or ableist ways and many have not fully supported the fight against these oppressions.  It also means that many working class people who are oppressed in these ways may experience much of this oppression - violence, abuse, bullying, ostracism, harassment - from other working class people - and for this reason autonomous organising with people who experience the same oppression is sometimes necessary.  Undoing internalised oppression and forming an identity/the ability to name an oppression is also sometimes a necessary process which also needs autonomy.

This autonomous organising very often is working class people [LGBT people, for example] organising together, and its a bit disingenuous to suggest otherwise.  The problem is that there are also parts of the feminist movement, the LGBT movement, etc organised by people who are part of, or wanting to become part of, the capitalist class - and some of the reforms they want might seem to have the potential to change things for the better for women, LGBT people, etc in general - though of course they will never get to the root of the problem.  So without a structural analysis that includes class the organising efforts of oppressed working class people can be co-opted into these cross-class movements and incorporated into neoliberalist reforms.  This is what I think of as identity politics.

This isn't inevitable however - there's a long history of organising efforts by working class women, LGBT people, black people, disabled people, etc that does follow a structural analysis - aimed at challenging state violence and oppression or violence and oppression from other parts of the working class, aimed at changing unions and other working class organisations to respond to oppression or forming new working class organisations that do that, and expanding autonomous action to give and receive solidarity.  This to me is not identity politics in the main (though as none of us are outside of the structures of society of course sometimes organising and analysis is influenced by identity politics, neoliberalism, and oppressive attitudes).


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 28, 2017)

alsoknownas said:


> Appreciate the post, and I'm enjoying the debate.


Likewise



alsoknownas said:


> I agree, and I think we both have a similar 'ideal case' scenario in mind, but there are other times when feminism has had to, out of necessity, find it's own spaces to operate in.  I would not be at all dismissive of the cases singled out earlier in the thread who wanted to vibe with other bi, Black women (iirc), or organise to challenge a lack of Black faculty members, because I think there is definitely a time and a place for that.


Yes I don't think we are miles apart. I would support women staff members organising together and challenging gender equity at the professorial level in a university, precisely because I see those fights as mine too. For example the lack of flexible work arrangements and the length of the working day (at the last university I worked at lectures could go on until 8 in the evening) act as indirect discrimination against women. Making progress in these areas would both improve conditions for all and, hopefully, tear down some of the barriers that make it harder for women to progress in academia. Another example in the HE sector is insecure work, where again women are overrepresented, fighting against casualisation is both a fight for better working rights and gender equity at the same time.



friendofdorothy said:


> This idea of identity politics is doing my head in. I've read this thread, and I obviously still don't know what it really means and no one has yet explained it in a way that I can understand.
> 
> Yes I'm really confused. I thought that was what people had said the idea of organising with similar people suffering the same oppression was identity politics, and that was the wrong way to go about it?
> What framework should we be fighting within -  was what I was asking in my post #282


I'll try to come back to a better "definition" of indentitypoltics later when I've a bit more time but I'd say the examples I mentioned above in reply to alsoknownas are good example of the framework that I support. Or contrast the ways to tackle differences in pay.

For example within the identitypolitics framework there is a fight to increase the pay of women CEOs to those of male CEOs, both because it is unjust that they don't receive the same levels of remuneration and because, it is claimed, by equalising pay at the top that will help women lower down the pay scale.

For my part I see that argument as both stupid and reactionary. Getting the women CEOs of the top FTSE100 companies the same insane sums of money their male counterparts receive not only does nothing for the masses of workers male and female but actually distracts from the main point - why has the pay gap between those at the top and bottom exploded?

Instead it would be far better to fight for an increase in the minimum wage or against the cuts to benefits or tax credits. Changes their would have a far greater impact on millions of women, and the ones most in need too.


----------



## Red Cat (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Actually I do recall the SWP used to turn up to anything, everything, every march going,  usually with more banners than members. I had forgotten that.



When I was in the SWP, around 1995, I was asked to go to Pride along with my LGBT comrades, sell Socialist Worker on the bus down to London from Manchester. I think it was my most cringeworthy SWP experience, trying to sell SW to people who wanted to party, were already partying at 7 in the morning, but actually I did sell some, and I recall having a few political conversations on the bus and at the event. I may even have had some fun alongside doing my revolutionary duty


----------



## chilango (Sep 28, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> When I was in the SWP, around 1995, I was asked to go to Pride along with my LGBT comrades, sell Socialist Worker on the bus down to London from Manchester. I think it was my most cringeworthy SWP experience, trying to sell SW to people who wanted to party, were already partying at 7 in the morning, but actually I did sell some, and I recall having a few political conversations on the bus and at the event. I may even have had some fun alongside doing my revolutionary duty



I remember being told to go and sell the paper at a candle-lit vigil on World AIDS Day  

I refused. I attended the vigil, without the paper.


----------



## Red Cat (Sep 28, 2017)

chilango said:


> I remember being told to go and sell the paper at a candle-lit vigil on World AIDS Day
> 
> I refused. I attended the vigil, without the paper.



Fucking hell.


----------



## chilango (Sep 28, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Fucking hell.



The same "cadres" that told me that a wildcat student protest of c500 that i helped organise was a waste of time because we didn't sell the paper.

I didn't last long after this.


----------



## xenon (Sep 28, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> xenon Can you expand on this please? Which approach do you think is more appropriate?



Will try reply later when keyvoard hand. And thought.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 28, 2017)

xenon said:


> Will try reply later when keyvoard hand. And thought.


No probs, when you can, thank you.


----------



## pengaleng (Sep 28, 2017)

thread homework is so cool.


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2017)

I think in essence, ID politics are a call to fairness. And while it's hard to argue against things being more fair, fairness in itself often isn't enough to win something widespread support: especially if things being more fair for some can appear - or be made to appear - to have a negative impact on other groups. 

Which is why organising in ways which emphasise and create shared interests are more effective and get wider support than those that emphasise differences. IDpol may be able to achieve immediate victories, but I think for those victories to be sustained and deep-rooted it needs to be demonstrated that those victories are also the victories of the wider community.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

killer b said:


> I think in essence, ID politics are a call to fairness. And while it's hard to argue against things being more fair, fairness in itself often isn't enough to win something widespread support: especially if things being more fair for some can appear - or be made to appear - to have a negative impact on other groups.
> 
> Which is why organising in ways which emphasise and create shared interests are more effective and get wider support than those that emphasise differences. IDpol may be able to achieve immediate victories, but I think for those victories to be sustained and deep-rooted it needs to be demonstrated that those victories are also the victories of the wider community.


the l&g movement of the 70s, 80s 90s were effective in removing some legal obsticles, changing public opinion and a 'call to fairness' I've been told on this thread that those were not ID politics and in other places been dismissed because they were. Were they or weren't they? What do you think?


----------



## BigTom (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> the l&g movement of the 70s, 80s 90s were effective in removing some legal obsticles, changing public opinion and a 'call to fairness' I've been told on this thread that those were not ID politics and in other places been dismissed because they were. Were they or weren't they? What do you think?



I would guess that some of it will have been ID politics - although not quite like the identitypolitics of today - and some of it won't have been. What redsquirrel said early is that identitypolitics is not the only form of challenging discrimination or oppression. anti-homophobia, sexual equality actions he didn't mean that they could not be identity politics, clearly they can be, but being critical of or opposed to identitypolitics does not mean that you cannot challenge homophobia or that you don't think it matters, as there are other bases from which to examine (and thereby act to remove) oppression than identity.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

crossthebreeze said:


> Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism ARE all structural problems because (while they may have pre-existing oppressions before capitalism) capitalism utilises these oppressions.  Sexism/homophobia/transphobia result from the gendered division of labour.  Racism is the result of colonialism, slavery, and capitalist expansion (and has been utilised by capitalists to divide the working class and create a stratified labour market (ie workers with full rights, migrant workers with rights but some restrictions, migrant working illegally or the stratifications resultant from slavery in the USA).  Ableism results at least partly from class society, the labour market, and the value placed on work (ie if you are working class but you can't work as fast as is needed or you need adjustments, or some you are unable to do some types of work or need care) and the individualisation of society. Where some of these oppressions have reduced in their impact or changed in how they are structured in the last years/decades its is partly because of our organisation (whether anti-oppression or class based) but also because capitalists has found a way to incorporate some of these demands in neoliberalism.
> 
> None of us (including the unions, the left, radicals, feminists, anti-racists, LGBT activists) are outside the structure of this society.  We are all inculcated with racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist attitudes because we are socialised into this society - and it takes a process to overcome this.  Therefore it is not surprising that despite believing that "an injury to one is an injury to all" some trade unionists and left and radical people have acted or organised in racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or ableist ways and many have not fully supported the fight against these oppressions.  It also means that many working class people who are oppressed in these ways may experience much of this oppression - violence, abuse, bullying, ostracism, harassment - from other working class people - and for this reason autonomous organising with people who experience the same oppression is sometimes necessary.  Undoing internalised oppression and forming an identity/the ability to name an oppression is also sometimes a necessary process which also needs autonomy.
> 
> ...


thats the best explaination I've seen so far. 

The clause 28 protests and pride movement of the 80s did not only come from working class people. There were people from every background involved with privelege and with out.

I recall every Pride meeting being a battle ground of ideologies with more arguing than work, constant debates about iseas, money, race, gender, disability. Not so much about class though, you could be very priveleged yet still get sacked, evicted and beaten up all legally.  There was a general feeling too that we were all 'underclass' all rejected by mainstream society and many of us rejected by our own class or family too.



> So without a structural analysis that includes class the organising efforts of oppressed working class people can be co-opted into these cross-class movements and incorporated into neoliberalist reforms.


I understand that point. When I heard Cameron speaking up for same sex marriage, it made me sick. 

In the case of Gay Liberation or the many lgbt+ organisations it spawned - they didn't include 'a structural analysis that includes class' and weren't 'the organising efforts of oppressed working class people' By that definition they were what is being called ID politics.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

BigTom said:


> I would guess that some of it will have been ID politics - although not quite like the identitypolitics of today - and some of it won't have been. What redsquirrel said early is that identitypolitics is not the only form of challenging discrimination or oppression. anti-homophobia, sexual equality actions he didn't mean that they could not be identity politics, clearly they can be, but being critical of or opposed to identitypolitics does not mean that you cannot challenge homophobia or that you don't think it matters, as there are other bases from which to examine (and thereby act to remove) oppression than identity.


That would suggest the concept of ID politics of today can't really be applied to the activism I was involved in. 

The question remains how else should we challenge inequalities like homophobia? Is there a structural class analysis that can be applied?


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## Smokeandsteam (Sep 28, 2017)

It might be useful to explore where identity politics emerged from in the U.K.

Very briefly, EP Thompson and other Marxist thinkers who left the CP over the invasion of Hungary went on to form a journal called the New Left Review. 

Their experience of the CP and Stalinism led them to attempt to rethink left/Marxist politics and coincided with an academic movement that questioned linear empirical history and focusssed instead on language and power and privilege within texts.

5 years later Stuart Hall's introduction in NLR condemned all 'top-down' politics and told us all to look for resistance in cultural identity.

The reasons for this turn are manifold but whatever the reasons it was the beginning of an - in my view disasterous - turn away from economically interventionist politics and towards the politics of identity.

I'll post more on this later but I think it's important to note where and why identity politics emerged.


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## LDC (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> The clause 28 protests and pride movement of the 80s did not only come from working class people. There were people from every background involved with privelege and with out.



IMO you really need to go and re-read some of the posts on here as I think you're fundamentally missing something we're addressing.

Class, in the way many of us mean and use it, _is not_ about education, culture, or what food you like to eat - and fuck all to do with 'privilege'. Class is an economic category that's fundamental to capitalism, and if you don't understand that and take it into account in your analysis and activity you end up with very problematic politics.

So, the perspective you seem to have is one of the fundamental problems with identity politics and why some of us are criticizing elements of it here.

Without addressing class you _cannot_ mount a challenge to capitalism.

PS: There are loads of critiques of homophobia (and of course gender/race) that come from a revolutionary class perspective.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

xenon said:


> Both of these are great posts. Not contradictory.
> 
> It's that bloody wheel of oppression thing,  tick box oppressions. Top trumps ,  that the phrase ID politics brings to mind.   Where as a nuanced  understanding and examination of how different groups of people  are specifically fucked over, is necessary.  I am mostly reading this thread but these two posts stood out.  from my own perspective, as a disabled person,   allbeit be   Working class.  Discrimination, in the form of employment prospects, social attitudes,  can't really be tackled by deferring to Marxion   Analysis. Not on any practical level anyway. Yes I know I put that a bit crudely but I'm sort of thinking aloud.


Hi xenon 
I think you're on to something with the idea of all this structural analysis not really be much use on a practical level. I was think this earlier how academic theary is all very well - but it doesn't make marches or protests happen. It wouldn't in itself change anything on any useful level. Its all very well having having a unified theology of eveything - but what are people actually going to do? whos going to do the work and how are we going to do it.

People can decry the 'cross class' activism that I used to be involved with, as 'ID politics', but hey we got the law changed, we won! and more than that we were part of a movement that has majorly changed public attitudes. 

And theres always more to do.


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## LDC (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I think you're on to something with the idea of all this structural analysis not really be much use on a practical level.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Hi xenon
> I think you're on to something with the idea of all this structural analysis not really be much use on a practical level.



Yeah. It's only the basis of workers' organisations such as unions and spawned revolutions that shaped 20th century politics. Definitely not in any way practical.


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## LDC (Sep 28, 2017)

And obviously (just for clarity), having a class analysis is not the be all and end all of it.

Plenty of political perspectives have one and can be shocking in a whole host of ways.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> IMO you really need to go and re-read some of the posts on here as I think you're fundamentally missing something we're addressing.
> 
> Class, in the way many of us mean and use it, _is not_ about education, culture, or what food you like to eat - and fuck all to do with 'privilege'. Class is an economic category that's fundamental to capitalism, and if you don't understand that and take it into account in your analysis and activity you end up with very problematic politics.
> 
> ...


I've always struggled with the ever changing definitions of class. never known how it applies to me or people I know. If its not at all about privilege then I'm completely lost. 

Perhaps I do I need to do homework or have a degree in politics to join in any p&p thread.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I've always struggled with the ever changing definitions of class. never known how it applies to me or people I know. If its not at all about privilege then I'm completely lost.
> 
> Perhaps I do I need to do homework or have a degree in politics to join in any p&p thread.



You can get a basic grasp by reading the communist manifesto which is 30 odd pages long. I don't have a degree, let alone one in politics.

(Although class is less clear cut nowadays admittedly).


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## LDC (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I've always struggled with the ever changing definitions of class. never known how it applies to me or people I know. If its not at all about privilege then I'm completely lost.
> 
> Perhaps I do I need to do homework or have a degree in politics to join in any p&p thread.



Sorry if my post seemed patronizing. If it's any consolation I have neither a degree nor A levels. And I agree, I think the issue of class is very muddled on the left, it took me a while to grapple with it and come to my current position. It is something that needs to be addressed though, and not doing is is very problematic, hence some of these criticisms of identity politics.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

Thanks for the apology - I did think you were patronising, so I appreciate it.

I was an activist. I've spent years struggling against one injustice or another. The world is still full of small groups of people saying 'do it this way'.

I've always been 'left', obviously not left enough for some here. I'm struggling with this stuff now. I find it difficult to get any kind of overview or context. I just want to live in a fairer world and I'm looking for ways to make that happen.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> You can get a basic grasp by reading the communist manifesto which is 30 odd pages long. I don't have a degree, let alone one in politics.
> 
> (Although class is less clear cut nowadays admittedly).


Grandma /eggs!  I do have a degree (design not politics) I'm not a school kid and I don't want anymore fucking homework. 

That said, I do read stuff - but only if its interesting. Surely the communist manifest is only interesting as an historical item now? Having read excerpts, met many 'communists' and seen the downfall of the berlin wall etc. I don't think its the concept of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat that I'm struggling with here.


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## Athos (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Surely the communist manifest is only interesting as an historical item now?



What makes you say that?


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## mojo pixy (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> the concept of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat



At heart I believe it's _still _this. For me, the main flaw of identitypolitics is that people with all kinds of identity make up both bourgeoisie and proletariat. _Proles _with all kinds of identity aspire to be _bourgeois,_ left, right and centre. So basically, how is one meant to find true allies based on identity, for any struggle which isn't by definition limited in scope?

I want to acknowledging a the same time that limited-scope actions can create visibility for certain groups, as well as start dialogue by bringing public attention onto particular issues, and that makes them useful.

I also want to acknowledge that the terms _Bourgeoisie _and _Proletariat _have dated somewhat in that in these post-industrial, zero-hours, self-employed latter days, a lot of (functionally) working class people look (and would identify as) middle class because of what they own and attitudes they hold. Lines are blurred and this is IMO one of the main reasons for the rise of IDpol as a protest culture.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> At heart I believe it's _still _this. For me, the main flaw of identitypolitics is that people with all kinds of identity make up both bourgeoisie and proletariat. _Proles _with all kinds of identity aspire to be _bourgeois,_ left, right and centre. So basically, how is one meant to find true allies based on identity, for any struggle which isn't by definition limited in scope?
> 
> I want to acknowledging a the same time that limited-scope actions can create visibility for certain groups, as well as start dialogue by bringing public attention onto particular issues, and that makes them useful.
> 
> I also want to acknowledge that the terms _Bourgeoisie _and _Proletariat _have dated somewhat in that in these post-industrial, zero-hours, self-employed latter days, a lot of (functionally) working class people look (and would identify as) middle class because of what they own and attitudes they hold. Lines are blurred and this is IMO one of the main reasons for the rise of IDpol as a protest culture.


that makes sense to me. At the beginning of this thread I thought it all seemed so polarised. There's oviously lots of shades of opinion on this.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Surely the communist manifest is only interesting as an historical item now?



As someone with a degree in design, that's like saying the history of typography is irrelevant now.


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## Athos (Sep 28, 2017)

For me, a big part of the criticism of ID pol is concerned with the methodology as much as the ideology i.e. the sort of tactics used within this mileu.  Though admttedly, the tactics can be used outside of IDpol, and ID pol can be done without those tactics.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> As someone with a degree in design, that's like saying the history of typography is irrelevant now.


not irrelevant but mostly of use to students. Having read Jan Tschichold 'Die neue typogaphy' or Eric Gills essay- I wouldn't recommend it to someone wanting understand the nuances of the requirements of digital typography today.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2017)

Athos said:


> For me, a big part of the criticism of ID pol is concerned with the methodology as much as the ideology i.e. the sort of tactics used within this mileu.  Though admttedly, the tactics can be used outside of IDpol, and ID pol can be done without those tactics.


What are the tactics used within this mileu?


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## Athos (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> What are the tactics used within this mileu?



Some of the contrived offence-taking, the unwarranted no-platforming, the abuse of the idea of safe spaces, the rejection of facts/logic/truth in favour of experience, the smearing of opponents as bigots, tone policing, etc., etc.. Basically all the really shit stuff from US student politics which seems to have infected much of what calls iteself the left here (though I wouldn't describe it that way).


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> not irrelevant but mostly of use to students. Having read Jan Tschichold 'Die neue typogaphy' or Eric Gills essay- I wouldn't recommend it to someone wanting understand the nuances of the requirements of digital typography today.



Or of use to anyone wanting to understand graphic design. There's many further writings on class and capitalism but the communist manifesto is short and easy to read. I wouldn't point you towards Capital.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 28, 2017)

With Marx, certainly other people have drawn from his works and written their own. But nobody has written a greater critique of Capitalism. If they had, I'd point you to them.


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## Smokeandsteam (Sep 28, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> IMO you really need to go and re-read some of the posts on here as I think you're fundamentally missing something we're addressing.
> 
> Class, in the way many of us mean and use it, _is not_ about education, culture, or what food you like to eat - and fuck all to do with 'privilege'. Class is an economic category that's fundamental to capitalism, and if you don't understand that and take it into account in your analysis and activity you end up with very problematic politics.
> 
> ...



it would be wrong to ignore cultural capital, social capital and how's its used, to what ends and by who. That said, you are absolutely correct that without addressing the question of class that not only can you not effectively challenge capital but all of the evidence demonstrates you either end up competing within it, are captured by it or your ideas are recuperated by it.


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## snadge (Sep 28, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I've always struggled with the ever changing definitions of class. never known how it applies to me or people I know. If its not at all about privilege then I'm completely lost.
> 
> Perhaps I do I need to do homework or have a degree in politics to join in any p&p thread.




There has been no change in the definition of working class.

Ever.


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## snadge (Sep 28, 2017)

Smokeandsteam said:


> it would be wrong to ignore cultural capital, social capital and how's its used, to what ends and by who. That said, you are absolutely correct that without addressing the question of class that not only can you not effectively challenge capital but all of the evidence demonstrates you either end up competing within it, are captured by it or your ideas are recuperated by it.




LOL.


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## BigTom (Sep 29, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> That would suggest the concept of ID politics of today can't really be applied to the activism I was involved in.
> 
> The question remains how else should we challenge inequalities like homophobia? Is there a structural class analysis that can be applied?



I was only born in 79 so I wasn't around for the period you are talking about, which makes it hard for me to compare, but over 20-40 years the politics will evolve of course and so identity politics today, both in theory and practice, will not be exactly the same as it was in the period you are talking about, but it'll be more closely related to today's identity politics than to class analysis.
I think crossthebreeze in the first paragraph of the post you replied to before mine has talked about how class analysis is in that capital has found it useful to divide the workforce and that is the root of where homophobia comes from, so by focusing our demands & efforts for sexuality equality (there's an proper word or phrase for that isn't there?) on capital (which includes the state), rather than on individuals, we can make bigger gains. That doesn't mean you don't challenge homophobia in yourself or other people your personal life but that you also need to makes demands on capital, which is the structure behind this.
I still need to make the post I said I would yesterday but I won't have time this morning or at work today, it will be over the weekend, apologies.


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## chilango (Sep 29, 2017)

I suppose another aspect to think about is - crudely - "who  becomes the enemy"?


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## redsquirrel (Sep 29, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> What are the tactics used within this mileu?


Look at my post #329, I give an examples of the different tactics used by identitypolitics and a politics that involves class.


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## LDC (Sep 29, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> At heart I believe it's _still _this. For me, the main flaw of identitypolitics is that people with all kinds of identity make up both bourgeoisie and proletariat. _Proles _with all kinds of identity aspire to be _bourgeois,_ left, right and centre. So basically, how is one meant to find true allies based on identity, for any struggle which isn't by definition limited in scope?
> 
> I want to acknowledging a the same time that limited-scope actions can create visibility for certain groups, as well as start dialogue by bringing public attention onto particular issues, and that makes them useful.
> 
> I also want to acknowledge that the terms _Bourgeoisie _and _Proletariat _have dated somewhat in that in these post-industrial, zero-hours, self-employed latter days, a lot of (functionally) working class people look (and would identify as) middle class because of what they own and attitudes they hold. Lines are blurred and this is IMO one of the main reasons for the rise of IDpol as a protest culture.



Yeah exactly. If groups/campaigns don't have class as a basis of understanding they often have morals as a replacement, and this leads you into all sorts of problematic directions in terms of who you who orientate yourself towards (and against).

It's classic liberal activism; people on your side are those who choose to do the 'right thing' - not being homophobic/be against fracking/not to fly/not to eat meat/etc., and politics becomes about convincing everyone else to make right decisions as well, and those that refuse to or argue the other side are the enemy.


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## Lambert Simnel (Sep 29, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah exactly. If groups/campaigns don't have class as a basis of understanding they often have morals as a replacement, and this leads you into all sorts of problematic directions in terms of who you who orientate yourself towards (and against).
> 
> It's classic liberal activism; people on your side are those who choose to do the 'right thing' - not being homophobic/be against fracking/not to fly/not to eat meat/etc., and politics becomes about convincing everyone else to make right decisions as well, and those that refuse to or argue the other side are the enemy.



What happens after the revolution when there is a classless society? There will still be people with racist, sexist and homophobic etc views, they won't be eliminated when capitalism has gone. What use would a class analysis be in that context? What would replace it?


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## chilango (Sep 29, 2017)

A revolution (in this context) is a process not an event.


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## Lambert Simnel (Sep 29, 2017)

chilango said:


> A revolution (in this context) is a process not an event.



So as long as there is racism, sexism etc it will to do with economic class, regardless of how society is organised?


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 29, 2017)

Lambert Simnel said:


> What happens after the revolution when there is a classless society? There will still be people with racist, sexist and homophobic etc views, they won't be eliminated when capitalism has gone. What use would a class analysis be in that context? What would replace it?



The gulag.


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## inva (Sep 29, 2017)

I don't think its much surprise that the subject generates so much confusion as like a number of other posters I often find it hard to grasp the distinction some are making. This is especially the case where I've seen this argued over elsewhere as some of the more ostentatious anti identity types often seem to turn out to be supporters of the Labour or Democratic Party, or some are reactionary 'anti imperialist' nationalists, in which case I wonder just what the difference really is. Don't most of the same criticisms apply? Obviously they might say that it's the best option at the moment and we can still make gains within that context, yet supporters of liberal identity politics could say the same. And when we look at more class based organisations/movements, at least nominally anyway, it seems they too often accommodate themselves to capitalism, even turning against the working class and suppressing struggle. The history of the socialist/labour movement is far from an entirely shining example in that respect.

I think it becomes clearer to me at least when we focus less inwardly in terms of the ideology or analysis held by groups/movements towards more a question of actual activity. so that in terms of fighting social divisions for example based around racism or sexism, if we want to succeed ultimately we cannot accommodate ourselves to structures that support and reproduce those oppressions. For me identity politics is a liberal politics that has made that accommodation (or didn't need to in the first place perhaps). It uses identity to conceal its class position and interests, something which becomes apparent where critique of structures is excluded in favour of explanations centred on personal prejudice. Which is not necessarily to dismiss gains made within that framework, just like I wouldn't dismiss gains made through social democratic parties if they bring us benefit, but at the same time those gains tend to be based on more radical foundations (which are often obscured, sometimes deliberately). A truly liberatory politics will find itself opposed to liberal anti racism, liberal feminism just as it will be opposed to much 'socialism'.


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## chilango (Sep 29, 2017)

Lambert Simnel said:


> So as long as there is racism, sexism etc it will to do with economic class, regardless of how society is organised?



Meaning that _if_ there is a revolutionary process of transforming society, then this process will be changing people in, and through, this process of transformation.


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## Lambert Simnel (Sep 29, 2017)

chilango said:


> Meaning that _if_ there is a revolutionary process of transforming society, then this process will be changing people in, and through, this process of transformation.



Can you not conceive of a society where class distinctions have been eliminated but there still exists prejudiced against minority groups? In such a society how would that prejudice be tackled?


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## Pickman's model (Sep 29, 2017)

Lambert Simnel said:


> Can you not conceive of a society where class distinctions have been eliminated but there still exists prejudiced against minority groups? In such a society how would that prejudice be tackled?


hypothetically

next


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## xenon (Sep 29, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> xenon Can you expand on this please? Which approach do you think is more appropriate?



I think this thread's gone a bit muddled as defining ID politics goal posts seem to be shifting. I don't like the US wheel of oppression stuff. But to answer your question.

not that I'm exactly politically active as such. But where issues of wider solidarity, general rights, workers rights, of course I'd like to see all sections of the working class cooperating.

In areas of specific points of discrimination, it's necessary and sensible for groups facing a particular oppression, to take the lead on combatting it; To be the prime voice directing efforts to combat said oppression. That just seems self evident, the experience of those facing racisms, sexism, disablism etc. Ideally though, with a recognition that the bedrock of power relations is often the class position.

Conflicts may arise between these 2 approaches, or attitudes. i.e. the old board room representation argument. I'm afraid I'm not going to waste much effort in arguing for better representation in board rooms but I'm not going to attack an a discriminated against individual fighting their corner in that arina either.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 29, 2017)

Sorry to have neglected the thread, but I’ve been unwell.  There have been a lot of replies to me, but if I try to respond to everyone individually in this post it’ll soon become unreadable.  So, apologies for not replying individually to everyone who was awaiting a response.

So, where to start?  Well, one of the reactions I predicted in my OP did in fact occur: some people appear to have conflated a) _identitypolitics_ with b) all anti-racism (or all feminism, or all anti-homophobia or all anti-transphobia) etc.  I am not criticising b), I’m criticising one approach to it, namely a).  The two are not synonyms.  As I mentioned in my OP, these have _become_ synonyms in the contemporary popular imagination, but I’d argue that has happened largely through the agency of top down Multiculturalism, (itself co-opted by neoliberalism).  But in criticising_ identitypolitics_ I am not criticising all struggles by oppressed people against oppression.  I am criticising one approach.

So, what specifically are my objections?  Chiefly that it has borrowed the language and concepts of the far right (and these have now been borrowed back by the so-called alt-right).  In particular, the language of biology was adopted by _identitypolitics_.  It has become common to see the formulation “you can’t understand my experiences because you don’t share my skin colour/chromosomes/mDNA/brain chemistry* etc”.  Well, OK, maybe.  But you can _tell_ us. 

As it happens in some ways I do sympathise with the argument that far.  I’ve asterisked one of the biological signifiers I could use: brain chemistry.  I experience endogenous depression.  It has resulted in my losing jobs and job opportunities, and makes my CV apparently toxic.  As a direct result, I reply on self-employment.  Which means that during my present recuperation from my current health problems (an unconnected physical condition) I am not only not earning, I am not receiving employer’s sick pay. 

So, it irritates me when someone who hasn’t experienced those issues takes it upon themselves to be an expert.  I can therefore fully appreciate an argument that we need to hear more of the voices of people who experience mental ill-health.  What I do *not *think follows is that I should in _any way_ suggest that by not sharing my brain chemistry you are participating the oppression against me.

It is this attribution of responsibility by biology that I strongly object to.  It is dodgy science and dodgy politics. 

Here’s a vivid example of what I mean:

“They came trudging up the hill from a soggy Epping Forest, a rag-tag huddle led by a young black woman. Behind her were five middle-aged white men and a 15-year-old boy, looped together by a length of chain. Around the necks of the boy and a man in his 60s was a makeshift wooden yoke that twisted the man's head as they walked. Each of them, including a clutch of children running alongside - but not the black walkers - wore a T-shirt with the stark legend: "So sorry".

Andrew Winter, a designer from London, gave up his job to join the latest tour. His wife Vonetta, who is from Barbados, is also on the walk, though she doesn't wear a "So sorry" shirt. *Their mixed race son Josh, who is 10, sometimes wears one, sometimes doesn't.*”  (My bold).

Marching to London to hear a single word ... sorry


This illustrates the utter ridiculousness of apportioning responsibility for slavery according to “race”.  The son is mixed race so sometimes responsible for slavery and sometimes not.  If that doesn’t make you by turns nauseous, angry and bleakly amused then there is something you’re seriously not getting.

By this ludicrous example, because of my skin colour (as far as records show, I’m of Scots-Irish ancestry), I’m personally responsible for slavery.  Whether I condone slavery or not is ignored in this mindset.  Instead, the issue is that I am nevertheless somehow responsible because of my skin colour.

Now, whatever your ancestry, if your parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, committed any crime, whatever that crime, no matter how serious – rape, murder, violent assault, anything – you are not responsible.  Not even a little bit.

In any case, in the instance of slavery, it totally ignores class to suppose that the ancestors of all white people had the same relationship to the slave trade.  My ancestors are miners as far back as I can trace.  And Scottish miners were themselves, until 1775, actual (not metaphorical) slaves too: Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775 - Wikipedia


Those who might say this ludicrous example of the Epping Forest march is at the absurd end of _identitypolitics_, what about this viewpoint? It was widely shared, and surfaced on these boards:

“White women: your hands may not have held most torches this wknd, but you birth, feed, caress, screw, raise, and love the systems killing us”  (link).

How “intersectional” is it to lay the blame on mothers?  This is the next problem of _identitypolitics _that I want to highlight: the atomisation of solidarity into competing, mutually suspicious, ghettos.

On and off for many years I was involved in disability activism.  However, in the early ‘00s, in a group I was involved in, some members started to challenge whether I was “really” disabled. These were people with physical disabilities who didn’t see mental ill-health as a “proper” disability.  People I’d known for years started referring to me as “the TAB man”, and challenge my right to speak at meetings.  “Will the TAB* man stop speaking?” And so on.  (*temporarily able bodied).  They were trying to split into ever smaller interest groups, and saw “their” section of the existing group as having competing interests to “my” section.  This is a group where six people at a meeting was a great turnout.  I left, but it also shook my confidence at the time.  I was questioning whether I _had _been dominating meetings, whether I had the right to call myself disabled, and so on.  It wasn’t pleasant at all.  But the saddest thing is that a group that was already tiny was making itself smaller and cutting itself off even from alliances that had founded the group!  This same tendency could be seen in the recent thread about feminists and trans women.

If we do that, if we retreat into mutually suspicious ghettos, we weaken any capacity for fightback.  If we see all outsiders as oppressors, and _disallow_ them, then how do we win them over?  If only the “right” people can be pure fighters against disablism (or transphobia, sexism, racism or whatever), then how can it ever be defeated?

I remember an episode of HIGNFY when an item about racism was being discussed (I forget exactly what) and Reginald D. Hunter was on the panel. The rest of the panel and the host looked to him for an answer.  He replied something along the lines of “Hell, am I the only one allowed to know this is _wrong_?  You folks _just can’t tell_ one way or another?” And that’s exactly where we’ve ended up.


_Identitypolitics_, in the sense I have described it, is of course a response to material conditions, but it became adopted by the class steering neoliberalism, because they, run now by the babyboomer generation, had identity issues that they wanted to address.  This is why it, in the sense I describe, has become effective in ensuring diversity in the managerial classes, but these advantages don’t seep into the working classes.  This “failing” (actually not a failing, since that’s its purpose) has been critiqued at length by writers such as Kenan Malik, bell hooks, and Asad Haider.  (Incidentally, all people of colour, so the criticism levied earlier in the thread that it’s mainly people not affected by oppression who criticise _identitypolitics _is wide of the mark.  And in any case, working class people _are _affected by oppression.  However, we should in any case examine the merits of the argument).


This very individualist and liberal (and I use the term in the sense I have described elsewhere) form of “response” to oppressions etc does indeed stem from material conditions, but it has gained the ascendency in contemporary culture.  It informs the response of TV panellists, it informs soap opera and sitcom scriptwriters, it informs HR awareness training sessions, it informs the cultural consensus on sensitivity towards the gamut of identity issues.  It has this position in contemporary common sense because the class which is the dominant material force in society is therefore the dominant cultural and intellectual force.  As Marx and Engels say (in the German Ideology), the ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas.


And that ruling class is quite satisfied with the divide and rule effect of _identitypolitics_.  This is why rebuilding solidarity and reidentifying the correct targets (ie not each other!) is the way to proceed.


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## xenon (Sep 29, 2017)

As thread is moved on. The blame Capitlism for everything thing tendancy. Risible.

 Marx might be useful still. Certainly in terms of economic class relations. But cleaving to his words, looking at everything through a Marxian lense. Jam tomorrow if we could just destroy capitalism. What of fudelism and other systems. What and by whom' are these systems enforced. Power, hirearchies don't just disappear. Just as they didn't emerge in the 17th Century.


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## kabbes (Sep 29, 2017)

Great post, danny.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 29, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> Sorry to have neglected the thread, but I’ve been unwell


hope you're much recovered


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## chilango (Sep 29, 2017)

xenon said:


> As thread is moved on. The blame Capitlism for everything thing tendancy. Risible.
> 
> Marx might be useful still. Certainly in terms of economic class relations. But cleaving to his words, looking at everything through a Marxian lense. Jam tomorrow if we could just destroy capitalism. What of fudelism and other systems. What and by whom' are these systems enforced. Power, hirearchies don't just disappear. Just as they didn't emerge in the 17th Century.



Indeed. 

And that is why I'm talking about "revolution" (not my choice of word here, but rolling with it for now) as a process. A process that changes people involved in it. So this is why when Lambert Simnel asks whether I can "conceive" of a class less society that still has racism etc. I think he's asking the wrong question. It isn't just the absence of class that's important but rather what has to be done to get to that point.


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## mojo pixy (Sep 29, 2017)

For what it's worth, I can't really imagine that if society had transformed to the point where class privilege was gone because the structures maintaining class privilege were gone, there would be anything such as racism, sexism and homophobia left. Maybe in a small minority of people. There'll always be a small minority of people too stupid to get on well with other people.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 29, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> hope you're much recovered


Getting there thanks.


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## andysays (Sep 29, 2017)

Great post danny la rouge - anyone who doesn't get what this thread is about after reading that probably never will, frankly.

And good to hear you're recovering and back with us.


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## Tom A (Sep 29, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> On and off for many years I was involved in disability activism. However, in the early ‘00s, in a group I was involved in, some members started to challenge whether I was “really” disabled. These were people with physical disabilities who didn’t see mental ill-health as a “proper” disability. People I’d known for years started referring to me as “the TAB man”, and challenge my right to speak at meetings. “Will the TAB* man stop speaking?” And so on. (*temporarily able bodied). They were trying to split into ever smaller interest groups, and saw “their” section of the existing group as having competing interests to “my” section. This is a group where six people at a meeting was a great turnout. I left, but it also shook my confidence at the time. I was questioning whether I _had _been dominating meetings, whether I had the right to call myself disabled, and so on. It wasn’t pleasant at all. But the saddest thing is that a group that was already tiny was making itself smaller and cutting itself off even from alliances that had founded the group! This same tendency could be seen in the recent thread about feminists and trans women.
> 
> If we do that, if we retreat into mutually suspicious ghettos, we weaken any capacity for fightback. If we see all outsiders as oppressors, and _disallow_ them, then how do we win them over? If only the “right” people can be pure fighters against disablism (or transphobia, sexism, racism or whatever), then how can it ever be defeated?
> 
> ...



I have a very similar story. Seven years ago I discovered the disabled people's rights movement (for the record, my 'disability' is an autistic spectrum disorder). At the time I thought _great, people who understand me, and finally everything makes sense, all the hassle with not being able to hold down a job, the struggles I have in social situations, it all fits together! _For the first time really I could stop being ashamed about not being able to fit in, armed with the social model of disability which states that society disables people, rather than people being disabled by their impairments (which I still have a lot of time for TBF). However, even a few weeks after attending a meeting, there was a huge spat on one of these organisations' mailing lists regarding how 'accessible' our meetings were which essentially boiled down to it being totally wrong to hold any meetings until ALL people meeting could possibly attend. There weren't many meetings after this. However I remained Facebook friends with a few key people, and tried to organise around disability issues, particularly regarding benefit sanctions and the Work Capability Assessment, two major issues which directly affect me and my relationship with the benefits system.

It is through these people I start getting acquainted with the intersectional buzzwords you are now familiar with (including the aforementioned 'TAB'). Many of these people I met were also heavily involved in LGBT (and particularly T) stuff as well - and they seemed to be subscribe to a school of disability politics that massively overlapped with queer theory. I quickly learned that I would not be very popular if I (as a cisgender straight person) voiced an independent opinion on trans issues other than to amplify the voices of trans people present. I was told I was being reactionary, ableist and heterosexist if I opposed incest(!!!) and got short shrift when I challenged them when they supported someone sharing the "die cis scum" meme on Facebook. I previously asked the same person if all cis people were inherently responsible for transphobia (for which I got the answer 'yes' - by the way this same person is now involved in the organisation responsible for the 'kerfuffle' with the radfems at Speaker's Corner mentioned on the other thread, in fact they helped start it up alongside two other activists I knew). Progressive stacking was seen as the way forward, where only people in an in-group had a legitimate say on discussion about issues affecting the in-group. I found myself getting uncomfortable about some of the ideas being circulated by these people but kept quiet lest I get accused of not checking my privilege. Unlike you danny la rouge, I never got challenged for talking because I quickly learned to hold my tongue if I wanted an easy life. However at the time I thought this was all for the greater good.

Over time I started becoming more and more critical of their attitudes. In 2014 a series of Facebook events were created by some misguided but well meaning people (mostly of the Anonymous/Occupy milleu for better or worse) calling for protests against ATOS assessment centres. A lot of these activists I knew poured scorn on these events, especially since they had appeared out of nowhere without any consultation with any of the main organisations or without knowing anything about disability rights. A spat unfolded, with both sides behaving pretty unpleasantly towards each other. The consensus was that we would critically support the demonstration. Meanwhile, by this time I was now involved in Left Unity, where I started to meet people with a much more open attitude to the demonstrations. Eventually what happened was it was by far the most successful anti-ATOS demonstration ever, with about 80 people involved in the Manchester demo alone, with participation from disabled rights activists, Left Unity, the anti-fracking movement, and the nascent Unite Community branch, in spite of what all the naysayers who I considered the core of the disability rights movement were predicting.

I finally cut my ties with them a month later, what happened was someone said that a specific word (won't say which one because it may distract from my point) I used on a totally unrelated thread on Facebook was disablist. There may be some debate about the usage of some words but I really didn't see any issue with it, and I am disabled too FFS! I have never been the most "politically correct" person and having discovered a new group of comrades (disabled and able-bodied) who didn't subscribe to this BS give me the impetus to just unfriend them en masse, making a point of saying I wouldn't attend the next meeting due to "irreparable differences" between me and them. They tried to see if they could talk it over and get me back (it must have been a pretty big shock to see years of bottled up frustration get unleashed in one go) but I was having none of it, so there endeth my involvement with them. The one thing that's a damning indictment on them is how their support for a cause is conditional on people following their rules to the letter, and woe betide anyone who steps out of line.

Today I am still involved in fights against attacks on benefit claimants, mostly with my local Unite Community branch, and occasionally am also involved in the People's Assembly. Left Unity, as many of you on this board are aware, became yet another political dead end with its own bunfights. I am aware that people suffer unique oppression due to race, gender, sexuality, disability, etc, but I feel that the fight for their rights needs to be taken in context of the wider class struggle, with the more positive aspects of what is known for better or ill as "identity politics" supplementing class struggle rather than trying to supplant it. People from all walks of life need to be able to participate in the debates in where this struggle goes and be judged solely on the merit of the argument being made, not just dismissed purely because they are considered a "privileged" person in that one context.


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## BigTom (Sep 30, 2017)

xenon said:


> As thread is moved on. The blame Capitlism for everything thing tendancy. Risible.
> 
> Marx might be useful still. Certainly in terms of economic class relations. But cleaving to his words, looking at everything through a Marxian lense. Jam tomorrow if we could just destroy capitalism. What of fudelism and other systems. What and by whom' are these systems enforced. Power, hirearchies don't just disappear. Just as they didn't emerge in the 17th Century.



I'm a pretty orthodox marxist when it comes down to it (particularly when we are talking about pure economics), but I think that sexism, homophobia, racism, transphobia and probably most if not all the other oppressions can be largely if not entirely removed within capitalism. 

Hierarchies change. Anyone sensible will say that we can't know exactly what socialism will look like, we can say - by definition - that there won't be hierarchies based on class or the economic distribution of material goods (Marx said almost nothing about what Socialism would look like - "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" must be the central organising principle of any socialist economy, if you can't say that about an economy, it isn't socialist). What other hierarchies might emerge, and how those of us who would prefer non-hierarchical societies oppose those at that time is speculative really. Many marxists say that we will still have to deal with racism, sexism, homophobia and other discriminations in socialism, but that without the pressure of capital and the ruling class to ferment these divisions within us, it will become a downhill run rather than an uphill struggle. Given the depressing amount of racism, sexism, homophobia, disablism and every other discrimination amongst socialists I think even that's optimistic but like chilango says, revolution is a process, and the process of revolution from feudalism to capitalism spanned at least 500 years, from the black death to the industrial revolution, but we still have feudal institutions, hierarchies and power structures so it's arguable if we're even there - every piece of history leaves a trace of itself in the future... or as Marx said (paraphrased cos I'm lazy), we make our own history, but we do  not do so under circumstances of our choosing. The choices of the dead lie like a nightmare on the brain of the living. 

If socialism, as an ideal, means that we have economic equality, then the logic for me says that an equal economic base should tend towards producing, or support the production of, an equal social superstructure. Hopefully it'll happen beforehand (because it's tangibly close in some respects now where the end of the revolutionary process is beyond vague), but if not I think it'll be easier to complete in a socialist economy (personally I would not consider it socialism if discriminations and oppressions still exist, the end of the revolutionary process means true equality). 

Maybe the event that will be looked back on as the equivalent to the black death has already happened (eg: microchips/computers -> AI and fully automated production + invention of infinite energy and resource recycling systems = utopic socialism ftw!... or if you prefer the dystopia... industrial revolution -> climate change -> need for sustainable society which profit driven capitalism can't sustain -> deep green eco-socialist future) and the moves towards equality post industrial revolution (I guess - anti-slavery movement, suffragettes and chartism?) will be the start of superstructural moves as the contradictions of the capitalist economic system fail to deal with the material changes that have occurred.


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## andysays (Sep 30, 2017)

BigTom said:


> ...the process of revolution from feudalism to capitalism spanned at least 500 years, from the black death to the industrial revolution, but we still have feudal institutions, hierarchies and power structures so it's arguable if we're even there - every piece of history leaves a trace of itself in the future... or as Marx said (paraphrased cos I'm lazy), *we make our own history, but we do not do so under circumstances of our choosing. The choices of the dead lie like a nightmare on the brain of the living...*



Great post, but I'm going to focus on just one para because you've reminded me of something I was trying to remember yesterday on the "transgender" thread, when searching for an explanation of how transphobia grows out of the material conditions of capitalism.

The simplistic answer is that industrial capitalism required a way of ensuring the reproduction of its workforce, and the nuclear family was the form which this took. This includes women having the role of unpaid carers of their children, and it also involves the imposition a particular set of social/sexual norms.

But the current material conditions of later capitalism no longer require the "traditional" nuclear family, indeed they require women to engage in the labour market to the same extent as men, and simultaneously require that childcare is largely removed from the area of unpaid work and becomes a market based service like so many others.

So even though the social/sexual norms which were part of the nuclear family (and which are challenged/undermined by "deviant" behaviour including by transpeople) are no longer materially necessary, they remain as the choices of the dead lying like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

(This may also be of interest to Athos)


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## emanymton (Sep 30, 2017)

andysays said:


> Great post, but I'm going to focus on just one para because you've reminded me of something I was trying to remember yesterday on the "transgender" thread, when searching for an explanation of how transphobia grows out of the material conditions of capitalism.
> 
> The simplistic answer is that industrial capitalism required a way of ensuring the reproduction of its workforce, and the nuclear family was the form which this took. This includes women having the role of unpaid carers of their children, and it also involves the imposition a particular set of social/sexual norms.
> 
> ...


Capitalism still requires labour power to reproduce itself though.


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## andysays (Sep 30, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Capitalism still requires labour power to reproduce itself though.



Of course it does, but what I'm saying is that it no longer needs the nuclear family (indeed some aspects of the nuclear family are impediments to contemporary capitalism), and therefore that the social/sexual norms of the nuclear family, which include "traditional" gender roles, are no longer materially necessary, even though their influence still lingers.


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## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

andysays said:


> Great post, but I'm going to focus on just one para because you've reminded me of something I was trying to remember yesterday on the "transgender" thread, when searching for an explanation of how transphobia grows out of the material conditions of capitalism.
> 
> The simplistic answer is that industrial capitalism required a way of ensuring the reproduction of its workforce, and the nuclear family was the form which this took. This includes women having the role of unpaid carers of their children, and it also involves the imposition a particular set of social/sexual norms.
> 
> ...



Capital needs women to work AND do the majority of the unpaid work to reproduce labour.  Which it acheives through e.g. social attitudes.  That's why gender is important.  And why 'deviancy' is a threat.


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## andysays (Sep 30, 2017)

Athos said:


> Capital needs women to work AND do the majority of the unpaid work to reproduce labour.  Which it acheives through e.g. social attitudes.  That's why gender is important.  And why 'deviancy' is a threat.



I'll come back to this later in more detail, but I think you are again oversimplifying.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 30, 2017)

Lambert Simnel said:


> Can you not conceive of a society where class distinctions have been eliminated but there still exists prejudiced against minority groups? In such a society how would that prejudice be tackled?



If structural racism exists then it isn't a classless society.


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## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

andysays said:


> I'll come back to this later in more detail, but I think you are again oversimplifying.



I know that I most certainly am oversimplifying, here.  Not least of all becasue there's a tension in the other direction e.g. o the extent that its arguable that transgenderism is favourable to the interests of capital insofar as it reinforces the concept of gender.

And all the looking at causes of problems overlooks (to some extent) the more important question of the different opportunities they present for solution, whether that's those based on division by identity, or solidarity accross identities.


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## kabbes (Sep 30, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Capitalism still requires labour power to reproduce itself though.


Consumerism needs consumers increasingly more than capital needs labour.


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## emanymton (Sep 30, 2017)

andysays said:


> I'll come back to this later in more detail, but I think you are again oversimplifying.


Is it possible to avoid oversimplification in anything shorter than a book through?


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## emanymton (Sep 30, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Consumerism needs consumers increasingly more than capital needs labour.


Consumers don't do you much good, if you have nothing to sell them.


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## kabbes (Sep 30, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Consumers don't do you much good, if you have nothing to sell them.



My point is that labour is and will be increasingly unnecessary for that manufacture.


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## DotCommunist (Sep 30, 2017)

you can sell them debt, so we work to service the debt that buys the things.


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## Red Cat (Sep 30, 2017)

The paid childcare is done by women, primary education is mainly women, mental health services, speech and language therapists, social workers, play workers, family support workers, hospital staff, care workers...mainly women, all facing cuts to their salaries, downgrading and an idea that all we need to do is care, be nice, not have specialist training, or be paid for all that over-time, because we're women, and it's natural, we want to do it. And obviously childcare doesn't stop when the paid childcare ends for the day.


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## Magnus McGinty (Sep 30, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Consumers don't do you much good, if you have nothing to sell them.



And likewise products need people with money to sell to.


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## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Grandma /eggs!  I do have a degree (design not politics) I'm not a school kid and I don't want anymore fucking homework.
> 
> That said, I do read stuff - but only if its interesting. Surely the communist manifest is only interesting as an historical item now? Having read excerpts, met many 'communists' and seen the downfall of the berlin wall etc. I don't think its the concept of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat that I'm struggling with here.



To be scrupulously fair, while the Communist Manifesto IS interesting as a historical text, it's also still a relevant text a century-and-a-half after it was written.  Why is it still relevant?  Because the analysis of capitalism, and of class that it gives, still fits.  Other Marxist thinkers have expanded on it - most helpfully a chap called Weber introduced the idea that each class is loaded with different strata by which people differentiate themselves within the class - but the basis analysis is (as Ann used to say, "God help us!") still probably the most sound *SHORT* explanation out there.


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## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

Athos said:


> Some of the contrived offence-taking, the unwarranted no-platforming, the abuse of the idea of safe spaces, the rejection of facts/logic/truth in favour of experience, the smearing of opponents as bigots, tone policing, etc., etc.. Basically all the really shit stuff from US student politics which seems to have infected much of what calls iteself the left here (though I wouldn't describe it that way).



Yep, it's hard to have a debate when you're abused for your privilege - and I'm quite willing to accept that as a white male in a society still dominated by patriarchy, I *AM* privileged - and denied the possibility of presenting your argument because a roomful of rather petty people have decided that you're somehow not worthy to present your argument, and act (very childishly) accordingly.


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## Red Cat (Sep 30, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yep, it's hard to have a debate when you're abused for your privilege - and I'm quite willing to accept that as a white male in a society still dominated by patriarchy, I *AM* privileged - and denied the possibility of presenting your argument because a roomful of rather petty people have decided that you're somehow not worthy to present your argument, and act (very childishly) accordingly.



I just don't think the idea that you're privileged is helpful to anyone.


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## kabbes (Sep 30, 2017)

Remember early in the thread when I said that you can't have a discussion about this without also considering the nature of the society?  And lots of people liked that post, which was presumably a tacit agreement.  But it seems to me that here we are, ignoring the nature of the society.

This isn't industrial-capitalism, any more.  It's consumer-capitalism.  It makes a big difference to the way people define themselves and construct their identity, the way they interact, they way they make their politics.  It also makes a huge difference to the nature of the dominant structures and mechanisms of control.  It's still capitalism and the fundamental issues still apply.  There are still owners of the means of production and those who are forced to deal with capital whilst not owning it. But analyses that rest on the idea of large manufacturing-style frequently-skilled forces of labour being a primary driver of the infrastructure are increasingly outdated.  It's not how people think of themselves, it's not how they are treated or thought of by the agents of power and it's doesn't tell you truths about why or where the power is being propagated.

The change from industrial-capitalism to consumer-capitalism is encapsulated in the rise of neoliberalism and it explains why identity politics is popular and so useful to the owners of power.  It explains why homophobia, misogyny and transphobia were so useful to power in the past but why now we have leaders of the Conservative party instituting gay marriage and trans rights.  Focusing on industrial-capitalism alone won't explain that kind of change.  And things _do_ change, even whilst they also stay the same.


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## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

kabbes said:


> My point is that labour is and will be increasingly unnecessary for that manufacture.



And who will buy the products you've manufactured without labour, and with what will they pay for them?


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## kabbes (Sep 30, 2017)

Athos said:


> And who will but the products you've manufactured without labour, and with what will they pay for them?


That's the current crisis of consumer-capitalism in a nutshell.  Who will?  At the moment, there is either a fundamentalist belief that it will just somehow fix itself (via a magical load of new jobs that come from somewhere we can't imagine), or that we will institute universal income or some other mechanism will save us.  Alternatively, there is a belief that this will be the crisis that breaks the current model.  Take your choice, because one of those options must be true -- one thing we know for sure is that most current jobs are going obsolete in the coming decades.


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## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Remember early in the thread when I said that you can't have a discussion about this without also considering the nature of the society?  And lots of people liked that post, which was presumably a tacit agreement.  But it seems to me that here we are, ignoring the nature of the society.
> 
> This isn't industrial-capitalism, any more.  It's consumer-capitalism.  It makes a big difference to the way people define themselves and construct their identity, the way they interact, they way they make their politics.  It also makes a huge difference to the nature of the dominant structures and mechanisms of control.  It's still capitalism and the fundamental issues still apply.  There are still owners of the means of production and those who are forced to deal with capital whilst not owning it. But analyses that rest of the idea of large manufacturing-style frequently-skilled forces of labour being a primary driver of the infrastructure are increasingly outdated.  It's not how people think of themselves, it's not how they are treated or thought of by the agents of power and it's doesn't tell you truths about why or where the power is being propagated.
> 
> The change from industrial-capitalism to consumer-capitalism is encapsulated in the rise of neoliberalism and it explains why identity politics is popular and so useful to the owners of power.  It explains why homophobia, misogyny and transphobia were so useful to power in the past but why now we have leaders of the Conservative party instituting gay marriage and trans rights.  Focusing on industrial-capitalism alone won't explain that kind of change.  And things _do_ change, even whilst they also stay the same.



 Interesting. But presents a lot of questions!  What is "the nature of society"? Where does it come from? What do you understand by the distinction between industrial and consumer capitalism?  What shapes how people see themselves?


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

Good to have you back danny la rouge. Good post, this is a very interesting thread and has given me loads to think about.


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## kabbes (Sep 30, 2017)

Athos said:


> Interesting. But presents a lot of questions!  What is "the nature of society"? Where does it come from? What do you understand by the distinction between industrial and consumer capitalism?  What shapes how people see themselves?



I don't have time to go into that right now, but my earlier post already deals with some of those questions:


kabbes said:


> Is it even possible to discuss the types of politics in a society without including a discussion of the nature of that society itself?
> 
> From some point post industrial revolution until up until some time in the 1970s, Britain was an industrial society.  One of the features of industrial societies is that people tend to define themselves by _what they do_, and the most important freedoms are political in nature (such as the right to unionise or to vote).  It is therefore unsurprising that the chief politics coming out of an industrial society would be those relating to class analysis.
> 
> ...


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> To be scrupulously fair, while the Communist Manifesto IS interesting as a historical text, it's also still a relevant text a century-and-a-half after it was written.  Why is it still relevant?  Because the analysis of capitalism, and of class that it gives, still fits.  Other Marxist thinkers have expanded on it - most helpfully a chap called Weber introduced the idea that each class is loaded with different strata by which people differentiate themselves within the class - but the basis analysis is (as Ann used to say, "God help us!") still probably the most sound *SHORT* explanation out there.


maybe so, but like I said I don't want any more homework. I'm beginning to wonder if I did read it, back in the 80s, its possible - I read a lot of political stuff - if I did I must have pushed it aside. My memory is shocking. anyway I have no desire to revise it either.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

snadge said:


> There has been no change in the definition of working class.
> 
> Ever.


really? whats this unchanging definition then?


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## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I don't have time to go into that right now, but my earlier post already deals with some of those questions:



 Cool.  I hope you'll come back to these points when you have more time.


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> For what it's worth, I can't really imagine that if society had transformed to the point where class privilege was gone because the structures maintaining class privilege were gone, there would be anything such as racism, sexism and homophobia left. Maybe in a small minority of people. There'll always be a small minority of people too stupid to get on well with other people.


Idealistic don't you think?  I recall people arguing that after the revolution there wouldn't be any need for gay people to exist.  But hey in this perfect classless future we can all imagine whatever we like. 

I like to think the best of people - but I imagine there will always be people who like to fight and people who like to like to think they are superior to other people.


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## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> maybe so, but like I said I don't want any more homework. I'm beginning to wonder if I did read it, back in the 80s, its possible - I read a lot of political stuff - if I did I must have pushed it aside. My memory is shocking. anyway I have no desire to revise it either.





friendofdorothy said:


> really? whats this unchanging definition then?



Isn't there a certain irony to asking a question immediately after declaring that you're not willing to look in the place you've been told contains the answer?!


----------



## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I recall people arguing that after the revolution there would be any need for gay people to exist.



Who said that?!

You sure they weren't getting at the idea that there'd be no need for the category?


----------



## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> .... people who like to like to think they are superior to other people.


A slight aside, but some people are right to think that; depending on the metric, they are superior.   (Between me and Usain Bolt, he's superior in the context of a 100m race.)  But that isn't anathema to a classless society.


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 30, 2017)

Athos said:


> A slight aside, but some people are right to think that; depending on the metric, they are superior.   (Between me and Usain Bolt, he's superior in the context of a 100m race.)  But that isn't anathema to a classless society.


Indeed. Some people appear to be confused about the distinction between equality and uniformity.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

Athos said:


> Who said that?!
> 
> You sure they weren't getting at the idea that there'd be no need for the category?


Sorry I was talking about the sort of thing I commonly heard from marxists in the 80s. Don't forget China, USSR and cuba all strictly outlawed homosexuality - not sure if sexual freedom was considered compatible with communism, that it was some bourgoisie expression of individuality? Any that was the idea I perceived back then. I'll see if I can find a quote.

Interestingly, last night I met an Stuart Feather, early member of the GLF, giving a talk about the start of the movement being brought to Uk by two students with marxist ideals. From his book _Blowing the lid; gay liberation, sexual revolution and radical queens _: 





> It saw itself as a gay peoples movement, socialist by virtue of it's demand for social change, revolutionary by virtue of it's recognition of the interconnected struggles of other oppressed minorities fighting for their own demands.


 I asked him afterwards how other socialists and marxists reacted 'oh they hated us' he said.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I've always struggled with the ever changing definitions of class. never known how it applies to me or people I know. If its not at all about privilege then I'm completely lost.
> 
> Perhaps I do I need to do homework or have a degree in politics to join in any p&p thread.



I don't have a degree in politics - although my degrees are in subjects just as useless as politics - but I do have a basic understanding that Marx said that the further you are from the means of production, the more exposed you are to the vagaries of capitalism.
Marx posited 3 classes: Those who own the means of production; the _bourgeoisie_ - the managerial and merchant class, and the _proletariat_ - the workers. Any definition of class outwith the above is a *re*-definition of class, the most notorious being the repeated attempts by governments to define class by education and/or occupation, rather than by distance from the means of production.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

xenon said:


> As thread is moved on. The blame Capitlism for everything thing tendancy. Risible.
> 
> Marx might be useful still. Certainly in terms of economic class relations. But cleaving to his words, looking at everything through a Marxian lense. Jam tomorrow if we could just destroy capitalism. What of fudelism and other systems. What and by whom' are these systems enforced. Power, hirearchies don't just disappear. Just as they didn't emerge in the 17th Century.



Marxism is merely a set of analytical tools.

The fact that those tools are more apt for analysis of the current phase of neo-liberalism than say, for example, the set of analytical tools that Keynesianism gave us, doesn't mean that "capitalism is to blame for everything", but it does show us that - wittingly or not - capitalism is allowed to infiltrate every node of modern economic thought, and we - as critics - need to bear this in mind. The set of tools Marx gave us, helps us do that.


----------



## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Sorry I was talking about the sort of thing I commonly heard from marxists in the 80s. Don't forget China, USSR and cuba all strictly outlawed homosexuality - not sure if sexual freedom was considered compatible with communism, that it was some bourgoisie expression of individuality? Any that was the idea I perceived back then. I'll see if I can find a quote.
> 
> Interestingly, last night I met an Stuart Feather, early member of the GLF, giving a talk about the start of the movement being brought to Uk by two students with marxist ideals. From his book _Blowing the lid; gay liberation, sexual revolution and radical queens _:  I asked him afterwards how other socialists and marxists reacted 'oh they hated us' he said.



At the risk of 'no true scotsman', I can't see a Marxist justification for homophobia, and the states you mention had little to do with communism.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

Athos said:


> Isn't there a certain irony to asking a question immediately after declaring that you're not willing to look in the place you've been told contains the answer?!


So the definition of the working class is the same as the proletariat and has not in anyway changed or been adapted since Marx?  Is this generally agreed upon nowadays? 

thanks ViolentPanda I think maybe its not only govt who want to define class by occupation / education. Seems to me lots of people use 'working class' as a self definition because of family history or culture.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

xenon said:


> As thread is moved on. The blame Capitlism for everything thing tendancy. Risible.
> 
> Marx might be useful still. Certainly in terms of economic class relations. But cleaving to his words, looking at everything through a Marxian lense. Jam tomorrow if we could just destroy capitalism. What of fudelism and other systems. What and by whom' are these systems enforced. Power, hirearchies don't just disappear. Just as they didn't emerge in the 17th Century.


I agree.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> I just don't think the idea that you're privileged is helpful to anyone.



I almost agree with you.  I think that people *should* consider whether they're speaking from a position of privilege, but I don't think that - as has been the case with a majority of identitypolitickers I've met up until now - it should be the primary focus of whether your contribution to a debate or an organisation is "valid".  I think "privilege" should be a matter of individual reflection, not a template that is pasted to us so that contributions can be invalidated or silenced.


----------



## Athos (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> So the definition of the working class is the same as the proletariat and has not in anyway changed or been adapted since Marx?  Is this generally agreed upon nowadays?



Nothing is uncontentious, and there's lots of nuance missing, but yes, in essence, that's right: Marxists define the working class (and other classes) based upon where they stand in relation to the means of production.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Good to have you back danny la rouge. Good post, this is a very interesting thread and has given me loads to think about.



The best threads do.  I'm still being educated every day I'm on the boards.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Sorry I was talking about the sort of thing I commonly heard from marxists in the 80s. Don't forget China, USSR and cuba all strictly outlawed homosexuality - not sure if sexual freedom was considered compatible with communism, that it was some bourgoisie expression of individuality? Any that was the idea I perceived back then. I'll see if I can find a quote.
> 
> Interestingly, last night I met an Stuart Feather, early member of the GLF, giving a talk about the start of the movement being brought to Uk by two students with marxist ideals. From his book _Blowing the lid; gay liberation, sexual revolution and radical queens _:  I asked him afterwards how other socialists and marxists reacted 'oh they hated us' he said.



Colour me unsurprised.  It seems to me that historically, political purists who can't find an analysis of queer liberation in their source texts or in their upbringing, tend to fall back on reactionary thinking - the very thing they avoid in other circumstances.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Sep 30, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> I almost agree with you.  *I think that people should consider whether they're
> speaking from a position of privilege,* but I don't think that - as has been the case with a majority of identitypolitickers I've met up until now - it should be the primary focus of whether your contribution to a debate or an organisation is "valid".  *I think "privilege" should be a matter of individual reflection,* not a template that is pasted to us so that contributions can be invalidated or silenced.



I agree with the parts emboldened. I do have and am more privileged than other people around me/globally, just as there are many for x, y, z reason that are more privileged than me...I am not scared of reflecting on and unpacking that... My hope is that others can do that also as I feel these discussions and any attempts at 'revolution/solidarity' will never lead to any real learning or change if as individuals we don't do the 'personal' work.

In which contexts have you met idpolitickers of the kind you are referring to? I can't say I ever have. The expression 'check your priviledge' is completely an online thing for me as, in person, IME people are much more forthcoming in discussing contextual inequalities and the reasons why some of us are more of less priviledged more fully.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Sep 30, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> The best threads do.  I'm still being educated every day I'm on the boards.


its mostly why I joined U75 - I realised my involvement in /knowledge of politics somewhat fizzled out in the 90s, when it mostly hinged around opposing Thatcher/ism. I'm looking to you lot to educate me. (but no homework - please!)


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> So the definition of the working class is the same as the proletariat and has not in anyway changed or been adapted since Marx?  Is this generally agreed upon nowadays?



It's changed in the type of worker it encompasses - we don't have scriveners nowadays, for example! - but it's unchanged in what it means in terms of the relationship of the working class to the means of production.  Marx never set down a list of what jobs or professions were "proletarian", but he did make clear that if your only means of having the necessary money to feed yourself and your family was through selling your labour to someone who would make a profit on the transaction, then you were a worker.



> thanks ViolentPanda I think maybe its not only govt who want to define class by occupation / education. Seems to me lots of people use 'working class' as a self definition because of family history or culture.



I'd say that people defining themselves misses the point, which is that however you choose to define yourself, capitalism allocates you - sometimes unknown to you - a position in society.  Your position within the social strata of a class may change, but it's rare that your distance from the means of production decreases.  I could call myself "middle class" because I'm well-educated, but I live on benefits, on a council estate.  My education hasn't changed my distance from the means of production, so factually I'm still "working class".


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 30, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I agree with the parts emboldened. I do have and am more privileged than other people around me/globally, just as there are many for x, y, z reason that are more privileged than me...I am not scared of reflecting on and unpacking that... My hope is that others can do that also as I feel these discussions and any attempts at 'revolution/solidarity' will never lead to any real learning or change if as individuals we don't do the 'personal' work.
> 
> In which contexts have you met idpolitickers of the kind you are referring to? I can't say I ever have. The expression 'check your priviledge' is completely an online thing for me as, in person, IME people are much more forthcoming in discussing contextual inequalities and the reasons why some of us are more of less priviledged more fully.



Local party-political meetings.  I won't name and shame the local Labour branches (one in N. London, one in S. London) where I've experienced this *in the last 12 months*, but both times this was a tactic by new Labour loyalists to shut down discussion regarding reform.  What was I doing at Labour meetings?  Homework.  I wanted to see how involved branches were in forwarding the Corbyn agenda, and what I saw from my small sample was a bunch of established members exerting privilege over newer members by using identitypolitics to shut them down.

To be honest, that's not exactly a new tactic.  I saw exactly the same thing in Lambeth from a small minority of people way back in the '80s - "your view is invalid because you're not queer"; "your view is invalid because you're not black"; "your view is invalid because you're not visibly disabled" etc.  The cause of such utterances were *ALWAYS* the same: Someone building a power base, or attempting to preserve a power base, wanting to close down alternative thought.  It's why I have little time for some of the politicians and activists produced by that era - I remember them pulling this shit then, and then going on to act in a totally different way when they got a sniff of power beyond local govt.  Oh how biddable Paul Boateng became, and how quickly he dropped his boss and mentor Rudy Narayan when he became a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate!!


----------



## BigTom (Sep 30, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I agree with the parts emboldened. I do have and am more privileged than other people around me/globally, just as there are many for x, y, z reason that are more privileged than me...I am not scared of reflecting on and unpacking that... My hope is that others can do that also as I feel these discussions and any attempts at 'revolution/solidarity' will never lead to any real learning or change if as individuals we don't do the 'personal' work.
> 
> In which contexts have you met idpolitickers of the kind you are referring to? I can't say I ever have. The expression 'check your priviledge' is completely an online thing for me as, in person, IME people are much more forthcoming in discussing contextual inequalities and the reasons why some of us are more of less priviledged more fully.



Some of the (then) students that I did anti-cuts activism with grew into IDpolitics (most of them I think really) and I did hear this in real life from some of them, although i would agree that it's waaaay more prevalent online.


----------



## snadge (Sep 30, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> really? whats this unchanging definition then?



Workers under salaried supervision. Has been for a long time.


----------



## andysays (Sep 30, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Is it possible to avoid oversimplification in anything shorter than a book through?



Yes.

Yes, it is.

Yes, it is hopefully possible in our discussions here to avoid gross oversimplification of the sort which is parodied (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) as simply "it's capitalism's fault, innit?"

The issue which I was trying to get an understanding from a Marxist perspective of how the social/sexual norms of the nuclear family, including "traditional" gender roles, which were established and achieved dominance because they were appropriate or necessary to the material conditions of early capitalism still endure today when those material conditions have hugely changed and are arguably no longer appropriate or necessary.

And thanks to BigTom's recalling what Marx said about the choices of the dead lying like a nightmare on the brain of the living, I feel I have now got a better, albeit not perfect understanding.

This may not be the thread to continue this discussion, or certainly not the bit about whether material conditions have changed so much that traditional gender roles are necessary to the continuance of capitalism, so unless anyone else desperately wants to carry on with it, I'm happy to leave it there.


----------



## Red Cat (Oct 1, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> I almost agree with you.  I think that people *should* consider whether they're speaking from a position of privilege, but I don't think that - as has been the case with a majority of identitypolitickers I've met up until now - it should be the primary focus of whether your contribution to a debate or an organisation is "valid".  I think "privilege" should be a matter of individual reflection, not a template that is pasted to us so that contributions can be invalidated or silenced.



But the categories you find yourself placed in are only part of your experience; that you're a white man doesn't tell me much about you at all does it? 

So this idea of privilege then, in recognising multiple structural inequalities, we ought to consider how we benefit from this - is this in the sense that as a white woman I don't encounter racism, it's something I can take for granted if I'm not consciously encouraging myself to be aware of my possible conscious and unconscious racism in imagining my life is the human norm, so I have an advantage there, and ought to be mindful of that (and of course I am ) or that I actually benefit from racism, that because I am white I benefit directly in terms of having more of the pie as a consequence of some people having less due to racism, my racism.

Is this where ID politics and class politics differs? Racism and sexism would be seen as benefiting capital, divide and rule benefits them but it is not seen to benefit the working class. ID politics suggest we are all implicated, responsible for these oppressions.


----------



## Athos (Oct 1, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> In which contexts have you met idpolitickers of the kind you are referring to? I can't say I ever have. The expression 'check your priviledge' is completely an online thing for me as, in person, IME people are much more forthcoming in discussing contextual inequalities and the reasons why some of us are more of less priviledged more fully.



It happens here, a lot. The ID pol crowd try to shut down discussion by reference to the 'identity' of the poster.  Not always thorough an  explicit call to "check your privilege", but in other ways, including much of the egregious behaviour I mentioned earlier.


----------



## Athos (Oct 1, 2017)

andysays said:


> Yes, it is hopefully possible in our discussions here to avoid gross oversimplification of the sort which is parodied (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) as simply "it's capitalism's fault, innit?"
> 
> The issue which I was trying to get an understanding from a Marxist perspective of how the social/sexual norms of the nuclear family, including "traditional" gender roles, which were established and achieved dominance because they were appropriate or necessary to the material conditions of early capitalism still endure today when those material conditions have hugely changed and are arguably no longer appropriate or necessary.



But isn't your framing of the issue an oversimplification, too? To me, it implies a crude, deterministic, one-way, linear and lag-free relationship in time.

To do the subject justice, you're probably right that it can't be dealt with on this thread.


----------



## andysays (Oct 1, 2017)

Athos said:


> But isn't your framing of the issue an oversimplification, too? To me, it implies a crude, deterministic, one-way, linear and lag-free relationship in time.
> 
> To do the subject justice, you're probably right that it can't be dealt with on this thread.



I'm trying to avoid suggesting a crude, deterministic, one-way, linear and time lag-free relationship, but I'll happily accept that I've failed to convey that. 

Still trying to work out a conception of the relationship in my own head, so my postings here are not in anyway intended as definitive. I hoped that others might be willing to help me in my working out, and your responses came across (at least to me) as dismissive rather than helpful, hence my reaction. Apologies if I was mistaken in that.


----------



## Athos (Oct 1, 2017)

andysays said:


> I'm trying to avoid suggesting a crude, deterministic, one-way, linear and time lag-free relationship, but I'll happily accept that I've failed to convey that.
> 
> Still trying to work out a conception of the relationship in my own head, so my postings here are not in anyway intended as definitive. I hoped that others might be willing to help me in my working out, and your responses came across (at least to me) as dismissive rather than helpful, hence my reaction. Apologies if I was mistaken in that.



I wasn't trying to dismiss your (or anyone's) opinions, but I was keen not to get too bogged down in that detail, on this thread. Which is why I over-simplified, and acknowledged that I was doing so, with passing reference to some of the subtleties.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 1, 2017)

andysays said:


> Yes.
> 
> Yes, it is.
> 
> ...


I don't completely disagree, I put a fairly long post up on the transgender thread, touching on some of this, but it is still a massive oversimplification. Partialy this is due to my very limited knowledge and understanding. But the ideas being discussed are complex, and I don't think any post of a few hundred words can be anything other than a bit of a simplification. Also at the risk of being pretentious, as a medium this place is focused on discussed. People's arguments and positions will be shaped by the discussion with others, they will grow and develop based on what others say in response. I don't think having a completely worked out position in advance is necessary. I'd post nothing if it was. 

A few years ago I did some reading on the problem of functional explanations in historical materialism. Essentially the problem of saying something exists because of the function it performs. But without being able to really explain how it come about in the absence of a conscious actor.

I'm doing a course for work at the moment and have an exam in a couple of weeks. Once that is out of the way, I could revist some of the stuff I read and start a thread if anyone would be interested??


----------



## andysays (Oct 1, 2017)

emanymton said:


> I don't completely disagree, I put a fairly long post up on the transgender thread, touching on some of this, but it is still a massive oversimplification. Partialy this is due to my very limited knowledge and understanding. But the ideas being discussed are complex, and I don't think any post of a few hundred words can be anything other than a bit of a simplification. Also at the risk of being pretentious, as a medium this place is focused on discussed. People's arguments and positions will be shaped by the discussion with others, they will grow and develop based on what others say in response. I don't think having a completely worked out position in advance is necessary. I'd post nothing if it was.
> 
> A few years ago I did some reading on the problem of functional explanations in historical materialism. Essentially the problem of saying something exists because of the function it performs. But without being able to really explain how it come about in the absence of a conscious actor.
> 
> I'm doing a course for work at the moment and have an exam in a couple of weeks. Once that is out of the way, I could revist some of the stuff I read and start a thread if anyone would be interested??



I agree that this place is or should be founded on discussion, though sometimes it can be difficult to unpick the useful discussion from all the other shit (and I'm as guilty of adding to the other shit as anyone).

Good luck with the exams; I for one would be interested in that discussion if you are interested in starting a thread when the time is right.


----------



## Athos (Oct 1, 2017)

andysays said:


> I agree that this place is or should be founded on discussion, though sometimes it can be difficult to unpick the useful discussion from all the other shit (and I'm as guilty of adding to the other shit as anyone).
> 
> Good luck with the exams; I for one would be interested in that discussion if you are interested in starting a thread when the time is right.



Me too, emanymton.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 1, 2017)

andysays said:


> I agree that this place is or should be founded on discussion, though sometimes it can be difficult to unpick the useful discussion from all the other shit (and I'm as guilty of adding to the other shit as anyone).
> 
> Good luck with the exams; I for one would be interested in that discussion if you are interested in starting a thread when the time is right.





Athos said:


> Me too, emanymton.


Ok, it will have to wait a few weeks, but I will put something together to kick the discussion off.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 1, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> "your view is invalid because you're not queer"; "your view is invalid because you're not black"; "your view is invalid because you're not visibly disabled" etc. The cause of such utterances were *ALWAYS* the same: Someone building a power base, or attempting to preserve a power base, wanting to close down alternative thought.



not quite sure what you're saying here.

i agree that it's not constructive for anyone to say "your view is not valid" or to try and close down alternative thought

but that's just what seems to be happening too much - white straight cis males trying to tell minorities that their view isn't valid because their politics is somehow less sound.

for example i (as a white male) can be against racism, but i don't think i've got the right to tell black people what they should think, or to say that their experience of being on the receiving end of racism isn't valid...


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 1, 2017)

xenon said:


> I think this thread's gone a bit muddled as defining ID politics goal posts seem to be shifting. I don't like the US wheel of oppression stuff. But to answer your question.
> 
> not that I'm exactly politically active as such. But where issues of wider solidarity, general rights, workers rights, of course I'd like to see all sections of the working class cooperating.
> 
> ...





xenon said:


> As thread is moved on. The blame Capitlism for everything thing tendancy. Risible.
> 
> Marx might be useful still. Certainly in terms of economic class relations. But cleaving to his words, looking at everything through a Marxian lense. Jam tomorrow if we could just destroy capitalism. What of fudelism and other systems. What and by whom' are these systems enforced. Power, hirearchies don't just disappear. Just as they didn't emerge in the 17th Century.



Thanks for this response xenon .

I asked you to expand more because you listed your own identity and life characteristics and said you don't think the class based approach offers much on a practical level...I really am interested in what approaches do seem or have been more effective to people in this regard.



> from my own perspective, as a disabled person, allbeit be Working class. Discrimination, *in the form of employment prospects, social attitudes, can't really be tackled by deferring to Marxion Analysis. Not on any practical level anyway.*


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> But the categories you find yourself placed in are only part of your experience; that you're a white man doesn't tell me much about you at all does it?
> 
> So this idea of privilege then, in recognising multiple structural inequalities, we ought to consider how we benefit from this - is this in the sense that as a white woman I don't encounter racism, it's something I can take for granted if I'm not consciously encouraging myself to be aware of my possible conscious and unconscious racism in imagining my life is the human norm, so I have an advantage there, and ought to be mindful of that (and of course I am ) or that I actually benefit from racism, that because I am white I benefit directly in terms of having more of the pie as a consequence of some people having less due to racism, my racism.



I totally take your point, and of course other facets of our identity tell us as much or more about a person as their skin colour, but it's a historical truth in the west that white skin has most often been privileged over other shades.  It's also the case that there has, since empire began been a case of indirect benefit derived from racism - not something you and I could actually do much - if anything - about, but it's another issue to consider.

This is where - again IMO - the use of intersectionality as an analytical tool, free from the claims of identitypolitics, comes in handy.  We don't and shouldn't use the analysis as a way of "scoring" who is the most oppressed, but should use it to analyse how particular intersections of identities might suffer more structural racism/sexism/other-ism than others, to give us data to inform how we might alter the structures and/or ameliorate the problems caused.



> Is this where ID politics and class politics differs? Racism and sexism would be seen as benefiting capital, divide and rule benefits them but it is not seen to benefit the working class. ID politics suggest we are all implicated, responsible for these oppressions.



*Indirectly*, we're implicated, through history.  Are we responsible, though?  No we're not.  Those who committed the actual crimes and derived direct benefit/continue to derive direct benefit are responsible.  Class politics, as an over-arching philosophy, tell us this.


----------



## Red Cat (Oct 1, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> I totally take your point, and of course other facets of our identity tell us as much or more about a person as their skin colour, but it's a historical truth in the west that white skin has most often been privileged over other shades.  It's also the case that there has, since empire began been a case of indirect benefit derived from racism - not something you and I could actually do much - if anything - about, but it's another issue to consider.
> 
> This is where - again IMO - the use of intersectionality as an analytical tool, free from the claims of identitypolitics, comes in handy.  We don't and shouldn't use the analysis as a way of "scoring" who is the most oppressed, but should use it to analyse how particular intersections of identities might suffer more structural racism/sexism/other-ism than others, to give us data to inform how we might alter the structures and/or ameliorate the problems caused.
> 
> ...



I'm perfectly aware of why you or I are thought to be privileged in terms of some the categories in which we find ourselves and I've been clear I think that I try to be mindful of that.

But isn't there a question here about what we mean by structural racism/sexism/other-ism? If structural also means the interpersonal relationships between people on the level of the individual then does ID politics becomes the logical conclusion?

btw these are open questions, not just meant for you to respond to.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> I'm perfectly aware of why you or I are thought to be privileged in terms of some the categories in which we find ourselves and I've been clear I think that I try to be mindful of that.
> 
> But isn't there a question here about what we mean by structural racism/sexism/other-ism? If structural also means the interpersonal relationships between people on the level of the individual then does ID politics becomes the logical conclusion?
> 
> btw these are open questions, not just meant for you to respond to.



I know. 

IME "structural" tends to mean those habits (of the ruling and bureaucratic classes) that have accumulated into institutions, and have become - although often not recognised as such - practices, as well as those practices imposed by capitalism that have the functional effect of dividing people into binary categories, with those practices having "real world" effects across and within populations.

While I'm convinced that structural effects can exert influence on interpersonal relationships - "no man is an island..." and all that - I'm not convinced that structure captures the world of interpersonal relationships.  The very fact that interpersonal relationships *are* individual does put some distance between what are individual choices (albeit *influenced* by structure) to relate to and interact with others, and the nature of structure itself - accretions of practices shaped by the exercise of power.

I hope that makes sense.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 1, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> not quite sure what you're saying here.
> 
> i agree that it's not constructive for anyone to say "your view is not valid" or to try and close down alternative thought
> 
> ...



What I'm saying is that in some situations, a dominant (or wanna-be dominant) personality within a political group may (and in my experience does) use invalidation as a tool to promote *their* political beliefs as the "one true way", whatever the ethnic, sexual or gender derivation of that personality.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Oct 1, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> not quite sure what you're saying here.
> 
> i agree that it's not constructive for anyone to say "your view is not valid" or to try and close down alternative thought
> 
> ...



This supposes that the argument is tailored around the identity of your opponent. But it's only identitarians that do that, which is why cis white males keep getting mentioned.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 1, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> but that's just what seems to be happening too much - white straight cis males trying to tell minorities that their view isn't valid because their politics is somehow less sound.
> 
> for example i (as a white male) can be against racism, but i don't think i've got the right to tell black people what they should think, or to say that their experience of being on the receiving end of racism isn't valid...


But who has done that? It's one thing to say that someone doesn't have the right to hold an opinion it's another thing entirely to criticise that opinion.

I maintain that the WEP are fucking liberal idiots, that doesn't mean that "their experience of being on the receiving end of [sexism] isn't valid" (whatever that is supposed to mean, I'm not sure such a statement even makes sense) or that I don't think they don't have the right to argue their nonsense. It just means that I think their positions are reactionary and damaging.


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## mojo pixy (Oct 1, 2017)

IMO though nobody ever has the right ever to ever_ tell someone else what to think_, ever.


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 1, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> IMO though nobody ever has the right ever to ever_ tell someone else what to think_, ever.



Who has been doing this?


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## mojo pixy (Oct 1, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> for example i (as a white male) can be against racism, but i don't think i've got the right to tell black people what they should think, or to say that their experience of being on the receiving end of racism isn't valid...



_Nobody _should be telling _anybody _what to think or that their experience isn't valid, I'm not sure how identity comes into it. Are some_ kinds of _people more inclined to rudeness? Maybe, for me it's largely about entitlement, _I'm more important than you_ aka class.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 1, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> _Nobody _should be telling _anybody _what to think or that their experience isn't valid, I'm not sure how identity comes into it. Are some_ kinds of _people more inclined to rudeness? Maybe, for me it's largely about entitlement, _I'm more important than you_ aka class.


There are two things here, though. One is one's experience in the world and the other is analysis of why things are as they are such that you have those experiences and not others.

I think some on this thread are talking at crossed purposes because some are referring to the former and others the latter. I wouldn't dream of trying to tell someone about their experiences, but I can and will say when I think their analysis of why things are as they are is wrong.


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## Athos (Oct 1, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> ... but I can and will say when I think their analysis of why things are as they are is wrong.



Yeah, and you'd likely be accused of 'denying [x] lived reality', trying to  make someone invisible, talking over them, or all sorts of other bigotry.  Any reference to theory or even logic will be thrown back at you as evidence that you don't do  any real politics (by people who know nothing about you).


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## JimW (Oct 1, 2017)

People do have experiences that aren't valid in the way they interpret them themselves - plenty of people genuinely feel the real presence of God in their lives but that doesn't oblige anyone else to accept Christian doctrine. I can't see personal experience as necessarily valid beyond certain contexts, which is not to say it's not relevant testimony in others.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 1, 2017)

JimW said:


> People do have experiences that aren't valid in the way they interpret them themselves - plenty of people genuinely feel the real presence of God in their lives but that doesn't oblige anyone else to accept Christian doctrine. I can't see personal experience as necessarily valid beyond certain contexts, which is not to say it's not relevant testimony in others.


Sure. But in terms of id politics, the discussion is surely to do with people's experiences of various kinds of prejudice or oppression. I've seen it on here on occasion and certainly in the wider world that you get a well-meaning but misguided kind of 'surely not' reaction to the relating of various experiences.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 1, 2017)

JimW said:


> . *I can't see personal experience as necessarily valid beyond certain contexts*, which is not to say it's not relevant testimony in others.



Which contexts would/do validate a person's experience then IYO?


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## JimW (Oct 1, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Which contexts would/do validate a person's experience then IYO?


Easier to say where it's not necessarily valid, which was my point, which is when you extrapolate from it to build a wider interpretation. Because as well as useful and broadly correct contributions based on experience there's ones that are plain wrong, like my religious example. To me that leaves us still needing to judge on other things than experiences alone.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 1, 2017)

JimW said:


> Easier to say where it's not necessarily valid, which was my point, which is when you extrapolate from it to build a wider interpretation. Because as well as useful and broadly correct contributions based on experience there's ones that are plain wrong, like my religious example. To me that leaves us still needing to judge on other things than experiences alone.


I don't think that is where the problem lies, though, so although I think you're right, I'm not sure it's very relevant to the id politics debate. I mostly see the opposite - people finding the straightforward relation of their lived experience met with resistance or the attempt to explain it away as something else. As a concrete example, I'm thinking here of the everyday experience of small racist acts - there are many people in the world who don't experience such things who would like to think that the world is a bit less racist than it actually is and will try to come up with alternative explanations for whatever it is that is being related.


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## JimW (Oct 1, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't think that is where the problem lies, though, so although I think you're right, I'm not sure it's very relevant to the id politics debate. I mostly see the opposite - people finding the straightforward relation of their lived experience met with resistance or the attempt to explain it away as something else. As a concrete example, I'm thinking here of the everyday experience of small racist acts - there are many people in the world who don't experience such things who would like to think that the world is a bit less racist than it actually is and will try to come up with alternative explanations for whatever it is that is being related.


Yes, that's true and you're right about experiences being ignored and it being more of a problem. Also agree it's not even the main issue with ID politics if I'm understanding them right. I have a thing about the limits of self-understanding so I tend to go off on one about it given half a chance. Erm, as you were, thread.


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 2, 2017)

I know the thread has moved on a bit since but I want to go back to the question of class and ethnicity in relation to bosses and workers that rutita and others were discussing.

I think an obvious place where identity politics (or at least the form of identity politics I would disagree with - where ethnicity is seen as purely as a cultural-political identity rather than a feature of wider class structures - just as class can be understood as a cultural identity or a structure) falls  down is on this question.

An example from my work experience should illustrate this quite well. I've posted about this before so it's the same story and I'm going to c&p chunks from an old post I made:

I used to work at a Turkish owned kebab shop as a delivery driver. The drivers were all 'white British' (for want of a better term) and the people who worked in the kitchen were Turkish-Kurdish immigrants - I suspect illegal ones.

We were paid cash in hand - £20 a night if we worked 5pm - 10pm and £30 a night if we worked 5pm - 1am, with 70p for each delivery to cover petrol (we had to use our own cars and didn't get anything towards insurance, so were forced to break the law as there was no way we could pay for business use insurnace - it would have cost more than we earned). So that's between £3.75 and £4 an hour, depending on what shift we were doing. This was in 2008, so even then it was well below the minimum wage, for a job where you risked being mugged, beaten up, etc.

The lads in the kitchen had it far worse. They all lived in a house owned by the owner of the shop, and for the first few months I was there I didn't know how badly they were being ripped off because the people who worked there at that time only spoke very basic English. But a few months after I started he took on a new lad who had been living in London for a while and spoke very good English. We got on really well and he used to come round my house on his day off to have a smoke and that. Anyway, he came and saw me after he got his first pay packet. He'd worked 6 days, from 4 in the afternoon until 3 in the morning - 66 hours. He'd been paid £3.50 an hour - so he got about £230. But the owner had taken £150 off him for board and lodgings, so he was left with about £80 for working 6 11 hour shifts.

They were worse off than us because of racism. There's simply no other explanation, it's as unambiguous as it gets. Racist immigration laws meant they didn't have the same rights as the rest of us. It doesn't get much more clear cut than that.

They were Turkish Kurds, the same as the owner. But in this instance he had a direct material interest in maintaining the racist institutions that were enabling him to exploit them more than he could 'British' workers and more than he could them if they had the same rights.

If anyone at that place had an interest in helping them it was us drivers, since all we were ever told when we complained about our money was how much better off we were than them - he used that racism to keep our wages down too. 

He no doubt shared their experience of racial abuse and discrimination but he was the one using racist tools to exploit them. Without an understanding of the specific relations of exploitation (class, and a solid class analysis always takes in specificities relating to ethnicity, gender or anything else that is important to the functioning of that system) the obvious answer is they share an experience of racism with that boss so they should join forces with him to fight it. I was 'benefiting' from that racism in that I was getting more money than them.

To me, if your politics is informed by the kind of materialist analysis I have alluded to above - one where things like ethnicity and gender are an integral part of a class system - then you don't subscribe to identity politics. I think the difficulty we have discussing this stems from different understandings of what identity politics is. To some, anything that aims to further the cause of a specific oppressed groups is identity politics and so anyone arguing against it is saying those issues either don't matter or are at best secondary to the class struggle (rather than a vital part of it). Then, partly because of this misunderstanding, you've got the other side assuming anyone who says they're into identity politics is someone who takes subjective identity as their starting point and ignores class. 

I think the only way around this is to be as clear as we can in our definitions - so if we employ a contested concept, explain what we mean by it in that context - and to ask others for clarification if they do the same.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 2, 2017)

Cheers SpineyNorman I think that might help move the debate forwards a bit. Very good post.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sure. But in terms of id politics, the discussion is surely to do with people's experiences of various kinds of prejudice or oppression. I've seen it on here on occasion and certainly in the wider world that you get a well-meaning but misguided kind of 'surely not' reaction to the relating of various experiences.



How are we to distinguish between those who perceive themselves to be oppressed by cultural Marxism and liberal feminism, who relate their own lived experience to the identity politics of the alt-Right, from authentic experiences of prejudice and oppression unless we accept that it can be legitimate to question how an individual interprets their own lived experiences?


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## mojo pixy (Oct 2, 2017)

What's _cultural Marxism_, and how / to whom is it oppressive? I've only ever heard this term in dodgy contexts so I think it needs clarifying.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> What's _cultural Marxism_, and how / to whom is it oppressive? I've only ever heard this term in dodgy contexts so I think it needs clarifying.


On what basis do we decide that their interpretation of their lived experience is dodgy?


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

...


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> How are we to distinguish between those who perceive themselves to be oppressed by cultural Marxism and liberal feminism, who relate their own lived experience to the identity politics of the alt-Right, from authentic experiences of prejudice and oppression unless we accept that it can be legitimate to question how an individual interprets their own lived experiences?


Well we can't have absolutes here, and it's best avoiding absolutes generally imo. So first and foremost, you pay attention to the experience, and if it is one you yourself cannot have, you take it seriously. Doesn't mean you _have to_ accept it clearly.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 2, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> What's _cultural Marxism_, and how / to whom is it oppressive? I've only ever heard this term in dodgy contexts so I think it needs clarifying.


It seems to be code for "it's the Jews and their Wiley ways". You and i would call that dodgy. However, that's the point: what eoin is asking is how do we distinguish between someone who believes this to be their lived experience (that they have been disadvantaged by cultural Marxism), and accounts we might not call dodgy. How do we tell the dodgy from the non dodgy unless we're able to examine the account?


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## ska invita (Oct 2, 2017)

A text book example of identity politics is self-determination. Anyone have thoughts on the Scottish independence movement? or Catalan? in relation to this thread


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## mojo pixy (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> On what basis do we decide that their interpretation of their lived experience is dodgy?



Well I'm talking about conspiracist right-wingers like Henry Makow and Alex Jones and David Icke. Of course their 'lived experience' is valid but their views are toxic and stupid, and to me the term _cultural marxism_ belongs squarely in that context. So, _dodgy_.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 2, 2017)

ska invita said:


> A text book example of identity politics is self-determination. Anyone have thoughts on the Scottish independence movement? or Catalan? in relation to this thread


Is it? Why do you say that? I don't think the above is true at all, or at least not _necessarily_ true. 

And note you've equated self-determination with national independence movements, I don't want to speak for any Scottish comrades but I'm pretty sure there will be those who are pro-Scottish independence while still recognising that any independence that occurs under capitalism will not result in real self-determination.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> How are we to distinguish between those who perceive themselves to be oppressed by cultural Marxism and liberal feminism, who relate their own lived experience to the identity politics of the alt-Right, from authentic experiences of prejudice and oppression unless we accept that it can be legitimate to question how an individual interprets their own lived experiences?





mojo pixy said:


> What's _cultural Marxism_, and how / to whom is it oppressive? I've only ever heard this term in dodgy contexts so I think it needs clarifying.



Not sure about anyone else but I would appreciate some kind of description/explanation of what is meant by 'cultural Marxism'. Clarifying terminology helps keep everyone included in the conversation afterall.


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## ska invita (Oct 2, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Is it? Why do you say that? I don't think the above is true at all, or at least not _necessarily_ true.
> 
> And note you've equated self-determination with national independence movements, I don't want to speak for any Scottish comrades but I'm pretty sure there will be those who are pro-Scottish independence while still recognising that any independence that occurs under capitalism will not result in real self-determination.


look under any definition of identity politics in a political dictionary or similiar and self-determination comes up immediately
one of countless examples Identity Politics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


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## redsquirrel (Oct 2, 2017)

ska invita said:


> look under any definition of identity politics in a political dictionary or similiar and self-determination comes up immediately
> one of countless examples Identity Politics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


But that makes "self-determination" part of the definition of identitypolitics not _necessarily_ an example of it. 

Moreover I'd argue (1) that self-determination is a vital part of communism and (2) the supposed self-determination that forms part of identitypolitics is not true self-determination at all, e.g. community leaders deciding for group X is not what I call self-determination.


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## Red Cat (Oct 2, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> I know.
> 
> IME "structural" tends to mean those habits (of the ruling and bureaucratic classes) that have accumulated into institutions, and have become - although often not recognised as such - practices, as well as those practices imposed by capitalism that have the functional effect of dividing people into binary categories, with those practices having "real world" effects across and within populations.
> 
> ...



Yes, I think I would generally hold a similar idea of structure, the political and economic, the historical formation...though I'm struggling to be as precise about it in my mind as I'd like to be. I think that maybe for some the idea of structural reaches the level of the individual, that it's in you and me, maybe as an internalised structure, not a thing out there.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 2, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Yes, I think I would generally hold a similar idea of structure, the political and economic, the historical formation...though I'm struggling to be as precise about it in my mind as I'd like to be. I think that maybe for some the idea of structural reaches the level of the individual, that it's in you and me, maybe as an internalised structure, not a thing out there.



We all internalise don't we? That would include _aspects _of the 'structural', ideas, processes etc.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Not sure about anyone else but I would appreciate some kind of description/explanation of what is meant by 'cultural Marxism'. Clarifying terminology helps keep everyone included in the conversation afterall.



mojo pixy has identified the right-wing conspiracy theorists I was alluding to, but lets remember those who make sense of their lived experience through these lenses rather than just the propagandists, themselves.


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## kabbes (Oct 2, 2017)

Athos said:


> Interesting. But presents a lot of questions!  What is "the nature of society"? Where does it come from? What do you understand by the distinction between industrial and consumer capitalism?  What shapes how people see themselves?


Sorry it has taken me a few days to get to this, but better late than never.

By the "nature of society", I mean a lot of things, including:

The activities and practices people engage in as part of society
What the priorities and principles are of the society
How identity is formed in that society
The social order (i.e. how and why the society coheres)
The nature of what is produced and how this is done
These things are all inter-related, as are many more concepts that become relevant depending on what is being considered, such as how technology affects all this, or how external factors might create pressures on it.  It's a big concept.

The nature of society evolves and is messy.  There are no clean breaks, and attempts at categorisation will always leave pieces unmatched.  However, we can broadly tell the following very brief story of the UK.  Following all kinds of historical types of society -- Feudal, agarian and so on -- we had the Enlightenment, which prioritised a certain type of identity and mindset, followed by the Industrial revolution, which created other types of social pressure.  During this period, the foundations of capitalism were laid as the economic basis. By the time we reached the 20th century, we had a capitalist society that was built on industrialism.  It relied on skilled labour, the most important freedoms were political in nature, people defined themselves by the jobs they did within that society (paid or unpaid).  The "activities and practices" people engaged in were those of industrialism, namely communities built on this working self-definition.  The social order was that of people having their place and understanding themselves through that place.

At some point in the latter half of the 20th century, however, things started to change.  Consumerism started to take over, in which people defined themselves by "what they are into" rather than "what they do".  Important freedoms became those of individualism, choice, market freedom.  The "activities and practices" people engaged in started moving towards shopping as leisure, the advertising industry grew to drive a wedge into this self-expression through market choice and lever it wider.  People were capable of building their own bespoke identity through their selection of goods and services to consume, and the use of these things as extensions of the self.  Old social order broke down -- people became less sure of their "place" and they replaced it with a custom-made template of what "people like them" do, hang out with and spend money on.  This happened in parallel with the nature of what is produced transitioning from large-scale manufacturing to a service-based and then increasingly finance-based economy, which can make use of transitory and unskilled labour.

I really don't think you can make general points about structures within capitalism and ignore these changes.  At a surface level, the same critiques all still apply -- ownership of the means of production is still the engine of power, interests are still aligned along class lines, capital still protects itself.  But the specifics of what that means for a society is very different.  Individuals who have built their identity through the accumulation of consumer self-extensions engage differently to those who have built their identity through understanding their place within their work-based community.

Capital already understands this, though.  Because capital's great strength is its inherent flexibility to make use of whatever the prevailing spirit of the age happens to be.  When consumerism started to get off the ground, it was capital that was there to develop all the marketing tools around promoting individual self-expression through consumption.  Freedom through spending.  It was capital that was there to exploit people's new-found desire for individual freedoms to repackage poor working practices as personal choice.  Capital saw women demanding equal status and repurposed it to trap _two_ people into full-time employment rather than one.  Capital doesn't care whether the people buying its things are black or white, gay or straight, cis or trans.  If it suits capital to cohere nuclear families, it'll promote "traditional values".  If it suits capital to splinter society, however, it'll bring the hammer.

That's why just considering the capitalism dimension of the multi-dimensional nature of society will not provide the complete toolkit.  You'll end up fighting battles that capital has already changed its position on, and is using your own position against you.  My suspicion is that a lack of understanding of this is a key reason why the hard-left has found it so hard to engage with people these last 30 years.  They're still using the tools useful for unpicking industrial capitalism, but capital itself has long since abandoned that mode of power.


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## butchersapron (Oct 2, 2017)

ska invita said:


> look under any definition of identity politics in a political dictionary or similiar and self-determination comes up immediately
> one of countless examples Identity Politics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


And there we have it  - an example of an individuals self-determination becoming a collective understanding that all members of a nation have the same interests.. A mass homogensiation under the flag of difference.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Yes, I think I would generally hold a similar idea of structure, the political and economic, the historical formation...though I'm struggling to be as precise about it in my mind as I'd like to be.



I think it's probably impossible to be precise, because structure is fluid - it morphs to the political, social and economic conditions of any time. 



> I think that maybe for some the idea of structural reaches the level of the individual, that it's in you and me, maybe as an internalised structure, not a thing out there.



I'd say that - to use a Foucaultism - that structure is "inscribed" on us by living in the world, but that it isn't inherent, it's an imposition, if you see what I mean.  That inscription means that we kind of accept a set of predicates that structure imposes on us, and naturalises across society.  We police ourselves, we obey laws etc because we're told that to do so is "good" for all, but obviously more good for some than others.


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## Red Cat (Oct 2, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> We all internalise don't we? That would include _aspects _of the 'structural', ideas, processes etc.



Yes, we all internalise.

What I'm attempting to do is to think about what we (those involved in this conversation) mean by structural, because it has been used a lot lately in these conversations, and to think about the degree to which structural is/can be also considered internal, individual and interpersonal. Otherwise we get stuck on terminology that means different things to different people.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 2, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Well I'm talking about conspiracist right-wingers like Henry Makow and Alex Jones and David Icke. Of course their 'lived experience' is valid but their views are toxic and stupid, and to me the term _cultural marxism_ belongs squarely in that context. So, _dodgy_.


Yeah, this basically. TBh I think this is creating a problem where there isn't one really. I don't think anyone other than obvious twats interprets their lived experience through a lens called CM.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> We all internalise don't we? That would include _aspects _of the 'structural', ideas, processes etc.



We effectively have no choice to internalise, if we wish to live in society.  It's that old anarchist quandary of having to live in the state's society, with all the internalised norms, in order to effect change on the structure.


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## DotCommunist (Oct 2, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, this basically. TBh I think this is creating a problem where there isn't one really. I don't think anyone other than obvious twats interprets their lived experience through a lens called CM.


anders breivik and Melanie Philips et al


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

The appeal to lived experience, although important, also runs into limits at the other end of the spectrum: where we all agree that the grievance is legitimate and the affected groups have insights that should be taken seriously. Take women's rights as an example. Even if we leave aside the issues of how sex intersects with say race and class, different women interpret what they share in terms of their lived experiences through different more-or-less explicit theoretical lenses. Radical feminism, socialist feminism, eco feminism, autonomist feminism, marxist feminism, liberal feminism, catholic doctrine, the broader ideological matrix we all confront in our daily lives...

How do we deal with the tension between recognising the importance of lived experience and the need for emancipatory politics to be about people freeing themselves from their own specific contexts, on the one hand, and recognition that these different theoretical frameworks are incommensurable in ways that require others to make political choices about, which voices they listen to and how that affects their political practice. On what basis beyond lived experience should we make these choices?


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 2, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> We effectively have no choice to internalise, if we wish to live in society.  It's that old anarchist quandary of having to live in the state's society, with all the internalised norms, in order to effect change on the structure.



Well yes. This is why I don't really understand the squimishness about a bit of self reflection of the ways we each may have internalised and/or looking at the personal ways that we may benefit from the 'system' in ways that others don't. I think it's an important of understanding not only _our place and experiences _in society in terms of class and identity, but globally too.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 2, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> And there we have it  - an example of an individuals self-determination becoming a collective understanding that all members of a nation have the same interests.. A mass homogensiation under the flag of difference.


Pretty much what I was going to post, but more concisely put.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, this basically. TBh I think this is creating a problem where there isn't one really. I don't think anyone other than obvious twats interprets their lived experience through a lens called CM.



Lived experiences are like assholes, everyone has one. Referring to these 'obvious twats' isn't meant as a form of trolling, which is how it is often received. It is an attempt to point out that there might be a very real problem if our shared politics don't provide us with tools to distinguish between a legitimate appeal to lived experience and an illegitimate one.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Well yes. This is why I don't really understand the squimishness about a bit of self reflection of the ways we each may have internalised and/or looking at the personal ways that we may benefit from the 'system' in ways that others don't. I think it's an important of understanding not only _our place and experiences _in society in terms of class and identity, but globally too.



The issue isn't just about self-reflection, which isn't to say there isn't a need for this when people who claim to have class politics try to take up positions in relation to say sex and race and where their material interests and ideological positions come in to play. There is also a need for other tools. An appeal to lived experience and demands for self-reflection are not enough.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> The issue isn't just about self-reflection, which isn't to say there isn't a need for this when people who claim to have class politics try to take up positions in relation to say sex and race and where their material interests and ideological positions come in to play. There is also a need for other tools. An appeal to lived experience and demands for self-reflection are not enough.



I'm not sure that anyone _has_ actually said it's just about one thing or another...the conversation is about which elements are needed/helpful isn't it?


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## mojo pixy (Oct 2, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Not sure about anyone else but I would appreciate some kind of description/explanation of what is meant by 'cultural Marxism'. Clarifying terminology helps keep everyone included in the conversation afterall.



That's what I was asking, really.



mojo pixy said:


> What's _cultural Marxism_, and how / to whom is it oppressive? I've only ever heard this term in dodgy contexts so I think it needs clarifying.


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## butchersapron (Oct 2, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> That's what I was asking, really.


He's simply using a trope that some people use to identify their interests and thus build  a political identity. It happens to be illegitimate and false. To say that we must have some grounding to say that what people think based on their experience can be  wrong (or not useful) . Thus its relevance to thread on which people are coming close to arguing that an identity and politics based on that are unchallengable - or worse.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> The issue isn't just about self-reflection, which isn't to say there isn't a need for this when people who claim to have class politics try to take up positions in relation to say sex and race and where their material interests and ideological positions come in to play. There is also a need for other tools. An appeal to lived experience and demands for self-reflection are not enough.


I think we may be talking at crossed purposes in the way I described earlier. Lived experience is just that. It doesn't provide answers - in itself it merely poses questions. Clearly analysis requires other tools. 

To be more explicit about my earlier example of everyday low-level racism, it might take the form of someone being rude or a bit off with you in a shop. You know full well that this happens to you more often than not because of your race, but you tell this to someone who doesn't experience racism directly and their immediate reaction may well be to look for an alternative explanation - they're having a bad day/rude to everyone, etc - which may just be true in this instance but isn't true as a general rule and is not the explanation for the experience taken in its totality. That's what I mean about paying attention to the lived experience of those whose experience you yourself cannot share.


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## mojo pixy (Oct 2, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> He's simply using a trope that some people use to identify their interests and thus build  a political identity. It happens to be illegitimate and false. To say that we must have some grounding to say that what people think based on their experience can be  wrong (or not useful) . Thus its relevance to thread on which people are coming close to arguing that an identity and politics based on that are unchallengable - or worse.



fwiw I see "cultural marxism" as a shorthand / dog whistle term signifying the oppression certain people _feel_ (but that isn't actual oppression) when their privilege is threatened by other people's equality. Like _the cultural effects of marxism_ , or something. It shows a misunderstanding of 'marxism' and I would argue also of 'culture'.

It tends only to be used by right-wingers and conspiracy types (of course there's some considerable crossover there)

But how I understand it isn't necessarily how someone else uses it, hence my asking for clarity. Not a major point tbh.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> fwiw I see "cultural marxism" as a shorthand / dog whistle term [..]
> * I understand it isn't necessarily how someone else uses it,* hence my asking for clarity. Not a major point tbh.



No, we were on the same page at the beginning and somehow things got mixed up. The identity politics of right-wing conspiracy theorists speaks to some people's lived experiences, their sense of injustice and oppression, however much we disagree with them. Identity Politics by itself doesn't seem to provide the tools for distinguishing a legitimate sense of grievance from an illegitimate one, a lived experience that demands solidarity or not. The flip side is that where we agree that there is a legitimate grievance and that lived experience can offer powerful insights, how members of the affected group make sense of this experience differs among themselves. We can't even recount a lived experience, or choose which ones are worth recounting without it being shaped by theory and ideology. Do I tell you about my experience of discrimination at work, or how someone used inappropriate language with me? Do I focus my concerns on male sexual violence, the sexual division of labour, or both? Do I call it sex work, or prostitution? Do I want a queer mutiny, or a gay community? Did it happen in Northern Ireland, or the six counties? Is Black a category I use exclusively for people of African descent, or as a political category counterposed to an equally socially constructed whiteness, or do I prefer to say people of colour/African/afro-caribbean etc., or shift between terms depending on the context


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## mojo pixy (Oct 2, 2017)

The problem with all the words for things is that when we insist on use of certain terms, we're telling people how to speak. Being told how to speak can feel like being told what to think, and nobody likes it much. In the end lived experience is lived experience and when we base a discussion on that then someone says _well my experience is X_ then someone else says _well my experience is Y _and someone else says_ well my experience is D_ etc. All valid, where are we going?

Learning about each other's experience of life in this world is important, it shows us there's more than what we know, that there are ways of looking at the world we've never considered. Cultural evolution, becoming _better _collectively and individually, all that. I can't help feeling though, that when it comes to concrete social change on the broad scale, it's about capital, capital_ism_ and wealth; what's it for, who gets to benefit from it and how important it is. IMO those kind of questions can't be answered by focusing on identity groups.


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## mojo pixy (Oct 2, 2017)

The people I work with are seriously disabled. That's an identity group. They get the shit end of every stick there is.

Because they're disabled? In part, yes. In terms of interpersonal relations, the disabilities are right there in your face. Deal with it, show what you're really like, be real. Do you see a person or a disability?

More to the point, do they identify as _a disabled person?_

Well, as far as I can see (_ablesplaining?_ Maybe, there you go I'm the correspondent from this particular frontline for the duration this post), the worst part of their experienced reality must be the poverty. Not just the personal poverty, the having £20 a week or less to spend - in a way so much is laid on in terms of heating, water, food, transport that spending money isn't the main point. But the support resources are limited. Extremely limited. That means support isn't always available to do more than look after the house and get to appointments. A social life is pretty much impossible, and going to shows is out of the question. Even when disabled access is good - and it almost always is - it's still £20-30 for a concert ticket, the same for a football match. Frankly, going to the supermarket or a walk in the park is a day out.

This isn't an issue of identity, really - though they are poor because they're disabled. But it's not the disability which is the problem, it's the socio-economic model that considers them unproductive and treats them as detritus (while wanking on constantly about 'dignity' in official documentation, hypocritically enough). They're really in the lowest _class _there is.


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## kabbes (Oct 2, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> The people I work with are seriously disabled. That's an identity group. They get the shit end of every stick there is.
> 
> Because they're disabled? In part, yes. In terms of interpersonal relations, the disabilities are right there in your face. Deal with it, show what you're really like, be real. Do you see a person or a disability?
> 
> ...


This is all consistent with the late 20th century and early 21st century sociological work done on consumerism.  Zygmunt Bauman split society into the seduced and the repressed.

http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/archives/Identity/1.1FBauman.pdf

The seduced are those who actively take part in consumerism.   The repressed are those unable to.  Since identity in consumerism is constructed by the extension of self gained by consuming goods and services, the repressed have devalued identities.  This goes beyond merely being poor, they are actively despised by a society that views them as defying its social order.  

The devaluation of identity is also often internalised, leading to mental health issues, as the self becomes disconnected.

It’s a good example of what I meant when I said you can’t analyse capitalism without also taking account of the other dimensions of social structure.  You articulated it perfectly, mojo pixy, so thank you for that.


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 2, 2017)

SpineyNorman said:


> I know the thread has moved on a bit since but I want to go back to the question of class and ethnicity in relation to bosses and workers that rutita and others were discussing.
> 
> I think an obvious place where identity politics (or at least the form of identity politics I would disagree with - where ethnicity is seen as purely as a cultural-political identity rather than a feature of wider class structures - just as class can be understood as a cultural identity or a structure) falls  down is on this question.
> 
> ...



But the solidarity you show to them is based on class - their boss isn’t showing any solidarity based on shared identity, is he?
Maybe he’d join those very same people on an anti-racism demo - if his business was threatened by fascists I’m sure he’d soon find common ground then - but after that it’s business as usual.

Are the wider Turskish Kurd community showing them solidarity based on identity?


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## SpineyNorman (Oct 2, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> But the solidarity you show to them is based on class - their boss isn’t showing any solidarity based on shared identity, is he?
> Maybe he’d join those very same people on an anti-racism demo - if his business was threatened by fascists I’m sure he’d soon find common ground then - but after that it’s business as usual.
> 
> Are the wider Turskish Kurd community showing them solidarity based on identity?



No and no, which was my point.


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## Athos (Oct 2, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Sorry it has taken me a few days to get to this, but better late than never.
> 
> By the "nature of society", I mean a lot of things, including:
> 
> ...



Aren't we arguing the same thing i.e. that there's a base (economic - in this case the capitalist mode of production) and a superstructure (social practices/ attitudes/institutions), in a reciprocal relationship, such that, any sensible analysis requires a consideration of both?


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

Athos said:


> Aren't we arguing the same thing i.e. that there's a base (economic - in this case the capitalist mode of production) and a superstructure (social practices/ attitudes/institutions), in a reciprocal relationship, such that, any sensible analysis requires a consideration of both?



The meaning and the usefulness of the terms base and superstructure have been contested fairly vigorously within Marxism for decades. Many of those who have continued to see value in using these terms are probably best known for the caveats they introduced (e.g. Althusser's* 'determined in the last instance', etc...).

* Never a good source to cite in a discussion of Identity Politics.


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## seventh bullet (Oct 2, 2017)

SpineyNorman said:


> I know the thread has moved on a bit since but I want to go back to the question of class and ethnicity in relation to bosses and workers that rutita and others were discussing.
> 
> I think an obvious place where identity politics (or at least the form of identity politics I would disagree with - where ethnicity is seen as purely as a cultural-political identity rather than a feature of wider class structures - just as class can be understood as a cultural identity or a structure) falls  down is on this question.
> 
> ...



Stick around Spiney, haven't seen you in ages.  What's frogwoman up to these days?


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## frogwoman (Oct 2, 2017)

On a bit of a break. I'll be back soon though


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## Athos (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> The meaning and the usefulness of the terms base and superstructure have been contested fairly vigorously within Marxism for decades. Many of those who continued to see value in using these terms are probably best known for the caveats they introduced (e.g. Althusser's* 'determined in the last instance', etc...).
> 
> * Never a good source to cite in a discussion of Identity Politics.



Yes, I appreciate those ideas are far from unversally accepted, and that much of the nuance is missing.  But, those categories work as (an admittedly somewhat crude) shorthand for the distinction about which kabbes and I are speaking.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

Athos said:


> Yes, I appreciate those ideas are far from unversally accepted, and that much of the nuance is missing.  But, those categories work as (an admittedly somewhat crude) shorthand for the distinction about which kabbes and I are speaking.



The missing nuance might raise a few eyebrows among our fellow urbanites who take a different view of identity politics, especially if the alternative seems to reduce all politics to an epiphenomena of a narrowly-conceived economic base. After the welfare state saved capitalism from itself, after second-wave feminism raised serious questions about what constitutes work and how labour power becomes available, when we are more likely to work in a service-sector job creating value for an employer without making pig iron or linen shirts... It seemed worth acknowledging a lack of consensus about how useful it is to talk about base and superstructure.


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## Athos (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> The missing nuance might raise a few eyebrows among our fellow urbanites who take a different view of identity politics, especially if the alternative seems to reduce all politics to an epiphenomena of a narrowly-conceived economic base. After the welfare state saved capitalism from itself, after second-wave feminism raised serious questions about what constitutes work and how labour power becomes available, when we are more likely to work in a service-sector job creating value for an employer without making pig iron or linen shirts... It seemed worth acknowledging a lack of consensus about how useful it is to talk about base and superstructure.



The point I was making wasn't that there's any consensus around those ideas (or to comment on their value, generally); I was using the terms as a shorthand to demonstrate how similar mine and kabbes' positions are.


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## Red Cat (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> epiphenomena



Good word that.


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## Athos (Oct 2, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Good word that.



Even if he misued it.


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## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2017)

Athos said:


> The point I was making wasn't that there's any consensus around those ideas (or to comment on their value, generally); I was using the terms as a shorthand to demonstrate how similar mine and kabbes' positions are.



I'm not really looking to go anywhere with this, just flagging up the lack of agreement because of the context of the thread.

(Politics is singular, so it should have been epiphenomenon, but the meaning seemed fine to me outside a conversation about some specific fields in philosophy.)

def. a secondary effect or by-product


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## Athos (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> I'm not really looking to go anywhere with this, just flagging up the lack of agreement because of the context of the thread.
> 
> (Politics is singular, so it should have been epiphenomenon, but the meaning seemed fine to me outside a conversation about some specific fields in philosophy.)
> 
> def. a secondary effect or by-product



You're right to do so. It was probably a bit reductionist on my part, I admit.

I was just referring to your use of the plural.  Was a silly (non-)point, really.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 2, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> The meaning and the usefulness of the terms base and superstructure have been contested fairly vigorously within Marxism for decades. Many of those who have continued to see value in using these terms are probably best known for the caveats they introduced (e.g. Althusser's* 'determined in the last instance', etc...).
> 
> * Never a good source to cite in a discussion of Identity Politics.



Never a good source to cite, full-stop!


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## kabbes (Oct 2, 2017)

Athos said:


> Aren't we arguing the same thing i.e. that there's a base (economic - in this case the capitalist mode of production) and a superstructure (social practices/ attitudes/institutions), in a reciprocal relationship, such that, any sensible analysis requires a consideration of both?


In all truth, I’m struggling to know what you’re arguing.  It seems to me that I am making great long posts that at least attempt to explain in depth the nuances of different concepts and how they are relevant to the contempory UK, and then you are making pretty short replies that indicate a general contrariness (or, recently, general agreement) but without much specificity as to what point you are trying to make.

If you want to talk about it in terms of base and superstructure then it would help for you to identify what it is about the superstructure that you think is driving strucural problems (as opposed to these problems being derived directly from the base) and how and why identity politics has grown to meet these challenges, as well as why it will fail to manage it.


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## Athos (Oct 2, 2017)

kabbes said:


> In all truth, I’m struggling to know what you’re arguing.  It seems to me that I am making great long posts that at least attempt to explain in depth the nuances of different concepts and how they are relevant to the contempory UK, and then you are making pretty short replies that indicate a general contrariness but without much specificity as to what point you are trying to make.
> 
> If you want to talk about it in terms of base and superstructure then it would help for you to identify what it is about the superstructure that you think is driving strucural problems (as opposed to being derived directly from the base) and how and why identity politics has grown to meet these challenges.



I dont think we are arguing, fundamentally!

But you're right that you lengthy posts probably deserved a more thoughtful response.  I don't really have the time at the moment, but I'll try to get back to you on these points.


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## Athos (Oct 3, 2017)

Anyone interested in the stuff around materialism on this thread might find this one interesting, too: Queer Materialism


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## danny la rouge (Oct 4, 2017)

eoin_k said:


> The meaning and the usefulness of the terms base and superstructure have been contested fairly vigorously within Marxism for decades. Many of those who have continued to see value in using these terms are probably best known for the caveats they introduced (e.g. Althusser's* 'determined in the last instance', etc...).
> 
> * Never a good source to cite in a discussion of Identity Politics.


As is often the way with these things, after not thinking about Althusser for years, this relevant essay appeared in my Feedly this morning: 

Reading Social Reproduction into Reading Capital - Viewpoint Magazine

*Academicy link warning (but interesting enough to read in the queue for flu jabs at my local community centre).


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## 19force8 (Oct 4, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> ... *Academicy link warning (but interesting enough to read in the queue for flu jabs at my local community centre).


Knew there was something I was supposed to do this morning. 

Thanks.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 5, 2017)

This longish piece from Kenan Malik is worth sticking with.  He draws together his usual themes, including that of the political left abandoning class analysis and solidarity and replacing them with 1) a managerialism that seeks to steer capitalism rather than replace it, and 2) an identity politics that came to see identity as an end in itself.

The result being that identity and culture became the only sphere for expressing discontent, with the inevitable result that if the only phenomena discussed are those of identity, then change in economic circumstances are expressed in those terms – they are blamed on the visible and perceived changes in society relating to culture and identity, specifically immigration.

Some key passages (but take the time to read the whole):


“In the 1960s, the struggles for black rights and women’s rights and gay rights were closely linked to the wider project of social transformation. But as the labour movement lost influence and radical struggles faltered, from the 1980s on, so the relationship between the promotion of identity rights and broader social change frayed*. Eventually, the promotion of identity became an end in itself, an identity to which an individual’s interests were inexorably linked.*”

“The shift towards managerialism highlighted the sense of the remoteness of political institutions and of a yawning democratic deficit. *The shift towards identity politics reinforced the sense of a more fragmented society in which the old social bonds had snapped.* Many sections of the working class found themselves politically voiceless at the very time their lives had become more precarious, as jobs have declined, public services savaged, austerity imposed, and inequality risen.”

“The so-called ‘left behind’ have been left behind largely because of economic and political changes. *But they have come to see their marginalization primarily as a cultural loss.* In part, the same social and economic changes that have led to the marginalization of the ‘left behind’ have also made it far more difficult to view that marginalization in political terms. The very decline of the economic and political power of the working class and the weakening of labour organizations and social democratic parties, have helped obscure the economic and political roots of social problems. And as culture has become the medium through which social issues are refracted, so the ‘left behind’ have also come to see their problems in cultural terms. They, too, have turned to the language of identity to express their discontent.”

“The language of politics and of class, in other words, has given way to the language of culture. Or, rather, *class itself has come to be seen not as a political but as a cultural, even a racial, attribute. Sociologists and journalists talk often today about the ‘white working class’, but rarely about the black working class or the Muslim working class. Blacks and Muslims are regarded as belonging to almost classless communities.* The working class has come to be seen primarily as white, and white has become a necessary adjective through which to define the working class.”

“Once class identity comes to be seen as a cultural or racial attribute, then those regarded as culturally or racially different are often viewed as threats. Hence the growing hostility to immigration. Immigration has become the means through which many of the ‘left behind’ perceive their sense of loss of social status.”


(My bolds).


POPULISM AND IMMIGRATION


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## redsquirrel (Oct 5, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> “The language of politics and of class, in other words, has given way to the language of culture. Or, rather, *class itself has come to be seen not as a political but as a cultural, even a racial, attribute. Sociologists and journalists talk often today about the ‘white working class’, but rarely about the black working class or the Muslim working class. Blacks and Muslims are regarded as belonging to almost classless communities.* The working class has come to be seen primarily as white, and white has become a necessary adjective through which to define the working class.”


All of that really good (thanks danny), but this part especially strikes a chord. It's a narrative that has been ever present on threads about Trump (and to the lesser extent UKIP and the EU referendum), hugely damaging and exposing starkly the vast gulf between liberals and socialists.

EDIT: I also think it's worth quoting this


> There are two ways in which one can think of the relationship between identity and politics: On the one hand, of one’s identity as arising out of one’s political ideals, and, on the other, of one’s political ideals as arising out of one’s identity.  Both are inevitably part of the relationship between identity and politics. In recent years, though, the balance between the two has shifted, and political ideals have come increasingly to be defined in terms of one’s identity.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 5, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> exposing starkly the vast gulf between liberals and socialists


Presicely. I don't think it can be bridged. And this is the fault line. It's time to plainly say "we don't have the same aims".


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## redsquirrel (Oct 5, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> Presicely. I don't think it can be bridged. And this is the fault line. It's time to plainly say "we don't have the same aims".


Yes, I'm in total agreement.


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

Part of the issue, though, is that the ID politickers don't see themselves as such; they consider themselves to be socialists.  So the fault line is blurred, somewhat.


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## butchersapron (Oct 5, 2017)

That second quote hits on something i've been thinking about - the difference between identification with and identity. I am anarchist and a communist because i support and identify with those politics (same for say Somerset CCC or LUFC). That's not an identity in the sense that identity politics uses identity - even though it is clearly attempting to base itself on both  identification with and hidden or unstated older essentialisms. The idea of identity itself needs to come under more critical scrutiny than i currently see it being placed under.


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## kabbes (Oct 5, 2017)

It’s a good essay and it presents a strong argument.  I would like to see that argument now pursued through the establishment of evidence.  There are a lot of claims made in it.  The very fact that I intuitively agree with those claims, though, makes me wary of accepting the whole edifice without the due hard cycle of evidence that should accompany it.

(I mean evidence in its academic social scientific sense — qualitative or quantitative but directed at establishing the validity of specific claims rather than just presenting the broad sweeps of history)


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## inva (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Part of the issue, though, is that the ID politickers don't see themselves as such; they consider themselves to be socialists.  So the fault line is blurred, somewhat.


and they're not wrong. as far as it means anything at all socialism is the left wing of liberalism.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 5, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> That second quote hits on something i've been thinking about - the difference between identification with and identity. I am anarchist and a communist because i support and identify with those politics (same for say Somerset CCC or LUFC). That's not an identity in the sense that identity politics uses identity - even though it is clearly attempting to base itself on both  identification with and hidden or unstated older essentialisms. The idea of identity itself needs to come under more critical scrutiny than i currently see it being placed under.


I've been trying to formulate something along those lines too.  Differentiating between Personal Identity, Social Identity, Selfhood, and Culture.  Because people are both using the same terms to mean different things and conflating ideas that deserve different terms.


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## chilango (Oct 5, 2017)

Maybe its time to stop calling ourselves "socialists" or "left-wing". If those terms no longer mean what we want them to. But I guess that's a whole new thread....


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## danny la rouge (Oct 5, 2017)

inva said:


> and they're not wrong. as far as it means anything at all socialism is the left wing of liberalism.


That's something that deserves a different thread.  I've got books on my shelf devoted to the meanings of "socialism".   I'm an anarchist communist.  I broadly use "socialist" to mean "people with a class perspective I'd recognise".  It's not ideal, though.


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## inva (Oct 5, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> That's something that deserves a different thread.  I've got books on my shelf devoted to the meanings of "socialism".   I'm an anarchist communist.  I broadly use "socialist" to mean "people with a class perspective I'd recognise".  It's not ideal, though.


possibly, but I think it points to a problem I have with Malik's argument, which is that through the lens of a sort of romantic Spiked liberalism or whatever his perspective is, class politics can be substituted for basically managerialist, representational, cross-class political projects that draw on identity in not strikingly dissimilar ways to the political forms he critiques in his numerous articles on the subject. That he in my view overemphasises the significance of the collapse of the USSR is perhaps telling in as much as it is surely the collapse of the social democratic/Keyensian consensus to which the socialist/labour movement had tied its fortunes that is crucial.

iirc Andrew Kliman in his book on the 2008 crisis says he doesn't like to use the term neoliberalism too much because it obscures the continuity between it and the capitalism of the past - maybe similar could be said for the apparent gulf between socialism and identity politics. how much of the appearance of a divide is really only that they seek to occupy the same bit of terrain? I'm not sure that Malik lumping together working class struggle and the would be representatives and managers of capitalism in one 'universal project' brings much clarity to the developments of the past half century or so.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Part of the issue, though, is that the ID politickers don't see themselves as such; they consider themselves to be socialists.  So the fault line is blurred, somewhat.


In my experience the people deeply involved in IDpol that I have encountered in real life tend to identify as anarchists, and have some involvement with and support from anarchist groups in the area.


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## mojo pixy (Oct 5, 2017)

Not everyone who says they're an anarchist really believes in anarchism, IME. Plenty of self-proclaimed "anarchists" don't even know what anarchism means, they just claim it as a label because it sounds edgy.

ETA, not here of course. I tend to expect posters here who use the term to know what it means.


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> In my experience the people deeply involved in IDpol that I have encountered in real life tend to identify as anarchists, and have some involvement with and support from anarchist groups in the area.



Wow. I'd be interested to hear more about this (not asking you to name individuals or groups, obviously).  When you say anarchists, are you talking about politically or lifestyle-wise?


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

Perhaps we need less emphasis on what people say they identify as, and more on what they are, what they believe in, and what they do?

And I very deliberately mean a change of emphasis, rather than a wholesale abandonment of the idea of 'identitfying with' (and identity), which can be very politically useful.


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

inva said:


> and they're not wrong. as far as it means anything at all socialism is the left wing of liberalism.



You're right to the extent that different people use the same terms to mean different things.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Wow. I'd be interested to hear more about this (not asking you to name individuals or groups, obviously).  When you say anarchists, are you talking about politically or lifestyle-wise?


There was definitely overlap between them and well-known anarchist groups. However many of them were trustifarians, relying on the goodwill of middle-class families to help them stay in the manner they were accustomed to, so they cannot really be defined as either "political" or "lifestyle".


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> There was definitely overlap between them and well-known anarchist groups. However many of them were trustifarians, relying on the goodwill of middle-class families to help them stay in the manner they were accustomed to, so they cannot really be defined as either "political" or "lifestyle".



 Interesting.  How was that id politics expressed.


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## BigTom (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Wow. I'd be interested to hear more about this (not asking you to name individuals or groups, obviously).  When you say anarchists, are you talking about politically or lifestyle-wise?



I would agree with Tom A - lots of the students I did anti-cuts stuff with a few years back would (have) describe(d) themselves as anarchists and are into ID Pol. I would describe them mostly as Radical Liberals - a term I hadn't heard of before and was introduced to by another older anarchist around that time. 
Anarchism being the individualist end of socialism fits more easily with liberalism than any other form of socialism imo, I think it's easier to cross over from a progressive left liberalism to anarchism than to the more collectivist/communist branches of socialism - and to go vice-versa of course.


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## 19force8 (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> In my experience the people deeply involved in IDpol that I have encountered in real life tend to identify as anarchists, and have some involvement with and support from anarchist groups in the area.


For me it largely depends on the age group with younger, student types leaning heavily to the anarchist side. In part, I suspect, because student anarchism tends to be more accommodating of ID politics. The older / long term ID politics people I see run the gamut from ultra-Blairite to socialist/anarchist/communist.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Interesting.  How was that id politics expressed.


As described in this previous post of mine.


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

BigTom said:


> Anarchism being the individualist end of socialism...



Not sure I agree with this.


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## mojo pixy (Oct 5, 2017)

Anarchism is emphatically _not_ an individualistic outlook. 

_Anarchism_ being conflated with _lawlessness, _so that controlling personalities can use "anarchism" as a pretext to do whatever they like, all the time with no empathy or compassion. I've seen enough of that.


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## inva (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> You're right to the extent that different people use the same terms to mean different things.


yeah a few weirdos like us continue to insist in the face of all the evidence that it means something more radical, no one else agrees apart from the odd right wing loon 
all it is good for now is ideological cover.


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> As described in this previous post of mine.



Fucking hell.  Depressing stuff.  I guess it all goes to reinforce my point (albeit from a slightly different perspective) that Danny's clear fault lines are blurred by people's own understanding of where their politics sit. Would the people you mention who describe themselves as anarchists embrace (or even accept) that they were ID politckers? Did they acknowledge any tension between the two positions?


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 5, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Anarchism is emphatically _not_ an individualistic outlook.
> 
> _Anarchism_ being conflated with _lawlessness, _so that controlling personalities can use "anarchism" as a pretext to do whatever they like, all the time with no empathy or compassion. I've seen enough of that.


I think, and I've seen enough of this as well, some are attracted to anarchism through decidedly apolitical routes, such as the likes of Aleister Crowley and his 'do what though wilt' dictum.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

BigTom said:


> I would agree with Tom A - lots of the students I did anti-cuts stuff with a few years back would (have) describe(d) themselves as anarchists and are into ID Pol. I would describe them mostly as Radical Liberals - a term I hadn't heard of before and was introduced to by another older anarchist around that time.
> Anarchism being the individualist end of socialism fits more easily with liberalism than any other form of socialism imo, I think it's easier to cross over from a progressive left liberalism to anarchism than to the more collectivist/communist branches of socialism - and to go vice-versa of course.


When I was a student I never really identified as an anarchist but had a strong affinity to anarchism nonetheless, considering it somewhat better than what the rest of the left of New Labour had to offer. I was quickly put off the SWP and other Trotskyist groups, which at the time seemed like the only other big game in town. It also helped that I was a student right when big protests against the G8, WTO and suchlike were fashionable, where anarchists played a very major role.
However at the end of my degree I got very fed up with all the nonsense that I was enduring (student politics has never been a very enlightening place), and walked away for a while. Later when doing my master's I focused on more mainstream stuff, mostly People & Planet and environmentalist campaigning, and became sympathetic to the Green Party, whilst still rubbing shoulders with more radically-minded people. After that politics went on the back burner as I sorted my life out and finally adjusted to life off campus, and pretty much abandoned "revolutionary" politics for good. After that I got re-radicalised as the Tories took power, as explained in post 387, but today I am focused on mainly trying to work to better my local community, and working with people with varied ideologies. At present I am very much behind Corbyn and friends in trying to get the Labour Party turned leftwards, and getting people with socialist, or at least social democratic ideas into power.


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## mojo pixy (Oct 5, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think, and I've seen enough of this as well, some are attracted to anarchism through decidedly apolitical routes, such as the likes of Aleister Crowley and his 'do what though wilt' dictum.



Though tbf that particular line ends "love is the law, love under will"

That bit doesn't get quoted as often as the first bit.


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## DotCommunist (Oct 5, 2017)

'an it harm none'


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 5, 2017)

Also because of Marxism often being conflated with authoritarianism.

Communism = Marxism = Marxist Leninism = Stalinism.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

19force8 said:


> For me it largely depends on the age group with younger, student types leaning heavily to the anarchist side. In part, I suspect, because student anarchism tends to be more accommodating of ID politics. The older / long term ID politics people I see run the gamut from ultra-Blairite to socialist/anarchist/communist.


It's on campus where ID politics tends to be at its most toxic - particularly in the US but the UK has its issues, especially in London universities.



Athos said:


> Would the people you mention who describe themselves as anarchists embrace (or even accept) that they were ID politckers? Did they acknowledge any tension between the two positions?


I would confidently guess that the mere mention of "identity politics" to them would be a dogwhistle that results in them accusing you of not checking your privilege and furthering their oppression, making assumption that the phrase "identity politics" was being used to dismiss their arguments and erase their experiences. In fact I recall seeings something along those lines on one of these people's Twitter pages some time ago.



mojo pixy said:


> Anarchism is emphatically _not_ an individualistic outlook.
> _Anarchism_ being conflated with _lawlessness, _so that controlling personalities can use "anarchism" as a pretext to do whatever they like, all the time with no empathy or compassion. I've seen enough of that.


I know friends who have have had first-hand experience of some of the worst of those "controlling personalities". They tend to be highly dogmatic, and very prone to embarking in screaming rows.

On a different subject, you have the massive can of worms that is the mention of anarcho-capitalism...



DotCommunist said:


> 'an it harm none'


That's more Gerald Gardner and Wicca, although he of course borrowed heavily from Crowley.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Fucking hell.  Depressing stuff.  I guess it all goes to reinforce my point (albeit from a slightly different perspective) that Danny's clear fault lines are blurred by people's own understanding of where their politics sit. Would the people you mention who describe themselves as anarchists embrace (or even accept) that they were ID politckers? Did they acknowledge any tension between the two positions?


To be fair, I've seen self-proclaimed anarchists defending ID-politics on social media. 

(Also to inva - I don't always agree with everything Malik says. For one, I get the impression he supports Parliamentary Democracy. But he does offer one of the clearest perspectives on top down multiculturalism, and was one of the first to do so. That doesn't mean I'm accepting everything 100%. I'm interested in ideas, not heroes).


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## BigTom (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Not sure I agree with this.





mojo pixy said:


> Anarchism is emphatically _not_ an individualistic outlook.
> 
> _Anarchism_ being conflated with _lawlessness, _so that controlling personalities can use "anarchism" as a pretext to do whatever they like, all the time with no empathy or compassion. I've seen enough of that.



Probably not the thread to continue this but to clarify, I don't see anarchism as an individualist philosophy - it definitely isn't and one of the (many) reasons why right wing libertarianism isn't anarchism.
All socialism are collective philosophies, it's a massive split with liberalism (and why I can't agree with inva that socialism is just the left end of liberalism) but anarchism is more individualist than other socialist traditions, there's no democratic centralism or anything like that within anarchism afaik. 
I suppose autonomism is more individualist but I'm not sure that's a socialist philosophy really, though I know very little about the original autonomists tbf.


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 5, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Also because of Marxism often being conflated with authoritarianism.
> 
> Communism = Marxism = Marxist Leninism = Stalinism.



That aside there’s Stalinists that spout Id pol. A heady mix.


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## inva (Oct 5, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> To be fair, I've seen self-proclaimed anarchists defending ID-politics on social media.
> 
> (Also to inva - I don't always agree with everything Malik says. For one, I get the impression he supports Parliamentary Democracy. But he does offer one of the clearest perspectives on top down multiculturalism, and was one of the first to do so. That doesn't mean I'm accepting everything 100%. I'm interested in ideas, not heroes).


yeah i know that! wasn't attacking you, just trying to think in my clumsy way about the limits of Malik's analysis and where a class perspective could take it further 
maybe unsuccessfully


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## danny la rouge (Oct 5, 2017)

inva said:


> yeah i know that! wasn't attacking you, just trying to think in my clumsy way about the limits of Malik's analysis and where a class perspective could take it further
> maybe unsuccessfully


It's cool. I pretty much agreed with your interjection anyway.


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> To be fair, I've seen self-proclaimed anarchists defending ID-politics on social media.


 Explicitly?  They defend ID politics by name, and use the term to mean what you did in the OP?


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> I would confidently guess that the mere mention of "identity politics" to them would be a dogwhistle that results in them accusing you of not checking your privilege and furthering their oppression, making assumption that the phrase "identity politics" was being used to dismiss their arguments and erase their experiences.



Much like some on here, then!


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## danny la rouge (Oct 5, 2017)

Athos said:


> Explicitly?  They defend ID politics by name, and use the term to mean what you did in the OP?


I think so, yes.


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## Athos (Oct 5, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> I think so, yes.


 And they see not tension between the two?  Or resolve it somehow?


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

It's nonsense like this which eventually put me off anarchism, that and I never saw any anarchists involved in the grassroots campaigns I was working to build. In fact most people I know though campaigning in the past three years since I cut off ties with the ID politics lot in post 387 tend to be from different left groups (although now mostly Labour Party since Corbyn became leader) or of no political alignment. Although that could be because I am mainly involved in things like the Unite Community branch and the People's Assembly, not groups that I feel anarchists would have much time for, on account of being too "bureaucratic"/"hierarchical" /"ineffective"/all of the above.


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 5, 2017)

Loads of anarchists have joined the Labour Party though.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Loads of anarchists have joined the Labour Party though.


I thought support of, _let alone membership of,_ a political party instantly disqualified you from anarchism. (Although having said that, Class War did stand in elections prior to Corbyn becoming Labour leader.) 

But that aside, I don't doubt that some of the more sensible people that call themselves "anarchists" have concluded that Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party and the movement that has resulted from it is the best hope their class has had to make progress for decades.


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## 19force8 (Oct 5, 2017)

The most extreme end of ID politics I see is online and based around a kind of survivor fetish. Where someone's status as a survivor (usually of sexual assault) trumps all other views and entitles their "allies" to pile in on anyone disagreeing with the survivor. See this piece How about don't "boycott Novara"? | Richard Seymour on Patreon for which Seymour was roundly denounced. Ironic considering his own "survivorhood."

I'm not sure if this is a model anyone else recognises. Is it even viable in real world activism, beyond the seemingly psychotic ghettos Tom A describes?


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 5, 2017)

19force8 said:


> The most extreme end of ID politics I see is online and based around a kind of survivor fetish. Where someone's status as a survivor (usually of sexual assault) trumps all other views and entitles their "allies" to pile in on anyone disagreeing with the survivor. See this piece How about don't "boycott Novara"? | Richard Seymour on Patreon for which Seymour was roundly denounced. Ironic considering his own "survivorhood."
> 
> I'm not sure if this is a model anyone else recognises. Is it even viable in real world activism, beyond the seemingly psychotic ghettos Tom A describes?



This is the Safer Spaces end of the market. Something that started as a means of giving everyone a voice in meetings turned into something hideously authoritarian. Plan C wrote an interesting piece on it a few years back. 

For your safety and security… | We are Plan C


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

19force8 said:


> The most extreme end of ID politics I see is online and based around a kind of survivor fetish. Where someone's status as a survivor (usually of sexual assault) trumps all other views and entitles their "allies" to pile in on anyone disagreeing with the survivor.


I've encountered that too, indeed been one of those "allies", until I did something the survivor disagreed with, and then became one of their ever increasing list of enemies. Something else that started me on the path away from identity politics.



> I'm not sure if this is a model anyone else recognises. Is it even viable in real world activism, beyond the seemingly psychotic ghettos @Tom A describes?


I wouldn't say they were psychotic - although one wonders if you spend enough time on "social justice" Tumblr pages. Narcissistic, maybe.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

I am also now in the unfortunate position of agreeing with what Richard Seymour has to say - unfortunate because I have not had much time for him for since his odious attack on Falklands War survivor Simon Weston. I don't really have much time for Novara, but their persecution for thoughtcrime is typical of what online mobs do to prominent people who they consider guilty of wrongthink.


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## 19force8 (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> I am also now in the unfortunate position of agreeing with what Richard Seymour has to say - unfortunate because I have not had much time for him for since his odious attack on Falklands War survivor Simon Weston. I don't really have much time for Novara, but their persecution for thoughtcrime is typical of what online mobs do to prominent people who they consider guilty of wrongthink.


If it's a choice between Seymour and Coates I'd go with Seymour every time.

Also, it wasn't so much an attack as a stupid remark: LENIN'S TOMB: Something I Said.


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## killer b (Oct 5, 2017)

Seymour often writes good stuff. We all fuck up sometimes.


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## chilango (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> I am also now in the unfortunate position of agreeing with what Richard Seymour has to say - unfortunate because I have not had much time for him for since his odious attack on Falklands War survivor Simon Weston. I don't really have much time for Novara, but their persecution for thoughtcrime is typical of what online mobs do to prominent people who they consider guilty of wrongthink.



What Simon Weston the guy who I personally witnessed being kicked out of a bar for sexist and misogynist behaviour? That Simon Weston? *shrugs*


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 5, 2017)

killer b said:


> Seymour often writes good stuff. We all fuck up sometimes.


As fuck ups go, that was a bad one. And it's massively counterproductive as it immediately gains Weston sympathy and credibility.


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## killer b (Oct 5, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As fuck ups go, that was a bad one. And it's massively counterproductive as it immediately gains Weston sympathy and credibility.


Was it fuck a bad one. He said something daft in a facebook thread. He didn't write a lengthy article on  the topic. I've said worse in similar circumstances numerous times.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

chilango said:


> What Simon Weston the guy who I personally witnessed being kicked out of a bar for sexist and misogynist behaviour? That Simon Weston? *shrugs*


Yes, okay, _that_ Simon Weston. But this was still a very stupid thing for Seymour to say, as is later explained:


littlebabyjesus said:


> As fuck ups go, that was a bad one. And it's massively counterproductive as it immediately gains Weston sympathy and credibility.


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## killer b (Oct 5, 2017)

it wasn't even on a public page. It's like someone screencapping a post from here and writing a story about it.


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

killer b said:


> it wasn't even on a public page. It's like someone screencapping a post from here and writing a story about it.


Fair's fair. We all have said some unpleasant things on social media at times, and there is way too many cases of such posts being used to discredit the person behind them. It also says a lot about the people who bring such posts to public attention.


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## killer b (Oct 5, 2017)

Yeah, it's bullshit. I felt a bit uncomfortable about that young tory activist whatsapp chat that was leaked - replace 'chav' with 'tory' and you've got half the threads in P&P. Obv you don't have the same classist element, but the man on the street would probably see them as fairly equivalent.


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## chilango (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> Yes, okay, _that_ Simon Weston. But this was still a very stupid thing for Seymour to say, as is later explained:



He said something nasty online about someone who I've seen say nastier things in person.

*shrugs again*


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## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> This is the Safer Spaces end of the market. Something that started as a means of giving everyone a voice in meetings turned into something hideously authoritarian. Plan C wrote an interesting piece on it a few years back.
> 
> For your safety and security… | We are Plan C


I found that to be a very worthwhile read. This chimed with me:



> It is often happening that people experiencing serious mental health problems are being thrown out of political and social spaces because their presence is claimed to be triggering to others. In some cases, people have suffered mental breakdowns as a direct result of campaigns against them in the name of safer spaces. There has been at least one suicide attempt, and this is hardly surprising, really, given that the punishment which ostracism is intended to inflict is social death. If a person makes every space they enter unsafe, where on Earth are they supposed to go? So to put it bluntly, no side can have a monopoly on trauma, or to use a less loaded term, on suffering.



Whilst I have never been "excluded" from any spaces, and thankfully never had serious mental health issues and not been driven to such despair that I was seriously considering suicide, I have avoided getting too involved with a prominent local disabled people's rights group because people who I walked away from are involved, and when I attended a meeting where one of those were present I later heard from a friend that they mentioned on Facebook (which I am not on, but this person had blocked me before I deactivated my account) that they were concerned about my presence, and were contemplating seeing if action could be taken under "safe spaces". It came to naught, but I decided it wasn't worth my bother trying to remain involved.


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## ManchesterBeth (Oct 7, 2017)

Disability liberation seems to be relatively abscent, and when its mentioned its a kind of mundane lipservice.


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## Tom A (Oct 7, 2017)

"Liberation" - another buzzword that IDpolers love to throw about, since being granted the same rights as everyone else will obviously never free them from the oppressive yoke of the evil "out-group".


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 7, 2017)

Tom A said:


> "Liberation" - another buzzword that IDpolers love to throw about, since being granted the same rights as everyone else will obviously never free them from the oppressive yoke of the evil "out-group".



Having the same 'rights' doesn't mean people have access to the same opportunities. There is a massive difference between the semblance of 'equality' and actual 'equity'. 

Your post is pretty shitty and dismissive actually if it's a response to what dial posted above it.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 7, 2017)

Tom A said:


> "Liberation" - another buzzword that IDpolers love to throw about, since being granted the same rights as everyone else will obviously never free them from the oppressive yoke of the evil "out-group".


Winning legal rights is the end of one struggle but merely the jumping-off point of others. The distribution of wealth and power that developed as a direct result of the years when you didn't have those rights doesn't magically rearrange itself due to law changes.


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## Athos (Oct 7, 2017)

For example, the fact that black kids and white kids aren't seperated by law in US schools anymore doesn't mean they now go to college at the same rates.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 7, 2017)

Athos said:


> For example, the fact that black kids and white kids aren't seperated by law in US schools anymore doesn't mean they now go to college at the same rates.


It doesn't even mean that they aren't separated by means other than law.


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## Athos (Oct 7, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> It doesn't even mean that they aren't separated by means other than law.



True.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 7, 2017)

"And Intersectionality said 'with friends like these, who needs enemies?'":

https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/10/your-criticisms-sound-ridiculous/


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## Athos (Oct 7, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> "And Intersectionality said 'with friends like these, who needs enemies?'":
> 
> https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/10/your-criticisms-sound-ridiculous/



Interesting article, but, with regard to identity politics doesn't engage with any ofthe serious critiques (almost to the extent that the choice of those it does tackle might look a bit like strawman-ism).


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## Idris2002 (Oct 7, 2017)

Athos said:


> Interesting article, but, with regard to identity politics doesn't engage with any ofthe serious critiques (almost to the extent that the choice of those it does tackle might look a bit like strawman-ism).


Interesting? Try painful. It takes a deeply political concept - one that was concerned with both class and race equally - and guts it of any real political meaning.


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## Athos (Oct 7, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Interesting? Try painful. It takes a deeply political concept - one that was concerned with both class and race equally - and guts it of any real political meaning.



Interesting insofar as it gives us an insight on how some people think, rather than that there was much merit in the content.


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## ManchesterBeth (Oct 7, 2017)

Tom A said:


> "Liberation" - another buzzword that IDpolers love to throw about, since being granted the same rights as everyone else will obviously never free them from the oppressive yoke of the evil "out-group".



What? I was criticising the idpol conception of disability, as an identity externalised by others requiring better representation, or policy decisions, or parliamentary representation or whatnot, rather than a constitutive social and economic relationship. Like it's ok to say that ableism is structurally implicated in our society but to then say oh, all we need to do is dismantle those structures - as if those structures are maintained by a group with a certain oppressive consciousness and all we need do is raise awareness and change the management of the firm - is skirting dangerously close to peak conspiraloon territory and i resent that, to be honest.

It is absurd to conflate legal right with the ability to make use of those rights. And what do you mean by right to begin with? Property right? Rights at work? Anti-discrimination rights? Medical/mental health rights? All you've done is taken a nebulous conception of representation. come on now this is basic socialism 101.

And surely liberation from the law of value is essential to any sort of anti-capitalist politics?

Yes, as xenon says, its absurd to chalk everything down to capitalism, but then there's the other extreme of seeing capitalism as an identity, which the most vociferous idpolitikers share with the right, and some sections of the left. Of course the section of the left I'm talking about don't realise that... and are still hung up on the mantra of evil bosses.


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## hipipol (Oct 7, 2017)

I no nothing about these area of modern contention, other than it seems to be utterly confused
At the end of 20 pages, I am almost less informed then when I started
Is this normal?


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## hipipol (Oct 8, 2017)

All of the above seems to assume some kind of integrated singularity which is then described as an individual, this completely ignores what we know about human psychology and development  . I have always had problems with the notion of complete integration of all elements within anyone's personality and life experience - its may be a useful shorthand but can easily slip into the glib bundling of many disparate and essentially divergent opinions/intentions/beliefs.
I like to thank DLR for starting the thread in a truly open and thoughtful way.
I would like to give it the thought he obviously applied when he took great care and more then likely considerable time to produce an opening statement so balanced and though occasionally nuanced towards his own structuralist cats cradle he also exhibited a superb awareness of that subjectivity and made it clear to all.
I doubt that I can up to that mark, but will vanish for a bit and see if I can even come close


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## Tom A (Oct 8, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Having the same 'rights' doesn't mean people have access to the same opportunities. There is a massive difference between the semblance of 'equality' and actual 'equity'.


I know that. However there are those who, whilst still have issues with gaining equality with the rest of society, have it much, much better than they had it 30, 20, or even 10 years ago, and will probably have it even better still 10 years from now. However there is a strand of IDpol which basically says that everyone not in the in-group is participating, consciously or otherwise, in a conspiracy to keep them down, and this will only end when they achieve some abstract notion of 'liberation'. That is what my comment was aimed at.



littlebabyjesus said:


> Winning legal rights is the end of one struggle but merely the jumping-off point of others. The distribution of wealth and power that developed as a direct result of the years when you didn't have those rights doesn't magically rearrange itself due to law changes.


I do not deny that. But isn't that more of a wider class issue than something pertaining strictly to one particular group, or groups? This is where IDPol is in serious danger of playing into the divide-and-conquer tactics of the ruling class.



Athos said:


> For example, the fact that black kids and white kids aren't seperated by law in US schools anymore doesn't mean they now go to college at the same rates.


Again, I do not deny that. Again this is part of a wider class issue, and of course class in the US is highly racialised.



dialectician said:


> What? I was criticising the idpol conception of disability, as an identity externalised by others requiring better representation, or policy decisions, or parliamentary representation or whatnot, rather than a constitutive social and economic relationship. Like it's ok to say that ableism is structurally implicated in our society but to then say oh, all we need to do is dismantle those structures - as if those structures are maintained by a group with a certain oppressive consciousness and all we need do is raise awareness and change the management of the firm - is skirting dangerously close to peak conspiraloon territory and i resent that, to be honest.


That wasn't really what I was intending to say, and I am just as critical of the above as you. The ruling class are the ruling class, no matter how many events they qualify for in the Oppression Olympics.



> It is absurd to conflate legal right with the ability to make use of those rights. And what do you mean by right to begin with? Property right? Rights at work? Anti-discrimination rights? Medical/mental health rights? All you've done is taken a nebulous conception of representation. come on now this is basic socialism 101.


If people are not able to make use of those rights (and I consider the latter three to be of great importance), then they essentially they do not have them, regardless of whatever words appear in the statue books. Therefore the fight for said rights needs to continue.



> And surely liberation from the law of value is essential to any sort of anti-capitalist politics?


I personally think that capitalism is going to be around in one form or another for some time to come, and the best I feel I can do is try and force capitalism to take a slightly less nasty form than it is presently. I certainly have long stopped believing that we can have a "revolution" as one single event to wipe the slate clean and then it's socialism from there on in.



> Yes, as xenon says, its absurd to chalk everything down to capitalism, but then there's the other extreme of seeing capitalism as an identity, which the most vociferous idpolitikers share with the right, and some sections of the left. Of course the section of the left I'm talking about don't realise that... and are still hung up on the mantra of evil bosses.


I do not disagree with that. Capitalism permeates all of capitalist societies, and anyone who thinks they can break away from it is kidding themselves.


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## friendofdorothy (Oct 9, 2017)

Tom A said:


> "Liberation" - another buzzword that IDpolers love to throw about, since being granted the same rights as everyone else will obviously never free them from the oppressive yoke of the evil "out-group".


 Liberation is a word very common in '70s eg Gay Liberation, Womens Lib etc. Well before the concept of ID politics which I've only ever heard of recently and only ever here on Urban. 

I gather there is some consensus on these boards that there is nothing in marxist scructural viewpoint against people fighting for their liberation (not the impression I've ever got at the time). 

Some of us can't wait for the complete overthow of the capitalist system before being granted the 'liberation' of not being sacked/arrested/ beaten up/ discriminated against. Please don't trivalise our struggles as merely some new 'buzzword'.


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## seventh bullet (Oct 9, 2017)

Who has said people should 'wait until the complete overthrow of the capitalist system'?


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## friendofdorothy (Oct 9, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Who has said people should 'wait until the complete overthrow of the capitalist system'?


its has been implied by various posters on this and other related threads.


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## seventh bullet (Oct 9, 2017)

It's often used to caricature the positions of those who use a class analysis (but not only), sure.


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## andysays (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> its has been implied by various posters on this and other related threads.



Perhaps you could start by quoting one or more posts from this thread which support your claim


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## friendofdorothy (Oct 9, 2017)

andysays said:


> Perhaps you could start by quoting one or more posts from this thread which support your claim


no. This thread is 20 pages LGBT+ forum thread is 28 pages and theres 23 pages of the Cis thread - so I simply can't be arsed.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> its has been implied by various posters on this and other related threads.


I'm sorry but it really hasn't. Nobody on this thread has made such an implication (in fact I can't remember ever seeing such an implication on any thread on U75), on the contrary people have repeatedly stressed that the fight against racism/sexism/homophobia are at there most effective when embedded within the class framework.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> no. This thread is 20 pages LGBT+ forum thread is 28 pages and theres 23 pages of the Cis thread - so I simply can't be arsed.


Right well why should anybody take your claim seriously then.

This is pretty poor, you've made a specific claim, one that has been challenged by numerous posters and you aren't willing to defend it. This thread is only 20 pages it's not like it would be hard to search through it and produce evidence if your claim was true.


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## friendofdorothy (Oct 9, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> I'm sorry but it really hasn't. Nobody on this thread has made such an implication (in fact I can't remember ever seeing such an implication on any thread on U75), on the contrary people have repeatedly stressed that the fight against racism/sexism/homophobia are at there most effective when embedded within the class framework.


As I understood it some posters have insisted they are _only_ effective when embedded within the class framework and everything else seems to be dismissed as ID politics.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> As I understood it some posters have insisted they are _only_ effective when embedded within the class framework and everything else seems to be dismissed as ID politics.


Hang on (1) that's a different claim to the one you made previously - that some posters on this thread have said that people should 'wait until the complete overthrow of the capitalist system', and (2) I still not sure it's true, who has argued such a position?


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## seventh bullet (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> As I understood it some posters have insisted they are _only_ effective when embedded within the class framework and everything else seems to be dismissed as ID politics.



So, something else entirely and that you can back up?


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## andysays (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> no. This thread is 20 pages LGBT+ forum thread is 28 pages and theres 23 pages of the Cis thread - so I simply can't be arsed.



If you "simply can't be arsed" to provide one simple example back up this claim (not the first time you've done this if I remember right) then I'm afraid I'll continue to regard you, like many of the most vocal supporters of ID politics here, of talking complete nonsense which you're utterly unable to back up, and of effectively smearing those with a different position to you.

I genuinely wonder why so many supporters of ID politics seem to repeatedly behave like this; it's as if dishonesty and misrepresentation is their normal position.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> As I understood it some posters have insisted they are _only_ effective when embedded within the class framework and everything else seems to be dismissed as ID politics.


So when pulled up because you made up claim you can't substantiate, you just make up a different one. What is you next move? Report everyone who calls you on your made-up bullshit?


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## Puddy_Tat (Oct 9, 2017)

andysays said:


> I'll continue to regard you, like many of the most vocal supporters of ID politics here, of talking complete nonsense which you're utterly unable to back up, and of effectively smearing those with a different position to you.



that comes across as pretty much what you're doing...

i have followed most of the threads on here, and i'm still little the wiser as to what 'identity politics' means (or whether it's like 'political correctness' and is just a phrase used to try and shut minorities up) or whether i support it or not.

if it's believing that people who are in a minority are entitled to a view, to challenge discrimination, and to put that view across themselves rather than wait for the 'mainstream' to put it across for them, then maybe i am...


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## andysays (Oct 9, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> that comes across as pretty much what you're doing...
> 
> i have followed most of the threads on here, and i'm still little the wiser as to what 'identity politics' means (or whether it's like 'political correctness' and is just a phrase used to try and shut minorities up) or whether i support it or not.
> 
> if it's believing that people who are in a minority are entitled to a view, to challenge discrimination, and to put that view across themselves rather than wait for the 'mainstream' to put it across for them, then maybe i am...



More misrepresentation.

Maybe you can provide examples of anyone, on this thread or any other, suggesting that people who are in a minority are *not* entitled to a view, *not*  entitled to challenge discrimination, or *not* entitled to put that view across themselves rather than wait for the 'mainstream' to put it across for them


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 9, 2017)

'The most vocal supporters of identity politics' ...I can't remember a time that I heard anyone claim to be that. I see a lot of broad brush labeling of people or opinions though. Many of these opinions represent opposite ends or different places on a spectrum which, through these discussions, it has been acknowledged is not all 'id politicking' in the harmful and separatist sense. It IS legitimate care and attention, activism, exploration and support around x, y, z issue in the first instance. I think the rub is what different people decide those legitimate issues to be and how people should go about it.


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## Puddy_Tat (Oct 9, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> and theres 23 pages of the Cis thread



although a fairly high proportion of that seems to be one individual hounding one trans urbanite



andysays said:


> More misrepresentation.
> 
> Maybe you can provide examples of anyone, on this thread or any other, suggesting that people who are in a minority are *not* entitled to a view, *not*  entitled to challenge discrimination, or *not* entitled to put that view across themselves rather than wait for the 'mainstream' to put it across for them



OK, what are you arguing for / against then?

All I'm seeing here is you trying to shout people down...


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## ska invita (Oct 9, 2017)

this is a post responding to Danny really, and moved over from conversation on the LGBT forum? thread, as its a bit of a derail from there I think, and as Danny quotes a post from this thread.



danny la rouge said:


> I don't want to intervene in your discussion with Athos, but I think impasse is a fair word to use if you can read posts like this of mine from that thread (linked below) and still say what you've said.
> 
> Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.



Yeah Impasse is a fair word, i never disagreed on that. Maybe I wasn't clear. Yes, with certain people and at certain times theres an impasse. I was saying I've not experienced these extreme cases (where dialogue is shut down) of essentialist identity politics personally or first hand, maybe as I'm not on twitter or at university! Seems to me thats where this really plays out.

Theres a self-righteousness thats being associated with the shit side of ID politics that seems to me to be part of a wider pattern of recent behaviour that shows itself with such things as twitter pile ons, no platforming, vampire castle etc and other depressing actions. That _*is*_ something I have personally experienced and been on the end sharp end of, and feels like a much more common problem than the kind of crap behaviours named by Brainaddict and others.

As to your post that you linked, case 1 seems very extreme, case 2, i can see both sides and think people should have talked directly with her on twitter first rather than argue on urban about it.

Anyhow we've listed many behaviours that are symptomatic of some ID politics that create problems and impasses - in general I'm not arguing with any of that - but I think its important to recognise that there is *also* an impasse that comes from some of those who are strongly critical of identity politics, and you mention the issue in your post:


danny la rouge said:


> It has become common to see the formulation “you can’t understand my experiences because you don’t share my skin colour/chromosomes/mDNA/brain chemistry* etc”. Well, OK, maybe. But you can _tell_ us.
> As it happens in some ways I do sympathise with the argument that far.
> .


You are able to sympathise with it, but many can't, especially when what they then hear contradicts something they think to be self-evidently true or makes them feel uncomfortable personally. The reaction can be to dismiss what they're hearing as ID-politics-gone-mad and on some occasions try and reduce such complexities away to a much simpler issue of class analysis. That reaction to hearing something the ID critic doesn't like can also lead to an Impasse, to an othering, to a tribalism of Us V Them etc. We've seen it on the threads.


(*Fingers crossed no one quotes me so i can have an evening in peace! Takes me ages to write a post and life is too short)


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## andysays (Oct 9, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> OK, what are you arguing for / against then?
> 
> All I'm seeing here is you trying to shout people down...



It's really quite bizarre that a request that posters back up their assertions/misrepresentations with evidence is portrayed as an attempt to "shout people down"...


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## BigTom (Oct 9, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> although a fairly high proportion of that seems to be one individual hounding one trans urbanite
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That a class / materialist analysis gives a better understanding of the socio-political world than the individualist/Liberal analysis of identitypolitics. 
It's depressing to be cast as seeking to deny minorities a view, to be uninterested in challenging discrimination etc. because you disagree with a political view and think there's a better way to look at, understand and go about these things.

This is from danny la rouge OP, it says it well:



> Furthermore, because of the pervasiveness of this model [identitypolitics], it is now the widespread common sense that the _only_ way to respect the struggles of marginalised people is through this model. In this now dominant common sense,_ identitypolitics_ is just a synonym for anti-racism, for feminism, for opposition to homophobia and transphobia and so on. Just as top down Multiculturalism is seen by so many as just a synonym for respecting diversity and inclusivity. And so, if one criticises _identitypolitics_, one is seen by many as opposing anti-racism, as opposing feminism, and so on, because_ identitypolitics_ has become seen as the _only_ way of doing those things.
> 
> In this thread I hope we can discuss yes whether_ identitypolitics_ is the only way of doing these things, and whether, in fact, it _really does_ those things, but more importantly whether there are other, better, ways of doing them.
> 
> And here we will hit another issue these debates often hit. There is a category error that invariably comes up. It is often assumed by_ identitypolitics _practitioners that critics are arguing that “class is more important than race (or gender, or sexuality, or whatever)”. This is a misrepresentation that comes about because people have become so used to seeing _identity_ as _the_ basis for politics that they can only see competing identities, nothing else.



but despite all that being laid out in the OP, here we are, 21 pages later and the same stuff is being said back.

identitypolitics leads to some really shitty outcomes. Couple of days ago on twitter saw Owen Jones was talking about Labour targetting Amber Rudd in the next GE, as she has a majority of around 300, and being told that he's not progressive because he's saying labour should target a women. Never mind that she's a tory in one of the most marginal seats in the country. 

It's privileging one identity above all others, it's so far away from intersectionalism, it's sometimes bizarre that that's where this started. Personally I've got a problem with politics that say we should elect tories because they are women/poc/etc. That's not because I don't think we should be electing more minorities, or because I want to deny minorities a view or because I'm unconcerned about discrimination, it's because tories will fuck us over because they are tories. I'm not going to campaign to get tories with mental health issues elected, though I like to see MPs open about such things and think that it would be good to have MPs who've personally experienced the underfunded mess that is the NHS mental health services (no disrespect to the people who work in this but they are madly overworked and underresourced and undersupported) I would never support the election of an MP who will seek to privatise and defund the NHS because they are a tory.


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 10, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> i have followed most of the threads on here, and i'm still little the wiser as to what 'identity politics' means (or whether it's like 'political correctness' and is just a phrase used to try and shut minorities up) or whether i support it or not.



How can you not understand it?
Do you understand how white supremacy isn’t a thing (or could be one, if we divide by identities)? 
Then you understand it ffs.


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## ManchesterBeth (Oct 10, 2017)

Tom A said:


> I know that. However there are those who, whilst still have issues with gaining equality with the rest of society, have it much, much better than they had it 30, 20, or even 10 years ago, and will probably have it even better still 10 years from now. However there is a strand of IDpol which basically says that everyone not in the in-group is participating, consciously or otherwise, in a conspiracy to keep them down, and this will only end when they achieve some abstract notion of 'liberation'. That is what my comment was aimed at.



I think any kind of conspiritorial talk is suspect, not just from idpolitikers - and of course in its most overt and nastiest form it can directly be a tool of antisemitism, islamophobia, resurgent fascism and antiblackness (though I concede I'm not as knowledgeable on that one...) I think this is the way to challenge such things. Of 
course the problem is despite thinking we live in a liberal tolerant society these attitudes boil under and from my own perspective as a visually impaired child of immigrants (admittedly from a now upwardly mobile middle class family) the general insulation of post-1980s immigrants creates this weird kind of double consciousness where you might be labourite in the UK because they tend to be less overtly islamophobic but as concerns back home, it is nationalism as usual. When said countries foster these methods of conspiritorial thinking for their own interests it becomes a ballache and a half presenting anything counter to that. I think with my generation, the post-2010s university generation that is, they feel estranged (rightly) from their parents still latent 'make enough money and then return/invest back home' perspective but heavy atomisation means that they see the way to approach politics as the outsider. There's a difference ime between that and blatant careerists who you get in unis. I mean, do we approve of blatantly entryist Oxbridge trotskyists who say nice things about workers and freedom of movement but then remain utterly silent when labour councils like haringey and Lewisham sell off public housing? When it was under labour rule that atos work capability assessments were established (and predecessor the benefits integrity project of 98.) When it was the lp that were the flag bearer of detention centres. Personally, Give me someone who is just a pissed off non-white person over these sorts of hacks any day (and i fully acknowledge that PoC is more a sociological category than a meaningfully political one...)




Tom A said:


> If people are not able to make use of those rights (and I consider the latter three to be of great importance), then they essentially they do not have them, regardless of whatever words appear in the statue books. Therefore the fight for said rights needs to continue.



Glad we agree on that.



Tom A said:


> I personally think that capitalism is going to be around in one form or another for some time to come, and the best I feel I can do is try and force capitalism to take a slightly less nasty form than it is presently. I certainly have long stopped believing that we can have a "revolution" as one single event to wipe the slate clean and then it's socialism from there on in.



Who argues this? Revolutions, like class are messy, contradictory affairs that whilst being cataclysmic aren't just some neat godly providence of history affair where we achieve the kingdom of heaven. I don't think anyone has argued that capitalism won't be around for a while.


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## ManchesterBeth (Oct 10, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> How can you not understand it?
> Do you understand how white supremacy isn’t a thing (or could be one, if we divide by identities)?
> Then you understand it ffs.



What? Don't you think there are material antagonisms in the proletariat? Between skilled and unskilled, between new immigrants and established immigrants and natives, between the waged and the wageless? between the precarious and the aspirationally bourgeois and pb? don't give me that oh it's a ruling class conspiracy plz.

Sorry if i read your post wrong but you don't need to subscribe to identity politics to acknowledge the existence of white supremacy.


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 10, 2017)

dialectician said:


> What? Don't you think there are material antagonisms in the proletariat? Between skilled and unskilled, between new immigrants and established immigrants and natives, between the waged and the wageless? between the precarious and the aspirationally bourgeois and pb? don't give me that oh it's a ruling class conspiracy plz.
> 
> Sorry if i read your post wrong but you don't need to subscribe to identity politics to acknowledge the existence of white supremacy.



Perhaps you could explain why you don’t think skin colour is an identity that some people seek to organise around politically instead of talking about antagonisms within the proletariat?


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## ManchesterBeth (Oct 10, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Perhaps you could explain why you don’t think skin colour is an identity that some people seek to organise around politically instead of talking about antagonisms within the proletariat?



Because it isn't solely about pigmentation is it? In the united states for instance, Asian indicates East Asian. Everyone else on the asian continent is .. technically white.

To complicate matters, you will have pale middle easterners, south asians, white skinned black mixed race, etc. All of these are subsumed under the category of People of Colour.

To complicate things even further, you will have a division between african american blacks and african blacks, the caribbean, and as a friend told me last year, between say the Nubian predominantly islamic regions and cultures, and west Africa. What we're talking about here are myriad histories, patterns of immigration and migration.

So I don't understand your point if I'm being honest.

And of course those antagonisms are relevant, it's not a question of me moralising, it's the whole deal of social production essential to class analysis.


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## BigTom (Oct 10, 2017)

dialectician said:


> Because it isn't solely about pigmentation is it? In the united states for instance, Asian indicates East Asian. Everyone else on the asian continent is .. technically white.
> 
> To complicate matters, you will have pale middle easterners, south asians, white skinned black mixed race, etc. All of these are subsumed under the category of People of Colour.
> 
> ...



His point, i think, is that white supremacism is identitypolitics and that any politics which lends itself so wholely to white supremacist positions is clearly wrong.

And i would agree, the alt right & mra are part of a world of identitypolitics, and it's a red flag to me that the idpol analysis of the world can lead to such outcomes. Fascism has borrowed from socialism before but not in such a wholesale way


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## ManchesterBeth (Oct 10, 2017)

BigTom said:


> His point, i think, is that white supremacism is identitypolitics and that any politics which lends itself so wholely to white supremacist positions is clearly wrong.
> 
> And i would agree, the alt right & mra are part of a world of identitypolitics, and it's a red flag to me that the idpol analysis of the world can lead to such outcomes. Fascism has borrowed from socialism before but not in such a wholesale way



Oh, yes, I can see that now.

I would agree with that but i would also add that in liberal circles there is often this kind of muted dialogue of white people - how do we deal with our BAME friends/coworkers/etc? and hackshot articles in places like the grauniad which are just so obviously rooted in racism as a consumer choice Which is very dangerous to seeing us as untamed animals even if the intentions are well meaning. It kind of rehashes 19th c victorian conceptions of race to the 21st c. If you're not a well meaning (ugh fuck it can't think of a better term) liberal its not hard to extrapolate from that to construct a white identity.

I think spiney upthread had the best post on the subject.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 10, 2017)

Puddy_Tat said:


> i have followed most of the threads on here, and i'm still little the wiser as to what 'identity politics' means (or whether it's like 'political correctness' and is just a phrase used to try and shut minorities up) or whether i support it or not.
> 
> if it's believing that people who are in a minority are entitled to a view, to challenge discrimination, and to put that view across themselves rather than wait for the 'mainstream' to put it across for them, then maybe i am...


For my part I think most posts on this thread have been pretty clear what they are talking about and with people giving numerous examples but you disagree - ok fine enough then why don't you tell us exactly* what* you find unclear so we can explain it better.

Asking people to explain further is no problem, but making the sort of vague accusation that you do in your second paragraph is just rubbish. No-one has said anything to that would imply the contrary position, so it just comes across as you have not bothered to read the thread properly.


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## redsquirrel (Oct 10, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Yeah Impasse is a fair word, i never disagreed on that. Maybe I wasn't clear. Yes, with certain people and at certain times theres an impasse. I was saying I've not experienced these extreme cases (where dialogue is shut down) of essentialist identity politics personally or first hand, maybe as I'm not on twitter or at university! Seems to me thats where this really plays out.


Does U75 not count as first hand? There's a least one poster that uses the (racist) denominator 'white working class', I can give multiple examples of people being called racists for criticising liberal/social democratic politics from the left, there was the casual dismissal of those who voted Leave in the EU referendum as racists.

If we want to go further afield then look at how identitypolitics was used to attack Sanders/Corbyn/Melachon.

EDIT: In fact this piece today is perfect example of both how dominant identitypolitics has become and how harmful it is.



> Let’s free education from the hands of the stale, pale male


We have a headline that immediately places identity at the front, despite the fact that the piece itself makes a very different argument. However, while the arguments in the piece are a lot less stupid than the headline there's still this


> It would take a bold politician to do it, but what if she or he committed to a cross-party group to look at the evidence and solutions on the most intractable issues, such as white British underachievement, and then implement the findings?


again no mention of class but race dead centre. Another example of the class being racialised.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 10, 2017)

ska invita said:


> this is a post responding to Danny really, and moved over from conversation on the LGBT forum? thread, as its a bit of a derail from there I think, and as Danny quotes a post from this thread.


Thanks for taking the time to reply.

For those not following the cross-thread discussion, the post I was responding to was this:



ska invita said:


> Danny's ID thread talks about an impasse. I haven't really experienced this impasse in the real world, but based on testimony it seems one of the key dynamics of the impasse is people with oppression experiences being told they're doing it wrong by people who aren't experiencing those things, and vice versa. That dynamic seems to be at the heart of the problem and breaks down dialogue and respect. If you want to see an end to that impasse please cut out this Us v Them crap. Its divisive and comes across as patronising and self-aggrandising IMO.





> I was saying I've not experienced these extreme cases (where dialogue is shut down) of essentialist identity politics personally or first hand, maybe as I'm not on twitter or at university! Seems to me thats where this really plays out.


Well, in the post I linked you to, "Case 3" was one from my own experience (in the real world pre-Twitter, and not at university).  

This is what I said:  




			
				danny la rouge said:
			
		

> On and off for many years I was involved in disability activism. However, in the early ‘00s, in a group I was involved in, some members started to challenge whether I was “really” disabled. These were people with physical disabilities who didn’t see mental ill-health as a “proper” disability. People I’d known for years started referring to me as “the TAB man”, and challenge my right to speak at meetings. “Will the TAB* man stop speaking?” And so on. (*temporarily able bodied). They were trying to split into ever smaller interest groups, and saw “their” section of the existing group as having competing interests to “my” section. This is a group where six people at a meeting was a great turnout. I left, but it also shook my confidence at the time. I was questioning whether I _had _been dominating meetings, whether I had the right to call myself disabled, and so on. It wasn’t pleasant at all. But the saddest thing is that a group that was already tiny was making itself smaller and cutting itself off even from alliances that had founded the group! This same tendency could be seen in the recent thread about feminists and trans women.
> 
> If we do that, if we retreat into mutually suspicious ghettos, we weaken any capacity for fightback. If we see all outsiders as oppressors, and _disallow_ them, then how do we win them over? If only the “right” people can be pure fighters against disablism (or transphobia, sexism, racism or whatever), then how can it ever be defeated?



My question is whether you'd say my criticism of that group counts as "people with oppression experiences being told they're doing it wrong by people who aren't experiencing those things"?  And the supplementary question is if not, _who_ gets to criticise it?  Only me?  Only disabled people?  Only people who can lay claim to some sort of "badge of resistance" from somewhere on the "wheel of oppression", with the criticism being more credible the closer it sits to 6 o'clock?  

This was the point of my raising what you call "case 1".  It's the logic behind essentialism.  If you say that by being white you bear responsibility for slavery, then it follows that by being mixed race you sometimes do.  



> Theres a self-righteousness thats being associated with the shit side of ID politics that seems to me to be part of a wider pattern of recent behaviour


I agree.  But I think it's a bit more than just earnest moral-high-ground-ism, I think it's directly related to essentialism and especially to biological essentialism, as described elsewhere in this thread.  It is a reactionary ideology; an ideology of the far right.  



> case 2, i can see both sides and think people should have talked directly with her on twitter first rather than argue on urban about it.



Well, urban, being in the world as it is today, sometimes discusses what people have said on twitter, from Donald Trump to Penny Laurie.  If you're saying that anyone with any views on those things should only ever take them up with the person in question and on twitter, then a lot of newspaper, journal and blog copy would be wiped out over night.  (And I'd have some sympathy with the ruling!).  But what happened was that the tweet was quoted approvingly on urban by an urbanite.  I don't think it was out of order for other posters to enquire as to why they approved of it.



> You are able to sympathise with it


What I was specifically sympathising with was the argument that we need to hear more diverse voices. I'm sympathising with where this was coming from in the first place. What I'm saying, though, is that there are better ways to do that than where we've ended up; that we've been led down a dead end into actually reactionary politics, albeit as the long term result of what were initially decent motivations.


----------



## doodlelogic (Oct 10, 2017)

Feminists* would say, correctly, that equality and freedom from exploitation can only be achieved in a feminist context; otherwise any left approach will necessarily exclude 50% of the population.

Socialists would say, correctly, that women's equality and liberation cannot be achieved solely by equal opportunities with men; that would leave exploited women in this country and round the world (classic example is the liberation of professional women via hiring migrant cleaners). So a class context is essential to any effective (i.e. radical) feminist approach. Radical feminism holds out the prospect of a better life for men, too: "we do not wish to liberate women only to lead the lives of unfree men".

Modern identity politics generally seeks to synthesise these strands through intersectionality - the recognition that while groups are mostly focussed on sectional objectives; they will only be effective for all (and not just the more privileged within their group) if they take into account multiple overlapping schisms in society.

*This probably holds for most disadvantaged groups, but no-one likes a monster post.


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## doodlelogic (Oct 10, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> that we've been led down a dead end into actually reactionary politics



Agree 100% that this is the risk with a multifactorial approach.  Divide and rule, set blacks against whites, men against women, some disabled people against other disabled people and no-one achieves anything.  There has to be unity and solidarity to get things done.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 10, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Does U75 not count as first hand? There's a least one poster that uses the (racist) denominator 'white working class', I can give multiple examples of people being called racists for criticising liberal/social democratic politics from the left, there was the casual dismissal of those who voted Leave in the EU referendum as racists.
> 
> If we want to go further afield then look at how identitypolitics was used to attack Sanders/Corbyn/Melachon.
> 
> ...



On a similar note...I have been thinking about how the publishing of this report/data will be used given that TM is positioning herself as some kind of champion of anti-discrimination.

Theresa May vows to tackle race divide after report reveals extent of UK's racial inequality


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## butchersapron (Oct 10, 2017)

doodlelogic said:


> Feminists* would say, correctly, that equality and freedom from exploitation can only be achieved in a feminist context; otherwise any left approach will necessarily exclude 50% of the population.


That would depend on the content of that feminism surely? There clearly is a strand that believes that legal equality alone is feminism and that this is possible under capitalism - even that capitalism is best situated (or solely situated ) to provide this.


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## doodlelogic (Oct 10, 2017)

Yes, I agree that a radical feminist approach is required and a focus on legal equality alone is insufficient.


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## 19force8 (Oct 10, 2017)

doodlelogic said:


> Yes, I agree that a radical feminist approach is required and a focus on legal equality alone is insufficient.


When you say "a radical feminist approach is needed" do you mean Radical Feminism*? Or did you mean radical in the more general sense of progressive/positive?

I ask because RF is perhaps one of the more extreme examples of the identity politics problem this thread is talking about.

* Radical feminism - Wikipedia


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## doodlelogic (Oct 10, 2017)

Posts #626 and #627 make my views clear.  I don't like capitalised political terms with fixed meanings and I don't generally like the wiki pages that refer to them.  Life is more complex.


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## 19force8 (Oct 10, 2017)

doodlelogic said:


> Posts #626 and #627 make my views clear.  I don't like capitalised political terms with fixed meanings and I don't generally like the wiki pages that refer to them.  Life is more complex.


If they had I wouldn't have asked.


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## doodlelogic (Oct 10, 2017)

Thesis: Any effective socialism requires (is dependent on) women's liberation (for those who like to put things in boxes: radical feminism)

Antithesis: Any effective feminism requires (is dependent on) a class analysis (for those who like to put things in boxes: social feminism)

Synthesis: You need both. Setting one against the other means both fail.

Meta analysis: Boxes are not particularly useful. And that wiki article is crap.


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## Tom A (Oct 10, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Liberation is a word very common in '70s eg Gay Liberation, Womens Lib etc. Well before the concept of ID politics which I've only ever heard of recently and only ever here on Urban.


I am referring to how "liberation" is generally perceived by ID politckers today, in 2017. One of those words that has become somewhat stripped of its meaning over the years.



> Some of us can't wait for the complete overthow of the capitalist system before being granted the 'liberation' of not being sacked/arrested/ beaten up/ discriminated against.


I never said that. On the contrary, I acknowledge that the rights of oppressed groups need to be fought for in the here and now, not just waiting on some abstract 'revolution' to make it all disappear.



dialectician said:


> I think any kind of conspiritorial talk is suspect, not just from idpolitikers - and of course in its most overt and nastiest form it can directly be a tool of antisemitism, islamophobia, resurgent fascism and antiblackness (though I concede I'm not as knowledgeable on that one...) I think this is the way to challenge such things. Of
> course the problem is despite thinking we live in a liberal tolerant society these attitudes boil under and from my own perspective as a visually impaired child of immigrants (admittedly from a now upwardly mobile middle class family) the general insulation of post-1980s immigrants creates this weird kind of double consciousness where you might be labourite in the UK because they tend to be less overtly islamophobic but as concerns back home, it is nationalism as usual.


See also: The scandal regarding some Labour councillors and postal votes in various Asian communities (notably in Birmingham) a few years back.



> When said countries foster these methods of conspiritorial thinking for their own interests it becomes a ballache and a half presenting anything counter to that. I think with my generation, the post-2010s university generation that is, they feel estranged (rightly) from their parents still latent 'make enough money and then return/invest back home' perspective but heavy atomisation means that they see the way to approach politics as the outsider. There's a difference ime between that and blatant careerists who you get in unis. I mean, do we approve of blatantly entryist Oxbridge trotskyists who say nice things about workers and freedom of movement but then remain utterly silent when labour councils like haringey and Lewisham sell off public housing? When it was under labour rule that atos work capability assessments were established (and predecessor the benefits integrity project of 98.) When it was the lp that were the flag bearer of detention centres. Personally, Give me someone who is just a pissed off non-white person over these sorts of hacks any day (and i fully acknowledge that PoC is more a sociological category than a meaningfully political one...)


Until recently the  "traditional" left has been very slow to adapt to the realities of neoliberalism, applying tactics and implementing strategies that are stuck in the 70s, if not earlier, and tending to be oblivious to how things are now, and continuing to do things that way because "it's how we have always done this". This of course excludes all manner of people, and is almost inevitably dominated by white, middle-aged men. Whereas it takes say, for example, a "pissed-off non-white person" to be able to expose that and shake things up. Like you I get quite annoyed with "radical" left groups that talk the talk but don't walk the walk, and I am definitely up for holding dodgy Labour councils (or dodgy councils of any stripe) to account for their actions.



> Who argues this? Revolutions, like class are messy, contradictory affairs that whilst being cataclysmic aren't just some neat godly providence of history affair where we achieve the kingdom of heaven. I don't think anyone has argued that capitalism won't be around for a while.


I am harking back to earlier days on these boards, where "revolutionaries" were much more vocal, and I had started to go right off the idea - and a lot of my political beliefs of now would have been dismissed as "reformist" by many on here in the past. Old habits die hard.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 14, 2017)

ska invita - Cross posted from the clusterfuck that is the 'Cis' thread so that it's not buried in the heap of shit that is that thread.


ska invita said:


> Agree, and thats the thing, for me the term Identity Politics <snip>- its a word that broadly categorises a range of liberation/anti-oppression struggles.


OK, why do you think this? Personally I don't think that's an accurate summary of identitypolitics. But regardless, poster after poster has repeatedly said that that *isn't* what they are talking about when they talk about identitypolitics, moreover it quite clearly *isn't* what the OP is referring to. A well known book extract containing Humpty Dumpty springs to mind.



ska invita said:


> Agree, and thats the thing, for me the term Identity Politics is not a bad thing, in most cases its a good thing* - its a word that broadly categorises a range of liberation/anti-oppression struggles.
> 
> But within that there are a whole subset of negative *behaviours* which some people project on to identity politics in all cases. Using Cis as an insult is one such negative *behaviour*. The gender-politics it comes from is a positive thing.


But the criticisms on this thread, and others, aren't just directed at the behaviours, they are directed at the ideology, the whole political approach. The fact is that _identitypoiltics_ is a political approach that some of us, as socialists/communists/anarchists, consider fundamentally at odds with a class based political approach. Now you may think we are wrong but people quite clearly are not just talking about behaviours. Re-read the OP it is talking about a political ideology.

You've said that you consider _identitypolitics_ a good thing, ok then I'll ask you the question that's been asked repeatedly across a number of threads and never received an answer


> Can class and ID politics actually be allied? They seem to offer two very different ways of viewing the world, and two very different solutions.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 14, 2017)

Should probably add that by _allied_ I'm talking about allied on a fundamental, ideological level.

Of course it's perfectly possibly for me to work alongside someone from a liberal identitypolitics position on a single issue campaign (improving safety on campus at night for example), just as it's perfectly possible for me to work alongside a conservative on particular campaigns (e.g. keeping a local library open).

But in the grand scheme of things I see class politics and identitypolitcs in opposition.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

I'm really curious about what people think of this from twitter today.  'Progressive Stacking' sounds like a pretty shit idea to me.  This is an Ivy League University so there may be people in the class who are POC and still privileged.  There could be white people in the class with less visible disadvantages like mental health problems who'd also like to be called on so they can get involved in discussion.  I'm a graduate student in the UK and there are tons of international students with darker skin who are way more privileged than me.  To me this seems like really shit politics and while she may have been dogpiled by nazis I don't think you have to be a nazi to see this as shit politics.


----------



## chilango (Oct 19, 2017)

Never heard it described as pedagogical before.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

chilango said:


> Never heard it described as pedagogical before.



Really adds legitimacy don't you think


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

Annoyingly all the comments on twitter calling this out are conservatives celebrating over this 'marxist' getting her comeuppance.  How in the fuck is she a marxist when this is clear id-pol liberalism?  Even the accounts supporting her view themselves as marxist yet they support this liberal nonsense.  These are popular accounts on 'lefty' twitter.


----------



## camouflage (Oct 19, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Annoyingly all the comments on twitter calling this out are conservatives celebrating over this 'marxist' getting her comeuppance.  How in the fuck is she a marxist when this is clear id-pol liberalism?  Even the accounts supporting her view themselves as marxist yet they support this liberal nonsense.  These are popular accounts on 'lefty' twitter.



Didn't you get the memo? Wealthy elitists are "left-wing" now, contempt for the working class and racist/sexist solutions to racist/sexist problems is the new solidarity.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

camouflage said:


> Didn't you get the memo? Wealthy elitists are "left-wing" now, contempt for the working class and racist/sexist solutions to racist/sexist problems is the new solidarity.



Honestly, I was very resistant to accept this as a problem for quite a while.  I genuinely believed that the idea of the 'SJW' was a successful construct by conservatives to make the left look bad.  I'd argue that conservatives are selecting and promoting the most stupid examples of left-liberalism they can find, while ignoring the more sensible and balanced views.  

It's taken me a while to realise how insidious these problems on the left are and the scale of the problem.  Sure, it isn't 'crazy SJW's' who literally want to kill all men... but the sort of stuff in this tweet about how all white people are privileged is so commonplace and harmful, I can't even begin to defend it now.  They give the right a really easy target and completely divide the left at the same time.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> I'm really curious about what people think of this from twitter today.  'Progressive Stacking' sounds like a pretty shit idea to me.  This is an Ivy League University so there may be people in the class who are POC and still privileged.  There could be white people in the class with less visible disadvantages like mental health problems who'd also like to be called on so they can get involved in discussion.  I'm a graduate student in the UK and there are tons of international students with darker skin who are way more privileged than me.  To me this seems like really shit politics and while she may have been dogpiled by nazis I don't think you have to be a nazi to see this as shit politics.
> 
> View attachment 118188 View attachment 118189 View attachment 118190 View attachment 118191



1. The ways her classrooms are managed are her decisions to make.

2. If there is a real problem with underrepresentation of certain groups in classroom discussion, then she has every right to take steps to address that.

3. You may be in the UK, but she's not - she's in a rather more fucked up part of the world.

4. Even if her politics are shit, she's still worth a hundred of the Nazi scum who have attacked her (and other scholars) and the rotten administration who threw her to the wolves.

5. Like I just said, she and other scholars are being deliberately hounded by the far-right - and I don't believe this is an accident, and I don't believe that there is no strategy behind this. Maybe her politics are piss-poor US liberalism, but she still should be defended against the scum of the alt-right, as should even a self-indulgent dickhead like George Ciccarello-Maher.

6. In short, I disagree with you entirely. That's what I think of this latest missive from the burning rubbish tip that is Chitter.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 19, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Honestly, I was very resistant to accept this as a problem for quite a while.  I genuinely believed that the idea of the 'SJW' was a successful construct by conservatives to make the left look bad.


 It is and was. I think you might be conflating a few things here.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> It is and was. I think you might be conflating a few things here.


I have to agree. However annoying, self-indulgent and just plain wrong so-called "SJWs" (and why do we have to adopt this things from the US anyway?) they're to be defended against the brownshirts.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> 1. The ways her classrooms are managed are her decisions to make.
> 
> 2. If there is a real problem with underrepresentation of certain groups in classroom discussion, then she has every right to take steps to address that.
> 
> ...



Fair enough appreciate the counterpoints. I'd definitely take a wooly liberal over a literal Nazi any day but I still think her politics are awful. I don't get how calling on POC specifically is helpful over calling on people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or people with mental health issues who may also be underrepresented. I had a look through her old tweets and she literally says all white people are racist and this is an unavoidable fact. I can't find much common ground with that.


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2017)

I see in the Pink News awards last night, Theresa May gave a speech, and an award for inclusivity was given to GCHQ (other contenders for that particular award included the British army).


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Fair enough appreciate the counterpoints. I'd definitely take a wooly liberal over a literal Nazi any day but I still think her politics are awful. I don't get how calling on POC specifically is helpful over calling on people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or people with mental health issues who may also be underrepresented. I had a look through her old tweets and she literally says all white people are racist and this is an unavoidable fact. I can't find much common ground with that.


Her tweets are protected. . . so how'd you manage that, then?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> It is and was. I think you might be conflating a few things here.



It's because I used to believe this that I've been so dismayed to see for myself the prevalence of this type of thing. Of course the right select the absolute extreme worst examples but even the everyday id-pol stuff is far more widespread than I believed. You can't talk some neutrals round to lefty politics now because they think it's all identity shit. Apols for awful phrase SJW (which I hate) but that's the concept bandied about. What am I conflating?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Her tweets are protected. . . so how'd you manage that, then?



I follow her so maybe I can see them? I don't know. I put the username in the search bar and all previous tweets and mentions came up. Perhaps she changed settings since I looked but it was only a couple of hours ago.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

Anyway, here are some grown-up views:

Why institutions should shield academics who are being attacked by conservative groups (essay) | Inside Higher Ed


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## seventh bullet (Oct 19, 2017)

'Progressive stacking' is shit.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> 'Progressive stacking' is shit.


I thought you were all about the stacking.


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## seventh bullet (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> I thought you were all about the stacking.



Well, you're onto something because imagine if someone of my background had to suffer that crap? I feel sorry for poorer students she has contact with.  And after all these years you should by now know what I think of the middle classes, Idris, including yourself.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 19, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> But in the grand scheme of things I see class politics and identitypolitcs in opposition.


That's almost definitional, isn't it? Politics becomes id politics when it considers the cause of a particular group in a way that ignores the implications of looking at the structural issues of class that are also in play (are pretty much always in play). 

This shows the way out of the confusion that leads to thinking that any activism on behalf of a particular group must be indulging in id politics. _Only if they're doing it wrong_ is the potentially patronising answer. 

Here I have sympathy with ska - got to be very careful about telling people they're doing stuff wrong, but this works both ways. Notions of 'privilege' are relevant but need to be handled very carefully. As the cis word thread shows all too well, the word 'privilege' is a contentious one and can lead to extremely defensive positions being taken up by both sides. There is a rather depressing fog of mutual incomprehension on that thread. imo this fog tends to descend when people start confusing statements that are relevant to analysis at a class level (using 'class' to mean any specified group, not just economic/social class) for statements that can be applied unthinkingly to individuals.


----------



## Athos (Oct 19, 2017)

If Nazis are like the disease, liberals are like the well- meaning but woolly-minded antivaxers.

Whist the disease kills, the antivaxers facilitate a lot of those deaths.

But that doesn't mean I want antivaxers to be killed by disease. 

They're still fucking bellends, though.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Well, you're onto something because imagine if someone of my background had to suffer that crap? I feel sorry for poorer students she has contact with.  And after all these years you should by now know what I think of the middle classes, Idris, including yourself.


How do you know that the set of students prioritized by her stacking system didn't include poorer students?


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 19, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's almost definitional, isn't it? Politics becomes id politics when it considers the cause of a particular group in a way that ignores the implications of looking at the structural issues of class that are also in play (are pretty much always in play).


Well I think so but there are posters, like ska invita, that seem to either disagree and/or be in favour of both, and so presumably they don't see a opposition between the two. I'd like to hear their arguments.


----------



## seventh bullet (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> How do you know that the set of students prioritized by her stacking system didn't include poorer students?



Wasn't she specific about people of colour?  That could include people with diverse class backgrounds in itself but exclude others who might not have the same colour skin. Has progressive stacking come from a place of class analysis? I have only seen it when discussed here before, and examples of how it played out looked to be another way in which the deliberate exclusion or redefinition of class as a mere facet of a person's essentialised identity (which in itself is disturbing) helps to reinforce the dominance of the already privileged, including people of colour.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Wasn't she specific about people of colour?  That could include people with diverse class backgrounds in itself but exclude others who might not have the same colour skin. Has progressive stacking come from a place of class analysis? I have only seen it when discussed here before, and examples of how it played out looked to be another way in which the deliberate exclusion or redefinition of class as a mere facet of a person's essentialised identity (which in itself is disturbing) helps to reinforce the dominance of the already privileged, including people of colour.


However flawed her politics may be - and I never said they weren't - the fact remains she is one of at least two US scholars who have been targetted by the far-right, and who have been left in the lurch by their institutions. I don't think this is a coincidence, and I also think it's fucking moronic to think that the flaws in her politics are the key issue here when what's at stake is the ability of FUCKING NAZIS to affect the hiring and personnel policies of institutions.


----------



## bemused (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> How do you know that the set of students prioritized by her stacking system didn't include poorer students?



How did she stack them? Was their a questionnaire her students had to fill out? 

I'm not sure how they teach in the US, don't have have a relationship with their students that allows them to determine in the class if individuals need more space to express themselves?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

A good teacher would notice if a student doesn't seem confident chipping in and draw them into the discussion surely. Prioritising the input of certain students based on race is naive at best.

I do support her right not to be targeted by nazi scum. I don't support her actual views and practices.

I recall a sociology professor making a joke about wanting a white genocide a while back. Was targeted by the right in a similar fashion. At the time I defended him because obviously he's not being serious, he's satirising Nazi rhetoric. He was white himself. But it's still a stupid fucking joke for a professor to make publicly on twitter. Divisive and likely to turn at least some working class people off sociology. You can't expect everyone to be in on your knowing ironic middle class twitter banter.


----------



## chilango (Oct 19, 2017)

I wonder how a teacher using progressive stacking in a school class would go down with an Ofsted inspector?


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 19, 2017)

Yes, I don't think I'm as hostile to some on progressive stacking but I think there's a big difference between employing it in a voluntary (political) meeting and using it in a classroom.  

I mean one of the major problems I (and I know I'm not alone in this) is getting_ any_ students to speak up during lectures.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 19, 2017)

chilango said:


> I wonder how a teacher using progressive stacking in a school class would go down with an Ofsted inspector?


Dunno, but encouraging teachers to check themselves and the ways they interact with kids is valuable. Don't know how often it happens, but this is one of the reasons posited for why black boys specifically start to fail at school from age 7 onwards - the lack of attention from teachers, including the lack of being told off.

If these kinds of unconscious biases are there, they can only be solved by consciously trying to solve them. 

This stuff very easily becomes polarised. Progressive stacking is criticised and 'you should be colour-blind' is substituted. But it is very easy to think you're colour-blind when you're actually not.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

It's an ivy league uni they're not being left behind.


----------



## chilango (Oct 19, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Dunno, but encouraging teachers to check themselves and the ways they interact with kids is valuable. Don't know how often it happens, but this is one of the reasons posited for why black boys specifically start to fail at school from age 7 onwards - the lack of attention from teachers, including the lack of being told off.
> 
> If these kinds of unconscious biases are there, they can only be solved by consciously trying to solve them.
> 
> This stuff very easily becomes polarised. Progressive stacking is criticised and 'you should be colour-blind' is substituted. But it is very easy to think you're colour-blind when you're actually not.



Funnily enough I went to a class about teachers’ unconscious biases just the other day....


----------



## chilango (Oct 19, 2017)

chilango said:


> Funnily enough I went to a class about teachers’ unconscious biases just the other day....



...and in a couple of moments I’m off to one about class being a major factor in educational attainment!


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Oct 19, 2017)

I would have thought that the far right would rub their hands in glee at idpol being used in teaching tbh.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I would have thought that the far right would rub their hands in glee at idpol being used in teaching tbh.


Well, it appears that even an intergalactic megabrain such as yourself can be wrong.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Well, it appears that even an intergalactic megabrain such as yourself can be wrong.



Is there any need to be rude? In other news recently:

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/wh...lam-leader-louis-farrakhans-black-separatism/


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 19, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Is there any need to be rude? In other news recently:
> 
> https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/wh...lam-leader-louis-farrakhans-black-separatism/



Yes, there is.

As for Farrakahn, he heads off a mighty army of about. . . five thousand.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Yes, there is.
> 
> As for Farrakahn, he heads off a mighty army of about. . . five thousand.



The point is they’re cut from the same cloth.


----------



## seventh bullet (Oct 19, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> However flawed her politics may be - and I never said they weren't - the fact remains she is one of at least two US scholars who have been targetted by the far-right, and who have been left in the lurch by their institutions. I don't think this is a coincidence, and I also think it's fucking moronic to think that the flaws in her politics are the key issue here when what's at stake is the ability of FUCKING NAZIS to affect the hiring and personnel policies of institutions.



I am supporting Nazis.  Nope.

Stop being in a huff because I thought you were a wanker way back when and you didn't twig on.


----------



## Athos (Oct 19, 2017)

.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 19, 2017)

Athos said:


> ,..


I think that you probably didn't mean to post that on this thread Athos


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Oct 19, 2017)




----------



## Athos (Oct 19, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Think that you probably didn't mean to post that on this thread Athos



No, I did't.   Thanks.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 19, 2017)

chilango said:


> Never heard it described as pedagogical before.



Coming back to this, her followers/supporters are scrambling around trying (and failing) to find ad hoc evidence this is a legit pedagogical technique.

Not meaning to single this twitter account out specifically so I'll try to leave it alone.  It's only so annoying because it's part of a wider trend of people who think and act like this to the detriment of the left in general.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Oct 19, 2017)

what do the tweets say? they are all images.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 20, 2017)

dialectician  Its too much to type out word for word, but the tweets are by someone called Spookanie@McKellogs. Key bits are
"The University of Pennsylvania is issuing a press release condemning me and my teaching practices"
"I tweeted about evening the disparities in the classroom with a pedagogical technique called progressive stacking"
"Because this involves calling on Black students more than white men the white nationalists and Nazis were very upset"
"The engaged in doxing &I have screenshots of every stage of their mission that they tweeted publicly, to dogpile the uni saing I'm racist"
She gave Penn admin these screenshots.
"Penn thinks I'm racist and discriminatory towards my students for using a very well worn pedagogical tactic which includes calling on POC"


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 20, 2017)

I don't get how it's doxing when she tweets under her real name (currently adjusted slightly for halloween) with her occupation and location in the bio.

Somebody else annoyed me on twitter because they teach at a further education college which is mainly attended by working class students and she was joking about how white men need to go in the bin ha ha.  You just wonder if she takes this humour into the classroom or if her students see her twitter.  Many of them will be young white men less privileged than herself.  Somebody called her out and she blocked them then all her friends all rallied round to tell her she's in the right because it's just a joke.

Academic twitter has been a great disappointment to me, too many middle class dicks blind to their own class privilege.


----------



## inva (Oct 20, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Academic twitter has been a great disappointment to me, too many middle class dicks blind to their own class privilege.


i'm shocked


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Somebody else annoyed me on twitter because they teach at a further education college which is mainly attended by working class students and she was joking about how white men need to go in the bin ha ha.  You just wonder if she takes this humour into the classroom or if her students see her twitter.  Many of them will be young white men less privileged than herself.  Somebody called her out and she blocked them then all her friends all rallied round to tell her she's in the right because it's just a joke.


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

...and if you're going to "progressive stack" to address this stat then you'd be starting with "White British Boys".


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## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> ...and if you're going to "progressive stack" to address this stat then you'd be starting with "White British Boys".


Hmmm. Yes. A discussion of something in America should start by addressing a British-related statistic. Hmmm. Yes.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 20, 2017)

People conflate US issues and UK issues all the time, especially wrt 'race'


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## xenon (Oct 20, 2017)

#killallacademics


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## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Hmmm. Yes. A discussion of something in America should start by addressing a British-related statistic. Hmmm. Yes.



I'm addressing the idea that progressive stacking is a "very well worn pedagogical tactic" and, note, in reply to AllEternalsHeck 's reference to another (UK based I think judging by the reference to FE) educator's twitter post about "white men".


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

...and Idris2002 _if_ progressive stacking is a valid "pedagogical tactic" in the US, why shouldn't it be in England?


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> ...and Idris2002 _if_ progressive stacking is a valid "pedagogical tactic" in the US, why shouldn't it be in England?


Where did I say I thought it was valid?


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Where did I say I thought it was valid?



Do you?


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## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> Do you?


Have I stopped beating my wife, you mean?


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Have I stopped beating my wife, you mean?



Do you agree with her assertion that progressive stacking is "a very well worn pedagogical tactic"?

That's the aspect of this issue that I'm posting about.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> View attachment 118287


Need a bit more info to make proper sense of that. If the overall percentage of 'White British' that are eligible for free school meals is lower than that for some of the other groups, we may have a correlation/causation problem.


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Need a bit more info to make proper sense of that. If the overall percentage of 'White British' that are eligible for free school meals is lower than that for some of the other groups, we may have a correlation/causation problem.



Indeed. I think we're always going to run into problematic ground when trying to slice up cohorts like this.


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## mojo pixy (Oct 20, 2017)

When I was working as a teacher I quickly realised that some students answered more readily than others, were more confident and articulate and able and willing. Consequently I would consciously ask the less confident students more questions and the more confident students less questions (as they would tend to answer anyway if no answer came from elsewhere)

A good teacher does this anyway IMO, I don't see why it should be racialised.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> Do you agree with her assertion that progressive stacking is "a very well worn pedagogical tactic"?
> 
> That's the aspect of this issue that I'm posting about.


And the aspect of the issue that I'm posting about is that a bunch of far-right scum appear to have been granted, on a plate, the power to influence hiring and firing at a United States university. They must be fukcing wanking themselves senseless over that one.

I don't think "progressive stacking" is a "very well worn pedagogical tactic". I do think it's a real attempt to deal with a real problem: and I think you've let your distaste for the liberal politics of those who adopt it blind you to something you ought to be a tad more concerned about.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> When I was working as a teacher I quickly realised that some students answered more readily than others, were more confident and articulate and able and willing. Consequently I would consciously ask the less confident students more questions and the more confident students less questions (as they would tend to answer anyway if no answer came from elsewhere)
> 
> A good teacher does this anyway IMO, I don't see why it should be racialised.


If it occurs in a racialised environment, like that in the United States, it will be racialised regardless of the intentions of those who do it.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> Indeed. I think we're always going to run into problematic ground when trying to slice up cohorts like this.



So it isn't necessarily a good example at all? Why post it then? I think you'd have left it to stand as 'evidence' without comment about potential problems if LBJ hadn't said anything.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> If it occurs in a racialised environment, like that in the United States, it will be racialised regardless of the intentions of those who do it.



Maybe, but that appears to be a post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc situation. A good teacher will be varying their engagement to take account of levels of confidence and willingness. Put it in racist terms and it looks like a race issue but that doesn't mean it actually is a race issue till some academic comes along and says it is.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 20, 2017)

One cannot just say "pedagogy" and expect that alone to give ones assertion validity. 

(In any case, I'd argue a university lecturer should be more concerned with andragogy).


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> And the aspect of the issue that I'm posting about is that a bunch of far-right scum appear to have been granted, on a plate, the power to influence hiring and firing at a United States university. They must be fukcing wanking themselves senseless over that one.
> 
> I don't think "progressive stacking" is a "very well worn pedagogical tactic". I do think it's a real attempt to deal with a real problem: and I think you've let your distaste for the liberal politics of those who adopt it blind you to something you ought to be a tad more concerned about.



I agree on both of those points. _Of course_ I'm concerned that the far-right are wielding power like this. But on a thread about "identity politics" it's not necessarily the aspect of this case that i want to dicsuss.

I also agree that progressive stacking is an attempt to deal with a real problem. I'm not sure it's the answer, nor am I sure that it's proponents have quite got the problem right. But that's open for discussion. Which is what I'm trying to do.


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> So it isn't necessarily a good example at all? Why post it then? I think you'd have left it to stand as 'evidence' without comment about potential problems if LBJ hadn't said anything.



Example of what? Evidence of what? 

It's merely an indicator of the difficulties in this kind of thing...


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Maybe, but that appears to be a post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc situation. A good teacher will be varying their engagement to take account of levels of confidence and willingness. Put it in racist terms and it looks like a race issue but that doesn't mean it actually is a race issue till some academic comes along and says it is.


Except in a highly racialised society like the United States.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> Example of what? Evidence of what?
> 
> It's merely an indicator of the difficulties in this kind of thing...



Oh come off it. You posted it without comment as some kind of POW evidence. You had no intention of pointing out the potential shortcomings


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Oh come off it. You posted it without comment as some kind of POW evidence. You had no intention of pointing out the potential shortcomings



You're a mind reader now? C'mon...


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> I also agree that progressive stacking is an attempt to deal with a real problem. I'm not sure it's the answer, nor am I sure that it's proponents have quite got the problem right. But that's open for discussion. Which is what I'm trying to do.




IME teachers/educators will use a variety of 'methods/approaches' in their teaching. Using a method doesn't necessarily mean the teacher believes said method alone if the overall  'answer'.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> I'm addressing the idea that progressive stacking is a "very well worn pedagogical tactic" and, note, in reply to AllEternalsHeck 's reference to another (UK based I think judging by the reference to FE) educator's twitter post about "white men".



Yeah you're right I was talking about a UK further education college.  US style idpol liberalism is widespread in the UK and the same flawed assumptions are equally damaging here.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 20, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> One cannot just say "pedagogy" and expect that alone to give ones assertion validity.
> 
> (In any case, I'd argue a university lecturer should be more concerned with andragogy).



To describe it as a 'well worn pedagogical technique'... then a few tweets later be like 'does anyone have any references I can use to prove this is evidence-based pedagogy'.  Begs the question why are you using it if you hadn't seen the evidence first (which doesn't actually seem to exist given some of the flimsy sources being provided).


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> Except in a highly racialised society like the United States.


Even in ivy league university classrooms? Everyone there has done very well at school. Most will have rich families. A small number will have done very very well at school and not have rich families, but they're all extremely unlikely to come from deprived backgrounds.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

Here in the UK, there is evidence the other way on this stuff as well - kids from state schools do better at uni than kids from private schools with the same A-level grades. Bristol uni did a big study on it - to predict degree class, you need to knock off a whole grade from a private school kid: three Bs equals on average three Cs from a state school kid. To me that is evidence that, at uni level at least, there is unlikely to be a need for progressive stacking - the relative privilege of the kids who were taught to the test at private schools is found out at university level, where they sink back.


----------



## xenon (Oct 20, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> When I was working as a teacher I quickly realised that some students answered more readily than others, were more confident and articulate and able and willing. Consequently I would consciously ask the less confident students more questions and the more confident students less questions (as they would tend to answer anyway if no answer came from elsewhere)
> 
> A good teacher does this anyway IMO, I don't see why it should be racialised.



Yep. I don't teach but train visually impaired adults. If I notice someone's being quiet, possibly strugglying, you spend more time with them. Hell, don't most of us do this in social settings too. If you know someone present is not known by the rest of the group try and involve them in the conversation a bit more etc.

I didn't know I was being pedagogwhatsit.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Here in the UK, there is evidence the other way on this stuff as well - kids from state schools do better at uni than kids from private schools with the same A-level grades. Bristol uni did a big study on it - to predict degree class, you need to knock off a whole grade from a private school kid: three Bs equals on average three Cs from a state school kid. To me that is evidence that, at uni level at least, there is unlikely to be a need for progressive stacking - the relative privilege of the kids who were taught to the test at private schools is found out at university level, where they sink back.


What's more likely? That a braying ponce like Toby Young is going to admit to himself "hey, I've been found out", and pull his neck in, or that he'll try even harder to throw his weight around in the classroom, in suitably braying tones?


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## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Here in the UK, there is evidence the other way on this stuff as well - kids from state schools do better at uni than kids from private schools with the same A-level grades. Bristol uni did a big study on it - to predict degree class, you need to knock off a whole grade from a private school kid: three Bs equals on average three Cs from a state school kid. To me that is evidence that, at uni level at least, there is unlikely to be a need for progressive stacking - the relative privilege of the kids who were taught to the test at private schools is found out at university level, where they sink back.


yeh. this would doubtless be the one reported in the oxford review of education a couple of years ago not conducted by anyone from bristol.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> What's more likely? That a braying ponce like Toby Young is going to admit to himself "hey, I've been found out", and pull his neck in, or that he'll try even harder to throw his weight around in the classroom, in suitably braying tones?


ask him to produce this study.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> ask him to produce this study.


Toby Young? I don't have his number.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> What's more likely? That a braying ponce like Toby Young is going to admit to himself "hey, I've been found out", and pull his neck in, or that he'll try even harder to throw his weight around in the classroom, in suitably braying tones?


As a result of that study, Bristol Uni intended to introduce a system that made different offers depending on the school you were coming from. There was _outrage _from certain quarters and I think they backed down. But what this result means is that if, let us say, a particular course requires three Bs, then the private school kids with three Bs will be in a classroom with, on average, significantly more able kids from state schools with three Bs. And those state school kids will go on to get better marks than them. No amount of braying saves them.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Even in ivy league university classrooms? Everyone there has done very well at school. Most will have rich families. A small number will have done very very well at school and not have rich families, but they're all extremely unlikely to come from deprived backgrounds.


Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you?

What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school? - The Boston Globe

The use of the progressive stack idea seems to be rooted in stuff bell hooks wrote about her experience as a student who was not only black but working class. In the hands of those who have taken it up, it seems to have been stripped of that class orientation.

The Critical Pedagogy Reader


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## DotCommunist (Oct 20, 2017)

its probably good practise in getting used to some middle class tosser assigning you a privilege quotient.


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## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh. this would doubtless be the one reported in the oxford review of education a couple of years ago not conducted by anyone from bristol.


It is always a mistake taking you off ignore. I thought you might have something useful to contribute on a thread like this, but no, you're just being your usual cuntish self and trying to put me down. The study I'm talking about was produced by Bristol Uni and the Sutton Trust in 2010. Look it up. 

Now back to ignore.


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## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As a result of that study, Bristol Uni intended to introduce a system that made different offers depending on the school you were coming from. There was _outrage _from certain quarters and I think they backed down. But what this result means is that if, let us say, a particular course requires three Bs, then the private school kids with three Bs will be in a classroom with, on average, significantly more able kids from state schools with three Bs. And those state school kids will go on to get better marks than them. *No amount of braying saves them*.



Hmmmm...no it may not save them but they were still called on more and seemingly favoured by tutors IME.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> View attachment 118287


The type of statistic that the BNP used to make hay. And as has been said, within the logical framework of identitypoltics it's hard to see how it can be argued against.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It is always a mistake taking you off ignore. I thought you might have something useful to contribute on a thread like this, but no, you're just being your usual cuntish self and trying to put me down. The study I'm talking about was produced by Bristol Uni and the Sutton Trust in 2010. Look it up.
> 
> Now back to ignore.


strange...nothing in association with bristol on the sutton research site Research Archives - Sutton Trust

but there is a study published in conjunction with nfer... is that the one you meant?

or is it this one by Anthony Hoare & Ron Johnston (2011) Widening participation through admissions policy – a British case study of school and university performance, Studies in Higher Education, 36:1, 21-41; both authors in the school of geographical sciences at bristol.

incidentally, littlebabyjesus, the article makes no mention of teaching to the test, despite your saying this was the case above. one cock-up after another 

good stuff, littlebabyjesus, put me on ignore so you don't have to face up to being caught out again


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 20, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> When I was working as a teacher I quickly realised that some students answered more readily than others, were more confident and articulate and able and willing. Consequently I would consciously ask the less confident students more questions and the more confident students less questions (as they would tend to answer anyway if no answer came from elsewhere)
> 
> A good teacher does this anyway IMO, I don't see why it should be racialised.


I largely agree with this but I do agree with LBJ that teachers/lecturers do need to be aware that despite their positive intentions they may have some unconscious biases.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Hmmmm...no it may not save them but they were still called on more and seemingly favoured by tutors IME.


The idea there being that a lazy tutor will favour the most confident students, I guess. My experience of uni is skewed by the fact that I went in my mid-20s. I found that those of us who were a bit older tended to be the ones who spoke up. We also tended to be the ones actually interested in the subject.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2017)

.


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## ska invita (Oct 20, 2017)

Sorry for slow response redsquirrel, not able to keep up with urban at the mo. Conversations like this have a lot of subtlety and take up a lot of time which I cant give right now to the back and forth.  Also I see things are moving on in the the thread, so sorry to jump back.
Anyhow:


redsquirrel said:


> ska invita - Cross posted from the clusterfuck that is the 'Cis' thread so that it's not buried in the heap of shit that is that thread.
> OK, why do you think this? Personally I don't think that's an accurate summary of identitypolitics.But regardless, poster after poster has repeatedly said that that *isn't* what they are talking about when they talk about identitypolitics, moreover it quite clearly *isn't* what the OP is referring to. A well known book extract containing Humpty Dumpty springs to mind.


My points in the Cis thread do not contradict what you are saying. Yes there is a problem about talking at cross purposes and terminology. My definition of Identity Politics is the one you will find in any political dictionary: a broad range of liberation/oppression struggles formed around personal experience/identity.

In the OP Danny tried to create a new term identitypolitics, which to me is for people who are involved in Identity Politics (dictionary definition) who have fallen into some shit behaviours, and in some cases may be as part of a deeper shit ideology as you suggest.

It was necessary to restate all that in the Cis thread because Uberdog (IIRC) was making a very good and not uncommon example of one the key areas of Impasse. Cis is a word that has arisen positively and necessarily from Gender Identity Politics. He was absolutely livid about being labeled in a way he previously hadn't (missing the irony that so much Identity Politics arises exactly from people having identities forced upon them by society). The anger in response to having to endure a new label quickly turned into a All Identity Politics is shit thrashing out. In the carnage of that I was trying to step back and redefine that it isn't all shit - far from it - as in that example of Cis arising from Gender Identity Politics. Its a good thing, its very useful to our understanding of gender and personal identity, and also the power dynamics around that.



redsquirrel said:


> You've said that you consider _identitypolitics_ a good thing, ok then I'll ask you the question that's been asked repeatedly across a number of threads and never received an answer


No you misunderstand me: to my mind Dannys run-on identitypolitics is a sin bin for all the shittest bits of Identity Politics. Im not defending that, Im in agreement a lot of the behaviours listed so far are problematic (exactly how common they are and where they take place is another matter).

Sometimes these shit behaviors might be the actualisation of a narrow, self-centered, no class/power-understanding ideology, but not always. Sometimes people haven't thought things through fully, or get wrapped up in cultures of their peers. Hard to talk about without concrete examples (of which there are nowhere near enough of on this thread I think).

The case I've been trying to make on this thread is to help get over the Impasse.
One part of that is to get away from the US vs Them, allergic reaction to anything to do with (dictionary definition) of Identity Politics, and make camps that alienate people doing good politics by stripping away any grey areas.

Related to that is to recognise that some of the things that come out of Identity Politics, or even identitypolitics, genuinely challenges us all, but especially challenge white well-educated cis men living in the country of their birth etc etc and not to dismiss that challenge outright with a cry of Class! Thats exactly what Uberdog did and its not uncommon. There is a reactionary side to the positive challenges of Identity Politics that needs critiquing too.

(sorry cant answer responses to this post as tied up for rest of the weekend now)


----------



## DotCommunist (Oct 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Thats exactly what Uberdog did and its not uncommon.


Das Uberdog provided people with an argument they wanted to have because he is a clown. 'this is the impasse' you said. Not really, its a ex swappie dick mouthing.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Here in the UK, there is evidence the other way on this stuff as well - kids from state schools do better at uni than kids from private schools with the same A-level grades. Bristol uni did a big study on it - to predict degree class, you need to knock off a whole grade from a private school kid: three Bs equals on average three Cs from a state school kid. To me that is evidence that, at uni level at least, there is unlikely to be a need for progressive stacking - the relative privilege of the kids who were taught to the test at private schools is found out at university level, where they sink back.





Pickman's model said:


> strange... it doesn't appear to be on the sutton trust website Research Archives - Sutton Trust
> 
> whch isn't surprising as it wasn't anything to do with the sutton trust and it wasn't 2010.
> 
> ...


I don't have time to read this myself unfortunately.

But I am curious. Was this result obtained by comparing students at the same university or at different universities? I assume it was just Bristol? I am wondering if those private school kids who don't make it to an elite uni are the ones who get out-performed.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2017)

emanymton said:


> I don't have time to read this myself unfortunately.
> 
> But I am curious. Was this result obtained by comparing students at the same university or at different universities? I assume it was just Bristol? I am wondering if those private school kids who don't make it to an elite uni are the ones who get out-performed.


it was just at bristol. when i was younger - and it may have changed now - bristol was famously the favoured destination of private school pupils rejected by oxford or cambridge. whether that has any bearing on the results, i don't know.


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## emanymton (Oct 20, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> it was just at bristol. when i was younger - and it may have changed now - bristol was famously the favoured destination of private school pupils rejected by oxford or cambridge. whether that has any bearing on the results, i don't know.


Ah thanks. I thought so. To be honest, I couldn't think we're Bristol was in the uni pecking order. I'm not sure still still tells us anything particularly interesting about students in general then.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 20, 2017)

I've spent a lot of time in university classrooms and never noticed any pattern that it is the white, male student who dominate discussion.  If I've noticed any pattern it's middle-class and posher students who seem to have more confidence in the importance of their contributions.  I've been in classes where people who'd be top of this progressive stack have dominated the discussion, just down to their individual personalities.

I've always had a difficult time joining in class discussions.  I have to psych myself up to say something.  I'd be at the bottom of the stack by their calculations.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

emanymton said:


> I don't have time to read this myself unfortunately.
> 
> But I am curious. Was this result obtained by comparing students at the same university or at different universities? I assume it was just Bristol? I am wondering if those private school kids who don't make it to an elite uni are the ones who get out-performed.


I read it years ago, and now can't find a link to the actual study. I have linked to it on here in the past, so that link will still be there hopefully. It is mentioned in this article, which cites similar studies that found similar results.

So to answer your question, yes, it was just Bristol Uni students, but similar results have been found elsewhere - at Cardiff and Oxford Brookes, so a bit of a range in terms of the institution's status. To my knowledge neither of the Oxbridge universities has done a study like this on themselves. If they have, I would be very interested to see it. My guess would be that they would follow a similar pattern to all the other places that have looked at this question. I see no particular reason why they wouldn't.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 20, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I would have thought that the far right would rub their hands in glee at idpol being used in teaching tbh.



They kind of are, as they can jump on examples like this and gleefully discredit the left as being anti-white etc.  I'm sure they are enjoying the opportunity.


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## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

My lecturer (the source of the graph I posted up thread as it happens) was talking about this last night. The idea being that given that "disadvantaged" pupils face obstacles all the way through their education journey  - from early years right up to Uni and beyond - any that make it into Uni will have had to struggle that bit harder, and prove themselves that bit more, at every step of the way than their more privileged counterparts.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 20, 2017)

I found at uni there are a lot of very average students from posh backgrounds.


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## ska invita (Oct 20, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> Das Uberdog provided people with an argument they wanted to have because he is a clown. 'this is the impasse' you said. Not really, its a ex swappie dick mouthing.


disagree - i think his reaction is not uncommon, even if expressed in different ways.

Lots of people don't like the challenge that Identity Politics can bring up. You could argue that a lot of the young alt-right/mens activist types are a reaction to the genuine challenges of ID politics, but that suggests its an issue only on the right. Challenging patriarchy/sexism/racism/transphobia and so on within the left can also creates some strong reactions, even if the response isn't as vocal .
Theres a dynamic going on where out of the current wave of wider identity politics challenges to power people are reacting negatively to that challenge, clawing back, and both sides can become entrenched in defensive positions.

Ultimately your argument DC is "hes just a dick mouthing off" - why not apply that to dickish identitypolitics people too? They're just dicks, lets ignore them to?


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2017)

emanymton said:


> Ah thanks. I thought so. To be honest, I couldn't think we're Bristol was in the uni pecking order. I'm not sure still still tells us anything particularly interesting about students in general then.


tbh there's lots it doesn't tell us. study after study demonstrates that spending time studying in the library improves degree performance, regardless of what sort of school you went to. do people who went to public schools use libraries less than their counterparts from state school backgrounds? are the people who go to the fortismeres of this world bumping up the state school stats? fortismere, in leafy muswell hill, does rather better at a level than many public schools. and eton, despite its eminence, doesn't do as much as you'd expect for the money to prepare its alumni academically, the social cachet of going there likely does rather more for them


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> My points in the Cis thread do not contradict what you are saying. Yes there is a problem about talking at cross purposes and terminology. My definition of Identity Politics is the one you will find in any political dictionary: a broad range of liberation/oppression struggles formed around personal experience/identity.
> 
> In the OP Danny tried to create a new term identitypolitics, which to me is for people who are involved in Identity Politics (dictionary definition) who have fallen into some shit behaviours, and in some cases may be as part of a deeper shit ideology as you suggest.


The definition that danny used in the OP is not new. It's one that critics of identity politics have been using for some time and is well recognised. I'd argue that you are the one using the term wrongly, see your previous confusion on this thread that struggles against racism/sexism are necessarily identitypolitics. But regardless within this thread identitypolitics has been defined.



ska invita said:


> No you misunderstand me: to my mind Dannys run-on identitypolitics is a sin bin for all the shittest bits of Identity Politics. Im not defending that, Im in agreement a lot of the behaviours listed so far are problematic (exactly how common they are and where they take place is another matter).


No you've misunderstood me (and others). I'm not talking about the "shit behaviours", I (and most of the other posters on the thread) are talking about the politic, the _ideology_ of identity politics. We, as socialists, consider it at best an insufficient analysis and at worst actively harmful.

You've claimed that identitypoitics is a positive thing, you also seem to think class politics is a good thing. Now many posters on this thread see the two in opposition (at the fundamental level). So I'm asking you if you disagree that that they are in opposition, and if so why?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> My lecturer (the source of the graph I posted up thread as it happens) was talking about this last night. The idea being that given that "disadvantaged" pupils face obstacles all the way through their education journey  - from early years right up to Uni and beyond - any that make it into Uni will have had to struggle that bit harder, and prove themselves that bit more, at every step of the way than their more privileged counterparts.



This is why I didn't agree with littlebabyjesus earlier with regard the 'levelling' once at Uni.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> This is why I didn't agree with littlebabyjesus earlier with regard the 'levelling' once at Uni.


I think there are a few strands to this, one of which is the kind of education offered at many private schools. The schools stand or fall on their exam results, generally, and the numbers they get into university. That's what the parents are paying for - to sharp-elbow their kids to the front of the queue. So they get the results but not the education, and they are then found out at university level, where they can no longer be spoon-fed and taught to the test.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 20, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> The definition that danny used in the OP is not new. It's one that critics of identity politics have been using for some time and is well recognised. I'd argue that you are the one using the term wrongly, see your previous confusion on this thread that struggles against racism/sexism are necessarily identitypolitics. But regardless within this thread identitypolitics has been defined.
> 
> No you've misunderstood me (and others). I'm not talking about the "shit behaviours", I (and most of the other posters on the thread) are talking about the politic, the _ideology_ of identity politics. We, as socialists, consider it at best an insufficient analysis and at worst actively harmful.
> 
> You've claimed that identitypoitics is a positive thing, you also seem to think class politics is a good thing. Now many posters on this thread see the two in opposition (at the fundamental level). So I'm asking you if you disagree that that they are in opposition, and if so why?


youre misinterpreting my position, i hope not willfully.
the behaviours are listed in this thread. they clearly are behaviours in that they are not true of all people active within an area of identity politics

Is the bit of Gender Identity Politics that came up with the word Cis in opposition to class politics? I say no. Its clear to me it a positive thing. Is it Identity Politics? 100%. You cant get more politics dealing with identity than that. Does everyone involved in Gender Identity Politics think that "the most oppressed person in the room knows the most about fighting oppression" or "that you know how 'oppressed' someone is by their stated identity (even worse, it sometimes comes down to their visible identity) ". No. These are the behaviours of a subset of people. How big this group is, and where they go on with themselves, Ive no idea as Ive never actually experienced it happening.

Really out now.


----------



## DotCommunist (Oct 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> disagree - i think his reaction is not uncommon, even if expressed in different ways.
> 
> Lots of people don't like the challenge that Identity Politics can bring up. You could argue that a lot of the young alt-right/mens activist types are a reaction to the genuine challenges of ID poltiics, but that suggests itsan issue only on the right. Challenging patriarchy/sexism/racism/transphobia and so on within the left can also creates some strong reactions, even if the response isn't as vocal .
> Theres a dynamic going on where out of the current wave of wider identity politics challenges to power people are reacting negatively to that challenge, clawing back, and both sides can become entrenched in defensive positions.
> ...


my point was that you chose to address DA's arguments as 'the impasse' on a frankly shit thread- where it was pointed out to him that he was using identitarian arguments to make a tit of himself while ostensibly opposing such? I mean reams and reams of writing he did....

so that there was where you said 'this is it, the impasse', to the caricature. (I've long said intersectionalism is 'counting yer blessings' really- simplistic take but thats where I see a use. Hang on a minute am I throwing my weight around here without even meaning to? etc)
I do think that there is some resistance to that self reflection, or can be- being the saint I am I am immune to such things obviously.
In general I can tell you this- not one, not one person I know would take kindly to being told they are privileged by someone of the middle classes. Can and do take it from people whove walked in my shoes and the other shoes I don't wear (thats a bit of a tortured metaphor but allow it).  M8 after me moaning about a nicking 'yeah you're lucky you aint black' wrt the lip I was giving (greatly exaggerated to make me appear more of a hero, but I did cheek a bit)
simple stuff really. and then of course you can take it to situations where the Labour Party expels a well known anti-zionist jewish historian. When we talk aout how this sort of discourse has been captured, this is the sort of thing. Corbyn was called a misogynist for not having enough women in his shadow cabinet. Yvette Cooper more or less said 'I'm a progressive choice because I'm a woman'. Not that we should bin everything, but certainly its necessary to examine how we get to the point where right wing tories are happy to parade LGBTQ credentials while crushing the poor and if you oppose them its either 'abuse' or homophobia or what have you- for those that don't think the far right can use it, how do they explain the centre right doing so?

rambling thoughts. Its been good reading anyway and I've always time for such, so enjoy yer weekend and we'll pick it up later.


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## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think there are a few strands to this, one of which is the kind of education offered at many private schools. The schools stand or fall on their exam results, generally, and the numbers they get into university. That's what the parents are paying for - to sharp-elbow their kids to the front of the queue. So they get the results but not the education, and they are then found out at university level, where they can no longer be spoon-fed and taught to the test.



Its not just exam results though that the posh schools deliver. 

It's staff whose job it is to manage Oxbridge applications, to craft UCAS statements etc.

Its the raft of extra-curricular activities that don't just look good on CVs but strengthen networks, that build self-confidence, resilience, that contribute to the "well rounded character" that opens so many doors. The sense of entitlement that is palpable. The aura of "belonging" at University.

Its having the social capital to take the "risk" of a higher education route, without worrying about abandoning the "security" of other routes into "trades" or vocational training. 

Its having the economic security to accept debts running into £10ks as a means to an end.

Not needing to be spoon-fed is scant consolation in the face of all this, and in the face of the knowledge that your disadvantage is going to carry on even after graduation.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think there are a few strands to this, one of which is the kind of education offered at many private schools. The schools stand or fall on their exam results, generally, and the numbers they get into university. That's what the parents are paying for - to sharp-elbow their kids to the front of the queue. So they get the results but not the education, and they are then found out at university level, where they can no longer be spoon-fed and taught to the test.


out of curiosity how do you explain that it's not just independent schools but grammar schools too?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

chilango said:


> Its the raft of extra-curricular activities that don't just look good on CVs but strengthen networks, that build self-confidence, resilience, that contribute to the *"well rounded character"* that opens so many doors. The sense of entitlement that is palpable. The aura of "belonging" at University.
> .


Not denying anything you say here, in particular the bit about uni applications. And I know you put the bold bit in inverted commas, but it strikes me how bad private education is at doing this, generally, given all the advantages you would think it should have. It does the opposite - produces far too many undergraduates who haven't learned how to think for themselves.


----------



## chilango (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not denying anything you say here, in particular the bit about uni applications. And I know you put the bold bit in inverted commas, but it strikes me how bad private education is at doing this, generally, given all the advantages you would think it should have. It does the opposite - produces far too many undergraduates who haven't learned how to think for themselves.



I could've put "thoroughly splendid chap" in instead for greater emphasis . Regardless, it's the self-reproducing processes at work.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not denying anything you say here, in particular the bit about uni applications. And I know you put the bold bit in inverted commas, but it strikes me how bad private education is at doing this, generally, given all the advantages you would think it should have. It does the opposite - produces far too many undergraduates who haven't learned how to think for themselves.



It's not about how you see it though LBJ...that well roundedness isn't being measured by you. It's being done by Unis, those offering internships and employers etc... it gives people the edge/opportunities. Those things are valued.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> my point was that you chose to address DA's arguments as 'the impasse' on a frankly shit thread- where it was pointed out to him that he was using identitarian arguments to make a tit of himself while ostensibly opposing such? I mean reams and reams of writing he did....
> 
> .


TBF ska invita has given other examples. DU's was just an extreme and obvious one. The whole 'Us Vs Them' labelling is very much the same dynamic.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> It's not about how you see it though LBJ...that well roundedness isn't being measured by you. It's being done by Unis, those offering internships and employers etc... it gives people the edge/opportunities. Those things are valued.


Yes. And I'm not denying the sense of entitlement aspect. It's puddle-deep, though, isn't it. But yes, as chilango says, enough to reproduce itself - but not by providing value; if anything by the opposite, by providing a way of tricking the casual or careless observer into thinking there is more value there than there is.

One other point here, in terms of working out the value added by private education, is that kids of rich parents tend to do well wherever they go to school. Plenty of high-performing state-sector schools get filled with the children of parents who can afford the local house prices or are motivated and able to work the system. So a true picture would need to compare those outcomes. Said children with rich parents in the state sector will share many of the advantages of their private-school contemporaries in terms of out-of-school activities, social capital, ability to apply for internships, etc.


----------



## DotCommunist (Oct 20, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> TBF ska invita has given other examples. DU's was just an extreme and obvious one. The whole 'Us Vs Them' labelling is very much the same dynamic.


and it cuts both ways. Largely on this thread I think a decent job has been made at discussing these matters in good faith. Dare I say it, in a comradely fashion. I've not contributed a great deal because I have little to add but I have been reading it. So if we can agree that not everyone is a New Statesman journo lecturing people they know nothing about and not everyone is shouting 'class!' like its top trumps or some shit, we get a productive discussion. At least I think its getting somewhere...


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> and it cuts both ways. Largely on this thread I think a decent job has been made at discussing these matters in good faith. Dare I say it, in a comradely fashion. I've not contributed a great deal because I have little to add but I have been reading it. So if we can agree that not everyone is a New Statesman journo lecturing people they know nothing about and not everyone is shouting 'class!' like its top trumps or some shit, we get a productive discussion. At least I think its getting somewhere...



Okay you reasonable sod! 

/racks up a couple of shots of rum.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 20, 2017)

ska invita said:


> youre misinterpreting my position, i hope not willfully.
> the behaviours are listed in this thread. they clearly are behaviours in that they are not true of all people active within an area of identity politics


I'm certainly not attempting to misinterpret your position. If you think I have tell me where. 

 But when you say 


> Dannys run-on identitypolitics is a sin bin for all the shittest bits of Identity Politics


you are factual wrong. Yes examples of behaviours have been given - but they are just that examples to assist the understanding of the definition. People have been quite clear that when they are talking about identitypolitics they don't just mean shitty behaviours, they mean a political theory.



ska invita said:


> Is the bit of Gender Identity Politics that came up with the word Cis in opposition to class politics? I say no.


I specifically mentioned fundamental opposition, i.e. are they in opposition as ways of understanding the world. Or


> Can class and ID politics actually be allied? They seem to offer two very different ways of viewing the world, and two very different solutions.


That doesn't mean they have to disagree in every instance, re-read post 637.



ska invita said:


> Its clear to me it a positive thing. Is it Identity Politics? 100%. You cant get more politics dealing with identity than that.


See, you still seem to be confused about what identitypoltics is. Changes/additions to language to make it more inclusive or less discriminatory do not have to be done in the framework of identitypolitics. It's not identitypolitics for me to recognise that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander comrades in my old union decided that they preferred that term to Indigenous and that, thus as a comrade I should respect their wishes. Likewise as danny said on the cis thread, it's quite clear that an inclusive term meaning non-trans would be both useful and frankly just polite. That's not identitypolitics, that solidarity.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 20, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> my point was that you chose to address DA's arguments as 'the impasse' on a frankly shit thread- where it was pointed out to him that he was using identitarian arguments to make a tit of himself while ostensibly opposing such? I mean reams and reams of writing he did....
> 
> so that there was where you said 'this is it, the impasse', to the caricature. (I've long said intersectionalism is 'counting yer blessings' really- simplistic take but thats where I see a use. Hang on a minute am I throwing my weight around here without even meaning to? etc)
> I do think that there is some resistance to that self reflection, or can be- being the saint I am I am immune to such things obviously.
> ...


agree with your post, but just to make clear I'm not saying responses like Uberdogs are THE Impasse but contribute to the dynamic of it....making it hard to move on. Some people really don't like to hear the positive/constructive/challenging things that come out of ID politics, born of experiences that only people of that certain identity can share and elaborate on.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 20, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Likewise as danny said on the cis thread, it's quite clear that an inclusive term meaning non-trans would be both useful and frankly just polite. That's not identitypolitics, that solidarity.


tbf a lot of people said that. I'm still a bit taken aback by how that thread went, but yes, I agree with you that it isn't id politics, precisely because it is not intended to be divisive or set up barriers, despite what far too many people said on that thread.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Oct 20, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Likewise as danny said on the cis thread, it's quite clear that an inclusive term meaning non-trans would be both useful and frankly just polite. .


 Why are you only attributing this opinion to danny when it's a position held by most of the contributors on that thread?


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 20, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbf a lot of people said that. I'm still a bit taken aback by how that thread went, but yes, I agree with you that it isn't id politics, precisely because it is not intended to be divisive or set up barriers, despite what far too many people said on that thread.





Rutita1 said:


> Why are you only attributing this opinion to danny when it's a position held by most of the contributors on that thread?


I just mentioned danny as he made the point very clearly and in an early post in the thread that stuck in my mind. But yes plenty of others said similar.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 20, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> I thought you were all about the stacking.



Stacking the bodies of liberals like cordwood.


----------



## seventh bullet (Oct 20, 2017)

Nah, he was making a dig.  He does it every so often.  I take it all as a compliment.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Oct 20, 2017)

crossthebreeze said:


> dialectician  Its too much to type out word for word, but the tweets are by someone called Spookanie@McKellogs. Key bits are
> "The University of Pennsylvania is issuing a press release condemning me and my teaching practices"
> "I tweeted about evening the disparities in the classroom with a pedagogical technique called progressive stacking"
> "Because this involves calling on Black students more than white men the white nationalists and Nazis were very upset"
> ...



Cheers, never heard of it (progressive stacking) before.

Honestly don't know how to respond to this, whilst i agree with many points in the thread you can't deny that universities are spaces of white dominance - history from the victors perspective etc, but then you could say they are places of middleclass dominance as well, in terms of ideology and knowledge acquisition that is... These discussions seem to always lack a proper materialist definition of unis as workplaces and businesses. Hence you rarely get people talking about the majority of PoC in the institutions doing jobs such as Cleaning...

What does she teach?

Also it would be helpful if we knew if her definition of PoC was only restricted to black and hispanic americans and excluded Middle Eastern/Chinese/Indian Americans etc.

tbf my patience with the concept is starting to wear thin.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Oct 20, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Nah, he was making a dig.  He does it every so often.  I take it all as a compliment.



An academic having a dig at a manual worker’s job gets to slide where the colour of your students is of paramount importance.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Stacking the bodies of liberals like cordwood.


They won't bring him happiness, mind.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 21, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Nah, he was making a dig.  He does it every so often.



I know.  He's insecure around those who toil with their hands. 



> I take it all as a compliment.



As you should!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 21, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> They won't bring him happiness, mind.



Only if he forgets to stack his cordwood as well.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 21, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Stacking the bodies of liberals like cordwood.


being tidy's a nice trait  it shows a good spirit


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> I know.  He's insecure around those who toil with their hands.
> 
> 
> 
> As you should!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Oct 21, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


>



Now now, don't get in a paddy!


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Now now, don't get in a paddy!


Oh, no one's in a paddy, believe me.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 21, 2017)

dialectician said:


> Honestly don't know how to respond to this, whilst i agree with many points in the thread you can't deny that universities are spaces of white dominance - history from the victors perspective etc, but then you could say they are places of middleclass dominance as well, in terms of ideology and knowledge acquisition that is... These discussions seem to always lack a proper materialist definition of unis as workplaces and businesses. Hence you rarely get people talking about the majority of PoC in the institutions doing jobs such as Cleaning....


Don't disagree with any of this, but I also don't see how any of it is addressed by 'progressive stacking'. Any black students in the class of an elite uni are in the same world as their white classmates, not in the world of the black cleaner who comes in after class to tidy up. So by all means, unis should have a long hard look at what they're teaching and how they're teaching it, but the relevance of this concept to this thread would seem to me to be that it is an egregious example of mistaken id politics, in which a person's place in society is judged by the colour of their skin. I would think it would also make a lot of people very uncomfortable if they twigged that they were getting special treatment in class purely on the basis of the colour of their skin. It's underpinned by some pretty horrible essentialist views of race.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Any black students in the class of an elite uni are in the same world as their white classmates, not in the world of the black cleaner who comes in after class to tidy up.


The Boston Globe link I gave you - which you obviously didn't read - demonstrates that this is by no means true in all cases. E.g.:

"WHEN ANA BARROS first stepped into Harvard Yard as a freshman, she felt so out of place she might as well have had the words “low income” written on her forehead. A girl from Newark doesn’t belong in a place like Harvard, she thought, as she marveled at how green the elms were, how quaint the cobblestone streets. Back home, where her family lives in a modest house bought from Habitat for Humanity, there wasn’t always money for groceries, and the world seemed gray, sirens blaring at all hours. Her parents, who immigrated to the New York area from Colombia before she was born, spoke Spanish at home. It was at school that Barros learned English. A petite 5-foot-2 with high cheekbones and a head of model-worthy hair, Barros found out in an e-mail that she’d been accepted to Harvard — a full scholarship would give her the means to attend. “I knew at that moment that I’d never suffer in the way that my parents did,” she says."

What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school? - The Boston Globe


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 21, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> The Boston Globe link I gave you - which you obviously didn't read - demonstrates that this is by no means true in all cases. E.g.:
> 
> "WHEN ANA BARROS first stepped into Harvard Yard as a freshman, she felt so out of place she might as well have had the words “low income” written on her forehead. A girl from Newark doesn’t belong in a place like Harvard, she thought, as she marveled at how green the elms were, how quaint the cobblestone streets. Back home, where her family lives in a modest house bought from Habitat for Humanity, there wasn’t always money for groceries, and the world seemed gray, sirens blaring at all hours. Her parents, who immigrated to the New York area from Colombia before she was born, spoke Spanish at home. It was at school that Barros learned English. A petite 5-foot-2 with high cheekbones and a head of model-worthy hair, Barros found out in an e-mail that she’d been accepted to Harvard — a full scholarship would give her the means to attend. “I knew at that moment that I’d never suffer in the way that my parents did,” she says."
> 
> What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school? - The Boston Globe


But she says it herself: “I knew at that moment that I’d never suffer in the way that my parents did,”. Surely she felt so out of place precisely because she was entering the same world as her rich classmates.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Oct 21, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> The Boston Globe link I gave you - which you obviously didn't read - demonstrates that this is by no means true in all cases. E.g.:
> 
> "WHEN ANA BARROS first stepped into Harvard Yard as a freshman, she felt so out of place she might as well have had the words “low income” written on her forehead. A girl from Newark doesn’t belong in a place like Harvard, she thought, as she marveled at how green the elms were, how quaint the cobblestone streets. Back home, where her family lives in a modest house bought from Habitat for Humanity, there wasn’t always money for groceries, and the world seemed gray, sirens blaring at all hours. Her parents, who immigrated to the New York area from Colombia before she was born, spoke Spanish at home. It was at school that Barros learned English. A petite 5-foot-2 with high cheekbones and a head of model-worthy hair, Barros found out in an e-mail that she’d been accepted to Harvard — a full scholarship would give her the means to attend. “I knew at that moment that I’d never suffer in the way that my parents did,” she says."
> 
> What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school? - The Boston Globe



But this can be true regardless of skin hue?


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> But she says it herself: “I knew at that moment that I’d never suffer in the way that my parents did,”. Surely she felt so out of place precisely because she was entering the same world as her rich classmates.



No, she says that in relation to the point when she received her offer of a scholarship. She's not talking about her experiences in the classroom or in a campus surrounded by those "rich classmates". And if you bother to read the whole thing you'll see several cases of people who _do not _fell part of the same world as her rich classmates. As for whether the "progressive stack" idea could remedy this, my guess is probably not: but I also think you've got this one badly wrong.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> But this can be true regardless of skin hue?


Of course it can. A French woman I know told me once about how her dad lasted a week at the elite French uni he was admitted to, because he was surrounded by people (18 or 19, the same age as him) who dressed and talked like they were in their 50s and 60s, and the whole thing made his skin crawl.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 21, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> No, she says that in relation to the point when she received her offer of a scholarship. She's not talking about her experiences in the classroom or in a campus surrounded by those "rich classmates". And if you bother to read the whole thing you'll see several cases of people who _do not _fell part of the same world as her rich classmates. As for whether the "progressive stack" idea could remedy this, my guess is probably not: but I also think you've got this one badly wrong.


This is where the id politics aspect muddies the waters. When she completes her degree, she will leave as a Harvard graduate and many opportunities will open up to her. That's why she is in the world of her classmates rather than the cleaner.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is where the id politics aspect muddies the waters. When she completes her degree, she will leave as a Harvard graduate and many opportunities will open up to her. That's why she is in the world of her classmates rather than the cleaner.


You're assuming that she will complete her degree, regardless of the social isolation she's experiencing.


----------



## campanula (Oct 21, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> The Boston Globe link I gave you - which you obviously didn't read - demonstrates that this is by no means true in all cases. E.g.:
> 
> A petite 5-foot-2 with high cheekbones and a head of model-worthy hair,
> 
> What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school? - The Boston Globe



Entire article utterly invalidated as hopeless fluff with some faux outrage thrown in...unless I am not seeing deeper levels of irony somewhere.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

campanula said:


> Entire article utterly invalidated as hopeless fluff with some faux outrage thrown in...unless I am not seeing deeper levels of irony somewhere.


How is it invalidated?


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 21, 2017)

We've managed thus far without memes. Can we keep it that way? Cheers.


----------



## campanula (Oct 21, 2017)

The inclusion of this witless piece of unneccessary info, has, in my eyes at least, diminished a piece about prejudice into a kind of aspirational lifestylee thing. Soz Idris, I know this is actually the point you are making (regarding how we place ourselves in a complex hierarchy of overt and covert stratifications)...and my feeling is one of intense annoyance rather than dismissal of the essential point of the article...but really?


----------



## campanula (Oct 21, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> We've managed thus far without memes. Can we keep it that way? Cheers.



Is this a referral to my comment Danny? Not entirely sure what is meant by a meme (always thought it was a snappy cartoon) and yep, I suppose it is a derail from the wider topic...but truly enraging nonetheless (and has the effect of nullifying other messages when it appears that an important point seems distilled down to lifestyle fluff. Head of model-worthy hair ffs!


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 21, 2017)

campanula said:


> Is this a referral to my comment Danny?


No, the pics of Leo.


----------



## campanula (Oct 21, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> No, the pics of Leo.



Ah OK. I am feeling a bit weepy, prickly and defensive as daughter has fallen out with me. Probably best to go off to the allotment for the afternoon.


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 21, 2017)

campanula said:


> Ah OK. I am feeling a bit weepy, prickly and defensive as daughter has fallen out with me. Probably best to go off to the allotment for the afternoon.


Sorry to hear that. Families are tough. Look after yourself.


----------



## Gromit (Oct 21, 2017)




----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 21, 2017)

Beat it, Gromit.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 21, 2017)

dialectician said:


> What does she teach?



History graduate student.

Latest development is that the uni are supporting her anyway.  Nice to see the faculty also believe that progressive stacking is an 'innovative pedagogical method', white male students are always the least marginalised,  and anybody who disagrees must be a nazi.  When these views are institutionalised is it any wonder than new generations of grad students are adopting these politics.


----------



## andysays (Oct 21, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> History graduate student.
> 
> Latest development is that the uni are supporting her anyway.  Nice to see the faculty also believe that progressive stacking is an 'innovative pedagogical method', *white male students are always the least marginalised,  and anybody who disagrees must be a nazi*.  When these views are institutionalised is it any wonder than new generations of grad students are adopting these politics.
> 
> View attachment 118423



Interesting (or maybe not) that the tutor/teacher's original claim was that prog.stack is a "well established technique", whereas the Penn History statement describes it as "innovative", which is rather different.

Can you point out where the statement says, or even hints, that "white male students are always the least marginalised, and anybody who disagrees must be a nazi", because it seems to me there is plenty to critcise about prog.stack (and IDpols in general), without resorting to silly hyperbollocks.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> No, the pics of Leo.


OK.


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 21, 2017)

I want mod privileges for this thread and red cards. You're all on a warning.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 21, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> I want mod privileges for this thread and red cards. You're all on a warning.


I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 21, 2017)

How many of those headlights actually worked do you reckon?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 21, 2017)

andysays said:


> Interesting (or maybe not) that the tutor/teacher's original claim was that prog.stack is a "well established technique", whereas the Penn History statement describes it as "innovative", which is rather different.
> 
> Can you point out where the statement says, or even hints, that "white male students are always the least marginalised, and anybody who disagrees must be a nazi", because it seems to me there is plenty to critcise about prog.stack (and IDpols in general), without resorting to silly hyperbollocks.



Fair enough I may have got a little carried away there.

The teacher did describe her use of the technique as 'calling on black students more readily than white men'.  So that implies that she is stacking based on race rather than other attributes, with whites assumed to be least marginalised.  

If I were to comment on twitter that I think it's a stupid technique, they'd absolutely group me in with the nazis.  There doesn't seem to be any insight whatsoever that some of the negative response might be from the left or just ordinary people.  You either fully support it or you're the enemy.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 21, 2017)

'marginalized students' 

They're graduates, so early 20s or older, have completed a first degree and done pretty well in order to gain admittance to grad school, and have secured some kind of funding for that grad school. Yet they're being judged on a scale of relative marginalisation that requires special treatment by their race and sex. 

All I see here is a really fucking shite teacher. The teacher no doubt needs to reflect on their unconscious biases (we all do), but to resort to a prescriptive conscious bias as a matter of ideology among adults of a certain level of achievement and ability is insulting to them, all of them, wherever they may lie in the stack.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> 'marginalized students'
> 
> They're graduates, so early 20s or older, have completed a first degree and done pretty well in order to gain admittance to grad school, and have secured some kind of funding for that grad school. Yet they're being judged on a scale of relative marginalisation that requires special treatment by their race and sex.
> 
> All I see here is a really fucking shite teacher. The teacher no doubt needs to reflect on their unconscious biases (we all do), but to resort to a prescriptive conscious bias as a matter of ideology among adults of a certain level of achievement and ability is insulting to them, all of them, wherever they may lie in the stack.



She doesn't teach grad students she is a grad student.  Most likely teaches some undergrads as part of her grad school duties.  Your point still stands though.  I'd also question why an early career education who isn't even a doctor or professor wants to introduce these novel methods: just go in and teach the material surely.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 21, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> She doesn't teach grad students she is a grad student.  Most likely teaches some undergrads as part of her grad school duties.  Your point still stands though.  I'd also question why an early career education who isn't even a doctor or professor wants to introduce these novel methods: just go in and teach the material surely.


Ah, ok, I got that wrong. In that case, she's also brand new to teaching. I'm willing to cut a bit more slack in that case - my point may still stand, but in a slightly more wobbly way. I'd question her supervisor and the advice she was given, though.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Oct 21, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> History graduate student.
> 
> Latest development is that the uni are supporting her anyway.  Nice to see the faculty also believe that progressive stacking is an 'innovative pedagogical method', white male students are always the least marginalised,  and anybody who disagrees must be a nazi.  When these views are institutionalised is it any wonder than new generations of grad students are adopting these politics.
> 
> View attachment 118423



I did say in the post you quoted why I'm starting to wear thin with the concept people of colour...

Then you come out with that unfounded nazis shite essentially accusing her of .. reverse white supremacy and I think to myself, not this again. Whether she's economically privileged or not thats a cuntish low blow and i hardly think that you can just chalk it down to this recent wave of ID politics.

Your problem, Artichoke, is expecting too much from university politics without criticising the fetishised vacuum said politics exist in - unless it's socialism via the occult powers of the professors mindset? I can think of someone who is at least half honest about that...


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Oct 21, 2017)

dialectician said:


> I did say in the post you quoted why I'm starting to wear thin with the concept people of colour...
> 
> Then you come out with that unfounded nazis shite essentially accusing her of .. reverse white supremacy and I think to myself, not this again. Whether she's economically privileged or not thats a cuntish low blow and i hardly think that you can just chalk it down to this recent wave of ID politics.
> 
> Your problem, Artichoke, is expecting too much from university politics without criticising the detached vacuum said politics exist in - unless it's socialism via the occult powers of the professors mindset? I can think of someone who is at least half honest about that...



I only quoted you to answer your question about what she teaches.  The rest of the post wasn't aimed at you specifically.

I'm not accusing her of reverse white supremacy I just think she's a typical misguided liberal.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Oct 21, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Don't disagree with any of this, but I also don't see how any of it is addressed by 'progressive stacking'. Any black students in the class of an elite uni are in the same world as their white classmates, not in the world of the black cleaner who comes in after class to tidy up. So by all means, unis should have a long hard look at what they're teaching and how they're teaching it, but the relevance of this concept to this thread would seem to me to be that it is an egregious example of mistaken id politics, in which a person's place in society is judged by the colour of their skin. I would think it would also make a lot of people very uncomfortable if they twigged that they were getting special treatment in class purely on the basis of the colour of their skin. It's underpinned by some pretty horrible essentialist views of race.



yeh cos race doesn't striate class.

Of course it would be shit if this was based on skin pigmentation. But that is the liberal conception of race with the attendant mess of white passing privilege. 

I still don't know what progressive stacking is. I'm giving this history lecturer the benefit of the doubt here not assuming its just a crude approximation of the wheel of oppression in the classroom. If it in fact is, then she's not a very good historian, irrespective of skin colour.


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## BigTom (Oct 22, 2017)

dialectician said:


> yeh cos race doesn't striate class.
> 
> Of course it would be shit if this was based on skin pigmentation. But that is the liberal conception of race with the attendant mess of white passing privilege.
> 
> I still don't know what progressive stacking is. I'm giving this history lecturer the benefit of the doubt here not assuming its just a crude approximation of the wheel of oppression in the classroom. If it in fact is, then she's not a very good historian, irrespective of skin colour.



Afaik progressive stacking means that you decide who speaks based on their oppression/privilege rankings. More oppressed speak in preference to more privileged.

The idea is that more privileged people feel more confident, able and entitled to speak than more oppressed people, and that if you simply call people to speak your discussions will be dominated by the most privileged people.

It's been around in some form in socialist meetings but i'd only seen it used as a proto form in meetings that would enforce male/female speakers in turn. Came across it by name and more oppressions in USA occupy demos however many years ago that was now.

In practice it seems to become very much about the visible oppressions (race, sex/gender, visible disabilities) and not so much the invisible ones (sexuality, invisible disabilities, class). So basically consciously calling poc/women to speak and telling white men not to.

Which is sort of fine, in that there's clearly issues around the dominance of white men in political discussions (and everywhere else) that needs to be addressed, except it claims to be much wider than that but tends to fall into the whitecishetmale issue of those aren't the only factors but they are consistently privileged in a way that is not helpful even within idpol stuff.

It either needs to be explicit about being about particular identities, like the male/female alternation was, or it has to go into such detail that it can only work with an abacus of oppression, which can't exist in reality, same issue as utilitarianism. So being liberals they say each person must decide for themselves, an i more or less oppressed than others in this meeting, and choose to speak or not based on that answer. Which might work if we were all the liberal's wet dream of pure rational, moral, actors.
So it necessarily fails imo, and along the way alienates many people by excluding them from a process that claims to include them, as well as the people it aims to exclude.

As a teaching tool, teachers should know which students are not contributing and try to bring them into discussions. If a poc student contributes a lot they shouldn't be called ahead of a white student who doesn't. A teacher (perhaps more difficult for a grad student teacher, not sure what kind of teaching they do) should be able to learn which students need help or defined space or whatever for them to contribute without making crude assumptions based on race or sex.


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## ManchesterBeth (Oct 22, 2017)

So it is oppression wheel semantics then. sounds really dumb, just that right amount of quantity of X shit which i hate, irrespective of content.

And let's not get into a discussion about white male dominance in the socialist movement, man, we could  be here for ages.


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## andysays (Oct 22, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Fair enough I may have got a little carried away there.
> 
> *The teacher did describe her use of the technique as 'calling on black students more readily than white men'.  So that implies that she is stacking based on race rather than other attributes, with whites assumed to be least marginalised.*
> 
> If I were to comment on twitter that I think it's a stupid technique, they'd absolutely group me in with the nazis.  There doesn't seem to be any insight whatsoever that some of the negative response might be from the left or just ordinary people.  You either fully support it or you're the enemy.



From what I've read, and maybe I've missed some detail, she has been attacked specifically for calling on black students more readily than white ones, so perhaps it's understandable that her defence has focussed on why she is doing that, specifically. A better defence (assuming we accept there's any validity whatever in what she's attempting to do) might involve explaining that it's not *just* black students who she's encouraging, but also those who are "less privileged" in various other ways. 

And an even better approach might be to focus on individuals who are less confident/eloquent/whatever, based on their actual behaviour as individuals rather than focussing on assumed membership of supposed oppressed minority groups, which as others have already pointed out, is what good teachers will be doing anyway.

And I agree with the tendency for extreme you're-either-100%-with-us-or-100%-part-of-the-oppressors polarisation within much of the IDpol camp. which is why I wouldn't dream of getting involved with any of this business on twitter and am slightly wary about weighing in even here.


----------



## seventh bullet (Oct 22, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> I know.  He's insecure around those who toil with their hands.
> 
> 
> 
> As you should!



He's still resentful because I didn't take too kindly to being patronisingly treated like a rough diamond that needs a good polish.


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## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> He's still resentful because I didn't take too kindly to being patronisingly treated like a rough diamond that needs a good polish.


I'm sorry you feel that way, but that's not how it was.


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## ViolentPanda (Oct 22, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> He's still resentful because I didn't take too kindly to being patronisingly treated like a rough diamond that needs a good polish.



Rough diamond? You're more like a lump of nutty slack, mate.


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## brixtonscot (Oct 23, 2017)

Very interesting thread , though I do not have time to read it all , so will add this link ( from USA )
apologies if already posted
_"The original Rainbow Coalition, which was set up by the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party in response to this oversight, offers an inspiring example of how identity politics can result in cross-class and interracial solidarity rather than fragmentation of the Left. Because many members of the Rainbow Coalition were also youth organizers and leaders of Martin Luther King’s Chicago Freedom Movement, the civil rights leader would eventually adopt a class-based ideology. It is for this reason that the Rainbow Coalition’s idealism and identity politics resonated with all the groups that merged to form the collective. The broad appeal of the Rainbow Coalition’s rhetoric and idealism went on to be exploited by numerous political candidates from the Democratic Party, blinding activists on the left into supporting a party that has failed continuously to live up to its stated ideals."
The Original Rainbow Coalition: An Example of Universal Identity Politics_


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 26, 2017)

If anybody wants an illustration of how toxic identity politics can be, here is an illustration of an exchange I just had in an intersectional Facebook page (incidentally I think intersectional theory has many valid incites into how discrimination and oppression works, but many of its supposed adhrents have a crude grasp on these).

So the OP (a white woman) posted up a discussion she had with an East European man in which he was defending some racially insensitive comments made by another person. He said that he didn’t think the comments were racist, merely poorly phrased. The OP said ‘as a white man you don’t get to say what is and isn’t racist’ and he replied ‘as an Eastern European man living in Germany, believe me I have experienced racism myself’. The OP then told him it he could never experience racism and blocked him.

In the subsequent discussion somebody said that while he thought the east-European was wrong to defend the racist comments, the OP was also wrong to reject the notion that east Europeans could experience racism and he posted up a bunch of links about the discrimination and violence many EEs experience in Western Europe. The OP and others respond that this is ‘xenophobia not racism’.

I then argue that the discrimiantion and prejudice that east Europeans experience cannot simply be described as xenophobia in all cases, I point to the history of anti-slavism in Europe and the ways in which Slavic people have been racialised and regarded as inferior, in much the way Irish people, Jews and the Roma have been. I posted a link to a short Wikipedia entry on the subject.

She responds instantly with *sigh*. When I pressed her to explain her response she said she didn’t need to read the link to know it is not racism, and said that she didn’t owe any ‘emotional labour’ to me as a white man. Others then jump in accusing me of derailing the conversation and decentering the racism black people experince. The OP says she ‘is so done with white people’.

And then it goes full circle. Another non-white poster has a go at the OP for calling out white people as if she is not white herself. He says she can’t do that because it de-centres her own whiteness and of course she starts apologising and what not.

I generally don’t bother engaging in this group but every few months I have a go and then remember why I don’t bother.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 26, 2017)

Good post.



Jeff Robinson said:


> (incidentally I think intersectional theory has many valid incites into how discrimination and oppression works, but many of its supposed adhrents have a crude grasp on these).


This is worth quoting. The problem is that the crude grasp has become the mainstream of its presentation.


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## Steel Icarus (Oct 26, 2017)

Jeff Robinson said:


> If anybody wants an illustration of how toxic identity politics can be, here is an illustration of an exchange I just had in an intersectional Facebook page (incidentally I think intersectional theory has many valid incites into how discrimination and oppression works, but many of its supposed adhrents have a crude grasp on these).
> 
> So the OP (a white woman) posted up a discussion she had with an East European man in which he was defending some racially insensitive comments made by another person. He said that he didn’t think the comments were racist, merely poorly phrased. The OP said ‘as a white man you don’t get to say what is and isn’t racist’ and he replied ‘as an Eastern European man living in Germany, believe me I have experienced racism myself’. The OP then told him it he could never experience racism and blocked him.
> 
> ...


Exactly this shit is why I couldn't hack Twitter in the end. Saw an argument like this two or three times a week and nobody learns a damn thing.


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## danny la rouge (Oct 26, 2017)

S☼I said:


> Exactly this shit is why I couldn't hack Twitter in the end. Saw an argument like this two or three times a week and nobody learns a damn thing.


My feelings precisely.


----------



## Athos (Oct 26, 2017)

Good post, generally.   And,  in particular, the bit about the misunderstanding/misuse of intersectionality.



Jeff Robinson said:


> ... She responds instantly with *sigh*. When I pressed her to explain her response she said she didn’t need to read the link to know it is not racism, and said that she didn’t owe any ‘emotional labour’ to me as a white man. Others then jump in accusing me of derailing the conversation and decentering the racism black people experince. The OP says she ‘is so done with white people’.



These are some of the classic ID pol tactics to avoid having to construct an argument/political position that might withstand the slightest scrutiny.  I've seen them all used here, increasingly, recently.

I've noticed the ID pol fans seem to like to: i) adopt an air of dismissive superiority (and imply that anyone who disagrees must be a bigot) and, ii) dress up their nonsense in this sort of jargon.


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## Magnus McGinty (Oct 26, 2017)

Athos said:


> Good post, generally.   And,  in particular, the bit about the misunderstanding/misuse of intersectionality.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Totally this. If you challenge  their position then what’s called into question isn’t your politics, but your identity.


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## Steel Icarus (Oct 26, 2017)

Also saw a tremendous taste for the phrase _lived experience_ trotted out by young white m/c students - but only if they seemed this experience _exotic _enough. It wasn't as much about fighting for oppressed groups' rights as a weird sort of wheel of oppression Pokémon. Was asked once by an IdPol twitterer to go through the list of people I followed and report back with numbers of PoC, queer and trans people I followed_ if I was really interested in an equal society._


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## Athos (Oct 26, 2017)

S☼I said:


> Also saw a tremendous taste for the phrase _lived experience_ trotted out by young white m/c students - but only if they seemed this experience _exotic _enough. It wasn't as much about fighting for oppressed groups' rights as a weird sort of wheel of oppression Pokémon. Was asked once by an IdPol twitterer to go through the list of people I followed and report back with numbers of PoC, queer and trans people I followed_ if I was really interested in an equal society._



'Lived experience' is very much on-trend at the moment. It's a shortcut to closing down debate;  by conflating the ideas of disagreeing with the political conclusions someone reaches based on their experience, and denying or invalidating that experience (out of bigotry).


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## Steel Icarus (Oct 26, 2017)

Athos said:


> 'Lived experience' is very much on-trend at the moment. It's a shortcut to closing down debate;  by conflating the ideas of disagreeing with the political conclusions someonr reaches based on their experience, and denying or invalidating that experience (out of bigotry).


And yet my own was dismissed as naive by a student who had a conversation with me about why I shouldn't have enjoyed working in a factory.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 26, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> I'll be your mirror, reflect what you are.


----------



## chilango (Oct 26, 2017)

OTOH I think “lived experience” is really important in testing/shaping your own views.


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## Athos (Oct 26, 2017)

chilango said:


> OTOH I think “lived experience” is really important in testing/shaping your own views.



If course it is. Nobody would deny that.

The issue is how it's deliberately dishonestly misused.


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## chilango (Oct 26, 2017)

Athos said:


> If course it is. Nobody would deny that.
> 
> The issue is how it's deliberately dishonestly misused.



Agreed.


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## ska invita (Oct 26, 2017)

glad to have real world example to talk about rather than just abstract.


Magnus McGinty said:


> Totally this. If you challenge  their position then what’s called into question isn’t your politics, but your identity.



In this case the facebook OP woman was definitely wrong to shut down the conversation in such a way, as you describe. Its why people like Kenan Malik end up writing big defences of the Enlightenment, as a way to reinstate the notion there are *objective* truths and we have to have a system to get to those truths.

But as has already been said above, there are times when personal experience 'trumps' everything, namely in subjective matters, and in the wider lessons and outcomes of those subjective truths.

Its right that there is a new culture (born from identity politics i expect) of wanting to give more space and respect  to marginalised experiences. The #metoo thing is a very public and positive example of that culture biting. But when that leaks into objective discussions, such as the very interesting topic of "whats the difference between xenophobia and racism (and their relationship to one another)", thats fucked up. Hopefully people who act that way will over time be able to fine tune to the difference between the two things.


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## ska invita (Oct 26, 2017)

Athos said:


> The issue is how it's deliberately dishonestly misused.


Why Dishonest? Deliberate? not words i would use. I think people are confused


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## Athos (Oct 26, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Why Dishonest? Deliberate? not words i would use. I think people are confused



Experience.


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 26, 2017)

chilango said:


> OTOH I think “lived experience” is really important in testing/shaping your own views.



Indeed, here I have great sympathy with ID Pol in that identity is shaped by experience and experience matters to politics. Stuff like 'mansplanning' and ignoring the testimony and lived reality of people of colour and working class people are real problems. The stark contrast between many women and many men's reactions to #metoo is illustrative of this. Most women are not surprised at all whereas loads of guys are - at best - saying they are shocked and at worst accusing women using the hashtag of 'lying' or 'hating men'. If men were better at listening to the testimony of women we wouldn't be in the situation where sexual assault was so common place. 

The problems begin when all nuance goes out the window. It's one thing saying that we ought to listen and give due deference to the accounts and views of people with different experiences, and to alter our viewpoints when we get new perspectives. It's quite another to say that we ought to uncritically defer to whatever someone of a particular identity says or that somebody's opinions and views on a topic are completely irrelevant purely because of their identity (independently of the strength of their argument). Then the whole discourse just collapses into relativism and no meaningful discussion can be had. This is particularly the case when two people with the same 'identity' disagree on something. Crude ID Polers simply have no methodology for adjudicating what the correct 'line' is when people of oppressed group X have different views on the matter.


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## ska invita (Oct 26, 2017)

Jeff Robinson said:


> Crude ID Polers simply have no methodology for adjudicating what the correct 'line' is when people of oppressed group X have different views on the matter.


You've called it a "crude" form, and thats what i mean by its a problem of "behaviours". I think the adjucating "rule" is whether the discussion is about objective truths or subjective truths. That can be a complicated thing to work out, and im sure there are examples with grey areas and overlap to further confuse. I don't think people are being "deliberately dishonest" if they get that wrong. 


Athos said:


> Experience.


i expect you mean urban. im not going to rehash that, but i would say you've had a big role to play in those experiences


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## Jeff Robinson (Oct 26, 2017)

ska invita said:


> You've called it a "crude" form, and thats what i mean by its a problem of "behaviours". I think the adjucating "rule" is whether the discussion is about objective truths or subjective truths. That can be a complicated thing to work out, and im sure there are examples with grey areas and overlap to further confuse. I don't think people are being "deliberately dishonest" if they get that wrong.



As a general rule, in my experience I don't think that problematic ID Polers are being deliberately dishonest, I think they believe they are fighting the good fight. But their tendency towards essentialism and relativism - as well as their intolerance and inability to discuss ideas - are actually stumbling blocks to achieving the more socially just world they are striving for.


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## Athos (Oct 26, 2017)

ska invita said:


> i expect you mean urban. im not going to rehash that, but i would say you've had a big role to play in those experiences



Including, but by no means limited to Urban (and less important here than in real world stuff).

Yes, I daresay you're right that my attitude to the ID pol fans affects the way they behave towards me, and so shapes my experience.


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## Athos (Oct 26, 2017)

ska invita said:


> I don't think people are being "deliberately dishonest" if they get that wrong.



What, never?  Honestly?

Because I can think of a few here who definitely fall into that category.  Though I accept that for others, it's just sloppy thinking.


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## andysays (Oct 26, 2017)

ska invita said:


> You've called it a "crude" form, and thats what i mean by its a problem of "behaviours". I think the adjucating "rule" is whether the discussion is about objective truths or subjective truths. That can be a complicated thing to work out, and im sure there are examples with grey areas and overlap to further confuse. I don't think people are being "deliberately dishonest" if they get that wrong...



In *my* experience (sic), there are a number of posters here on Urban* who simultaneously 

elevate their own experience above that of anyone else, whether that experience is actually relevant to the subject under discussion, 

complain about others "denying their experience" if anyone has the gall to disagree with them or express an opinion which differs from theirs and 

dismiss or even deny the reality of other people's experience when it differs from theirs.
I'm increasingly convinced that what attracts many people to IDpol is the opportunity to behave in this way, to act out their own insecurities around their identity or fragile sense of self. It becomes less politics as a group or collective activity, and more as a personal or individual form of therapy. 

It's (just about) possible to be sympathetic to the insecurities which lead people to do this, while also recognising that this sort of behaviour makes it more or less impossible to have any sort of meaningful dialogue or collective action beyond a handful of people who view each other as being fellow members of one or more oppressed groups. Anyone outside of that narrow self-selecting identity is suspect at best and actively oppressing them at worse, often for nothing more than expressing a slightly different opinion, perspective or experience.

When this sort of IDpol thinking takes hold, it ceases to matter whether the actions are deliberately dishonest or the result of honestly held delusions, the result is the same. And many threads on Urban are so effected by this shit as to be utterly pointless, IMO.

*not going to bother mentioning names. I've got most of them on ignore now so I won't be reading or replying to the responses some will doubtless make.


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## Casually Red (Oct 27, 2017)

A decent critique here , from a Marxist whos frequently accused of being white . A crime in itself . Explains how the original idea of "white privilege " was perverted by the ID crew . Originally it was used by Marxists as a means of explaining to white workers in the US they'd been bribed by the capitalist class, and this " privilege " was a means to their own oppression, harmful to them as it ensured they'd never build a cross racial movement to emancipate the working class . Now it's just used to tell people to shut up , and to justify not having a cross racial working class effort . Worth a read . A lot of background there as regards its origins and how it's been co opted by the capitalist system and diverted into the opposite of what the original ideas were about .

" identity politics is the Reaganite version of cultural nationalism "

A Marxist Critiques Identity Politics		 :		  The Pensive Quill


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## butchersapron (Oct 28, 2017)

Smokeandsteam said:


> It might be useful to explore where identity politics emerged from in the U.K.
> 
> Very briefly, EP Thompson and other Marxist thinkers who left the CP over the invasion of Hungary went on to form a journal called the New Left Review.
> 
> ...


This is massively unfair and inaccurate towards Stuart Hall. He never once never argued that there was no material determination only culture - he, in fact, argued against the idea that there could only ever be cultural resistance and common misreadings of his work that suggested that he did. Not even at the height of his support for cultural-based ideas (around the time of Gramsci and Us in the mid-late 80s) - even then he problematised simplistic ideas of culture. What he did when he was editor of NLR (he was the first one btw not later introduced) was argue - in line with E.P Thompson's work - that the w/c are ongoing participants in the making of their own culture and history, rather than the more common left-wing view that they were either simply passive recipients of culture they were easily manipulated through - TV, popular newspapers and mass entertainment etc (still the dominant idea on the left today i'm afraid) or observers of a high culture they did not have the tools to appreciate and engage in. In this he was miles ahead of nearly everyone else.

I'd also suggest that you're over-emphasising the break many of the people involved in The New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review which merged to form NLR actually broke with the politics of stalinism and the old left and on what grounds some of them actually did. I also think that the 'challenging of linear empirical history and language and power within texts' that you identify as staring/happening within this NLR group actually took place 30 years later than you place it and most def outside of the remains of this group - who on the whole rejected this sort of approach. I think the idea that Identity politics was birthed from this tiny and materially un-influential group (they have long argued that their role is to take intellectual leadership) rather the real life experiences of people and the reactions of the labour movement, the state etc to them is miles off.


----------



## J Ed (Oct 28, 2017)

Jeff Robinson said:


> If anybody wants an illustration of how toxic identity politics can be, here is an illustration of an exchange I just had in an intersectional Facebook page (incidentally I think intersectional theory has many valid incites into how discrimination and oppression works, but many of its supposed adhrents have a crude grasp on these).
> 
> So the OP (a white woman) posted up a discussion she had with an East European man in which he was defending some racially insensitive comments made by another person. He said that he didn’t think the comments were racist, merely poorly phrased. The OP said ‘as a white man you don’t get to say what is and isn’t racist’ and he replied ‘as an Eastern European man living in Germany, believe me I have experienced racism myself’. The OP then told him it he could never experience racism and blocked him.
> 
> ...




One of my first interactions with identity politics irl, it was around 2010 I think, was someone disagreeing with something I had to say one day and then literally the next day smugly and tbh quite rudely telling someone else the exact thing that I had told him. I asked him later on what was going on, why he had changed his mind. He told me that someone from a more oppressed group told him that it was true so he now believed it. 

The example you have cited here, and my own experiences, tell me that privilege theory etc serves as a toolkit for people who aren't very nice to behave in ways that aren't very nice. Very easy to imagine the same people in different societies doing similar things and behaving in identical ways but justifying them through say strict religious frameworks or even things like fascism.


----------



## J Ed (Oct 28, 2017)

Jeff Robinson said:


> Crude ID Polers simply have no methodology for adjudicating what the correct 'line' is when people of oppressed group X have different views on the matter.



Of course they do, they just ignore whoever it is convenient to ignore and point to whoever it is convenient to point to.


----------



## brixtonscot (Oct 29, 2017)

A very good example of where "identity politics" has been apppropriated by conservatives is looking at beginning of Gay Liberation Front ....
_"The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) advocated for sexual liberation for *all* people; they believed heterosexuality was a remnant of cultural inhibition and felt that change would not come about unless the current social institutions were dismantled and rebuilt without defined sexual roles"
Gay Liberation Front - Wikipedia_
From there - after the Stonewall riots led mainly by black & Latina Trans* - it was taken over by mainly well off white men and their commercial ghetto , with their aims of getting assimilated into conservative establishment institutions...like the military & marriage.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 29, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> This is massively unfair and inaccurate towards Stuart Hall. He never once never argued that there was no material determination only culture - he, in fact, argued against the idea that there could only ever be cultural resistance and common misreadings of his work that suggested that he did. Not even at the height of his support for cultural-based ideas (around the time of Gramsci and Us in the mid-late 80s) - even then he problematised simplistic ideas of culture. What he did when he was editor of NLR (he was the first one btw not later introduced) was argue - in line with E.P Thompson's work - that the w/c are ongoing participants in the making of their own culture and history, rather than the more common left-wing view that they were either simply passive recipients of culture they were easily manipulated through - TV, popular newspapers and mass entertainment etc (still the dominant idea on the left today i'm afraid) or observers of a high culture they did not have the tools to appreciate and engage in. In this he was miles ahead of nearly everyone else.
> 
> I'd also suggest that you're over-emphasising the break many of the people involved in The New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review which merged to form NLR actually broke with the politics of stalinism and the old left and on what grounds some of them actually did. I also think that the 'challenging of linear empirical history and language and power within texts' that you identify as staring/happening within this NLR group actually took place 30 years later than you place it and most def outside of the remains of this group - who on the whole rejected this sort of approach. I think the idea that Identity politics was birthed from this tiny and materially un-influential group (they have long argued that their role is to take intellectual leadership) rather the real life experiences of people and the reactions of the labour movement, the state etc to them is miles off.


I find Stuart Hall a fascinating a quite brilliant man to read and hear, and I regret that I only came to discover him after he had already died.  This is an interesting interview with him in which he reviews how “culture studies” developed and changed.  I think it is quite clear from listening to him that he is no “identity politics” proponent.  For him, it is all about society as a whole and how the parts of it that have control are able to set the terms of acceptability for those without control.  As he says in this interview, race is just one lens that allows you to explore that control.



He even specifically mentions about the interlinking of race issues and and class issues and the importance of understanding the social structure as a whole.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Oct 29, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> This is massively unfair and inaccurate towards Stuart Hall. He never once never argued that there was no material determination only culture - he, in fact, argued against the idea that there could only ever be cultural resistance and common misreadings of his work that suggested that he did. Not even at the height of his support for cultural-based ideas (around the time of Gramsci and Us in the mid-late 80s) - even then he problematised simplistic ideas of culture. What he did when he was editor of NLR (he was the first one btw not later introduced) was argue - in line with E.P Thompson's work - that the w/c are ongoing participants in the making of their own culture and history, rather than the more common left-wing view that they were either simply passive recipients of culture they were easily manipulated through - TV, popular newspapers and mass entertainment etc (still the dominant idea on the left today i'm afraid) or observers of a high culture they did not have the tools to appreciate and engage in. In this he was miles ahead of nearly everyone else.
> 
> I'd also suggest that you're over-emphasising the break many of the people involved in The New Reasoner and Universities and Left Review which merged to form NLR actually broke with the politics of stalinism and the old left and on what grounds some of them actually did. I also think that the 'challenging of linear empirical history and language and power within texts' that you identify as staring/happening within this NLR group actually took place 30 years later than you place it and most def outside of the remains of this group - who on the whole rejected this sort of approach. I think the idea that Identity politics was birthed from this tiny and materially un-influential group (they have long argued that their role is to take intellectual leadership) rather the real life experiences of people and the reactions of the labour movement, the state etc to them is miles off.




I don’t think I have been ‘massively unfair’ to Hall. I’d accept that his ideas have become subsequently bent by others but my post was about where cultural theory and identity politics emerged from in the UK. In the case of Hall not only did his work at the Birmingham Centre for contemporary cultural studies introduce the concept of intersectionality, but his work was so important precisely because it introduced ideas of gender, race and so on into the field of enquiry. 

The Guardian characterised him as the ‘godfather of multiculturalism’ and whilst you are right that his work was much more nuanced than that of some of those who cite him - and it is true that Thompson’s central point that the working class is present and can act in the making of its history is present in his work - you cannot understand how identity politics developed in the UK without examining the contribution of Stuart Hall.

I think you also underplay how influential the ideas of the NLR were. Although small and academic they were plugged into the heights of the labour movement, commentariat and cultural elites. Their ideas travelled far wider than their circle. 

Finally, my post attempted to periodise the NLR and the thinkers around it. The realisation that the Soviet Union was a state dictatorship on behalf of the proletariat and that Stalin was persecuting Marxists and others and building socialism in one country is critical to understanding where attempts to rethink left politics and the turn towards culture and identity came from.

It is inarguable - and I know you don’t argue this - that the development of this thinking through the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s, as Britain began to deindustrialise and the cracks began to appear in the economic leverage of the unions, led the sections of the left away from the working class and the concept of change through the assertion of class economic interests and towards identity and culture as he primary locations of struggle.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 29, 2017)

Smokeandsteam said:


> It is inarguable - and I know you don’t argue this - that the development of this thinking through the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s, as Britain began to deindustrialise and the cracks began to appear in the economic leverage of the unions, led the sections of the left away from the working class and the concept of change through the assertion of class economic interests and towards identity and culture as he primary locations of struggle.


Do you mean this happened while deindustrialisation went on, or happened because of deindustrialisation?


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## Smokeandsteam (Oct 30, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Do you mean this happened while deindustrialisation went on, or happened because of deindustrialisation?



I think both. Deindustrialisation and the fragmententing of the post war consensus gave impetus to those who believed cultural resistance was key.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Oct 30, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I find Stuart Hall a fascinating a quite brilliant man to read and hear, and I regret that I only came to discover him after he had already died.  This is an interesting interview with him in which he reviews how “culture studies” developed and changed.  I think it is quite clear from listening to him that he is no “identity politics” proponent.  For him, it is all about society as a whole and how the parts of it that have control are able to set the terms of acceptability for those without control.  As he says in this interview, race is just one lens that allows you to explore that control.
> 
> He even specifically mentions about the interlinking of race issues and and class issues and the importance of understanding the social structure as a whole.



I'm not arguing that he was. I'm arguing that if you want to locate where idnentity  politics emerged from in the UK the NLR of which Hall was editor is a critical starting point as far as I can tell. I think that if you are going to discuss an idea that has dominated left thinking over the last 40 years you can't start without tracing the ideas back.


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## butchersapron (Oct 30, 2017)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I don’t think I have been ‘massively unfair’ to Hall. I’d accept that his ideas have become subsequently bent by others but my post was about where cultural theory and identity politics emerged from in the UK. In the case of Hall not only did his work at the Birmingham Centre for contemporary cultural studies introduce the concept of intersectionality, but his work was so important precisely because it introduced ideas of gender, race and so on into the field of enquiry.
> 
> The Guardian characterised him as the ‘godfather of multiculturalism’ and whilst you are right that his work was much more nuanced than that of some of those who cite him - and it is true that Thompson’s central point that the working class is present and can act in the making of its history is present in his work - you cannot understand how identity politics developed in the UK without examining the contribution of Stuart Hall.
> 
> ...



I'm afraid to my mind that arguing



> Their experience of the CP and Stalinism led them to attempt to rethink left/Marxist politics and coincided with an academic movement that questioned linear empirical history and focusssed instead on language and power and privilege within texts.
> 5 years later Stuart Hall's introduction in NLR condemned all 'top-down' politics and told us all to look for resistance in cultural identity.



Is a result of that later bending of his thoughts and ideas then because it bears no real relation to what he ever argued or put forward _himself_ whilst misreading what the people who split from the CPGB in 56 were up to (the rethinking of marx that the key players in that group engaged in came much later in the mid-late 70s and for some never came at all - for them it was just simply that the CPGB _as an organisation_ was no longer fit for purpose and labour would have to do instead) and then confusing that 56-61 period with an academic movement that only came to light in anglophone countries at the very very earliest a whole quarter of a century later.

Hall's work at the BCCS wasn't really 'looking for resistance in cultural identity' (and most of his actual theoretical work rather than what his real job of running the centre was done in the mid-late-70s). The BCCS did not introduce the idea of intersectionality into this country (no matter what Suzanne Moore says)  - again look at the chronology. Nor did they introduce the ideas of gender and race into the field of inquiry - after being set up by the most old fashioned of the 56 group (Hoggart) they simply did what their name suggests - that is, look at popular culture. This meant things like viewing habits, youth sub-cultures, attitudes towards work etc Hall took over in 68 and attempted to widen the ways in which they do this by introducing the ideas of Lucien Goldman (quickly discarded) then people that the NLR were then starting to translate and publish (Adorno, Gramscio etc - rememberhe has left the NLR a year after being made the first editor) but still covering the same an similar topics. The idea  simply being that 'signifying practices' - culture - told us wider things about society as whole, how changes in the formation of capital relations, how commodities are consumed are being experienced and then, in turn reformulated. That reformulation can act as resistance is as far as Hall ever went - he never argued that it was central, or unrelated to material conditions (the opposite in fact) or leading or the only place it can occur. If you read back those works up until policing the crisis the only resistance they identified really was a lack of identification with either school or work. I think you've blown up their work into something it wasn't.

Gender and Race were always parts of the fields of enquiry if only as absences - and it was the failure to  deal with these absences and the discriminations that were built on them by the state and its' institutions, by society and its institutions (chiefly the labour movement) that lead to the 81 riots and scarman report that sanctioned the top-downstate led multi-culturalism that has developed into present day identity politics. That's where Identity politics in this country came from - not from  a handful of academics writing about the way young girls -de-code teenage magazines for a slightly wider group of academics. For my thoughts on that see this.

NLR has never had any real influence beyond marxist specialists. Perry Anderson has always been quite unapologetic about this and often wrote about this being the idea after he used his personal fortune to buy the mag out form the original 56ers and change direction quite sharply - this was the basis for his falling out with E.P Thompson for example. The mags content from anderson's takeover basically had two main themes, very rarely meeting. One was the translation of then cutting edge continental marxism (althusser etc) and the construction of a tradition called 'western marxism' through the translation and re-publication of old pieces from people like Korsch and Lukacs. The 2nd was the political bits and it mostly consisted of regurgitation of third-worldist cheerleading wirth little or no critical reflection on why each third world issue they concentrated on inevitably went a very different way than they had suggested it would.  Neither of these had much real world purchase. Anderson at this time actually wrote a book about 'western marxism' in which he described how it was the end result of a separation of  marxist theorists from political action, a retreat into the academy - in a very different way from how Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg etc had managed to play both roles. He himself wrote the story of his and the NLR's own political irrelevance.

The only thing i can think of that has much significance was Tom Nairn's work on Scotland and Empire which has had an influence on left-scottish nationalists but the vast majority of this work has taken place in his books, not in NLR. NLR did play a role in the three-way-debate between him Thompson and Anderson in the 60s and 70s which helped spark his thoughts on this - but then so did socialist register and other journals - and i think, at the time Nairn's position was the exact opposite of the one he now holds and that has had influence.

You really are squashing very different things and periods together here - the late 50s and the early-mid 80s - and seeming to treat them as one moment. Those at the early end rarely if ever re-thought their views in terms of identity and those at the later end _never_ thought in terms of relations to an international communist movement.

(I've crammed in a lot there because i don't know that i'll be around much this week)

BTW this is my fav Hall quote for those still stuck in that model of a passive w/c having their lifes beamed into their heads by mass media and who try to use Hall and Gramsci to defend that nonsense:



> There is no more reductionist, instrumentalist, class-delusionary position than to assume that the extraordinary complexities of the society in which we live are really held together by the cement of the media’s messages. As crude as this may sound, a large part of the Marxist literature which tries to explain how Western societies are held together consensually—how the consensus is constructed, why it is that the working class is not revolutionary, and why it is that history is not following the punctuating rhythm of class struggle—relies on that position. Hegemony is not ideological mystification.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 30, 2017)

That's a top quote. Have to note that down.


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## campanula (Oct 30, 2017)

Yep, the ludicrous idea that the media determines attitudes and culture has always baffled me, notwithstanding the crude bludgeoning of advertising...when it is surely obvious that the media simply reflects cultures and, in the case of wc  expression, co-opts and sanitises it for middle class consumers.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Nov 1, 2017)

J Ed said:


> Of course they do, they just ignore whoever it is convenient to ignore and point to whoever it is convenient to point to.



There was one thread on that group that I wanted to quote verbatim, but I just searched for it and sadly it looks like its been deleted.

The OP posts up this awful article written by a black women called 'Intersectionality aint for white women' which said 'Let me be perfectly clear: *Intersectionality has never been, nor will it ever be, for white women.* Why? Because white women have never carried the weight of having to choose between their race or their gender when both mark them a visible target for oppression.'

I said this article was reductive nonsense and ignored the multiple intersecting identities that result in marginalisation and discrimination. In defence of this I cite none other than Kimberely Crenshaw, the individual who coined the term in the late 1980s:  



> Intersectionality is an analytic sensibility, a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power. Originally articulated on behalf of black women, the term brought to light the invisibility of many constituents within groups that claim them as members, but often fail to represent them.  Intersectional erasures are not exclusive to black women. People of color within LGBTQ movements; girls of color in the fight against the school-to-prison pipeline; women within immigration movements; trans women within feminist movements; and people with disabilities fighting police abuse — all face vulnerabilities that reflect the intersections of racism, sexism, class oppression, transphobia, able-ism and more. Intersectionality has given many advocates a way to frame their circumstances and to fight for their visibility and inclusion.



Opinion | Why intersectionality can’t wait

And yet, I was criticised, again by white women, for 'decentering blackness' - even when I quoted the black feminist who coined the term intersectionality! These sort of people are just impossible to talk to.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 1, 2017)

Very annoying as Krenshaw's 1989 work is really very good. Worth reading if only to see how sensible it is and its distance from what claims the title now.


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## ska invita (Nov 1, 2017)

what does "centering/decentering" mean?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 1, 2017)

ska invita said:


> what does "centering/decentering" mean?


Putting or removing focus/value on or from...


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## kabbes (Nov 1, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> Very annoying as Krenshaw's 1989 work is really very good. Worth reading if only to see how sensible it is and its distance from what claims the title now.


I’ve never read that before, so thanks.

Krenshaw is quite specific, isn’t she?  Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to to be focussed on the fact that if you sit on an intersection— and black women is her example — you get frozen out of being considered for discrimination at all, and this in multiple different ways.  So if you want to claim race discrimination, you get told that you don’t represent “black” and if you want to claim sex discrimination you get told you don’t represent “women”.

This seems to be a key finding (starting from “Black women are regarded...”)

 

It is indeed very sensible and unrecognisable from the kind of hierarchy of privilege now being constructed.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 9, 2017)

Personal anecdote here. I'm on a fb group for fans of a band. Membership is pretty middle class hipster type (click on a random profile and they'll likely be a student). Everyone just posts about the band so who cares.

Today there's an 800 reply shitfest because someone is sick of all the 'tiresome straights' and wants an lgbt breakaway group. It's already the most liberal lefty lgtb friendly community I've ever seen. I assume somebody has made a non lgbt friendly comment somewhere and this is the reaction.

Any time someone replies saying they think it's shitty to call out all straight people and splinter the community they are dogpiled with sarcastic comments like 'oh it must be so hard being straight'. Or 'when an oppressed class speaks you listen'.

I clicked on the OP profile and of course she's a middle class as fuck graduate of a very posh university. Boggles the mind. I don't think having an lgbt space is a bad thing but this is all communicated in aggressive terms that straight people are the oppressors and queers are the oppressed. Tons of stuff about how cishets need to shut up and how much better the new community will be without them. It's possibly the whitest most middle class online community I've ever seen (insert joke about urban) so it's a bit rich.

And this is just a page for sharing memes and chat about a band. I'm not involved in the political sphere but a lot of these people are and frankly fuck getting into that if this is the standard of discourse.

It's not like I feel I'm experiencing discrimination for being straight, I just think these people are dickheads who promote bad feeling and exclusionary communities. They all consider themselves left wing (and anyone who disagrees right wing) but left wing politics for them starts and ends with issues of individual identity and expression. It's actually quite annoying because I liked the solidarity in the group of all loving the same band but oh well.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 10, 2017)

I just put this on urban because I thought it's a waste of time arguing with them... then spent the whole time arguing with them anyway.  I don't expect this post to contribute much to moving the discussion forward etc but I've spent a few hours being called a scumbag and would like to vent a little in this space.  Some choice quotes:



> Marginalised people don't owe politeness to the groups that oppress them





> It's okay to exclude people if they have institutional power





> Thanks for your opinion random man





> *picture of a mug that says 'heterosexual tears' on it*



Loads of stuff about fuck all straights and about white tears (written by white people though).  Clicking on a few profiles these are law students and various middle class professionals etc.  There is a general agreement that lgbt are an oppressed class and straights are the oppressor.  Therefore, it is justified to be as rude as you like to any straight person, it is literally impossible for a group of lgbt people to bully a straight person, and so on.

Some people were clearly having the time of their lives piling on with sarcastic comments to anyone who questioned this.  One guy mentioned he has mental health issues and feels he isn't necessarily more privileged, and was mocked quite brutally because he's still an oppressor and how ridiculous he could believe otherwise.  I was told I directly contribute to oppression by being straight.  These are some of the rudest group of bullies I've seen online, they way they speak to people they've deemed their oppressors is insane.

I mentioned that a posh university student who identifies as bi can still be more privileged in many ways than a working class cis-het guy, so it's not fair to lump identities together like that without a class analysis.  Mocked for 'making it all about me' and told to educate myself.  I'm doing a social science PhD I've read enough books thanks and I still think this is really shit analysis.  Anyway they all hate me on there now and I feel alienated from the group so yay for neoliberal idpol I guess.


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## Athos (Nov 10, 2017)

A glimpse of Urban's future.


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## killer b (Nov 10, 2017)

Athos said:


> A glimpse of Urban's future.


Not sure how true this is - there's been IDpol rows on here since forever, and while it's gone back and forth at various points I think we've managed to keep a reasonable balance.


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## ska invita (Nov 10, 2017)

Athos said:


> A glimpse of Urban's future.


no it isnt. no young people join urban. if they did then maybe. the share your aches and pains thread is a glimpse of urbans future. 


AllEternalsHeck said:


> Personal anecdote here. I'm on a fb group for fans of a band. Membership is pretty middle class hipster type (click on a random profile and they'll likely be a student). Everyone just posts about the band so who cares.
> 
> Today there's an 800 reply shitfest because someone is sick of all the 'tiresome straights' and wants an lgbt breakaway group. It's already the most liberal lefty lgtb friendly community I've ever seen. I assume somebody has made a non lgbt friendly comment somewhere and this is the reaction.
> 
> ...


sounds fucked up... this kind of behaviour does seem to occur primarily amongst (young) students...there used to be a diss of describing stupid politics like this out as "6th form politics", seems still appropriate. Is that a mis-characterisation or are there many older people who think like this?

Whats the argument still going on about anyway AllEternalsHeck? Have they made their own breakaway facebook group or not? If not what are they waiting for?


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## Athos (Nov 10, 2017)

ska invita said:


> no it isnt. no young people join urban. if they did then maybe. the share your aches and pains thread is a glimpse of urbans future.
> 
> sounds fucked up... this kind of behaviour does seem to occur primarily amongst (young) students...there used to be a diss of describing stupid politics like this out as "6th form politics", seems still appropriate. Is that a mis-characterisation or are there many older people who think like this?
> 
> Whats the argument still going on about anyway AllEternalsHeck? Have they made their own breakaway facebook group or not? If not what are they waiting for?



Sadly, it's people old enough to know better who are bringing this shit here.


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## seventh bullet (Nov 10, 2017)

It's why I don't really post as much as I used to.  

In the 'real world,' when solidarity is needed in the future, they're going to be in a bit of a pickle aren't, they?  Can't do much on your own.


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## seventh bullet (Nov 10, 2017)

Some really ugly social forces may kick their doors down one day.  Backed by all those enemies that might once have been friends.


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## J Ed (Nov 10, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Some really ugly social forces may kick their doors down one day.  Backed by all those enemies that might once have been friends.



Not our job to educate them etc


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 10, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Some really ugly social forces may kick their doors down one day.  Backed by all those enemies that might once have been friends.



Eh who are you talking about? I expect this vague shit from Athos-man-of-sneery-misery and mystery but come on... Just because people don't spend their days outlining the everyday things family/work/community/friends they do to address social inequality, fight for social justice and make a difference doesn't mean people are stupid/oblivious/unprepared. The us and them narrative around here is fucking shit given those claiming the 'us' position are not being asked to detail those things, they are just assuming 'power/righteousness' by default.


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## seventh bullet (Nov 10, 2017)

J Ed said:


> Not our job to educate them etc



No, they'll hide behind their own privileged access to formal education and act as gatekeepers to a club most people who come into contact with end up being alienated and disgusted by. 

They could do something useful for a change and help the rest of us tear that bullshit down.


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## seventh bullet (Nov 10, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Eh who are you talking about? I expect this vague shit from Athos-man-of-sneery-misery and mystery but come on... Just because people don't spend their days outlining the everyday things family/work/community/friends they do to address social inequality, fight for social justice and make a difference doesn't mean people are stupid/oblivious/unprepared. The us and them narrative around here is fucking shit given those claiming the 'us' position are not being asked to detail those things, they are just assuming 'power/righteousness' by default.



Way to misinterpret my post.  You are one of the reasons I avoid this place, to be frank.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 10, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Way to misinterpret my post.  You are one of the reasons I avoid this place, to be frank.



Thanks. 

I didn't misinterpret on purpose and actually, the fact you pin that shit on me shows you know fuck all about who I am and what I do, imo proving my point. Also, given I don't post much at all I call bullshit on you blaming me.

Thanks again and i'll not engage with you anymore as your projections onto me and of me clearly ruin your day.


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## seventh bullet (Nov 10, 2017)

Sure, it's all about you. Everything and always.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 10, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Sure, it's all about you. Everything and always.



Nope. Fucking cop out. It's about you and your projections/imagination/expectations. Yet you don't have a clue who i am and what i do or not. Blame me. No problem.You poor thing.


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## seventh bullet (Nov 10, 2017)

Yeah.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 10, 2017)

Yeah. Enjoy your weekend.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 10, 2017)

ska invita said:


> no it isnt. no young people join urban. if they did then maybe. the share your aches and pains thread is a glimpse of urbans future.
> 
> sounds fucked up... this kind of behaviour does seem to occur primarily amongst (young) students...there used to be a diss of describing stupid politics like this out as "6th form politics", seems still appropriate. Is that a mis-characterisation or are there many older people who think like this?
> 
> Whats the argument still going on about anyway AllEternalsHeck? Have they made their own breakaway facebook group or not? If not what are they waiting for?



They are mostly early to mid twenties I'd say.  Some into their thirties and some younger in maybe late teens.  It does feel like a young group to me in my early 30s but they're not all young.

They've made the new group already but it was invite by PM only, so only those in the in-group are allowed.  I've no issues if anyone wants an lgbt space, if I'd read a post just mentioning an lgbt group I'd have scrolled past barely noticing.  It's all these middle class sheltered arseholes describing themselves as being in an oppressed group because they're bi or whatever.

I tried to talk about social class privilege and they say that's a separate issue.  They have relegated class to just another identity, to be analysed separately on the wheel of oppression.  It's actually key to the discussion because this sort of idpol can only thrive in a middle class space, where everyone has a strong incentive to overlook their own privilege so they can be in the oppressed group.  In 12 years of working in call-centres I never heard anyone complain about white males or cishet tears, I go into a middle class space and hear nothing else.

I also pointed out that as a sociology grad I am most offended by how they've warped intersectionality into a method for centering middle class issues.  Had all these people patronisingly trying to explain it, as if the only reason I didn't agree is that I'm not educated in the concepts.  Total dicks, there is just so much of: 'no your job is to listen.  we don't owe our oppressors explanations', so you can't even have a chat about it really.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 10, 2017)

Just another little example of the sort of reply you'll get for questioning idpol



> What I don't understand about cis hets is how y'all think everything has to be about/for you. You literally have the whole world, all of media, everything catered to you. The one time something is not for you, you throw a fit.


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## J Ed (Nov 10, 2017)

When it is wielded as a weapon like that it is used in the exact same way that the same sort of person in a different time and/or place would have used the precepts of religious orthodoxy.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 10, 2017)

J Ed said:


> When it is wielded as a weapon like that it is used in the exact same way that the same sort of person in a different time and/or place would have used the precepts of religious orthodoxy.



Absolutely. Someone PM'd me to thank me for sticking up for them when they were getting dogpiled by dozens of users. He mentioned that they all use the same sarcastic phrases and canned responses to shut down conversation, like they all drank the same cool aid.

If I had to guess I'd imagine their worldview is formed through the internet and that whole online culture wars thing. Maybe a splash of student politics too. In the process they've become so polarised that everyone is the enemy and even conversation is threatening.


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## J Ed (Nov 10, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Absolutely. Someone PM'd me to thank me for sticking up for them when they were getting dogpiled by dozens of users. He mentioned that they all use the same sarcastic phrases and canned responses to shut down conversation, like they all drank the same cool aid.
> 
> If I had to guess I'd imagine their worldview is formed through the internet and that whole online culture wars thing. Maybe a splash of student politics too. In the process they've become so polarised that everyone is the enemy and even conversation is threatening.



Yes, I get this impression too. They become incapable of engaging with anyone in a different way, someone is either a pal or the cause of everything that is wrong with the world with no area in between.


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 10, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Some really ugly social forces may kick their doors down one day.  Backed by all those enemies that might once have been friends.


 that sounds quite threatening? I'm a bit lost lost here - do you mean this literally? when you say 'their' do you mean these lgbt middleclass student types on social media?  I'm a bit old to know any students and I don't use social media (other than u75) so all this is rather mystifying to me. I've know plenty of people who have been physically attacked/had their doors kicked in/offices fire bombed by some very ugly forces in RL, so naturally I have a defensive mindset. 



seventh bullet said:


> No, they'll hide behind their own privileged access to formal education and act as gatekeepers to a club most people who come into contact with end up being alienated and disgusted by.
> 
> They could do something useful for a change and help the rest of us tear that bullshit down.



It sounds a bit like the general 'echo chamber' effect of things like FB are polarising debates. Do you find these sort of experiences in real life? Are lgbt /other students not involved in 'tearing that bullshit' down now?

The arguments are much the same are in my youth though though all the words and the settings have changed. We didn't need to exclude straight people from gay meetings in the 80s - on the whole you couldn't attract them - they just didn't attend.  I'm reading Stuart Feathers book about Gay Lib in the early 70s now - lots of interesting stuff about how it grew out of revoluntary left ideas. He says how to concentrate on their own issues and not get hijacked by other agendas the GLF insisted that everyone stated their sexuality in meetings. Theres a good chapter about how the GLF women rejected the control of hetrosexual male moaists/ marxists at an early Womens Lib conference and changed the nature of feminist debate.


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 10, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> They could do something useful for a change and help the rest of us tear that bullshit down.


 Meant to add  - what useful things are you doing in tearing bullshit down? and which bullshit are you talking about - is this just FB bullshit?


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## seventh bullet (Nov 10, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> that sounds quite threatening? I'm a bit lost lost here - do you mean this literally? when you say 'their' do you mean these lgbt middleclass student types on social media?  I'm a bit old to know any students and I don't use social media (other than u75) so all this is rather mystifying to me. I've know plenty of people who have been physically attacked/had their doors kicked in/offices fire bombed by some very ugly forces in RL, so naturally I have a defensive mindset.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Firstly, what am I threatening?

Middle class-dominated identity politics safely incorporated into our present iteration of capitalism actively undermines a politics of solidarity. If that is presented as the 'left,' and this is the widely understood way of seeing the world, of which some fascists are in the vanguard, then for the 'enemies' (everyone who doesn't know the rules of the game) of these liberals, I do worry for the future.


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 10, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> Firstly, what am I threatening?


 that was my question? I didn't say _you_ were threatening, I was asking what do you mean in that post? I'm none the wiser yet.



seventh bullet said:


> Middle class-dominated identity politics safely incorporated into our present iteration of capitalism actively undermines a politics of solidarity. If that is presented as the 'left,' and this is the widely understood way of seeing the world, of which some fascists are in the vanguard, then for the 'enemies' (everyone who doesn't know the rules of the game) of these liberals, I do worry for the future.


eh? can you be a bit clearer please - I've no idea what point you are making here. 

please say more about the politics of solidarity - I hope this means more than just _liking_ stuff on FB.


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## ManchesterBeth (Nov 10, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Absolutely. Someone PM'd me to thank me for sticking up for them when they were getting dogpiled by dozens of users. He mentioned that they all use the same sarcastic phrases and canned responses to shut down conversation, like they all drank the same cool aid.
> 
> If I had to guess I'd imagine their worldview is formed through the internet and that whole online culture wars thing. Maybe a splash of student politics too. In the process they've become so polarised that everyone is the enemy and even conversation is threatening.



tumblr.


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## kabbes (Nov 10, 2017)

If you’re a minority who genuinely wants to gain mainstream acceptance, you don’t do that by attacking and vilifying the very people you want to accept you.  And nobody is stupid enough to think otherwise.  Which makes me question the actual motives of the people AllEternalsHeck is coming into contact with.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

kabbes said:


> If you’re a minority who genuinely wants to gain mainstream acceptance, you don’t do that by attacking and vilifying the very people you want to accept you.  And nobody is stupid enough to think otherwise.  Which makes me question the actual motives of the people AllEternalsHeck is coming into contact with.



It felt like the motives were to feel superior, to enjoy bullying and excluding others. With a handy built in defence that it's not really abuse because they are fighting oppression. I just got the feeling that type of environment provides cover for some really toxic people.

There seems quite a big element of being part of the gang. All you have to do is say you identify as non binary or you're bi and you're both accepted and one of the oppressed now. Instantly, the straights are your oppressor.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

dialectician said:


> tumblr.



I'd say so yeah. I've never used Tumblr and always thought its reputation was a bit overblown. But having just argued with literally hundreds of people who are the perfect Tumblr stereotype I'm not so sure now.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

I'm bored with the discussion tbf, it's basically the new white liberal common sense now. With the attendent sanitised racism that such a politics covers.

especially if you're mixed race, or on the peripheries of whiteness (like myself in the second case...)


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

I used to defend liberals quite a bit. Not necessarily their ideas, but their right to hold those ideas and the concept that their ideas do have some value and are no threat to my own more socialist positions. Definitely I'd protect them against attacks from the right. Just over the last year or so I've grown to loath liberals with a burning passion. Gradual build up. I won't defend them and we are nowhere near the same side.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> I used to defend liberals quite a bit. Not necessarily their ideas, but their right to hold those ideas and the concept that their ideas do have some value and are no threat to my own more socialist positions. Definitely I'd protect them against attacks from the right. Just over the last year or so I've grown to loath liberals with a burning passion. Gradual build up. I won't defend them and we are nowhere near the same side.



But then you have the liberal socialist.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

dialectician said:


> But then you have the liberal socialist.



I've never heard of a liberal socialist, not a contradiction in terms?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

A quick Google and that doesn't look like socialism to me


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> I've never heard of a liberal socialist, not a contradiction in terms?



The majority of the media savvy uk left.

*strokes beard* I said i was out of here.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 11, 2017)

As has been observed on this thread and others, identity politics isn’t really about politics - it’s a means to avoid growing up; to maintain a victim/entitlement adolescent mindset into adulthood


----------



## seventh bullet (Nov 11, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> that was my question? I didn't say _you_ were threatening, I was asking what do you mean in that post? I'm none the wiser yet.
> 
> 
> eh? can you be a bit clearer please - I've no idea what point you are making here.
> ...



People working/fighting/arguing/supporting each other for common aims, a united purpose.

I am not on FB, so don't know what that is like.

 Also if you're talking about Maoism in a UK context I am not sure how relevant to the w/c any fight for control between left groups is.  Not at all, I'd say.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 11, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> As has been observed on this thread and others, identity politics isn’t really about politics - it’s a means to avoid growing up; to maintain a victim/entitlement adolescent mindset into adulthood



I find (not here) that's a comment that oft comes from the right; when dismissing those that don't follow their repugnant views. But I'm still none the wiser as to what it's meant by vitims?


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 11, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> I find (not here) that's a comment that oft comes from the right; when dismissing those that don't follow their repugnant views. But I'm still none the wiser as to what it's meant by vitims?



What’s your point/question?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 11, 2017)

dialectician said:


> I'm bored with the discussion tbf, it's basically the new white liberal common sense now. *With the attendent sanitised racism that such a politics covers.
> 
> especially if you're mixed race, or on the peripheries of whiteness* (like myself in the second case...)



Can you expand a bit on what you mean this please dialectician ?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> It sounds a bit like the general 'echo chamber' effect of things like FB are polarising debates. Do you find these sort of experiences in real life? Are lgbt /other students not involved in 'tearing that bullshit' down now?



I'd be wary of dismissing it as just facebook bullshit or whatever.  I used to do the same.  Anyone complained about tumble sjw's or whatever and I'd write them off as a conservative whiner who was seeking out offence over irrelevant internet nonsense.

What has changed for me is the extent this has bled over into real life.  Quick example: I have an ex classmate on fb who lives a life of privilege that I am frankly quite jealous of.  Really nice apartment, trendy restaurants several evenings a week, and she doesn't work so I'm not sure how she affords it (I assume parents).  She considers herself 'left wing' and 'really political' but this takes the form of like green party liberalism and lifestyle issues like veganism.  The other day on fb she was complaining about being sick of white men in positions of power.  I get the feeling that she doesn't have an issue with the positions of power _per se_ but wants to see her own identity group in them.  

I have very little respect for that because I had to balance my degree with working 3 full days a week in a call-centre and was still poverty-line poor.  Struggling to heat my flat in the winter poor.  Frankly the white men chat can fuck off coming from a white woman so privileged.  

So sure this is facebook but it's someone I know and it does affect how they behave in local politics etc.  I find most students are just normal people but the ones who consider themselves 'political' are usually into liberal politics rather than anything which challenges systems of inequality.  They'll be complaining about microaggressions not protesting welfare cuts or volunteering at foodbanks.


----------



## Athos (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Nope. Fucking cop out. It's about you and your projections/imagination/expectations. Yet you don't have a clue who i am and what i do or not. Blame me. No problem.You poor thing.



No, it's about shit politics.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> can you be a bit clearer please - I've no idea what point you are making here.
> 
> please say more about the politics of solidarity - I hope this means more than just _liking_ stuff on FB.





Rutita1 said:


> Can you expand a bit on what you mean this please dialectician ?



I'd be genuinely interested in hearing more of your thoughts on this.  You both post a lot but mostly it's picking people up on details or asking for things to be explained further.  Not so much giving your own opinions.  I feel like there's a subtext that you're not really agreeing but you're not saying it explicitly or providing counter points.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> I'd be genuinely interested in hearing more of your thoughts on this.  You both post a lot but mostly it's picking people up on details or asking for things to be explained further.  Not so much giving your own opinions.  I feel like there's a subtext that you're not really agreeing but you're not saying it explicitly or providing counter points.



1. You'd like to hear our thoughts on what exactly? You joined the thread on page 8, the discussion has done loop after loop. Both Fod and I have posted our opinions, where relevant and when we have chosen to. 
2. I don't post a lot at all actually. I've made a few posts in the last couple of days, that's not a lot at all. 
3. What is wrong with asking for clarification when I feel that someone has made a statement or point that isn't clear? 
4. Like with any discussion, it is up to me to evaluate whether or not I want/need to get involved. Not countering someone's points is neither a sign of agreement, nor disagreement. Sometimes I think the point has already been made, sometimes I don't think it's important, sometimes I can't be asked to go over the same ground again, sometimes life gets in the way/I make a choice to do other things.


----------



## seventh bullet (Nov 11, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Meant to add  - what useful things are you doing in tearing bullshit down? and which bullshit are you talking about - is this just FB bullshit?



I was referring to higher education and its access.  The deliberate building of barriers and the ways in which inequality and power are reproduced, and the crap liberal politics it produces among the middle class.  Opening it up, making it all ours is one of the best class-based demands that could be made in this society before even wanting to build a new one. Not a politics done from universities, but a politics that takes these institutions into our hands. Everyone.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> 1. You'd like to hear our thoughts on what exactly? You joined the thread on page 8, the discussion has done loop after loop. Both Fod and I have posted our opinions, where relevant and when we have chosen to.
> 2. I don't post a lot at all actually. I've made a few posts in the last couple of days, that's not a lot at all.
> 3. What is wrong with asking for clarification when I feel that someone has made a statement or point that isn't clear?
> 4. Like with any discussion, it is up to me to evaluate whether or not I want/need to get involved. Not countering someone's points is neither a sign of agreement, nor disagreement. Sometimes I think the point has already been made, sometimes I don't think it's important, sometimes I can't be asked to go over the same ground again, sometimes life gets in the way/I make a choice to do other things.



Fair enough it's up to you.  I got the feeling you are fairly supportive of identity politics.  Or not as critical as most people in the thread.  Perhaps a bit more willing to defend or downplay some of the excesses?  But I could be reading that wrong because I haven't seen any clear statements of what you believe.  Where FOD asked 'if this is just FB bullshit' it is posed as a question but feels like they're trying to downplay it a bit.  That sort of thing.


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## killer b (Nov 11, 2017)

I'm not sure it's sensible to talk about 'just' FB bullshit anymore tbh. Like it or not (I don't), Facebook is one of the primary ways people communicate about and form their political views now. _Just FB bullshit_ is pretty much everything.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 11, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> What’s your point/question?



Well, who's avoiding growing up and maintaining victimhood,is what I'm asking.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 11, 2017)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure it's sensible to talk about 'just' FB bullshit anymore tbh. Like it or not (I don't), Facebook is one of the primary ways people communicate about and form their political views now. _Just FB bullshit_ is pretty much everything.


Half the population don’t use Facebook at all.

More Than Half of UK Population Will Log on to Facebook This Year - eMarketer

Of the other half, I’m not sure how many use it for anything other than the occasional social event. 

It’s big news but certainly not the be all and end all.


----------



## killer b (Nov 11, 2017)

But it's influence goes way beyond it's user base, as people who engage with politics through facebook will take what they've learned there to other forums of discussion (the pub / workplace / dinnerparty / whatever).


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Fair enough it's up to you.  I got the feeling you are fairly supportive of identity politics.  Or not as critical as most people in the thread.



I am pretty sure there are areas of this conversation where I do not agree with others on the thread. I also think that depending on who you are and what your experiences are has an impact on where you draw the battle lines around this issue. I would not describe myself as supportive of 'identity politics'  however I have clearly stated numerous times that I think there are issues and contexts in which 'centring' one aspect of identity/experience and organising around it is alright with me. The beginning of this thread explored numerous examples of that over and over again (civil rights/feminist agendas/LGBT liberation etc). I shouldn't need to repeat any of that. Another example; people having 'safe spaces' doesn't bother me in the slightest, I don't believe that people wanting space/time to explore certain issues on their own terms is necessarily detrimental to anyone or anything...what becomes action as a result of that is the rub isn't it?...equally of course if that's all people do, sit around putting the world to rights but never actually doing jack shit. Telling everyone else they're wrong but not actually getting out and showing others how they think it can be done. Or if they become too blinkered and entrenched( see the radical bookfair thread for a good example of this happening).




> Perhaps a bit more willing to defend or downplay some of the excesses? But I could be reading that wrong because I haven't seen any clear statements of what you believe.


 What are the excesses IYO? How can you accuse me of being willing to 'downplay' the excesses but admit you haven't actually read where I stand on this issue? This is what I mean about people projecting in an earlier post. It's also a really loaded accusation as it positions you as an authority, you get to dictate what the excesses are and if I disagree with you I am somehow simply downplaying them/not having a valid opinion. 



> Where FOD asked 'if this is just FB bullshit' it is posed as a question but feels like they're trying to downplay it a bit.  That sort of thing.



I think her question is a valid one. I think it's important to think about how much of this is contained in certain contexts like FB groups or twitter wars and how much of it trickles into the mainstream. 

Going back slightly to your post about a FB friend of yours. Would you describe that as an example of the 'excesses' of IDPing? I wouldn't. She sounds like someone who hasn't worked out her own perspective in a meaningful way, more relying on generalisation/universal truisms (men get better opportunities/jobs). It seems to me that she hasn't reflected on her own position and advantages, class. I am interested as to what you did to challenge her or how you feel you could challenge that kind of conflation.


----------



## Athos (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I would not describe myself as supportive of 'identity politics'...



?!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 11, 2017)




----------



## Athos (Nov 11, 2017)

Lol. That coming from one of the most fork-tounged hypocrites on these boards.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> I'd be genuinely interested in hearing more of your thoughts on this.  You both post a lot but mostly it's picking people up on details or asking for things to be explained further.  Not so much giving your own opinions.  I feel like there's a subtext that you're not really agreeing but you're not saying it explicitly or providing counter points.


I think I said a lot about my own politics and thoughts early on in this thread - when I was asking for clarification on what ID politics is - because sometimes my posts had been dismissed as ID pol here on urb75 and I'd never heard of it in RL. It seemed to be agreed that fighting for your rights as a lgbt person wasn't in itself IDpol. Then some posters said my views weren't ID pol at all and I had acted in solidarity. I've always been quite clear about my views - see my op on combatting hopelessness thread.

In my last few posts I've been trying to find out how much of the behaviours that are being decried and labelled as ID pol, take place in real life and how much is just on line, because the way power/politics works on-line is genuinely a mystery to me. I work in a care home and no one talks about class - I imagine most of my co-workers have never even heard of ID politics 

I ask for clarification here because its needed - posters aren't being clear about who or what they they are talking about. Isn't that the point of debate?


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I would not describe myself as supportive of 'identity politics'  however I have clearly stated numerous times that I think there are issues and contexts in which 'centring' one aspect of identity/experience and organising around it is alright with me. The beginning of this thread explored numerous examples of that over and over again (civil rights/feminist agendas/LGBT liberation etc). I shouldn't need to repeat any of that.


Well said - your posts are always clear.


----------



## mauvais (Nov 11, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> The arguments are much the same are in my youth though though all the words and the settings have changed. We didn't need to exclude straight people from gay meetings in the 80s - on the whole you couldn't attract them - they just didn't attend.  I'm reading Stuart Feathers book about Gay Lib in the early 70s now - lots of interesting stuff about how it grew out of revoluntary left ideas. He says how to concentrate on their own issues and not get hijacked by other agendas the GLF insisted that everyone stated their sexuality in meetings. Theres a good chapter about how the GLF women rejected the control of hetrosexual male moaists/ marxists at an early Womens Lib conference and changed the nature of feminist debate.


It's not just about active, integrated support (and all of the leadership/ownership issues that go with that) though is it? For the vast majority of people they are, by default, merely passive observers that this stuff plays out in front of; but it's also they as a mass who ultimately define social acceptance. The risk of IDP isn't just internal control, it's that a them/us barrier actively alienates people with no dog in the fight.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 11, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Well, who's avoiding growing up and maintaining victimhood,is what I'm asking.



Those whose ‘political’ thinking/behaviour comes under the heading of idnentity politics.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 11, 2017)

killer b said:


> But it's influence goes way beyond it's user base, as people who engage with politics through facebook will take what they've learned there to other forums of discussion (the pub / workplace / dinnerparty / whatever).


And vice versa.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Where FOD asked 'if this is just FB bullshit' it is posed as a question but feels like they're trying to downplay it a bit.  That sort of thing.



I'm not down playing the effect of FB - I'm trying to understand it.

I don't do FB, whats app, snapchat, linkedin, or any other social media. It seems to me that how people present them selves and behave on social media is far removed from their real selves. and the media it self manipulates the way they behave, in what it shows them and how it allows advertisers to buy their data to manipulate them further. I don't think most people who use it have any idea how it works to filter everything they see. Its all 1984 big brother for my liking.

I don't think we're on opposte sides here.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 11, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Those whose ‘political’ thinking/behaviour comes under the heading of idnentity politics.



Hmmm. Not sure how that makes them victims.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 11, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Hmmm. Not sure how that makes them victims.



Okay


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 11, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> People working/fighting/arguing/supporting each other for common aims, a united purpose.
> 
> I am not on FB, so don't know what that is like.
> 
> Also if you're talking about Maoism in a UK context I am not sure how relevant to the w/c any fight for control between left groups is.  Not at all, I'd say.


You really haven't read my posts very well and are talking at cross purposes to me. 

Yes I know what solidarity is - eggs/grandma young man  - I was relating it to different times - the 'solidarity' I experienced in the 1980s when hetrosexuals weren't interested in attending our debates/meetings/demos. *
And no I wasn't talking about 'moaism' I was talking about how I'm reading that  'support' from straight men encountered by women of GLF in the 70s was rejected so they could get on and have a womens conference. 

My point was that this sort of debate is nothing new - its just the times and media and language have changed. 

* ok there was the notable exception of getting the trade unions on our side because of queer support for the miners strike.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> What are the excesses IYO? How can you accuse me of being willing to 'downplay' the excesses but admit you haven't actually read where I stand on this issue? This is what I mean about people projecting in an earlier post. It's also a really loaded accusation as it positions you as an authority, you get to dictate what the excesses are and if I disagree with you I am somehow simply downplaying them/not having a valid opinion.



The excesses as described in my experience yesterday.  Stripping class analysis from the picture altogether and concluding that an upper middle class lawyer who happens to be bisexual or non-binary has the right to abuse any straight person as much as they like.  Because in their eyes straights are the oppressing class and they are punching up against oppressors.  I wish I was exaggerating but this is the level of discourse a lot of people are at.

That's excessive right?  I'm don't need to be an authority to believe that's a fucked up worldview.



Rutita1 said:


> Going back slightly to your post about a FB friend of yours. Would you describe that as an example of the 'excesses' of IDPing? I wouldn't. She sounds like someone who hasn't worked out her own perspective in a meaningful way, more relying on generalisation/universal truisms (men get better opportunities/jobs). It seems to me that she hasn't reflected on her own position and advantages, class. I am interested as to what you did to challenge her or how you feel you could challenge that kind of conflation.



Yes I would describe that as an example of the 'excesses'.  Again, putting that in quotes implies you don't really agree, without quite saying it.  I'd say she has worked out her perspective in a way that is very meaningful to her.  Given that she can immerse herself in communities where those views are mainstream I'd expect she'll become more embedded in that position rather then less.  It's the worldview that makes sense from her class position.  

I didn't challenge her.  I have learned that any challenge to this position is met with scathing sarcasm and aggression.  Term such as 'brosocialist' or the sarcastic use of 'not all men' would be thrown around with abandon.  Since she has hundreds of fb friends from all over the world (who she clearly met online on tumblr or whatever) I'd expect to get mobbed pretty quickly with abuse about the entitlement of cishet males.  Nobody would learn anything and she'd leave the encounter more validated in her view that beforehand.

I don't know if there's a way of challenging it.  Maybe a lighthearted quip asking if it's ok when the position of power is occupied by a woman?  Probably would get the same response.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I think I said a lot about my own politics and thoughts early on in this thread - when I was asking for clarification on what ID politics is - because sometimes my posts had been dismissed as ID pol here on urb75 and I'd never heard of it in RL. It seemed to be agreed that fighting for your rights as a lgbt person wasn't in itself IDpol. Then some posters said my views weren't ID pol at all and I had acted in solidarity. I've always been quite clear about my views - see my op on combatting hopelessness thread.
> 
> In my last few posts I've been trying to find out how much of the behaviours that are being decried and labelled as ID pol, take place in real life and how much is just on line, because the way power/politics works on-line is genuinely a mystery to me. I work in a care home and no one talks about class - I imagine most of my co-workers have never even heard of ID politics
> 
> I ask for clarification here because its needed - posters aren't being clear about who or what they they are talking about. Isn't that the point of debate?



Yeah, fair enough.  Please don't feel like you can't ask questions, I'm sorry for giving that impression.  That's the attitude I run into from the idpol crowd: 'how dare you question us it's not our job to educate you'.  Not cool.  Questions are part of conversation and are good.  Yeah in my call-centre work nobody really spoke about class much either but I do feel there was a level of class solidarity (we're all stuck in this shitty situation together).  Identity politics would make absolutely no sense in that environment and I never detected a hint of it.   

As to whether it's just an online thing.  Well I did believe that for ages.  I see it more and more irl nowadays though, and as others have said you can separate online and real life spaces less and less these days.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Hmmm. Not sure how that makes them victims.



I think he was saying that they want to present themselves as victims


----------



## killer b (Nov 11, 2017)

kabbes said:


> And vice versa.


Sure. But there isn't discrete 'FB stuff' anymore. It's embedded in everything, even when we aren't on Facebook.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> I think he was saying that they want to present themselves as victims



Those who use identity politics... wish to be seen as victims. Ok; forgive me, am still confused by this whole issue. I'd never heard of IDP until it started cropping up here and also from (very) right wing posters elsewhere online. 

I don't think I'll ever get the hang of it. And yes, people have tried to explain it to me but it's over my head.


----------



## seventh bullet (Nov 11, 2017)

Stop the pretend bullshit about not knowing with the added insinuation that people here are like the far right.

You're above this anyway. You abolished class in your mind, man.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Those who use identity politics... wish to be seen as victims. Ok; forgive me, am still confused by this whole issue. I'd never heard of IDP until it started cropping up here and also from (very) right wing posters elsewhere online.
> 
> I don't think I'll ever get the hang of it. And yes, people have tried to explain it to me but it's over my head.



It's a wish to be seen as part of an oppressed class.  Say you're quite sheltered and middle class.  Parents are doctors and lawyers.  You go straight from your suburban comfortable home life into an elite university and get involved in student politics.  You find out that as a woman you are oppressed by men and need to fight this oppression.  You overlook any nuance that would come from accepting your own class privilege and consider yourself to be a political radical now.  Post male tears memes at anyone who calls you a posh faker.

This may sound like a very crude caricature of identity politics but that's just how crude their politics can get.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 11, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> You really haven't read my posts very well and are talking at cross purposes to me.
> 
> Yes I know what solidarity is - eggs/grandma young man  - I was relating it to different times - the 'solidarity' I experienced in the 1980s when hetrosexuals weren't interested in attending our debates/meetings/demos. *
> And no I wasn't talking about 'moaism' I was talking about how I'm reading that  'support' from straight men encountered by women of GLF in the 70s was rejected so they could get on and have a womens conference.
> ...


The debate may be nothing new, but I would argue that the terms of engagement and what is at stake have changed. 

To run with your eg, we've come an incredibly long way in the 50 years since the first partial decriminalisation to a point where full legal equality is just about there. I'd guess that 1970s GLF activists would scarcely have dreamed that such progress could be made so quickly. And that surely profoundly changes what it is to be a gay activist today - the focus is no longer against the state. Any focus on the state is likely to involve ensuring that it does what it says it will do. I'm not saying it's all hunky dory, but we've come a long way from Clause 28 and discrimination built into the legal system. 

Something similar can be said about racism and the fight against racial discrimination. 

On the other hand, in all kinds of ways things have changed since the 70s, post-Thatcher, in a way that makes fighting against the state for wider social and economic justice far more urgent. Various trades unionists of the 60s or 70s may not have seen the struggle for gay liberation as their struggle, or even the struggle against racism, leaving activists little choice for joining in with a wider movement. But today, the need for struggle against the state in a united front is the urgent one. The social and economic injustice cuts right across all narrower interest groups, whose main focus of action isn't even really the state any more.


----------



## sunnysidedown (Nov 11, 2017)

I thought this review of Angela Nagle's K.A.N. was worth reading in light of the current trans/terf wars (could of done with a bit of proof reading). 

_As she points out, not conforming to the gender binary is hardly a new thing. What is new is how we talk about gender variations, how we argue about them, and what sort of recognition they require. While sites like Tumblr (founded only ten years ago) are not the only place people have discussed new ideas about gender, there is an extra capitalist mechanism at play which mediates those discussions.

That mechanism? Attention, distributed through the accumulation and appropriation of virtue._


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Can you expand a bit on what you mean this please dialectician ?



It's just a pointless culture of self-blame, like so what if you're white that don't mean you have to tiptoe around people of colour, we're more interested in your politics than making 19th century race theories of the volatile savage palatable for the 21st c. i saw this being taken to absurd lengths when someone asked in a discussion whether they should capitalise black/brown because they are white and feel guilt. 

i mean it's the same with class as liberal conceptions of classism noone's  blaming you for being middle class or whatever, these are social relationships and processes that we relate to each other within. I'm not even getting into the thorny dilemma where you can occupy contradictory class positions. Feeling guilty about your middle classness isn't going to change anything is it? as if it's all about consciousness raising and the actual production we are engaged in from day-to-day doesn't matter.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

seventh bullet said:


> You're above this anyway. You abolished class in your mind, man.



*must. resist. urge to make professor joke...*


----------



## J Ed (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I would not describe myself as supportive of 'identity politics'



Apart from the 'white nationalism is identity politics for white people' far-right types, does anyone?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

To add i think this culture of self-blame can have some ugly consequences re mental health and increasing paranoia etc. 

Noone deserves that.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

J Ed said:


> Apart from the 'white nationalism is identity politics for white people' far-right types, does anyone?



Those who practice identity politics don't use the term themselves.  Pretty sure they see at as a right-wing slur.  Always makes me awkward about calling it out because I know they'll categorise me as a conservative.  I just remind myself that Naomi Klein was critiquing identity politics 20 years ago from an anti-capitalist standpoint and it's not my fault these people read tumblr instead of books.


----------



## Athos (Nov 11, 2017)

Plebs?


----------



## J Ed (Nov 11, 2017)

Not sure 'plebs' are the problem!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 11, 2017)

dialectician said:


> It's just a pointless culture of self-blame, like so what if you're white that don't mean you have to tiptoe around people of colour, we're more interested in your politics than making 19th century race theories of the volatile savage palatable for the 21st c. i saw this being taken to absurd lengths when someone asked in a discussion whether they should capitalise black/brown because they are white and feel guilt.
> 
> i mean it's the same with class as liberal conceptions of classism noone's  blaming you for being middle class or whatever, these are social relationships and processes that we relate to each other within. I'm not even getting into the thorny dilemma where you can occupy contradictory class positions. Feeling guilty about your middle classness isn't going to change anything is it? as if it's all about consciousness raising and the actual production we are engaged in from day-to-day doesn't matter.




Right, I get ya. So with the examples you used in the post I quoted...



> With the attendent sanitised racism that such a politics covers.
> 
> especially if you're mixed race, or on the peripheries of whiteness (like myself in the second case...)



..are you including mixed people and those on the peripheries of whiteness are targets for that kind of 'self-blame'?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

Athos said:


> Plebs?





J Ed said:


> Not sure 'plebs' are the problem!



OK sorry guys edited that out, mistake on my part.  Was just trying to fire in a sarky insult it's not about them being poor or some shit (my whole argument is directed at people who are explicitly not poor).


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> I'm don't need to be an authority to believe that's a fucked up worldview.


 The point wasn't whether or not the world view was fucked up or not. You characterising me as being dimissive of the excesses of ID politicking was what I was talking about. As if any opinion I have that differs from yours would only be received as dismissive. That felt like a set up to me. With you deciding that your way of seeing things is the only way.




> Yes I would describe that as an example of the 'excesses'.  Again, putting that in quotes implies you don't really agree, without quite saying it


Nope I was very clear. did you actually read what I wrote? You have made another analysis of how i posted, implying I am being dishonest or there is a subtext and missed the very thing i  wrote which invalidates the need for your analysis. What I wrote was...



> Would you describe that as an example of the 'excesses' of IDPing? *I wouldn't.*


 I was clear. You didn't need to attempt to decode my post. 

For me, the excesses of Id politicking  are more extreme...the difference between pro Black or a Black Nationalist or the difference between being a feminist and a misandrist for example.



> I'd say she has worked out her perspective in a way that is very meaningful to her.  Given that she can immerse herself in communities where those views are mainstream I'd expect she'll become more embedded in that position rather then less.  It's the worldview that makes sense from her class position.
> 
> I didn't challenge her.  I have learned that any challenge to this position is met with scathing sarcasm and aggression.  Term such as 'brosocialist' or the sarcastic use of 'not all men' would be thrown around with abandon.  Since she has hundreds of fb friends from all over the world (who she clearly met online on tumblr or whatever) I'd expect to get mobbed pretty quickly with abuse about the entitlement of cishet males.  Nobody would learn anything and she'd leave the encounter more validated in her view that beforehand.
> 
> I don't know if there's a way of challenging it.  Maybe a lighthearted quip asking if it's ok when the position of power is occupied by a woman?  Probably would get the same response.


 Fair enough, your call obviously on that one. I am not adverse to kicking a hornets nest though sometimes so a straight forward quip about how she must be finding it a real struggle making ends meet on her trust fund, a cheery fuck you and then right click delete from your friend's list. She doesn't sound like a friend of yours at all, anyway.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Right, I get ya. So with the examples you used in the post I quoted...
> 
> 
> 
> ..are you including mixed people and those on the peripheries of whiteness are targets for that kind of 'self-blame'?



yes.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 11, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Those who practice identity politics don't use the term themselves.  Pretty sure they see at as a right-wing slur.  Always makes me awkward about calling it out because I know they'll categorise me as a conservative.  I just remind myself that Naomi Klein was critiquing identity politics 20 years ago from an anti-capitalist standpoint and it's not my fault these plebs read tumblr instead of books.




The reason people worry about it being a right wing slur is that it so often is, obviously. Look at all the current alt-right attacks on the left as an example. 

Go back awhile and the whole 'pc gone mad' trope springs to mind, quite literally a conservative whinge because they don't like having to have some respect for a change, or it was no longer acceptable for them to be racist/sexist/ableist or whatever.

So whilst there is a danger of counter arguments/positions seeming similar and being dismissed for such reasons, isn't it more important to be clear and articulate the whys and wherefores...you know like not using descriptions such as 'plebs' .


----------



## Athos (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> For me, the excesses of Id politicking  are more extreme...the difference between pro Black or a Black Nationalist or the difference between being a feminist and a misandrist for example.



No, whether or not something amounts to identity politics isn't a matter of *degree*; it's about the *nature* of the content.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 11, 2017)

am going to quote Fanon and then I'm out of here, for real.



> There is no white world; there is no white ethic—any more than there is a white intelligence.






> Above all, let there be no misunderstanding. We are convinced that it would be of enormous interest to discover a black literature or architecture from the third century before Christ. We would be overjoyed to learn of the existence of a correspondence between some black philosopher and Plato. But we can absolutely not see how this fact would change the lives of eight-year-old kids working in the cane fields of Martinique or Guadeloupe. There should be no attempt to fixate man, since it is his destiny to be unleashed. The density of History determines none of my acts. I am my own foundation. And it is by going beyond the historical and instrumental given that I initiate my cycle of freedom. The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere. And still today they are organizing this dehumanization rationally. But I, a man of color, insofar as I have the possibility of existing absolutely, have not the right to confine myself in a world of retroactive reparations. I, a man of color, want but one thing: May man never be instrumentalized. May the subjugation of man by man—that is to say, of me by another—cease. May I be allowed to discover and desire man wherever he may be. The black man is not. No more than the white man. Both have to move away from the inhuman voices of their respective ancestors so that a genuine communication can be born. Before embarking on a positive voice, freedom needs to make an effort at disalienation. At the start of his life, a man is always congested, drowned in contingency. The misfortune of man is that he was once a child. It is through self-consciousness and renunciation, through a permanent tension of his freedom, that man can create the ideal conditions of existence for a human world. Superiority? Inferiority? Why not simply try to touch the other, feel the other, discover each other?


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> you know like not using descriptions such as 'plebs' .



Ok I deserve that jibe.  I think I picked that up from reddit where it's used by hobbyists to decry who they deem casuals.  So in the field of social theory, getting intersectionality poshsplained to me by someone whose clearly never picked up a book my instinct was that term.  That's actually quite elitist of me and I deserve to be called out because it isn't about their education/understanding it's about how they interpret the social theory to fit their own experience.  Consider me suitable humbled, was just lashing out a bit because I got so roundly abused by these guys recently.

On the other issues I take your point that right wingers do attack identity politics.  However, there are legit left wing critiques of identity politics too and it's not hard to tell by the details of the arguments being made, as you say.  There is a tendency amongst in idpol to write off any critiques as conservatism no matter how clearly explained.  Or 'brocialism' perhaps.

P.s. I keep all my old classmates on fb just to see how everyone is getting on.  They are more acquaintances than friends but it's interesting to see what they're up to.  I'm not going to delete someone because they're annoying, you can't escape these viewpoints nowadays anyway.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 11, 2017)

sunnysidedown said:


> I thought this review of Angela Nagle's K.A.N. was worth reading in light of the current trans/terf wars (could of done with a bit of proof reading).
> 
> _As she points out, not conforming to the gender binary is hardly a new thing. What is new is how we talk about gender variations, how we argue about them, and what sort of recognition they require. While sites like Tumblr (founded only ten years ago) are not the only place people have discussed new ideas about gender, there is an extra capitalist mechanism at play which mediates those discussions.
> 
> That mechanism? Attention, distributed through the accumulation and appropriation of virtue._



I quite fancy reading this book, looks fairly interesting.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 12, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Those who use identity politics... wish to be seen as victims. Ok; forgive me, am still confused by this whole issue. I'd never heard of IDP until it started cropping up here and also from (very) right wing posters elsewhere online.
> 
> I don't think I'll ever get the hang of it. And yes, people have tried to explain it to me but it's over my head.


Kiteo, his eyes closed. Chenza at court, the court of silence.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 12, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> In my last few posts I've been trying to find out how much of the behaviours that are being decried and labelled as ID pol, take place in real life and how much is just on line, because the way power/politics works on-line is genuinely a mystery to me. I work in a care home and no one talks about class - I imagine most of my co-workers have never even heard of ID politics


Things don't have to be named as identitypoltics or class politics for that the political framework which those politics are part of.

The promotion of faith schools, for example, falls partly into the political framework of identity politics though it's rarely promoted on those terms.



friendofdorothy said:


> I ask for clarification here because its needed - posters aren't being clear about who or what they they are talking about. Isn't that the point of debate?


Well, no offence, but can you say what's not clear? Personally I think posters have been very clear, so there's obviously something I'm missing but I'm not sure what it is and so don't know how to make what I'm saying clearer.


----------



## Athos (Nov 12, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Things don't have to be named as identitypoltics or class politics for that the political framework which those politics are part of.



To the extent that some of those who practice identity politics disavow it, because they don't understand the term.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Ok I deserve that jibe.


 It wasn't a jibe it wa an example of how easy it is to use language that leaves people wondering exactly where you are coming from and whether or not you share the same political interests. I've never heard a person referred to as a pleb in a positive way...it's a smug, elitist, sneer. It's shorthand for stupid, uneducated etc. _Those too stupid to know what's good for them..._is the attitude.



> On the other issues I take your point that right wingers do attack identity politics.  However, there are legit left wing critiques of identity politics too and it's not hard to tell by the details of the arguments being made, as you say.  There is a tendency amongst in idpol to write off any critiques as conservatism no matter how clearly explained.  Or 'brocialism' perhaps


 Yeah I know, that's why I posted what I did, highlighting your use of the term pleb and suggested what I did.



> P.s. I keep all my old classmates on fb just to see how everyone is getting on.  They are more acquaintances than friends but it's interesting to see what they're up to.  I'm not going to delete someone because they're annoying, you can't escape these viewpoints nowadays anyway.



That's understandable, to a degree. I don't think there's any point being a martyr about these things though. There are circumstances where it is truly awkward/hard to delete someone if they are a relative or an in-law say, but you can mute their feed so it doesn't pollute yours. Also, not being able to escape these viewpoints anyway is even more reason to not to feel bad about it. It's not like you are burying your head in the sand at all, you are just choosing *where and when* not to engage with the nonsense. If it's all around, you will have ample opportunity to deal with this stuff in a meaningful way. The_ where and how _is up to us all individually I suppose...

The fact you didn't feel you could challenge her through discussion was what struck me about what you wrote...as if to do so meant the death of something. The picture you painted made it sound important, critical to your politics, not merely the 'annoying' you are waving your dismissive hand over now.  Regardless...Here's a thread for future use.


----------



## Athos (Nov 12, 2017)

Deleting one person from your friends list on social media isn't a solution to the problem of a proliferation of a politics that is undermining solidarity across the left in 'real life'.  Politics isn't a series of superficial, on-line, personal interactions.


----------



## andysays (Nov 12, 2017)

Athos said:


> Deleting one person from your friends list on social media isn't a solution to the problem of a proliferation of a politics that is undermining solidarity across the left in 'real life'.  *Politics isn't a series of superficial, on-line, personal interactions*.



You realise that with this statement you are actively discriminating against a significant number of IDpolitickers by your oppressive attempts to define what politics is or isn't?

If they choose to define themselves as politically active, radical, progressive and/or significant on the basis of a series of superficial, on-line, personal interactions, oblivious to whether their actions are undermining solidarity across the left in 'real life', then who are you to challenge their self-identification, you white-cis-het-male bastard...


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 12, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Well, no offence, but can you say what's not clear? Personally I think posters have been very clear, so there's obviously something I'm missing but I'm not sure what it is and so don't know how to make what I'm saying clearer.


 Perhaps you haven't read the last few pages. The clarification I was I requested was about seventh bullet 's posts


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 12, 2017)

Athos said:


> Deleting one person from your friends list on social media isn't a solution to the problem of a proliferation of a politics that is undermining solidarity across the left in 'real life'.  Politics isn't a series of superficial, on-line, personal interactions.



The fact people can form curated online networks of only people they agree with helped get us into this mess.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> The fact people can form curated online networks of only people they agree with helped get us into this mess.



Nope. You are missing my point entirely. I don't have friends on FB that I would be too scared to disagree with. You do.

_You_ are too scared to speak up, tell her/them what you think for fear that you will be jumped on by her hoardes of agreeing friends. So why keep her as a friend? It's not like FB is the hot bed of your political expression is it? You've said yourself that these ideas are everywhere. If FB was so important you'd be in there preaching the politics of solidarity and highlighting how she is excluding you wouldn't you? Instead you keep her as a pet, someone you can read the posts of and sigh to yourself, blame for all that is wrong, bitch about here on urban?

At the same time you are posting as if my having boundaries and not keeping people as fb friends when I clearly dislike them is somehow wrong. Like that is automatically insulating myself, creating an echo chamber etc. You are wrong. Social media isn't where the action is for me at all. Arrogant much? 

The tone of this thread is so fucking condescending I do wonder whether some here do more than spend all day winking at themselves in the mirror. 

_Point, point, point...oh look at them, doing it wrong, point, point, point. How wonderful I am because I am not like them. _

Preaching the politics of solidarity through criticising others, yet doing nothing meaningful that they care to share themselves. Not necessarily aimed at you AllEternalsHeck but please do tell me...if you aren't prepared to challenge that one person on your fb friends list how are you in a position to preach to me or anyone? Perhaps you feel as I do that politics are better practiced in the everyday, so do that through work, unionism, community interests/projects, support of global/local campaigns? Interests fundamentally borne of the belief in social justice and equality/equity.  Do you?

There are some on this thread that don't exist as people/personalities here unless they are othering someone else, misrepresenting them, trying oh so hard to carve out a _superficial online personality_ that they can be proud of.

Oh and don't get me started on the fucking irony of past accusations of _virtue signalling_.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 12, 2017)

Tbf I only mentioned that fb friend as an example to highlight a wider trend.  Didn't think we'd have a whole conversation about my defriending policy.  I'm not scared to disagree but I barely post on fb at all and certainly not to spark a heated and futile argument with an acquaintance.  It was just a fairly egregious example that sprang to mind to highlight that point I was making.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Tbf I only mentioned that fb friend as an example to highlight a wider trend.  Didn't think we'd have a whole conversation about my defriending policy.  I'm not scared to disagree but I barely post on fb at all and certainly not to spark a heated and futile argument with an acquaintance.  It was just a fairly egregious example that sprang to mind to highlight that point I was making.



Yet you were quick to use my policy of not keeping pet fb non- friends  to sneer at or bitch about as evidence of a behaviour that got 'us into this mess'... How is that fair exactly? It isn't.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> It's not like FB is the hot bed of your political expression is it?



Social media is now a major part of how the vast majority of people construct their worldview though, saying the curating of inputs into that space to eliminate disagreement — to the point that you have 100% unanimity on your feed no less — has no impact on the tone of political debate is nonsensical.


----------



## J Ed (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Yet you were quick to use my policy of not keeping pet fb non- friends  to sneer at or bitch about as evidence of a behaviour that got 'us into this mess'... How is that fair exactly? It isn't.



You suggested it as a solution, he did not suggest that his non-engagement was a solution.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> Social media is now a major part of how the vast majority of people construct their worldview though, *saying the curating of inputs into that space to eliminate disagreement — to the point that you have 100% unanimity on your feed no less — has no impact on the tone of political debate is nonsensical.*



Where have I said that or offered it as any kind of solution to disagreement? I don't think you've actually read my posts that well at all.


----------



## J Ed (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Where have I said that or offered it as any kind of solution to disagreement? I don't think you've actually read my posts that well at all.



You suggested it by saying "_You_ are too scared to speak up, tell her/them what you think for fear that you will be jumped on by her hoardes of agreeing friends. So why keep her as a friend?".

Hope this helps.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

J Ed said:


> You suggested it as a solution, he did not suggest that his non-engagement was a solution.


They as much said there was/is no point. That prompted my suggestion.



> I didn't challenge her. I have learned that any challenge to this position is met with scathing sarcasm and aggression. Term such as 'brosocialist' or the sarcastic use of 'not all men' would be thrown around with abandon. Since she has hundreds of fb friends from all over the world (who she clearly met online on tumblr or whatever) I'd expect to get mobbed pretty quickly with abuse about the entitlement of cishet males. Nobody would learn anything and she'd leave the encounter more validated in her view that beforehand.
> 
> I don't know if there's a way of challenging it. Maybe a lighthearted quip asking if it's ok when the position of power is occupied by a woman? Probably would get the same response.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Where have I said that or offered it as any kind of solution to disagreement? I don't think you've actually read my posts that well at all.



So you think FB is important in terms of its impact on modern political discourse then?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> So you think FB is important in terms of its impact on modern political discourse then?



It is for some people yes. Obviously.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Don't cop out with snide remarks about "some people", do you or do you not think that the construction of political norms in Britain is affected by how people interact with social media.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

J Ed said:


> You suggested it by saying "_You_ are too scared to speak up, tell her/them what you think for fear that you will be jumped on by her hoardes of agreeing friends. So why keep her as a friend?".
> 
> Hope this helps.



Nope. My initial question was whether or not they challenged her and if not why not. They made it clear they were fearful and implied there was no point, then played the relationship down as merely an acquaintance. They also said these ideas are everywhere anyway...if they are, there's no need to hang onto that one person on FB you don't like just because is there?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> Don't cop out with snide remarks, do you or do you not think that the construction of political norms in Britain is affected by how people interact with social media.



Fuck off telling me what to do number one.
Fuck off with your own snidey tone number two.

I haven't copped out of anything, I answered your question. If you wade in with that tone don't expect much in return. HTH.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Nope. My initial question was whether or not they challenged her and if not why not. They made it clear they were fearful and inferred there was no point, then played the relationship down as merely an acquaintance. They also said these ideas are everywhere anyway...if they are, there's no need to hang onto that one person on FB you don't like just because is there?



But it's not just that "one person" is it. It's millions of people all getting rid of that "one person" whenever they come up, and all eventually ending up with social media feeds where everyone agrees.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 12, 2017)

Depends if you think the only reason to have someone on your friends list is agreeing with their politics.  I can be regularly dismayed at people's political opinions while still considering them part of my wider social network.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I haven't copped out of anything, I answered your question. If you wade in with that tone don't expect much in return. HTH.



Of course you don't have to answer, but it doesn't look good if all you can come up with is evasive "some"isms and insults.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> They also said these ideas are everywhere anyway...if they are, there's no need to hang onto that one person on FB you don't like just because is there?



This makes literally no sense.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Depends if you think the only reason to have someone on your friends list is agreeing with their politics.  I can be regularly dismayed at people's political opinions while still considering them part of my wider social network.



Here you go again. My suggestion to delete wasn't because you don't agree with her...it was that you don't feel empowered to disagree with them, don't actually like her and clearly don't rate her as a friend.

I have people on my friends list I don't always agree with. I don't have people on my fb list that I don't like though.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> This makes literally no sense.



Yes it does. Just like it did when I made the point before. If these opinions/ideas are everywhere you have ample opportunity to engage with them and challenge them in other settings. There is no need in hanging onto that one fb person you dislike because you have other opportunities to explore these issues.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> Of course you don't have to answer, but it doesn't look good if all you can come up with is evasive "some"isms and insults.



Nice attempt at a swerve there rob. You know what I meant. Speak to me like that and i'll do likewise. You waded in with a prickish tone for no reason, you got the same back and didn't like it. Diddums.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Here you go again. My suggestion to delete wasn't because you don't agree with her...it was that you don't feel empowered to disagree with them, don't actually like her and clearly don't rate her as a friend.
> 
> I have people on my friends list I don't always agree with. I don't have people on my fb list that I don't like though.



I don't mind her as a person.  She has a nice dog which I like seeing the pictures of.  Her politics are problematic but then I don't agree politically with a lot of people on my fb.  It's ok just to not bother arguing in that sphere.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Nice attempt at a swerve there rob. You know what I meant. Speak to me like that and i'll do likewise. You waded in with a prickish tone for no reason, you got the same back and didn't like it. Diddums.



You're quite the one for projection, aren't you.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> You're quite the one for projection, aren't you.


Piss poor. Again.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Are you going to properly answer any of the points I've raised or just get in a huff? Because as excuses for flouncing off a thread because your ill-thought through position was rubbish go, this isn't a particularly good one.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Yes it does. Just like it did when I made the point before. If these opinions/ideas are everywhere you have ample opportunity to engage with them and challenge them in other settings. There is no need in hanging onto that one fb person you dislike because you have other opportunities to explore these issues.



It doesn't make sense because I've already said that's not my criteria for who I keep on facebook.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> Are you going to properly answer any of the points I've raised or just get in a huff?



Are you going to ask them in a decent way or just insist I bow down to your demands that you get to be/speak to me like a snidey, manipulative, arsehole?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> It doesn't make sense because I've already said that's not my criteria for who I keep on facebook.



Now you have. You hadn't before to this extent. I also asked a few questions of you about how and when you do your politics. It would be nice to have some answers to those when you have time.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

I'm not sure how repeatedly asking you straightforward questions is manipulative, but I guess the answer to my last post is clear.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Are you going to ask them in a decent way or just insist I bow down to your demands that you get to be/speak to me like a snidey, manipulative, arsehole?



Its a good thing i inspired you to change your tagline. It really is quite apt.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Its a good thing i inspired you to change your tagline. It really is quite apt.



Given that you don't seem to do anything else here other than throw insults around, I am glad you feel you have accomplished something this year.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Given that you don't seem to do anything else here other than throw insults around, I am glad you feel you have accomplished something this year.



Like I said, most apt


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Like I said, most apt



Like I said, glad to help you represent your achievements. Better than nothing I suppose.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Like I said, glad to help you represent your achievements. Better than nothing I suppose.



Flattered you take such an interest in me, as well as such inspiration 

Have fun raging


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

One thing that's quite interesting about this exchange is that the very person who sees no issue with the use of self-curated social media experiences eliminating disagreement is the one who's immediately thrown a huge tantrum when challenged on their perspective. Social study in the making there .


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Flattered you take such an interest, as well as such inspiration
> 
> Have fun raging



Another pathetic attempt at witty arrogance. Keep trying dear. I'm one to champion an underdog so I'll always celebrate you at least.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> One thing that's quite interesting about this exchange is that the very person who sees no issue with the use of self-curated social media experiences eliminating disagreement is the one who's immediately thrown a huge tantrum when challenged on their perspective. Social study in the making there .



But I haven't thrown a tantrum. I've merely insisted that if you expect me to interact with you you should communicate in the  manner/tone that you like to be addressed in also. The tantrum thrower is you, because somehow that isn't how you think things should go. You seem to think you can demand and condesend to and by some sort of magical reverence bestowed on you, you get your own way. Now you have your tag-team of whingey-bedlam you feel emboldened. You imagine I care or am intimidated,  i don't and i'm not . Study that, prick.


----------



## andysays (Nov 12, 2017)

Well, the last few pages have certainly provided us (or at least those of us able to recognise them) a clear illustration of the impasse of identity politics, haven't they?

Unfortunately, the most vocal proponents of IDPol nonsense recognise neither that's what their position actually is nor the utterly destructive effects of their behaviour, both on threads like this and in the wider world.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> But I haven't thrown a tantrum. I've merely insisted that if you expect me to interact with you you should communicate in the  manner/tone that you like to be addressed in also. The tantrum thrower is you, because somehow that isn't how you think things should go. You seem to think you can demand and condesend to and by some sort of magical reverence bestowed on you, you get your own way. Now you have your tag-team of whingey-bedlam you feel emboldened. You imagine I care or am intimidated,  i'm not and i don't. Study that, prick.



Yet here you are. 

Everyone’s wrong but Rutita. Again


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Yet here you are.
> 
> Everyone’s wrong but Rutita. Again



Not everyone no, just those that are, when they are. Nice try again Mr Nobody.


----------



## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Now you have. You hadn't before to this extent. I also asked a few questions of you about how and when you do your politics. It would be nice to have some answers to those when you have time.



Volunteering, study, work.  Trying to build a career where I can help make a difference.  My postgraduate research is with people who suffer from deprivation, isolation, drug addiction etc.  I'm trying to help develop interventions to offer people pathways out of addiction into employment, training, positive social networks.  I used to volunteer for an organisation that supported the families of people with drug issues.

One reason why I bristle at the idpol conception of privilege is because my work is with predominantly white men who are extremely deprived.  I am very aware that social class produces a greater gradient in life outcomes than any other factors. 

I try not to talk about politics too much in real life.  But I let my convictions guide my career aspirations so I can perhaps make a positive impact in this very specific field.  I also do try to be true to my convictions and speak my beliefs in real life if political stuff comes up in conversation.  I think when I was younger I was a bit more argumentative but nowadays I won't bring up politics and am more accepting of letting others have their views.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> But I haven't thrown a tantrum.



I dread to think what you imagine a tantrum would look like then.


----------



## snadge (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Nope. You are missing my point entirely. I don't have friends on FB that I would be too scared to disagree with. You do.
> 
> _You_ are too scared to speak up, tell her/them what you think for fear that you will be jumped on by her hoardes of agreeing friends. So why keep her as a friend? It's not like FB is the hot bed of your political expression is it? You've said yourself that these ideas are everywhere. If FB was so important you'd be in there preaching the politics of solidarity and highlighting how she is excluding you wouldn't you? Instead you keep her as a pet, someone you can read the posts of and sigh to yourself, blame for all that is wrong, bitch about here on urban?
> 
> ...




Shut the fuck up about being scared about ' dealing' with people you know that have offensive views.

All I seen of you is that you try to passive aggress them online.

I know, work and socialise with these people, guess what, I deal with them in real life also, you wouldn't have the fucking bottle.

You are missing the target, as you have always done.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

snadge said:


> Shut the fuck up about being scared about ' dealing' with people you know that have offensive views.
> 
> All I seen of you is that you try to passive aggress them online.
> 
> ...



Eh? WTF are you talking about snadge?  I am not scared in the slightest. 



> I know, work and socialise with these people, guess what, I deal with them in real life also



So what, join the club, most of us have no choice but to know, or work with people we don't always agree with.

Seriously shut the fuck up yourself if this bullshit attack is all you've got.


----------



## snadge (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> So what, join the club, most of us have no choice but to know, or work with people we don't always agree with.



So tell the boards how you tell them that you are right?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

snadge said:


> So tell the boards how you tell them that you are right?



Eh? Them who? What are they wrong about? Or do you just expect me to make up a situation where someone says something I disagree with and I tell them I disagree? 

You are being a tad odd tbh.


----------



## snadge (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Eh? Them who? What are they wrong about? Or do you just expect me to make up a situation where someone says something I disagree with and I tell them I disagree?
> 
> You are being a tad odd tbh.




How do you deal with people you know in real life that that have extremely differing views to yourself?


----------



## andysays (Nov 12, 2017)

snadge said:


> How do you deal with people you know in real life that that have extremely differing views to yourself?









(if it's anything like here)


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)




----------



## snadge (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


>



So you're a shitlord, figures, keep telling us what to think ey.

This is the second time I have pulled you on your bullshit.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

snadge said:


> So you're a shitlord, figures, keep telling us what to think ey.
> 
> This is the second time I have pulled you on your bullshit.



Again what the fuck are you talking about?

I was in the middle of responding to your question btw and then saw what andy posted. My pic was a response to his shitstirring attack on me...I also noticed you were quick to like his post so concluded why the fuck would I waste any of my Sunday evening communicating with you given the way you have spoken to me tonight for no good reason...and here you are again bigging up your chest like you have caught me out on something. 

You have never pulled me on any bullshit other than something you have clearly concocted in your head. Your misreading of my posting that pic above is a great example of the futility of trying to have a conversation with you. Given I don't remember ever really interacting with you before, it's odd and pointless imo. But you crack on big man yeah?


----------



## snadge (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Again what the fuck are you talking about.
> 
> I was in the middle of responding you to your question btw and then saw what andy posted. My pic was a response to his shitstirring attack on me...I also noticed you were quick to like his post so concluded why the fuck would I waste any of my Sunday evening communicating with you given the way you have spoken to me tonight for no good reason...and here you are again bigging up your chest like you have caught me out on something.
> 
> You have never pulled me on any bullshit other than something you have clearly concocted in your head. Your misreading of my posting that pic above is a great example of the futility of trying to have a conversation with you. Given I don't remember evr really interacting with you before, it odd and pointless imo. But you crack on big man yeah?



LOL.

Try the transgender thread where you also tried to tell people how to think and I pulled you up about it.

Do you have that much shite battering your brain that you can't remember your gobshiting online from a few weeks ago.

Fucking sad.

You still haven't answered my question.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

snadge said:


> LOL.
> 
> Try the transgender thread where you also tried to tell people how to think and I pulled you up about it.
> 
> ...



You know what, get to fuck. You have not pulled me on jack.

Sad? That would be you right about now. So what, you've disagreed with me before? Am I the only one? Do other people having differing opinions to you make you feel unhappy? Other people have opinions but if I do it's evidence of me gobshiteing and telling people what to do?  Utterly pathetic.

You couldn't even work out why I would post that shitstirring pic above ffs!

 You've got nothing, you've come with nothing and you'll leave with nothing.

Fucking sad alright.


----------



## snadge (Nov 12, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> You know what, get to fuck. You have not pulled me on jack.
> 
> Sad? That would be you right about now. So what, you've disagreed with me before? Am I the only one? Do other people having differing opinions to you make you feel unhappy? Other people have opinions but if I do it's evidence of me gobshiteing and telling people what to do?  Utterly pathetic.
> 
> ...




Politico in training right here.

You won't answer my question, you deny that you push an agenda.


You are scum with no integrity.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Don't worry Rutita1, if you tire of showcasing what happens when most of your debate training comes via social media even Urban has a block button.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 12, 2017)

snadge said:


> Politico in training right here.
> 
> You won't answer my question, you deny that you push an agenda.
> 
> You are scum with no integrity.



Scum? That's just so utterly stupid an insult. You've mounted a non-attack, with no evidence and i'm refusing to play. What a twit. 



Rob Ray said:


> Don't worry Rutita1, if you tire of showcasing what happens when most of your debate training comes via social media even Urban has a block button.



I've been here for 10 years and I don't have 1 person on ignore...so dream on Rob.

You two make quite a pair. Throwing your weight around, demanding answers regardless of how you frame the questions and how hostile you are. Getting really upset because I refuse to do as you say.

..and i'm the hysterical one apparently.


----------



## snadge (Nov 12, 2017)

Rob Ray said:


> Don't worry Rutita1, if you tire of showcasing what happens when most of your debate training comes via social media even Urban has a block button.



Your tagline was never truer.


----------



## Rob Ray (Nov 12, 2017)

Have I given the impression of being upset? How odd, because tbh for me your thrashing about is mostly just a vaguely amusing distraction from having to think about bookfair debacles at this point. I did have a genuine point to make initially, but have come to the conclusion you're far too busy throwing invective around to actually address it.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 12, 2017)

Oh dear.  Well not so much an impasse as the usual urban bunfight.
shame - I almost thought I might learn something on this thread.



krtek a houby said:


> <snip> Ok; forgive me, am still confused by this whole issue. I'd never heard of IDP until it started cropping up here and also from (very) right wing posters elsewhere online.
> 
> I don't think I'll ever get the hang of it. And yes, people have tried to explain it to me but it's over my head.


I know what you mean.  I feel I have a vague idea of what IDpol means now (after 30p ages), but I'm not sure how a marxian class analysis helps to see things anymore clearly - or why this is totally opposite approach. Mostly 'ID politics' seems to be an insult to throw at anyone who doesn't agree with every detail of someone's political outlook.


----------



## Red Cat (Nov 12, 2017)

I think it's something like this:

A class analysis tells us that the majority of us are exploited. We have that in common whatever our differences. That capitalism encourages divisions between us by strategies of divide and rule that weaken us. Many people are more oppressed than I am, but I am exploited, and so are you, because that's how capitalism works. When capitalism is in crisis, more extreme measures are required by the capitalist class to keep it going, to maintain power. Hence the move to the extreme right occurring currently. If we don't work with what we have in common rather than fighting about our differences we are fucked.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Yeah, fair enough.  Please don't feel like you can't ask questions, I'm sorry for giving that impression.  That's the attitude I run into from the idpol crowd: 'how dare you question us it's not our job to educate you'.  Not cool.  Questions are part of conversation and are good.  Yeah in my call-centre work nobody really spoke about class much either but I do feel there was a level of class solidarity (we're all stuck in this shitty situation together).  Identity politics would make absolutely no sense in that environment and I never detected a hint of it.


  I don't get the impression my co workers have much idea of class solidarity either. Many of them are far too ready to agree with Daily Mail headlines scapegoating of 'scroungers' etc. Perceptions of class are not just about being a worker or not - but of access to education, housing and work opportunities, muddied by issues of age, it seems to be a more complex a picture now than in my youth

 
sorry ony posted for the famous class sketch - didn't intend to include any Benny Hill - whoops


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 12, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Yeah, fair enough.  Please don't feel like you can't ask questions, I'm sorry for giving that impression.  That's the attitude I run into from the idpol crowd: 'how dare you question us it's not our job to educate you'.  Not cool.  Questions are part of conversation and are good.



Re: 'how dare you question us it's not our job to educate you'. - for decades, I felt the only way to change an overwhelmingly hostile public opinion towards queer people was to win people over one at a time. This meant being out and open and honest about sexuality as much as possible, answering and explaining whenever. Have you any idea how tiring that gets after thirty+ years? Now when people ask me those sorts of questions (which tbf doesn't happen as often these days - but does still happen) I feel no compunction to educate anyone anymore, I really don't think it's my job any more. 

I'm trying to reconcile my queer activist past with politics now. I like to say my bit to educate urbs maybe - like a walking history lesson - but ask me in person and you are likely to get a less than polite 'fuck off'.  Perhaps you can understand my confusion when you say this is an IDpol 'attitude'


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> I think it's something like this:
> 
> A class analysis tells us that the majority of us are exploited. We have that in common whatever our differences. That capitalism encourages divisions between us by strategies of divide and rule that weaken us. Many people are more oppressed than I am, but I am exploited, and so are you, because that's how capitalism works. When capitalism is in crisis, more extreme measures are required by the capitalist class to keep it going, to maintain power. Hence the move to the extreme right occurring currently. If we don't work with what we have in common rather than fighting about our differences we are fucked.



Thanks for that. Whilst it would be foolish to suggest that those on the left are some kind of hive mind and must all have the same outlook and goals; it is depressing that the infighting is quite scathing. The vitriol on certain threads lately... it's just anger. Hatreds, even. I don't just mean bun fights but fundamental distrust of each others. There's some real intelligent and passionate folk on urban, more than many forums I've read - if the unity was there - what an unstoppable force it would be.

I'm going to leave it there, as I don't want to derail. But sorry; the treatment of Rutita here is a disgrace.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Thanks for that. Whilst it would be foolish to suggest that those on the left are some kind of hive mind and must all have the same outlook and goals; it is depressing that the infighting is quite scathing. The vitriol on certain threads lately... it's just anger. Hatreds, even. I don't just mean bun fights but fundamental distrust of each others. There's some real intelligent and passionate folk on urban, more than many forums I've read - if the unity was there - what an unstoppable force it would be.
> 
> I'm going to leave it there, as I don't want to derail. But sorry; the treatment of Rutita here is a disgrace.



What is particularly disgraceful about about the posts to rutita?


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> What is particularly discraceful about about the posts to rutita?



If you're opposed to Rutita, you probably won't have issues with stuff like this



and

I mean, this is not true. Rutita was not telling people how to think.

And the ganging up on him/her is typical of a handful of posters here. Little snide comments, whatabouttery, digs etc.

How does stuff like that advance debate?


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> If you're opposed to Rutita, you probably won't have issues with stuff like this
> 
> View attachment 120387
> 
> ...



I left the thread to do other things before the ‘scum’ comment came in. And yes, that’s not on.

The rest of your post is typical of the victim-y hypocrisy of your politics (and, of course, IDPol as a whole).

Demanding a standard of behaviour that you’ll never be prepared to meet yourself.

Trying to get your way by being obnoxious (when it suits) or playing the victim/persecution card (when it suits).

You know that people see through this, don’t you?


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> I left the thread to do other things before the ‘scum’ comment came in. And yes, that’s not on.
> 
> The rest of your post is the victim-y hypocrisy of your politics (and, of course, IDPol as a whole).
> 
> ...



And there we go - again. Shutting down debate by making concerns about bullying into an attack on the poster who raises said concerns.

I see through your posts, too and your kind of approach is no different to online far right trolls deflecting debate by yelling "pc" and "identity politics".


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> And there we go - again. Shutting down debate by making concerns about bullying into an attack on the poster who raises said concerns.
> 
> I see through your posts, too and your kind of approach is no different to online far right trolls deflecting debate by yelling "pc" and "identity politics".



Yep. There you go again. Allusions to the far right.

When you attack posters it’s ‘raising concerns’; their behaviour of course is ‘bullying’ (or insert whatever hyperbole).


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Yep. There you go again. Allusions to the far right.
> 
> When you attack posters it’s ‘raising concerns’; their behaviour of course is ‘bullying’ (or insert whatever hyperbole).



There is a shared language being used here. If you can't or won't see it, that's down to you. It's divisive and widens the impasse.

And there's little doubt that bullying and sniping goes on - from the petty to the aggressive level.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> There is a shared language being used here. If you can't or won't see it, that's down to you. It's divisive and widens the impasse.
> 
> And there's little doubt that bullying and sniping goes on - from the petty to the aggressive level.
> 
> View attachment 120389



What is your attachment meant to show?

Oh and please do elaborate on my ‘shared language’ with the far right


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> What is your attachment meant to show?



It's meant to show the pettiness involved here. You don't agree with Rutita - all well and good - but what's the point of referring to his/her tagline? What purpose does it serve, exactly? That to have differing opinions is somehow hysterical?


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> It's meant to show the pettiness involved here. You don't agree with Rutita - all well and good - but what's the point of referring to his/her tagline? What purpose does it serve, exactly? That to have differing opinions is somehow hysterical?



Indeed. Calling out behaviour (in this instance an overblown, ‘hysterical’ reaction to a post) is verboten, according to you.

Unless you’re the one that’s doing it, of course.

And that’s IDPol: a hypocritical, one sided imposition of ‘manners’ to control others (instead of doing the necessary growing up to be in control of oneself).

It’s a a set of therapeutic issues, not political ones.



And this ‘shared language’...?


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Indeed. Calling out behaviour (in this instance an overblown, ‘hysterical’ reaction to a post) is verboten, according to you.
> 
> Unless you’re the one that’s doing it, of course.
> 
> ...



So, only the select may determine what the correct approach is. The identity politics phrase is now mainstream and it cannot be challenged? If one does so; expect a fury of responses,ad homs and lectures about the person who doesn't buy into the phrase? And what does the phrase mean? Going by the use of it by right wingers; it's anything that people on the left are passionate about. Sure, that may be pertaining to the individual and their experiences as say, LGBT, people of colour, disabled, being religious etc. That's why I say the phrase is a shared language.I don't get why some want to appropriate a term so widely used on the right as a term of derision and dismissal.

As for manners or controlling oneself; I see people here who do that - danny, for example (even if a lot of goes over my head). And I see people who just jump in and have a go at other posters for challenging the new status quo.

Is it really a sign of stupidity or being "childish" to wonder about the term?


----------



## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> So, only the select may determine what the correct approach is. The identity politics phrase is now mainstream and it cannot be challenged? If one does so; expect a fury of responses,ad homs and lectures about the person who doesn't buy into the phrase? And what does the phrase mean? Going by the use of it by right wingers; it's anything that people on the left are passionate about. Sure, that may be pertaining to the individual and their experiences as say, LGBT, people of colour, disabled, being religious etc. That's why I say the phrase is a shared language.I don't get why some want to appropriate a term so widely used on the right as a term of derision and dismissal.
> 
> As for manners or controlling oneself; I see people here who do that - danny, for example (even if a lot of goes over my head). And I see people who just jump in and have a go at other posters for challenging the new status quo.
> 
> Is it really a sign of stupidity or being "childish" to wonder about the term?



I'd be more concerned about how the far right appropriate the ideas and ideology of idpol than about where the terminology rose from and the possibility of a shared term.

I'm sure i've learnt the term from left wing politics, though i've no idea where our when it was coined. I find the right using 'cultural Marxism' to group describe everyone they see on the left including the liberal, not in the least bit Marxist, proponents of idpol. I think they are terming their idpol as 'identitarian' aren't they? Or maybe that's just one group/network on the alt right


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

BigTom said:


> I'd be more concerned about how the far right appropriate the ideas and ideology of idpol than about where the terminology rose from and the possibility of a shared term.
> 
> I'm sure i've learnt the term from left wing politics, though i've no idea where our when it was coined. I find the right using 'cultural Marxism' to group describe everyone they see on the left including the liberal, not in the least bit Marxist, proponents of idpol. I think they are terming their idpol as 'identitarian' aren't they? Or maybe that's just one group/network on the alt right



Like the left, the right is not some big hive mind, so it's hard to keep track of all the new terms that are coined! I had one person tell me recently that New Jersey is a Marxist Democrat Blue State. Is that a thing? Other nuggets of wisdom is that the left invented ISIS, knew all about Hollywood abusers and is to blame, antifa is murdering people, terrorism cannot be carried out by white people etc etc.

With this much hate, misinformation and vitriol out there... it's a shame that everything gets bogged down by semantics. 

I've not heard of the term "identitarian" yet. I can't keep up!


----------



## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Like the left, the right is not some big hive mind, so it's hard to keep track of all the new terms that are coined! I had one person tell me recently that New Jersey is a Marxist Democrat Blue State. Is that a thing? Other nuggets of wisdom is that the left invented ISIS, knew all about Hollywood abusers and is to blame, antifa is murdering people, terrorism cannot be carried out by white people etc etc.
> 
> With this much hate, misinformation and vitriol out there... it's a shame that everything gets bogged down by semantics.
> 
> I've not heard of the term "identitarian" yet. I can't keep up!



Identitarian movement - Wikipedia

Looking at it, It's a group/network rather than a term i think, they call it a 'movement' which is appropriate in the bowel sense of the word.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

BigTom said:


> Identitarian movement - Wikipedia
> 
> Looking at it, It's a group/network rather than a term i think, they call it a 'movement' which is appropriate in the bowel sense of the word.



Indeed. A right bunch of shits, on that I'm sure everyone can agree.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

Thanks for the solidarity krtek a houby it was like being rushed by a gang of hostile toddlers.



krtek a houby said:


> It's meant to show the pettiness involved here. You don't agree with Rutita - all well and good - but what's the point of referring to his/her tagline? What purpose does it serve, exactly? That to have differing opinions is somehow hysterical?



He referred to my tagline because he is the one who inspired it by calling me _hysterical _for similar non-reasons about a month or so ago. It was his usual non-involvement in the discussion then wading in to shit-stir or have a pop. I rewarded him by wearing it with pride. I have a new tagline now.

Perhaps over the course of the next year i'll make a list of the best _overblown, self-aggrandising _insults I receive around here and do a social study. No doubt they will teach me all about the politics of solidarity.


----------



## Shechemite (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> So, only the select may determine what the correct approach is. The identity politics phrase is now mainstream and it cannot be challenged? If one does so; expect a fury of responses,ad homs and lectures about the person who doesn't buy into the phrase? And what does the phrase mean? Going by the use of it by right wingers; it's anything that people on the left are passionate about. Sure, that may be pertaining to the individual and their experiences as say, LGBT, people of colour, disabled, being religious etc. That's why I say the phrase is a shared language.I don't get why some want to appropriate a term so widely used on the right as a term of derision and dismissal.
> 
> As for manners or controlling oneself; I see people here who do that - danny, for example (even if a lot of goes over my head). And I see people who just jump in and have a go at other posters for challenging the new status quo.
> 
> Is it really a sign of stupidity or being "childish" to wonder about the term?



Ah, so the full extent to which I and others are using ‘shared language’ with the far right regarding identity politics is... the term ‘identity politics’. 

And you talk of others snide comments


----------



## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

People on the left used to be passionate about economic structures and ownership of the means of production.  Is that what the right wingers are calling “identity politics” these days, then?  Or could it be that identity politics is not, in fact, just whatever the left are passionate about?


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Ah, so the full extent to which I and others are using ‘shared language’ with the far right regarding identity politics is... the term ‘identity politics’.
> 
> And you talk of others snide comments



Yes - that's the focus of this thread. Identity politics. Are you unaware of the use of that term by right wingers online?

I know how they use it. To shut down debate and make any concerns a person has about racism, homophobia and injustice. Or that other shit term; "virtue signalling". I'm assuming that isn't used here.

Saying that using the term identity politics is shared with right wing commentators isn't snide. It's what happens.

Being all clever with posters who don't see it as clearly as you do and calling them victims or childish etc... to me, that appears to be snide.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

kabbes said:


> People on the left used to be passionate about economic structures and ownership of the means of production.  Is that what the right wingers are calling “identity politics” these days, then?  Or could it be that identity politics is not, in fact, just whatever the left are passionate about?



It could be. But then the whole term is (imho) a very nebulous one that's difficult to pin down and define. And I don't mean one poster saying to another "oh that's typical IDP etc" when the dialogue does not elicit the preferred response.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> It could be. But then the whole term is (imho) a very nebulous one that's difficult to pin down and define. And I don't mean one poster saying to another "oh that's typical IDP etc" when the dialogue does not elicit the preferred response.


It's not at all difficult to pin down, nor is it nebulous or ill-defined.  It has been quite pithily summed up over and again on this thread.  There are none so blind as those who won't read and remember a few fucking lines on a message board.


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## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

kabbes said:


> It's not at all difficult to pin down, nor is it nebulous or ill-defined.  It has been quite pithily summed up over and again on this thread.  There are none so blind as those who won't read and remember a few fucking lines on a message board.



It's been summed up, argued, debated,expanded on, questioned and disagreed. But there are many of us out there who still don't get the vociferous backlash to those who question it.

We all identify with some issues more than others, it doesn't mean we don't care or think any less of such issues. People have experiences for good or bad,which will bind them (for good or bad) to those issues. There are also people who may not be able to comprehend the mintiuae of IDP. If I walked into my old local and asked someone (for clarification) on what IDP is, I guarantee you, most people wouldn't be able to explain it. Doesn't mean they are stupid or anything like, we just haven't heard of it before.


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## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> It's been summed up, argued, debated,expanded on, questioned and disagreed. But there are many of us out there who still don't get the vociferous backlash to those who question it.


So is the concept difficult, nebulous and ill-defined, or is it just that you don't understand the backlash?



> We all identify with some issues more than others, it doesn't mean we don't care or think any less of such issues. People have experiences for good or bad,which will bind them (for good or bad) to those issues.


What does this piece of sentimentality have to do with any of the rest of your post?


> There are also people who may not be able to comprehend the mintiuae of IDP. If I walked into my old local and asked someone (for clarification) on what IDP is, I guarantee you, most people wouldn't be able to explain it. Doesn't mean they are stupid or anything like, we just haven't heard of it before.


What has this got to do with anything either?  Is it supposed to be relevant to this thread?

At your "old local" -- in the unlikely event that people in there were remotely interested in hearing me talk about politics -- if I took the time to go and tell them exactly what identity politics is, I would actually then expect them to remember the basics of what I had told them five fucking minutes later.  And if they wanted to discuss the subject in any depth, I would expect them to either pay attention to the detail or not expect that their uninformed reckons were as valid as those who _had_ paid attention to the detail.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 13, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I don't get the impression my co workers have much idea of class solidarity either. Many of them are far too ready to agree with Daily Mail headlines scapegoating of 'scroungers' etc



Then could a sense of bitterness about 'scroungers' be bourne in their own poverty and insecurity? I remember a spell when I was working ridiculous hours doing a full time masters, 24 hours in a call centre, 20 hours unpaid placement, 3 hours volunteering per week. And I was so fucking poor. I paid my rent and bills and immediately had less to live on than someone on benefits. At the time I felt some bitterness towards my brother in law who has never had a job, lives on benefits, and had way more expendable income than me. Not that he was loaded but he could afford the odd indulgence while I couldn't buy a new £10 pair of shoes from Asda.

Poverty wears you down and ime you can get quite bitter towards people who appear to have it easier while not having to work. It's annoying for people working a low paid stressful job and feeling no better off than friends and family who don't work, so people vent about it.

Since my situation is more secure now (yay stipend) I find that bitterness has faded. It sucks to have no job and live on benefits. But at the time I was jealous. I think it's easier to dismiss working class complaints from a comfortable vantage, without realising just how stressed out people are.


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## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

kabbes said:


> So is the concept difficult, nebulous and ill-defined, or is it just that you don't understand the backlash?
> 
> What does this piece of sentimentality have to do with any of the rest of your post?
> What has this got to do with anything either?  Is it supposed to be relevant to this thread?
> ...



1. I'm just repeating myself here. But yes, the concept is all that and yes, I don't understand the backlash to posters here. Or the inference that because it's questioned we're somehow stupid.

2. I mentioned it because experience. That's what everyone brings to politics. Why is it sentimental?

3. Not everyone has the attention span you require of them. Or the memory. There's more to a person's daily existence than getting bogged down in semantics.


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## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> 1. I'm just repeating myself here. But yes, the concept is all that and yes, I don't understand the backlash to posters here. Or the inference that because it's questioned we're somehow stupid.


And so we're back again to you making a statement that identity politics as a concept is difficult, nebulous and ill-defined.  And this statement is made blindly in the face of the repeated straightforward, clear and well-stated definitions of it in this very thread.

Any backlash is irrelevant to this claim about its very meaning.



> 2. I mentioned it because experience. That's what everyone brings to politics. Why is it sentimental?


I remember going swimming at the local pool at the age of 10.  I used to always have Frazzles afterwards, and was obsessed by the Streetfighter II arcade machine they had at the foot of the stairs.  To this day, the sight of Blanca makes me remember the smell of chlorine.

Marvellous stuff.



> 3. Not everyone has the attention span you require of them. Or the memory. There's more to a person's daily existence than getting bogged down in semantics.


No such thing as experts, eh?  Or are we all just tired of listening to them?  I forget.

Anyway, I'm still none the wise as to why the pre-existing knowledge the nameless denizens of your "old local" are in any way relevant to any of the things you are trying to take objection to.

And fuck your attempt to conflate the straightforward definition of something you refuse to take in with "semantics", you weasel.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 13, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Re: 'how dare you question us it's not our job to educate you'. - for decades, I felt the only way to change an overwhelmingly hostile public opinion towards queer people was to win people over one at a time. This meant being out and open and honest about sexuality as much as possible, answering and explaining whenever. Have you any idea how tiring that gets after thirty+ years? Now when people ask me those sorts of questions (which tbf doesn't happen as often these days - but does still happen) I feel no compunction to educate anyone anymore, I really don't think it's my job any more.
> 
> I'm trying to reconcile my queer activist past with politics now. I like to say my bit to educate urbs maybe - like a walking history lesson - but ask me in person and you are likely to get a less than polite 'fuck off'.  Perhaps you can understand my confusion when you say this is an IDpol 'attitude'



Not sure we're talking about the same thing. I wouldn't be so presumptuous to ask you to educate me about your sexuality. I've been shouted down with 'not my job to educate you' just for making a counterpoint to a statement such as 'fuck all straights'. I literally disagreed that was a useful way of looking at things and was told it's not our job to explain this, if you don't understand then fuck off and read about our oppression.


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## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

Let us not forget the quote we are currently discussing, here





krtek a houby said:


> And what does the phrase mean? Going by the use of it by right wingers; it's anything that people on the left are passionate about.


Still stand by this?


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## bimble (Nov 13, 2017)

This is not even entertaining anymore let alone educational.


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## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Let us not forget the quote we are currently discussing, here
> Still stand by this?



In as much as any online dealing I've had with right wingers; yes. That doesn't mean I'm reducing the concerns of those on the left down to a few issues, btw.

That's what (from my experience) the right does.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 13, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> I think it's something like this:
> 
> A class analysis tells us that the majority of us are exploited. We have that in common whatever our differences. That capitalism encourages divisions between us by strategies of divide and rule that weaken us. Many people are more oppressed than I am, but I am exploited, and so are you, because that's how capitalism works. When capitalism is in crisis, more extreme measures are required by the capitalist class to keep it going, to maintain power. Hence the move to the extreme right occurring currently. If we don't work with what we have in common rather than fighting about our differences we are fucked.


Thank you to Red Cat and others who are steering us back into reasoned debate.  I'd hate for the last few pages of bad tempered squabbling to be used by some as an excuse for saying there's nothing here worth bothering with.  There is: the vast majority of the thread has been perfectly reasonable.

And that brings me to my first point: those who say they still don't understand the criticism by those of us who are critiquing identitypolitics are obviously not reading the many lucid and coherent posts on this thread which have outlined the criticism.  If you mean you don't agree, that's quite different. I don't expect everyone to agree with me.  In fact I'm pretty used to the exact opposite.  So that's fine, expound your disagreements.  But please don't couch that as an inability to understand, because after this length of time I'm afraid I don't believe you.

While on that track, let me reply to this:



krtek a houby said:


> The identity politics phrase is now mainstream and it cannot be challenged?



Leave aside terms and terminology for a moment.  What is now mainstream is the ideology, the _version of 'anti racism'_, that has been critiqued here by me in the OP and several others.  Numerous examples have been given.  Many writers have pointed this problem out: Kenan Malik, Salar Mohandesi, Asad Haider and many others.

I argue that at its worst this version of anti-racism is not anti-racist at all, but uses the language and ideas of racism and legitimises, perpetuates and indeed perpetrates afresh that division of humanity.  I deplore this.  I have given examples, as have others.  But it is the language and ideology of exceptionalism, of biological determinism, of biological classification that I deplore.

We cannot, apparently, understand the oppression any group we are told we don't belong to suffers, unless we have ourselves experienced it.  I understand where this fallacy comes from.  I've expanded on that.  But where it has led us is, I'm afraid, back into division and racism.

I wanted to debate the best way of going about fighting those oppressions herein discussed - sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on - and whether what I've termed _identitypolitics_ is helpful or counter-productive.  I gave the steer that I thought it was counter-productive.  Nothing so far has changed my mind about that.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

Not got much to say other than I totally concur with all that danny.


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## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> We cannot, apparently, understand the oppression any group we are told we don't belong to suffers, unless we have ourselves experienced it.  I understand where this fallacy comes from.  I've expanded on that.  But where it has led us is, I'm afraid, back into division and racism.



I'm not saying that, danny. I can;t be as erudite as you but I agree that if someone dismisses a show of solidarity from soneone else because they aren't someone who has experienced the same shit. Well, that's just wrong and divisive as you say.

The writers you mention I have never heard of before. What I'm trying to say is there seems to be so much backstory and context to it all... you realise that not all of us (well, me certainly) aren't as well read as that?

It's comes across as grandstanding. And that isn't meant to be a harsh snipe at you but the ordinary person isn't always going to have all that knowledge to hand or be possibly inclined to read it. Do you see what I'm saying? You're a very clever poster and one of the most interesting on urban but there's room surely for those of us who are concerned about injustice but maybe not so well informed? Personally, I try to take on board what's said but these days its just too hard to follow.

That's my lot. I promised myself I wouldn't get too stuck into the politics threads anymore for various reasons. Thanks for trying to explain again. I get some of it, which is better than nothing. I'll bow out now.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

I'm going to ignore must of the stuff on the last 2-3 pages but wanted to address this.


friendofdorothy said:


> I know what you mean.  I feel I have a vague idea of what IDpol means now (after 30p ages), but I'm not sure how a marxian class analysis helps to see things anymore clearly - or why this is totally opposite approach. Mostly 'ID politics' seems to be an insult to throw at anyone who doesn't agree with every detail of someone's political outlook.


Well whether a (marxian) class analysis helps people "see things more clearly" is going to ultimately depend on your politics, what your aims are, how you understand that world etc.

However, I do not see how anyone can claim that identitypolitics and class politics are not fundamentally opposed (note not "totally opposite", I don't think anyone has claimed that). They are two incompatible political frameworks, indentitypolitics reduces class to an identity, class politics makes it the fundamental basis for the changes that occur in society. For example see the Miliband quotes killer b quoted earlier.  

Even on a day-to-day level indentitypolitics often promotes political directions that are, form the perspective of class politics, reactionary (faith schools, equal pay for women FTSE100 directors, the racialisation of society), identitypolitics has been used (including here on U75) to smear people as racists, sexists etc. Identitypolitics is being used by both liberals and the hard-right to argue for both policies and a worldview that is at odds with class politics.


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## killer b (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> The writers you mention I have never heard of before.


How is this possible? Malik in particular is quoted every time ID politics is discussed, and you're always deep in any discussion, claiming not to understand what we're talking about. Do you never bother reading anything anyone posts to help you understand?


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

The idea that people need to have read the writers danny mentioned or even needed to have past knowledge of politics of identitypolitics is rubbish. Danny's OP assumed no prior knowledge, it clearly outlined what identitypolitics is and why some of us consider it harmful. And while people have mentioned writers in the discussion as further examples of what they are talking about they've clearly explained their points within the thread itself.


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## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

killer b said:


> How is this possible? Malik in particular is quoted every time ID politics is discussed, and you're always deep in any discussion, claiming not to understand what we're talking about. Do you never bother reading anything anyone posts to help you understand?



I read them but it doesn't stick in my memory anymore. Sorry. There are so many names and discussions, it's difficult to file them all away, do you understand what I'm saying? And I'm not trying to be dismissive.


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## killer b (Nov 13, 2017)

I don't know why anyone bothers trying with you anymore tbh.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> The writers you mention I have never heard of before


OK, but they're not required reading for the thread; the _thread_ is.


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## krtek a houby (Nov 13, 2017)

killer b said:


> I don't know why anyone bothers trying with you anymore tbh.



Because most people are decent and they understand that not everyone is at their level and that some people don't have the capacity any more to process and remember the hundreds if not thousands of posts theyve read over the last few days, let alone months.

Anyways, this is becoming all about me again which (believe it or not) I really was tryingto avoid. I really am leaving this thread, any replies/questions please pm me instead of this thread. Cheers sorry for the derail.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> I read them but it doesn't stick in my memory anymore. Sorry. There are so many names and discussions, it's difficult to file them all away, do you understand what I'm saying? And I'm not trying to be dismissive.


You have a responsibility to make some effort now, though, particularly as this thread is in the Theory forum. Not sure what others are supposed to do with this kind of statement.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

OK - so I understand broadly, what class politics are, and I think I understand, broadly, what Danny means by identitypolitics. What perhaps I'm not clear on is when say, anti-racist political action is a good thing, and when it has crossed over into identitypolitics. Now I suppose you could say that it depends on the political analysis that has inspired the action but that's not always clear. 

What I've noticed on urban in particular is that the term identity politics tends to get thrown around in response to any argument that involves a minority group (especially transgender rights, but not exclusively). Those of us who have had to fight for our rights as members of minorities over the past few decades are understandably wary about this tendency. I find the online excesses of identitypolitics as Danny describes deeply frustrating and for me, class always comes first... but that can't mean abandoning fights for equality either. It's a baby and bathwater question, and I'm not sure how to tell the difference.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> OK - so I understand broadly, what class politics are, and I think I understand, broadly, what Danny means by identitypolitics. What perhaps I'm not clear on is when say, anti-racist political action is a good thing, and when it has crossed over into identitypolitics. Now I suppose you could say that it depends on the political analysis that has inspired the action but that's not always clear.


This is why I keep referring to indentitypolitics as a political framework rather than a set of "behaviours" or "excesses" as characterised by some people (indeed I think such that characterisation is wrong and makes little sense).

For example both class politics and identitypolitics are opposed to the pay differential between men and women, where they come into conflict is (1) how they view that battle in the wider view of the world and (2) the means by which it should be challenged.



lazythursday said:


> . I find the online excesses of identitypolitics as Danny describes deeply frustrating and for me, class always comes first... but that can't mean abandoning fights for equality either. It's a baby and bathwater question, and I'm not sure how to tell the difference.


But absolutely nobody has argued for "abandoning fights for equality". Indeed much of the criticism of indentitypolitics is that it doesn't actually tackle the fight for equality, but rather just wants to deal with a few aspects of the issue (often the aspects of most interest to the middle class).


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> What perhaps I'm not clear on is when say, anti-racist political action is a good thing, and when it has crossed over into identitypolitics



The black lives matter movement in the US is an example of anti-racist action which isn't identity politics imo.  There is a clear intersection between race and class in the oppression being tackled (a double discrimination).  It crosses into identity politics when people strip away the nuance and interpret it as all white people are guilty of perpetuating racism, even poor white people are oppressing upper middle class black people.

I'm willing to be corrected here but that's an example I thought of.


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## Fozzie Bear (Nov 13, 2017)

Similarly in the US you saw the attitude that Hilary Clinton was a better candidate for women than Bernie Sanders, because she was a woman. 

Whereas actually Sanders' _policies _would have made a far more positive impact on more women's lives in the US.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> This is why I keep referring to indentitypolitics as a political framework rather than a set of "behaviours" or "excesses" as characterised by some people (indeed I think such that characterisation is false and makes little sense).
> 
> For example both class politics and identitypolitics are opposed to the pay differential between men and women, where they come into conflict is (1) how they view that battle in the wider view of the world and (2) the means by which it should be challenged.
> 
> But absolutely nobody has argued for "abandoning fights for equality". Indeed much of the criticism of indentitypolitics is that it doesn'tactually tackle the fight for equality, but rather just wants to deal with a few aspects of the issue (often the aspects of most interest to the middle class).


Fine - don't have an issue with that at all - but I do think there are some posters (and I'm sure others elsewhere) who increasingly label issues/incidents as identitypolitics purely on the basis that they involve a minority group, rather than that they are part of that opposing political framework.


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> The black lives matter movement in the US is an example of anti-racist action which isn't identity politics imo.  There is a clear intersection between race and class in the oppression being tackled (a double discrimination).  It crosses into identity politics when people strip away the nuance and interpret it as all white people are guilty of perpetuating racism, even poor white people are oppressing upper middle class black people.
> 
> I'm willing to be corrected here but that's an example I thought of.



I think BLM is generally idpol. I would use the Black Panthers as an example of anti-racist action, formed around identity, which is not identity politics. They clearly (for the most part at least afaik) had a material/class analysis and were to some extent at least, marxist revolutionaries. quite a lot of their political action revolved around things like breakfast clubs and community organisation and never crossed over into black separatist crap like the nation of islam/louis farrakhan did.
(disclaimer: I'm sure others on here know way more about the Black Panthers than I do and I await to be corrected)


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Similarly in the US you saw the attitude that Hilary Clinton was a better candidate for women than Bernie Sanders, because she was a woman.
> 
> Whereas actually Sanders' _policies _would have made a far more positive impact on more women's lives in the US.


Likewise with the nonsense of the WEP party arguing for pay rises for some of the wealthiest in society while at the same time remaining silent about the cuts to tax credits and benefits that would hurt millions of women.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 13, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Similarly in the US you saw the attitude that Hilary Clinton was a better candidate for women than Bernie Sanders, because she was a woman.
> 
> Whereas actually Sanders' _policies _would have made a far more positive impact on more women's lives in the US.


to the point where Clinton supporters, with the approval of the machine, decided that the best way to fight against the support for those policies was to label the supporters white, male misogynist and crypto racist- hence 'berniebros' . And that one is still in use.


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Similarly in the US you saw the attitude that Hilary Clinton was a better candidate for women than Bernie Sanders, because she was a woman.
> 
> Whereas actually Sanders' _policies _would have made a far more positive impact on more women's lives in the US.



Same here with the Labour leadership election and people arguing to elect Harriet Harman rather than Corbyn since she is a woman, despite her New Labour ministerial stuff that included iirc things like cutting welfare support for single mothers.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> Fine - don't have an issue with that at all - but I do think there are some posters (and I'm sure others elsewhere) who increasingly label issues/incidents as identitypolitics purely on the basis that they involve a minority group, rather than that they are part of that opposing political framework.


I will agree with you that there are a couple of posters on U75 that sometimes seem to fall into this trap. In fact I'd argue that they've almost bleed into an indentitypolitics themselves, one that puts "class" at the forefront, but a idea of class that is itself nothing more than an identity. 

However, I think they are the minority.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

All those examples are very clear - crystal clear. It's the muddier situations that might be more illuminating. Eg, I'm interested in whether Black Lives Matter is identitypolitics or not, given there's some disagreement.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 13, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Similarly in the US you saw the attitude that Hilary Clinton was a better candidate for women than Bernie Sanders, because she was a woman.
> 
> Whereas actually Sanders' _policies _would have made a far more positive impact on more women's lives in the US.





BigTom said:


> I think BLM is generally idpol. I would use the Black Panthers as an example of anti-racist action, formed around identity, which is not identity politics. They clearly (for the most part at least afaik) had a material/class analysis and were to some extent at least, marxist revolutionaries. quite a lot of their political action revolved around things like breakfast clubs and community organisation and never crossed over into black separatist crap like the nation of islam/louis farrakhan did.
> (disclaimer: I'm sure others on here know way more about the Black Panthers than I do and I await to be corrected)



Yes these are much better and clearer examples than mine.  I remember reading about the Black Panthers and being surprised that their manifesto basically argued for communism rather than racial issues specifically.

I think BLM wasq quite diverse and decentralised so there were people who had a strong class consciousness and others who were quite idpol focused.  It did draw a lot of support from deprived black communities which I think counts for something.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> All those examples are very clear - crystal clear. It's the muddier situations that might be more illuminating. Eg, I'm interested in whether Black Lives Matter is identitypolitics or not, given there's some disagreement.



Yeah that is interesting.  I've definitely seen examples of both within the BLM movement.  Protests with black and white people together displaying marxist slogans, and protests with people shouting fuck white people.


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## Athos (Nov 13, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> The black lives matter movement in the US is an example of anti-racist action which isn't identity politics imo.  There is a clear intersection between race and class in the oppression being tackled (a double discrimination).  It crosses into identity politics when people strip away the nuance and interpret it as all white people are guilty of perpetuating racism, even poor white people are oppressing upper middle class black people.
> 
> I'm willing to be corrected here but that's an example I thought of.



You might find this interesting:  How Racial Disparity Does Not Help Make Sense of Patterns of Police Violence


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> All those examples are very clear - crystal clear. It's the muddier situations that might be more illuminating. Eg, I'm interested in whether Black Lives Matter is identitypolitics or not, given there's some disagreement.



One of the problems with discussing this is that BLM itself is not a single organisation, so some parts / people will very definitely be pursuing a form of IDPol, where others will not. For me it comes down to the theoretical nature of the ideas behind the actions that gives it the clear definition - where does the change you are seeking come from? If you base this in a material/class analysis you will not be following IDPol. If you base it on a liberal individualist analysis then you probably will.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

OK, let me explore another example. A future extreme right government, egged on by the Daily Mail, has decided to legislate to get rid of gay marriage. A campaign against this begins. Clearly such a campaign is bound to include all manner of political backgrounds, and focused on a narrow legislative change isn't going to have much in the way of class analysis in its formation - so it it identitypolitics?


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> OK, let me explore another example. A future extreme right government, egged on by the Daily Mail, has decided to legislate to get rid of gay marriage. A campaign against this begins. Clearly such a campaign is bound to include all manner of political backgrounds, and focused on a narrow legislative change isn't going to have much in the way of class analysis in its formation - so it it identitypolitics?


Well the official campaign is probably likely to be filled with all types of liberal pricks. But that doesn't mean that socialists can't/shouldn't/wouldn't organise on their own terms to defend gay marriage.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> OK, let me explore another example. A future extreme right government, egged on by the Daily Mail, has decided to legislate to get rid of gay marriage. A campaign against this begins. Clearly such a campaign is bound to include all manner of political backgrounds, and focused on a narrow legislative change isn't going to have much in the way of class analysis in its formation - so it it identitypolitics?


Not necessarily. A single-issue campaign group is not necessarily IDP.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> OK, let me explore another example. A future extreme right government, egged on by the Daily Mail, has decided to legislate to get rid of gay marriage. A campaign against this begins. Clearly such a campaign is bound to include all manner of political backgrounds, and focused on a narrow legislative change isn't going to have much in the way of class analysis in its formation - so it it identitypolitics?



I think you've hit on an important 'rub'. People can and do support x, y, z campaign on their own terms. Picking and choosing when and how they get involved etc. Simply dismissing them as idpolitickers because you don't like the approach of someone else who also supports that particular issue seems really blinkered given the complexity of our lives, interests, backgrounds etc.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Well the official campaign is probably likely to be filled with all types of liberal pricks. But that doesn't mean that socialists can't/shouldn't/wouldn't organise on their own terms to defend gay marriage.


But in terms of actually defeating the legislation and defending my marriage (if I had one, ha!) it might tactically be the best thing to join in with the official campaign despite the presence of, say, Ivan Massow. 


littlebabyjesus said:


> Not necessarily. A single-issue campaign group is not necessarily IDP.


I'd like to understand what makes that the case.


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## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> OK, let me explore another example. A future extreme right government, egged on by the Daily Mail, has decided to legislate to get rid of gay marriage. A campaign against this begins. Clearly such a campaign is bound to include all manner of political backgrounds, and focused on a narrow legislative change isn't going to have much in the way of class analysis in its formation - so it it identitypolitics?


Is it a campaign focussed on the separate life experiences of gay people from straight people?  Or is it a movement based on solidity and seeking equal rights for all?


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## Magnus McGinty (Nov 13, 2017)

BigTom said:


> I think BLM is generally idpol. I would use the Black Panthers as an example of anti-racist action, formed around identity, which is not identity politics. They clearly (for the most part at least afaik) had a material/class analysis and were to some extent at least, marxist revolutionaries. quite a lot of their political action revolved around things like breakfast clubs and community organisation and never crossed over into black separatist crap like the nation of islam/louis farrakhan did.
> (disclaimer: I'm sure others on here know way more about the Black Panthers than I do and I await to be corrected)



The Black Panthers were split on it - they also had members who argued black nationalist positions.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 13, 2017)

I mean you'd still watch who you were marching with on any of these things. See paddick ending up strolling along a march with BNP blokey. I recall ages ago, massive TUC march pink and black bloc had organised a feeder group/unofficial one. So theres things within things- an example of that is yes I'd march with people fighting what lazy thursday suggests but I'm not staying to listen to a speeches by labour politicians, regardless. 


Heather Heyer iirc started her activism working with BLM and moved onto DSA- theres some crossover between the groups but how much I couldn't say. The blokey just elected in virginia is DSA. First virginia, then manhattan! lol


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Is it a campaign focussed on the separate life experiences of gay people from straight people?  Or is it a movement based on solidity and seeking equal rights for all?


Well I think you could view it is either depending on your place on the political spectrum. But I think that comment is interesting. Can you give an example of a campaign for minority rights that are about 'separate life experiences'?


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> I'd like to understand what makes that the case.


Wot kabbes says above really. In this example, it's easy to see how such a campaign could (and probably would) be cast as a defence of equal rights for all that brought in wide support from all corners.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> But in terms of actually defeating the legislation and defending my marriage (if I had one, ha!) it might tactically be the best thing to join in with the official campaign despite the presence of, say, Ivan Massow.


Well that's a tactical question on a hypothetical so it's a bit hard to answer. But personally I'd say people would probably be better staying clear of the official campaign and articulating the line of solidarity that kabbes mentioned. In addition, by not joining in the official campaign you can use this issue to press for further demands.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> Well I think you could view it is either depending on your place on the political spectrum. But I think that comment is interesting. Can you give an example of a campaign for minority rights that are about 'separate life experiences'?


Faith schools and extending them to different religious groups. The right to use Sharia or Jewish courts.


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## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> Well I think you could view it is either depending on your place on the political spectrum. But I think that comment is interesting. Can you give an example of a campaign for minority rights that are about 'separate life experiences'?


Well, that’s kind of stirring the pot.  But this thread sprung out of discussion surrounding transgender rights, some of whose campaigns do seem rather to have that flavour.  Hence the response of some women who are concerned that their own right to self-determination may be coming under threat as a consequence.  I offer no opinion here as to the rights and wrongs of each side, but it is a good example of ID politics based rights campaigning.


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## bimble (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> Well I think you could view it is either depending on your place on the political spectrum. But I think that comment is interesting. Can you give an example of a campaign for minority rights that are about 'separate life experiences'?


There's a movement in Cameroon going on at the mo (just getting violent) where some folk are mobilising to have a separate nation for those who speak English instead of French. Is that IDPOL?


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> *The Black Panthers were split on i*t - they also had members who argued black nationalist positions.



Yes they were. It seems a romanticised position to imagine there wasn't or wouldn't have been a range of views given the context they organised within. Their socialist values were evident in the community organising and projects they ran though. Plenty of literature around detailing that.

My understanding is the New BPP is BN.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

Perhaps this is where I come unstuck. I completely understand the clash of rights issue when it comes to transgender (and don't want to drag this thread into all that). But I don't understand why trans activists activities are to necessarily be dismissed as identity politics either. There's no reason why you couldn't have a class analysis and also be in favour of, say, the changes to the Gender Recognition Act and be fighting for that.


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## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> There's no reason why you couldn't have a class analysis and also be in favour of, say, the changes to the Gender Recognition Act and be fighting for that.


Quite right, and that wouldn’t be ID politics.  Is that what is happening though?

The faith school thing is an even better example, by the way.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> But I don't understand why trans activists activities are to necessarily be dismissed as identity politics either. There's no reason why you couldn't have a class analysis and also be in favour of, say, the changes to the Gender Recognition Act and be fighting for that.


Certainly.

I don't think trans activists activities are being *necessarily* dismissed as identitypolitics. Rather some trans activists activities are criticised as identitypolitics


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## chilango (Nov 13, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Well, that’s kind of stirring the pot.  But this thread sprung out of discussion surrounding transgender rights, some of whose campaigns do seem rather to have that flavour.  Hence the response of some women who are concerned that their own right to self-determination may be coming under threat as a consequence.  I offer no opinion here as to the rights and wrongs of each side, but it is a good example of ID politics based rights campaigning.



...and it includes great examples of really toxic and damaging activism.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

So... what should trans activists do in order to campaign for their rights without falling into an identitypolitics trap?


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> Perhaps this is where I come unstuck. I completely understand the clash of rights issue when it comes to transgender (and don't want to drag this thread into all that). But I don't understand why trans activists activities are to necessarily be dismissed as identity politics either. There's no reason why you couldn't have a class analysis and also be in favour of, say, the changes to the Gender Recognition Act and be fighting for that.


I agree. And without going too far down that route, the clash of rights issue is also not necessarily what I would class as idp. These things become idp when they're done badly, as shown imo by the worst excesses on both sides of that divide.


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## ska invita (Nov 13, 2017)

chilango said:


> ...and it includes great examples of really toxic and damaging activism.


...in amongst perfectly acceptable activism. Thats what I was trying to get at by separating out "behaviours" and any associated weird ideologies from the good stuff


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## chilango (Nov 13, 2017)

ska invita said:


> ...in amongst perfectly acceptable activism. Thats what I was trying to get at by separating out "behaviours" and any associated weird ideologies.



Sure. That's important to note/distinguish.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree. And without going too far down that route, the clash of rights issue is also not necessarily what I would class as idp. These things become idp when they're done badly, as shown imo by the worst excesses on both sides of that divide.


OK this makes sense to me, but is quite different from redsquirrel 's suggestion that it's about a political framework, not about behaviours.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> OK this makes sense to me, but is quite different from redsquirrel 's suggestion that it's about a political framework, not about behaviours.


I'm not saying that you can't find examples of shitty behaviour coming out of identitypolitics, but rather that it's not just about shitty "behaviours" as ska argues. For me there is a clear conflict between identitypoltics and class politics. That conflict remains even when I might work alongside those with identitypolitics.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

I still don't entirely understand how trans activists with a class analysis should now proceed in order to avoid identitypolitics. Should they focus more on where their struggle intersects with class, eg access to healthcare, housing, etc? What is it they should stop doing?


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> I still don't entirely understand how trans activists with a class analysis should now proceed in order to avoid identitypolitics. Should they focus more on where their struggle intersects with class, eg access to healthcare, housing, etc? What is it they should stop doing?



Crudely:

ID Pol: Trans people are oppressed because Cis people oppress them. Cis people need to stop being bad people and check their privilege and not oppress trans people anymore.
Class analysis: Trans people are oppressed because capital finds it useful to divide people along binary gender lines and trans challenges the gender binary and the power that capital has to use that gender binary to divide and rule us.

This obviously leads to very different outcomes in terms of focus and action. Someone following IDPol would support a trans capitalist as someone not oppressing trans people, whereas a marxist would see the structural role they play in capital as the means/method (?) of oppression, and the trans nature of the capitalist does not remove their role in oppressing. Similarly a cis working class person is not necessarily oppressing a trans person (they can be of course through transphobic actions, but not purely by nature of their cis identity) but for an idpol viewpoint they are by virtue of their cis nature.

avoiding idpol is about avoiding the individualist, agency driven, liberal ideology, not about the specific issues that are addressed or how they are addressed. When placed in comparison to marxist class analysis the key thing here is that class analysis is a communal, structure focused, socialist ideology.
You want change then for idpol it's about the individual changing ("check your privilege" = educate yourself, always with liberals the issue is ignorance the answer is education - no structural analysis at all); for marxist it's about the relationship between the working and capitalist classes. Ultimately for some the full change can only happen in the transformative process of revolution (which comes purely from the contradictions of capitalism generated by the class structure), which is the purest expression of this idea. For most change can come within capitalism but that change happens from pressure on capital to accede to the demands of the working class, which absolutely can include ending all the identity based oppressions.

edit: If you have a class analysis you will not, by definition, be following IDPol, as IDPol explicitly rejects class analysis.


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## AllEternalsHeck (Nov 13, 2017)

There's a documentary on netflix about discrimination against lgbt in russia.  It's really sad.  They try to organise lgbt social events and end up with protesters mobbing the meeting to shut it down.  The worst thing was that the city counsellor was leading these protests, calling lgbt people unnatural and stuff.  I thought the lgbt community was really brave in the ways they protested this abuse, putting themselves at risk of violence and imprisonment to stand up for their rights.

I never thought that was identity politics.  Within that context, working and middle class lgbt people were being oppressed due to their common lgbt identities.  To me that's not idpol that's a valid struggle against systematic/structural abuse which can find common cause across class divides.  Totally different to fracturing solidarity by separating into discrete identity groups.  

I did have to have a good think about how that fits in, and not totally sure I've gotten it right in my analysis, but it just feels clearly different.


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## bimble (Nov 13, 2017)

BigTom said:


> Trans people are oppressed because capital finds it useful to divide people along binary gender lines and trans challenges the gender binary and the power that capital has to use that gender binary to divide and rule us.


So unless that (all the points in there) are clear to all involved and all agree on it they are by default doing id politics?


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

bimble said:


> So unless that (all the points in there) are clear to all involved and all agree on it they are by default doing id politics?


Put crudely, doesn't something become identity politics when you need to know a person's identity before you can pass judgement on their politics? Before you can assess what is being said, you need to know who is saying it. 

That is not to say that everyone's experience is equally valid - if you live at the sharp end of a particular prejudice, your experience of it in particular needs to be heard. But that doesn't mean your analysis of that experience is necessarily right or to be supported - it may need to be opposed.


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

bimble said:


> So unless that (all the points in there) are clear to all involved and all agree on it they are by default doing id politics?



No, IDPol is not a default. IDPol is a specific ideological framework that people adopt. To some extent it has become a default because of how it has been pursued by mainstream politicians over the past 30 years but it's not a default at all and there are probably an infinity of different positions that could be taken around trans oppression which are neither marxist class analysis nor IDPol. Crudely IDPol will be doing what i said in the sentence above the one you quoted. Other positions also exist which are neither, such as the christian right denial of trans people entirely.

Besides it's not like every marxist will agree on all the points anyway, there can be disagreement within a class analysis framework and I would no way claim the crude sentence there as encompassing the whole of a class analysis of trans oppression.


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Put crudely, doesn't something become identity politics when you need to know a person's identity before you can pass judgement on their politics? Before you can assess what is being said, you need to know who is saying it.
> 
> That is not to say that everyone's experience is equally valid - if you live at the sharp end of a particular prejudice, your experience of it in particular needs to be heard. But that doesn't mean your analysis of that experience is necessarily right or to be supported - it may need to be opposed.



Yes, good point. One of the IDPol failure stories I can give here relates to this totally. In a discussion about the EDL specifically and anti-racism generally, someone said I shouldn't speak because I'm white and therefore haven't experienced racism and shouldn't have a voice in this discussion. I informed them that I was of Jewish heritage and asked if he felt that Jewish people had no experience of racism and shouldn't have a voice in a discussion about racism. He then changed completely and not only was I allowed to speak but what I had to say became really important to them. One of the stranger things about this discussion is that I was only contributing some information about what had/hadn't worked in the past with NF/BNP and really not trying to direct the discussion about what we should be doing now about EDL. Like my experience in anti-racist actions had no relevance because I'm white, now they do because I'm technically Jewish.

Of course I've not personally experienced any racism (except the weird reverse racism that I've found from the occasional Jewish person who would act very differently - in a positive way -  to me once they know I'm technically Jewish) and don't really dispute that I am white (certainly I benefit from white privilege in the context in which I live at the moment) but it demonstrated to me the superficial nature of IDPol and really hits the nail on the head with what you've said here.

(This was in real life, not on facebook or anywhere - ime this stuff transcends social media, though it's far worse there)


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

What does "doing ID politics" even mean? I've not seen anyone critical of identitypolitics using such a turn of phrase. You no more "do ID politics" than you "do socialist politics".


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## bimble (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> What does "doing ID politics" even mean? I've not seen anyone critical of identitypolitics using such a turn of phrase. You no more "do ID politics" than you "do socialist politics".


Practicing? Manifesting? What do you suggest.


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## LDC (Nov 13, 2017)

It's a perspective which sometimes manifests itself in certain types of political activity. I think maybe you're over thinking it?


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## bimble (Nov 13, 2017)

I do totally recognise what's being said above, about the 'authenticity' / authority of a persons voice because they fit in this or that category being massively overvalued, and conversely someone's ideas dismissed because they're not a member of whatever oppressed group.It really goes nowhere that stuff, because conversation becomes impossible, I get that.


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> What does "doing ID politics" even mean? I've not seen anyone critical of identitypolitics using such a turn of phrase. You no more "do ID politics" than you "do socialist politics".



I just took it to mean someone taking political actions which proponents of ID Politics would take or using/following the ideological basis of idpol to inform their actions. Problem with the first one is that many of the actions that IDPol leads you to are not much different to those that a class analysis would, so the second tends to be better for seeing the differences and locating people/groups within particular frameworks.

Politics is definitely something you "do" so I don't see a problem with describing people "doing" a particular form of politics, other than that it is always awkward to define a form of politics so tightly that you can include everyone you want and exclude only those you don't want from that particular form you are seeking to describe.

ofc you can "do" politics without being consciously informed by a particular position or framework, most people do most of the time, very few if any people are really arriving at their politics through a purely ideological framework.
and ofc politics is everywhere and even when you are not "doing politics", what you are doing is (or at least can be) political.

Not sure what I mean to be saying in this post tbh, other than that I didn't have a problem with Bimble's phrasing there and feel like I understood what she meant when she said that.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

I don't know because I've no idea what you mean by "doing X politics". People take actions, people have views, those actions/views may be consistent with a particular viewpoint or they may not. I take part in a strike because I believe that advances that politics that I support but I wouldn't say that standing on a picket line is "doing socialism". That just seems garbled to me.


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## Athos (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> I don't know because I've no idea what you mean by "doing X politics". People take actions, people have views, those actions/views may be consistent with a particular viewpoint or they may not. I take part in a strike because I believe that advances that politics that I support but I wouldn't say that standing on a picket line is "doing socialism". That just seems garbled to me.



I'm not sure I agree with you on this, or your earlier point which seemed to imply that IDPol is only an ideology; I think it's also closely and uniquely associated with a set of behaviours.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

I think the terminology isn't really very helpful. Clearly there will always be political struggles that take place around identity. To most people who not well schooled in political theory this is 'identity politics' even if it has a class analysis or not, or whether it avoids or includes some of the behaviours and liberal thinking that have plagued some of these movements. Shouldn't this be about doing identity politics in a better (class based) way, not holding up 'identity politics' as something bad? Because it makes those of us who have been involved in anti-racism or gay rights movements etc feel as though perhaps there's a backlash going on, or that somehow by fighting against section 28 back in the 80s we're partly responsible for some upper-middle class woman screaming 'check your privilege' at a working class bloke. Or at least there needs to be a new way of describing minority-rights politics that means the identity politics term can be reserved for a very specific way of thinking and acting.


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## BigTom (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> I think the terminology isn't really very helpful. Clearly there will always be political struggles that take place around identity. To most people who not well schooled in political theory this is 'identity politics' even if it has a class analysis or not, or whether it avoids or includes some of the behaviours and liberal thinking that have plagued some of these movements. Shouldn't this be about doing identity politics in a better (class based) way, not holding up 'identity politics' as something bad? Because it makes those of us who have been involved in anti-racism or gay rights movements etc feel as though perhaps there's a backlash going on, or that somehow by fighting against section 28 back in the 80s we're partly responsible for some upper-middle class woman screaming 'check your privilege' at a working class bloke. Or at least there needs to be a new way of describing minority-rights politics that means the identity politics term can be reserved for a very specific way of thinking and acting.



I think that's why danny la rouge ran the words together in his op, and why me and others have used idpol.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> Shouldn't this be about doing identity politics in a better (class based) way, not holding up 'identity politics' as something bad?


How can you "do identitypolitics in a class based way"? That supposes that they aren't incompatible at a fundamental level.


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## Red Cat (Nov 13, 2017)

Does this have to descend to these kinds of arguments? The nature of projection is that it's unconscious i.e we don't know we're doing it. We all do it. A


Athos said:


> I'm not sure I agree with you on this, or your earlier point which seemed to imply that IDPol is only an ideology; I think it's also closely and uniquely associated with a set of behaviours.



What do you mean by uniquely associated with a set of behaviours? And how would that come about?


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 13, 2017)

AllEternalsHeck said:


> Not sure we're talking about the same thing. I wouldn't be so presumptuous to ask you to educate me about your sexuality. I've been shouted down with 'not my job to educate you' just for making a counterpoint to a statement such as 'fuck all straights'. I literally disagreed that was a useful way of looking at things and was told it's not our job to explain this, if you don't understand then fuck off and read about our oppression.


Surely a statement like 'Fuck all straights' or 'fuck all -----' is just being abusive? Statements like this have been quoted on this thread, does this sort of thing happen a lot? - was this in the context of a politcal meeting?


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> How can you "do identitypolitics in a class based way"? That supposes that they aren't incompatible at a fundamental level.


I'm making a point about terminology. Of course identitypolitics as defined by Danny is incompatible with class politics, but political action around identity issues is not. I don't think that most people will easily distinguish between 'identity politics' and any struggle against racism, homophobia, etc. I think that lack of clarity and understanding has helped drive plenty of arguments on these boards.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> I'm making a point about terminology. Of course identitypolitics as defined by Danny is incompatible with class politics, but political action around identity issues is not.


But surely by defining things as identity issues you are accepting the central ideas of identitypolitics.

I don't agree that this is a terminology issue, it's a political one. It's like when people try and insist that liberalism and socialism are not in conflict, it's nonsense. We have a conflict between different political ideologies.


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## ska invita (Nov 13, 2017)

BigTom said:


> I think that's why danny la rouge ran the words together in his op, and why me and others have used idpol.


not different enough to avoid confusion/create clarity


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> OK - so I understand broadly, what class politics are, and I think I understand, broadly, what Danny means by identitypolitics. What perhaps I'm not clear on is when say, anti-racist political action is a good thing, and when it has crossed over into identitypolitics. Now I suppose you could say that it depends on the political analysis that has inspired the action but that's not always clear.
> 
> What I've noticed on urban in particular is that the term identity politics tends to get thrown around in response to any argument that involves a minority group (especially transgender rights, but not exclusively). Those of us who have had to fight for our rights as members of minorities over the past few decades are understandably wary about this tendency. I find the online excesses of identitypolitics as Danny describes deeply frustrating and for me, class always comes first... but that can't mean abandoning fights for equality either. It's a baby and bathwater question, and I'm not sure how to tell the difference.


 Well said. 

Analysis seems to be the stuff of academics, though movements and actions do grow out of it - what has always mattered to me was action : _how_ could we change things, _how_ could we challenge the status quo. I've always been interested in the politics but it was the actions we took that mattered. We fought for rights and freedoms that are taken for granted now.

Class politics hasn't been at the centre of the fight for womens and lgbt rights  - because the issues of oppression applied to all classes. My activism generally didn't put class first, it put women and queer people first - but supporting each other and solidarity was always vital. I don't feel much solidarity either from some posters who think they have the one and only 'correct' analsys and the rest of us were/are doing it all wrong. I don't really know what to make of some of the online 'excesses' described on this thread either.


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> So... what should trans activists do in order to campaign for their rights without falling into an identitypolitics trap?


exactly.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> I'm making a point about terminology. Of course identitypolitics as defined by Danny is incompatible with class politics, but political action around identity issues is not. I don't think that most people will easily distinguish between 'identity politics' and any struggle against racism, homophobia, etc. I think that lack of clarity and understanding has helped drive plenty of arguments on these boards.


I agree that there is a lot of misunderstanding and that people end up talking past each other, as shown by the existence and course of this thread, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile pursuing this line of thought.

As a parallel example, I first encountered the critique of mulitculturalism as a neoliberal state ideology on these boards, and my very first reaction was one that bristled at the idea that something as positive as multiculturalism should be being criticised. It took reading up on links to the likes of Kenan Malik to understand the point, but it was worth the effort.


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> I'm going to ignore must of the stuff on the last 2-3 pages but wanted to address this.
> 
> Well whether a (marxian) class analysis helps people "see things more clearly" is going to ultimately depend on your politics, what your aims are, how you understand that world etc.
> 
> However, I do not see how anyone can claim that identitypolitics and class politics are not fundamentally opposed (note not "totally opposite", I don't think anyone has claimed that). They are two incompatible political frameworks, indentitypolitics reduces class to an identity, class politics makes it the fundamental basis for the changes that occur in society.





lazythursday said:


> Of course identitypolitics as defined by Danny is incompatible with class politics, but political action around identity issues is not. I don't think that most people will easily distinguish between 'identity politics' and any struggle against racism, homophobia, etc. I think that lack of clarity and understanding has helped drive plenty of arguments on these boards.


its this fundamental opposition and how that fits in with actions around 'identity' issues thats doesn't seem clear to me.

Rather than 'identity' issues I would say 'personal freedoms and rights'


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Analysis seems to be the stuff of academics, though movements and actions do grow out of it - what has always mattered to me was action : _how_ could we change things, _how_ could we challenge the status quo. I've always been interested in the politics but it was the actions we took that mattered. We fought for rights and freedoms that are taken for granted now.


But this debate isn't about some esoteric theoretical point, it's about what is happening here and now. Look at the Labour Party leadership elections, the Democratic party, the expansion of faith schools, the growth of the hard right, the cracking of liberalism, etc. To argue that this is just about analysis ignores the many examples given by poster of how identitypolitcs is harmful.


friendofdorothy said:


> Class politics hasn't been at the centre of the fight for womens and lgbt rights  - because the issues of oppression applied to all classes.


Well plenty of socialist feminists - Sylvia Pankhurst, Emma Goldman - would disagree with you they saw the fight for equality as part and parcel of the fight against capitalism.


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> But surely by defining things as identity issues you are accepting the central ideas of identitypolitics.
> 
> I don't agree that this is a terminology issue, it's a political one. It's like when people try and insist that liberalism and socialism are not in conflict, it's nonsense. We have a conflict between different political ideologies.


Again I think we're talking past each other, possibly? Is fighting against the hypothetical abolition of gay marriage an identity issue or not? Of course it can be put into a class context but it still relates to an identity, a particular group which is not primarily class-based. The fact that neoliberal politicians have co-opted some of these struggles for their own ends doesn't make the struggle itself invalid. 

The problem is that your argument can easily be interpreted as "hey black guys, gays and lesbians, trans people, feminists - stop what you're doing - it's really not that important - come and join the class struggle!". I KNOW that's not what you mean but insisting that issues of identity are always reactionary can come across that way.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> Again I think we're talking past each other, possibly? Is fighting against the hypothetical abolition of gay marriage an identity issue or not?


It can be seen in that way, the question is whether that is a useful way of viewing it or now.



lazythursday said:


> Of course it can be put into a class context but it still relates to an identity,


Does it, why? Why can't it be viewed through the aspect of class solidarity rather than identity?

The equating of the fight for equal rights for women, ethnic minorities, etc with identity issues is a recent thing (last 30-40 years). These fights didn't used to be seen in that way, so why do they have to been seen in that way now?


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> It can be seen in that way, the question is whether that is a useful way of viewing it or now.
> 
> Does it, why? Why can't it be viewed through the aspect of class solidarity rather than identity?


I am probably being completely dense but I just don't get what you mean.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> I am probably being completely dense but I just don't get what you mean.


Sorry, you might not have caught my edit, does that make it clearer?


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## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

To be honest I haven't thought a lot about the word 'identity' and when that arose - I guess I'm using it as a proxy for oppressed group / minority / etc. I do see that the word 'identity' is tied pretty closely to the individual rather than group and therefore fits neatly with a neoliberal outlook.


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## bimble (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> The equating of the fight for equal rights for women, ethnic minorities, etc with identity issues is a recent thing (last 30-40 years). These fights didn't used to be seen in that way, so why do they have to been seen in that way now?


This I'd like to understand more about - what do you think happened 30-40 years ago to make this change? 
I just read a book about partition (end of empire in India). The historian referred in passing to the Muslim League's movement to create Pakistan as identity politics. Was she wrong to use the term ?


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 13, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> The equating of the fight for equal rights for women, ethnic minorities, etc with identity issues is a recent thing (last 30-40 years). These fights didn't used to be seen in that way, so why do they have to been seen in that way now?


 How do you think the issues seen prior to 30-40yrs ago that didn't equate identity with the fight for equality? 

I don't understand what is wrong with organising with other people who suffer similar oppressions, that has been my experience of the nature of practical activism.


----------



## LDC (Nov 13, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I don't understand what is wrong with organising with other people who suffer similar oppressions, that has been my experience of the nature of practical activism.



Nobody is saying that's 'bad' nor is it necessarily identity politics. It feels like you're still completely misunderstanding what identity politics is.


----------



## lazythursday (Nov 13, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Nobody is saying that's 'bad' nor is it necessarily identity politics. It feels like you're still completely misunderstanding what identity politics is.


I think that's easy to do because the term is thrown around in any discussion that touches on sexism / racism / transphobia etc. Its often used as a smear without sufficient explanation.


----------



## LDC (Nov 13, 2017)

Yes, but there's been a 37 page thread with many good contributions clearly explaining what identity politics is, so I'm surprised that someone still might think it was just organizing with people that suffer similar oppressions.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> I think that's easy to do because the term is thrown around in any discussion that touches on sexism / racism / transphobia etc. Its often used as a smear without sufficient explanation.



In much the same way that people bemoan IDpolitickers doing it. It's about power.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 13, 2017)

bimble said:


> This I'd like to understand more about - what do you think happened 30-40 years ago to make this change?
> I just read a book about partition (end of empire in India). The historian referred in passing to the Muslim League's movement to create Pakistan as identity politics. Was she wrong to use the term ?


It absolutely is Identity Politics - national self-determination is a text book example of a Political Dictionary definition of Identity Politics


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Nobody is saying that's 'bad' nor is it necessarily identity politics.


It IS Identity Politics. Heres the Oxford dictionary definition:


> *identity politics*
> 
> 
> *PLURAL NOUN*
> ...


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> It's about power.



It's about cognitive dissonance.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> It's about cognitive dissonance.



Maybe for some. Why not give an example? I was making a point about the power dynamic. The dismissal tactic is about power IMO. Who gets to decide what it is, where are the boundaries drawn? Again, power.


----------



## LDC (Nov 13, 2017)

ska invita said:


> It IS Identity Politics. Heres the Oxford dictionary definition:



I said it wasn't _necessarily_ identity politics. For example, organizing with people suffering similar oppressions pretty much covers class struggle, but it could also cover single issue non-identity politics based campaigning around a housing issue for example.

For me identity politics is often not just indicated by one aspect, it's more a term that usually requires some from a cluster of indicators for it to be clearly coming from an identity politics perspective. Nor is it necessarily reformist.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I was making a point about the power dynamic.



Will you expand on it? Who is exercising power over whom?


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

See my additions please.


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## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

They haven't helped.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> They haven't helped.





You don't understand my point in response to lazythursday's post about it being used as a dismissal tactic and how that feeds into who holds power in a situation or discussion? Not sure I can write that any more clearly.

Perhaps you can offer an example of why you think it's about cognitive dissonance?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> For me identity politics is often not just indicated by one aspect, it's more a umbrella term that usually requires a cluster of indicators for it to be clearly coming from an identity politics perspective.


I think this idea of a cluster of indicators is a good one. Maybe we need some examples. One that comes to mind immediately is the obnoxious Women's Equality Party. Set up in the middle of the vicious austerity measures, it has nothing to say about that, it explicitly welcomes people from all political parties, and is run by a bunch of rich businesspeople, the very people who are enforcing austerity, which disproportionately hits poorer women. It's offensively wrong and lights up quite a few red lights.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 13, 2017)

ska invita said:


> - national self-determination


I'm sorry I'm too busy to do any justice to this debate tonight but I'm dipping in and I want to pick up on this one phrase. My problem here is the term  "self". What does it mean for a nation to have a "self"?  This conflating of the individual and the group is at the heart of my problem with both identitypolitics and identity politics. Identity is being used to mean different things there at once.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 13, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> I'm sorry I'm too busy to do any justice to this debate tonight but I'm dipping in and I want to pick up on this one phrase. My problem here is the term  "self". What does it mean for a nation to have a "self"?  This conflating of the individual and the group is at the heart of my problem with both identitypolitics and identity politics. Identity is being used to mean different things there at once.


it's the basis of modern far right thought. This 'self. And it's exactly where the left have capitulated.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Nov 13, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I don't understand what is wrong with organising with other people who suffer similar oppressions, that has been my experience of the nature of practical activism.



Do you find it impossible to imagine organising with people whose oppressions you don’t directly share though?

What do you think of white people who do anti-racist work, for example?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 13, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> I'm sorry I'm too busy to do any justice to this debate tonight but I'm dipping in and I want to pick up on this one phrase. My problem here is the term  "self". What does it mean for a nation to have a "self"?  This conflating of the individual and the group is at the heart of my problem with both identitypolitics and identity politics.


This is something I've thought on quite a bit wrt the liberation struggles against colonialism. Some kind of nationalism was needed, no? That many newly independent countries quickly went to shit was mostly to do with continuing colonial meddling - the likes of Lumumba never had much of a chance. But someone like Lumumba combined calls for national self-determination with calls for wider solidarity. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 13, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> For me identity politics is often not just indicated by one aspect, it's more a term that usually requires some from a cluster of indicators for it to be clearly coming from an identity politics perspective. Nor is it necessarily reformist.


....do you see that there is a problem of terminology here? the fact that some people see identitypolitics and IDPol or even just straight "identity politics" as something different to the Identify Politics as you'll find it in a dictionary or politics textbook has created a number of cross-purpose conversations. If you've got your own personal understanding to add to the mix that just going to add to the confusion of language!



danny la rouge said:


> I'm sorry I'm too busy to do any justice to this debate tonight but I'm dipping in and I want to pick up on this one phrase. My problem here is the term  "self". What does it mean for a nation to have a "self"?  This conflating of the individual and the group is at the heart of my problem with both identitypolitics and identity politics. Identity is being used to mean different things there at once.


Its another standard term in political textbooks though, dating back to the 1860s according to wiki Self-determination - Wikipedia
By my understanding the self bit refers to the wider group of selves who identify with the nation. Maybe it should be Selves-determination. But it isnt. 
I dont think it means a nation to have a self. I think it means Selves to have a nation. 

too hard for a monday night!


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> who holds power in a situation or discussion?





mojo pixy said:


> Who is exercising power over whom?



I can expand on my own comment but_ I'm not sure it's my job to explain_, given as how there are 38 pages on this thread and some posters appear still not to understand. I'll do a swapsie, one explanation for another, hows about that? 

Who are you talking about, when you talk about _holding power?_ What kind of situation do you have in mind?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I can expand on my own comment but_ I'm not sure it's my job to explain_



Right. So you are rejecting the explanation I have already given, after you asked for it and you are also refusing to explain your own points.

On top of that you have more questions for me to answer? Questions I have already answered no less.



> Who are you talking about, when you talk about _holding power?_ What kind of situation do you have in mind?



I've engaged with you here in good faith and have answered your question. You are now refusing to do the same thing. 

What's the point?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 13, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is something I've thought on quite a bit wrt the liberation struggles against colonialism. Some kind of nationalism was needed, no? That many newly independent countries quickly went to shit was mostly to do with continuing colonial meddling - the likes of Lumumba never had much of a chance. But someone like Lumumba combined calls for national self-determination with calls for wider solidarity. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive.



No and yes they are.

The  bolshevisation  of official communism into an ideology of agricultural capitalisation and super-industrialisation and the subsequent alignments in foreign policy respectively very much had to do with it.

*I'm seeing maoism as a subset of marxism-leninism*


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## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Right. So you are rejecting the explanation I have already given



There was really no explanation, just an assertion that ''identitypolitics'' is a term thrown around by people who hold power in order to dismiss stuff.
Who? What power? What stuff?
That would be an explanation. So far it's vagueness.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> There was really no explanation, just an assertion that ''identitypolitics'' is a term thrown around by people who hold power in order to dismiss stuff.
> Who? What power? What stuff?
> That would be an explanation. *So far it's vagueness.*



Nope. I disagree.



LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Nobody is saying that's 'bad' nor is it necessarily identity politics. It feels like you're still completely misunderstanding what identity politics is.





lazythursday said:


> I think that's easy to do because the term is thrown around in any discussion that touches on sexism / racism / transphobia etc. Its often used as a smear without sufficient explanation.





Rutita1 said:


> In much the same way that people bemoan IDpolitickers doing it. It's about power.





mojo pixy said:


> It's about cognitive dissonance.





Rutita1 said:


> Maybe for some. Why not give an example? I was making a point about the power dynamic. The dismissal tactic is about power IMO. Who gets to decide what it is, where are the boundaries drawn? Again, power.



I've provided far more by way of explanation than you are suggesting. Also, more than you are willing to give. Accusing me of being _vague_ given you've offered nothing more than a statement of fact with regard your own view  is pretty rich tbh.



mojo pixy said:


> It's about cognitive dissonance.




 Again what is the point? Just say you don't want to talk about it.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Nope. I disagree.
> 
> I've provided far more by way of explanation than you are suggesting. Also, more than you are willing to give. Accusing me of being _vague_ given you've offered nothing more than a statement of fact with regard your own view  is pretty rich tbh.
> 
> Again what is the point? Just say you don't want to talk about it.




There is nothing by way of explanation in that exchange. _Power _is not an explanation. I'm asking who does this? Who has power? What power do they have? What are they dismissing? These are valid questions and you're blatantly evading them.

Cognitive dissonance comes into it because
when _personal identity_ comes into conflict with structural inequality
say in the case of a wealthy, well-educated and economically comfy member of a minority
then where does _politics _lead?

Does it lead to a systemic analysis whereby access to wealth, education and eg healthcare is the main area for struggle?
Or does it lead to an identity-based analysis whereby you can be materially, financially, socially and healthily successful but still _oppressed because of who you are?_

As expressed elsewhere and better, there's a basic conflict of ideas there, which is really hard to resolve.

Cognitive dissonance appears.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> There is nothing by way of explanation in that exchange. _Power _is not an explanation. I'm asking who does this? Who has power? What power do they have? What are they dismissing? These are valid questions and you're blatantly evading them.



Just as the arguments have been posited here that IDpolitickers dismiss others to 'control' debate, I am saying that it works the other way around too. That was clear from what was posted above IMO.

Using dismissal/accusing people of being identity politickers can also be about power. People on this very thread do this. I am not evading shit diddly.



> Cognitive dissonance comes into it because
> when _personal identity_ comes into conflict with structural inequality
> say in the case of a wealthy, well-educated and economically comfy member of a minority
> then where does _politics _lead?
> ...



Oh look...you've finally conceded some level of explanation too. Progress.


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## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

I always explain if asked. Always.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I always explain if asked. Always.



I asked a few times tbf.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 13, 2017)

So? You still haven't answered my questions.


----------



## xenon (Nov 13, 2017)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is something I've thought on quite a bit wrt the liberation struggles against colonialism. Some kind of nationalism was needed, no? That many newly independent countries quickly went to shit was mostly to do with continuing colonial meddling - the likes of Lumumba never had much of a chance. But someone like Lumumba combined calls for national self-determination with calls for wider solidarity. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive.


The colonies had their existent burocracracies destroyed too. Look how they fail now their systym was gutted. Same trick again and again.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 13, 2017)

lazythursday said:


> To be honest I haven't thought a lot about the word 'identity' and when that arose - I guess I'm using it as a proxy for oppressed group / minority / etc. I do see that the word 'identity' is tied pretty closely to the individual rather than group and therefore fits neatly with a neoliberal outlook.


Identity is not a proxy for group membership, though.  Identity is about what makes you an individual.  It’s the story you tell yourself about who you are, as well as being how others perceive you via the story they tell themselves about who you are.  It’s very much about the self, not the group.  This is not my definition, by the way, this is the concept of identity as it is understood in the social sciences.

Maybe that helps explain the potential toxicity of identity politics.  It is not the politics of the group.  It is the politics of the individual.  It is liberalism taken to its extreme.  You have the freedom to write your own story of the self, substantially aided by a consumer society that directs you to construct that identity by collecting the trappings of pieces of ready-made identity, magpie-like.  As part of that process, you construct a politics that is all about the defence of that identity against wider groups that would seek to weaken it.

None of that means it is bad to have the freedom to define oneself as one wishes, nor does it mean that individuals should be oppressed at all, let alone as a result of their self-definition.  But the defence of the identity comes from a place of individualism not group solidarity, and that’s why it is the antithesis of a class analysis.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 13, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Identity is not a proxy for group membership, though.  Identity is about what makes you an individual.  It’s the story you tell yourself about who you are, as well as being how others perceive you via the story they tell themselves about who you are.  *It’s very much about the self, not the group.*  This is not my definition, by the way, this is the concept of identity as it is understood in the social sciences.
> 
> .



This doesn't make sense to me in some ways because unless we have others to mirror/compare to/reflect off/align or associate with or not there is no reference for the constructed 'self'.

My understanding is that it is very much about both ...of course depending on the where and who you are, to varying degrees, quite naturally and healthily. We still do have more 'community' focused cultures than the crudely described 'individualistic' West don't we? Even in the so called West there are more community based movements, ideas etc. Can you link me to something that argues that it's only ever about the 'individual perception of self' and not about the social group and intergroup associations please?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 13, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> I'm not saying that, danny. I can;t be as erudite as you but I agree that if someone dismisses a show of solidarity from soneone else because they aren't someone who has experienced the same shit. Well, that's just wrong and divisive as you say.
> 
> The writers you mention I have never heard of before. What I'm trying to say is there seems to be so much backstory and context to it all... you realise that not all of us (well, me certainly) aren't as well read as that?
> 
> ...



Tbf given that the writers danny mentions are people of colour, this doesn't do much for your argument does it?


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> This doesn't make sense to me in some ways because unless we have others to mirror/compare to/reflect off/align or associate with or not there is no reference for the constructed 'self'.
> 
> My understanding is that it is very much about both ...of course depending on the where and who you are, to varying degrees, quite naturally and healthily. We still do have more 'community' focused cultures than the crudely described 'individualistic' West don't we? Even in the so called West there are more community based movements, ideas etc. Can you link me to something that argues that it's only ever about the 'individual perception of self' and not about the social group and intergroup associations please?


Of course we have communities and group action and all those good things.  And those things are not identity politics unless they are explicitly about the defence of a specific identity.  For example, identity involves many facets, including the construction of in-groups and out-groups.  If your community project doesn’t define an out-group that is a good sign that it is not the politics of identity, but the politics of class.

I think one reason you are keen to defend identity politics is that you are assigning anything related to minority groups to this bucket.  But this is a fundamental misattribution of the politics of identity.  You have to keep coming back to what identity means.


----------



## LDC (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Maybe that helps explain the potential toxicity of identity politics.  It is not the politics of the group.  It is the politics of the individual.  It is liberalism taken to its extreme.



Good point, thanks.

And just to expand on that, it's the politics of the individual masquerading as the politics of a group to which they belong/claim to belong to. Common politics based on race, gender, sexuality, and ultimately nation.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 14, 2017)

bimble said:


> This I'd like to understand more about - what do you think happened 30-40 years ago to make this change?


That's a big topic in itself but I think the piece by Malick danny linked to earlier in the thread summarises things pretty well.


> In the 1960s, the struggles for black rights and women’s rights and gay rights were closely linked to the wider project of social transformation. But as the labour movement lost influence and radical struggles faltered, from the 1980s on, so the relationship between the promotion of identity rights and broader social change frayed*. *Eventually, the promotion of identity became an end in itself, an identity to which an individual’s interests were inexorably linked.





bimble said:


> I just read a book about partition (end of empire in India). The historian referred in passing to the Muslim League's movement to create Pakistan as identity politics. Was she wrong to use the term ?


Don't see how I can answer that without the context. But as I said back at the start of the thread identitypolitics is something that really arose in the last 30-40 years. While there are certainly connections to be drawn with earlier political organisation based on ethnicity/religion its not the same thing, kabbes' point about individualism is key here. 




friendofdorothy said:


> How do you think the issues seen prior to 30-40yrs ago that didn't equate identity with the fight for equality?
> 
> I don't understand what is wrong with organising with other people who suffer similar oppressions, that has been my experience of the nature of practical activism.


Sorry I'm not sure what you are asking in the first sentence. Regarding the second I agree with what LynnDoyleCooper and kabbes have made. There's nothing (necessarily) wrong with organising with people who suffer similar oppressions.


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> What do you mean by uniquely associated with a set of behaviours? And how would that come about?



The stuff I mentioned much earlier in the thread, which seems to be the sole preserve of the IDPol crowd, i.e.:



Athos said:


> Some of the contrived offence-taking, the unwarranted no-platforming, the abuse of the idea of safe spaces, the rejection of facts/logic/truth in favour of experience, the smearing of opponents as bigots, tone policing, etc., etc.. Basically all the really shit stuff from US student politics which seems to have infected much of what calls iteself the left here (though I wouldn't describe it that way).



And you can add stuff like the whole social media 'die cis scum' and 'all white people...' (remember the tweet blaming white women for Nazism in the wake of Heather Heyer's murder, defended by people who claim not to support IDOol?!), all of which is hypocritical, counter-productive, and just plain daft.

It's causes are complex and go back a long way (and are touched on elsewhere in the thread), but the very recent explosion had been facilitated by social media, and fashions for doing politics in a certain way.  I think a lot of the IDPol crowd just engage with politics at this superficial level, and probably don't even realise that they are IDPolitikers.


----------



## LDC (Nov 14, 2017)

Athos said:


> I think a lot of the IDPol crowd just engage with politics at this superficial level, and probably don't even realise that they are IDPolitikers.



Indeed, some of the stuff that's come out post-Bookfair is from the position of 'revolutionary identity politics' where people have been calling the bookfair 'liberals' etc. It's this weird confusion of militant liberalism that you see in bits of activism, and also comes from some elements of the 'insurrectionary anarchist scene' where they condemn 'social anarchism' for being reformist, complicit in oppression, etc etc..


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 14, 2017)

ska invita said:


> Its another standard term in political textbooks though, dating back to the 1860s according to wiki Self-determination - Wikipedia
> By my understanding the self bit refers to the wider group of selves who identify with the nation. Maybe it should be Selves-determination. But it isnt.
> I dont think it means a nation to have a self. I think it means Selves to have a nation.
> 
> too hard for a monday night!


The thing about reaching for dictionaries, or in looking for how long a term has been used, is that that doesn't always take account of the way a term is used now or the way it is understood in every context.

In the 19th century, the way that the dominant culture (which writes the dictionaries) thought of the nation-state was not the same way that socialists used to view the nation-state. Today, there are many on the  self-identified left who are not interrogating the way the word "self" is used in the first component of self determination; they are eliding the individual and the group.

We need to ask ourselves: who will be _doing_ the determining?

A similar question is to ask oneself whether, when we think of the actions of the current UK Tory government: "do I see this action as something _I_ have done?", "Do I refer to this government as 'we'?", "Is there an 'us' at work here, or a 'them'?"

The problem we are encountering here is analogous with the one that presents an advance for managerial class women as an advance for all women.

That is at the heart of the issue here.


----------



## bimble (Nov 14, 2017)

Last couple of pages have been really helpful. 
Maybe in part the thinking and behaviours being discussed are to some extent a (fumbling and mistaken) reaction to the atomisation and consumer-individualism of the last few decades - so young people ardently defining the self by what in-group they belong to, in a zero sum game type vision of the world, is a substitute for actually feeling part of something real and shared with the people who live next door.


----------



## TruXta (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Identity is not a proxy for group membership, though.  Identity is about what makes you an individual.  It’s the story you tell yourself about who you are, as well as being how others perceive you via the story they tell themselves about who you are.  It’s very much about the self, not the group.  This is not my definition, by the way, this is the concept of identity as it is understood in the social sciences.
> 
> Maybe that helps explain the potential toxicity of identity politics.  It is not the politics of the group.  It is the politics of the individual.  It is liberalism taken to its extreme.  You have the freedom to write your own story of the self, substantially aided by a consumer society that directs you to construct that identity by collecting the trappings of pieces of ready-made identity, magpie-like.  As part of that process, you construct a politics that is all about the defence of that identity against wider groups that would seek to weaken it.
> 
> None of that means it is bad to have the freedom to define oneself as one wishes, nor does it mean that individuals should be oppressed at all, let alone as a result of their self-definition.  But the defence of the identity comes from a place of individualism not group solidarity, and that’s why it is the antithesis of a class analysis.


Try social identity theory or any number of sociological theories of identity for a different take on what identity is and how it develops and what it means for how individuals and groups behave. Your points aren't necessarily wrong, just incomplete.


----------



## newbie (Nov 14, 2017)

Is nationality an identity within the meaning of this thread?


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 14, 2017)

Some who have posted seem to think so. And certainly the identity politics of the hard right would argue it is.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

TruXta said:


> Try social identity theory or any number of sociological theories of identity for a different take on what identity is and how it develops and what it means for how individuals and groups behave. Your points aren't necessarily wrong, just incomplete.


Would you say that is what being projected in identity politics?


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

newbie said:


> Is nationality an identity within the meaning of this thread?


Nationality is classically one of the core parts of identity.  The nation forms an imagined community


----------



## TruXta (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Would you say that is what being projected in identity politics?


I don't understand your question.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

TruXta said:


> I don't understand your question.


You brought up other interpretations of identity — I’m just interested in your thoughts as to the implications of these other interpretations with respect to the subject at hand.


----------



## newbie (Nov 14, 2017)

Nationality is one of the key components of division between class analysis left and blood and soil right. It affects every single person in a more far-reaching way than any other identity, assigned or self-identified.  Yet it has not been explicitly discussed nor listed within the identities that are core to this discussion.  Why is that?


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

newbie said:


> Nationality is one of the key components of division between class analysis left and blood and soil right. It affects every single person in a more far-reaching way than any other identity, assigned or self-identified.  Yet it has not been explicitly discussed nor listed within the identities that are core to this discussion.  Why is that?


It has been explicitly discussed, though, early and often.  For example, the discussion that began here.  One of the critiques of the nature of the politics of identity is that that has been mentioned on a number of occasions is that the identity politics of the right is nationalism.



killer b said:


> Fascism is (a form of) identity politics tbf.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 14, 2017)

Have you read the thread? It's been mentioned a number of times. EDIT at newbie


----------



## 19force8 (Nov 14, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Class politics hasn't been at the centre of the fight for womens and lgbt rights  - because the issues of oppression applied to all classes. My activism generally didn't put class first, it put women and queer people first - but supporting each other and solidarity was always vital. I don't feel much solidarity either from some posters who think they have the one and only 'correct' analsys and the rest of us were/are doing it all wrong. I don't really know what to make of some of the online 'excesses' described on this thread either.


The oppression of women and LGBT+ people might apply to all classes, but it's far from equally applied. 

Take the case of abortion. The limited laws in the UK have been defended by the trade union and socialist movement because it's an important right for the working class - and not just working class women, but the entire class. The rich always had access to compliant doctors or clinics abroad, it was working class women who were dying from botched abortions.

Just as today it's not rich kids who are sleeping rough because of homophobia

Whilst your activism may well have put women and LGBT+ people first, there were many men and non-LGBT+ people who fought the same fight not out of charity towards the oppressed, but for their class interest. At the same time there were women and LGBT+ people who were quite happily on the other side.


----------



## newbie (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> It has been explicitly discussed, though, early and often.  For example, the discussion that began here.  One of the critiques of the nature of the politics of identity is that that has been mentioned on a number of occasions is that the identity politics of the right is nationalism.


I get that, and the quote you give moves on to discuss fascism, white nationalism and so on. Which is not the same as nationality.  There's nothing fascist about posters being British by passport but identifying as English, as Scottish or as European, and yet the biggest divisions within society over the last couple of years have been along those fault lines. It's obviously arguable that further division within society based on someone not having a British passport can be racism, but that's not necessarily the case- _control over 'our' borders_ may be nationality based but is not necessarily either racist or nationalist in the far right sense of the word.


----------



## chilango (Nov 14, 2017)

Another element that I think is worth keeping in the back of the mind is that the discussion's purpose shouldn't be about who is "right" and who is "wrong" on some sort of moral (for the want of a better word) basis, but about how are we going to get what we want. 

but I suppose what exactly is it that we want, keeps getting brought up. For example - More women bosses? I don't want to remove the glass ceiling I want to knock the whole building down.


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## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

newbie said:


> I get that, and the quote you give moves on to discuss fascism, white nationalism and so on. Which is not the same as nationality.  There's nothing fascist about posters being British by passport but identifying as English, as Scottish or as European, and yet the biggest divisions within society over the last couple of years have been along those fault lines. It's obviously arguable that further division within society based on someone not having a British passport can be racism, but that's not necessarily the case- _control over 'our' borders_ may be nationality based but is not necessarily either racist or nationalist in the far right sense of the word.


I agree, but I'm still not seeing where this goes.  Can you explain why you bring this up?


----------



## TruXta (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> You brought up other interpretations of identity — I’m just interested in your thoughts as to the implications of these other interpretations with respect to the subject at hand.


For starters it means that you shouldn't base an analysis of identity politics on particular psychological theories of identity,  as they can lead you in opposite directions. If identity is almost and foremost a social process then identity politics isn't about defending the individual, is it.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

> Of course we have communities and group action and all those good things. And those things are not identity politics unless they are explicitly about the defence of a specific identity. For example, identity involves many facets, including the construction of in-groups and out-groups. If your community project doesn’t define an out-group that is a good sign that it is not the politics of identity, but the politics of class.



I'm not sure that is a response to what I asked you. Yes it's on the subject of but it deosn't answer my question... You stated that:



> Identity is not a proxy for group membership, though. Identity is about what makes you an individual. It’s the story you tell yourself about who you are, as well as being how others perceive you via the story they tell themselves about who you are. *It’s very much about the self, not the group.* This is not my definition, by the way, this is the concept of identity as it is understood in the social sciences.



I then said and asked:



> This doesn't make sense to me in some ways because unless we have others to mirror/compare to/reflect off/align or associate with or not there is no reference for the constructed 'self'.
> 
> My understanding is that it is very much about both ...of course depending on the where and who you are, to varying degrees, quite naturally and healthily. We still do have more 'community' focused cultures than the crudely described 'individualistic' West don't we? Even in the so called West there are more community based movements, ideas etc. Can you link me to something that argues that it's only ever about the 'individual perception of self' and not about the social group and intergroup associations please?



I think that's a fair enough question.



> I think one reason you are keen to defend identity politics is that you are assigning anything related to minority groups to this bucket.  But this is a fundamental misattribution of the politics of identity.  You have to keep coming back to what identity means.



Now you are making accusations ...how on earth is what I wrote above me being _keen to defend identity politics_?

All i've done is question your assertion because it doesn't chime with my understanding of 'identity' formation. I also gave an example of why seeing it as only about 'an individual's relationship with self and how they create their stories about them selves (self image)' seems limited and limiting to me.


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## newbie (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I agree, but I'm still not seeing where this goes.  Can you explain why you bring this up?


because it's been running through my head for the last few days as I've read the various contributions and seems to me to be a missing component.  The notion of identity and nationality bubbled in and out of threads about both Scottish and Euro refs but was never really explored in detail.

The nature of class based analysis has always been internationalist in tone, hasn't it, decrying focus on nationality as chauvinism.  I'm not getting why it's not been a core part of this discussion. Is it simply that the young identity politics crowd are more interested in other things? e2a and have set the agenda


----------



## newbie (Nov 14, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Have you read the thread? It's been mentioned a number of times. EDIT at newbie


mentioned yes but only in passing, not as a central theme in the lists of eg racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia.  Come to that religion, another assigned/self identified identity used for othering has been little mentioned.  I suppose I'm trying to understand what is and what isn't a core part of this identity politics discussion, and why it's framed like that.  Does that make any sense?


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I asked a few times tbf.





mojo pixy said:


> You still haven't answered my questions.



It's not going to happen is it? And what about the conflict of ideas I outlined in response to your questions, any thoughts on that?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> It's not going to happen is it?


 I have answered, and I don't agree that my answer was not good enough.



> And what about the conflict of ideas I outlined in response to your questions, any thoughts on that?



You gave an example of why you think it's about cognitive dissonance. Given I haven't disagreed with you i'm not sure what more you want to be honest. CD and the power dynamics aren't mutually exclusive things/processes.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

OK then, thanks for the contributions 

From another article on a different subject, a quote which in a small way crystallises the issue:

''...a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were LGBT people. It would be tough to imagine a normative ideal that expresses more unambiguously the social position of people who consider themselves candidates for inclusion in, or at least significant staff positions in service to, the ruling class.''

For me, that's pretty much _identitypolitics2017 _in a nutshell.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 14, 2017)

newbie said:


> mentioned yes but only in passing, not as a central theme in the lists of eg racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia.  Come to that religion, another assigned/self identified identity used for othering has been little mentioned.  I suppose I'm trying to understand what is and what isn't a core part of this identity politics discussion, and why it's framed like that.  Does that make any sense?


What is your question and to whom is it posed? 

Are you asking those of us critical of identitypolitics something (and if so, what?)? Or are you asking others, such as those less able/willing to make a distinction between anti-racism and identitypolitics (and if so, what?)?

I'm personally all debated out on nationalism after the Scottish independence referendum, but you can still read my contributions to that debate. For me there were three chooses facing socialists - choose between a pragmatic support for the aims of one of the two nationalisms on offer (pro-independent or pro-Union), balancing the functional reasons for backing one or other plus a judgement on the relative toxicity; or choose to abstain. 

(I offer these sample posts from that debate:  one, two).


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> In much the same way that people bemoan IDpolitickers doing it. It's about power.



Can you give some examples of more powerful people smearing less powerful people by misusing the term 'identity politics', please?  (With reference to  exactly what that power is, in the context of the alleged smear, and why you think the use of the term 'identity politics' was inaccurate.)  Because this is a oft-heard moan, but not one that I've seen backed up with any evidence.


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 14, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, but there's been a 37 page thread with many good contributions clearly explaining what identity politics is, so I'm surprised that someone still might think it was just organizing with people that suffer similar oppressions.


I'm just questioning why certain behaviours or ways of organising are being labelled as ID pol.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

Because that's what they are: a _politics _based on _identity_.


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## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> All i've done is question your assertion because it doesn't chime with my understanding of 'identity' formation. I also gave an example of why seeing it as only about 'an individual's relationship with self and how they create their stories about them selves (self image)' seems limited and limiting to me.


I did actually say that, "It’s the story you tell yourself about who you are, *as well as being how others perceive you via the story they tell themselves about who you are*."  So there's your mirror.  It's a two-way process of the construction of the self.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 14, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Do you find it impossible to imagine organising with people whose oppressions you don’t directly share though?
> 
> What do you think of white people who do anti-racist work, for example?


 No, I don't find it impossible to imagine organising with people whose oppressions you don’t directly share - but I've never personally done it. I've certainly attended actions and generally supported other groups, like striking miners in 84, Anti Apartheid and free Nelson Mandela demonstrations. (As you can tell I've not been very active for a while)


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 14, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, but there's been a 37 page thread with many good contributions clearly explaining what identity politics is, so I'm surprised that someone still might think it was just organizing with people that suffer similar oppressions.





friendofdorothy said:


> I'm just questioning why certain behaviours or ways of organising are being labelled as ID pol.





mojo pixy said:


> Because that's what they are: a _politics _based on _identity_.


I'm being told contradictory things here - that fighting for my rights as an oppressed person was fine and wasn't IDpol /or it was? 

or is it just the the way we did it was 'ID politics'?


----------



## TruXta (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I did actually say that, "It’s the story you tell yourself about who you are, *as well as being how others perceive you via the story they tell themselves about who you are*."  So there's your mirror.  It's a two-way process of the construction of the self.


If there is such a thing as a self...


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## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

TruXta said:


> If there is such a thing as a self...


Well, if there isn't then the construction of a politics based on self-definition, self-determination and self-improvement is going to be heading up a bit of a blind alley.


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## TruXta (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Well, if there isn't then the construction of a politics based on self-definition, self-determination and self-improvement is going to be heading up a bit of a blind alley.


To put it mildly!


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I'm being told contradictory things here - that fighting for my rights as an oppressed person was fine and wasn't IDpol /or it was?
> 
> or is it just the the way we did it was 'ID politics'?



It seems as if you're getting hung up on the term itself rather than what the term _means._


----------



## LDC (Nov 14, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Class politics hasn't been at the centre of the fight for womens and lgbt rights  - because the issues of oppression applied to all classes. My activism generally didn't put class first, it put women and queer people first - but supporting each other and solidarity was always vital.



_Probably_ wasn't identity politics as we're talking about here then. I think a _political definition of class_ is at the heart of some of the confusion on this thread. Reading some contributions it feels like they think 'doing class politics' is about arguing for more greyhound tracks or real ale pubs.


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> _Probably_ wasn't identity politics as we're talking about here then. I think a _political definition of class_ is at the heart of some of the confusion on this thread. Reading some contributions it feels like they think 'doing class politics' is about arguing for more greyhound tracks or real ale pubs.



Now that's a manifesto I could get behind.


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## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I'm being told contradictory things here - that fighting for my rights as an oppressed person was fine and wasn't IDpol /or it was?
> 
> or is it just the the way we did it was 'ID politics'?



A limited-scope group fighting for a particular right IS _identity politics,_ broadly speaking, and nobody here as far as I can tell, is saying that shouldn't happen.

But educated, financially-secure, socially successful, respected members of a minority group using their identity to exclude or even criticise poor, marginalised and scorned members of a majority group, _just because they have a majority-identity_, is a problem.

Of course _identity politics_ has its uses in specific fights for particular rights, and for making those fights more visible outside the group where they're happening. 

However, if we're talking about all-around social justice, economic liberation, access to education, healthcare and social mobility then focusing on _identity_ doesn't cut it. 
1) because the loudest and most articulate (representative) voices within that identity who claim to share in being as oppressed as all other members of that group, by virtue of _who they are_ are in truth unlikely to really be _oppressed_ - exactly because they're educated, healthy, successful. Large numbers of people _listen to them_ - which is rather the opposite of oppression.
2) because by definition an _identarian _struggle excludes most people (who don't belong to that particular minority group).

Either way, the ones who get left behind are the poor and inarticulate. And in the most egregious cases you might see (self-styled or appointed rarely _elected_) ''community leaders'' cynically using the oppression of others to bolster their own personal success.

I'd also say that for ''white people'' identity politics _definitely _isn't the answer because that journey can only end at something like the EDL or KKK .. or going back only little in time, to the NSDAP. Which sort of makes the point more articulately than I can in words.

tl;dr, it's not about raising up _all _- it's about raising up _me and my friends_. And fuck the rest of yous.

OK, I'm probably making things worse, digging this hole for myself to stand in. I'll try and go back to just reading and liking for a few more days.


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## ManchesterBeth (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> OK then, thanks for the contributions
> 
> From another article on a different subject, a quote which in a small way crystallises the issue:
> 
> ...



the 1% is not a class politics idea tho is it.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> It seems as if you're getting hung up on the term itself rather than what the term _means._


Do you know I don't think I care any more.

I know what my core values are - that we are all human, that we should care for and look after each other, that the earths resources shouldn't be all used up, that what we have should be shared fairly, that we should all have the same right to live peacefully. 

And what we _call_ that and how we go about trying to acheive that doesn't really matter.





That and, of course, most things that are wrong in this country today the fault of Thatcher and her selfish 'no such thing as society' and her sell it all off ways.


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## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

dialectician said:


> the 1% is not a class politics idea tho is it.



Good thing the article doesn't use that expression then: ''The 1%'' (TM)

It's using that idea to make the point that from a certain political position, if 1% of the population _did_ control 90% of the world's resources, _that would be fine as long as that 1% was diverse enough._


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## newbie (Nov 14, 2017)

fj


danny la rouge said:


> What is your question and to whom is it posed?
> 
> Are you asking those of us critical of identitypolitics something (and if so, what?)? Or are you asking others, such as those less able/willing to make a distinction between anti-racism and identitypolitics (and if so, what?)?
> 
> ...


is nationality an identity worth considering within this thread?  asked of anyone who cares to respond.

that's nationality, not nationalism, which is a somewhat different matter, being a preoccupation of rightwing types and not something one is assigned at birth and which can, after jumping through some hoops, be changed if desired. Well, some starting nationalities confer greater or lesser scope for voluntary changes in later life.  That's the point, the nationality assigned at birth helps determine personal opportunity, acceptance and life trajectory at least as much as sex, gender or race, surely. 

It's also the case that questions revolving around nationality are causing convulsions here, the rest of Europe, the US and elsewhere.  

I have no wish to rerun either of the ref debates. But while people are oppressed by virtue of having (or more likely not having) a particular nationality it's potentially a component of the politics of identity which bears examination.  Or not if no-one wants to, it's not compulsory to address a question just because it's been asked.


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## ManchesterBeth (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Good thing the article doesn't use that expression then: ''The 1%'' (TM)
> 
> It's using that idea to make the point that from a certain political position, if 1% of the population _did_ control 90% of the world's resources, _that would be fine as long as that 1% was diverse enough._



I know what it's saying. I was just commenting on Reed's support for the democrats.


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## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

dialectician said:


> I know what it's saying. I was just commenting on Reed's support for the democrats.



Uh huh


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

chilango said:


> Another element that I think is worth keeping in the back of the mind is that the discussion's purpose shouldn't be about who is "right" and who is "wrong" on some sort of moral (for the want of a better word) basis, but about how are we going to get what we want.
> 
> but I suppose what exactly is it that we want, keeps getting brought up. For example - More women bosses? I don't want to remove the glass ceiling I want to knock the whole building down.


 I agree with you in sentiment here...reforms aren't enough when the whole system is fucked. I too am up for a complete transformation, how will that happen? Also, in the meantime, what to do? Not hammering at the glass ceiling, supporting lgbt rights, challenging racism, opposing the rise of fascism isn't an option because doing nothing maintains the status quo also.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I did actually say that, "It’s the story you tell yourself about who you are, *as well as being how others perceive you via the story they tell themselves about who you are*."  So there's your mirror.  It's a two-way process of the construction of the self.



Hence me saying that the group is important and it's not all about 'self', as you posted. There is no 'self' without a group/s to learn from, associate with, compare to, those in and out groups are pivotal in our development of 'self''. They don't just mirror us, we mirror them also.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 14, 2017)

newbie said:


> that's nationality, not nationalism


See links.


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## ManchesterBeth (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Uh huh



Wot?


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## campanula (Nov 14, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Do you know I don't think I care any more.
> .



Never mind, FoD, I have not really been any sort of activist since the 70s...but hey, I definitely remember 'rainbow coalitions' and such and a loose but enthusiastic aggregation of squatters, feminists, dykes, druggies, housing activists (me - my most consistent outrage), CND ...but fairly common to all was a gregarious, hands-on willingness to engage...so yep, while my involvement with feminist groups (Women's Aid, Rape Crisis) ended under a cloud (cos power relations), it is cycling backwards for me as poverty and exploitation requires a more active engagement than waffling on the interweb...and tbh, this thread, which I have faithfully followed, is also causing me to lose the will to live (but might also be feeling glum after the laborious knitted hat for daughter has somehow turned out massive). Off to surburban to whine.


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## LDC (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Also, in the meantime, what to do? Not hammering at the glass ceiling, supporting lgbt rights, challenging racism, opposing the rise of fascism isn't an option because doing nothing maintains the status quo also.



Nobody (well hardly anyone) is saying 'do nothing'. Those things you mention can all be 'done' in a huge variety of ways. Some of which are politically problematic from a revolutionary anarchist/communist class struggle perspective and could be identity politics or could not be...

Hammering at the glass ceiling could mean voting for the Women's Equality party or it could me grassroots union organising for equal rights at work. Supporting LGBT rights could mean working for Stonewall or it could me disrupting Pride with the queer anarchist bloc. Challenging racism (even the Tory Party say they do this ffs) could mean voting for Sahiq Khan or it could mean picketing the Home Office to stop a deportation.


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## BigTom (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I agree with you in sentiment here...reforms aren't enough when the whole system is fucked. I too am up for a complete transformation, how will that happen? Also, in the meantime, what to do? Not hammering at the glass ceiling, supporting lgbt rights, challenging racism, opposing the rise of fascism isn't an option because doing nothing maintains the status quo also.



Doing those things is part of bringing the whole house down.


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## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I agree with you in sentiment here...reforms aren't enough when the whole system is fucked. I too am up for a complete transformation, how will that happen? Also, in the meantime, what to do? Not hammering at the glass ceiling, supporting lgbt rights, challenging racism, opposing the rise of fascism isn't an option because doing nothing maintains the status quo also.


There’s a difference between acting as a group and defining oneself through membership of a group.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 14, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> And what we _call_ that and how we go about trying to acheive that doesn't really matter.


The name may not particularly matter but too say that the tactics and methods that you use to achieve your aims don't matter is crazy. Of course they matter.
Let's take what you call your core values


> that we are all human, that we should care for and look after each other, that the earths resources shouldn't be all used up, that what we have should be shared fairly, that we should all have the same right to live peacefully.


it's obviously a key factor as to whether you think that those aims are possible under capitalism or not. If you don't then the politics you follow is going to be very different to those who believe that it is.

Or to take a previous example - equal pay for women. Both liberals and socialists would argue against the pay differential between women and men but they would utterly disagree with how it should be tackled. Liberals would argue to the type of nonsense that the WEP do, something that socialists consider not just useless but actually counterproductive.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Nobody (well hardly anyone) is saying 'do nothing'. Those things you mention can all be 'done' in a huge variety of ways. Some of which are politically problematic from a revolutionary anarchist/communist class struggle perspective and could be identity politics or could not be...
> 
> Hammering at the glass ceiling could mean voting for the Women's Equality party or it could me grassroots union organising for equal rights at work. Supporting LGBT rights could mean working for Stonewall or it could me disrupting Pride with the queer anarchist bloc. Challenging racism (even the Tory Party say they do this ffs) could mean voting for Sahiq Khan or it could mean picketing the Home Office to stop a deportation.




Yes I get it.  I just am not seeing much in the way of suggestions and solutions being offered up. I am sick of the finger pointing and theorising. I am not saying that thinking and discussion isn't helpful...I am saying that criticism, review and misrepresenting (yes some do it for sport) also limits progress if it isn't coupled with suggestions or modelling how things could be done better.

FFS some poeple around here think telling me to 'keep raging' is some kind of cutting insult  

Angry? of course I am! I'm apoplectic with rage... amongst other things it's what gets me out of bed in the morning and why i'm driven to do the work I do despite the impact it has on my emotional/psychological wellbeing. It's why I extend myself in terms of resources (time/skills/money/whatever) to support and empower others where and whenever possible, I can't remember ever not being that person...That rage is the belief in social justice, fairness, equality/equity... I don't need a badge claiming to be an _a revolutionary anarchist/communist_ for example, to do that.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> There’s a difference between acting as a group and defining oneself through membership of a group.



Where did I say there isn't? You don't need to define yourself as a member of a group to act with that group either...it's about the why one would do that or not surely?


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## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Where did I say there isn't? You don't need to define yourself as a member of a group to act with that group either...it's about the why one would do that or not surely?


It’s EXACTLY about the why one would do that.  That’s the whole thing as to at what point it becomes identity politics — the politics of defending one’s identity, most particularly by reference to the dangers posed by out-groups.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> *It’s EXACTLY about the why one would do that.*  That’s the whole thing as to at what point it becomes identity politics — the politics of defending one’s identity, most particularly by reference to the dangers posed by out-groups.




Yes, that's what I just told you. You agree with me.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> Do you know I don't think I care any more.
> 
> I know what my core values are - that we are all human, that we should care for and look after each other, that the earths resources shouldn't be all used up, that what we have should be shared fairly, that we should all have the same right to live peacefully.
> 
> And what we _call_ that and how we go about trying to acheive that doesn't really matter.



 That's all we can do isn't it? Remind ourselves what our core values are and change/build on/mature them?

Also...

Have you started your new job yet?

Is there a active union in your new place?

If so, join, integrate, agitate!


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## elbows (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Yes I get it.  I just am not seeing much in the way of suggestions and solutions being offered up. I am sick of the finger pointing and theorising. I am not saying that thinking and discussion isn't helpful...I am saying that criticism, review and misrepresenting (yes some do it for sport) also limits progress if it isn't coupled with suggestions or modelling how things could be done better.



The word theory is part of this subforums name so complaining about all the theorising seems a tad strange to me. 

I don't really expect solutions to pressing issues on this thread, I expect to learn about id politics, criticisms of it, and the nature of the impasse. OK it would be nice to have a solution to the impasse, but it seems like that is continually out of reach on u75 for reasons I haven't fully got my head around yet. 

Now it may be that discussion on this front always ends up in just as much of a dead end as the critics of id politics suggest id politics itself ends up in. And that any eventual decline of id politics will stem not from everyone realising its limitations and using that understanding to come up with a better successor, but from something more useful springing from a completely different direction. In which case never mind this quagmire. But until such a time arrives by other means, people are going to keep running into this impasse and we may as well struggle on with threads like these.

Personally I am a critic of id politics but I still have much to learn so don't have too much to say on this thread yet.


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## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

dialectician said:


> Wot?



exactly


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

elbows said:


> The word theory is part of this subforums name so complaining about all the theorising seems a tad strange to me.


 I don't think I was simply complaining...I was outlining what for me is a shortcoming and was clear about why/how I think such discussion would be more progressive. 



> I don't really expect solutions to pressing issues on this thread, I expect to learn about id politics, criticisms of it, and the nature of the impasse. OK it would be nice to have a solution to the impasse, but it seems like that is continually out of reach on u75 for reasons I haven't fully got my head around yet.
> 
> Now it may be that discussion on this front always ends up in just as much of a dead end as the critics of id politics suggest id politics itself ends up in. And that any eventual decline of id politics will stem not from everyone realising its limitations and using that understanding to come up with a better successor, but from something more useful springing from a completely different direction. In which case never mind this quagmire. But until such a time arrives by other means, people are going to keep running into this impasse and we may as well struggle on with threads like these.
> 
> Personally I am a critic of id politics but I still have much to learn so don't have too much to say on this thread yet.



Fair enough.


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## elbows (Nov 14, 2017)

If anyone fancies having a stab at describing the impasse that occurs in discussions such as this very one, as opposed to broader issues with id politics, I'm all ears. Coming to the thread this late means that even having read all of it, my memory can't take it all in and some of the disagreements and misunderstandings are very confusing.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

1. Trust.


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## elbows (Nov 14, 2017)

I am looking for concise answers but that one is too short for me to catch your drift.


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## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

elbows said:


> I am looking for concise answers but that one is too short for me to catch your drift.



Fair enough.

Personally, I often don't feel trusted. I often read posts here and feel people are imagining the absolute worst of me, people like me or who they perceive me to be. I also don't have trust in some others because of their behaviour towards me/others.  I don't always trust that people are who they say they are because despite their criticisms of others, they never seem to share anything about who they are and what they actually do, nor offer up any useful suggestions about how things can be better. I suspect some are grandstanding. I also hold a few grudges that I am not ready to let go of. They are serving me well.

I observe similar dynamics with/between others here too.


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> Personally, I often don't feel trusted. I often read posts here and feel people are imagining the absolute worst of me, people like me or who they perceive me to be. I also don't have trust in some others because of their behaviour towards me/others.  I don't always trust that people are who they say they are because despite their criticisms of others, they never seem to share anything about who they are and what they actually do, nor offer up any useful suggestions about how things can be better. I suspect some are grandstanding. I also hold a few grudges that I am not ready to let go of. They are serving me well.
> 
> I observe similar dynamics with/between others here too.



 What's the basis of that suspicion?  Can you really not think why politically active people might be reluctant to reveal too much personal information on an internet forum?


----------



## elbows (Nov 14, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Fair enough.
> 
> Personally, I often don't feel trusted. I often read posts here and feel people are imagining the absolute worst of me, people like me or who they perceive me to be. I also don't have trust in some others because of their behaviour towards me/others.  I don't always trust that people are who they say they are because despite their criticisms of others, they never seem to share anything about who they are and what they actually do, nor offer up any useful suggestions about how things can be better. I suspect some are grandstanding. I also hold a few grudges that I am not ready to let go of. They are serving me well.
> 
> I observe similar dynamics with/between others here too.



Thanks for the explanation. Such dynamics are certainly not rare, or at least variations on the theme. And as someone who was rather impressed with the potential of the internet in regards to struggles to change things, its not been great fun to discover first-hand all the issues with things like Internet forums/messageboards over the last 17ish years. Nor am I immune from making an ugly mess on such fronts myself, although at present the small number of people I frequently butted heads with on u75 at times in the past, in ways that got personal, are either not here anymore or not in the threads I'm active in often.

I suppose with the theme of this thread in mind, it would ideally be useful if we could ascertain more about why some of your recurring conflicts happen in the territory of id politics, eg whether genuine 'ideological' disagreements are at the heart of it or whether the theme is more accidental, eg based on historical fallings out, trust issues etc rather than issues of substance regarding id politics. I'm not suggesting that is possible in this case right now or demanding that this be done, and your explanation at least allows me to be less confused about a bunch of moments in this thread.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

I try to remember that Urban 75 posters are not the enemy. I sometimes feel posters take out anger here they've built up in real life because this is a far safer space than real life for venting anger and frustration. And at the end of the day whatever people here post about each other, unless they do actually know each other in real life it's all just guesswork, and guesswork reveals more about the guesser than the guessee.

It's all just chat, at the end of the day. I also feel that some posters enjoy playing devil's advocate and sometimes argue points they don't actually believe. IMO this is fine, and says nothing about their RL personal integrity.


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I try to remember that Urban 75 posters are not the enemy.



Why do you believe that?


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

Because if I believed something else I'd post elsewhere.


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Because if I believed something else I'd post elsewhere.



That's not really an answer.  You don't think there's some people here whose politics are actively opposed to yours, and harmful to your cause?


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

I’m most definitely the enemy, as a result of my current relationship to capital.  In a few years, however, I hope to change this and maybe even become an ally.  I will still be the same person, but in different circumstances.  In its own way, this little story in and of itself reveals the limitations of identity politics.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 14, 2017)

what's  with the activist-y checklisting?

If we don't meet the credentials are we automatically disqualified from having opinion becausee we approach things theoretically?


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

It's the only answer I can give, and if there are posters here whose politics are actively opposed to mine there are more (I feel) whose are not.

I don't really have an adversarial mindset here. Poke at it if you like but for me _the enemy_ as such is outside of these boards.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 14, 2017)

dialectician said:


> what's  with the activist-y checklisting?
> 
> If we don't meet the credentials are we automatically disqualified from having opinion becausee we approach things theoretically?



Absolutely not what is being said Dial.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I’m most definitely the enemy, as a result of my current relationship to capital.  In a few years, however, I hope to change this and maybe even become an ally.  I will still be the same person, but in different circumstances.  In its own way, this little story in and of itself reveals the limitations of identity politics.



Well so am i arguably (family background) but on the individual level you can only talk about relations I.E: capitalists/workers right?


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I’m most definitely the enemy, as a result of my current relationship to capital.  In a few years, however, I hope to change this and maybe even become an ally.  I will still be the same person, but in different circumstances.  In its own way, this little story in and of itself reveals the limitations of identity politics.


A bit like Engels but with numbers things rather than factory owning


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> It's the only answer I can give, and if there are posters here whose politics are actively opposed to mine there are more (I feel) whose are not.
> 
> I don't really have an adversarial mindset here. Poke at it if you like but for me _the enemy_ as such is outside of these boards.



I'm not sure I understand the significance of the forum over and above the content.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

dialectician said:


> Well so am i arguably (family background) but on the individual level you can only talk about relations I.E: capitalists/workers right?


I would say that is right, but identity politics wants to talk about in-groups and out-groups, not relations (except for identity relations, which are different)


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> A bit like Engels but with numbers eater than factory owning


Number wrangling is the new factory ownership, or something.  Tumpty tumpty cotton mills finance bills.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I would say that is right, but identity politics wants to talk about in-groups and out-groups, not relations (except for identity relations, which are different)



Identity relations just sounds like a obfuscatory concept ripe for abuse tbf.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

Athos said:


> I'm not sure I understand the significance of the forum over and above the content.



I'm not sure I understand ''_the significance of the forum over and above the content_''
I'm just saying that I don't come here for a fight. Your mileage may vary.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I'm not sure I understand ''_the significance of the forum over and above the content_''
> I'm just saying that I don't come here for a fight. Your mileage may vary.


I don’t come here to not have a fight.


----------



## JimW (Nov 14, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I don’t come here to not have a fight.


I'll hold your coat.


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I'm not sure I understand ''_the significance of the forum over and above the content_''
> I'm just saying that I don't come here for a fight. Your mileage may vary.



I meant that I find it odd that your objection to a  particular position seems so tied up with where that position is expressed, rather than what it consists of.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

It isn't.

I somehow manage to negotiate all kinds of situations with all kinds of people without conflict. I like to think of it as being a well-adjusted adult.


----------



## Athos (Nov 14, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> It isn't.
> 
> I somehow manage to negotiate all kinds of situations with all kinds of people without conflict. I like to think of it as being a well-adjusted adult.



Hippy!


----------



## newbie (Nov 14, 2017)

danny la rouge said:


> See links.


to what end?  You say, in the first of those, "_All nationalism has the misdirection that its allegiance tends to be towards a state_.". Sure, I agree, but that has nothing to do with nationality which is not an allegiance it's an identity. I have a nationality but am not a nationalist.  That's true of huge numbers of people to a greater or lesser extent, especially if you discount supporting the national team at the footie. Just as there are plenty who express nationalist allegiance to a state they don't hold nationality for.


----------



## mojo pixy (Nov 14, 2017)

Athos said:


> Hippy!



I hate hippies. They actually _are_ the enemy.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 15, 2017)

newbie said:


> to what end?


To the end of seeing that the points you raise are covered.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 15, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> That's all we can do isn't it? Remind ourselves what our core values are and change/build on/mature them?
> 
> Also...
> 
> ...


thanks

not yet - december

Will have to wait and see.

I'm still a Unite member. Thanks for the encouragement


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 16, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I think I said a lot about my own politics and thoughts early on in this thread - when I was asking for clarification on what ID politics is - because sometimes my posts had been dismissed as ID pol here on urb75 and I'd never heard of it in RL. It seemed to be agreed that fighting for your rights as a lgbt person wasn't in itself IDpol. Then some posters said my views weren't ID pol at all and I had acted in solidarity. I've always been quite clear about my views - see my op on combatting hopelessness thread.
> 
> In my last few posts I've been trying to find out how much of the behaviours that are being decried and labelled as ID pol, take place in real life and how much is just on line, because the way power/politics works on-line is genuinely a mystery to me. I work in a care home and *no one talks about class* - I imagine most of my co-workers have never even heard of ID politics



I suspect that it's safe to say that most of your co-workers have been affected by class, though.  If you're working class or lower middle class, that will have been the case from when you first went to school, although you might not recognise it.  Then you've got the issue that the "lower" down the class ladder you are born, the poorer your life-chances are.  This isn't stuff that any identity politics I've seen practiced in the last 30 years, has analysed.  I've seen plenty of decent analysis by academics like Paul Gilroy, based around a class construction, but not by identity politics, which seems to be somewhat of an ideological magpie, nicking bits and pieces of research out-of-context, then using them to make id politics-supportive blanket statements.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> Politics isn't a series of superficial, on-line, personal interactions.



That is *part* of what modern politics is, though.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> That is *part* of what modern politics is, though.



I guess.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 16, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Similarly in the US you saw the attitude that Hilary Clinton was a better candidate for women than Bernie Sanders, because she was a woman.
> 
> Whereas actually Sanders' _policies _would have made a far more positive impact on more women's lives in the US.



I suppose we could say that a precursor to this sort of shittery can be found in post-war Ulster politics, where some elements of the electorate were persuaded to vote along religious lines, because "Prod" or "Taig", with little regard to the actual policies.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> I guess.



I think it's inescapable as a venue for politics.  Unfortunately, often the analysis people give their political outpourings on Facebook is poor, and even more unfortunately, if they have followers/adherents, those people often don't question or point up the lack of analysis.

For me, identity politics in the form quantified at the start of this thread, lacks analysis beyond a self-perpetuating "I say that a, b and c are true, therefore a, b and c are true".  That's not to say that some other mode of id-pol won't come along with a more nuanced social analysis, but nothing I've seen yet has convinced me that that anyone is halfway there.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Nov 16, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> I suppose we could say that a precursor to this sort of shittery can be found in post-war Ulster politics, where some elements of the electorate were persuaded to vote along religious lines, because "Prod" or "Taig", with little regard to the actual policies.



Which leads us to the 1990s and the muslim vote:
Croissants and roses - New Labour, communalism, and the rise of muslim Britain


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> For me, identity politics in the form quantified at the start of this thread, lacks analysis beyond a self-perpetuating "I say that a, b and c are true, therefore a, b and c are true".



Yes.  People with an IDPol/liberal perspective often seem to take a nuance-free, sentimental moralist position, and act all offended that anyone should have the temerity to apply some critical thinking to it.  Like that's a personal attack. Yesterday, I got ticked off for being "rude" and "demanding" for politely asking a poster for some evidence to back up their assertions.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> Yes.  People with an IDPol/liberal perspective often seem to take a nuance-free, sentimental moralist position, and act all offended that anyone should have the temerity to apply some critical thinking to it.  Like that's a personal attack. Yesterday, I got ticked off for being "rude" and "demanding" for politely asking a poster for some evidence to back up their assertions.



How can I determine that the spat in question actually had anything to do with ID politics?


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

elbows said:


> How can I determine that the spat in question actually had anything to do with ID politics?



I didn't assert that it does, necessarily. I was talking about the mindset and practices of the IDpolers/liberals.  Which they bring to bear in a number of contexts.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

Ah OK. Not sure I've seen that many political positions that don't involve some people behaving that way at times, especially in the heat of the moment & in text on forums.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 16, 2017)

elbows said:


> How can I determine that the spat in question actually had anything to do with ID politics?



Because he says so. Because it is always their fault, them, over there. Their behaviours and beliefs are the problem. Point, point, point...other, other, other...externalise everything that is apparently unacceptable whilst never actually being transparent about what perspective and actual experience that informs these judgements. Hiding behind a _superficial online persona_ and OH try hard, DESPARATELY AND TIME CONSUMING HARD, pick your targets, attack, attack, attack....claim victim hood or blame them if they dare to call you out or fuck you off for doing so.

Slivver and snake and fork tongue your way around...say the _right_ things so that the vanguard believe you are one of _them_, whatever and whomever that is today, on this thread. If you are questioned, feign innocence, feign humbleness. Quickly return to blaming _those others_ though just in case, never let them get too close, or personal...grandstand and showcase, compete and win...it's their fault, them idpolitickers and liberals over there, If only they were like us, not them.

A little poem i've written.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 16, 2017)

Them.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 16, 2017)

Yes, _them._


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Because he says so.



Except I didn't say so. 



Athos said:


> I didn't assert that it does, necessarily.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Because he says so. Because it is always their fault, them, over there. Their behaviours and beliefs are the problem. Point, point, point...other, other, other...externalise everything that is apparently unacceptable whilst never actually being transparent about what perspective and actual experience that informs these judgements. Hiding behind a _superficial online persona_ and OH try hard, DESPARATELY AND TIME CONSUMING HARD, pick your targets, attack, attack, attack....claim victim hood or blame them if they dare to call you out or fuck you off for doing so.
> 
> Slivver and snake and fork tongue your way around...say the _right_ things so that the vanguard believe you are one of _them_, whatever and whomever that is today, on this thread. If you are questioned, feign innocence, feign humbleness. Quickly return to blaming _those others_ though just in case, never let them get to close, or personal...grandstand and showcase, compete and win...it's their fault, them idpolitickers and liberals over there...
> 
> A little poem i've written.



To wholeheartedly agree with that and never to see any of those traits in myself or anybody I like and agree with would require less self-awareness than I think I possess.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

elbows said:


> To wholeheartedly agree with that and never to see any of those traits in myself or anybody I like and agree with would require less self-awareness than I think I possess.



It's not that she's not self-aware.  Just a liar and a hypocrite.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 16, 2017)

elbows said:


> To wholeheartedly agree with that and never to see any of those traits in myself or anybody I like and agree with would require less self-awareness than I think I possess.



I didn't ask you to agree. Nor do I believe I am perfect. I was reflecting the situation as I experience it. It just gets really old reading this butter wouldn't melt shit.

You attempted to get to the crevices of the impasse and how it plays out here on urban a few days ago. It would require the level of self awareness you are talking about. We'd all need to get a little personal and be less superficial. I get it. Have a look back and see how that was stopped in happening and why.  I have come to believe some people just actually enjoy _war._


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> It's not that she's not self-aware.  Just a liar and a hypocrite.



I'll have to make my own mind up about that. It would be nice if such exploration at least happened on this thread in a way that fully maintained a focus on id politics, but I don't see many signs of that right now. But never give up hope, at any moment we might find ourselves on topic again.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

elbows said:


> I'll have to make my own mind up about that. It would be nice if such exploration at least happened on this thread in a way that fully maintained a focus on id politics, but I don't see many signs of that right now. But never give up hope, at any moment we might find ourselves on topic again.



Yes, I hope she won't persist in derailing it with her creepy obsession with me.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

To both of your last replies, I can give the same reply: It takes two to tango. 

Since I prefer mosh pits, I'm sure I will continue to stick my nose in, the more the merrier.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

So whats the story as to why the topic of this thread seems to be a flashpoint in this particular clash between you?

eg. Some people think you practice ID politics, but you don't think you do? Some other variation of that? Nothing like that?


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

elbows said:


> So whats the story as to why the topic of this thread seems to be a flashpoint in this particular clash between you?
> 
> eg. Some people think you practice ID politics, but you don't think you do? Some other variation of that? Nothing like that?



To be fair I think we're at the stage of mutual contempt that we'd argue about anything.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> To be fair I think we're at the stage or mutual contempt that we'd argue about anything.



From what I've seen so far I wouldn't bet against that. But I am trying to establish whether there is anything that actually relates to id politics involved on any level of this clash.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

elbows said:


> From what I've seen so far I wouldn't bet against that. But I am trying to establish whether there is anything that actually relates to id politics involved on any level of this clash.



Part of my antipathy is based on her IDPol, certainly.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> Part of my antipathy is based on her IDPol, certainly.


 I really don't think she is even in favour of ID politics, any more than I am.



Athos said:


> It's not that she's not self-aware.  Just a liar and a hypocrite.


 No she is not. She is decent and truthful in my experience.  (Rutita1 solidarity!)  I have no idea why you or other posters here, feel the need to attack constantly her in such an objectional and personal way.  Now why don't you just slither off.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> I really don't think she is even in favour of ID politics, any more than I am.
> 
> No she is not. She is decent and truthful in my experience.  (Rutita1 solidarity!)  I have no idea why you or other posters here, feel the need to attack constantly her in such an objectional and personal way.  Now why don't you just slither off.



She doesn't even understand what IDPol is,never mind understand her own participation in it.

My experience of her differs from yours.  But let's not pretend she doesn't give as good as she gets; she always popping up with the snide digs and name calling.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> But let's not pretent she doesn't give as good as she gets.


no one who can't give back abuse here, can last long on these political threads. 

I don't think many of you keen, academically well read, good marxist posters show any solidarity on this forum.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> no one who can't give back abuse here, can last long on these political threads.
> 
> I don't think many of you keen, academically well read, good marxist posters show any solidarity on this forum.



Solidarity with whom?


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> Solidarity with whom?


ha ha ha.
Thank you for your support.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> ha ha ha.
> Thank you for your support.



What's so funny?  Genuinely, I was asking whom you think I should be showing solidarity with?  And why?  And what solidarity is based upon?  What it looks like?  And whether you think it's mutual?


----------



## kabbes (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> Yesterday, I got ticked off for being "rude" and "demanding" for politely asking a poster for some evidence to back up their assertions.


That’s not what happened, actually.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 16, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> no one who can't give back abuse here, can last long on these political threads.
> 
> I don't think many of you keen, academically well read, good marxist posters show any solidarity on this forum.



I should just suck it up and not fight back apparently. I should know my place and let this bullshit be imposed on me. Errr... 

How am I supposed to do that exactly though being the cis, het, mixed ethinicity, Working class, female, feminist, human, Idpoliticker, selfish, Athos and class exclusionary, idiot that I supposedly am?   

I think it would be amazing if he actually talked about what it is to be him for once instead of this immature, projecting, boring, try hard to fit in, objectifying and abusive of others snake like dance. He has followed around and abused more than I here, yet I am the one with the creepy oppression because I dare to point this behaviour out now and again.    I will never stop pointing it out when I feel it's relevant. I will never cow tow to this nonsense. He can slither and manipulate and hide all he wants.

Thanks for noticing.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

kabbes said:


> That’s not what happened, actually.



How so?


----------



## chilango (Nov 16, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> no one who can't give back abuse here, can last long on these political threads.



I think that’s neither true, nor fair.

I don’t “give back abuse”. I’ve lasted, what, 13,14 years on here.

Most posters I read don’t do it either.



friendofdorothy said:


> I don't think many of you keen, academically well read, good marxist posters show any solidarity on this forum.



I’m not sure I count amongst these, but - when it matters - I’ve seen some very real soldarity shown by a huge range of posters on here.

That’s not the same as piling into a spat between athos and rutita in which both seem willing and able to engage in with gusto.

Personally, I’d rather they didn’t. But whatever. There’s plenty of good stuff making me think in other bits of the thread.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 16, 2017)

Yeah, can we try to get back on topic.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> I should just suck it up and not fight back apparently. I should know my place and let this bullshit be imposed on me. Errr...
> 
> How am I supposed to do that exactly being the cis, het, mixed ethinicity, Working class, female, feminist, human, Idpoliticker, selfish, Athos and class exclusionary, idiot that I supposedly am?
> 
> ...



 You're such a blow-hard buillshitter.

The passive-aggressive victim shtick is wearing a bit thin. 

You've raised your strange interest in my personal details before. Exactly what is it you want to know about "what it is to be [me]?

ETA: actually, others are right, we shouldn't derail.  PM any questions.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> How so?


You weren’t polite.

I get that you think you were, but you weren’t


----------



## chilango (Nov 16, 2017)

kabbes said:


> You weren’t polite.
> 
> I get that you think you were, but you weren’t



“Manners cost nothing” as my Gran used to say.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 16, 2017)

Athos said:


> You're such a blow-hard buillshitter.
> 
> The passive-aggressive victim shtick is wearing a bit thin.
> 
> You've raised your strange interest in my personal details before. Exactly what is it you want to know about what it is to be me?




That's the point Athos. I will never be your victim. You spend too much time quoting and abusing and never really doing much else than telling me and others why we are so objectionable, even though you clearly don't have a fucking clue who people actually are and what they do. You could be a bit more authentic, self reflective and less abusive. You could talk more about you.

You won't though will you because all of it seems like some poncy teenage competition. Seemingly some way you are scoring and winning at life.

Back to Coventry you go.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 16, 2017)

chilango said:


> Personally, I’d rather they didn’t.


Yup. Can you give it a rest, you pair, please?


----------



## J Ed (Nov 16, 2017)

You, me, him, her.


----------



## Athos (Nov 16, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> That's the point Athos. I will never be your victim. You spend too much time quoting and abusing and never really doing much else than telling me and others why we are so objectionable, even though you clearly do have a fucking clue who people actually are and what they do. You could be a bit more authentic, self reflective and less abusive.
> 
> You won't though will you because all of it seems like some poncy teenage competition. Seemingly some way you are scoring and winning at life.
> 
> Back to Coventry you go.



I don't want you to be my victim. 

Your hypocrisy is breath-taking.  You're forever pontificating on who I am and what I do, without the slightest knowledge.

And you've called me a cunt on a number of occasions; the idea that I'm abusive and you're blameless suggests it might be you who needs a bit more self-reflection!

Please do return to ignoring me, for all our sakes. 

And for the sake of the thread. Let's not derail it any more.


----------



## chilango (Nov 16, 2017)

J Ed said:


> You, me, him, her.



To me, to you.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> You could be a bit more authentic



Finally some language that sounds like it belongs in a discussion of id politics  Fear not, not convinced the context of it is actually id politics in this case though.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 16, 2017)

well sometimes I read a blog from the kinja family of blogs- two of them I'll mention here.  One is The Root and the other is VSB. The comments sections, and often the articles are the absolute worst for wider discussion in a look at wider things- history, for one. Roots isn't bad as it could be. Over in those comment sections you've got people saying things like 'aint no reason a snaggle-toothed white man has to live in a trailer when he could have taken any number of jobs denied to the more capable black man' 

to which responses veer along predictable lines such as 'fuck you' and 'bougie POC don't like hearing that some white people have it harder!'

given we haven't descended to that level of debate I think we are doing well. 

I musn't judge america based on its internet output. I'm sure they are all normalish people like the rest of us but its a proper lines in the sand thing over there from what I see. No lines. Except the good sort for those who partake.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Nov 16, 2017)

unwatch thread.


----------



## 19force8 (Nov 17, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Back to Coventry you go.


Oi, what did the home of The Specials and Two Tone ever do to you?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 18, 2017)

elbows said:


> To wholeheartedly agree with that and never to see any of those traits in myself or anybody I like and agree with would require less self-awareness than I think I possess.



We all have those traits.  It's what we *do* or *do not* do with them, that is important.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 18, 2017)

friendofdorothy said:


> no one who can't give back abuse here, can last long on these political threads.
> 
> I don't think many of you keen, academically well read, good marxist posters show any solidarity on this forum.



What is "academically well read" when it's at home?  As you've said yourself (in so many words), a lot of people come to socialism through life experience.  Reading books that put your experience into perspective is just the icing on the cake - and when I say books, I don't mean Marx etc, I mean modern political biographies, history books etc.  At the end of the day though, Socialism is as much about how you see and feel about yourself in our current society, and what you do about it, as it is about that there book-larnin'


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 18, 2017)

chilango said:


> To me, to you.



Chuckleism ftw.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 18, 2017)

elbows said:


> Finally some language that sounds like it belongs in a discussion of id politics  Fear not, not convinced the context of it is actually id politics in this case though.



To be fair, "being authentic" appears to be an increasing obsession not just among IDpol adherents, but among those coming to politics in general.  That the quest for authenticity is often undertaken by people with little link to the authenticity they're seeking, merely adds to the interestingness of the phenomenon.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 18, 2017)

Is that a dig at me VP?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 18, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Is that a dig at me VP?



Why on earth would you think that?

No, it's a dig at people pretending to be something they're not, like (to use a very old and not particularly relevant example) people selling copies of the Socialist Worker always putting on a proley accent.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 18, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Why on earth would you think that?
> 
> No, it's a dig at people pretending to be something they're not, like (to use a very old and not particularly relevant example) people selling copies of the Socialist Worker always putting on a proley accent.



Sorry if it seemed a paranoid question. I suppose I wondered because your above point built on elbows' point about me using the term 'authentic'.  I just thought i'd face it and ask. Not in a looking for a fight kind of way, more in a 'cards on the table' kind of way ITMS.

Fair enough.


----------



## elbows (Nov 18, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Why on earth would you think that?
> 
> No, it's a dig at people pretending to be something they're not, like (to use a very old and not particularly relevant example) people selling copies of the Socialist Worker always putting on a proley accent.



And one of the motives for doing that involves feeling pressure from class reductionist stuff? Which was one of the reasons id politics came along, but it suffers from its own reductionist tendencies? 

I dunno, Im still learning about this stuff but I latched onto the use of the word 'authentic' not to have a go at Rutita but to try to help discover whether this stuff is central to the flaws of these systems, or whether I've got the wrong end of the stick.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 18, 2017)

elbows said:


> And one of the motives for doing that involves feeling pressure from class reductionist stuff? Which was one of the reasons id politics came along, but it suffers from its own reductionist tendencies?



Back in the day, it wasn't about pressure from "class reductionist stuff" (whatever that is), it was about Swappies trying to convince Joe Working Class to buy their arsewipe of a paper.



> I dunno, Im still learning about this stuff but I latched onto the use of the word 'authentic' not to have a go at Rutita but to try to help discover whether this stuff is central to the flaws of these systems, or whether I've got the wrong end of the stick.



Thing is, there is no "authenticity".  Culturally, everything is an ongoing synthesis or blend of other things, so appeals to authenticity miss the point.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 18, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Thing is, there is no "authenticity".  Culturally, everything is an ongoing synthesis or blend of other things, so appeals to authenticity miss the point.


There is an authenticity to one’s own self, though.  To one’s preferences and interests.  Authenticity of spirit as distinct from a Blairite sincerity.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 18, 2017)

kabbes said:


> There is an authenticity to one’s own self, though.  To one’s preferences and interests.  Authenticity of spirit as distinct from a Blairite sincerity.



What you're talking about is better-known as "being true to yourself", though.  It's an ideal, rather than a self-promoting or self-enriching affectation (which is what much pretence to cultural "authenticity" is).  There was a much-mocked start-up proposal mentioned on the Brixton forum 2-3 years ago - A Caribbean restaurant owned/run by a white man whose claim to authenticity was that he'd watched his parents' Jamaican cook prepare the dishes he was going to sell, so the dishes were - or so he deemed - "authentic", and not at all an act of cultural appropriation.


----------



## Jonti (Nov 19, 2017)

talking of cultural appropriation, top this (10000 singing Beethoven Ode an die Freude)


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 25, 2017)

Didn't know where to put this, so I thought I'd share here a fun example of Twitter Outrage Overdrive:


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 27, 2017)

Caught Naomi Klein on Desert Island Disks yesterday. Not only did she use the phrase "white working class", but also argued that there she didn't believe in a "universal we". Another example of where this stuff leads to. 

----
As an aside, I've not read her stuff and while I didn't think her a communist I at least thought there was something there, but fuck me she's fucking wet, and empty.


----------



## rekil (Nov 27, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Caught Naomi Klein on Desert Island Disks yesterday. Not only did she use the phrase "white working class", but also argued that there she didn't believe in a "universal we". Another example of where this stuff leads to.
> 
> ----
> As an aside, I've not read her stuff and while I didn't think her a communist I at least thought there was something there, but fuck me she's fucking wet, and empty.


She was critical of identity politics in the olden days. From chapter 5 of No Logo.



> For a generation that grew up mediated, transforming the world through pop culture was second nature. The problem was that these fixations began to transform us in the process. Over time, campus identity politics became so consumed by personal politics that they all but eclipsed the rest of the world. The slogan “the personal is political” came to replace the economic as political and, in the end, the political as political as well. The more importance we placed on representation issues, the more central a role they seemed to elbow for themselves in our lives — perhaps because, in the absence of more tangible political goals, any movement that is about fighting for better social mirrors is going to eventually fall victim to its own narcissism.





> The need for greater diversity — the rallying cry of my university years — is now not only accepted by the culture industries, it is the mantra of global capital. And identity politics, as they were practiced in the nineties, weren’t a threat, they were a gold mine. “This revolution,” writes cultural critic Richard Goldstein in The Village Voice, “turned out to be the savior of late capitalism.” And just in time, too.



Patriarchy Gets Funky by Naomi Klein


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 27, 2017)

Well could be the format of the program I guess, hardly conducive to in depth political discussion, but she was rubbish.


----------



## MrSpikey (Dec 16, 2017)

19force8 said:


> Oi, what did the home of The Specials and Two Tone ever do to you?



Blatant Two Tone Policing.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 16, 2017)

copliker said:


> She was critical of identity politics in the olden days. From chapter 5 of No Logo.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No logo was one of those books everyone read back in the day.  If you were a student or into politics or whatever.  You still see copies kicking about in charity shops quite a bit.  I wonder how well it would go down nowadays with the typical 'political' student?

Would it be fair to say that in the late 90s and 00s even the middle class student politics types were preoccupied with issues external to themselves, be it globalisation or anti-imperialism or environmental issues (just thinking about swampy and the motorway protests)?  Whereas nowadays the focus is on... themselves?  Their rights and identities as individuals.  

Probably a simplification but it feels like that to me.


----------



## brixtonscot (Dec 18, 2017)

This may have been posted before , on the historical development of "identity politics" in USA
Identity Crisis - Viewpoint Magazine


----------



## J Ed (Dec 19, 2017)

This is great.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle | Cornel West



> The disagreement between Coates and me is clear: any analysis or vision of our world that omits the centrality of Wall Street power, US military policies, and the complex dynamics of class, gender, and sexuality in black America is too narrow and dangerously misleading. So it is with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ worldview.
> 
> Coates rightly highlights the vicious legacy of white supremacy – past and present. He sees it everywhere and ever reminds us of its plundering effects. Unfortunately, he hardly keeps track of our fightback, and never connects this ugly legacy to the predatory capitalist practices, imperial policies (of war, occupation, detention, assassination) or the black elite’s refusal to confront poverty, patriarchy or transphobia.
> 
> ...


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 19, 2017)

J Ed said:


> This is great.
> 
> Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle | Cornel West


The Fields sisters do a really good job last week (on jacobin radio here ) on the assumptions and politics behind his and others white primordialism/whiteness/afro-pessimism approach and the identarian and old-school racist tropes that it has to rely on - and of course they extend this to modern liberal anti-racism/'race first left' and tie it to the evacuation of politics, of a politics of class from that anti-racism. Well worth the listen - despite the wobbly start where the host gets the central idea of their Racecraft book (racism produces race) the wrong way round.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 19, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> What is "academically well read" when it's at home?  As you've said yourself (in so many words), a lot of people come to socialism through life experience.  Reading books that put your experience into perspective is just the icing on the cake - and when I say books, I don't mean Marx etc, I mean modern political biographies, history books etc.  At the end of the day though, Socialism is as much about how you see and feel about yourself in our current society, and what you do about it, as it is about that there book-larnin'



.
I have decided that it was wrong to post this. It disclosed information that should never have been disclosed.

Matthew 6:1

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."


----------



## JimW (Dec 19, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> ...
> The left make me so angry. So many do absolutely nothing concrete for their fellow man, and think wringing their hands is a positive contribution.
> 
> I'm a right winger, the opposite of most on the board. I do not like blowing my own trumpet but, on Christmas Day I'll be spending time in an Edinburgh Church assisting their efforts to help the homeless. We have given our pensions for December to the local food-bank and the children's toy appeal. (about £300.00)...


One concrete thing you did was spend a lifetime voting for policies that made more people homeless. So fuck off.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 19, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> I haven't read all of this thread, which is 44 pages of largely pointless navel gazing.
> 
> Socialism is airy fairy bullshit, espoused by people who have far too much time on their hands, it has never worked as a political process anywhere, not in the long term. Even the Scandinavians are being forced to recognise that their socialist political model is no longer sustainable.
> 
> ...



Thats all well and good but if capitalism is so sustainable , non bullshit, and so good for people who are time hungry etc then why are you having to donate all this time and money to these causes for people in need? At least those on the left want to try and eradicate the causes of homelessness, poverty , fuel poverty etc. There a long history of Tory philanthropy which I admire and would encourage but surely the question is why so many are in need and what could be done to reduce and eventually eliminate these problems ?


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 19, 2017)

The twitter banning of a lot of right wing groups including Generation Identity reminded me as to how identity politics absolutley fits  the right wing like a glove.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 19, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> I haven't read all of this thread, which is 44 pages of largely pointless navel gazing.
> 
> Socialism is airy fairy bullshit, espoused by people who have far too much time on their hands, it has never worked as a political process anywhere, not in the long term. Even the Scandinavians are being forced to recognise that their socialist political model is no longer sustainable.
> 
> ...



It’s noble of you to give up your Christmas (and money) to help those who’ve been thrown under a bus by the system you support.


----------



## TruXta (Dec 19, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> I haven't read all of this thread, which is 44 pages of largely pointless navel gazing.
> 
> Socialism is airy fairy bullshit, espoused by people who have far too much time on their hands, it has never worked as a political process anywhere, not in the long term. Even the Scandinavians are being forced to recognise that their socialist political model is no longer sustainable.
> 
> ...


When were Scandinavian countries ever socialist?


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> I haven't read all of this thread, which is 44 pages of largely pointless navel gazing.
> 
> Socialism is airy fairy bullshit, espoused by people who have far too much time on their hands, it has never worked as a political process anywhere, not in the long term. Even the Scandinavians are being forced to recognise that their socialist political model is no longer sustainable.
> 
> ...



What a shit post from start to finish.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2017)

_Socialism isn't an identity, it's the hammer we use to crush our enemies._


----------



## ViolentPanda (Dec 19, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> I haven't read all of this thread, which is 44 pages of largely pointless navel gazing.
> 
> Socialism is airy fairy bullshit, espoused by people who have far too much time on their hands, it has never worked as a political process anywhere, not in the long term. Even the Scandinavians are being forced to recognise that their socialist political model is no longer sustainable.



Twat.  The Scandinavian political systems aren't socialist (except to right-wing Americans), they're social-democratic, which is an entirely different thing, more akin to classic 20th-century liberalism.



> Tell me, how many of the population have read Das Kapital, outside of the privileged classes?



Probably at least a couple of million people outside of the privileged classes.  My mate Andre, for example.  My nan (rest her soul) for another.  Both proper working class auto-didacts. 



> Identity politics? Give me strength.
> 
> If the amount of time spent spouting bullshit on this behemoth of a  thread, had been spent physically helping those in society in greatest need, it would actually have achieved something.
> 
> The left make me so angry. So many do absolutely nothing concrete for their fellow man, and think wringing their hands is a positive contribution.



What makes you think that many of us don't, you self-righteous prick?



> I'm a right winger, the opposite of most on the board. I do not like blowing my own trumpet but, on Christmas Day I'll be spending time in an Edinburgh Church assisting their efforts to help the homeless. We have given our pensions for December to the local food-bank and the children's toy appeal. (about £300.00)
> 
> I gave £300.00 to my son in law, because he is my grandson's father, and he has been ill. He didn't have heating, and his electricity was about to die. This to a man who on three separate occasions threatened to kill me.
> 
> ...



I do community work all year round, everything from helping neighbours with odd jobs, to helping them fill out forms, and chase up benefits claims.  I also donate regularly (in goods) to the local foodbank, even though I'm disabled and my only income is from benefits and a (very small, as in less than £100 a month, Civil Service pension).  I don't need some twat who IS blowing his own trumpet, making assumptions about people based on their politics.  The fact is that if you're working class, you're more likely to engage in community and charitable work.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Dec 19, 2017)

The39thStep said:


> Thats all well and good but if capitalism is so sustainable , non bullshit, and so good for people who are time hungry etc then why are you having to donate all this time and money to these causes for people in need? At least those on the left want to try and eradicate the causes of homelessness, poverty , fuel poverty etc. There a long history of Tory philanthropy which I admire and would encourage but surely the question is why so many are in need and what could be done to reduce and eventually eliminate these problems ?



Quite.  Any charity, however well-intentioned, is just a sticking plaster.


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2017)

ViolentPanda said:


> Quite.  Any charity, however well-intentioned, is just a sticking plaster.



At best. 

There’s arguments that charity fulfils a far more damaging function than that.

But that’s for another thread.


----------



## J Ed (Dec 19, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> The Fields sisters do a really good job last week (on jacobin radio here ) on the assumptions and politics behind his and others white primordialism/whiteness/afro-pessimism approach and the identarian and old-school racist tropes that it has to rely on - and of course they extend this to modern liberal anti-racism/'race first left' and tie it to the evacuation of politics, of a politics of class from that anti-racism. Well worth the listen - despite the wobbly start where the host gets the central idea of their Racecraft book (racism produces race) the wrong way round.



I meant to post this earlier in the week. I second that it is well worth a listen.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 19, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> Identity politics? Give me strength.



You identify as British and also a Christian don’t you?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Dec 19, 2017)

chilango said:


> At best.
> 
> There’s arguments that charity fulfils a far more damaging function than that.
> 
> But that’s for another thread.



Which is why I didn't try to make that particular argument.


----------



## seventh bullet (Dec 19, 2017)

killer b said:


> _Socialism isn't an identity, it's the hammer we use to crush our enemies._



And Communism is not love.


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 20, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> .
> I have decided that it was wrong to post this. It disclosed information that should never have been disclosed.
> 
> Matthew 6:1
> ...



This replacement for that post is definitely the smuggest thing I've seen here in a while, so well done indeed.
I preferred the bit about doing christmas dinner for homeless people on christmas day.


----------



## chilango (Dec 20, 2017)

Sasaferrato said:


> .
> I have decided that it was wrong to post this. It disclosed information that should never have been disclosed.
> 
> Matthew 6:1
> ...



Your arrogance and your contempt for other people was clear in the original post. People who you knew nothing about and openly stated you couldn’t be bothered to find anything about. 

That’s why it was “wrong” to post what you did.

The bible quote you chosen to replace it with is telling.

It suggests that you are refraining from showing off your righteousness in fear of not receiving some reward. Motivation huh?

Not for one second do you seem to be questioning your own righteousness however.

I suggest that you spend some time reading around the boards and taking in just how much concrete “stuff is done” by so many others (many of whom would be considered “left” or socialists).

Perhaps then an apology would be appropriate.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 20, 2017)

J Ed said:


> This is great.
> 
> Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle | Cornel West


Ta-Nehisi Coates Deletes Twitter Account Amid Feud With Cornel West


----------



## Treacle Toes (Dec 20, 2017)

J Ed said:


> This is great.
> 
> Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle | Cornel West



What is great about it iyo?


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 20, 2017)

.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Dec 21, 2017)

[


----------



## J Ed (Dec 21, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> What is great about it iyo?



I think that what I like about it is that it encapsulates well what I think are critiques of a particular approach both to politics itself and the world, an approach which to be fair to Coates he is less guilty of than many. Like most people who have read him, I think that Coates is a really good writer. However what I do not like about his approach is the way in which, as West points out, power is warped. Anything that is worth happening politically happens in the upper echelons of society.

Unlike most prominent political commenators Coates voted for Sanders. On the other hand, as West points out, like many successful American political commentators Coates appears agnostic on both US foreign policy and neoliberal economics. Quite frankly I am sick of this approach which is the dominant one in our country and theirs. No matter how sophisticated the writing or political analysis and in Coates' case both are very sophisticated indeed, it reduces politics to a series of good and bad celebrities which we can jeer and boo but at the end of the day cannot really hope to change too much. It is a narrowing perspective which forecloses any real hope of change.

While it isn't mentioned in the article, or is only really mentioned in passing, I regard what Coates does on foreign policy as a mixture of tactical ignorance and sophistry. What he writes in defence of Israel is quite clever, and in turn I find the deployment of that sort of sophistry quite ugly given what it is defending. An example...

The Negro Sings Of Zionism



> As a dude who came up banging Malcolm's "Ballot or The Bullet" like it was the Wu-Tang Forever, who recited Garvey's "Look For Me In The Whirlwind" at the school assembly, Israel is like a parallel universe, what Liberia could have been with the alteration of a few key historical variables. In Israel, cats like me see the shadows of another choice. Then we cut on "Flavor Of Love" and realize that it could not have been any other way.



Beyond that, Coates does not mention Obama's murderous policies in the Middle-East and Latin America, both of which were a continuation of GWB's policies and are now being continued by Trump which is fitting since the Obama administration put Trump like figures in power in the Middle-East and Latin America whenever it was feasibly possible to do so. What sort of analysis which claims to explore oppression in anything other than the most narrow confines ignores that?

I think that actually Obama's current trajectory calls for more not less analysis of this, since it seems to consist of being paid for services rendered by these people. These people being, for example, the people in parliament and their backers who jeered the social democrat President Dilma Roussef about being raped by police torturers while she was a resistance fighter against another US backed dictatorship in Brazil. They got the green light from the Obama admin, and now he is getting paid for that. Likewise, in 2009 there was a US backed coup in Honduras against a democratically elected government which was implementing social democratic reforms.

The Obama administration ensured that the government could not return to contest elections and then in response to widespread police repression which specifically targeted women, liberals, social democrats, trade unionists, indigenous peoples and ecologists they rewarded the post-coup government with massive state aid and training of that same police. The police forces that now, with the support the of Trump admin, are shooting working-class people who are protesting another recently stolen election.

Where does 'We were 8 years in power' fit into all this? For Coates it seemingly doesn't at all. This obviously frustrates West, and I share his frustration.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 21, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> The Fields sisters do a really good job last week (on jacobin radio here ) on the assumptions and politics behind his and others white primordialism/whiteness/afro-pessimism approach and the identarian and old-school racist tropes that it has to rely on - and of course they extend this to modern liberal anti-racism/'race first left' and tie it to the evacuation of politics, of a politics of class from that anti-racism. Well worth the listen - despite the wobbly start where the host gets the central idea of their Racecraft book (racism produces race) the wrong way round.





J Ed said:


> I meant to post this earlier in the week. I second that it is well worth a listen.



Now a really interesting companion piece up from the rapidly collapsing other tradition: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on Recovering Identity Politics from Neoliberalism. Nicely outlines how the work of the combahee collective and crenshaw ended up turning into the identity politics monsters we see today - against the express intentions and politics of both - and how neo-liberalism now owns this stuff. They key being identified as the evacuation of class from the picture of social reality. Really good to see the tide turning from _within _this tradition.

BTW coates gets another going over in this one - even pro-identity politics types can see what his stuff means. Best pieces i've read on him whilst i'm here are:

The Birthmark of Damnation: Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Black Body
Idylls of the Liberal: The American Dreams of Mark Lilla and Ta-Nehisi Coates


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> The Birthmark of Damnation: Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Black Body
> Idylls of the Liberal: The American Dreams of Mark Lilla and Ta-Nehisi Coates


Not got the second one yet but the first one is excellent. Insightful and inspiring.


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> It has genuinely been my experience that the more vocal proponents of identity politics are well-off university students, postgraduates, academics etc.  I always think it's a style of politics which could only thrive among the economically privileged.  It requires treating class as an identity, equal to gender/race/sexuality/ability, rather than a set of structured material relations.  *Convenient if you've had a sheltered life but want to be in the oppressed group.*
> 
> Sorry for the tangent this would be better on the identity politics thread.



I decided to post this here, from the _transgender_ thread because it makes a good point. In my experience too, _identitypolitics_ can serve as a useful vehicle for quite un-oppressed people from relatively privileged backgrounds and with the benefit of a good education, to put themselves in an oppressed group whether they belong there or not.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I decided to post this here, from the _transgender_ thread because it makes a good point. In my experience too, _identitypolitics_ can serve as a useful vehicle for quite un-oppressed people from relatively privileged backgrounds and with the benefit of a good education, to put themselves in an oppressed group whether they belong there or not.



This has me all 

Are you saying that some people are seeking to be oppressed? 

And what is the criteria for belonging? Who judges whether one belongs or not?

Sorry if I've picked this up wrongly.


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 27, 2017)

Not seeking to be oppressed, but seeking some kind of moral high ground IMO. Adopting an oppressed identity is a shortcut to a position of virtue.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> Not seeking to be oppressed, but seeking some kind of moral high ground IMO. Adopting an oppressed identity is a shortcut to a position of virtue.



Is this what's meant by "virtue signalling"? Another term I've only recently heard and usually by the right wing.

Can a person "adopt" an oppressed identity if they have been the victim of physical/verbal/sexual abuse, regarldess of their class? Surely they are already oppressed?


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 27, 2017)

Note the use of _belonging_ by krtek to describe an oppression derived _identity_.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I decided to post this here, from the _transgender_ thread because it makes a good point. In my experience too, _identitypolitics_ can serve as a useful vehicle for quite un-oppressed people from relatively privileged backgrounds and with the benefit of a good education, to put themselves in an oppressed group whether they belong there or not.



I've seen enough digs at 'white males' coming from white women studying or working at elite universities to last a lifetime.

Their online identity is one of a fierce lefty radical punching up against an oppressive class. Point out they are in a privileged class and get accused of class reductionism.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

It was covered in some of the excellent articles posted in this thread. You are progressive (or oppressive) by virtue of your gender/race identity alone. 

There was a recent popular tweet about how we've let white men try at being politicians and they fucked it up, now it's time for women and POC to try. It's the type of people not the systems of wealth and power.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> It was covered in some of the excellent articles posted in this thread. You are progressive (or oppressive) by virtue of your gender/race identity alone.
> 
> There was a recent popular tweet about how we've let white men try at being politicians and they fucked it up, now it's time for women and POC to try. It's the type of people not the systems of wealth and power.



Aren't white males in the UK power system usually serving themselves, though? Not just in politics but the whole establishment?


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Aren't white males in the UK power system usually serving themselves, though? Not just in politics but the whole establishment?



There is an assumption that white women or POC would be more progressive.  We've had plenty of women politicians and they weren't automatically more progressive (dare I invoke Thatcher).  They are serving an economic system.

Putting representatives of different identity groups into the establishment will not bring progressive change.  It certainly couldn't be considered a 'left-wing' aim.  Yet many identity politics proponents view themselves as being on the left.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> There is an assumption that white women or POC would be more progressive.  We've had plenty of women politicians and they weren't automatically more progressive (dare I invoke Thatcher).  They are serving an economic system.
> 
> Putting representatives of different identity groups into the establishment will not bring progressive change.  It certainly couldn't be considered a 'left-wing' aim.  Yet many identity politics proponents view themselves as being on the left.



Yes, that's possible but should the status quo remain in heavily weighted favor of white, upper/middle class males? 

If so, you just tend to get the same old same old... imho, natch.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Yes, that's possible but should the status quo remain in heavily weighted favor of white, upper/middle class males?
> 
> If so, you just tend to get the same old same old... imho, natch.



I'm not against equal representation in parliament.  More woman and POC is not a bad thing.  Perhaps it could make a different on some issues of social liberalism.  It's not exactly left wing radicalism though.  Yet for the IDPol 'left' these are the issues of concern.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> I'm not against equal representation in parliament.  More woman and POC is not a bad thing.  Perhaps it could make a different on some issues of social liberalism.  It's not exactly left wing radicalism though.  Yet for the IDPol 'left' these are the issues of concern.



I can only imagine that for some people of color etc, it's quite frustrating to see the same old elitist, white faces spouting the same crap that bears no relation to their lives and everyday experience.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> I can only imagine that for some people of color etc, it's quite frustrating to see the same old elitist, white faces spouting the same crap that bears no relation to their lives and everyday experience.



And it wouldn’t be frustrating for anyone who shares their skin pigmentation? You see the problem then?


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> And it wouldn’t be frustrating for anyone who shares their skin pigmentation? You see the problem then?



That goes without saying. But I was referring to ordinart people of colour, in this instance. Should there be more representation or should the status quo remain the same?


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Is this what's meant by "virtue signalling"? Another term I've only recently heard and usually by the right wing.



I don't think it's exactly virtue signalling, though I daresay self-identification in an oppressed group could be used as a virtue signal by someone before they begin an attack of some kind. "_Well, speaking as a...._" kind of thing.



krtek a houby said:


> Can a person "adopt" an oppressed identity if they have been the victim of physical/verbal/sexual abuse, regarldess of their class? Surely they are already oppressed?



I don't believe abuse necessarily = oppression. It depends who is abusing, what they're referencing in the abuse, how they're referencing it, what their aim is, and also what social structures exist around the abuser and abused to make it more _oppressive_, rather than just rude and hurtful.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> That goes without saying. But I was referring to ordinart people of colour, in this instance. Should there be more representation or should the status quo remain the same?



Did a woman prime minister change much for women?


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Did a woman prime minister change much for women?



Similarly, did a black president change much for black men in America?


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> I don't think it's exactly virtue signalling, though I daresay self-identification in an oppressed group could be used as a virtue signal by someone before they begin an attack of some kind. "_Well, speaking as a...._" kind of thing.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't believe abuse necessarily = oppression. It depends who is abusing, what they're referencing in the abuse, how they're referencing it, what their aim is, and also what social structures exist around the abuser and abused to make it more _oppressive_, rather than just rude and hurtful.



Is it wrong of people to bring their own experiences into a dialogue, though? To clarify how they see/deal with oppressions?

Say you go to work every day and some colleagues constantly make homophobic joke or comments about "the coloureds" etc. Is that not a form of oppression (if you're LGBT/poc) or is just rude and hurtful?

What if it affects your work, your well being, your outlook? Surely people like that, these colleagues, are attacking your very identity?


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Did a woman prime minister change much for women?



No, she managed to shaft a vast number of people. But conversely, should that result in the status quo remaining as it is?

Not all women are white tories wishing to destroy communities and unions, I'm pretty certain...


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

IDPol is also a technique for privileged people to dominate the political conversation.  How many times have I heard 'when oppressed groups speak, your job is to listen', or similar?  You can't have a conversation.  Only the voice of the oppressed group is important, and if anyone else has an opinion they are taking the focus off people who are already maginalised.  I'm not taking that seriously when the 'oppressed group' is an upper middle class law student at an elite university.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> Similarly, did a black president change much for black men in America?



Obama care, for what it's worth - helped the less well off. Black, white etc.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> No, she managed to shaft a vast number of people. But conversely, should that result in the status quo remaining as it is?
> 
> Not all women are white tories wishing to destroy communities and unions, I'm pretty certain...



Is more women in power really a change in the status quo?  If these women continue the same policies as we have now?


----------



## campanula (Dec 27, 2017)

Yes, but if we just pop in a few more token groups, POC, women, disabled...all will be well...without the tiniest consideration of the social and material conditions which have ensured that all these tokenistic additions will still represent the same narrow class interests as the already entrenched white males


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Obama care, for what it's worth - helped the less well off. Black, white etc.



Was that because he was black?  Would Bernie Sanders be a less progressive choice because he is white?  Basically I am saying the policies of the individual matter, not their race or gender identity.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> IDPol is also a technique for privileged people to dominate the political conversation.  How many times have I heard 'when oppressed groups speak, your job is to listen', or similar?  You can't have a conversation.  Only the voice of the oppressed group is important, and if anyone else has an opinion they are taking the focus off people who are already maginalised.  I'm not taking that seriously when the 'oppressed group' is an upper middle class law student at an elite university.



Only the working class voice is important? Nobody else can claim to have been brutalised by racism, sexism, homophobia?


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Only the working class voice is important? Nobody else can claim to have been brutalised by racism, sexism, homophobia?



That is a real misrepresentation of what I've been saying


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> Was that because he was black?  Would Bernie Sanders be a less progressive choice because he is white?  Basically I am saying the policies of the individual matter, not their race or gender identity.



Oh hells bells, Bernie has my vote. As well intentioned as Obama was, Sanders could have made a real difference. Relatively speaking.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> That is a real misrepresentation of what I've been saying



Ok then, when you say "when the 'oppressed group' is an upper middle class law student at an elite university."

I mean, that's a stereotype, right? Why assume when people complain of being oppressed that they would fall into that group?


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 27, 2017)

hells bells indeed.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Ok then, when you say "when the 'oppressed group' is an upper middle class law student at an elite university."
> 
> I mean, that's a stereotype, right? Why assume when people complain of being oppressed that they would fall into that group?



Because if you're an upper middle class university student who claims to be oppressed by men, that is idiotic.  You will be far more privileged and carry far more social capital than many men.  

I'm not assuming it, I've seen it.  It's rife in student politics for a start.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

I'm saying 'men' and 'women' aren't cohesive, essentialist groupings, in terms of social structure.  You aren't privileged by virtue of being a man, you aren't oppressed by virtue of being a woman.


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 27, 2017)

krtek a houby said:


> Is it wrong of people to bring their own experiences into a dialogue, though? To clarify how they see/deal with oppressions?



It may or may not be relevant to what's going on at that moment. I don't believe that insight gained through personal experience is necessarily more useful than other kinds of insight.



krtek a houby said:


> Say you go to work every day and some colleagues constantly make homophobic joke or comments about "the coloureds" etc. Is that not a form of oppression (if you're LGBT/poc) or is just rude and hurtful?



It might be oppressive or it might just be rude and hurtful, it depends on too many things for a generalisation to be in any way useful here, IMO.



krtek a houby said:


> What if it affects your work, your well being, your outlook? Surely people like that, these colleagues, are attacking your very identity?



This still wouldn't necessarily be _oppression_ IMO, if you can walk out of that context and still legally and safely be exactly who you feel you are.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> It may or may not be relevant to what's going on at that moment. I don't believe that insight gained through personal experience is necessarily more useful than other kinds of insight.



Maybe not, but maybe it is just as valid?


----------



## J Ed (Dec 27, 2017)

America was already great, though perhaps not now anymore.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

J Ed said:


> America was already great, though perhaps not now anymore.



All countries are great/shit, depending on one's views. Not sure what it has to do with this particular thread,mind.


----------



## J Ed (Dec 27, 2017)

drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 27, 2017)

J Ed said:


> drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not,



great post well done keep it up


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 27, 2017)

mojo pixy said:


> It may or may not be relevant to what's going on at that moment. I don't believe that insight gained through personal experience is necessarily more useful than other kinds of insight.





krtek a houby said:


> Maybe not, but maybe it is just as valid?



It may be as valid.
It may be more valid, if the situation is a very personal and specific one.
It may be less valid, because there are natural limits to what any one person can know. Also, strong feelings affect a personal perspective, memory is not always as reliable as we'd like to think, and then again we aren't _always _completely honest / sincere. There are a lot of reasons why insight gained through personal experience could be useless or even harmfully wrong, ie not really insight, just a wrong opinion because of misunderstanding, wilful or otherwise.
etc.

it got long.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

If it were just making sure people from minority groups have a chance to be heard, that would great.  It has become only minority groups are allowed to be heard.  I can see how it might have been founded in good intentions to make sure socially excluded groups are not drowned out.  Like many aspects of identity politics it has mutated into something far less progressive and more divisive.


----------



## bimble (Dec 27, 2017)

There's plenty of room for everyone in this game.


----------



## bemused (Dec 27, 2017)

bimble said:


> There's plenty of room for everyone in this game.
> View attachment 124080



I'm a fan of a good cardigan, that isn't one.


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 27, 2017)

Stuff like IS/Daesh is all about _identity _too, and about _adopting oppression_ (as well as dishing plenty out, obviously)


----------



## bimble (Dec 27, 2017)

Yep, and Israel, and on and on.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

Stuff like this is very helpful for white supremacists.  They can point to activists and say look how they hate white people.  Wonder how many young guys trying to work out their politics felt rejected by the left and ended up into the alt right.


----------



## bemused (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> Stuff like this is very helpful for white supremacists.  They can point to activists and say look how they hate white people.  Wonder how many young guys trying to work out their politics felt rejected by the left and ended up into the alt right.



In the UK these groups don't get any meaningful hold. The BNP peaked at about 5% of the vote in the EU elections and then ended up with less than 1% in the general election in the following years General Election. Once these people make it into the UK public eye and onto the media their natural shittiness shines through and they wither on the vine.


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 27, 2017)

I sort of agree, even a small folk festival will draw more people than a far-right demo can muster. That's (sort of) encouraging. and though I wouldn't say there's less _identity _at a small folk festival, there is usually less violence.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

bemused said:


> In the UK these groups don't get any meaningful hold. The BNP peaked at about 5% of the vote in the EU elections and then ended up with less than 1% in the general election in the following years General Election. Once these people make it into the UK public eye and onto the media their natural shittiness shines through and they wither on the vine.



Fair enough I'm not really concerned about the alt right.  But feel like idpol may turn people away from left-wing politics.  People who otherwise may be interested in the idea of class solidarity, but they see the left as being about identity bingo and blaming white people.  I'm not sure how much of an issue it is in reality.


----------



## bemused (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> Fair enough I'm not really concerned about the alt right.  But feel like idpol may turn people away from left-wing politics.  People who otherwise may be interested in the idea of class solidarity, but they see the left as being about identity bingo and blaming white people.  I'm not sure how much of an issue it is in reality.



I'm sure I'm one of many who rolls their eyes when they hear how white folks are the root of all evil. The progressive stack is one of those USA imports I hope doesn't take root here as it is fundamentally damaging to social cohesion.


----------



## killer b (Dec 27, 2017)

The progressive stack? Is it 2012 all over again?


----------



## bemused (Dec 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> The progressive stack? Is it 2012 all over again?



Yes


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> The progressive stack? Is it 2012 all over again?



I've heard people using the progressive stack quite recently.  Admittedly this was US academics on twitter.  Whole thing about how minorities should always speak first in class.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

Progressive stack was one of the reasons for occupy wall street downfall wasn't it?


----------



## killer b (Dec 27, 2017)

bemused said:


> Yes


it isn't though - so probably best avoid fighting 5 year old battles over again.


----------



## killer b (Dec 27, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> Because if you're an upper middle class university student who claims to be oppressed by men, that is idiotic.  You will be far more privileged and carry far more social capital than many men.


I think this is a bit wrongheaded - women of all classes are oppressed by men. That doesn't mean some women aren't more privileged than some men, in other ways.

Harvey Weinsteins victims are among the most privileged women on the planet: what happened to them wasn't only down to Weinstein's powerful position, but the power that men have in general over women. There's much that can be said about the fallout from the Weinstein & Me Too stuff about how it's the women with money, power and profile who're (maybe) seeing justice, and life is going on pretty much as before for the vast majority of women, but the relative oppression even these rich and privileged women experienced is undeniable.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> I think this is a bit wrongheaded - women of all classes are oppressed by men. That doesn't mean some women aren't more privileged than some men, in other ways.
> 
> Harvey Weinsteins victims are among the most privileged women on the planet: what happened to them wasn't only down to Weinstein's powerful position, but the power that men have in general over women. There's much that can be said about the fallout from the Weinstein & Me Too stuff about how it's the women with money, power and profile who're (maybe) seeing justice, and life is going on pretty much as before for the vast majority of women, but the relative oppression even these rich and privileged women experienced is undeniable.



I can see that privileged women experience oppression as compared to privileged men.  The corporate glass ceiling springs to mind.  Or women experiencing sexism and exclusion in male dominated professions.  As you say, sexual abuse or everyday sexism is not restricted to class boundaries.  

I'm not against those points at all.  There's just something very unedifying about a woman who is very privileged claiming to be oppressed by men, when there are men sleeping on the streets and she's a middle class history lecturer or something.  It's too simplistic lumping men in as a group like that.  All the 'male tears' stuff bugs me in that context.  It is genuinely unfair that a woman lecturer has less chance of moving to a senior position than a male lecturer.  But it doesn't mean she's oppressed by men in general.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> I think this is a bit wrongheaded - women of all classes are oppressed by men. That doesn't mean some women aren't more privileged than some men, in other ways.
> 
> Harvey Weinsteins victims are among the most privileged women on the planet: what happened to them wasn't only down to Weinstein's powerful position, but the power that men have in general over women. There's much that can be said about the fallout from the Weinstein & Me Too stuff about how it's the women with money, power and profile who're (maybe) seeing justice, and life is going on pretty much as before for the vast majority of women, but the relative oppression even these rich and privileged women experienced is undeniable.



But this still doesn’t add up to all men being oppressors, or even all women being oppressed.


----------



## killer b (Dec 27, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> But this still doesn’t add up to all men being oppressors, or even all women being oppressed.


Right. Not sure where I've said that. or anyone has.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 27, 2017)

killer b said:


> Right. Not sure where I've said that. or anyone has.



I think I misread your first line so fair enough, apols.


----------



## campanula (Dec 27, 2017)

Who assigns identity? I am not clear about a lot of this because I feel I can claim several identity positions, all of which are handy in various contexts. Can we always claim our own identity? How do we agree on validity? authenticity? precision?
It's a hard needle to thread...with definite utility, especially when predicated on a 'rights' argument...but also has seductive dangers too.

We agree that some men do actively oppress some women. Not all do. But most of us are fucked over by the patriarchy.


----------



## bemused (Dec 27, 2017)

campanula said:


> Can we always claim our own identity?




I would hope so, in a modern society it isn't for others to tell you what your identity is or if it is more or less valid.


----------



## campanula (Dec 27, 2017)

bimble said:


> There's plenty of room for everyone in this game.
> View attachment 124080



WTF is on his head. half a mega-raisin.


----------



## RD2003 (Dec 27, 2017)

As somebody else has said more articulately in a different thread, 'identity' is just one more thing which has been offered up to keep the left alive (for what it's worth) after the decline of class politics, which the contemporary left is uncomfortable with anyway, and is a product of what Hobsbawm called the triumph of the individual over society. 

In the great scheme of things, how you 'indentify' is worthless. Especially when it consists of what you've just chosen to make up to make yourself feel better in your isolation and angst.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 27, 2017)

RD2003 said:


> As somebody else has said more articulately in a different thread, 'identity' is just one more thing which has been offered up to keep the left alive (for what it's worth) after the decline of class politics, which the contemporary left is uncomfortable with anyway, and is a product of what Hobsbawm called the triumph of the individual over society.
> 
> In the great scheme of things, how you 'indentify' is worthless. Especially when it consists of what you've just chosen to make up to make yourself feel better in your isolation and angst.



I respectfully disagree. At a time of retreat / defeat amongst the organised working class, identity politics is being employed to keep it that way.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 28, 2017)

campanula said:


> I feel I can claim several identity positions, all of which are handy in various contexts



Just thinking about last time I argued with a group of idpol liberal types.  I tried to say that there are other disadvantages which are less visible being overlooked.  You can be white/male/cis but have serious mental health problems, poverty, could be an abuse survivor, homelessness, whatever.  You can't always tell by looking at someone.  Idpol focuses on visible identities, which don't even always indicate hardship.  

If you're wondering how they responded to this (sensible, imo) point, it was along the lines of how white cis males won't let minority oppression be seen without bringing attention back to their own problems.  Quite a misreading of the point.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Dec 28, 2017)

More idiocy from the intersectional facebook page I follow. This time it's about Chess champion Anna Muzychuk boycotting the chess world championships in Saudi Arabia because she doesn't want to have the Kingdom's 'modesty' codes imposed on her and doesn't want to be chaperoned by men when she's there.

One member says: 'abaya (Islamic dress) is the national dress and considered a sign of respect- if its good enough for merkle its good enough for her. Accompaniment is suitable in this culture and also a matter of safety. Her interpretation of being treated as a second class citizen is islamophobic.' and 'feminists USUALLY miss the boat on muslim rights, especially about hijab, because white women always align with misogyny and misogynists reject autonomy of women and non binary ppl'

cultural relativism, check
defence of oppression of women, check
denunciation of all white women, check

... and this passes for 'progressive' politics nowadays?

(on another thread somebody got denounced as 'bioessentialist trash' for referring to 'female reproductive systems')


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 28, 2017)

The right kind of patriarchy.


----------



## J Ed (Dec 28, 2017)

Jeff Robinson said:


> ... and this passes for 'progressive' politics nowadays?



It's barely even politics. It's closer to just arguing over an unwritten, infinitely expanding and contradictory guide to etiquette.


----------



## killer b (Dec 28, 2017)

Not sure what value there is in out of context  quoting some random dickheads from a Facebook page and throwing your hands up tbh. You could (and people do) paint any group of people as dangerously deluded using the same method.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Dec 28, 2017)

killer b said:


> Not sure what value there is in out of context  quoting some random dickheads from a Facebook page and throwing your hands up tbh. You could (and people do) paint any group of people as dangerously deluded using the same method.



Fair point. As I've said on this thread before I think there are valid insights from intersectional theory and aspects of ID Pol so I wouldn't want any broad inference to be drawn from the postings I've shared.


----------



## Shechemite (Dec 28, 2017)

J Ed said:


> It's barely even politics. It's closer to just arguing over an unwritten, infinitely expanding and contradictory guide to etiquette.



It’s about control - through guilt/shame/simply overwhelming people with noise and drama.

 ID/SJW Politics appeals to a particular kind of person.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 28, 2017)

Sometimes it's good to blow off a little steam on this thread when you run into particularly annoying examples elsewhere.  I do it myself, even though I'm never really sure it's helpful in moving the discussion forward.

I see stuff like Jeff Robinson posted all the time on fb groups or twitter nowadays.  Arguing at source can be exhausting as it's like arguing with a cult.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 28, 2017)

Nobody is obliged to use social media. I think doing so gives a very skewed view of things.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 28, 2017)

Red Cat said:


> Nobody is obliged to use social media. I think doing so gives a very skewed view of things.



Not obliged to but everyone does nowadays.  I don't seek out political stuff but even in non-political spaces many of the assumptions of idpol are dominant.  

E.g. a music group I was on recently where they had a big witch hunt 'calling out' someone for not understanding disability issues, with loads of replies saying if you're not disabled you're not allowed to comment.  Trigger warnings on completely random topics (is a trigger warning really necessary because your post mentions alcohol?).

It's not annoying enough to delete social media but annoying enough to occasionally complain on here!

I do agree it can skew things and wonder how much of it transfers to real life.  But a lot of people form their opinions through online communities so it's not completely irrelevant.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Dec 28, 2017)

Um, this is social media.


----------



## Shechemite (Dec 28, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Um, this is social media.



Don’t ruin it!


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 28, 2017)

So clever. 

It's understood that people mean by social media facebook and twitter and whatever the youth are using.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 28, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> Not obliged to but everyone does nowadays.  I don't seek out political stuff but even in non-political spaces many of the assumptions of idpol are dominant.
> 
> E.g. a music group I was on recently where they had a big witch hunt 'calling out' someone for not understanding disability issues, with loads of replies saying if you're not disabled you're not allowed to comment.  Trigger warnings on completely random topics (is a trigger warning really necessary because your post mentions alcohol?).
> 
> ...



I think there's much more exposure to misogyny online than there is in daily life. I don't encounter what I would call misogyny on a daily basis, whereas I do face oppression daily in the attacks on health care, health care workers, teachers, child care, workers whose work is about relationships, emotional work, work done by women etc. I think my state of mind would be quite different if I was exposed to misogyny daily.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 29, 2017)

Sunset Tree said:


> Not obliged to but everyone does nowadays.


I don’t.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Dec 29, 2017)

kabbes said:


> I don’t.



Ok not literally everyone.  For those of us who do, I feel this stuff is becoming a lot more widespread.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 1, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> Not obliged to but everyone does nowadays.  I don't seek out political stuff but even in non-political spaces many of the assumptions of idpol are dominant.
> 
> E.g. a music group I was on recently where they had a big witch hunt 'calling out' someone for not understanding disability issues, with loads of replies saying if you're not disabled you're not allowed to comment.  Trigger warnings on completely random topics (is a trigger warning really necessary because your post mentions alcohol?).
> 
> ...



There is no such thing as a non-political space.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 1, 2018)

Beats & Pieces said:


> There is no such thing as a non-political space.


Don't be daft.


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 1, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Don't be daft.



That new year optimism will soon wear off


----------



## killer b (Jan 1, 2018)

It's true, there are no non political spaces, and no non political stances.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 1, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Don't be daft.



Why on earth would you think that? It is a fundamental ethical question, arguably it has been _the _question since Socrates.

If you want to start engaging with this question I suggest you start with Plato's 'Alcibiades'.


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 1, 2018)

Do you not think you’re being overly literal Beats & Pieces ?

Non-political may mean without any political dynamic and/or outside political influence. Which yes, would be daft. 

But it may mean merely not-explicitly political, not an activist group. Do you think no such spaces exist?


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 1, 2018)

Of course the irony is that a lot of the concepts in IDPol activism - safe spaces,mindfulness of triggers etc - *are* appropriate outside of activism - eg in mental health/therapy settings. 

But one of the goals of ‘recovery’ is the (re)development of resilience, of the capacity to cope with a world that cares very little for your feelings.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 1, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Do you not think you’re being overly literal Beats & Pieces ?
> 
> Non-political may mean without any political dynamic and/or outside political influence. Which yes, would be daft.
> 
> But it may mean merely not-explicitly political, not an activist group. Do you think no such spaces exist?



In short - no. I would change the word political to 'power'.


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 1, 2018)

Beats & Pieces said:


> In short - no.



Every (human) space that exists everywhere is explicitly about political change/activism?


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 1, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Every (human) space that exists everywhere is explicitly about political change/activism?



It is about power. Politics is just one manifestation of power relations.


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 1, 2018)

Beats & Pieces said:


> It is about power. Politics is just one manifestation of power relations.



You’re reading into others statements what you believe they ‘ought’ to mean. If you had a different approach to language you’d get a lot more from conversations.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 1, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> You’re reading into others statements what you believe they ‘ought’ to mean. If you had a different approach to language you’d get a lot more from conversations.



If that is what you want to think, fine.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jan 1, 2018)

In the post I used 'non-political' just to mean a space where politics wasn't the subject of interest.  It's not a non-political space in the broader sense.


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 1, 2018)

Beats & Pieces said:


> If that is what you want to think, fine.



Alas, my optimism was also misplaced


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 1, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> In the post I used 'non-political' just to mean a space where politics wasn't the subject of interest.  It's not a non-political space in the broader sense.



That reads as being akin to walking in to a room with a self-imposed blindfold.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 1, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Alas, my optimism was also misplaced



I was being polite.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jan 1, 2018)

Beats & Pieces said:


> That reads as being akin to walking in to a room with a self-imposed blindfold.



Perhaps I should've phrased it better but thought it was clear what I meant, since I described it was a music group.  I wasn't making an argument that politics don't exist in that group, but that people don't join it specifically to discuss politics.


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 1, 2018)

Beats & Pieces said:


> I was being polite.



Well, we’ve all seen how you behave when you’re not thinking of your manners. It’s a positive.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> It's true, there are no non political spaces, and no non political stances.


Sure, in a cosmic sense. In a mundane sense most spaces aren't political.


----------



## J Ed (Jan 1, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Sure, in a cosmic sense. In a mundane sense most spaces aren't political.



Depends on how your political consciousness maps on to the world and your daily experience, doesn't it? I'm sure that you have met people who say they don't know about, or aren't into politics, but who offer a variety of opinions on various subjects in a way that you would be wrong if you said was anything other than political.


----------



## killer b (Jan 1, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Sure, in a cosmic sense. In a mundane sense most spaces aren't political.


Not in a cosmic sense. In a mundane, everyday way, all our interactions with other people are political. The idea that politics is somehow separate from everyday life is a deeply damaging one.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> Not in a cosmic sense. In a mundane, everyday way, all our interactions with other people are political. The idea that politics is somehow separate from everyday life is a deeply damaging one.


That's like saying everything is mathematics. Trivially true but deeply uninformative.


----------



## killer b (Jan 1, 2018)

It's nothing like that.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 1, 2018)

I might as well say everything is cultural, and subsume politics underneath that.


----------



## killer b (Jan 2, 2018)

TruXta said:


> I might as well say everything is cultural, and subsume politics underneath that.


I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. I'm not making some kind of abstract point: I think that there has been an (intentional?) tendency to exclude many places (the pub, the workplace, etc) from the sphere of politics - explicitly political conversations are discouraged for the sake of harmonious relations and the like, and more technical / theoretical conversations are avoided for fear of alienating or irritating people.

But this ignores that in these spaces, people have political conversations every day: they talk about the trains being late or too expensive, they talk about their groceries increasing in price week by week, they talk about how there's loads more people begging on the street in town than there was a few years ago, they talk about their kids being unable to get into a good school. They talk about how the muslims round their neighbourhood don't seem to want to integrate with the rest of the community, and how now there's only Polish grocers where there used to be hairdressers and hardware stores. 

These are the political conversations that matter most, and in the absence of us having conversations that link them to big-p Politics, the vacuum is filled with explanations culled from Daily Mail front pages, channel 5 misery porn documentaries and loudmouth right-wingers. 

There's no non-political spaces, and IMO pretending there are risks ceding those spaces to our enemies. Which doesn't mean we should lecture people about Marx over our morning coffee, but nor should we be avoiding discussing politics in our everyday lives, or confronting bullshit when we see it.


----------



## bemused (Jan 2, 2018)

killer b said:


> There's no non-political spaces, and IMO pretending there are risks ceding those spaces to our enemies. Which doesn't mean we should lecture people about Marx over our morning coffee, but nor should we be avoiding discussing politics in our everyday lives, or confronting bullshit when we see it.



I don't think its the conversation that people try to avoid it is the preachy angry know-it-all that appears like the shop keeper out of Mr Ben to make the conversation unpleasant enough so you avoid it in the future most try to avoid. We all know at least one of those.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 2, 2018)

killer b said:


> I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. I'm not making some kind of abstract point: I think that there has been an (intentional?) tendency to exclude many places (the pub, the workplace, etc) from the sphere of politics - explicitly political conversations are discouraged for the sake of harmonious relations and the like, and more technical / theoretical conversations are avoided for fear of alienating or irritating people.
> 
> But this ignores that in these spaces, people have political conversations every day: they talk about the trains being late or too expensive, they talk about their groceries increasing in price week by week, they talk about how there's loads more people begging on the street in town than there was a few years ago, they talk about their kids being unable to get into a good school. They talk about how the muslims round their neighbourhood don't seem to want to integrate with the rest of the community, and how now there's only Polish grocers where there used to be hairdressers and hardware stores.
> 
> ...


Fair enough.


----------



## killer b (Jan 2, 2018)

bemused said:


> I don't think its the conversation that people try to avoid it is the preachy angry know-it-all that appears like the shop keeper out of Mr Ben to make the conversation unpleasant enough so you avoid it in the future most try to avoid. We all know at least one of those.


Well, yes. Which is why we shouldn't 


killer b said:


> lecture people about Marx over our morning coffee


----------



## bemused (Jan 2, 2018)

killer b said:


> lecture people about Marx over our morning coffee



I wouldn't mind that at the moment, I'm looking for a 'Marx for numpties' book to read to understand it a bit better.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jan 2, 2018)

Lectures about Marx really are best left till that 2pm-4pm slump when everyone's tired and suggestible and hates their job more than at any other time of day (except the hour before arriving there in the morning)


----------



## TruXta (Jan 2, 2018)

killer b said:


> I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. I'm not making some kind of abstract point: I think that there has been an (intentional?) tendency to exclude many places (the pub, the workplace, etc) from the sphere of politics - explicitly political conversations are discouraged for the sake of harmonious relations and the like, and more technical / theoretical conversations are avoided for fear of alienating or irritating people.
> 
> But this ignores that in these spaces, people have political conversations every day: they talk about the trains being late or too expensive, they talk about their groceries increasing in price week by week, they talk about how there's loads more people begging on the street in town than there was a few years ago, they talk about their kids being unable to get into a good school. They talk about how the muslims round their neighbourhood don't seem to want to integrate with the rest of the community, and how now there's only Polish grocers where there used to be hairdressers and hardware stores.
> 
> ...


That said I think when you wrote earlier that all our interactions are political, that's where I think back the fuck up a bit. Maybe you didn't mean to be absolutist but it came across that way. Which is why I countered that everything is cultural, and politics and class are merely cultural  subsets.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 2, 2018)

bemused said:


> I wouldn't mind that at the moment, I'm looking for a 'Marx for numpties' book to read to understand it a bit better.


Manifesto of the Communist Party


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 2, 2018)

killer b said:


> I think you're misunderstanding what I'm trying to say. I'm not making some kind of abstract point: I think that there has been an (intentional?) tendency to exclude many places (the pub, the workplace, etc) from the sphere of politics - explicitly political conversations are discouraged for the sake of harmonious relations and the like, and more technical / theoretical conversations are avoided for fear of alienating or irritating people.
> 
> But this ignores that in these spaces, people have political conversations every day: they talk about the trains being late or too expensive, they talk about their groceries increasing in price week by week, they talk about how there's loads more people begging on the street in town than there was a few years ago, they talk about their kids being unable to get into a good school. They talk about how the muslims round their neighbourhood don't seem to want to integrate with the rest of the community, and how now there's only Polish grocers where there used to be hairdressers and hardware stores.
> 
> ...



This is precisely the point. It is all too easy to allow for the primacy of macro-narratives, which tend to work towards promulgating a sense of failure, rejection, or conservative stasis ('we can't change anything anyway'). By encouraging an attention to the micro level (daily lived experiences) points of resistance can be identified that are within reach and against which organisation is possible.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 2, 2018)

TruXta said:


> That said I think when you wrote earlier that all our interactions are political, that's where I think back the fuck up a bit. Maybe you didn't mean to be absolutist but it came across that way. Which is why I countered that everything is cultural, and politics and class are merely cultural  subsets.



By cultural do you mean 'socially constructed and historically determined'?


----------



## TruXta (Jan 2, 2018)

Beats & Pieces said:


> By cultural do you mean 'socially constructed and historically determined'?


Of course not, I mean the earthly manifestation of eternal types.


----------



## killer b (Jan 2, 2018)

Are you giving us an object lesson in the kind of language we should avoid using if we want to talk about politics without people making the wanker sign at us after we leave the room, Beats & Pieces ?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2018)

bemused said:


> I don't think its the conversation that people try to avoid it is the preachy angry know-it-all that appears like the shop keeper out of Mr Ben to make the conversation unpleasant enough so you avoid it in the future most try to avoid. We all know at least one of those.



We are on Urban. So we know many more than 'one'


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 3, 2018)

killer b said:


> Are you giving us an object lesson in the kind of language we should avoid using if we want to talk about politics without people making the wanker sign at us after we leave the room, Beats & Pieces ?



I'm not the Marxist here, so no.


----------



## hipipol (Jan 4, 2018)

This "everything is politics" closely maps the "everything is religion" model that has served humans so well down the millennia. The point about politics surely is not that everyone has opinions but that those opinions are gathered, some cracks papered over in the first flush no doubt, in some sort of joint struggle/movement? Whingeing about trains is, for a commuter, much like discussing the weather, not a call to action, merely an observation of lifes randomness


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 6, 2018)

I dont care about my idendity  Well ok somtimes I do ... when sombody imposes one thats incorrect . But really ... fuck em innit . You`ll get used to it


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jan 6, 2018)

I promised myself I wouldn't put any more twitter nonsense in here but had to smile when I saw this one.  I was scanning the list of worthwhile topics just hoping for a passing mention of poverty or something.  They've got animals in there, the planet, women... nothing for poor people?  They mean well and haven't said anything bad _per se_ it's just economic inequality isn't on the radar.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jan 6, 2018)

Does academic necessarily mean 'smart' anyway?


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jan 6, 2018)

seventh bullet said:


> Does academic necessarily mean 'smart' anyway?



Exactly, that was the other bit that annoyed me.  There are loads of liberal academics who are really smug about their beliefs because they believe they are rooted in being more intelligent or better-read.  They think if you don't agree you just aren't understanding properly or haven't read the right books.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jan 6, 2018)

It's not just 'liberal' academics, is it?  Those who consider themselves radical or revolutionary are still scratching their heads looking for a way in to the 'masses,' while consciously reproducing the conditions of their safe distance.  Tear that shit down.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jan 6, 2018)

seventh bullet said:


> It's not just 'liberal' academics, is it?  Those who consider themselves radical or revolutionary are still scratching their heads looking for a way in to the 'masses,' while consciously reproducing the conditions of their safe distance.  Tear that shit down.



Yes that is a fair point.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jan 6, 2018)

seventh bullet said:


> It's not just 'liberal' academics, is it?  Those who consider themselves radical or revolutionary are still scratching their heads looking for a way in to the 'masses,' while consciously reproducing the conditions of their safe distance.  Tear that shit down.



Or alternatively, they’re involved in ‘radical’ politics as a means to progress their academic career.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jan 6, 2018)

I am also thinking of those who still want to go further than that.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 7, 2018)

New Kenan Mailk piece. Not a lot new but a decent summary. 


> The discussion reveals how differently we imagine white and non-white populations. Whites are seen as divided by class, non-whites as belonging to classless communities. It’s a perspective that ignores social divisions within minority groups while also racialising class distinctions


----------



## bimble (Jan 7, 2018)

Kenan Malik today, spot on and refusing easy answers as usual 
In British education, the central issue is class, not ethnicity | Kenan Malik


----------



## bimble (Jan 7, 2018)

aw snap


----------



## chilango (Jan 7, 2018)

Intelligence is just a reflection/product of the values of the ruling class anyway.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 7, 2018)

chilango said:


> Intelligence is just a reflection/product of the values of the ruling class anyway.


How do you figure that? Do you mean intelligence as defined by psychometric tests?


----------



## chilango (Jan 7, 2018)

Yep.

That.

But, also intelligence as a culturally determined value (a la Gardner and his multiple intelligences) too.

I’m being slightly flippant. But only slightly.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 7, 2018)

TruXta said:


> How do you figure that? Do you mean intelligence as defined by psychometric tests?


What "counts" as intelligence is culturally defined by the dominant class (without necessarily knowing it).

When I was an undergraduate, we were set loose on local preschool children to do a vocabulary comprehension test in which a word was read to the child, and the child was then invited to indicate which of four pictures best represented the word. I carried out the test with kids from the Raploch area of Stirling, and they all failed one word: "Greet". Because in one of the four possible pictures there was a sad face. The "correct" picture was two people shaking hands.  No Middle Class kids from SE England would misidentify that, but all working class Scots kids know that 'greeting' means 'crying'.  These tests are riven with such class ethnocentrism.  I pointed out the blind spot in the test, but the lecturer didn't take me seriously.


----------



## bimble (Jan 7, 2018)

I sat an IQ test as a kid and some of the questions were ‘what’s missing from this picture’ . The test presumed that every child would know that a mans tribly hat should have a band round it. Why I still remember this I’ve no idea, probably because I’d never seen such a hat in my life. Absurd.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 7, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> What "counts" as intelligence is culturally defined by the dominant class (without necessarily knowing it).
> 
> When I was an undergraduate, we were set loose on local preschool children to do a vocabulary comprehension test in which a word was read to the child, and the child was then invited to indicate which of four pictures best represented the word. I carried out the test with kids from the Raploch area of Stirling, and they all failed one word: "Greet". Because in one of the four possible pictures there was a sad face. The "correct" picture was two people shaking hands.  No Middle Class kids from SE England would misidentify that, but all working class Scots kids know that 'greeting' means 'crying'.  These tests are riven with such class ethnocentrism.  I pointed out the blind spot in the test, but the lecturer didn't take me seriously.


Sure, but then you're talking about the modern, scientific concept of intelligence - IQ. I happen to think that is a bogus theory.

Intelligence in a wider sense I'm not sure is always and everywhere defined by the dominant class.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jan 7, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Sure, but then you're talking about the modern, scientific concept of intelligence - IQ. I happen to think that is a bogus theory.
> 
> Intelligence in a wider sense I'm not sure is always and everywhere defined by the dominant class.



If, as suggested, the 'cultural construction' by a dominant class is true, where are the spaces for resistance?


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 7, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Sure, but then you're talking about the modern, scientific concept of intelligence - IQ. I happen to think that is a bogus theory.
> 
> Intelligence in a wider sense I'm not sure is always and everywhere defined by the dominant class.


There's two parts to this: yes, I agree IQ is bogus. That's a specific issue. 

But a wider issue is to do with cultural capital and the unknowingly-made assumptions of the class that gets to define intelligence in the wider sense. (Surely _everyone_ knows the opening line of Ozymandias?).

I've been trying to remember the name of the study that showed white middle class psychiatrists were seeing loud and "agressive" domino playing as a symptom of (as I remember) schizophrenia, whereas the people concerned were West Indian men, in whose culture dominos is always played that way!


----------



## chilango (Jan 7, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Sure, but then you're talking about the modern, scientific concept of intelligence - IQ. I happen to think that is a bogus theory.
> 
> Intelligence in a wider sense I'm not sure is always and everywhere defined by the dominant class.



What do you mean by “intelligence in a wider sense”?


----------



## TruXta (Jan 7, 2018)

chilango said:


> What do you mean by “intelligence in a wider sense”?


I'll get back to you after dinner and bedtime for the little one...


----------



## TruXta (Jan 7, 2018)

chilango said:


> What do you mean by “intelligence in a wider sense”?


Right, snatching an opportunity while the wee bairn is having a bath.

The way I see it, intelligence in the wider sense is broadly twofold. 

First there's what Danny's talking about above - knowledge about cultural domains, like how to wear a hat, or what the difference between a fish and other creatures are. This is always going to be bound and shaped by class and other structural factors.

Secondly, there's what you can call domain-independent mental abilities. Things like how good your working memory is, your ability to learn (what Bateson called second order learning), solving spatial problems, and so on.

In my view, intelligence in a wider sense is the combination of these things.

Does that make sense to you?


----------



## bimble (Jan 8, 2018)

I think the first bunch of stuff there (cultural learning about fish / hats) has nothing to do with intelligence tbh, think its a separate thing. Unless you feel that someone who doesn't know which cutlery to use at a fancy dinner must be a bit thick.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 8, 2018)

bimble said:


> I think the first bunch of stuff there (cultural learning about fish / hats) has nothing to do with intelligence tbh, think its a separate thing. Unless you feel that someone who doesn't know which cutlery to use at a fancy dinner must be a bit thick.


Well, it's perhaps a question for another thread, but there's a huge debate about what intelligence actually is, and the consensus is that it is (or includes) many things.  The kind of thing you and I were discussing - whether a hat should have a hat band or not - perhaps comes under *explicit knowledge*, which is _the information people have and access about specific life situation_s _which can be readily articulated and passed on_.  The question here is, who defines that?


----------



## kabbes (Jan 8, 2018)

Whilst it’s tempting to just dismiss crystallised intelligence as not “real” intelligence, I’m not sure things are that straightforward.  The more you know, the more tools you have to work with in tackling other problems.  The boundaries are fuzzy at best.  But, in turn, that means the cultural decisions about what is important to know are tremendously important.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 8, 2018)

kabbes said:


> Whilst it’s tempting to just dismiss crystallised intelligence as not “real” intelligence, I’m not sure things are that straightforward.  The more you know, the more tools you have to work with in tackling other problems.  The boundaries are fuzzy at best.  But, in turn, that means the cultural decisions about what is important to know are tremendously important.


And there's a continuum to consider. We might excuse people not knowing where to place a fish fork on the table (to use bimble's example), but I think most people would wonder about the other cognitive abilities of a 35-year-old who doesn't know whether to use a fork or a spoon to eat soup.

What about a 35-year-old who can't make a cup of tea? Boil an egg? Identify a spatula? Etc.

But this is all really the territory of another thread.


----------



## TruXta (Jan 8, 2018)

Where's the onanist when you need him?


----------



## bimble (Jan 8, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> What about a 35-year-old who can't make a cup of tea? Boil an egg? Identify a spatula? Etc.
> 
> But this is all really the territory of another thread.



You make it sound like I should be ashamed of the fact that just last week I looked up the recipe for boiled eggs in a book.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 8, 2018)

"First, lay your egg."


----------



## mojo pixy (Jan 8, 2018)

kabbes said:


> "First, lay your egg."



First, create the universe...


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 8, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> First, create the universe...


Then decide: chicken or ...


----------



## seventh bullet (Jan 8, 2018)

I'm 36 and plain shit at cooking generally.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jan 8, 2018)

I love eating nice food made by other people though.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 8, 2018)

seventh bullet said:


> I'm 36 and plain shit at cooking generally.


Sure, but we have culturally defined expectations of what level of culinary competence is the acceptable range for an intelligent adult. And it is those cultural expectations that can be influenced by the class of those doing any measuring. 

I am friends with a couple who invite us for meals from time to time. The wife always mentions if it's her husband cooking, because she knows people will be more likely to come. But she is perfectly capable of making tea or coffee if you call round in the afternoon say. And I think it is a social expectation, certainly in my culture, to offer visitors a cup of tea. Inability to afford that would be a measure of poverty. Inability to perform that would be a measure of general competence. 

But what are the cultural expectations of academics who might be devising scales of competence? Are they the same as mine? Yours? Or do they in fact have different expectations that they may not even be aware are different?

NB: this is interesting but way off topic now.


----------



## seventh bullet (Jan 8, 2018)

I was being flippant.  I agree with your earlier posts. 

I also don't need the lesson on how middle class people define the likes of me.

I'm off now to get a Pot Noodle.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 9, 2018)

It is an often dispiriting reality that the elite think they are correct because they went to university, whilst in reality, they simply sneer at the prols because they are poor, and do so because they have been conditioned by the university out of sub-conscious tribalism.

Even more dispiriting is the `house prole` who will pander to the elite in the hope of entering the kingdom of the middle classes but are usually used as a doll of authenticity within their guilt culture.

This I have seen with my bleeding eyes over and over again within the radical culture in the western enclaves. It divides groups and stops action if it is not addressed - which is what I am accused of every time I bring this up.

You cant win the class war with your big words.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jan 9, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> It is an often dispiriting reality that the elite think they are correct because they went to university, whilst in reality, they simply sneer at the prols because they are poor, and do so because they have been conditioned by the university out of sub-conscious tribalism.
> 
> Even more dispiriting is the `house prole` who will pander to the elite in the hope of entering the kingdom of the middle classes but are usually used as a doll of authenticity within their guilt culture.
> 
> ...



This is true as working class people are often sceptical about people who bamboozle them with language that doesn’t mean anything to them but I’d argue that the class shouldn’t be discouraged from further educating themselves just because the middle class occupy that territory.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 9, 2018)

Agreed 100%
<- self-educated working class (ok i went to college to do sound engineering but thats it)

The statement about big words was suggesting that the university educated are batting for the wrong team unless they burn these class prejudices, as almost every working class activist has already done.

edit-
I do find a lot of this language unnecessary for debate and possibly is reminiscent of the use of Latin in the courts and slang by the youth/oppresed - that is deliberately exluding.


----------



## emanymton (Jan 9, 2018)

Carrie Gracie: BBC offered £45k rise but I wanted equality

She was offered a rise more than twice my annual salary. But as I am a man I'm the one who is privileged?


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 9, 2018)

emanymton said:


> Carrie Gracie: BBC offered £45k rise but I wanted equality
> 
> She was offered a rise more than twice my annual salary. But as I am a man I'm the one who is privileged?



Comments like this are like, silencing


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jan 9, 2018)

emanymton said:


> Carrie Gracie: BBC offered £45k rise but I wanted equality
> 
> She was offered a rise more than twice my annual salary. But as I am a man I'm the one who is privileged?


 Well Not unless you are one of the men doing the same job for the BBC earning 50% more - who is saying you are priveleged? Are you feeling hard done by? over 70% of the people in the world earn less than $10 day.  Or is just that you don't you like it when you hear about women earning more than you?

It is 47 years since the equal pay act, yet *illegal* pay inequality is still not uncommon, and on the whole parity in pay between men and women is is still rare. Carrie Gracie is in a privileged position in a world media role and has given up her own well paid job in order to bring this issue to public attention. I was on barely above min in my last job with no chance of tackling the pay gap I could see amongst my low paid co-workers. 



> In 2016, the UK gender pay gap was 9.4% for full-time workers, or 18.1% for all staff.


 Gender pay gap revealed at 500 UK firms

Explain that structural inequality by class analysis please. Or do you think the female strikers at Ford Dagenham just indulging in gender politics?


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jan 9, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Comments like this are like, silencing


like silencing? silencing who?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 10, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> Explain that structural inequality by class analysis please. Or do you think the female strikers at Ford Dagenham just indulging in gender politics?


Of course there is a class analysis. It is necessary for capital to exploit labour, and (in general) to attack wages and conditions. By dividing labour, by playing sections of the working class against each other, by using sexism, racism (see SpineyNorman's post earlier in the thread) etc it can sustain/increase that exploitation. At the same time the effects of the gains made by capital at the expense of labour are going to be most felt on those sections of labour that are already the weakest, sections where women and ethnic minorities are over-represented.

As for Carrie Gracie the idea that it's wrong to criticise the obscene levels of pay she and others at the BBC receive is nonsense, in fact Gracie herself mentioned that point.


> “I believe in public service broadcasting and I do think salaries at the top are unacceptably high both for presenters and stars of various kinds, and also for managers. But I don’t have the information to say this needs to happen … I do stand by what I say about the BBC being a secretive organisation on pay and I think it is very inappropriate,” she said



Nor is it wrong to criticise how the issue of the pay gaps often becomes about the unequal pay of the extremely well paid, about how women directors of FTSE100 (or BBC higher ups) are "underpaid", rather than the inequity at the other end of the scale that effects millions of women. And from this you have the suggestion, either implicit or explicit, that by paying women in these jobs equally obscene sums to their male counterparts the benefits will naturally just "trickle down".


----------



## Athos (Jan 10, 2018)

Also, it stimulates (by reducing the opportunity cost to women/families of) the unpaid maintenance and reproduction of labour and market essential to capital.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 10, 2018)

Very true.


----------



## chilango (Jan 10, 2018)

The biggest and most universal structural “pay gap” is - of course - around class.


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 10, 2018)

chilango said:


> The biggest and most universal structural “pay gap” is - of course - around class.


Is it? I'm not so sure, have you got any facts/figures/links to prove this? of people on min wage or less than the amount recommended by the living wage foundation how does that break down by gender? Seems to me most of the low paid jobs I see are done by women. Thats before you include the unpaid jobs of caring and child rearing.


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 10, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> Of course there is a class analysis. It is necessary for capital to exploit labour, and (in general) to attack wages and conditions. By dividing labour, by playing sections of the working class against each other, by using sexism, racism (see SpineyNorman's post earlier in the thread) etc it can sustain/increase that exploitation.


I see men everyday happy to collude in that division I don't know how else to read Emanyton's post ecept in that light.



emanymton said:


> Carrie Gracie: BBC offered £45k rise but I wanted equality
> She was offered a rise more than twice my annual salary. But as I am a man I'm the one who is privileged?



I'm not defending high levels of pay that wasn't my point.


----------



## chilango (Jan 10, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> Is it? I'm not so sure, have you got any facts/figures/links to prove this? of people on min wage or less than the amount recommended by the living wage foundation how does that break down by gender? Seems to me most of the low paid jobs I see are done by women. Thats before you include the unpaid jobs of caring and child rearing.



Of course it is. Workers earn less than managers who earn less than bosses. Always. 

!00% (or near enough to be statistically irrelevant) of people on min wage will be working class. Equally !00% (or near enough to be statistically irrelevant) of people on wages like Carrie Grace's won't be working class.

Of course within that you'll get additional inequalities based upon gender, upon race, upon age etc.

But that doesn't alter the basic (and obvious) point.


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## BigTom (Jan 10, 2018)

chilango said:


> Of course it is. Workers earn less than managers who earn less than bosses. Always.
> 
> !00% (or near enough to be statistically irrelevant) of people on min wage will be working class. Equally !00% (or near enough to be statistically irrelevant) of people on wages like Carrie Grace's won't be working class.
> 
> ...



yep, eg: UK bosses make more in two and a half days than workers earn all year
Ave. FTSE 100 CEO earns in 3 days more than the average UK worker does in a year (£28k, and that average wage is quite high as it's mean, not median. Dunno what the median is at the moment, couple of years ago was aruond £21k in Birmingham, when the UK mean average was £26k)


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## Gramsci (Jan 10, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> Is it? I'm not so sure, have you got any facts/figures/links to prove this? of people on min wage or less than the amount recommended by the living wage foundation how does that break down by gender? Seems to me most of the low paid jobs I see are done by women. Thats before you include the unpaid jobs of caring and child rearing.



As we are both London based I see where you are coming from. Care work for elderly, working with young children ( my immigrant partner), cleaning offices, nannies for the well off middle class are all predominantly jobs done by women. Often immigrant from other EU countries and South America ( from what I have seen).

So in London domestic work and care work , poorly paid, by mainly female workforce who are often immigrants is the norm.

Also I agree there is an issue of unpaid labour that reproduces the workforce for Capitalism. Mainly done by women.

From my reading of Marx he concentrated on the ( male) growing industrial proletariat based in factories. Doesn't devalue his work but does mean it's not be whole story.


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## Ralph Llama (Jan 10, 2018)

chilango said:


> The biggest and most universal structural “pay gap” is - of course - around class.



Shurley it would be between the highest paid upper class man and the unpaid working class mother? Both sex and class basically.


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## Gramsci (Jan 10, 2018)

On identity politics. I m in Brixton. I do notice a generational change. My friend who helps out in his brother shop , a postie , whose parents came from Carribbean is in his 50s. When we chat about the state of the country I notice he puts race and class together. Some of my younger Afro Carribbean acquaintances are into "White  Supremacy" as a way to analyse how society works along with self help pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps. A way of thinking about that fits in with Thatcherism. That is identity politics. Class is dismissed as a category. It's all about colour. Class is not the issue as it's , in theory , something one can "overcome" if one tries hard enough. 

So there is a difference between different generations in afro Carribbean community. That reminds me of what Kenin Malik says in article posted up by bimble


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 12, 2018)

Gramsci said:


> As we are both London based I see where you are coming from. Care work for elderly, working with young children ( my immigrant partner), cleaning offices, nannies for the well off middle class are all predominantly jobs done by women. Often immigrant from other EU countries and South America ( from what I have seen).
> 
> So in London domestic work and care work , poorly paid, by mainly female workforce who are often immigrants is the norm.
> 
> ...


 Thank you I appreciate your support. 

Inequality on gender lines is alive and well. In the low paid care home were I used to work 90% of the workforce was female. 80%ish of the workforce were immigrants. I was furious when I discovered a man doing traditionally male unskilled role was paid more than the cleaners/laundry/receptists who were all on or barely above minimum wage, regardless of how long they had worked there, but was told point blank this wasn't an issue under the equal pay act, and as most of my co-workers weren't union members even my union said there was nothing I could do.

What can be done about it? I don't find the sniping I read on here very helpful, where is the solidarity? Divide and rule seems to be working very well as far as I can see, even here on urban.


----------



## andysays (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> Thank you I appreciate your support.
> 
> Inequality on gender lines is alive and well. In the low paid care home were I used to work 90% of the workforce was female. 80%ish of the workforce were immigrants. I was furious when I discovered a man doing traditionally male unskilled role was paid more than the cleaners/laundry/receptists who were all on or barely above minimum wage, regardless of how long they had worked there, but was told point blank this wasn't an issue under the equal pay act, and as most of my co-workers weren't union members even my union said there was nothing I could do.
> 
> What can be done about it? I don't find the sniping I read on here very helpful, where is the solidarity? Divide and rule seems to be working very well as far as I can see, even here on urban.


It might be interesting to know what this 'traditionally male unskilled role' was, also whether the man you're talking about was in a union.
As for what is to be done, one thing might be to encourage your fellow workers, most of whom you say weren't in a union, to join one and fight collectively for better pay.


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 13, 2018)

andysays said:


> It might be interesting to know what this 'traditionally male unskilled role' was, also whether the man you're talking about was in a union.
> As for what is to be done, one thing might be to encourage your fellow workers, most of whom you say weren't in a union, to join one and fight collectively for better pay.


I don't want to give any identifying details on an open forum but pm me if you are interested. 

Re unions I didn't personally have the energy / knowledge / background / support / any idea how to encourage others to join a union (I don't know anything about the union and hadn't met any other union members). Whenever I did mention unions in conversation it was a big conversation killer/ automatic 'no' / 'I don't understand'/ 'I can't afford it' from most of my old co workers. There is a level of fear about losing their job or being identified as a trouble maker.   This is why employers can get away with paying min wage in the first place. I understand why my co-workers didn't want to create a fuss - especially the women, the ones with dependants, who had poor english skills, working extra shifts just to survive, these people had no time or energy to fight. Those who did have time or energy, studied and got new jobs.

Even if we were all unionised and united, this wasn't a profit making organisation. It was in the care sector where there are rising costs and lower fees from local govt and lots of home and services are going broke and closing. Perhaps it would be better for all union member to lobby govt to raise social care budgets  - or to significately raise the national min wage? Or do unions only care for their own members? I don't see how gender inequality in levels of pay is a problem solely for underpaid women to solve.  For example what are you / other men / union members doing about it? 

It took me 2 years of searching but thank fuck I found a new and better paid job (above london living wage, hoorah!). I don't approve of the high levels of pay in the BBC but I'm glad a woman with some media clout has finally put this back on the public agenda.


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## krtek a houby (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I don't approve of the high levels of pay in the BBC but I'm glad a woman with some media clout has finally put this back on the public agenda.



Just to say; there are thousands of workers in the BBC (union members and otherwise) who do not earn big wages. I'm talking about drivers, canteen staff, librarians, IT, those who aren't management, deliveries staff and so on. The disparity between them and the "talent" and upper echelons is massive.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> do you think the female strikers at Ford Dagenham just indulging in gender politics?


It seems to me that you've spent the last few posts under the impression there are people here denying that there's gender inequality or gender oppression. I don't think anyone here is.

For me there is no equivalence between Dagenham and Carrie Gracie.  When ultra-high paid BBC presenters get a level footing with each other, I don't think the Nike store cleaners should rejoice that finally rich people are no longer oppressed.  It is not going to trickle down to cleaners and other low paid women.

For me, gender oppression is a corollary of class oppression; it is in the interests of capital that men and women should be at odds.  Devaluing women's work is a function of devaluing the role still attributed to women in the home.  Capital does not want to pay for reproductive labour.  That's why jobs women are over-represented in (cleaning, care-giving etc) are low-paid: capitalism wants them to be seen as low-value.  This used to be a mainstream feminist perspective.  

Draper/Lipow: Marxist Women vs. Bourgeois Feminism (1976)

I am a woman and a human: a Marxist feminist critique of intersectionality theory - Eve Mitchell


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## danny la rouge (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I don't find the sniping I read on here very helpful, where is the solidarity?


It would be useful to the discussion if you could give an example or two of what you see as sniping and lack of solidarity that is happening on this thread (or Urban in general).


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## butchersapron (Jan 13, 2018)

What's been put on the public agenda is that a privately schooled oxbridge universitied daughter of (imperial) privilege is now a stand in, a cipher, for all women. And if you disagree that this should be the case then you're anti-women and anti-equality - when it should actually be an open door for asking just what equality means.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 13, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> What's been put on the public agenda is that a privately schooled oxbridge universitied daughter of (imperial) privilege is now a stand in, a cipher, for all women. And if you disagree that this should be the case then you're anti-women and anti-equality - when it should actually be an open door for asking just what equality means.


Succinctly put.  Indeed.


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 13, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> It seems to me that you've spent the last few posts under the impression there are people here denying that there's gender inequality or gender oppression. I don't think anyone here is.





danny la rouge said:


> It would be useful to the discussion if you could give an example or two of what you see as sniping and lack of solidarity that is happening on this thread (or Urban in general).



My posts were in reply to this bit of carping:


emanymton said:


> Carrie Gracie: BBC offered £45k rise but I wanted equality
> 
> She was offered a rise more than twice my annual salary. *But as I am a man I'm the one who is privileged?*



As I said:


friendofdorothy said:


> I see men everyday happy to collude in that division I don't know how else to read Emanyton's post except in that light.
> I'm not defending high levels of pay that wasn't my point.






danny la rouge said:


> ... It is not going to trickle down to cleaners and other low paid women.
> 
> For me, gender oppression is a corollary of class oppression; it is in the interests of capital that men and women should be at odds.  Devaluing women's work is a function of devaluing the role still attributed to women in the home.  Capital does not want to pay for reproductive labour.  That's why jobs women are over-represented in (cleaning, care-giving etc) are low-paid: capitalism wants them to be seen as low-value.  This used to be a mainstream feminist perspective.


 Yes. I don't want to defend 'identity politics' (which is still not a phrase I've heard outside in real life), but do you think that feminist perspective was reached by a group of men? 
Yes difference in pay between me and any BBC journalist is massive, but to be quite honest right now I'm more upset about the difference in pay between low paid men and women in my last job. For you it can be a 'corollary of class oppression' for me it was about a £1 less an hour on my wages. I was fucking furious about that.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I was fucking furious about that.


And rightly so.  But with whom?


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jan 13, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> What's been put on the public agenda is that a privately schooled oxbridge universitied daughter of (imperial) privilege is now a stand in, a cipher, for all women. And if you disagree that this should be the case then you're anti-women and anti-equality - when it should actually be an open door for asking just what equality means.


No she was raising an issue of *illegal *pay inequality. That applies to women on £7.50 and hour as well. Its already illegal and has been since 1972 and it *still* fucking exists. No ciphers.


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 13, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> And rightly so.  But with whom?


with my previous employers / management /HR. I tried hard not to be furious with the individual man involved even though he was very annoying.

I ultimately expressed myself by seeking a new job. Not an option for everyone.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> with my previous employers / management /HR.


Exactly. And that's precisely the point.


----------



## andysays (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I don't want to give any identifying details on an open forum but pm me if you are interested.
> 
> Re unions I didn't personally have the energy / knowledge / background / support / any idea how to encourage others to join a union (I don't know anything about the union and hadn't met any other union members). Whenever I did mention unions in conversation it was a big conversation killer/ automatic 'no' / 'I don't understand'/ 'I can't afford it' from most of my old co workers. There is a level of fear about losing their job or being identified as a trouble maker.   This is why employers can get away with paying min wage in the first place. I understand why my co-workers didn't want to create a fuss - especially the women, the ones with dependants, who had poor english skills, working extra shifts just to survive, these people had no time or energy to fight. Those who did have time or energy, studied and got new jobs.
> 
> ...


I'm interested in having a useful and open discussion, but if you're not willing to give even the most basic info about the situation you're describing, that's not easy to achieve.
I've attempted to answer your question about what you/the women you worked with might do. I can understand you as an individual not having the time and energy to put into attempting a collective solution and turning instead to an individual one which benefits you, but it seems a bit rich to then ask what I and other men are doing about it.
Women's equal pay certainly isn't just women's responsibility to fight for, but neither is it just men's. You can't justifiably criticise men for (supposedly) failing to fight for something you've effectively admitted you've given up fighting for yourself.


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## butchersapron (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> No she was raising an issue of *illegal *pay inequality. That applies to women on £7.50 and hour as well. Its already illegal and has been since 1972 and it *still* fucking exists. No ciphers.


What she was doing and what it has become and how it has been used may well be two different things. The well off elite applauding her and applying it to their own relatively less well off situation is different from say how it relates to min wage care worker who sees it and shrugs because all this means to them is an intra-elite dispute with no real life impact beyond how those elites package themselves.


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## butchersapron (Jan 13, 2018)

Let's ask multi-millionaire actors - themselves disproportionately from elite backgrounds what they think about elite level inequality. _Oh it's a very bad thing, it's shocking in this day and age, i'm all for equality. But not actual equality._


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 13, 2018)

andysays said:


> I'm interested in having a useful and open discussion, but if you're not willing to give even the most basic info about the situation you're describing, that's not easy to achieve.
> I've attempted to answer your question about what you/the women you worked with might do. I can understand you as an individual not having the time and energy to put into attempting a collective solution and turning instead to an individual one which benefits you, but it seems a bit rich to then ask what I and other men are doing about it.


I think we are having a useful and open discussion, no need to get too personal. I've probably given too much info already as this is a public forum as I said if you are interested more identifing info p m me.  Let me make a similar more general point should road sweepers be paid more than cleaners? should maintence workers  be paid more that admin workers? To my employers HR I quoted the case of council 'dinner ladies' winning cases that depended on women doing trad womens jobs and men being paid more for similar skill level  but trad mens jobs eg Dinner ladies awarded pounds 1m over council's unfair pay cut Dinner ladies win equal pay row  My union advised that I question how my employers evaluate different rates of pay for various roles - which I've done.

Was my suggestion really a bit rich?


friendofdorothy said:


> Perhaps it would be better for all union member to lobby govt to raise social care budgets - or to significately raise the national min wage? Or do unions only care for their own members? I don't see how gender inequality in levels of pay is a problem solely for underpaid women to solve. For example what are you / other men / union members doing about it?


I thought my idea was a far more effective way of tackling low pay for everyone, especially women for example. After all you were telling me and the underpaid women what we could do I thought I'd turn it around, what everyone else could do. It is literally an appeal to all of you to raise it in your unions or write to your MPs etc. 



andysays said:


> You can't justifiably criticise men for (supposedly) failing to fight for something you've effectively admitted you've given up fighting for yourself.


 I can't? And for the record I haven't given up the fight for equal pay in general or higher wages for all - I'm doing the things I urge you all to do. 

If we are on the same side and solidarity of the workers is a good thing, why are we arguing?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> No she was raising an issue of *illegal *pay inequality. That applies to women on £7.50 and hour as well. Its already illegal and has been since 1972 and it *still* fucking exists. No ciphers.


But that doesn't contradict BAs point. Look at how this whole story on the BBC pay _for those paid over £150,000_ has been reported, it's not about the _pay gap_ but about the _unequal pay_ of the, very, highly paid.

For a start the very fact that only the pay for the high paid was published tells us much. Then there's the way that a lot of the reporting on the story is not talking about the pay gaps, those based on gender and on class, but instead about equal pay. And then you have the proposed method, whether implicit or explicit, of talking this inequality - raise the pay of these very well off women to the same levels of men and the results will magically trickle down. And of course it is _raises_ that are being suggested, not that equality is brought about by pay cuts to the wealthy.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jan 13, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> But that doesn't contradict BAs point. Look at how this whole story on the BBC pay _for those paid over £150,000_ has been reported, it's not about the _pay gap_ but about the _unequal pay_ of the, very, highly paid.
> 
> For a start the very fact that only the pay for the high paid was published tells us much. Then there's the way that a lot of the reporting on the story is not talking about the pay gaps, those based on gender and on class, but instead about equal pay. And then you have the proposed method, whether implicit or explicit, of talking this inequality - raise the pay of these very well off women to the same levels of men and the results will magically trickle down. And of course it is _raises_ that are being suggested, not that equality is brought about by pay cuts to the wealthy.


I think I can disagree with Mr Apron about being told what my view is and that it's 'anti-women and anti-equality'. 

It was you brought up the idea of 'trickle down'. Revolting tory phrase that, I've never used it and I can't imagine how you ever thought I was implying it.  Posters here seem to be reading all sorts into my posts. I suggest you re read them.  I'm beginning to feel like you are all trying to have a different discussion than the one I'm trying to have.

In my post #1499 I pointed to the huge inequality in pay here and pay of the poorest worldwide. I quoted other figures about the pay gap at the lower end of the pay scale, but no posters have addressed this yet. 



friendofdorothy said:


> snip>..- who is saying you are priveleged? Are you feeling hard done by? over 70% of the people in the world earn less than $10 day.  Or is just that you don't you like it when you hear about women earning more than you?
> 
> It is 47 years since the equal pay act, yet *illegal* pay inequality is still not uncommon, and on the whole parity in pay between men and women is is still rare.  ... <snip>
> 
> ...


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 13, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I think I can disagree with Mr Apron about being told what my view is and that it's 'anti-women and anti-equality'.
> 
> It was you brought up the idea of 'trickle down'. Revolting tory phrase that, I've never used it and I can't imagine how you ever thought I was implying it.  Posters here seem to be reading all sorts into my posts. I suggest you re read them.  I'm beginning to feel like you are all trying to have a different discussion than the one I'm trying to have.
> 
> In my post #1499 I pointed to the huge inequality in pay here and pay of the poorest worldwide. I quoted other figures about the pay gap at the lower end of the pay scale, but no posters have addressed this yet.


Hang on, Butchers never told you what your view was nor argued that it was 'anti-women and anti-equality'. I've never stated or implied that you were arguing that the gap will be solved by trickle down. I did explain the structural inequality by a class analysis though, to which Athos added to. If anybody needs to re-read posts I think its you.

EDIT: Both myself and BA are talking about how a large section of the media, the establishment make such arguments under the framework of identity politics.


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## seventh bullet (Jan 13, 2018)

Nobody has implied that about you. They've been talking about how it is being presented in the media.

So, men here have been critical of the above because they don't like women making more money than them?  Can you back that up or is it just a smear?


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 13, 2018)

seventh bullet said:


> Nobody has implied that about you. They've been talking about how it is being presented in the media.
> 
> So, men here have been critical of the above because they don't like women making more money than them?  Can you back that up or is it just a smear?



It was a clearly a question I asked of emanymton in reply to his original whinge. Not a general 'smear'


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## DotCommunist (Jan 13, 2018)

Someone on here did a good one on this. Wheres my #metoo. Plenty of late justice of a kind and opprobrium being visited on those high profile men now by high profile women, but wheres my* #metoo. Where's most womens moment of wider societal acknowledgement and consequences regarding how they've been been mistreated in the past at work and in wider society. I know I'm crossing two different things here but the point is similar I think. The endemic being addressed at the top, for the top, by the top. And even then... the backlash has been quick enough.

So where is the solidarity for women workers-for all workers tbf- at the low end represented by these movements towards equity in pay at the highest end?

*not literally me, I'm not a woman nor have I been sexually harassed in the workplace.


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 18, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> Someone on here did a good one on this. Wheres my #metoo.
> <snip>
> *not literally me, I'm not a woman nor have I been sexually harassed in the workplace.


Am I the only one to not follow Dottys point? what are you saying - 'you too' but that you've not sexually harrassed?  that you want to express solidarity with the sexually harrassed? I'm baffled. What are you on about?


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## DotCommunist (Jan 18, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> Am I the only one to not follow Dottys point? what are you saying - 'you too' but that you've not sexually harrassed?  that you want to express solidarity with the sexually harrassed? I'm baffled. What are you on about?


no that * bit was me clarifying I wasn't talking about me, I was mentioning a line of thought someone had expressed that seemed similar to the discussion.


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## friendofdorothy (Jan 18, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> no that * bit was me clarifying I wasn't talking about me, I was mentioning a line of thought someone had expressed that seemed similar to the discussion.


? still no idea of any of what you were on about. 
I was trying and failing to get any solidarity for being illegally underpaid, under the equal pay act. You too?


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## DotCommunist (Jan 18, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> ? still no idea of any of what you were on about.
> I was trying and failing to get any solidarity for being illegally underpaid, under the equal pay act. You too?



what I was trying to point out was that the post about metoo from another poster (and another thread) did strike me as similar to people pointing out that the BBC pay row is the very wealthy equalizing. Does that make sense? The wealthy addressing wage inequality and past sexual abuse by powerful men in the workplace, between their own industries and class (look at how the westminster stuff went very 'in house' very quickly. Ranks closing etc) and you have to wonder 'and what about the rest of us'. Not denigrating wage equality organisation at all, my point was that I saw the frustration as similar. A passing thought anyway...


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## Ralph Llama (Jan 19, 2018)

Solidarity is so 90`s yea . Fu*king commies (irony).

Erm, the problem with unbalanced intellectuals is they lose the plot all the time, getting caught up in narrow bands of analysis(single issue politics). Yes you have your figures for class, but you can`t just blinker yourself with those figures. We all know that slavery is alive and well in the UK, and maybe if you can factor in unpaid work (mainly done by women) the outcome would be different ?? Actually, there is no maybe about it! And it`s not just unpaid mothers and slaves, there now is a big exploitation culture around the disabled (gives them something to do innit- welcome to Tescos) and unemployed.
If you drop the borders and take a look at the planet as a whole(you know..the reality outside of the system)... whose privileged?
As for the post by emanymton; I wouldn`t credit it with analysis.

Maybe we had solidarity in the 90`s because our synapses were swimming in MDMA. Maybe we need some more MDMA.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 19, 2018)

Ralph Llama Your contributions to this thread have been impossible to reply to because I can't tell what  you're responding to, or whether you're responding to anything at all. They seem like the vague platitudes of someone who hasn't read the thread. 

I don't know what the time zone is where you live, but if you're in the GMT zone maybe the hour of your posting isn't helping you to focus your points.


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## Ralph Llama (Jan 19, 2018)

You are passive aggressive.


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## butchersapron (Jan 19, 2018)

Seriously, give it a rest zaphod. There's load of old threads about the golden age of the 90s you can dig up. This is intended to be a serious non-shit-posting thread.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 19, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> You are passive aggressive.


No, I'm agressive. There's a difference.

If you want to respond to something try letting us know what you're responding to. Maybe even quote it so that we'll at least have a context. That way we can maybe have a discussion.


----------



## Teaboy (Jan 19, 2018)

I think its a bot.  Either that or a complete fuckhead, nothing makes any sense.


----------



## chilango (Jan 19, 2018)

I might stasi button this one.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> No, I'm agressive. There's a difference.
> 
> If you want to respond to something try letting us know what you're responding to. Maybe even quote it so that we'll at least have a context. That way we can maybe have a discussion.





danny la rouge said:


> No, I'm agressive. There's a difference.
> 
> If you want to respond to something try letting us know what you're responding to. Maybe even quote it so that we'll at least have a context. That way we can maybe have a discussion.



No, you were being passive-aggressive. Then I called you out on it. Now you are being aggressive. And that's your contribution to this thread? That could have been done with an IM.  Nice one. It`s obvious what I was talking about. You haven't got the guts to be honest and tell me what it really is that`s annoying you.
I can`t be arsed with dishonest, passive-aggressive people like yourself and I won't be talked down to , you cheeky git.
Don`t worry, I won't bother posting on `your` thread again.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 19, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> No, you were being passive-aggressive.


Don't feel bad about getting this wrong: lots of people do.  But passive aggressive means a reluctance to confront someone directly.  I tagged you. Which you avoided doing here to me, you plank.



> It`s obvious what I was talking about.


Nope. And it's not just me. _Nobody _knows what you're on about. 



> You haven't got the guts to be honest and tell me what it really is that`s annoying you.


See the post where I said you were spouting vague platitudes and didn't appear to have read the thread?  That's precisely what was annoying me about your contributions here.  Which is why I brought it up to you, directly.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jan 19, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> Solidarity is so 90`s yea . Fu*king commies (irony).
> 
> Erm, the problem with unbalanced intellectuals is they lose the plot all the time, getting caught up in narrow bands of analysis(single issue politics). Yes you have your figures for class, but you can`t just blinker yourself with those figures. We all know that slavery is alive and well in the UK, and maybe if you can factor in unpaid work (mainly done by women) the outcome would be different ?? Actually, there is no maybe about it! And it`s not just unpaid mothers and slaves, there now is a big exploitation culture around the disabled (gives them something to do innit- welcome to Tescos) and unemployed.
> If you drop the borders and take a look at the planet as a whole(you know..the reality outside of the system)... whose privileged?
> ...


No I dont recall much solidarity in the 90s. Loved up dancing maybe. But things were similar in terms of sexist shit. If anything its worse now both in terms of sexism and solidarity.


----------



## Tom A (Jan 20, 2018)

This is an interesting critique of the neurodiversity (aka "autistic rights") movement, which I found after masochistically going though the Twitter profile of one particularly unpleasant example of extreme IDpol (the 'identity' in question being disability). I have experienced first hand some of the bullshit that is spouted by disabled people's rights (and especially autistic people's rights) activists, which was my first taste of IDpol as discussed in this thread (Full disclosure: I have Asperger's Syndrome, like the author of the article). There is not much here that I disagree with, and plenty which at least gets me thinking about certain issues and specific dogmas which are held by the "neurodiversity movement". Having gone through his Twitter, there are some things I do not wholly agree with, but having seen how it is demanded that autistic people acquiesce to the needs to the so-called "autistic community" (as if we were all one collective mind with one common purpose and a set of common enemies), with any deviance resulting in the most vicious of attacks for daring to engage in wrongthink, I fully sympathise with him. Furthermore, his day job is working as a shop assistant, hardly a position of privilege in class terms, although as someone who is struggling with finding suitable work and struggling the benefits system I will say that I have to deal with a much larger sword of Damocles in the form of the DWP and the imminent arrival of Universal Credit - but that could easily be him too not so far down the line.

So, for people like him and me, identity politics has utterly failed us, and there is a lot more that could be done to further both our interests through some good old fashioned class struggle.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 21, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Don't feel bad about getting this wrong: lots of people do.  But passive aggressive means a reluctance to confront someone directly.  I tagged you. Which you avoided doing here to me, you plank.
> 
> Nope. And it's not just me. _Nobody _knows what you're on about.
> 
> ...



Bullshit.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 21, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> Bullshit.


Seriously, what the fuck?


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 21, 2018)

It means I don`t belive you.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 21, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> It means I don`t belive you.


About what?

Actually, don't bother.  I don't care.  And the thread's been derailed enough.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 21, 2018)

If you were following the thread you would see what points I was making in relation to the ones being discussed over the preceding few pages. Unless your stupid


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 21, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> If you were following the thread you would see what points I was making in relation to the ones being discussed over the preceding few pages. Unless your stupid


I _have_ read the thread.  But I don't understand what you write; it doesn't make sense.  If you have a specific point you wish to raise with me, then do so.  Otherwise shut the fuck up.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 21, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Seriously, give it a rest zaphod.



I like this complement. Thank you.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 21, 2018)

Teaboy said:


> I think its a bot.  Either that or a complete fuckhead, nothing makes any sense.



Not a bot or a fuckhead thank you very much


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 21, 2018)

chilango said:


> I might stasi button this one.



What the thread. I wouldn`t bother. Everybody knows identity politics is a load of pointless destructive  I dont know what idiot started this thread TBH.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 21, 2018)

Oh God.


----------



## Ralph Llama (Jan 21, 2018)

bimble said:


> In my experience a lot of this stuff gets handed to people by their parents / families (or whatever immediate influential others) when they're small children, and I imagine that's really common for people growing up in some way apart from the mainstream dominant culture - be that children of immigrants or in an ethnic minority at a predominantly white /christian school or whatever. I think its a mistake to frame this so much as individual choice, a sort of voluntary consumerist type thing.



Could you give me sources on this. NOW !


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 21, 2018)

Take your nonsense elsewhere please Ralph Llama


----------



## NoXion (Jan 21, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> Could you give me sources on this. NOW !



There's no need for this. She's talking about her experiences, not making a claim.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 21, 2018)

NoXion said:


> There's no need for this. She's talking about her experiences, not making a claim.


I think he needs to be banned from the thread.  His indecipherable beefs with random posters can be carried out elsewhere.


----------



## bimble (Jan 21, 2018)

Or just put him on ignore. I feel you wouldn’t  be missing much.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 21, 2018)

I've put on a thread ban.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 21, 2018)

Thanks FridgeMagnet


----------



## chilango (Jan 21, 2018)

Ralph Llama said:


> What the thread. I wouldn`t bother. Everybody knows identity politics is a load of pointless destructive  I dont know what idiot started this thread TBH.



Thanks for reminding me, I'd forgotten to do this. See ya...


----------



## BigTom (Jan 22, 2018)

Tom A said:


> This is an interesting critique of the neurodiversity (aka "autistic rights") movement, which I found after masochistically going though the Twitter profile of one particularly unpleasant example of extreme IDpol (the 'identity' in question being disability). I have experienced first hand some of the bullshit that is spouted by disabled people's rights (and especially autistic people's rights) activists, which was my first taste of IDpol as discussed in this thread (Full disclosure: I have Asperger's Syndrome, like the author of the article). There is not much here that I disagree with, and plenty which at least gets me thinking about certain issues and specific dogmas which are held by the "neurodiversity movement". Having gone through his Twitter, there are some things I do not wholly agree with, but having seen how it is demanded that autistic people acquiesce to the needs to the so-called "autistic community" (as if we were all one collective mind with one common purpose and a set of common enemies), with any deviance resulting in the most vicious of attacks for daring to engage in wrongthink, I fully sympathise with him. Furthermore, his day job is working as a shop assistant, hardly a position of privilege in class terms, although as someone who is struggling with finding suitable work and struggling the benefits system I will say that I have to deal with a much larger sword of Damocles in the form of the DWP and the imminent arrival of Universal Credit - but that could easily be him too not so far down the line.
> 
> So, for people like him and me, identity politics has utterly failed us, and there is a lot more that could be done to further both our interests through *some good old fashioned class struggle*.



Problem being that for the past ~40 years good old fashioned class struggle has failed to deliver widescale, meaningful change. It's great to talk about unionisation of workplaces but when nobody in your workplace wants to join a union, or is even likely to stay in the job for long enough to consider the workplace a community to be improved (rather than a shithole to be abandoned) it's difficult to see the practical path through which class struggle politics proceeds / expresses itself.
With the wider question/issue of precarious working and the social security system tying up with the employment system to ensure people in yours and his positions are not completely screed it's even more tricky. Poll tax at least is a (albeit singular) example of class struggle outside the workplace succeeding in producing significant change. We don't have much else though and that's a full generation ago.


----------



## Tom A (Jan 22, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Problem being that for the past ~40 years good old fashioned class struggle has failed to deliver widescale, meaningful change. It's great to talk about unionisation of workplaces but when nobody in your workplace wants to join a union, or is even likely to stay in the job for long enough to consider the workplace a community to be improved (rather than a shithole to be abandoned) it's difficult to see the practical path through which class struggle politics proceeds / expresses itself.
> With the wider question/issue of precarious working and the social security system tying up with the employment system to ensure people in yours and his positions are not completely screed it's even more tricky. Poll tax at least is a (albeit singular) example of class struggle outside the workplace succeeding in producing significant change. We don't have much else though and that's a full generation ago.


By "good old fashioned class struggle" I wasn't saying we should turn the clock back 40 years and use the tactics developed back then. I was implying that, regretfully, the entire _concept_ of class struggle is considered old fashioned. However new movements based on ideas of class struggle and solidarity that is updated for 2018 (as opposed to harking back to the glory days before Thatcher) will succeed in bettering working class people's lives where identity politics tends to leave them behind and even resort to cross-class alliances to defend the in-group from its critics.


----------



## mather (Jan 22, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Problem being that for the past ~40 years good old fashioned class struggle has failed to deliver widescale, meaningful change.



Only problem with that sentence is that is for the most part not true. The last 40 years has seen large sections of the left withdrawal from the class struggle and working class communities and get taken over by the middle classes and academia. With this we have seen the left move away from issues that concern the working class (unions, housing, pay, cost of living etc...) to the pet issues of the middle class (ID politics, open borders/no borders, transexuals etc...).


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 23, 2018)

Another example of the media trying to sell us this idea that somehow the conditions of the very rich are representative of us all. 

More women at Davos won't make an iota of a difference to you or me, whatever our gender.

"The millionaires' club with too few women" The millionaires' club with too few women


----------



## BigTom (Jan 23, 2018)

Tom A said:


> By "good old fashioned class struggle" I wasn't saying we should turn the clock back 40 years and use the tactics developed back then. I was implying that, regretfully, the entire _concept_ of class struggle is considered old fashioned. However new movements based on ideas of class struggle and solidarity that is updated for 2018 (as opposed to harking back to the glory days before Thatcher) will succeed in bettering working class people's lives where identity politics tends to leave them behind and even resort to cross-class alliances to defend the in-group from its critics.



Agreed, i had misread what you meant by old fashioned, but these new forms have not emerged, and this (along with attacks on the organisations and methods that existed before) has left/created a space for idpol to grow/be inserted.



mather said:


> Only problem with that sentence is that is for the most part not true. The last 40 years has seen large sections of the left withdrawal from the class struggle and working class communities and get taken over by the middle classes and academia. With this we have seen the left move away from issues that concern the working class (unions, housing, pay, cost of living etc...) to the pet issues of the middle class (ID politics, open borders/no borders, transexuals etc...).



If you mean that the issue isn't that class struggle has failed to deliver change, but that the left has not delivered class struggle i would broadly agree but as with my reply above the move away from class struggle is i think down to the failures of and attacks on the left and class struggle methods and organisations in the late 70s and 80s.


----------



## Tom A (Jan 23, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Another example of the media trying to sell us this idea that somehow the conditions of the very rich are representative of us all.
> 
> More women at Davos won't make an iota of a difference to you or me, whatever our gender.
> 
> "The millionaires' club with too few women" The millionaires' club with too few women


The idea is that if the rulers are more equal and represent diverse groups, then the rest of society will become more equal as a result, and groups will have their interests properly met. Trickle down theory strikes again.



BigTom said:


> Agreed, i had misread what you meant by old fashioned, but these new forms have not emerged, and this (along with attacks on the organisations and methods that existed before) has left/created a space for idpol to grow/be inserted.


I fully understand that, and some times idpol groups have been part of that attack (not to dismiss legitimate criticism of the left for letting down women, black people, disabled people, etc in the past).




> If you mean that the issue isn't that class struggle has failed to deliver change, but that the left has not delivered class struggle i would broadly agree but as with my reply above the move away from class struggle is i think down to the failures of and attacks on the left and class struggle methods and organisations in the late 70s and 80s.


I'll agree with that, and back before the political upheavals of past two years I was very pessimistic, and came to the conclusion that the left had failed the working classes, however the left continued to act as if it was the working classes that had failed the left.


----------



## chilango (Jan 23, 2018)

Class struggle has very clearly delivered change over the last 40 years. 

It's just been for the other side.


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## bimble (Jan 24, 2018)

This is a small report on what was discussed at the recent Labour NEC the other day. 
It says "Members will be able to indicate if they _self-identify as BAME or disabled ". _So these too (like the category of people called 'woman') are just Identities now, which people can self-define in or out of based on how they feel. I guess that's progress. 
Labour NEC Report – 16 January 2018


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## danny la rouge (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> This is a small report on what was discussed at the recent Labour NEC the other day.
> It says "Members will be able to indicate if they _self-identify as BAME or disabled ". _So these too (like the category of people called 'woman') are just Identities now, which people can self-define in or out of based on how they feel. I guess that's progress.
> Labour NEC Report – 16 January 2018


Will they "be able" to wear armbands?


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## Fozzie Bear (Jan 24, 2018)

What's the alternative to self-identification though? Some panel of judgement?


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## bimble (Jan 24, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> What's the alternative to self-identification though? Some panel of judgement?


I guess if I self-identify as disabled I'd get to park in the disabled bays?


----------



## DotCommunist (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> I guess if I self-identify as disabled I'd get to park in the disabled bays?


File a PIP claim. Get refused even though you have no legs. Win on appeal. Then you get blue badge.


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## Fozzie Bear (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> I guess if I self-identify as disabled I'd get to park in the disabled bays?



Does the Labour Party control access to disabled parking bays now?


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## bimble (Jan 24, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Does the Labour Party control access to disabled parking bays now?


I just think the current concept of 'self-identification' is interesting. That it is now extending beyond membership of the groups called women and men and into self-identifying as disabled or BAME for the purposes of Labour party equalities stats interests me.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> I just think the current concept of 'self-identification' is interesting. That it is now extending beyond membership of the groups called women and men and into self-identifying as disabled or BAME for the purposes of Labour party equalities stats interests me.



I agree. But this is more of a question of how the bureaucracy of identity is organised than anything else.


----------



## LDC (Jan 24, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Problem being that for the past ~40 years good old fashioned class struggle has failed to deliver widescale, meaningful change. It's great to talk about unionisation of workplaces but when nobody in your workplace wants to join a union, or is even likely to stay in the job for long enough to consider the workplace a community to be improved (rather than a shithole to be abandoned) it's difficult to see the practical path through which class struggle politics proceeds / expresses itself.
> With the wider question/issue of precarious working and the social security system tying up with the employment system to ensure people in yours and his positions are not completely screed it's even more tricky. Poll tax at least is a (albeit singular) example of class struggle outside the workplace succeeding in producing significant change. We don't have much else though and that's a full generation ago.



Surely all struggle has on a large scale failed though, hence we 're in this position now? 

There's a danger of people seeing class struggle as being purely workplace struggle, or at least if there's any acknowledgement that it happens outside workplaces the scope with which it's seen is very narrow.

If capitalism is everywhere, then so is the class struggle against it, even if it's not always articulated as such by those involved.

For example, I'd see some of the ecological struggles of the 90/00s as having class struggle dynamics within them, as have many other areas not always considered part of the class struggle.


----------



## bimble (Jan 24, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> I agree. But this is more of a question of how the bureaucracy of identity is organised than anything else.


Yep. But does (I think) illustrate and maybe help entrench the idea that everyone's got a place somewhere in the Identity boxes that they somehow _feel_ from the inside to be a core part of their selves.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> Yep. But does (I think) illustrate and maybe help entrench the idea that everyone's got a place somewhere in the Identity boxes that they somehow _feel_ from the inside to be a core part of their selves.


Well, it's more that a working group the Labour Party tasked with finding ways to engage more with BAME and disabled people decided that the best way was to tell current members they can indicate if they identify as belonging to one of those groups.

In other words, no additional engagement is planned. In its place a bureaucratic notion of "action" was substituted.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> I just think the current concept of 'self-identification' is interesting. That it is now extending beyond membership of the groups called women and men and into self-identifying as disabled or BAME for the purposes of Labour party equalities stats interests me.


wrt BAME, there is only self-id really. Wherever this question is asked, it is answered purely on a self-id basis. We don't have an 'official' racial status in this country, which is a very good thing imo.


----------



## bimble (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> wrt BAME, there is only self-id really. Wherever this question is asked, it is answered purely on a self-id basis. We don't have an 'official' racial status in this country, which is a very good thing imo.


True. I'm probably reading more into it than is there. The word 'self-identify' is surplus to requirements really, it could've just said 'identify as' or would describe yourself as, for all practical purposes.


----------



## 8ball (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> True. I'm probably reading more into it than is there. The word 'self-identify' is surplus to requirements really, it could've just said 'identify as' or would describe yourself as, for all practical purposes.



It's implicit to the idea of self-identification that you may be something different to what you say you are.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> True. I'm probably reading more into it than is there. The word 'self-identify' is surplus to requirements really, it could've just said 'identify as' or would describe yourself as, for all practical purposes.


Or just a simple 'are' - a 'tick the boxes that apply to you' type thing. wrt ethnicity, I think the census gets this about right - a pretty exhaustive list to choose from but also an option not to be in any of the boxes. And I think I'm right in saying that you have the option not to say in any monitoring-type document.


----------



## 8ball (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Or just a simple 'are' - a 'tick the boxes that apply to you' type thing. wrt ethnicity, I think the census gets this about right - a pretty exhaustive list to choose from but also an option not to be in any of the boxes.



Although it loses a bit of info if you fit into more than one of the boxes.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jan 24, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Well, it's more that a working group the Labour Party tasked with finding ways to engage more with BAME and disabled people decided that the best way was to tell current members they can indicate if they identify as belonging to one of those groups.
> 
> In other words, no additional engagement is planned. In its place a bureaucratic notion of "action" was substituted.



Well the engagement is presumably standard Labour Party engagement - for example I imagine the whole reason why there is a reduced rate for BAME members who go to that event which people are up in arms about is to make it more attractive for them to go. (As cack handed as that is).

What was interesting from one of the recent Novara podcasts was that membership of "BAME Labour" as a group is quite low, compared to the total BAME membership. Which suggests that some people just can't be arsed with it or that signing up isn't that easy. ALSO that having a BAME Labour seat on the NEC (or some other body, I forget which) is far from representative.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

8ball said:


> Although it loses a bit of info if you fit into more than one of the boxes.


Yeah. There's no perfect system. But imo the principle that your ethnicity is not something that is imposed on you by an authority - be it the state or a group you belong to like the Labour Party - is an important one.


----------



## bimble (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Or just a simple 'are' - a 'tick the boxes that apply to you' type thing.


If Self-Identification = being, then Rachel D did nothing wrong. (Not that me or anyone else wants to go there again).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> If Self-Identification = being, then Rachel D did nothing wrong. (Not that me or anyone else wants to go there again).


When you ask these kinds of questions, you rely on people being honest in their answers to make the data meaningful. That's true whatever wording you have.


----------



## 8ball (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah. There's no perfect system. But imo the principle that your ethnicity is not something that is imposed on you by an authority - be it the state or a group you belong to like the Labour Party - is an important one.



I think the bureaucracy is stuck with running well behind how people move around and mix with each other.  I see what you mean, but it means you have to admit the BAME membership count of eg. the Labour party is something of a guess, and makes things more fraught if using this as the basis for individual decisions.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

8ball said:


> I think the bureaucracy is stuck with running well behind how people move around and mix with each other.  I see what you mean, but it means you have to admit the BAME membership count of eg. the Labour party is something of a guess, and makes things more fraught if using this as the basis for individual decisions.


I agree. I also think that while racism still exists, some kind of ethnic monitoring has its place. In France, this stuff is banned in a 'we're colour-blind' kind of way, and that never ends well.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> If Self-Identification = being, then Rachel D did nothing wrong. (Not that me or anyone else wants to go there again).



Whether or not self-identification = being is an interesting existential question. 

I'd assume that self-id works in most cases because most people are fairly decent and won't go to the trouble of pretending to be black so they can get 10 quid off a Labour Party conference. 

This may change though as the wacky world of ID-pol intensifies - and/or if there are other advantages to being in BAME Labour (such as voting for who gets on the NEC?). I'd hope that there was some scope for removing someone if they were blatantly taking the piss though.


----------



## butchersapron (Jan 24, 2018)

Let's not pretend this bureaucratic crap is political. It's to future-proof in advance from  legal challenges. That this discussion turns (just as the transgender one cools down eh?) into stuff that _starts _from ID politics basis is maybe telling.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> When you ask these kinds of questions, you rely on people being honest in their answers to make the data meaningful. That's true whatever wording you have.



Yes. 

It's a dubious comparason given that we know RD lied through her teeth. For the RD comparason to work the implication/suggestion is that other people will lie/are liars too.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Well the engagement is presumably standard Labour Party engagement - for example I imagine the whole reason why there is a reduced rate for BAME members who go to that event which people are up in arms about is to make it more attractive for them to go. (As cack handed as that is).
> 
> What was interesting from one of the recent Novara podcasts was that membership of "BAME Labour" as a group is quite low, compared to the total BAME membership. *Which suggests that some people just can't be arsed with it or that signing up isn't that easy.* ALSO that having a BAME Labour seat on the NEC (or some other body, I forget which) is far from representative.


Or that they choose not to be part of a political group based on ethnicity.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Or that they choose not to be part of a political group based on ethnicity.



Yes that's what I was getting at with "can't be arsed".


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Yes that's what I was getting at with "can't be arsed".


It could be a lot stronger than 'can't be arsed', though, which was my point.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jan 24, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> What's the alternative to self-identification though? Some panel of judgement?


It might be semantic, but i believe the usual term is "describe yourself as" or "are"  disabled - because that at least implies something material -  that someone is disabled by society not meeting their needs (social model) or by an impairment or condition (medical model).  Also some Deaf people and autistic people specifically say they don't identify as disabled (because they see being Deaf or autistic as positive) so wouldn't tick a box that says they identify as disabled, but might still see themselves as affected by ableism or usually describe themselves as disabled on forms like this.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jan 24, 2018)

I filled in an equal opps form yesterday that came with a job application for a large national organisation. The first three boxes they wanted you to tick were
Gender (female, male)
Gender identity (female, intersex, male, non binary, prefer not to say, trans)
Is your gender identity the same as the gender you were assigned at birth? (no, prefer not to say, yes)


----------



## bimble (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree. I also think that while racism still exists, some kind of ethnic monitoring has its place. In France, this stuff is banned in a 'we're colour-blind' kind of way, and that never ends well.


Sexism still exists but you are fine I think with self-id gender identity replacing any kind of monitoring by sex. But this is probably the wrong thread for that.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2018)

bimble said:


> Sexism still exists but you are fine I think with self-id gender identity replacing any kind of monitoring by sex. But this is probably the wrong thread for that.


Anything else I've never said that you can tell me I'm fine with?


----------



## IC3D (Jan 24, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree. I also think that while racism still exists, some kind of ethnic monitoring has its place. In France, this stuff is banned in a 'we're colour-blind' kind of way, and that never ends well.


You're required to put a photo on your CV in France and my ex said she was regularly turned down for interviews because she was black. Not so colour blind.


----------



## Tom A (Jan 24, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Surely all struggle has on a large scale failed though, hence we 're in this position now?
> 
> There's a danger of people seeing class struggle as being purely workplace struggle, or at least if there's any acknowledgement that it happens outside workplaces the scope with which it's seen is very narrow.
> 
> If capitalism is everywhere, then so is the class struggle against it, even if it's not always articulated as such by those involved.


In the past I was pretty cynical about the left's emphasis on trade unions, since in the present day there is the risk of excluding people who are either not in work or working in ununionsied workplaces, especially since many working class people are actually in temporary jobs and zero hours contracts, and in comparison their unionised counterparts can be seen as being in a position of privilege, even if they just have those rights that every worker should be entitled to.  I do not dismiss the trade union movement entirely, but it is just one aspect to the struggle, and trade unionism needs to reach beyond the workplace in order to gain new relevance, but that goes for any movement dedicated to class struggle.



> For example, I'd see some of the ecological struggles of the 90/00s as having class struggle dynamics within them, as have many other areas not always considered part of the class struggle.


Conversely I see the "ecological struggles" of back then as mainly having a middle-class lifestylist dynamic to them (particularly Climate Camp and the forerunners to it), part of an activist subculture where they can afford to live the most eco-friendly lifestyle possible, buy the nice organic food from their "worker's" co-op rather than a big nasty supermarket, and wear the organic Fairtrade hemp clothes since they can afford to not get everything from Primark. But my past experiences left me rather jaded in that regard. However I still have a romantic view of the road protests of the 90s which did engage the grassroots and people from all walks of life, going far beyond "Swampy" (a hero of mine at the time all the same).



Fozzie Bear said:


> Well the engagement is presumably standard Labour Party engagement - for example I imagine the whole reason why there is a reduced rate for BAME members who go to that event which people are up in arms about is to make it more attractive for them to go. (As cack handed as that is).
> 
> What was interesting from one of the recent Novara podcasts was that membership of "BAME Labour" as a group is quite low, compared to the total BAME membership. Which suggests that some people just can't be arsed with it or that signing up isn't that easy. ALSO that having a BAME Labour seat on the NEC (or some other body, I forget which) is far from representative.


In the last few months of my time in Left Unity I finally got round to getting onto the relevant groups and mailing lists of their Disabled People's Caucus, which seemed by then to be promoting the latest news from DPAC etc. I recall them having a huge hang-up over the term "person with disabilities" rather than "disabled person", preferring the latter as it embellished the disabled as an identity (this was something that was also mentioned when I helped work with a friend in the party on getting an anti-ATOS motion to conference). I one commented on their Facebook group that I personally did not see any issue with "person with disabilities" since I did not want to let my disability define my life nor did I see it a core component of my identity. I got a pretty curt reply accusing me of being ignorant of disabled people's politics (or at least their brand of it), and ending on how he saw disability as key to who he was as a person, insinuating that was how all disabled people should see their disability. Again, any view that contradicts groupthink will be dismissed, and in some cases will risk ostracism from the group.

Fast forward two years and I have recently joined the Labour Party, still finding my way around and yet to get my feet wet (intend to attend a ward meeting next month). There is almost certainly a disabled people's caucus or similar organisation in the Labour Party, which I will probably investigate at some point but I don't hold up much hopes that it isn't afflicted by the same narcissistic IDpol that was characteristic of such groups in Left Unity (although LU was pretty notorious for its intense navel gazing and how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin debates). Like with the BAME group, I wonder how representative any disabled people's groups in Labour would be of disabled people as a whole within the party. The Left Unity Disabled People's Caucus didn't really represent my views that often, other than being common allies in fights against the usual suspects. I wonder if there is an elitism at play, and not only, if at all, because of "privilege" in the IDpol sense, but because such groups are predominated by people who have spent their entire political lives arguing for a specific politics, and because their politics drives them to participate in political groups and make their voices heard, they are the most visible and become associated with this groups, something I used to refer to as "dictatorship of the loudest" when it came to why ordinary people (for want of a better term) were underrepresented in left wing organisations in general. Anyone from outside who wants to come on board either (a) decides to tow the line and support the groupthink, (b) keeps quiet regarding points they disagree on, (c) speaks out but gets ignored at best, ganged up on at worst, or (d) decides these people don't speak for them and leave to do their own thing. I've often ended up doing a combination of (b), then (c) on issues that really do stick in my craw, followed eventually by (d).


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## LDC (Jan 24, 2018)

Tom A said:


> Conversely I see the "ecological struggles" of back then as mainly having a middle-class lifestylist dynamic to them (particularly Climate Camp and the forerunners to it), part of an activist subculture where they can afford to live the most eco-friendly lifestyle possible, buy the nice organic food from their "worker's" co-op rather than a big nasty supermarket, and wear the organic Fairtrade hemp clothes since they can afford to not get everything from Primark.



Both your view and mine are true. Those struggles had those dynamics within them (and more besides) and often there was tension among the participants relating to these. I hate to keep mentioning _Aufheben_, but they wrote some really good stuff around this back then.

I also think to some extent the identity politics/liberal politics block won out as the dominant political force in some areas, climate camp especially for example. It's not a coincidence that I see many of those types having moved seamlessly into the intersectional/identity politics scene.

(Of course it's also very possible to be a _militant_ in terms of politics and activity, and have a lifestyle/sub-cultural orientation and perspective.)


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## chilango (Jan 24, 2018)

Earth First! and the signal workers. RTS and the Liverpool Dockers. Some interesting things. Might post more tomorrow.


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## Fozzie Bear (Jan 25, 2018)

On the Today Programme this morning there was some discussion of Sara Khan being appointed to lead the new "Commission for Countering Extremism". 

The woman defending Khan was straight in there from the jump saying that the only reason she was being criticised was because she was a Muslim woman. Which was clearly bullshit as the critics were also Muslim women (including the odious Baroness Warsi). 

What this means, though, tactically - is that a fair chunk of the limited time for discussion revolved around "well I am ALSO a Muslim woman and blah blah blah" rather than talking about the issue itself.


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## Calamity1971 (Jan 31, 2018)

Carrie Gracie speaks of BBC pay 'insult'
Lots of squirming from the top knobs at the BBC live from Westminster.


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## Sue (Jan 31, 2018)

IC3D said:


> You're required to put a photo on your CV in France and my ex said she was regularly turned down for interviews because she was black. Not so colour blind.



I suspect littlebabyjesus was talking about the fact that in France, they don't keep (anonymous) monitoring figures of ethnic background as they do here for various things because everyone is French and therefore equal.

It's bollocks of course as there obviously is discrimination (based on photo/name etc) just no figures to back it up. 

(My experience when I lived in France was that racism was a lot worse there than it is here.)


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## LDC (Feb 5, 2018)

More fucking ridiculous politics...

Leeds Radical Herbalism Network


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## LDC (Feb 5, 2018)

Also continues in their safer spaces policy.... no women's spaces please, they're transphobic... 

Safer Spaces Agreement


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## Magnus McGinty (Feb 5, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> More fucking ridiculous politics...
> 
> Leeds Radical Herbalism Network



It’s genius!  it is satire, isn’t it?


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## friendofdorothy (Feb 5, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> More fucking ridiculous politics...
> 
> Leeds Radical Herbalism Network


_Radical_ herbalism?


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## Magnus McGinty (Feb 5, 2018)

It’s a euphemism for liberalism I think.


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## fishfinger (Feb 5, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> _Radical_ herbalism?


Roots.


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## friendofdorothy (Feb 5, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Also continues in their safer spaces policy.... no women's spaces please, they're transphobic...
> 
> Safer Spaces Agreement



This 'agreement' reminds me of of the declining years of The Lesbian Line (a helpline in London) when they stopped accepting volunteers who were white, not disabled or not against S&M sex. 

That was shortly before they closed forever.


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## LDC (Feb 5, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> _Radical_ herbalism?



Also, I meant 'politics' not politics.


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## LDC (Feb 5, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> This 'agreement' reminds me of of the declining years of The Lesbian Line when they stopped accepting volunteers who were not against S&M sex.



Awkward recruitment interview question that.


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## friendofdorothy (Feb 5, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Awkward recruitment interview question that.


fairly everday in dykey circles in late 80s - things were fairly accrimonious amonst London's lesbians back then.


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## ska invita (Feb 6, 2018)

This Facebook post I think is a good example, not necessarily of identity politics, but of the logic failures some people seem to be going through

Can't seem to embed the pic on my phone


It shows up the lengths people will go to challenge personal power relations (a good thing to challenge) without letting logic, facts, or the bigger picture get in their way

ETA, will try and repost it in a bit


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## Idris2002 (Feb 6, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> It’s a euphemism for liberalism I think.


A euphemism for "it's the latest thing from America", you mean.


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## Tom A (Feb 6, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> More fucking ridiculous politics...
> 
> Leeds Radical Herbalism Network


(Insert GIF of Judge Judy shaking her head then facepalming here)

But seriously... _good grief. _Had to stop reading because of all the cringing this induced, nearly got a full house on Tumblr IDPol Bingo there, are these people for real? Anyway, moving on...



Magnus McGinty said:


> It’s genius!  it is satire, isn’t it?


There's definitely a Poe's Law situation in place here. If it's satire it's very good satire, I would hope that 'herbalism' would be a dead give away, but sadly I wouldn't be surprised if these people really believed all this. (E2A: Having done an online search for "radical herbalism" it turns out that this is actually a thing, but a thing that's so up its own arse it's no wonder that things turned out the way they did.)



friendofdorothy said:


> _Radical_ herbalism?


But, you see, "modern" Western medicine messes with your chakras, _maan!_ (Except that would probably be considered a safer space violation due to sexism and cultural appropriation).

On a side note, I find this entire concept, with its indulgence in quackery and pseudoscience, and its insinuation that 21st century medicine (you know, the thing that is able to treat many a life-threatening or life-limiting disease whereas your pot pourri would make scant difference) is somehow 'oppressive' and we need to "go back to nature" in order to liberate ourselves really grating. Even those who manage to get past the Safer Spaces Stasi will undoubtedly be in a position of true privilege purely by being in a situation where they can make these attacks on modern medicine, since they have never been faced with the threats to health that come from living where healthcare and sanitation is limited. At least they aren't advocating homeopathy, that's all I can say.



fishfinger said:


> Roots.


Bloody roots...


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## 8ball (Feb 6, 2018)

Tom A said:


> ...on a side note, I find this entire concept, with its indulgence in quackery and pseudoscience...



As opposed to _white supremacist "science"_!!


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## Tom A (Feb 6, 2018)

8ball said:


> As opposed to _white supremacist "science"_!!


True, it's all the work of Babylon...


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## NoXion (Feb 7, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> More fucking ridiculous politics...
> 
> Leeds Radical Herbalism Network



Apparently their gathering has been cancelled because they got criticised for turning down the help of two white guys with dreads. Fucking seriously?


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## Celyn (Feb 7, 2018)

What's funny is that despite some long-winded inclusive types stuff, their flyer for the tragically cancelled event gives dates and venue. Fine, but someone living at the other end of town and with no connections to the University might not feel enormously confident heading off to this venue described only as Leeds University Union. 

Why not give its location, mention nearby bus routes, emphasise all members of public welcome, use Bloggs St entrance and follow signs to room X on third floor, mentioning access for anyone with mobility problems etc? Am I being too nitpicking here? OK, but just blithely saying Student Union as though all residents know it is quite "in-group", I think. They do seem to be an amusing bunch.


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## LDC (Feb 8, 2018)

NoXion said:


> Apparently their gathering has been cancelled because they got criticised for turning down the help of two white guys with dreads. Fucking seriously?



I _think_ it's that they felt like they didn't have the capacity to put on the gathering and also deal with the fallout and issues around them banning the people from being on the panel.

One of the people banned has apparently kicked off a bit (as have some of his friends/colleagues) which of course has enabled the gathering organizers to go on about white privilege.


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## Jeff Robinson (Feb 8, 2018)




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## Tom A (Feb 9, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I _think_ it's that they felt like they didn't have the capacity to put on the gathering and also deal with the fallout and issues around them banning the people from being on the panel.
> 
> One of the people banned has apparently kicked off a bit (as have some of his friends/colleagues) which of course has enabled the gathering organizers to go on about white privilege.


I am _not_ surprised that being white and wearing dreads was enough to warrant shunning. It just seems to be part of the course in "social justice" circles these days. I would be interested to know what this "kicking off" entailed, I found nothing from a brief search of Twitter, and there isn't anything on their Facebook page (which has just over 100 members).


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## bimble (Feb 12, 2018)

More schools in America taking to kill a mocking bird off the reading lists, because it contains the n word. Probably inevitable in current climate but seems sad, to me.


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## Magnus McGinty (Feb 12, 2018)

That’ll be Huckleberry Finn gone too then.


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## Idris2002 (Feb 13, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> That’ll be Huckleberry Finn gone too then.


They produced a schools edition with the relevant word ommitted a while back.

I'm not arsed about this at all. I well remember my granny, who voted FF her all life, explaining to me why you don't use that particular anagram of "ginger".


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## Idris2002 (Feb 13, 2018)

This was good. Shuja Haider explains himself to the poltroons who lambasted for saying that the left needs to deal with the problem of young white men getting radicalized in very wrong directions:

What makes life shitty? – Shuja Haider – Medium


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## Magnus McGinty (Feb 13, 2018)

Idris2002 said:


> I'm not arsed about this at all. I well remember my granny, who voted FF her all life, explaining to me why you don't use that particular anagram of "ginger".



 Not trying to invoke Godwin’s but nevertheless I’m not particularly down with book bannings.


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## Idris2002 (Feb 14, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Not trying to invoke Godwin’s but nevertheless I’m not particularly down with book bannings.


No one's talking about banning any books. bimble was talking about schools in America talking TKAM off reading lists. My guess is that they're doing that out of cowardice, but it's far from the same thing as banning it.


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## butchersapron (Feb 14, 2018)

There's a v useful Walter Benn Michaels piece in the new issue of nonsite:The Political Economy of Anti-Racism I'm going to pull more quotes than normal as a) it's v important and utterly central to the discussion here and b) i think  lot of people will not read it.



> First, because—although we both respect Jacobin and have both published in it before—I was a little less sanguine about the magazine’s desire actually to make any kind of statement about where it stood on the left v identitarian issue. And, second, because part of my argument (as suggested below in a photo taken at a talk I gave at U.C. Riverside) involves a critique of the role played by elite universities in (to borrow a phrase from Adolph’s and Willie Legette’s note on V.O. Key) “suppressing working-class politics in the service of both black and white political elites.” But, of course, both the students at schools like the ones on my list and the more-or-less recent graduates of such schools make up a significant portion of Jacobin’s readership; why would Jacobin want to publish an attack on its audience?





> What’s wrong with the identitarian version of the left is not that its roots are in money but that its identitarianism is a defense of that money.





> Redistributing skin colors has nothing to do with redistributing wealth; a world where every race was proportionately represented at every income level would be exactly as unequal as the one we have now.





> The problem with discrimination is that it generates what economists call “bad” inequalities. If a white male gets promoted over a Latina despite the fact that the Latina was doing a better job, that’s a bad inequality and it’s bad in two ways. It’s ethically bad because it’s unfair (the white man is being chosen for reasons that have nothing to do with merit) and it’s economically bad because it’s inefficient (since the white man wasn’t chosen for merit, the job is probably not being done as well as it could be). What anti-discrimination looks to do, then, is solve both the ethical and the economic problem—to make sure that all groups have equal opportunity to succeed and thus also to help make sure that the jobs are being done by the people who are best at doing them. Which has absolutely nothing to do with eliminating economic inequality.5 In fact, it’s just the opposite: the point of eliminating horizontal inequality is to justify individual inequality.





> This is why some of us have been arguing that identity politics is not an alternative to class politics but a form of it: it’s the politics of an upper class that has no problem with seeing people left behind as long as they haven’t been left behind because of their race or sex.





> As Karen and Barbara Fields put it in their book Racecraft, the discourse of anti-discrimination has so “impoverished Americans’ public language for addressing inequality,”9 that we either understand poor white people as victims of racism (which they obviously aren’t) or as trailer-trash responsible for their own plight but trying to blame someone else—black people or immigrants. So, in an economy where the bottom 80% has been falling farther and farther behind the top 20% (and where most of the top 20% has been falling behind the top 1%), we get large numbers of white people experiencing themselves as losing ground, while Trumpists tell them they’re the victims of racism and liberals tell them they’re racists.



There is also a long Adolph Reed piece in the new issue but i'm not sure it's the one mentioned by WBM but this from the conclusion suggests they are still thinking on same lines:

_That is a crucial context within which we should understand antiracists’ tendency to align with Wall Street Democrats in denouncing calls for general redistribution and their insistence that Trump’s victory most meaningfully expresses the depth of commitments to white supremacy, sexism, and homophobia particularly among “white working class” voters. The contention that working-class disaffection from Clintonite neoliberalism most of all expresses backlash against blacks and others is an argument, as Clinton’s snide dismissal of Sanders indicates, that economic inequality is not a central concern for blacks, women, immigrants, LGBT or transgender people. A year into the Trump presidency and unimpeded Republican control of Congress and of most state governments has confirmed what many on the left have known all along, that the right’s agenda is an all-out attack on working people, no matter what their racial and gender classifications and identities or sexual orientations. The alliance of Democratic neoliberalism and an identity-based notion of social justice has contributed to this nightmarish outcome precisely by diminishing the significance of a policy orientation that abets upward redistribution and intensifying economic inequality and racializing the working class as white losers._


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## Joe Reilly (Feb 14, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> There's a v useful Walter Benn Michaels piece in the new issue of nonsite:The Political Economy of Anti-Racism I'm going to pull more quotes than normal as a) it's v important and utterly central to the discussion here and b) i think  lot of people will not read it.
> 
> Neo-liberalism is the dominant ideology and identity politics is the left face of it.
> 
> ...





butchersapron said:


> There's a v useful Walter Benn Michaels piece in the new issue of nonsite:The Political Economy of Anti-Racism I'm going to pull more quotes than normal as a) it's v important and utterly central to the discussion here and b) i think  lot of people will not read it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Neo-liberalism is the dominant ideology and identity politics is the left face of it.


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## butchersapron (Feb 18, 2018)

The Reed piece is very very strong. It's particularly interesting on something that has been under discussion on here recently - institutional racism.. He traces the material development of the concept (in the US at least) to an accommodation - or more bluntly, a sell out or buy off - by black elites to the growing divorce of black politics from class politics from the mid 60s onwards (Reed outlined how in his view this happened before this section) with the reward of a privileged position within the coming economic changes of policing the racial boundaries of neo-liberalism  - in effect, acting as the guarantor of a racially representative inequality. Or as Benns would have it, in highlighting where the system is throwing up unexpected inefficiencies in its pursuit of the production of justified inequalities. Here lies the legitimating roots of liberal neo-liberalism (for example, it's why and how liberals, including CRI on here, can argue that universal health care and initiatives like free tuition are racist) - and why the choice isn't class politics vs identity politics today but the proper recognition of identity politics _as a class politics._

Again, how far this maps onto the UK i'm not sure - certainly not directly - but there is surely no question as to where our home grown identarians/liberal neo-liberals/etc are taking their lead from.


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## J Ed (Feb 18, 2018)

From the Reed article..

Black Politics After 2016



> Antiracist reactions to Bernie Sanders’s challenge and its invigoration of a redistributionist left illustrate the extent to which this race politics is at bottom a class politics. Dismissal of Sanders’s agenda and assertions that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, living wage, and national health care, for example, somehow were not black issues underscores that this turn in black politics is committed to an agenda restricted to combating racial disparities within prevailing structures of inequality. Thus, in its purview economic redistribution seems racially inauthentic, but the annual controversies over group parity in awards of Oscars, Grammies, and other accolades appear as burning social justice issues. Only ideological blinders can block out the implication that a fair share of acclaim for Ava DuVernay, Nate Parker or Rihanna is, or should be, more important to black Americans than general access to decent, secure employment and retirement, health care and a vibrant public sector


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## Fozzie Bear (Feb 27, 2018)

Interesting to see Austin Mitchell attacking Corbyn supporters on the basis of identity politics (and also the north/south divide - hardened northern proles vs effete Londoners etc).

Labour’s priority is Brexit. But it should be the left-behind | Austin Mitchell


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## ViolentPanda (Feb 27, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> _Radical_ herbalism?



It's where you prescribe foxglove and belladonna for ALL ailments.


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## butchersapron (Mar 23, 2018)

A line has been crossed



> What happened on March 8th was a group of activists deciding that their concerns about identity politics were of more importance than an industrial dispute and taking it upon themselves to harass a union official because they didn’t like the fact she had concerns about changes to the Gender Recognition Act. As far as we’re concerned, a red line has been crossed with this incident and a stand has to be taken to stop the situation getting out of hand. That red line is a total lack of respect for a picket line, it’s purpose and what it represents. Attacking someone on a picket line is the action of a scab.



Also a new piece/reply from Shuja Haider in the new issue of Dissent.

From Identity Politics to Emancipation



> There is also a political version of this experience. It is increasingly the experience of people of color on the left. In encounters with liberals or leftists whose politics are closer to the center, radicals of color can find themselves told to limit their political demands along the lines of race. Our politics, structured by our experience of inequality under capitalism as mediated through the white supremacist legal and cultural institutions of the United States, are too broad. When we demand universal emancipation, we are told to limit the scope to demographics. We should reduce our subjectivity to one that is defined by ethnicity, and consequently reduce our demands from the universal to the particular. This charge is often accompanied by a paradox—the denial of the radical person of color’s race.


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## Sea Star (Mar 23, 2018)

crossthebreeze said:


> I filled in an equal opps form yesterday that came with a job application for a large national organisation. The first three boxes they wanted you to tick were
> Gender (female, male)
> Gender identity (female, intersex, male, non binary, prefer not to say, trans)
> Is your gender identity the same as the gender you were assigned at birth? (no, prefer not to say, yes)


 twats!!


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## Sea Star (Mar 23, 2018)

bimble said:


> I guess if I self-identify as disabled I'd get to park in the disabled bays?


no. I am disabled - self identified or not - have a diagnosis for autism. It does not entitle me to anything apart from protection if I am discriminated against for being autistic, or my reasonable needs aren't met. Self ID is a good idea because I know autistic people who cannot get diagnoses due to cuts in the NHS or because they have a doctor who doesn't believe them. And yet they still have the sorts of difficulties that autistic people experience, so it enables them to access those reasonable adjustments, though probably not the protections. And it allows disabled people - or people who would otherwise be categorised disabled - to refuse that label (I can't say I understand why but I do know that in the autistic community many refuse to see it as a disability - I wish I was so fortunate!).


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## The39thStep (Mar 23, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Interesting to see Austin Mitchell attacking Corbyn supporters on the basis of identity politics (and also the north/south divide - hardened northern proles vs effete Londoners etc).
> 
> Labour’s priority is Brexit. But it should be the left-behind | Austin Mitchell



Cant disagree with most of what he says tbh and I like the hyperthetical question 'what are you going to do for us?'. I once had a chat to him on a train from London to York I think it was. It was the period where although he said some good things and I think he was around the Campaign group in the Labour party for a while he also came out with a lot of anti SWP/Militant stuff.  He was very anti Tony Benn and considered to be a Kinnock loyalist. However he was very polite in our conversation and was prepared to have a chat. I was in the SWP at the time and when I mentioned that half way through  he said 'But you seem too sensible to be a Trot and you're not a student'.


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## Joe Reilly (Mar 23, 2018)

J Ed said:


> From the Reed article..
> 
> Black Politics After 2016



Identity politics is about creating a black middle class (as a buttress to the white middle class) at the direct expense of a black working class.


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## redsquirrel (Apr 5, 2018)

Excellent example of how identity politics works in this piece about the gender pay gap. 


> The data shows if we are to close the gender pay gap, one place to start may be with the top-paid positions in British companies.


Right, so the way to tackle the gender pay gap is to pay the already (very) wealthy even more. Lovely.


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## J Ed (Apr 5, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> Excellent example of how identity politics works in this piece about the gender pay gap.
> 
> Right, so the way to tackle the gender pay gap is to pay the already (very) wealthy even more. Lovely.




Also in the article...



> “When men and women work together, that’s the best dynamic because men become more caring, working as part of a team with women, and women also become less competitive and much more caring. So the idea of putting men and women together is actually a very positive dynamic.”



Isnt this a bit.. you know.. sexist?


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## redsquirrel (Apr 5, 2018)

Yes, moronic drivel. Still it's nice to know that according to both the WEP and the editor of some business magazine (Channel 4 news last night) that it's not companies fault that any gender pay gap exists.


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## Jeff Robinson (Apr 7, 2018)

Intersectional social justice at it’s finest: seeing a homeless person and thinking ‘privilege’.


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## mojo pixy (Apr 7, 2018)

That's really fucking stupid


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## Sunset Tree (Apr 7, 2018)

A guy in my class sent me a meme with that sentiment. How white Americans reject the concept of white privilege because it would mean accepting they'd wasted their head start. It was titled something like '70 percent of the USA just got BURNED' or something.

As he was a fellow sociology grad I was disappointed more in his lack of logic. You can't do a soc degree without studying class, surely. This guy was well into Tumblr and was a terrible student tbf.


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## butchersapron (Jun 2, 2018)

In a rather unexpected move, Historical Materialism seem to have decided to make their massive journal free to read  (handily saving me 60 quid a year). The next issue is on Identity Politics and the articles are all available here. Should be some worthwhile stuff in that lot.


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## butchersapron (Jun 3, 2018)

Well, the introductory essay is an appalling confused mess - which doesn't bode well for the other offerings. For example, it starts by arguing there is no real/necessary opposition between identity politics and class politics (that is class politics as pro-working class politics), that any such presentation is politically motivated by enemies on the right. It then moves on to outline the perspective from which this intervention is claimed to coming from and then outlines the (for want of better term right now) the Adolph Reed position in accurate detail - one that argues that identity politics  is class politics but the class politics of a black elite (in the US at least) contracted originally to defang and divert wider class based coalitions that could potentially challenge the many basis of capital. Then moves right onto blithely asking how identity politics can be properly understood as anti-capitalist politics.

Maybe that's because the short piece has four different authors for some reason, but that is a total mess. It doesn't get any better when they move onto brexit...

Oh yeah, second thing in two days i've read that relies heavily on A. Sivanandan's idea of xeno-racism - which seemed to have died a death but been revived recently.


----------



## killer b (Jun 15, 2018)

This piece by Ralph Leonard is worth a look I reckon.

Not All Politics is Identity Politics - Areo


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 22, 2018)

Not sure this needs any more comment than the article. 


> “We can’t pretend that Ofsted judgments are not lower in certain areas – many of them with a high proportion of white working-class children. But that shouldn’t surprise us,” Spielman told an audience at Wellington College in Berkshire.
> 
> “Over the past few years, there has been a long overdue debate about white working-class communities in England, and why they have fallen behind.
> 
> “We are having to grapple with the unhappy fact that many local working-class communities have felt the full brunt of economic dislocation in recent years, and, perhaps as a result, can lack the aspiration and drive seen in many migrant communities.”


----------



## chilango (Jun 22, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> Not sure this needs any more comment than the article.



...but according to the evidence:


> on average, interventions which aim to raise aspirations appear to have little or no positive impact on educational attainment.



Aspiration interventions | Toolkit Strand


----------



## chilango (Jun 22, 2018)

I should also note the irony of talking about white working class aspirations in a venue like Wellington College. 

Black fly in one's Chardonnay sir?


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Jun 29, 2018)

interview with Ocasio-Cortez who recently won the democratic party New York district primary. Seems like a sensible position on identity politics:


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jun 29, 2018)

her position on idpol is irrelevant if she still wants secure borders and documentation (aka: let's reform ICE.) and what's all that about cutting off water supplies?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 1, 2018)

abolish ice = restructure so that deportations aren't visible to us under the veil of criminality. the DSA basically supports this containment of anti-carceral and anti-border politics.

Agents Seek to Dissolve ICE in Immigration Policy Backlash


----------



## Dragnet (Jul 6, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> ...second thing in two days i've read that relies heavily on A. Sivanandan's idea of xeno-racism - which seemed to have died a death but been revived recently.



Bit off-topic, but - anything worth reading by him? Noticed Edinburgh AF are doing his 'From Resistance To Rebellion' for their next reading group - they've previously done Dallas Costa/James, so I'm hoping his stuff is as vital.


----------



## Odrade (Jul 6, 2018)

This contradiction between identity and class is in my opinion a distraction. What makes sense to me is saying that US politics is incapable of dealing with class issues. Why that is I don’t know, it might be because of the ideological tension in the cold war blocking an authentic formation of socialist movements, or because of the massive power of multinational corporations and financial capital based in the US tilting the scales in such a way to make it impossible for Labor to organize in as a balancing opposition. It might be the insufficient regulations of the election system, which in the US version institutionalizes corruption, that tilted the scale sufficiently to make an European model of somewhat balanced scales between opposing interests in elections not a possibility in the US. It is probably a combination of these, and also the fact that the US is a country in denial of their own history, having poisoned the links between it’s citizens trough a toxic history of slavery, Jim Crow and genocide of the native population, and a justification of these practices. I’m Norwegian, and from my point of view there is no contradiction between feminism, anti-racism, the LGBT-movement and the Labour-movement. If that was the case, one should be able to see that in Scandinavia. We have the strongest protection of Labour in the world. If that was dependent on NOT doing identity politics, we should at the same time not have strong identity-politics movements. But in fact, the complete opposite is the case, we also have the strongest identity politics. The conclusion should be that it is not a contradiction, but in fact solidarity is built simultaneously, across all boundaries.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 11, 2018)

Good video here:


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2018)

The problem with identity politics

*The problem with identity politics*

Q&A with Asad Haider, author of "Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump"


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Good video here:



Watched the first 5 mins.  Completely agree.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 13, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Watched the first 5 mins.  Completely agree.



Watch all of it!  Try and find a point of disagreement.

I can't believe you, Danny la fucking rouge, would completely agree with anything!


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Watch all of it!  Try and find a point of disagreement.
> 
> I can't believe you, Danny la fucking rouge, would completely agree with anything!


Well, one thing I have a hard time with is watching YouTube videos. I find it very difficult. I'd much rather have something to read.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 13, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Well, one thing I have a hard time with is watching YouTube videos. I find it very difficult. I'd much rather have something to read.



Totally get that, but it is the new medium, and you should get accustomed to it because its only gonna get worse.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 13, 2018)

*dislike*


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 13, 2018)

*tru tho*


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 13, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Good video here:




That was excellent.

I tried to get into the whole lefty youtube thing a while back.  There are a few popular ones who can be quite entertaining and make high-quality videos.  But always end up pissing me off because at heart they are middle classic liberals and it shows on key issues.  I've subscribed to this channel for its solid content.


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 14, 2018)

That's an interesting video.

I have to say I don't realy understand it all.

My only real exposure to this discussion has largely come from horrible sources (you know the sort, they live on youtube and act in bad faith). I don't get to discuss this in real life because no one I know is interested in these issues.

Where can I go to get a better understanding of all this? 

Sorry for the derail. Just being honest.


----------



## Grump (Jul 15, 2018)

Really interesting video, completely chimed with my views on how identity politics is used to eradicate a sense of class belonging, only much more articulalry put. The religious parallels were very intriguing.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 15, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> That's an interesting video.
> 
> I have to say I don't realy understand it all.
> 
> ...


Lots of places, but these writers are worth checking out:

Asad Haider, Author at Viewpoint Magazine Asad Haider

Adolph Reed, Jr. Adolph Reed

Multiculturalism | Pandaemonium Kenan Malik

How Race Is Conjured The Fields sisters.

Plenty of links through the thread too.


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 15, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Lots of places, but these writers are worth checking out:
> 
> Asad Haider, Author at Viewpoint Magazine Asad Haider
> 
> ...


Thank you. 

I would ask questions, but I don't want to disrupt this thread. If there's a place for an ignoramus like me to learn more online that anyone knows about i'd like to know.


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 15, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Good video here:




Posted that to a FB group I’m on. Just been admonished for ‘transphobia’


----------



## BigTom (Jul 16, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> Thank you.
> 
> I would ask questions, but I don't want to disrupt this thread. If there's a place for an ignoramus like me to learn more online that anyone knows about i'd like to know.



If you're asking questions about those articles / identity politics, that won't be disrupting/detailing this thread, since that's the topic here, and in any case most of the discussion on this thread was done a while back and you asking more questions (especially "basic" ones) could spark more discussion/debate as well.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 16, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Posted that to a FB group I’m on. Just been admonished for ‘transphobia’



It was a few days ago I watched this, but don't remember her talking much about trans issues at all?


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 16, 2018)

BigTom said:


> If you're asking questions about those articles / identity politics, that won't be disrupting/detailing this thread, since that's the topic here, and in any case most of the discussion on this thread was done a while back and you asking more questions (especially "basic" ones) could spark more discussion/debate as well.


Thanks.

Well, since you asked, I'll state my position and see if it does indeed spark conversation. 

I'm not hugely informed about these things as my environment is about as 'normal' as it gets, being cis white straight and living in a very unradical environment. I've been trying to understand the politics of differnet groups but everything seems to centre around that wretched phrase SJW, and the voices I hear the most, or who seem to get broadcast the most, are of course the likes of Sargon or Dave Rubin, or Stefan Molyneux, Joe Roagan, and now Jordan B Peterson. There are plenty of others, I'm sure you know them all. They seem to spend their time shouting about free speech and how universities are run by these SJWs who hate free speech and want safe spaces etc. 

You get the picture.

I have found it very difficult to understand the truth of all this. I don't believe them, to be clear. When I say I don't understand I'ms aying that I agree with things like feminism, in the sense that women are oppressed and shouldn't be, but I don't have a background in feminist theory for example. I wouldn't even know where to start (I don't read good either, so if kind souls are to recommend books, which is fine, just don't expect me to read them quickly).

I hope that's clear. For the record, I find the likes of Sargon/Rubin etc utterly mendacious, bad faith operators who aren't interested in having an honest discourse but in winding up the masses (re: Anita Sarkeesian, who seems to have spent 7 years being roundly shat on by cunts) for patreon dollars.

As you were


----------



## kabbes (Jul 16, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Good video here:



Thanks for that — it’s excellent


----------



## Edie (Jul 16, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Good video here:



That’s really interesting


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 16, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> It was a few days ago I watched this, but don't remember her talking much about trans issues at all?



She touches on it. 

In any case, she’s a ‘known transphobe’.


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 16, 2018)

Apparently


----------



## belboid (Jul 16, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> She touches on it.
> 
> In any case, she’s a ‘known transphobe’.


Touches on it by quoting Miranda Yardley, and saying that being trans is just men trying to 'absolve' themselves of their sins.  A quick glance at her twitter makes her general position pretty clear. It's not surprising quite a lot of people (who watch far too many of these kinds of videos) aren't that keen on her.

I am a bit surprised as to why this simple undergraduate essay is being so widely praised. It's a quite reasonable advocacy for the basic position of the simplistic pseudo-materialist argument.  It makes some perfectly sound points, and of course kicks against some obvious pricks. But that's about it. Her definition of 'Identity Politics' is so narrow that it doesn't really apply to the vast majority of people involved in campaigns around womens/black/trans rights. Sure, its fine to criticise simplistic notions of 'privilege' and those who base their whole politics upon that notion. But it's way too simplistic, I dont know a single person who would subscribe to the notion that one can simply tot up ones oppression points as she claims. There are claims that none of the forms of ID politics can explain why oppression arose, which uis just wrong. Fair enough, completely disagree with their analysis (I'd probably agree with her), but don't deny it even exists.

e2a: I also find it a bit weird, that a Welsh person would use the American term 'social justice warriors' to refer to a movement in, prsumably, the UK. Why import that right-wing Americanism?


----------



## Edie (Jul 16, 2018)

I’ve not come across that kind of way of looking at it before. And she put into words a lot of why it pisses me off.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jul 16, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> That's an interesting video.
> 
> I have to say I don't realy understand it all.
> 
> ...


I don't think that is a derail at all.  Be careful asking for homework though this lot just keep telling me to read Marx.

Must admit I drifted off about about 5mins of that video, as I had to look up what a SJW type was that she was going on about. I'd never heard of social justice warriors, I suppose its only an internet thing and I really don't do twitter/facebook etc so I don't see it.
I don't meet people who talk about this stuff much in real life either.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jul 16, 2018)

belboid said:


> e2a: I also find it a bit weird, that a Welsh person would use the American term 'social justice warriors' to refer to a movement in, prsumably, the UK. Why import that right-wing Americanism?


Thanks for explaining that. Is there any UK equivalent of the term?


----------



## LDC (Jul 16, 2018)

belboid said:


> e2a: I also find it a bit weird, that a Welsh person would use the American term 'social justice warriors' to refer to a movement in, prsumably, the UK. Why import that right-wing Americanism?



Yeah, I found the use of 'SJW' annoying and anyway I think it's not a helpful term. In my mind it's filed under 'snowflake' as something the alt-right use. 

I also broadly agree with you. I'm a sucker for critiques of ID politics, but I found this one one of the weaker ones generally.


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2018)

belboid said:


> Touches on it by quoting Miranda Yardley, and saying that being trans is just men trying to 'absolve' themselves of their sins.  A quick glance at her twitter makes her general position pretty clear. It's not surprising quite a lot of people (who watch far too many of these kinds of videos) aren't that keen on her.
> 
> I am a bit surprised as to why this simple undergraduate essay is being so widely praised. It's a quite reasonable advocacy for the basic position of the simplistic pseudo-materialist argument.  It makes some perfectly sound points, and of course kicks against some obvious pricks. But that's about it. Her definition of 'Identity Politics' is so narrow that it doesn't really apply to the vast majority of people involved in campaigns around womens/black/trans rights. Sure, its fine to criticise simplistic notions of 'privilege' and those who base their whole politics upon that notion. But it's way too simplistic, I dont know a single person who would subscribe to the notion that one can simply tot up ones oppression points as she claims. There are claims that none of the forms of ID politics can explain why oppression arose, which uis just wrong. Fair enough, completely disagree with their analysis (I'd probably agree with her), but don't deny it even exists.
> 
> e2a: I also find it a bit weird, that a Welsh person would use the American term 'social justice warriors' to refer to a movement in, prsumably, the UK. Why import that right-wing Americanism?



Only saw first couple of mins yesterday, might watch rest later... But SJW isn't an outre or exclusively American phrase any more.


----------



## killer b (Jul 16, 2018)

Social Justice Warrior is widely used and understood in the UK. And a 15 minute youtube video is always going to be light on theory.


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 16, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I don't think that is a derail at all.  Be careful asking for homework though this lot just keep telling me to read Marx.
> 
> Must admit I drifted off about about 5mins of that video, as I had to look up what a SJW type was that she was going on about. I'd never heard of social justice warriors, I suppose its only an internet thing and I really don't do twitter/facebook etc so I don't see it.
> I don't meet people who talk about this stuff much in real life either.


Well I did ask about Marx - ironically the one writer that waterstones never has in stock. Nevermind. I'll find Capital second hand somewhere buy it and then never read it.


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 16, 2018)

killer b said:


> Social Justice Warrior is widely used and understood in the UK. And a 15 minute youtube video is always going to be light on theory.


Is it? Perhaps in the internet communities from where it was vomitted


----------



## LDC (Jul 16, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> Well I did ask about Marx - ironically the one writer that waterstones never has in stock. Nevermind. I'll find Capital second hand somewhere buy it and then never read it.



There's loads of good shorter relevant articles that have been quoted on here on various threads covering this topic.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 16, 2018)

I'm a little unsure why 'SJW' and 'postmodernism' get linked together so firmly.


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> Is it? Perhaps in the internet communities from where it was vomitted



Dude, you're on the internet... Posting in a community. It's just a few clicks hither and thither on a thematic trajectory to stumble across mentions of SJWs. Of course loads of people don't know what it means but it's not some odd term just invented last week.


----------



## belboid (Jul 16, 2018)

killer b said:


> Social Justice Warrior is widely used and understood in the UK. And a 15 minute youtube video is always going to be light on theory.


I was hardly expecting Grundrisse, but this is just picking at the low hanging fruit, really. And so much of it isn't even specific to identitarians. All the religious stuff is straight from John Grey's criticism of the socialist left (a criticism oft repeated on here by a certain miserablist poster), people being ridiculously shouty and not listening to their opponents has surely been a staple of student politics for decades.

Add in complaining about Americanisms and then using SJW's is just odd, and shows how much the author is sucked into the small world she is complaining about. And it's a bit...odd/telling that Black Lives Matter comes in for attack (albeit in passing) and the idpol movement that doesn't are the anti-sex work feminists. There's a perfectly valid argument around that issue, of course, but why is it the only acceptable such movement that is mentioned?


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 17, 2018)

It was a solid overview of the key points around class vs. identity politics.



belboid said:


> people being ridiculously shouty and not listening to their opponents has surely been a staple of student politics for decades



They don't listen to people on their own side either (the broad left) unless you have the necessary oppression status.

Just my experience, but the form of idpol she rails against isn't just a few pricks in niche online cultural spheres.  I've noticed that form of politics become quite widespread among people who consider themselves left wing.  Particularly about how class is relegated to just another identity and representation becomes more important than structural equality.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 17, 2018)

I've seen SJW used a lot but never to mean 'advocate of identity politics' as opposed to 'someone with class focused politics'. I think that video is probably the first time I've seen it used by someone who wouldn't consider the speaker to be one tbh.


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

.


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

belboid said:


> I was hardly expecting Grundrisse, but this is just picking at the low hanging fruit, really. And so much of it isn't even specific to identitarians. All the religious stuff is straight from John Grey's criticism of the socialist left (a criticism oft repeated on here by a certain miserablist poster), people being ridiculously shouty and not listening to their opponents has surely been a staple of student politics for decades.
> 
> Add in complaining about Americanisms and then using SJW's is just odd, and shows how much the author is sucked into the small world she is complaining about. And it's a bit...odd/telling that Black Lives Matter comes in for attack (albeit in passing) and the idpol movement that doesn't are the anti-sex work feminists. There's a perfectly valid argument around that issue, of course, but why is it the only acceptable such movement that is mentioned?


 Telling how?


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 17, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> the likes of Sargon or Dave Rubin, or Stefan Molyneux, Joe Roagan, and now Jordan B Peterson. There are plenty of others, I'm sure you know them all.


To be honest, no.  Of those you list, I've heard of Peterson, but only from mentions on here.


----------



## belboid (Jul 17, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> It was a solid overview of the key points around class vs. identity politics.


flimsy as fuck, imo. Simple materialism v a straw man for five minutes, followed by ten minutes of irrelevance.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

I agree with belboid. Awful shallow waffly stuff and exactly what i hoped we weren't doing with this thread and wider critiques of identity politics. Its normalisation of alt-right term, it's ownership of them in fact is rank.


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 17, 2018)

I couldn't watch it, I skipped around a bit to see if it got better but it didn't.


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> I agree with belboid. Awful shallow waffly stuff and exactly what i hoped we weren't doing with this thread and wider critiques of identity politics. Its normalisation of alt-right term, it's ownership of them in fact is rank.



I have mixed feelings about her use of that term. Part of her idea is that is workers see these behaviours by people who, like it or not, have come to be more widely known (i.e. outside the right) as SJWs, and are turned off the whole of the left, and into the hands of the right. Something which an explicity left wing criticism of this identifiable trend seeks to counter.  I think there's some value in distancing the left from that sort of politics. Though I do have reservations about co-opting the language of the right to do so.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

_Hey RCP, can i get a job? _

Looking at her other vid - nah fuck off. Awful stuff.


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> _Hey RCP, can i get a job? _
> 
> Looking at her other vid - nah fuck off. Awful stuff.


Why so?


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

'trans narrative' and those supportive of it being 'proto-facists'.  Every cliche going.

It's OUTRAGE material and about 1 cm deep.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> Thanks.
> 
> Well, since you asked, I'll state my position and see if it does indeed spark conversation.
> 
> ...



I know exactly who you are talking about.  Youtube are FULL of these types of disingenuous twats, and they make a living out of victimising themselves whilst admonishing "SJWs".  I find the term SJW interesting, I had always found it to be a bit of a thought terminating cliche (like most other political acronyms) in order to "other" a group, and also to act as a smear. 

In this case the Term SJW was first used I believe in atheist Youtube circles, to mean "feminists" as well as those who advocated for social justice online, but did so in an "illogical" way.

It's all part of Pwnage culture innit?

Having said that, these acronyms do eventually get absorbed into the lexicon and start to take on it's own meaning, and also, eventually, the targets of the smear start referring to themselves as such, somewhat ironically I suppose, in a bid to normalise the position. And what we end up with is an us vs them thing, in that your either WITH us, or AGAINST us.

"SJWs" are indiviudalists, post moderninsts, and IDpolers, just by the very nature of that they are currently leading the "left" in the internet culture wars.  So if you're not an SJW you must be the opposite?  An alt-righter.

And you see this used quite often as tropes.  The moment you see someone disagree with your "side" you are sullied and outcast and must be a fascist cus what's the alternative?

When I was more active on Youtube, I kinda thought Anita had some salient points, but a lot of her delivery was bullshit, and there was a lot of sneering and condescension, as well as stuff that was just, well, weak (there's a long thread on here about the spat between her and Tunderf00t) - but I couldn't really say it publicly on youtube because, as someone who had been labelled an SJW, I was expected to toe the line, word for word or be outcast from the group.

So while SJW is an alt-right term, I think there is a group in online circles certainly, who do fit the bill of mantra-repeating, ideologues, just like the alt-right quite frankly.  I don't consider them to be left wing in the slightest (though many will identify as anarchists - though they've never read any in their lives).

I think what this forum, of relatively older, well read people forget is that a lot of youth get their politics from online sources, and it has to be accessible.  So while the video I posted may be "simplistic", and use terms you may not like, it has to be in order to carry a certain weight within these communities.  It speaks to them in a language they understand and as an alternative to the horrendous group masquerading as left-wingers, that currently dominate political discourse on Youtube.

Incidentally Sargon of Akkad has joined UKIP (like was it ever gonna be any different).


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

Youth? She's about 70.


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Youth? She's about 70.


Eh?


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> 'trans narrative' and those supportive of it being 'proto-facists'.  Every cliche going.
> 
> It's OUTRAGE material and about 1 cm deep.



Sure, her language is hyperbolic. 

But I don't really understand the phenomenon of 'trans' (and that wording is probably horrible). If someone tells me they identify as a gender other than what I might perceive they are or were then it doesn't offend or upset me. But I can't honestly say I understand the mechanisms at work there. I'd like to, which is why I posted about idpol stuff above.


I certainly don't think trans people should be vilifed excluded or smeared as pedos or sex pests. That's obviously disgusting.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

Oh and BTW Toast Rider , If you're into Youtube and familiar with the way political discourse works, I recommend this channel: Worst Person On The Internet

The guy does ramble a bit, but I think he makes some interesting observations re: Youtube culture and has a background in philosophy. I don't always agree with everything but there you have it.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

See, what that vid does is say that the issues aren't real. The _proper position _is that the issues are real but need to be approached in a different way than Identity politics. There is a huge gulf between these two perspectives and i really hope that we're starting from the latter one here. Anything else is opening the door to red-brown shit.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Youth? She's about 70.





Athos said:


> Eh?



She looks max 25 years old to me.  Probably younger.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> Sure, her language is hyperbolic.
> 
> But I don't really understand the phenomenon of 'trans' (and that wording is probably horrible). If someone tells me they identify as a gender other than what I might perceive they are or were then it doesn't offend or upset me. But I can't honestly say I understand the mechanisms at work there. I'd like to, which is why I posted about idpol stuff above.
> 
> ...


It's not language - it's her actually saying there is a proto-fascist trans narrative. That's the use of political concepts to attack "OUTRAGE" political opponents. That's cynical targeted deliberate use of language, not language as neutral background.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

Athos said:


> Eh?


She's an old fogey.


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> She's an old fogey.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

Athos said:


>


It's a very marketable brand. 
_
Please watch this Brendan._


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> See, what that vid does is say that the issues aren't real. The _proper position _is that the issues are real but need to be approached in a different way than Identity politics.


I only watched the start, and didn't pick up on her saying the issues aren't real.  So I'm glad some people have picked up on that.  (You and belboid primarily).  I agree that it's important that those ideas aren't allowed to creep in.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> She's an old fogey.


I hope I look that young when I'm her age, then.


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> It's a very marketable brand.
> _
> Please watch this Brendan._



You have some perfectly reasonable criticisms of the video (some of which I share, as well as having others of my own, albeit I have lower expectations of what depth of analysis can reasonably be expected of a YouTube video), but this 'fogey' stuff is unhelpful, in my opinion.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 17, 2018)

Athos said:


> You have some perfectly reasonable criticisms of the video (some of which I share, as well as having others of my own, albeit I have lower expectations of what depth of analysis can reasonably be expected of a YouTube video), but this 'fogey' stuff is unhelpful, in my opinion.


Oh come on, young old fogey is a recognised career path.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 17, 2018)

Red Cat said:


> I couldn't watch it, I skipped around a bit to see if it got better but it didn't.


I generally can't take in 'user generated content'.  It's good in principle, but it's rarely watchable.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Oh come on, young old fogey is a recognised career path.


Ah, 'young fogey' is different.  I was going to say I'm one, but then I remembered.


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Oh come on, young old fogey is a recognised career path.



 Whilst I understand (and agree with some of) the criticism of what she says, I'm not sure why you doubt her sincerity?


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 17, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> I know exactly who you are talking about.  Youtube are FULL of these types of disingenuous twats, and they make a living out of victimising themselves whilst admonishing "SJWs".  I find the term SJW interesting, I had always found it to be a bit of a thought terminating cliche (like most other political acronyms) in order to "other" a group, and also to act as a smear.
> 
> In this case the Term SJW was first used I believe in atheist Youtube circles, to mean "feminists" as well as those who advocated for social justice online, but did so in an "illogical" way.
> 
> ...


It is indeed full of it. I see it everywhere, but that may have been the circles I was in - the G+ sceptic community with whom I briefly flirted. A horrible toxic place full of people who used the word 'bitch' constantly as well as 'sjw'.

It all seems to stem from Gamergate. At least that's my perception. SJW seems to refer not simply to feminists, they are the defacto target, but to anyone that cares about civil rights and treating people kindly because doing so, in their reactionary eyes, is to deny them the privilege they deserve, and to diminish society. And because giving trauma victims somewhere safe to be is to undermine the entirety of western civilisation. 

I have watched a fair amount of Anita's vidoes. I don't get the impression she's condescending tbf. Her analysis, to my ears, seems pretty reasonable. If that tone is there then, given the shit she's had to put up with, I can forgive it. As far as a spat with thunderfoot? I wouldn't call it a spat, since that implies it went both ways. I would call it obsessive bullying; he turned his attention to her and made every single video about ho feminism (of which she was eexplicitly emblematic) was "poisoning everything". Creepy as fuck.

It's only gotten worse since then with these people. I find the notion that Sargon has almost a million followers and a comfortable living spouting evidence free horseshit utterly galling. I resent it, which isn't healthy. I wish YT had the balls to ban him, damn his free speech. Then there's Rubin who makes a fortune (and that, again, is nothing compared to Petersen) and is funded by the Koch brothers to soft soap racists and thugs. This shit is becoming a real problem.

And then there's dear old Stephen Yaxley Lennon, their new darling.

So of course these clowns join UKIP. They dont' care about policies or outcomes. They're minted. Youtube and patreon has seen to that. We seem to live at a time when you can set yourself up for life off the back of the faux outrage of pretending the holocaust is funny because...nazi dog. It's fucking insane.

Rant over


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 17, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> See, what that vid does is say that the issues aren't real. The _proper position _is that the issues are real but need to be approached in a different way than Identity politics. There is a huge gulf between these two perspectives and i really hope that we're starting from the latter one here. Anything else is opening the door to red-brown shit.


I don't get that reference.
What is the correct way to approach these issues?


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> It is indeed full of it. I see it everywhere, but that may have been the circles I was in - the G+ sceptic community with whom I briefly flirted. A horrible toxic place full of people who used the word 'bitch' constantly as well as 'sjw'.
> 
> It all seems to stem from Gamergate. At least that's my perception. SJW seems to refer not simply to feminists, they are the defacto target, but to anyone that cares about civil rights and treating people kindly because doing so, in their reactionary eyes, is to deny them the privilege they deserve, and to diminish society. And because giving trauma victims somewhere safe to be is to undermine the entirety of western civilisation.
> 
> ...



All fair enough.  I guess spat was a silly word to use. Thunderf00t is a massive bellend and his obsession was creepy as fuck.  They all work on the latest outrage for patreon $$$$.

As for anita, yea some of her analysis was reasonable, but she is a liberal, so I took issue with some of her shit.  no WAAY did it demand the response from the outrages "sceptics" followed. And I firmly believe you can have a dialogue with people without being obnoxious about it and calling it "criticism" (which really was just bullying).

You know, I'm kinda pleased you understand where I'm coming from though.  I try and talk about it with my mates but they're all *WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?* and the fact that they are supposedly insignificant, although they have millinons of subscribers.



danny la rouge said:


> I only watched the start, and didn't pick up on her saying the issues aren't real.  So I'm glad some people have picked up on that.  (You and belboid primarily).  I agree that it's important that those ideas aren't allowed to creep in.



I don't think she did say the issues aren't real. In fact she specifically mentioned intersectionality being the intersection between race-class sex-class- etc etc, but that it's bastardised and simplified into essentially being privileged points under id-pol (especially on the internet).

If she did say "it's not important", I also missed it.  but I don't think she did.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 17, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> but that it's bastardised and simplified into essentially being privileged points under id-pol (especially on the internet).


With all the will in the world, I'm not going to watch the rest.  But, yes, that's what I picked up on from the bit I saw.  And I do agree with that bit.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 17, 2018)

Overlooking the dodgey normalisation and taking on of oversimplified, doublespeak, alt-right insults for one moment...

Has anyone mentioned the glaring hypocrisy of bemoaning the politics of _identity_ as reductive, flawed and anti-solidarity building whilst as the same time dismssing and pigeonholing/_idenitifying_ others as 'SJWs' ? 

She has a lot of good points to make yet undermines those by using this kind of broad brush language...._'Do as I say not as I do.._.'


----------



## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Has anyone mentioned the glaring hypocrisy of bemoaning the politics of _identity_ as reductive, flawed and anti-solidarity building whilst as the same time dismssing and pigeonholing/_idenitifying_ others as 'SJWs' ?



There is none.  'SJW' (whether you like the term or not) is a reference to the content (or lack of!) of someone's politics; it's not an identity.  It's about what someone does/thinks, not their characteristics.  Not everything that's identifiable is an identity in the sense of identity politics.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> If she did say "it's not important", I also missed it.  but I don't think she did.



I just forced myself to watch the video.

She says the SJWs 'have no aims' and mentions how the left should be 'standing up for actual principals'.

I also did a giant facepalm when she was prepared to bring up Miranda Yardley but not anything that Miranda Yardley says, choosing instead to only focus on Miranda Yardleys identity


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

elbows said:


> I just forced myself to watch the video.
> 
> She says the SJWs 'have no aims' and mentions how the left should be 'standing up for actual principals'.



"having no aims" is different to the issues they talk about (race sex disability) "not being important". I kind of agree that id-polers really do have no aims, other than to label everyone under an identity, and assign privilege points on that basis.

It certainly doesn't liberate anyone from anything.

I still don't know what end game they expect to happen because in practical terms it does nothing except alienate the vast majority of the population (and push them into the arms of the right.. cuz if you're not with us, you must be against us).


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## elbows (Jul 17, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> I kind of agree that id-polers really do have no aims, other than to label everyone under an identity, and assign privilege points on that basis.



I really doubt the appropriate response to that sort of thing is to join in with a bastardised version that involves labelling them under the identity of SJW.

If I had more time I would be really tempted to travel back through history, but seen through the modern prism of throwing the baby out with the bathwater by chucking terms like SJW around with abandon.

'Free Nelson Mandela!' no doubt met with 'I'm of the true left, dont tell me what to think you bloody SJW'. Or perhaps 'You'll not set the industrial estates on fire by focusing on some purely academic issue abroad, you'll just end up driving the workers to spend their spare pittance on posters of Margaret Thatcher'.


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## flypanam (Jul 17, 2018)

This Is Hell! | Beyond identity politics, and towards radical, collective action.

A very good interview with Asad Haider here.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 17, 2018)

belboid said:


> flimsy as fuck, imo. Simple materialism v a straw man for five minutes, followed by ten minutes of irrelevance.



How is it a straw man if I have seen lots of people behave the way she is describing



butchersapron said:


> I agree with belboid. Awful shallow waffly stuff and exactly what i hoped we weren't doing with this thread and wider critiques of identity politics. Its normalisation of alt-right term, it's ownership of them in fact is rank.



I've always hated the term SJW but I do think a lot of people use it as shorthand for liberal identity politics, without necessarily being alt-right.


----------



## killer b (Jul 17, 2018)

they do, but it should still be resisted.


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## elbows (Jul 17, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I've always hated the term SJW but I do think a lot of people use it as shorthand for liberal identity politics, without necessarily being alt-right.



On a note I consider to be strongly related, I would be interested in how, historically, people of the left were able to resist and critique liberalism without throwing a range of issues of social justice under the bus at the same time. Because I fear some of those lessons are being lost these days.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

flypanam said:


> This Is Hell! | Beyond identity politics, and towards radical, collective action.
> 
> A very good interview with Asad Haider here.



I'm listening to this.  It is interesting, haven't got to the end yet.


----------



## belboid (Jul 17, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> "having no aims" is different to the issues they talk about (race sex disability) "not being important". I kind of agree that id-polers really do have no aims, other than to label everyone under an identity, and assign privilege points on that basis.
> 
> It certainly doesn't liberate anyone from anything.
> 
> I still don't know what end game they expect to happen because in practical terms it does nothing except alienate the vast majority of the population (and push them into the arms of the right.. cuz if you're not with us, you must be against us).


There is a part of the talk where she goes on about how capitalism doesn't need any of the other 'isms' (racism, sexism, etc), and that it would be just fine without them. And, while there is an abstract truth there, it doesn't tie in with reality very well. These ways of dividing the working class are too important to capital to be let go, so while she doesn't explicitly state these things are 'not important' she does diminish their importance.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2018)

Both the appropriation of alt-right language and transphobia are extremely dangerous poisons whose potential to do great harm are well beyond theoretical at this point. Apparently high levels of blindness towards transphobia have been keeping me up at night, sort it out or face terrible consequences in future.


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## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

belboid said:


> There is a part of the talk where she goes on about how capitalism doesn't need any of the other 'isms' (racism, sexism, etc), and that it would be just fine without them. And, while there is an abstract truth there, it doesn't tie in with reality very well. These ways of dividing the working class are too important to capital to be let go, so while she doesn't explicitly state these things are 'not important' she does diminish their importance.



Yeah and she also says that that part is "controversial" and she's talking theoretically.  Theoretically, I think it's true, but also capitalism as you say, does divide the working class in this way and exploit them through sex/race/disablity etc.

That's not to say it doesn't matter or it's not important, I suppose it means that focusing solely on sex-race-disability whilst paying class lip service doesn't actually do much in defeating the structures.


----------



## belboid (Jul 17, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> How is it a straw man if I have seen lots of people behave the way she is describing


Because she lays out a very simplistic, lowest common denominator, version of identitarian politics. The one that's pretty easy to rebut. While I'm sure there are those who never go beyond that level, if we want a serious critique, we have to do so.

Would the argument she puts forward convince anyone who started from a position of disagreement? Unless they had never come across Marxism at all, I doubt there is anything there that would even make themselves question their beliefs in any way. It's a bit like rejecting socialism because you reject the practises of the SWP (for example).


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## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 17, 2018)

Angela Nagle goes on about the culture wars here:

This Is Hell! | The chaos of meaning is intentional: America's culture war logs on.

(from the same website flypanam posted)  

It's very good.

And it does mention the crux of what is happening with modern id-pol.

Has Nagle been mentioned yet?


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 17, 2018)

Toast Rider said:


> Well I did ask about Marx - ironically the one writer that waterstones never has in stock. Nevermind. I'll find Capital second hand somewhere buy it and then never read it.



You could try a reader first. Harvey's 'a companion to Marx's capital' and Cleaver's 'reading capital politically' are good. They present extracts and provide context, interpretation and explanation.


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## Athos (Jul 17, 2018)

belboid said:


> There is a part of the talk where she goes on about how capitalism doesn't need any of the other 'isms' (racism, sexism, etc), and that it would be just fine without them. And, while there is an abstract truth there, it doesn't tie in with reality very well. These ways of dividing the working class are too important to capital to be let go, so while she doesn't explicitly state these things are 'not important' she does diminish their importance.



That'd be my biggest criticism of it; baby out with the bathwater.


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## Toast Rider (Jul 17, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> You could try a reader first. Harvey's 'a companion to Marx's capital' and Cleaver's 'reading capital politically' are good. They present extracts and provide context, interpretation and explanation.


I've been watching Harvey's stuff (well the first video) but his class is really intended as a readalong - you'd need to read the text as well. Not just watch his videos instead


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## Edie (Jul 17, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Angela Nagle goes on about the culture wars here:
> 
> This Is Hell! | The chaos of meaning is intentional: America's culture war logs on.
> 
> ...


Wow, that’s fascinating


----------



## Edie (Jul 17, 2018)

When people here are talking about IDpol, does that roughly map on to what the alt-right would call SJWs?


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## belboid (Jul 17, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Angela Nagle goes on about the culture wars here:
> 
> This Is Hell! | The chaos of meaning is intentional: America's culture war logs on.
> 
> ...


Somewhat dubious (to say the least) about her after the terrible quality of Kill All Normies.

For a critique of 'privilege checking' I think this piece works far better. It is actually materialist, and also recognises that the majority of people becoming involved in 'identity politics' are doing so for radical reasons, because they reject (at least one aspect of) bourgeois society and want to radically change it. The mechanisms they choose are unlikely to achieve their aims, but they still start from a position of wanting to change the world. Which we should encourage.

The politics of privilege-checking

(I was considering posting the article before, but I hoped I could catch some bugger out by dropping the Lenin quote in somewhere, unattributed, and so delayed doing so)


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## belboid (Jul 17, 2018)

Edie said:


> When people here are talking about IDpol, does that roughly map on to what the alt-right would call SJWs?


It means whatever the user wants it to mean.  That's one of the bloody problems.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 17, 2018)

belboid said:


> It means whatever the user wants it to mean.  That's one of the bloody problems.



I’m not saying theory isn’t needed but you can be such a dismissive cunt at times. Dare I say you can learn as much from Edie as you can Gramsci. A genuine prole with their ear to the ground is worth a thousand stuffy lectures.
And it’s not as if these books are taking us anywhere fast in their own, is it?


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## belboid (Jul 17, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> I’m not saying theory isn’t needed but you can be such a dismissive cunt at times. Dare I say you can learn as much from Edie as you can Gramsci. A genuine prole with their ear to the ground is worth a thousand stuffy lectures.
> And it’s not as if these books are taking us anywhere fast in their own, is it?


I’m not dismissing anything Edie said at all. ID politics is defined in umpteen different ways, various campaigns are or aren’t ID politics according to different campaigners. Which can easily lead to confusions and disagreements based on misunderstandings. Some of which seem quite deliberate.


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## The39thStep (Jul 17, 2018)

belboid said:


> Somewhat dubious (to say the least) about her after the terrible quality of *Kill All Normies.*
> 
> For a critique of 'privilege checking' I think this piece works far better. It is actually materialist, and also recognises that the majority of people becoming involved in 'identity politics' are doing so for radical reasons, because they reject (at least one aspect of) bourgeois society and want to radically change it. The mechanisms they choose are unlikely to achieve their aims, but they still start from a position of wanting to change the world. Which we should encourage.
> 
> ...



I was going to buy that on Kindle this week. No good?


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

Edie said:


> When people here are talking about IDpol, does that roughly map on to what the alt-right would call SJWs?



I think it does roughly.  Some alt-right types will call anybody on the left an SJW.  But I feel most of the SJW-hate online is directed at the most extreme idpol stereotypes. 

So many alt-right tropes are based on characterising the left as SJW's who think all white people are evil/racist/privileged, who tally up oppression points based on identities, complain about cultural appropriation... it isn't class-based arguments getting mocked, it's idpol.  Which they present as being what left-wing politics is all about


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

The39thStep said:


> I was going to buy that on Kindle this week. No good?



I keep meaning to read this.  A lot of people on twitter were annoyed that she treats both sides as part of the same phenomenon, rather than being clear that the alt-right are the bad guys.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I keep meaning to read this.  A lot of people on twitter were annoyed that she treats both sides as part of the same phenomenon, rather than being clear that the alt-right are the bad guys.


I could live with that if its  a useful read tbh. I have my own views.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

belboid said:


> Because she lays out a very simplistic, lowest common denominator, version of identitarian politics. The one that's pretty easy to rebut. While I'm sure there are those who never go beyond that level, if we want a serious critique, we have to do so.
> 
> Would the argument she puts forward convince anyone who started from a position of disagreement? Unless they had never come across Marxism at all, I doubt there is anything there that would even make themselves question their beliefs in any way. It's a bit like rejecting socialism because you reject the practises of the SWP (for example).



Meant to reply to this.  What if that simplistic lowest common denominator version is what most people encounter?  Her presentation of idpol is how I've seen it in the wild, often very crude privilege theory.  I'm sure there are people out there practicing more nuanced and intelligent intersectional analysis but her video may appeal to people who've seen the really shit stuff and would welcome a rebuttal.  The shit stuff is everywhere.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

The39thStep said:


> I could live with that if its  a useful read tbh. I have my own views.



My thoughts also.  Plan to read it when I get time.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> My thoughts also.  Plan to read it when I get time.


Ok, we can swap notes


----------



## Edie (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> Meant to reply to this.  What if that simplistic lowest common denominator version is what most people encounter?  Her presentation of idpol is how I've seen it in the wild, often very crude privilege theory.  I'm sure there are people out there practicing more nuanced and intelligent intersectional analysis but her video may appeal to people who've seen the really shit stuff and would welcome a rebuttal.  The shit stuff is everywhere.


I think there’s a lot in that. I appreciate what belboid is saying, and some of what she says isn’t nuanced and yeah, I get that it sounds like a badly edited teenager essay now it’s been pointed out.

But on the other hand it’s genuinely one of the first videos I’ve watched that tries to pull an argument together against this IDPol shit from a left perspective and not an alt-right one. So I don’t care if it’s wobbly or shonky at least it’s a start!


----------



## Edie (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree why can’t I PM you?


----------



## Edie (Jul 18, 2018)

I think a lot of what Nagle said in that radio show made sense and linked into what she was saying too. That the IDpol/SJW "movement with no name" is really annoying, the way that virtue-signalling is used, the bullying that results from that, the shaming of people who haven't come across the ideas before, or misuse the language, is a kind of elitism. Elitist language, elitist ideas. You see it here about the trans stuff, people genuinely not knowing if trans woman is one word or two and getting told/shamed that they are a bigot if they get it wrong ffs. And there seems to me something shifty about the leverage of that kind of thinking to gain "identity points", like that Pips Bunce character.

Its no wonder the alt-right revel in taking it down with irony and humour and rage. It needs opposing just not from those cunts. But I think Nagle is right when she says that the rise of the right in the young can be seen (and easily missed if your not in that bubble) in the alt-right stuff online. And some way of challenging that needs to be found cos it IS difficult to get passed the irony as a weapon, joking-not-joking stuff.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 18, 2018)

The39thStep said:


> I was going to buy that on Kindle this week. No good?



All books are worth reading. Fwiw it describes what I saw play out online when hanging on those circles pretty closely.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

Edie said:


> I think there’s a lot in that. I appreciate what belboid is saying, and some of what she says isn’t nuanced and yeah, I get that it sounds like a badly edited teenager essay now it’s been pointed out.
> 
> But on the other hand it’s genuinely one of the first videos I’ve watched that tries to pull an argument together against this IDPol shit from a left perspective and not an alt-right one. So I don’t care if it’s wobbly or shonky at least it’s a start!



I recall that this - link - was the first thing I read to critique idpol from a class perspective.  Just a couple of years ago.  Before this I'd defend idpol because they were on my side (the left) and I felt I had to take that side against the alt-right.  This article challenged me because it made arguments I'd usually associated with the alt-right (criticising idpol) but doing so from a socialist position.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

Edie said:


> Sunset Tree why can’t I PM you?



Apologies I have the PM function switched off, I haven't blocked you specifically!


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

If you want to see what the alt-right mean when they say SJW, check out one of those 'SJW cringe' compilations on youtube.  That was one way they successfully spread a stereotype to the mainstream.  The typical clip will be e.g. a middle-class uni student hectoring white people for cultural appropriation because they have dreadlocks.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

killer b said:


> they do, but it should still be resisted.



I did resist it.  For years.  Refused to acknowledge it and always pointed out it is a term created by the right to discredit anyone vaguely progressive.  It made no difference, the word caught on and passed into common parlance (online at least).  I still won't use it myself but I can get someone using the language their audience will understand.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

They use those extreme-SJWs as a trojan horse too.  Once it's established that these are crazy fuckers to be mocked and laughed at, they'll start applying the same principle towards more rational lefty views.  I saw a video where the guy was mocking an 'SJW' youtuber who was talking about how race is socially constructed.  Thing is, her video was just a solid overview of race from a sociological/anthropological perspective.  Pretty on point, nothing crazy, calmly presented.  But the alt-right guy is bracketing her alongside all of the genuinely mental clips.  So they do use it to discredit progressive arguments more generally and the properly mental stuff is a gateway to discrediting sensible stuff.


----------



## belboid (Jul 18, 2018)

The39thStep said:


> I was going to buy that on Kindle this week. No good?


I can send you my copy if you like.

I dont think its very good though, no. Not the worst book in the world, by an means, a couple of god chapters, but a lot is just shallow, without any evidence of research having been done. The initial premise about transgression is wrong, she failed to understand anything about the left student protests she criticises (and actively misrepresents the anti-Milo campaign in Berkely), pretty much entirely skips any wider contexts, she even says the traditinal (religious) right is all but dead, despite the fact of one of them being in the bloody White House!

Chapter on manchasm,  or whatever her phrase was, was good, and it qute possibly identitifes a small subsect of a left movement quite accurately, but it claims to do oh so much more. All in all, I found it superficial and unconvincing. Good for backing up preconceived ideas but nothing else.


----------



## belboid (Jul 18, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> All books are worth reading.


They really are not.  Life is too short to waste time on shit books.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I recall that this - link - was the first thing I read to critique idpol from a class perspective.  Just a couple of years ago.  Before this I'd defend idpol because they were on my side (the left) and I felt I had to take that side against the alt-right.  This article challenged me because it made arguments I'd usually associated with the alt-right (criticising idpol) but doing so from a socialist position.



That is an excellent article!


----------



## belboid (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I did resist it.  For years.  Refused to acknowledge it and always pointed out it is a term created by the right to discredit anyone vaguely progressive.  It made no difference, the word caught on and passed into common parlance (online at least).  I still won't use it myself but I can get someone using the language their audience will understand.


The word (which isnt a word) has not 'caught on' in this country. People may know what it means, but that is different to acually using it. It's use should not be encouraged.


Sunset Tree said:


> They use those extreme-SJWs as a trojan horse too.  Once it's established that these are crazy fuckers to be mocked and laughed at, they'll start applying the same principle towards more rational lefty views.


And that is exactly why you dont help the fuckers out by taking up their language!


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> That is an excellent article!



I thought so!  It really did change the way I think.  I feel like going along with idpol required subconsciously suppressing my beliefs on class and privilege and I remember this article snapping me back to reality, as it felt at the time.

I also recall this article doing quite well on twitter and even Sargon of Akkad retweeted it.  The authors whole intention at the time was to appeal to young men who were being drawn to the alt-right but who could, under other circumstances, have been receptive to left-wing arguments.  First time I'd seen the concept of trying to appeal to people rather than seeing them as an enemy.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I did resist it. For years. Refused to acknowledge it and always pointed out it is a term created by the right to discredit anyone vaguely progressive.





Sunset Tree said:


> They use those extreme-SJWs as a trojan horse too. Once it's established that these are crazy fuckers to be mocked and laughed at, they'll start applying the same principle towards more rational lefty views.



Yes and YES. I'm not a fan of these acronyms either. I've been saying for a while that they are just thought terminating clichés but like you say, they enter the lexicon, and as I mentioned they start to take on meaning.

I still don't use the term SJW because I don't think it's an accurate descriptor and it is used as a trojan horse. I'd rather call them neo-liberal postmodernists, because its more accurate but at the same time that *is* really elitist language, and there isn't another term that can be used. 

No one knows what the fuck a postmodern liberal is unless you've done some pretty heavy reading and have a lot of time on your hands. 

I do think that IDpoler is starting to get into usage though, and I think that's a good thing.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

belboid said:


> The word (which isnt a word) has not 'caught on' in this country. People may know what it means, but that is different to acually using it. It's use should not be encouraged.
> 
> And that is exactly why you dont help the fuckers out by taking up their language!



As I said, I personally would not use that phrase.  It hasn't hit the UK mainstream but people who spend time online will know it.  Although I don't use it myself, I recognise people who do use it aren't necessarily from the alt-right


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 18, 2018)

belboid said:


> I can send you my copy if you like.
> 
> I dont think its very good though, no. Not the worst book in the world, by an means, a couple of god chapters, but a lot is just shallow, without any evidence of research having been done. The initial premise about transgression is wrong, she failed to understand anything about the left student protests she criticises (and actively misrepresents the anti-Milo campaign in Berkely), pretty much entirely skips any wider contexts, she even says the traditinal (religious) right is all but dead, despite the fact of one of them being in the bloody White House!
> 
> Chapter on manchasm,  or whatever her phrase was, was good, and it qute possibly identitifes a small subsect of a left movement quite accurately, but it claims to do oh so much more. All in all, I found it superficial and unconvincing. Good for backing up preconceived ideas but nothing else.



Thanks Belboid for the offer but its only £6 on Amazon for Kindle  and saves the faff amd cost of sending a book to Portugal.I'm interested in it mainly to try and understand a little more on how the UK alt right and more recently the alt light work. I was arguing with some American kid on Twitter the other week about why he was retweeting a photo of Gen-Id, and when I went on his page it had all the alt right memes and retweets and then I noticed that his location was Manchester  so I assumed that was Manchester USA  but after skimming everything he'd written it was Manchester UK. His entire social media world and persona was American, language , news feeds, films , games the lot. It was like arguing with someone from a different country possibly world.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 18, 2018)

I though the Nagle book was piss poor and was pretty embarrassing when it tried to discuss Evola/the german conservative revolution/anti-fascism from the right. And her and her publishers defences when it was revealed large chunks of it were copied from Wikipedia and other places firmly cemented the idea that this was a non-serious rush job. The best book on the alt-right/modern far right of the crop published over the last few years is Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right's Challenge to State and Empire by Matthew N Lyons. Refreshing to find a book that actually deals with the issue and looks at what the modern far right actually is/does rather than parrot shop-worn myths.

(I may do a 'reading the right' thread soon btw as i've been wallowing in their filth fro a few years now - i think it's important to).


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 18, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I recall that this - link - was the first thing I read to critique idpol from a class perspective.  Just a couple of years ago.  Before this I'd defend idpol because they were on my side (the left) and I felt I had to take that side against the alt-right.  This article challenged me because it made arguments I'd usually associated with the alt-right (criticising idpol) but doing so from a socialist position.


I hadn't seen that before, but I like Loki.  I may not _always_ agree with him, but he's always well worth reading. He always articulates issues well.  And in this piece he very clearly illustrates the hypocrisies and dilemmas of IDpol.  And he doesn't shy from pointing out that while it came from a good place, it has led to unintended consequences. It is left to what he calls 'libertarian' bloggers and vloggers to criticise "Islamic extremists, sections of the left tend to sympathise with, who pose more of a threat to the feminist plight than media savvy opportunists like Roosh V." because the 'left' doesn't want to seem Islamophobic.

Some of us have been saying similar for years.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 18, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> (I may do a 'reading the right' thread soon btw as i've been wallowing in their filth fro a few years now - i think it's important to).


That would be good.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 18, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> I hadn't seen that before, but I like Loki.  I may not _always_ agree with him, but he's always well worth reading. He always articulates issues well.  And in this piece he very clearly illustrates the hypocrisies and dilemmas of IDpol.  And he doesn't shy from pointing out that while it came from a good place, it has led to unintended consequences. It is left to what he calls 'libertarian' bloggers and vloggers to criticise "Islamic extremists, sections of the left tend to sympathise with, who pose more of a threat to the feminist plight than media savvy opportunists like Roosh V." because the 'left' doesn't want to seem Islamophobic.
> 
> Some of us have been saying similar for years.



Agreed, it's good to see him getting some mainstream exposure recently.  At the time, in amongst all the culture wars, nobody was speaking about class - was very refreshing at the time to read this.


----------



## Toast Rider (Jul 18, 2018)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> All fair enough.  I guess spat was a silly word to use. Thunderf00t is a massive bellend and his obsession was creepy as fuck.  They all work on the latest outrage for patreon $$$$.
> 
> As for anita, yea some of her analysis was reasonable, but she is a liberal, so I took issue with some of her shit.  no WAAY did it demand the response from the outrages "sceptics" followed. And I firmly believe you can have a dialogue with people without being obnoxious about it and calling it "criticism" (which really was just bullying).
> 
> ...


I don't get to talk about these issues offline which is unfortunate because it's the online discourse that's polluted by these people. I think a lot of people (Tommy Robinson fans for example) have been influenced by these youtube folk 'heroes'. the EDL have cited sargon as an ally. Now they are members of UKIP. Milo is just a fascist troll and a supporter of child abuse. Jordan Petersen is a fucking puritan lunatic. Rubin is a simpleton shill. All of them, and the others I haven't mentioned, just trot out the same crap and never listen.

I'd guess they'd call that being 'triggered'


----------



## Borp (Jul 18, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> I hadn't seen that before, but I like Loki.  I may not _always_ agree with him, but he's always well worth reading. He always articulates issues well.  And in this piece he very clearly illustrates the hypocrisies and dilemmas of IDpol.  And he doesn't shy from pointing out that while it came from a good place, it has led to unintended consequences. It is left to what he calls 'libertarian' bloggers and vloggers to criticise "Islamic extremists, sections of the left tend to sympathise with, who pose more of a threat to the feminist plight than media savvy opportunists like Roosh V." because the 'left' doesn't want to seem Islamophobic.
> 
> Some of us have been saying similar for years.



I agree it's a good article. But next step is crucial, to actually engage with the arguments. Even if they seem simple or self evident. The shouting down or blanket dismissal is a terrible strategy.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 18, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> I though the Nagle book was piss poor and was pretty embarrassing when it tried to discuss Evola/the german conservative revolution/anti-fascism from the right. And her and her publishers defences when it was revealed large chunks of it were copied from Wikipedia and other places firmly cemented the idea that this was a non-serious rush job. The best book on the alt-right/modern far right of the crop published over the last few years is Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right's Challenge to State and Empire by Matthew N Lyons. Refreshing to find a book that actually deals with the issue and looks at what the modern far right actually is/does rather than parrot shop-worn myths.
> 
> (I may do a 'reading the right' thread soon btw as i've been wallowing in their filth fro a few years now - i think it's important to).


I'd be interested in a thread like that. Cant find much about alt-light economics , I think thats a weak point of theirs and something worth doing some more research into.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 18, 2018)

The39thStep said:


> I'd be interested in a thread like that. Cant find much about alt-light economics , I think thats a weak point of theirs and something worth doing some more research into.


Maybe we could do and U75 politics reading group on this. I know we've tried such things before and they've kind of fallen apart but maybe with something more "readable" people will find it easier to work into their lives?


----------



## Dragnet (Jul 18, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> Maybe we could do and U75 politics reading group on this. I know we've tried such things before and they've kind of fallen apart but maybe with something more "readable" people will find it easier to work into their lives?



I'd be well up for that.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 18, 2018)

Borp said:


> The shouting down or blanket dismissal is a terrible strategy.


What shouting down or blanket dismissal?


----------



## Borp (Jul 18, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> What shouting down or blanket dismissal?



The one alluded to in the article. Blanket is probably the wrong word. Shouting down probably too. But the article is calling for an engagement with the arguments of these new online libertarians or whatever they're called, rather than dismissal. I'd like to see more of that.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 18, 2018)

Borp said:


> The one alluded to in the article. Blanket is probably the wrong word. Shouting down probably too. But the article is calling for an engagement with the arguments of these new online libertarians or whatever they're called, rather than dismissal. I'd like to see more of that.


I think we'd need to be clear that any engagement is to provide an alternative critique, an alternative value set, rather than for the purpose of convincing the 'libertarian' vloggers.


----------



## belboid (Jul 18, 2018)

The39thStep said:


> Thanks Belboid for the offer but its only £6 on Amazon for Kindle  and saves the faff amd cost of sending a book to Portugal.


Dont worry, I meant a freely sourced ebook, I wouldnt want to pay for such lightweight stuff  Easy to email if you like


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 18, 2018)

belboid said:


> Dont worry, I meant a freely sourced ebook, I wouldnt want to pay for such lightweight stuff  Easy to email if you like


Just got sent an ebook from another poster but really appreciate your offer


----------



## Edie (Jul 18, 2018)

Thanks for the article Sunset Tree. Is it the same guy Loki who is a rapper? I think I’m about to read a book of his called Poverty Safari.

I liked how in the article he also made suggestions about how to engage with it. Basically asking whether it’s possible or necessary to make what some lefties may consider concessions in what he describes as the rigid dogma of the left. Like holding back on criticising religion as it may cause more harm than good, or making a positive case for it. Or accepting that trigger warnings are complete evidence free bullshit (can’t agree enough about that one, what adult needs a trigger warning- jesus christ). Or that immigration or a no borders opinion isn’t going to go down well with a big section of the local working class.

I think that’s worth thinking about. Whether people can or will be prepared to make those concessions to actually engage and get people on board. Otherwise like he says, a lot of people, especially angry young men, will look elsewhere to find where they fit in and that elsewhere could well be the alt-right.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie yes that article is the rapper Loki who wrote poverty safari.

I remember finding his point on immigration illuminating - that, yes, it may have a net benefit to the economy.  But that benefit is not felt in working class communities where the strain of immigration is felt.  The benefit is to businesses who have a greater pool of labour which keeps wages down etc.  For the liberal-left an argument like that will have you marked as a xenophobe, so I realised left-liberalism is so tied in with economic privilege.  You can see the world that way if you're comfortably middle-class.  

So much of idpol comes from that position of privilege and you end up with upper middle-class uni students writing off working-class people as stupid, ignorant, racist etc because they just can't understand working class perspectives and frustrations.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 19, 2018)

point is to oppose any debate on the terms of the 'economy'


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Sunset Tree Ive just read an article that DLR sent to me, that says that identity politics really turns a useful idea on it’s head. So originally the term “white skin privilege” was coined to point out that the people ruling (and profiting) in the Southern United States used the idea of white priviledge to bribe poor whites, and stop poor white people uniting with poor black people (inc slaves) and rising up.

So the intention of the term was to point out this mechanism to try to get unity, not only to highlight the social injustice of poor whites having privilege over poor blacks (although obviously that existed and is important in itself). That the use of racism in that context was harmful to poor whites as well as black people, and benefitted the plantation owners.

But the use of identity politics today often does the exact opposite. By pointing out ‘white Privilege’ it divides people. What can a poor white person say except I guess your right? Rather than being an idea that unites people, it’s a divisive idea. That’s a problem.

(Edit: article here: https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/a-marxist-critiques-identity-politics/ although for the record I didn’t find it particularly easy to read in parts!).


----------



## Dragnet (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> (Edit: article here: https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/a-marxist-critiques-identity-politics/ although for the record I didn’t find it particularly easy to read in parts!).


That's a really good interview - going to have to get his book. Anyone read it?


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Dragnet said:


> That's a really good interview - going to have to get his book. Anyone read it?


Yes, I've read it.  If you've read his articles, you've read it.  Each chapter is just an expansion on an existing essay.  Sometimes barely that.  It's worth reading if you haven't read all his articles, but it's not a major new work, and it's quite slim too.


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## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Or accepting that trigger warnings are complete evidence free bullshit (can’t agree enough about that one, what adult needs a trigger warning- jesus christ).



I'm not terribly familiar with how far the whole trigger warning thing has been stretched these days. But I cant say it was a great fun to go to the cinema with someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of violent rape, only for the film to then feature an unexpected scene of terrible sexual violence. And I will always be haunted by the time someone was explaining that the painting we were looking at was The Rape by Magritte, and then wouldnt stop pressing her as to what was wrong when she reacted badly to the detail.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

> What can a poor white person say except I guess your right? Rather than being an idea that unites people, it’s a divisive idea. That’s a problem.


 I don't agree with this all the way around. Identifying the existence of  and acknowledging when White privilege is at play can be a unifying  thing and build solidarity against prejudice and inequitable treatment. This is a good thing...it gives us a clear deck to focus our attentions, in an honest and meanongful way on class struggle. Even amongst working class Black and White people these dynamics play out and can be addressed and changed together.

Saying that people are being divisive because they need/want those elements of their experiences acknowledged isn't helpful, to me it's the other extreme and not unity building either.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

elbows said:


> I'm not terribly familiar with how far the whole trigger warning thing has been stretched these days. But I cant say it was a great fun to go to the cinema with someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of violent rape, only for the film to then feature an unexpected scene of terrible sexual violence. And I will always be haunted by the time someone was explaining that the painting we were looking at was The Rape by Magritte, and then wouldnt stop pressing her as to what was wrong when she reacted badly to the detail.


So you think women need to be protected from confronting sexual violence unexpectedly in art because it upsets us too much?


----------



## Dragnet (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> I don't agree with this all the way around. Identifying the existence of  and acknowledging when White privilege is at play can be a unifying  thing and build solidarity against prejudice and inequitable treatment. This is a good thing...it gives us a clear deck to focus our attentions, in an honest and meanongful way on class struggle. Even amongst working class Black and White people these dynamics play out and can be addressed and changed together.
> 
> Saying that people are being divisive because they need/want those elements of their experiences acknowledged isn't helpful, to me it's the other extreme and not unity building either.


I realise you're replying to Edie's point here, but I think what _Haider_ says in the Q+A linked is that the pointing out and acknowledgement of inequality does nothing to change the structures that confer those inequalities - '...reaching people in neighborhoods and communities outside of your own social circle, and building alliances with other organizations' is what does that.


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## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> I don't agree with this all the way around. Identifying the existence of  and acknowledging when White privilege is at play can be a unifying  thing and build solidarity against prejudice and inequitable treatment. This is a good thing...it gives us a clear deck to focus our attentions, in an honest and meanongful way on class struggle. Even amongst working class Black and White people these dynamics play out and can be addressed and changed together.
> 
> Saying that people are being divisive because they need/want those elements of their experiences acknowledged isn't helpful, to me it's the other extreme and not unity building either.


I'm not saying they shouldn't be acknowledged or addressed, or that they aren't important.

I'm saying I can see how it can come to be used in a divisive unhelpful way if you don't look behind it at who is benefitting from it, because perhaps if you do that you see that white privilege is only really _privilege_ if you aren't poor. If you are poor then the concept of white privilege risks either making you think 'well I'd better hold on to whatever privilege I've got cos its hard enough as it is, and might give me an advantage over POC or immigrants, and I badly need some kind of advantage', or else it might just piss you off and shut down because you justifiably do not feel privileged.

I mean it might not, it often might have the desired outcome you want and people might think 'well yeah I'm poor and white, but my neighbour is poor and black and on top of the poverty shit they _also_ have to deal with stop and search or institutional racism or police violence or all the other fucked up aspects of racism'. But it might just point it out, cause division, and do nothing to change it.

I agree that that is an important aim, to recognise that and try and stop it. I can just also see the risks of that kind of line, and a big risk is shutting people out.

I dunno Rutita1, I honestly dunno if I'm talking shit here. Very new to that idea and may have got it totally wrong.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> So much of idpol comes from that position of privilege and you end up with upper middle-class uni students writing off working-class people as stupid, ignorant, racist etc because they just can't understand working class perspectives and frustrations.



I think someone on these forums thought I was an example of that phenomenon recently, when I mentioned that most of the working class people I clashed with over racism and sexism were right wingers. But I said it because it happened to be true for me, with the key word being 'clashed with'. Probably my own fault for my choice of words and not explaining properly, but I was stuck in a job at a shit employer where there was no union and there were no shortage of loud, right-wing shits. I clashed with them because they were proudly racist and sexist and my earlier efforts to explore what they were saying and get to know them revealed them to be right-wing. If I had been clearer that I was only talking about the people I clashed with, not all the other working class people I knew who were either left wing or not very far to the right at all, and with whom I could discuss a range of concerns without me clashing badly with them or being even vaguely tempted to writing them off as racist and sexist shitheads, maybe I would have avoided the assumptions about me.

I worry about the state of things at universities these days, my own experience is now 25 years out of date but it was bad enough then, and not limited to the upper middle-class. Without droning on about my own class status too much, I'll just say that I think I occupy some awkward space between working and lower middle class, and there were probably a number of years where I could so easily have made the same sneery mistake as you described. For a good few years it was probably more luck than judgement that helped me avoid that shit, eg the friends I happened to make at uni that really helped with balance and not rushing to idiotic judgement.


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## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> So you think women need to be protected from confronting sexual violence unexpectedly in art because it upsets us too much?



No, I wouldnt put it like that at all and I can see all manner of problems with such a concept. But I do think that people with post-traumatic stress disorder and related stuff do very much deserve quality information that allows them to make their own well informed choices up front about what stuff they are confronted with on the art and entertainment front.


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## killer b (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> So you think women need to be protected from confronting sexual violence unexpectedly in art because it upsets us too much?


Interesting question this - I think it's reasonable for people (not just women) to want to be able to make an informed choice about whether they want to see extreme sexual violence or whatever... at the same time, it's also important that art is able to shock and horrify and disgust us, and if we totally avoid stuff that might upset us I think we end up missing some of the most significan things that art plays in our lives. 

That said, there is a lazy tendency to resort to sexual (or sexualised) violence against women as a theme in modern culture - I found this short radio show by Doon Mackitchen very thought provoking on that subject: BBC Radio 4 - Body Count Rising


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

Dragnet said:


> I realise you're replying to Edie's point here, but I think what _Haider_ says in the Q+A linked is that the pointing out and acknowledgement of inequality does nothing to change the structures that confer those inequalities - '...reaching people in neighborhoods and communities outside of your own social circle, and building alliances with other organizations' is what does that.


It's not just about acknowledgement though, it's a unified acting against those things too.  Either by individuals or groups. In our day to day interactions, at work, with family and friends also. That doesn't mean you can't do all the other stuff too, in fact they go hand in hand in my experience.


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## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

killer b said:


> Interesting question this - I think it's reasonable for people (not just women) to want to be able to make an informed choice about whether they want to see extreme sexual violence or whatever... at the same time, it's also important that art is able to shock and horrify and disgust us, and if we totally avoid stuff that might upset us I think we end up missing some of the most significan things that art plays in our lives.



Yeah, and I mention post-traumatic stress disorder for a reason. There is a difference between finding something really shocking and upsetting, and having terrible flashbacks, disturbed mental health, not being able to sleep for weeks afterwards etc.


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## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

elbows I know you didn't put it like that, but that's kind of what I read from what you wrote. You gave two examples, both of women, both relating to sexual violence, both encountered in art.

For the record I'm not convinced that people need protecting from life or reality or art. I don't think it necessarily helps, or that there is evidence that it helps get over traumatic events not to have to face it. And I think the idea that you should try and (as Loki says) reorder the world around our own personal difficulty usually ends in failure.

The trigger warning shit also directly feeds into the whole 'safe spaces' bollocks. And my god the alt-right are correct to try and take this down. The world isn't safe. There are dangerous ideas out there. Grow up and face them.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

You can't imagine any situations where a safe space policy is the right thing to have and enforce? Seriously?

Again, this is the other extreme IMO.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> You can't imagine one sit uation where a safe space policy is the right thing to have and enforce? Seriously?


Give me one? I've never encountered one in the wild.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> elbows I know you didn't put it like that, but that's kind of what I read from what you wrote. You can two examples, both of women, both relating to sexual violence, both encountered in art.
> 
> For the record I'm not convinced that people need protecting from life or reality or art. I don't think it necessarily helps, or that there is evidence that it helps get over traumatic events not to have to face it. And I think the idea that you should try and (as Loki says) reorder the world around our own personal difficulty usually ends in failure.
> 
> The trigger warning shit also directly feeds into the whole 'safe spaces' bollocks. And my god the alt-right are correct to try and take this down. The world isn't safe. There are dangerous ideas out there. Grow up and face them.



The reason both my examples were of women is that I wanted to draw on my own experience of seeing the harm done, and I havent got much of it, both of those incidents were the same person.

Honestly, people confronting terrible things that have happened is important. But its equally important that they have as much control as possible of this process, and take it at their own pace. Of course the world cannot be made safe, but what is wrong with taking small and reasonable steps that can help some a little, some of the time?

'grow up and face them' is just 'get over it' to me, offensive shit that does a gross disservice to what little we have learnt about mental health and wellbeing. I think I understand where you are coming from, but not the destination you have reached on this.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 19, 2018)

Trigger warnings and safe spaces aren't really ID Politics are they.


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## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Trigger warnings and safe spaces aren't really ID Politics are they.


In my mind they are certainly bundled into that "movement with no name/IDpol/SJW" thing.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

The alt-right doesn't just ridicule over zealous uses of trigger warnings and safer spaces...they use ridicule to justify their abuse, often similar to the very reason these things exist in the first place.


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## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

I will shut up about trigger spaces very oon, but one last point.

People can do a lot of things with warnings and advanced information. A lot of people choose to watch documentaries where the topic is something they have a lot of personal experience and hurt about, eg the loss of a child.

But there can be quite a large difference between actively choosing to watch something, having prepared yourself as best as possible beforehand for the stuff you will likely face, and being completely blindsided by something that was unexpected and out of context.


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## Athos (Jul 19, 2018)

Surely the issue isn't whether the left should recognise that certain characteristics can (though don't always) confer privilege - of course it should - but whether it's most beneficial to all of us to address those problems within the context of class (which isn't even to say that they are necessarily subordinate to class in all circumstances), as opposed to an end in themselves. It's like the difference between, say,  a union meeting encouraging input from immigrants to explain how they experience capital attempting to sow division amongst workers (which, others might have been blissfully unaware of, not having suffered it), versus some middle class student politico dismissing (often with ridicule) the opinion of worker because he has no sex/gender/race/ sexuality etc. oppression 'points.'   One builds solidarity with the aim of radically changing things, the other is very divisive - people squabbling over often very superficial notions of 'fairness' within the _status quo_.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> elbowsThe trigger warning shit also directly feeds into the whole 'safe spaces' bollocks. And my god the alt-right are correct to try and take this down. The world isn't safe. There are dangerous ideas out there. Grow up and face them.



We've had warnings on TV about programmes with violence (sexual or otherwise) etc. for years.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

elbows said:


> The reason both my examples were of women is that I wanted to draw on my own experience of seeing the harm done, and I havent got much of it, both of those incidents were the same person.
> 
> Honestly, people confronting terrible things that have happened is important. But its equally important that they have as much control as possible of this process, and take it at their own pace. Of course the world cannot be made safe, but what is wrong with taking small and reasonable steps that can help some a little, some of the time?
> 
> 'grow up and face them' is just 'get over it' to me, offensive shit that does a gross disservice to what little we have learnt about mental health and wellbeing. I think I understand where you are coming from, but not the destination you have reached on this.


It's a good question... what is wrong, or what is the risk, of taking small and reasonable steps to help people not have to confront things which upset them?

And thinking about your example, giving a woman who has been raped and has PTSD a chance to avoid meeting distressing images in a public place seems hard to argue against. Like that seems an unequivocally _good_ thing.

But do you think there might be a risk as well of treating people like delicate things that need to be protected from ideas or images so that they do not become distressed? Is there not something disempowering in that in itself? I do not think it is a coincidence that the examples you used were of a woman. This sort of stuff is very often aimed at women, its often around sexual abuse, it's often around self harm or suicide attempts. As women are we doing ourselves a favour by avoiding this stuff?

(as an aside I'm not immune to this stuff, I remember watching This is England when Lol got raped by her Dad. I was so shocked I went and vomited and put my head in the washing and cried so the kids couldn't hear me. Would I have avoided watching it if I'd known it was coming? maybe. Would that of been right? Maybe, maybe not though. Cos I still remember the rage I felt for Lol, and how it met with my rage).


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

Athos said:


> That'd be my biggest criticism of it; baby out with the bathwater.



I've been dwelling further on this as the baby out with the bathwater is a phrase I've had cause to use of late.

I suspect there is an additional complication in the struggle against ID politics. That some people who are full to the brim with reactionary shite confuse it with their own struggle.


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## Athos (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> The alt-right doesn't just ridicule over zealous uses of trigger warnings and safer spaces...they use ridicule to justify their abuse, often similar to the very reason these things exist in the first place.



And, worse, they use some of the more extreme examples of this sort of nonsense to discredit the left I  the eyes of ordinary workers. Which is why we need an explicitly left wing critique of it that doesn't throw the baby out with the batch water.


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## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> But do you think there might be a risk as well of treating people like delicate things that need to be protected from ideas or images so that they do not become distressed? Is there not something disempowering in that in itself? I do not think it is a coincidence that the examples you used were of a woman. This sort of stuff is very often aimed at women, its often around sexual abuse, it's often around self harm or suicide attempts. As women are we doing ourselves a favour by avoiding this stuff?



It ought to be possible to furnish people with information so they can make their own choices without falling into that trap. I do appreciate what you are saying here though. I think the first thing I said on this topic acknowledged that I am out of touch with how far the concept of 'trigger warning' may have been stretched these days. I would not be shocked to learn that some otherwise well-meaning people have stretched things too far, with unintended consequences. But I need examples of this to learn from.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 19, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> They use those extreme-SJWs as a trojan horse too.  Once it's established that these are crazy fuckers to be mocked and laughed at, they'll start applying the same principle towards more rational lefty views.  I saw a video where the guy was mocking an 'SJW' youtuber who was talking about how race is socially constructed.  Thing is, her video was just a solid overview of race from a sociological/anthropological perspective.  Pretty on point, nothing crazy, calmly presented.  But the alt-right guy is bracketing her alongside all of the genuinely mental clips.  So they do use it to discredit progressive arguments more generally and the properly mental stuff is a gateway to discrediting sensible stuff.



The person most likely just couldn't tell the difference between a cogent argument and stuff that was barking.  These guys are really scattergun and will either latch onto people who say _anything_ they agree with (see Jordan Peterson), or attack anything they associate with lefty academicism.

Also, it should be understood that they're primarily making these videos to show off to each other.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

elbows I guess a concern I have is that the 'trigger warning' 'safe space' arguments is that they are related to the attempted no-platforming of people whose ideas you find offensive. Like the movement that tried to prevent Greer speaking at Cardiff University. Her opinion is that she doesn't think "a woman is a man without a cock". Now you will probably find that incredibly offensive and transphobic (although to me it's merely stating the blindingly obvious), but whatever our individual views on that statement, the fact is that it's a matter of free speech to be able to debate trans genderism with someone like Greer openly. And the alt-right will take the piss if you can't because you are too offended and not safe enough, and rightly so.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> elbows I guess a concern I have is that the 'trigger warning' 'safe space' arguments is that they are related to the attempted no-platforming of people whose ideas you find offensive. Like the movement that tried to prevent Greer speaking at Cardiff University. Her opinion is that she doesn't think "a woman is a man without a cock". Now you will probably find that incredibly offensive and transphobic (although to me it's merely stating the blindingly obvious), but whatever our individual views on that statement, the fact is that it's a matter of free speech to be able to debate trans genderism with someone like Greer openly. And the alt-right will take the piss if you can't because you are too offended and not safe enough, and rightly so.



For me regarding such matters, I think its very important to see what people feel about such concepts of free speech across a range of topics. Not just one theme in particular where it may be our own opinions about the issue of substance in question that drive the argument, rather than the underlying question of free speech etc.

For example, I am familiar with the modern question of no-platforming people over trans issues. But I am more ignorant in regards other historical examples, eg no platforming racists.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 19, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I recall that this - link - was the first thing I read to critique idpol from a class perspective.  Just a couple of years ago.  Before this I'd defend idpol because they were on my side (the left) and I felt I had to take that side against the alt-right.  This article challenged me because it made arguments I'd usually associated with the alt-right (criticising idpol) but doing so from a socialist position.



This is a great article.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 19, 2018)

elbows said:


> I'm not terribly familiar with how far the whole trigger warning thing has been stretched these days. But I cant say it was a great fun to go to the cinema with someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of violent rape, only for the film to then feature an unexpected scene of terrible sexual violence. And I will always be haunted by the time someone was explaining that the painting we were looking at was The Rape by Magritte, and then wouldnt stop pressing her as to what was wrong when she reacted badly to the detail.



The certification that shows just before the film starts gives a breakdown of why a film has been given the certificate it has. It will say if there are scences of sexual violence. 

Red sparrow for example has the following 


> strong bloody violence, gore, sexual violence, sex, very strong language



So there is a warning given for films.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Give me one? I've never encountered one in the wild.



Well I suppose refuge is a live example. An all women space, no men allowed, can’t tell anybody where you are etc.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Give me one? I've never encountered one in the wild.


I missed this earlier, sorry ...it makes laugh a bit though Edie because if you haven't encountered SS how can you critique them?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

purenarcotic said:


> Well I suppose refuge is a live example. An all women space, no men allowed, can’t tell anybody where you are etc.


Yes a good example. Surely the need to keep vulnerable people safe is a prime and obvious example. We have laws and legislation and as a society believe in the premise  safeguarding.

Safe spaces  can be counselling sessions or peer support groups also. The boundaries are agreed for the good and safety of all.

Less formally I have experienced them in activist circles aimed at combating abuse and disruption.

Urban is one to a certain extent...it it not totally gloves off here..there are rules about what behaviour and treatment is acceptable.


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 19, 2018)

elbows said:


> I'm not terribly familiar with how far the whole trigger warning thing has been stretched these days. But I cant say it was a great fun to go to the cinema with someone who was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of violent rape, only for the film to then feature an unexpected scene of terrible sexual violence. And I will always be haunted by the time someone was explaining that the painting we were looking at was The Rape by Magritte, and then wouldnt stop pressing her as to what was wrong when she reacted badly to the detail.



Films have warnings at the beginning I thought?

Someone being obnoxiously intrusive isn’t an issue of trigger warnings.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

purenarcotic said:


> Well I suppose refuge is a live example. An all women space, no men allowed, can’t tell anybody where you are etc.


That isn’t what people mean when they talk about safe spaces surely?!


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> I missed this earlier, sorry ...it makes laugh a bit though Edie because if you haven't encountered SS how can you critique them?


I know. Sorry 

Maybe I’d be a big fan if I ever found out what they actually were and tried one!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> I know. Sorry


 

My worry is that you are only thinking about the worst examples or interpretations of this stuff.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Well I never had to go to a refuge thank fuck. (Well I did as a kid but not as an adult). But that is definitely not what my understanding of a safe space is in this discussion. I thought it meant safe in the sense that uncomfortable or challenging ideas wouldn’t be expressed. Not that you’re safe from being slapped about by your husband- of course refuges from actual violence should exist.


----------



## BigTom (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> It's a good question... what is wrong, or what is the risk, of taking small and reasonable steps to help people not have to confront things which upset them?
> 
> And thinking about your example, giving a woman who has been raped and has PTSD a chance to avoid meeting distressing images in a public place seems hard to argue against. Like that seems an unequivocally _good_ thing.
> 
> ...



There's a real problem with how trigger warnings are used now and the discussions that take place around them. When I first came across them probably 15-20 years ago now on usenet mailing lists or internet forums about depression, which included a lot of people with PTSD from sexual abuse and other traumas, trigger warnings were used sparingly for graphic descriptions/visualisations of rape, sexual abuse, extreme physical abuse, suicide, self harm and maybe some other things. I seem to remember they were also used on eating disorder mailing lists as well but I don't know exactly how.

Now the way is to trigger warning everything, even just a mention of rape or whatever gets a warning and for me this makes them pointless, as you can't make an informed choice to avoid things which are going to trigger your PTSD, it only allows you to avoid everything or nothing which isn't helpful.
As well as that, it sends out a message that avoidance is fine, that's it's a good thing to do and should be encouraged. Previously there was active discussion about how avoidance is bad but sometimes necessary, and how people with PTSD find it helpful to (a) ease into exposure to the trauma they experienced in terms of how graphic / detailed / exactly similar to their experience the thing is (hence only warnings for graphic stuff, the less graphic stuff is, the less need there should be for anyone to avoid it) and (b) be prepared that they are going to be exposed to something that may trigger a PTSD reaction, as this can help them to be able to control it.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

But surely almost everyone has something traumatic and difficult in their lives. Suicide of a loved one, domestic violence, loss of a child, having been in a war, having a serious mental health problem, addiction, bereavement, being made homeless, being raped, being assaulted or a victim of crime, a car crash, being abused as a kid, serious illness. The list goes on.

It’s my understanding that it’s only really the most extreme of these, a horrendously violent rape, or being exposed to the horrors of war, that results in PTSD for some of those exposed. We’re not all walking round with PTSD cos we met some adversity. Shit things happen, but actually most people do deal with it. I don’t mean to seem heartless but do we really need to trigger warning stuff? Maybe we do. Anyway we’ve strayed away from the more interesting discussion about identity politics.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Jul 19, 2018)

flypanam said:


> This Is Hell! | Beyond identity politics, and towards radical, collective action.
> 
> A very good interview with Asad Haider here.





Edie said:


> Well I never had to go to a refuge thank fuck. (Well I did as a kid but not as an adult). But that is definitely not what my understanding of a safe space is in this discussion. I thought it meant safe in the sense that uncomfortable or challenging ideas wouldn’t be expressed. Not that you’re safe from being slapped about by your husband- of course refuges from actual violence should exist.



This is what safe spaces should be and were originally.  Spaces pertaining to groups with certain needs, set aside specifically for them.

Lately however some places have decided that institutions such as universities should also be "safe spaces".  I remember specifically a group of Islamists trying to shut down a conversation by Mariam Namazie about atheism by claiming the university (Goldsmith's I believe) was a "safe space" and that her talk will be "triggering".

It's an utter bastardisation of what a safe space is and should be.

Safe from physical violence - yes.  Safe from ideas- no.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 19, 2018)

The place where I work is a Safe Space in every meaningful sense; a residential service for people with learning disabilities that not just anyone can enter. They are safe from abuse while they are there, and that's the point.

I _think_ I don't believe Safe Spaces are or should be connected to _identity_, still less _indentitypolitics_, but on risk of harm. The concepts that link _identitypolitics_ with _safespaces_ in my mind, are eg _SJW_ and _snowflake _... and as already emphasised, this discussion is not improved by use of those kinds of terms.


----------



## Looby (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> But surely almost everyone has something traumatic and difficult in their lives. Suicide of a loved one, domestic violence, loss of a child, having been in a war, having a serious mental health problem, addiction, bereavement, being made homeless, being raped, being assaulted or a victim of crime, a car crash, being abused as a kid, serious illness. The list goes on.
> 
> It’s my understanding that it’s only really the most extreme of these, a horrendously violent rape, or being exposed to the horrors of war, that results in PTSD for some of those exposed. We’re not all walking round with PTSD cos we met some adversity. Shit things happen, but actually most people do deal with it. I don’t mean to seem heartless but do we really need to trigger warning stuff? Maybe we do. Anyway we’ve strayed away from the more interesting discussion about identity politics.



It does sound quite heartless if I’m honest! I found your comment about people growing up earlier offensive and I was quite shocked tbh because I wouldn’t have expected that from you. 

I work with traumatised clients all the time who have been through the types of horrific experiences you describe but PTSD can happen to anyone. I also know someone who had PTSD after a car accident who needed intensive treatment (EMDR) before she could get back in a car. I know rape survivors with PTSD who would be deeply traumatised to see a rape scene on screen or hear a description of rape. 
It’s not a sign of weakness or a lack of ability to ‘deal with it’ if you have difficulty processing trauma.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Films have warnings at the beginning I thought?
> 
> Someone being obnoxiously intrusive isn’t an issue of trigger warnings.



My examples may not have been very good, that I will accept, but I felt I had to use some scenarios where I was present rather than ones that that are just theoretical to me. 

Anyway I have to stop now because I had a migraine with aura at 2pm and only just got out of bed. And no, the migraine was not triggered by this thread (pun intended), I had some early warning signs yesterday so I was not surprised I had one today.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

It seems to me self-evident that some places should be safe: women's refuges, care settings, therapy settings. That's never been in question. The issue comes when people have tried to cause that perfectly sensible and important principle to somehow blur into other areas, like university debates, where the "safety" is not from violence, but from _debate_! They're hoping that a faulty analogy will lead to these situations being seen as equivalent, or even the same thing.  They aren't. I've even seen what merely amounted to _disagreement over issues_ described as "violence".  This sort of attempted mission-creep of "safe spaces" has also been used by interest groups, like Christian churches, to say they should be exempt from criticism.  They should not.  They _definitely_ should not.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Give me one? I've never encountered one in the wild.



Here’s a good overview of how it plays out in the wild:

For your safety and security… | We are Plan C


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 19, 2018)

I think one thing with the internet is that it's hard to establish how prevalent some things are, especially things that get people very riled up (maybe it was before actually but I'm thinking internet debates now.) I've worked in a university for quite a few years now and in that time I've heard precisely zero references to safe spaces or trigger warnings. I don't doubt there are issues around them and can see the potential for chilling debate but honestly I find it hard to accept it's all over the place and hard to escape.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

I've just checked with mrs LR that I can tell this story, because it's hers.

A few months ago she was invited to a feminist book group by the daughter of a friend. The rest of the women were in their twenties. Mrs LR was interested to see how young feminists thought these days. 

She came back rolling her eyes and proclaiming they were mad as hatters. "They were lovely, but they kept on about it being a 'safe space'. I laughed and said 'it's fucking Bridge of Allan, not downtown Allepo!' But they were serious!"

She also explained how she'd disagreed with some comments one of the young women had made. "They asked if I was offended and all started prostrating themselves before me and asking forgiveness for offending me, and enquiring if I was 'triggered'. I told them not to be daft, we'd just disagreed about something." She then asked what 'triggered' meant, and laughed when she found out.

I know the story well because she tells it at parties now. There's more, but that's the flavour.

The point she'd make if she was telling you this is there's a world of difference between being respectful of others and that kind of carry on. Which she calls 'mental', despite her knowing that I would feel unsafe by that language.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Here’s a good overview of how it plays out in the wild:
> 
> For your safety and security… | We are Plan C


From reading about half of that (sorry it got quite boring after a bit) it seems that safe spaces don’t refer to women’s refuges or care homes for kids with learning disabilities. But to left wing political groups.

And feminist book groups


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## Red Cat (Jul 19, 2018)

Plan c are very boring. I went to a talk arranged by them, Selma James, who was great. The lack of umphh because no one was able to take the lead, make a decision...err can we make a start please? It was the pits. And just weird.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> From reading about half of that (sorry it got quite boring after a bit) it seems that safe spaces don’t refer to women’s refuges or care homes for kids with learning disabilities. But to left wing political groups.
> 
> And feminist book groups



Bingo!


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> It seems to me self-evident that some places should be safe: women's refuges, care settings, therapy settings.



Actually, I think some of this comes from a pseudo therapy culture which assumes that therapy is supportive rather than challenging, that conflict should be avoided. Help generally now seems to be called 'support'. You're great. No offence here.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

Red Cat said:


> Plan c are very boring. I went to a talk arranged by them, Selma James, who was great. The lack of umphh because no one was able to take the lead, make a decision...err can we make a start please? It was the pits. And just weird.



Not sure there’s many political talks, or books, that stand out as _not_ boring, tbh.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Red Cat said:


> Actually, I think some of this comes from a pseudo therapy culture which assumes that therapy is supportive rather than challenging, that conflict should be avoided. Help generally now seems to be called 'support'. You're great. No offence here.


Yeah, I meant actually safe. Not "free from appropriate challenges".

But I know what you mean.


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Yeah, I meant actually safe. Not "free from appropriate challenges".
> 
> But I know what you mean.



Yeh, I know. 

But it annoys me


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 19, 2018)

Although I have seen similar arguments from people around spiked, so I may be on dodgy ground there.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

Red Cat said:


> Actually, I think some of this comes from a pseudo therapy culture which assumes that therapy is supportive rather than challenging, that conflict should be avoided. Help generally now seems to be called 'support'. You're great. No offence here.



Personally I see it as being more about not seeing everything that feels therapeutic as _therapy_.

There are different ways to help/support people and for different reasons. The 'challenge' or the challenging part is often the least talked about part of any of it. We create safe/trusting/confidential relationships/spaces in which the 'challenge' takes place, or can.


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> It seems to me self-evident that some places should be safe: women's refuges, care settings, therapy settings. That's never been in question. The issue comes when people have tried to cause that perfectly sensible and important principle to somehow blur into other areas, like university debates, where the "safety" is not from violence, but from _debate_! They're hoping that a faulty analogy will lead to these situations being seen as equivalent, or even the same thing.  They aren't. I've even seen what merely amounted to _disagreement over issues_ described as "violence".  This sort of attempted mission-creep of "safe spaces" has also been used by interest groups, like Christian churches, to say they should be exempt from criticism.  They should not.  They _definitely_ should not.



The absurdity is even greater - therapy IS a place where people’s ideas are challenged - even if this generates discomfort. It’s kind of the point of therapy for the safety not to extend to being ‘safe’ from difficult ideas and difficult feelings.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> From reading about half of that (sorry it got quite boring after a bit) it seems that safe spaces don’t refer to women’s refuges or care homes for kids with learning disabilities. But to left wing political groups.
> 
> And feminist book groups




I am a little confused about the 'funny' here tbh apart from the examples given been pretty extreme.  

Surely the whole worry and arguments about allowing trans women into women only 'spaces' (which you seemed to understand) is connected to safeguarding/safe space for example. Even if there's little evidence to suggest that it will lead to widespread abuse.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

I was thinking that one of the problems with criticising identity politics is that feeling that actually you are just not wanting to include marginalised groups, or are criticising them, or even silencing them.

I’ve just read another article that DLR sent me. It was kinda putting identity politics in the context of the last 150 years of socialist movements.

Anyway, among a (fair amount!) of another stuff it made the following points. That identity politics emerged in the 1960s and 70s and was a response to what I think was termed reductionism. Basically the idea of the worker being a white male factory worker, and socialism thought not therefore being inclusive of black people or women and the more specific struggles they faced. Both outside and inside the home in the case of women.

How that reductionism was challenged by movements like the Black Panthers, the Young Lords (Puerto Rican), and feminists the Combahee River Collective (a group of pretty badass sounding black feminist lesbians). And the idea that the personal was political came along.

But over time, although it didn’t start out like that, there was a homogenisation within groups. A kind of assumption that members of a group would have the same political aims just based on that identity. And the issue of representation, that the aim is to get a member of the identity group in a position of power, and then the interests of that group would be represented. That seems to me where it went wrong? That assumption that based on identity you share political aims.

And then the different identities seemed to get lost. There was no unifying goal, no objective, no shared understanding of how their oppression was linked. And so instead of doing what was set out to be done- to widen socialism to include these groups using these ideas- the very opposite is occurring. Identity politics is being used to divide and exclude.

Now, I may have paraphrased that to the point of being wrong. So is that a reasonable understanding?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> But over time, although it didn’t start out like that, there was a homogenisation within groups. A kind of assumption that members of a group would have the same political aims just based on that identity. And the issue of representation, that the aim is to get a member of the identity group in a position of power, and then the interests of that group would be represented. That seems to me where it went wrong? That assumption that based on identity you share political aims.



Sounds very much how people characterise and talk about their expectations of the Working Class too don't you think?


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

Some of the Panthers were IdPol, others weren’t. The former argued for black nationalism/separatism, the latter argued for socialism and class politics. 
The BNP were mates with black nationalists, they hate socialists. 
Why so?


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> I am a little confused about the 'funny' here tbh apart from the examples given been pretty extreme.
> 
> Surely the whole worry and arguments about allowing trans women into women only 'spaces' (which you seemed to understand) is connected to safeguarding/safe space for example. Even if there's little evidence to suggest that it will lead to widespread abuse.


I think we are talking at cross purposes. I don’t have a problem with safe spaces when it comes down to physically protecting people from violence. It is protecting people from ideas and debate and offence where I have a problem with it.

The laughing bit was about Danny’s missus’ book group experience. That kind of thing _is_ funny. And it’s exactly the kind of stuff that badly needs the piss taking out it.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Some of the Panthers were IdPol, others weren’t. The former argued for black nationalism/separatism, the latter argued for socialism and class politics.
> The BNP were mates with black nationalists, they hate socialists.
> Why so?


Well I guess cos the black nationalists and white nationalists essentially had the same political aim? To create states based on a single race?

I didn’t know that btw, about the BNP and the Panthers.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Sounds very much how people characterise and talk about their expectations of the Working Class too don't you think?


I’m not sure what you mean?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> I’m not sure what you mean?





> a homogenisation within groups. A kind of assumption that members of a group would have the same political aims just based on that identity. And the issue of representation, that the aim is to get a member of the identity group in a position of power, and then the interests of that group would be represented.



I am saying that I think there is a similar expectation of the WC, that somehow there is homogeneity and that we all have the same aims.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Well I guess cos the black nationalists and white nationalists essentially had the same political aim? To create states based on a single race?
> 
> I didn’t know that btw, about the BNP and the Panthers.



The BNP and black nationalists, rather than the idpol panthers (although the politics are the same)


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## killer b (Jul 19, 2018)

interests, not aims. and we do.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> I didn’t know that btw, about the BNP and the Panthers.


Nation of Islam, not Panthers.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> I am saying that I think there is a similar expectation of the WC, that somehow there is homogeneity and that we all have the same aims.


I think it’s fair enough to say that all working people wished they got paid more, that there working conditions were better, and that they had a three day weekend. Beyond that I’d probably agree that there mightn’t be any kind of homogeneous aims.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Nation of Islam, not Panthers.


Sorry, I think I got confused with what Magnus was saying.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Sorry, I think I got confused with what Magnus was saying.


That's easy done.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Sorry, I think I got confused with what Magnus was saying.



Yeah, I made a connecting point without separating the groups involved. But the point was about strange ideoligical bedfellows.


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Personally I see it as being more about not seeing everything that feels therapeutic as _therapy_.
> 
> There are different ways to help/support people and for different reasons. The 'challenge' or the challenging part is often the least talked about part of any of it. We create safe/trusting/confidential relationships/spaces in which the 'challenge' takes place, or can.



Something therapeutic is likely to be uncomfortable if by therapeutic we mean change. And bringing out the different parts of ourselves that are in conflict, that may be acted out out in conflict with others, and perhaps bearing that conflict rather than trying to make it go away or avoiding it. But that does depend on the model of psychotherapy and I don't really want to make the discussion about different types of therapy.

And I appreciate I was being simplistic.


----------



## campanula (Jul 19, 2018)

killer b said:


> interests, not aims. and we do.



Yes, I think so. Although we are certainly not homogenous in how we express ourselves, in our aims and aspirations, in our cultural and social positions...we are definitely oppressed by the same power relations  which  diminish and break us in a very homogenous way.The same precarity, the same indifference and even contempt from a political class, the same snickering disdain. the same poverty.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> That's easy done.



Yeah. Daft prole. Of which you pretend to champion.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Yeah. Daft prole. Of which you pretend to champion.


Seriously?


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Seriously?



Oh come on. I could have expanded on my point without you correcting me and then sneering about me making a confused post. I’ll retract what I said and apologise but a massive bugbear of mine as to why the right are doing so well compared with us (and why I snapped at belboid the other day) is precisely this kind of thing where the most articulate are arsey towards their lessers.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> I think it’s fair enough to say that all working people wished they got paid more, that there working conditions were better, and that they had a three day weekend. Beyond that I’d probably agree that there mightn’t be any kind of homogeneous aims.


But the point is that class structure is something that cuts across identities. So that you can have a woman who is a CEO of a company who employs other women as cleaners on poverty wages. The CEO and the cleaners are women but they don't have the same interests.


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## DotCommunist (Jul 19, 2018)

bollocks,ignore me


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## killer b (Jul 19, 2018)

That was a friendly jibe from a comrade of many years, not a sneer. Wasn't it?


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 19, 2018)

thats what I was trying to say Kb


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Oh come on. I could have expanded on my point without you correcting me and then sneering about me making a confused post. I’ll retract what I said and apologise but a massive bugbear of mine as to why the right are doing so well compared with us (and why I snapped at belboid the other day) is precisely this kind of thing where the most articulate are arsey towards their lessers.


Where did you get "daft prole" from? That's entirely in your imagination.

Sorry for the offence caused, but don't add stuff that wasn't there.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> But the point is that class structure is something that cuts across identities. So that you can have a woman who is a CEO of a company who employs other women as cleaners on poverty wages. The CEO and the cleaners are women but they don't have the same interests.


Yes, I get that. Or:


> On April 12, 2015, six Baltimore police officers, of which three were black, murdered 19-year-old Freddie Gray under the watch of a black police commissioner, mayor, attorney general, and President of the United States.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

killer b said:


> That was a friendly jibe from a comrade of many years, not a sneer. Wasn't it?


It was intended exactly as a friendly jibe. It misfired.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Edie said:


> Yes, I get that. Or:


Exactly.

I was really replying to Rutita1, to whom you were also replying. I was adding to what you'd said.


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Oh, sorry.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

NP. I wasn't clear.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> But the point is that class structure is something that cuts across identities. So that you can have a woman who is a CEO of a company who employs other women as cleaners on poverty wages. The CEO and the cleaners are women but they don't have the same interests.



I know this, thanks.

My point to Edie was that similar mistakes with regard expectations are made about wc people, with 'wc' being the identifier/indicator. Just like the examples Edie quoted/summarised about.

People need to recognise shared interests or at least want to anyway.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> My point to Edie was that similar mistakes with regard expectations are made about wc people, with 'wc' being the identifier/indicator.


Do you have an example?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Do you have an example?



I grew up next door to a fair few NF...we went to the same schools, our parents worked similar jobs, we were all getting shafted in the same ways etc.. On paper our interests were the same, however...


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## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> I grew up next door to a fair few NF...we went to the same schools, our parents worked similar jobs, we were all getting shafted in the same ways etc.. On paper our interests were the same, however...


Your _class_ interests _were_ the same. They didn't see that, though, because they'd prioritised identity over class.


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## killer b (Jul 19, 2018)

Not just on paper - your interests are the same (even if they didn't recognise it). Whereas your interests are not the same as the interests of a privately educated, highly paid CEO with inherited wealth who happens to be black.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Your _class_ interests _were_ the same. They didn't see that, though, because they'd prioritised identity over class.



Yes I know. Which is my point. Which was my point to Edie about the mistake of just lumping the WC together and expecting us all to get on with it...many don't get it or recognise it.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

killer b said:


> Not just on paper - your interests are the same (even if they didn't recognise it). Whereas your interests are not the same as the interests of a privately educated, highly paid CEO with inherited wealth who happens to be black.



Just  stop this patronising shit. I KNOW THIS it's the point i have been making too.

Our interests though...are sometimes aligned when the focus is on our non-whiteness whether you like that or not.

I'm mixed btw...Perhaps you'd be better characterising your own ethnicity.


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## killer b (Jul 19, 2018)

Oh, ok. It looked like you were making the opposite point.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 19, 2018)

killer b said:


> Oh, ok. It looked like you were making the opposite point.



Looked like...perhaps it;s how you repeatedly misread me. The bad faith is dripping and it's not the first time I've mentioned it. It bores me sick tbh.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Yes I know. Which is my point. Which was my point to Edie about the mistake of just lumping the WC together and expecting us all to get on with it...many don't get it or recognise it.


OK, thanks for expanding.

Nobody's expecting the working class "just to get on with it". It isn't about "lumping [people] together"; it's about a structural analysis.

It's true that this analysis is drowned out by other competing analyses. You point out that white nationalism is one. And that's where the left has fallen behind. And it's also why discussions like this thread are important.


----------



## killer b (Jul 19, 2018)

I'm just replying to your posts as I read them. If I misunderstood you I wasn't the only one, unless you think Danny is doing it on purpose too?


----------



## Edie (Jul 19, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Just  stop this patronising shit. I KNOW THIS it's the point i have been making too.
> 
> Our interests though...are sometimes aligned when the focus is on our non-whiteness whether you like that or not.
> 
> I'm mixed btw...Perhaps you'd be better characterising your own ethnicity.


I do get that Rutita1. And it was you I was thinking of when I said that it’s difficult to challenge identity politics without sounding like your attacking minority groups. Cos yknow what the fuck do I know about racism. Literally nothing, never experienced it.

Edit: I mean experienced being the target of it. Obviously I’ve heard and seen plenty given out.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 20, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Your _class_ interests _were_ the same. They didn't see that, though, because they'd prioritised identity over class.



hmm: I've been thinking about this. That becomes harder to square with the knowledge of two world wars, doesn't it?


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## danny la rouge (Jul 20, 2018)

dialectician said:


> hmm: I've been thinking about this. That becomes harder to square with the knowledge of two world wars, doesn't it?


How so?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Do you have an example?





> It's true that this analysis is drowned out by other competing analyses. You point out that white nationalism is one. And that's where the left has fallen behind. And it's also why discussions like this thread are important.



Another example, and one I think a lot of us find harder to understand and engage with in terms of building unity... WC people that traditionally vote Blue and have middle class aspirations/interests. Those that punt for management out of self interest and desire status. Those that can't wait to leave their 'poorer' relations behind and hot foot it off to the burbs...I have a few of those in my family too. They wouldn't be seen dead matching with the likes of TR or BF because they don't believe themselves to be boneheads or racists but they are secret UKIP voters for sure.


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## mojo pixy (Jul 20, 2018)

Half my family is like that, too. It's an understandable response to the protestant work ethic and its ideas that life is what you (personally) make it, charity begins at home, hard work is redemption and and material success is a reward for hard work. There's no room in there for socialism.

And once class interests and social responsibility are leached out, all that's left is _who you ar_e.


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 20, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> How so?



Well that was the period of the politics of labour being in the dominant wasn't it. More than now at any rate. Yet millions of workers died and sacrificed each other for their ruling classes.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 20, 2018)

They were commanded to on pain of death, and baffled with lies about patriotism.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> Half my family is like that, too. *It's an understandable response to the protestant work ethic and its ideas that life is what you (personally) make it, charity begins at home, hard work is redemption and and material success is a reward for hard work. *There's no room in there for socialism.



Those are all common themes from my childhood for sure yet not all of my family got twisted the 'wrong' way by this stuff. You say it's understandable as if my point isn't a valid one? (maybe me being a bit para) perhaps you can share what you are doing to engage with and build unity in that context?


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 20, 2018)

I have to be honest, I'm not. 'Building solidarity' is a nice idea but In my experience there's no such actual thing. I unfailingly give solidarity to people I work with, whatever their background, nationality or ethnicity, when solidarity is needed (and that's quite often in my workplace, given that we're at the bottom of every professional heap there is) - I even advocate, fiercely, in speech or writing, when I'm asked to, because I'm lucky enough to be articulate and literate.

But I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of solidarity I've been offered over the years in my own struggles, by anyone apart from friends I already had. I remember being yelled at by a friend of a friend about my "white male privilege" while I was talking about how insecure and difficult was my work situation, my housing situation, and my relationship with my son .. me on minimum wage and being excluded from my son's life by his nightmare mother, lodging in one room and being denied any kind of social support .. the person yelling at me a homeowner with kids she sees every day and a comfy job in school management. Even our mutual friend was shocked.

As for my family, the only ones I see nowadays are the ones I feel a connection with beyond DNA.

I've got nothing to defend or promote. But identity politics is my enemy, in my experience. I won't engage with it beyond the theory.

(Edited for clarity, and typos. Apologies)

I should not post in a hurry from my phone
I should not post in a hurry from my phone
I should not post in a hurry from my phone
I should not post in a hurry from my phone
I should not post in a hurry from my phone


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 20, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Another example, and one I think a lot of us find harder to understand and engage with in terms of building unity... WC people that traditionally vote Blue and have middle class aspirations/interests. Those that punt for management out of self interest and desire status. Those that can't wait to leave their 'poorer' relations behind and hot foot it off to the burbs...I have a few of those in my family too. They wouldn't be seen dead matching with the likes of TR or BF because they don't believe themselves to be boneheads or racists but they are secret UKIP voters for sure.


OK, but what you're describing is attitudes that people have.  That's not the same thing as a) their class, b) their class interests.

In the terms I'm using it, your class is your relationship to the means of production.  Crudely, do you belong to one or other of these sets: are you the owner of a business (factory, call centre, whatever) or are you a worker who has to sell your labour to earn your living?  The former owns the means of production (the factory), the latter does not.

The interests of those two groups are different.  Those interests are their class interests.

I've never claimed that the working class is uniform or homogenous, whether culturally, in taste, in belief, in personality, in attitudes.  It is diverse; it is made up of individuals.  But individuals who have to sell their labour to make a living.

It is certainly true that some working class people may fight wars "for Queen and country" (often due to conscription, and in a jingoist atmosphere, mind you); vote for Tories or another of the parties that does not represent them or further their interests; hold racist views; and so on.  But this does not contradict the structural analysis above: are they owner or worker?

The task for the 'left' is to restore a socialist basis to its endeavours.  It is my belief that an instance of solidarity builds deeper and more lasting solidarity.  That working together strengthens ties.  That community self management builds community spirit.  That mutual aid inspires community self confidence.  That suspicions can be dispelled by these activities.  Slowly, of course.  But the process has to begin to be successful.  It will never happen, though, if we retreat into enclaves.  We can be culturally diverse and still cooperate in our class interests. Indeed, we must.  But on a class basis.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> OK, but what you're describing is attitudes that people have.  That's not the same thing as a) their class, b) their class interests.
> 
> In the terms I'm using it, your class is your relationship to the means of production.  Crudely, do you belong to one or other of these sets: are you the owner of a business (factory, call centre, whatever) or are you a worker who has to sell your labour to earn your living?  The former owns the means of production (the factory), the latter does not.
> 
> The interests of those two groups are different.  Those interests are their class interests.


 Attitudes inform behaviour, behaviour has an impact, many don't own the factory but manage/oversee/behave in ways that promote the owners' interests because they aspire to those interests.



> I've never claimed that the working class is uniform or homogenous, whether culturally, in taste, in belief, in personality, in attitudes.  It is diverse; it is made up of individuals.  But individuals who have to sell their labour to make a living.



The WC as an term is constantly used around here in an idealised, homogenous way. That's what I am referring to.



> It is certainly true that some working class people may fight wars "for Queen and country" (often due to conscription, and in a jingoist atmosphere, mind you); vote for Tories or another of the parties that does not represent them or further their interests; hold racist views; and so on.  *But this does not contradict the structural analysis above: are they owner or worker?*



We were talking about interests and whose interests are being supported/promoted. You asked me for examples of my point. I gave two. People need to recognise their position/interests, my examples were of those that don't.

There is a conversation here I think about the fluidity or not of class lines...Are they as fixed as they once were?



> The task for the 'left' is to restore a socialist basis to its endeavours.  It is my belief that an instance of solidarity builds deeper and more lasting solidarity.  That working together strengthens ties.  That community self management builds community spirit.  That mutual aid inspires community self confidence.  That suspicions can be dispelled by these activities.  Slowly, of course.  But the process has to begin to be successful.  It will never happen, though, if we retreat into enclaves.  We can be culturally diverse and still cooperate in our class interests. Indeed, we must.  But on a class basis.



I can't argue with any of that obviously, it speaks to my own attitudes and experiences of community activism, development projects, grass roots network building, localised campaigning, work interests, unionism etc.

 I will also say though that just because some of us do have reason to put other aspects of our multifaceted identities front and centre sometimes it doesn't mean we are working against our class interests and are idpols, which is the line peddled around here far too often for my liking. Often thrown at me in fact by people who'd do better focusing on and sharing what they themselves are doing to address these issues instead of exhaulting others to the heights of ideological bogeymen who deserve a kicking. Fuck that right off.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jul 20, 2018)

*


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## danny la rouge (Jul 20, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Attitudes inform behaviour, behaviour has an impact, many don't own the factory but manage/oversee/behave in ways that promote the owners' interests because they aspire to those interests.


Yes, attitudes inform behaviour.  I didn’t imply that I was excluding behaviour.  Quite the reverse.  Indeed, some behaviour must be tackled.  Racist behaviour.  Scabbing behaviour.  Anti-social behaviour. Anti-class behaviour. 

I was trying to establish terminology.  When we began this exchange I thought we were using the term “class” differently (no surprise: there is confusion around it, and it’s used to mean different things), so I was trying to explain how I was using it.  And I was attempting to explain what I mean by “class interests”.  You correctly point out that some behaviour by working class people is against the interests of the class.  Indeed so. Racist behaviour.  Scabbing behaviour. Etc. 

As for people who are in the coordinator class (the managers you refer to, who may not own the factory but manage on behalf of the owners), they’re not working class; they’re middle class.  It’s sometimes said that Marx wasn’t clear about the term “middle class”, and while it’s true that he changed the way he used the term over the course of his many years of writing, if we take Capital vol 1 as the best statement of his analysis, we can analyse the role of the middle class – the managerial class - very clearly.  (I’ve outlined it on these boards before.  Here, for example: https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/are-these-people-middle-class.346881/page-5#post-14676967 ).

_



			I've never claimed that the working class is uniform or homogenous, whether culturally, in taste, in belief, in personality, in attitudes. It is diverse; it is made up of individuals. But individuals who have to sell their labour to make a living.
		
Click to expand...

_


> The WC as an term is constantly used around here in an idealised, homogenous way. That's what I am referring too.


OK, I accept that. But I haven’t seen it, and that’s not how I’m using it.  So we’ll leave that as something you wished to convey to thread readers rather than to me.


_



			It is certainly true that some working class people may fight wars "for Queen and country" (often due to conscription, and in a jingoist atmosphere, mind you); vote for Tories or another of the parties that does not represent them or further their interests; hold racist views; and so on. *But this does not contradict the structural analysis above: are they owner or worker?*

Click to expand...

_


> We were talking about interests and whose interests are being supported/promoted. You asked me for examples of my point. I gave two. People need to recognise their position/interests, my examples were of those that don't.


I’m glad you gave your examples, because I wanted to understand what point you were making.



> There is a conversation here I think about the fluidity or not of class lines...Are they as fixed as they once were?


What do you mean here?  Blurred definitions between classes?  Or movement between classes? Or something else?

It’s quite clear to me that if you work for a wage but, say, also own or part-own a company, (meaning you don’t _have_ to sell your labour to the owner for a living), then you’re not working class.   That isn’t fluidity.  It’s someone who isn’t working class.


_



			The task for the 'left' is to restore a socialist basis to its endeavours. It is my belief that an instance of solidarity builds deeper and more lasting solidarity. That working together strengthens ties. That community self management builds community spirit. That mutual aid inspires community self confidence. That suspicions can be dispelled by these activities. Slowly, of course. But the process has to begin to be successful. It will never happen, though, if we retreat into enclaves. We can be culturally diverse and still cooperate in our class interests. Indeed, we must. But on a class basis.
		
Click to expand...

_


> I can't argue with any of that obviously, it speaks to my own attitudes and experiences of community activism, development projects, grass roots network building, localised campaigning, work interests, unionism etc.


Well, indeed.  



> I will also say though that just because some of us do have reason to put other aspects of our multifaceted identities front and centre sometimes it doesn't mean we are working against our class interests and are idpols, which is the line peddled around here far too often for my liking. Often thrown at me in fact by people who'd do better focusing on and sharing what they themselves are doing to address these issues instead of exhaulting others to the heights of ideological bogeymen who deserve a kicking. Fuck that right off.



Well, I’ll start by saying I have no idea what you do in your activism, and I don’t require you to prove yourself to me.  That’s entirely your business, and I wouldn’t presume to pass judgement on it.

What I’m interested in is in any case not really: _what individual activists do_.  Rather, I’m interested in ‘the left’.  I think we’ve lazily used this term to mean lots of different things, and assumed that all of it is in ideological harmony or at least pulling in the same direction.  But it isn’t.  A lot of what we call ‘the left’ isn’t socialist at all.  (Here I’m using the term ‘socialist’ quite widely to mean ‘comes from a class analysis standpoint’.  That terminology has its problems too, but all our terminology does, so the best we can do is to try to define what we mean).  I think the socialist left needs to get back to doing socialism.  And to recognise that not everyone we may have come to think of as ‘the left’ is actually an ally at all.  Some are following a neoliberal agenda, and we need to see that, express that, differentiate our own agenda from that.

The point of this is to refocus what _I_ do.  And to try to contribute to providing a political basis for those I’d regard as comrades to move forward from.


----------



## Plumdaff (Jul 20, 2018)

Asad Haider, mentioned upthread, is on the current episode of The Dig podcast talking about Identity Politics and his book about it. Helped sharpen my thinking on this issue, I think people might find it interesting.


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## mather (Jul 20, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> But I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of solidarity I've been offered over the years in my own struggles, by anyone apart from friends I already had. I remember being yelled at by a friend of a friend about my "white male privilege" while I was talking about how insecure and difficult was my work situation, my housing situation, and my relationship with my son .. me on minimum wage and being excluded from my son's life by his nightmare mother, lodging in one room and being denied any kind of social support .. the person yelling at me a homeowner with kids she sees every day and a comfy job in school management. Even our mutual friend was shocked.



I suspect this is why ID politics has been so enthusiastically adopted by the political, academic and business establishment. It makes any genuine attempts at solidarity impossible and keeps everyone divided as well as obscuring actual social and economic inequalities as the example of your friend's friend demonstrates.


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## 8ball (Jul 20, 2018)

mather said:


> I suspect this is why ID politics has been so enthusiastically adopted by the political, academic and business establishment. It makes any genuine attempts at solidarity impossible and keeps everyone divided as well as obscuring actual social and economic inequalities as the example of your friend's friend demonstrates.



It’s also kinda “right on” while posing absolutely no threat to capital.


----------



## campanula (Jul 20, 2018)

I don't like a lot of my neighbours (council estate, very mixed) - nasty, prejudiced small-minded...but I am very bloody clear that nearly all of us are facing the same issues of job insecurity, housing pressure, uneven health provision...on top of specific and deeply personal oppressions such as disability and race related bias. I am fairly sure they are not deeply racist yet many are hugely exercised about immigration...but while there may be a net gain across the economy, my class sees the sharp end of  wage and job pressure along with increased rents. The systemic inequality we face leads to a range of behaviour and attitudes...so we can harry and bully our Turkish and Lithuanian neighbours because they appear to threaten our living standards...or we can join forces, strengthen union membership, share childcare, shop and garden for less able, swap recipes and most importantly, form a united front. This has worked brilliantly, a couple of times, when the entire estate was united against the removal of a caretaker/janitor and establishing a small play area.
So yeah, I don't have to like them...but either ignoring them or worse, hating and shunning, is against all our interests. When it comes down to it, it is a numbers game...and there are many more of 'us' than 'them' but we do need some cohesion...and frankly, the undeniable problems of austerity are giving us a far better platform to organise than splitting into our comfortable cliques where we are just agreeing with ourselves while dismissing other entire groups.  Even I, with zero academic theorising or understanding of political philosophy, can see just how our quotidian daily life doesn't match up with the angry and divisive hyperbole which characterises an awful lot of internet analysis.

Re-reading this, it does sound like some sub-hippy idealistic waffle - apols.

I know who/what is oppressing me - not the individual key-workers at my clinic, probably not even the managers (although they won't actually come out in support), not even the casual public disdain towards addicts...but a vicious system which always, always prioritises shareholders profits over the people they are supposed to be helping. The very shittest results of privatising a health system so that the ONLY metric is profit, albeit rewarded by some shoddy monitoring for 'results'...which rarely coincide with the needs of the punters.


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## 8ball (Jul 20, 2018)

Yeah, but you could buy some shares if you wanted, so you’re not oppressed, innit.


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## Athos (Jul 20, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Attitudes inform behaviour, behaviour has an impact, many don't own the factory but manage/oversee/behave in ways that promote the owners' interests because they aspire to those interests.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You consistently fail to understand the term 'class' in the sense that it's used by by the left.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

Athos said:


> You consistently fail to understand the term 'class' in the sense that it's used by by the left.



Fuck off you ridiculous twit. I understand it, I fucking live it. I just don't romanticise it to score online irrelevant points and pretend to be part of some kind of simplistic, 'comrades' club. You are a snake oil salesman...talk the talk and fuck all else.


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 20, 2018)

3-5 pages of beef to follow


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> 3-5 pages of beef to follow



Premature on your part, wipe the delighted dribble from your chin.


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 20, 2018)

Dribble? You never fail to fail.

I’m too busy licking windows in any case.


----------



## Athos (Jul 20, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Fuck off you ridiculous twit. I understand it, I fucking live it. I just don't romanticise it to score online irrelevant points and pretend to be part of some kind of simplistic, 'comrades' club. You are a snake oil salesman...talk the talk and fuck all else.



No. You don't. As is clear from your posts. That not me having a pop.  It's just a fact that you have a different conception of class than, say, danny la rouge does. Leftists here see it as relationship to the means of production, whereas you appear to see it as more of a social phenomenon. It's hard to have a meaningful discussion when people are using the same term to mean different things.


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## Edie (Jul 20, 2018)

Steer this back on course to the mutual enemy. Alt-right arseholes and the people using identity politics to divide and rule.


----------



## Athos (Jul 20, 2018)

Edie said:


> Steer this back on course to the mutual enemy. Alt-right arseholes and the people using identity politics to divide and rule.



Where in that equation do you place people who purport to be of the left but use identity politics to divide?


----------



## Edie (Jul 20, 2018)

Athos said:


> Where in that equation do you place people who purport to be of the left but use identity politics to divide?


Honestly I dunno. I’m tired and emotional and should go to sleep. I just think that no one here’s the enemy.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jul 20, 2018)

So some boys all know what class mean and thats an excuse to bully who is clearly not the 'enemy'  and who making valid points here. 



Athos said:


> Where in that equation do you place people who purport to be of the left but use identity politics to divide?


you don't half talk a lot of crap. who is doing the dividing now?



Edie said:


> I just think that no one here’s the enemy.


quite.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

Athos said:


> No. You don't. As is clear from your posts. That not me having a pop.  It's just a fact that you have a different conception of class than, say, danny la rouge does. Leftists here see it as relationship to the means of production, whereas you appear to see it as more of a social phenomenon. It's hard to have a meaningful discussion when people are using the same term to mean different things.



What a nasty piece of work you are. Why tag danny in this? SHITSTIRRING PRICK, we managed to communicate without you QUELLE FUCKING SURPRISE!...my post was aimed at you and your posturing. 

You know I ignore you, yet you continue, dig, fucking dig until I respond.  SNAKE OIL FAKE ARSE PRETENDER that you are.

Class is experienced and interacted with in more than just 'means of production' theoretical ways, there are social and interpersonal aspects to it. The only meaningful discussion you are capable of is one that continues to indulge your pretense as some kind of class warrior. You are not. It amazes me that you think people believe you are.  Try being yourself and real for a fucking change or fuck off.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> So some boys all know what class mean and thats an excuse to bully who is clearly not the 'enemy'  and who making valid points here.
> 
> 
> *you don't half talk a lot of crap. who is doing the dividing now?*



He is, as usual...at the same time characterising me as the enemy as a front to hide behind and bolster some kind of 'oh pick me!' back patting from the urban vanguard.

Who has time for that?

Sad prick.


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## Athos (Jul 20, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Class is experienced and interacted with in more than just 'means of production' theoretical ways, there are social and interpersonal aspects to it.



Yes, that's exactly my point!  There are different (and perfectly legitimate, depending on context) ideas of class. You use it one way, whereas most of those on the left (at least here) use it to mean something else.  To have any meaningful discussion, that needs to be understood. Not sure it calls for that level of vitriol.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

Athos said:


> Yes, that's exactly my point!



No it wasn't. Fucking liar to boot.

I don't use or understand it in only one way and have made this obvious  through the discussion here and now again after you attacked and accused me of not understanding/knowing because, hey ho..Athos is online and fancies being a prick.

Must try harder. Showed your hand far to quickly tonight.


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## Shechemite (Jul 20, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> So some boys all know what class mean and thats an excuse to bully who is clearly not the 'enemy'  and who making valid points here.



Boys eh?

Which ‘boys’ are doing the bullying?


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## Athos (Jul 20, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> No it wasn't. Fucking liar to boot.
> 
> I have made the obvious point through the discussion here and now after you attacked and accused me of not understanding/knowing because, hey ho..Athos is online and fancies being a prick.
> 
> Must try harder. Showed your hand far to quickly tonight.



Fair enough. We can agree to disagree on whether or not we use 'class' to mean the same thing.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jul 20, 2018)

I'm not sure what the correct view of class is or how the correct one and only way of analysing class helps me. I'm not a scholar, not academic but I will stand up and be counted, I have stood up and marched, shouted and argued. 

It seems to be used on this thread to divide us. That some people aren't the right type of leftie because they haven't analysed things correctly. Perhaps being female, or BME, or queer somewhat muddies our ideas about class and therefore leaves us open to being shouted down as idpolikers.


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## Shechemite (Jul 20, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> It seems to be used on this thread to divide us. That some people aren't the right type of leftie because they haven't analysed things correctly. Perhaps being female, or BME, or queer somewhat muddies our ideas about class and therefore leaves us open to being shouted down as idpolikers.



I really don’t think that’s happened on this thread.


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## Athos (Jul 20, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I'm not sure what the correct view of class is or how the correct one and only way of analysing class helps me. I'm not a scholar, not academic but I will stand up and be counted, I have stood up and marched, shouted and argued.
> 
> It seems to be used on this thread to divide us. That some people aren't the right type of leftie because they haven't analysed things correctly. Perhaps being female, or BME, or queer somewhat muddies our ideas about class and therefore leaves us open to being shouted down as idpolikers.



I explicitly made the point that it's not a matter of right or wrong, it's just different. There's nothing divisive about recognising that people use the same term to mean different things, necessarily.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

Athos said:


> Fair enough. We can agree to disagree on whether or not we use 'class' to mean the same thing.



No it isn't fair enough. You are a try hard, fake socialist, wannabe bullying prick. You don't get to dismiss my continued need to defend myself from you and your deliberate attacks and mischaracterisations of my politics and values as a difference of opinion. NO. Fuck off. It's deliberate.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 20, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I'm not sure what the correct view of class is or how the correct one and only way of analysing class helps me. I'm not a scholar, not academic but I will stand up and be counted, I have stood up and marched, shouted and argued.
> 
> *It seems to be used on this thread to divide us. That some people aren't the right type of leftie because they haven't analysed things correctly. Perhaps being female, or BME, or queer somewhat muddies our ideas about class and therefore leaves us open to being shouted down as idpolikers*.



That is clearly the position taken by some, just too chicken shit to admit it is based on such crude and bullshit reasoning.


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## Athos (Jul 20, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> No it isn't fair enough. You are a try hard, fake socialist, wannabe bullying prick. You don't get to dismiss my continued need to defend myself from you and your deliberate attacks and mischaracterisations of my politics and values as a difference of opinion. NO. Fuck off. It's deliberate.



I'm genuinely bemused by your rage.  You clearly mean something different by your use of the term; you've said as much above. 

I don't understand how me pointing that out could be seen as bullying.

But, no matter. I've made the point.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 21, 2018)

_Oh he's so confused...I must be speaking in tongues...who could possibly suspect the mild mannered janitor? 
_
FFS..what a dishonest cunt.


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## friendofdorothy (Jul 21, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Boys eh?
> 
> Which ‘boys’ are doing the bullying?





Athos said:


> You consistently fail to understand the term 'class' in the sense that it's used by by the left.





Athos said:


> Where in that equation do you place people who purport to be of the left but use identity politics to divide?


 I read that as a patronising go at @Rutita. I find Athos - his glib self assurance and need to tell others how to suck eggs - very boyish indeed.


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> _Oh he's so confused...I must be speaking in tongues...who could possibly suspect the mild mannered janitor?
> _
> FFS..what a dishonest cunt.


 Rage on.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jul 21, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> _Oh he's so confused...I must be speaking in tongues...who could possibly suspect the mild mannered janitor?
> _
> FFS..what a dishonest cunt.


thats so insulting to cunts. I like cunts - warm pleasure giving cunts.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jul 21, 2018)

Athos said:


> Rage on.


Oh look at you all nicely exposed and squirming, pretending to be in charge still. Bless.


----------



## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Oh look at you all nicely exposed and squirming, pretending to be in charge still. Bless.



If it helps you to think that, that's fine with me. My reasonable points and your bizarre overreaction are here for anyone who's interested to see.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 21, 2018)

Athos said:


> If it helps you to think that, that's fine with me.



Do come back with some new and exciting material though yeah, I know it helps you to feel important.


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

Rutita1 said:


> Do come back with some new and exciting material though yeah, I know it helps you to feel important.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Jul 21, 2018)

I fear there is very little hope for working class solidarity - the spats and dismissiveness that have gone on throughout this debate show we can't even manage solidarity on this thread. 

I've yet to hear how this all important analysis can be used practically. How can it be used to build policy or lead to action?


----------



## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I fear there is very little hope for working class solidarity - the spats and dismissiveness that have gone on throughout this debate show we can't even manage solidarity on this thread.
> 
> I've yet to hear how this all important analysis can be used practically. How can it be used to build policy or lead to action?



I don't think every difference of opinion/understanding is necessarily anathema to solidarity.


----------



## Shechemite (Jul 21, 2018)

I’d wager that the petty battles on this thread have little impact either way on working class solidarity


----------



## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> Perhaps being female, or BME, or queer somewhat muddies our ideas about class and therefore leaves us open to being shouted down as idpolikers.



No, I disagree with her analysis, because of its content, not her identity. There's lots women, BME people, and queer people whose analysis is spot on.  They're not idpolitkers.


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## friendofdorothy (Jul 21, 2018)

I disagree I think her posts are spot on. She speaks from her own lived experience, she makes sense, she raises valid points. You don't even seem to know what her identity or views on class analysis are.  I find your dismissiveness of Rutita1 annoying.


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I disagree I think her posts are spot on. She speaks from her own lived experience, she makes sense, she raises valid points. You don't even seem to know what her identity or views on class analysis are.  I find your dismissiveness of Rutita1 annoying.



That's cool.  It's a discussion board; would be boring if we all agreed about everything all the time.


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## Humberto (Jul 21, 2018)

Athos said:


> No. You don't. As is clear from your posts. That not me having a pop.  It's just a fact that you have a different conception of class than, say, danny la rouge does. Leftists here see it as relationship to the means of production, whereas you appear to see it as more of a social phenomenon. It's hard to have a meaningful discussion when people are using the same term to mean different things.



I think Leftists here identify as working class. That it is a social thing. Very much so. The relationship to the means of production comes in terms of how to get things from A to B, how to resist, improve, advance. But essentially the wider solidarity is built upon shared experience, mutual recognition. Shared interests. That doesn't necessarily come out of an academic book.

Its about holding on to class. In the face of people driving a wedge by saying our interests align because I am an idpol chin stroker.


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## xenon (Jul 21, 2018)

u75 isn’t a working-class  milure  for the most part. Look at some of the posts in other forums on here. It’s middle-class guilty lefty professionals a lot of them. I used to be an anarchist but then I got a promotion.   Come on, you know it. This isn’t a dig  obviously I like it here, ,but let’s not  Talk silly. Oh God have I just done a Magnus McGinty.


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## xenon (Jul 21, 2018)

Why is ID politics a thing of the left anyway. Surely the arch capitalist would except anyone of any colour creed persuasion as long as they are playing the game at making money.  Why is bigotry a right wing thing. Yes blood and soil, that retrograde bullshit. But the modern capitalist surely does not believe in that sort of nonsense. I am thinking, spouting, whatever, sorry carryon.


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## Shechemite (Jul 21, 2018)

> have I done a Magnus McGinty.


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## JimW (Jul 21, 2018)

Never go full Magnus.


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

xenon said:


> Why is ID politics a thing of the left anyway. Surely the arch capitalist would except anyone of any colour creed persuasion as long as they are playing the game at making money.  Why is bigotry a right wing thing. Yes blood and soil, that retrograde bullshit. But the modern capitalist surely does not believe in that sort of nonsense. I am thinking, spouting, whatever, sorry carryon.


_Cui bono_?


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

The main arguments on this thread seems to take for granted that identity politics came about in the late eighties or something, but that does not seem right to me. Why would for instance A Vindication of the Rights of Woman not be identity politics? In my opinion there has been no shift that marks identity politics, that is politics pertaining to issues of identity, such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality, as something essentially different now than in for instance 1792. The critique of identity politics from the hard left is also mainly along the same lines as in the 19th and 20th centuries. What you are saying on this thread is also what women demanding votes were told, and women demanding abortion, education, communal child care, dealing with the violence of men against women etc.. It’s also what people fighting against racism and for lgbt-rights have been told by the “hard left” since the dawn of these movements. That if you challenge the position of white men, those men will turn reactionary/fascist, because they will not feel included on the left, and thus turn to the right. The conclusion on this bullshit analysis always being that those pesky women, gays and people of color should shut up, submit and move aside for “real socialism” – and the “important politics” - and when the working class has rallied behind the banner of socialism, these other - minor - issues will more or less deal with themselves. This reactionary and patriarchal instinct on the “real socialism” left is not something that came along with kids being stupid on tumblr, and I thank every brave IDpol activist of earlier centuries for not submitting to it.


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> The main arguments on this thread seems to take for granted that identity politics came about in the late eighties or something, but that does not seem right to me. Why would for instance A Vindication of the Rights of Woman not be identity politics? In my opinion there has been no shift that marks identity politics, that is politics pertaining to issues of identity, such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality, as something essentially different now than in for instance 1792. The critique of identity politics from the hard left is also mainly along the same lines as in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. What you are saying on this thread is also what women demanding rights in the French revolution was told, and women demanding votes in self-declared liberal democracies, and women demanding abortion, education, communal child care, dealing with the violence of men against women were told. It’s also mainly what people fighting against racism and for lgbt-rights have been told by the “hard left” since the dawn of these movements. That if you demand equality from white men, those men will turn reactionary/fascist, because they will not feel included on the left, and thus turn to the right. The conclusion on this bullshit “analysis” always being that those pesky women, gays and people of color should shut up, submit and move aside for “real socialism” – and the “important politics”, and that when the working class has rallied behind the banner of socialism, these other issues will more or less deal with themselves. This reactionary and patriarchal instinct on the “real socialism” left is not something that came along with kids being stupid on tumblr, and I thank every brave IDpol activist of earlier centuries for not submitting to it.



This is complete bollocks.  Nobody on the left is saying any such thing.


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

While you present a truly compelling argument, I am for some reason not persuaded. In my opinion this piece, by Loki, many of you have been pushing here is a perfect example of this kind of bullshit. Where women "whipped up into a frenzy by radical feminists", the poor things, makes such harrowing abuse of left wing politics as to push the poor men into hard right loons.


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## BigTom (Jul 21, 2018)

Athos said:


> You consistently fail to understand the term 'class' in the sense that it's used by by the left.



Should have said Marxist here rather than the left, i think.
IDpol is very definitely a liberal philosophy and not socialist at all so not part of the left imo but class can and should be used in its cultural sense as well as Marxist sense by those on the left.


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## BigTom (Jul 21, 2018)

strawman warning ahoy!

liberals: Oppression of X group is terrible, we must end this oppression by achieving [previously a formal/legal equality but as that has been gradually achieved but still these groups are oppressed, liberals are finally coming round to the notion of structural inequality that socialists have been discussing for decades, but that does not include capitalism as a structure at all]
Socialists: Yes, but this group will always be oppressed in capitalism because the structures of capitalism mean that oppression is useful to capital because of [reasons may be specific to the group being discussed]. To end this oppression, we must change the mode of production ie: end capitalism
liberals: oh you nasty privileged people don't want equality
socialists: !?
---

In practical terms just look at the Bolshevik revolution, I've found this British Library article with some information about how the socialists in real life did with women's issues in the early 20th century
Women and the Russian Revolution – The British Library



> Bolshevik revolutionaries were critical of what they saw as the ‘bourgeois’ women’s groups, which were mainly run by women from privileged backgrounds. They argued that these ‘bourgeois’ women could not understand the needs of workers and peasant women and that the women’s movement threatened working-class solidarity.



see those nasty socialists arguing against equality for women. How terrible things will be when they get into power...



> The first years of Bolshevik rule brought substantial changes to the lives of many women. Alexandra Kollontai, as People’s Commissar for Social Welfare and the first woman in the Bolshevik Government, was instrumental in improving women’s rights. She had written extensively on the ‘woman question’ prior to the Revolution and was an advocate for sexual liberation.
> 
> The Family Code of 1918 gave women equal status to men, granted illegitimate children the same legal rights as legitimate ones, secularised marriage, and allowed a couple to take either the husband or wife’s name once married. Divorce became easily obtainable, abortion was legalised in 1920, and communal facilities for childcare and domestic tasks were introduced with the aim of relieving women of household chores.



Terrible isn't it. Article goes on with more awful socialist efforts to oppress women through education and literacy programs in particular. Good thing there weren't any suffragettes that were socialists eh?

Now personally I disagree with the idea that liberation for many, possible all groups usually identified by idpol practitioners -  other than class/poverty of course - cannot be achieved within capitalism, but then socialist groups have generally supported practical demands for equality and recognised the gains that come from those, whilst still arguing that whichever group can never be truly equal because capital finds their oppression too useful.

None of which is to deny the existence of resistance from socialists for whom equality threatens their material or social status but disagreeing about the cause of, and therefore solution to, oppression is not the same thing. Where we want to get to is east of here, you can run west if you want and theoretically you'll get there in the end but actually it's the wrong way and I'll argue against heading that direction long and loud. Don't make out that's because I feel threatened in my priviliged position and I want to go east to protect that.


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## Edie (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> The main arguments on this thread seems to take for granted that identity politics came about in the late eighties or something, but that does not seem right to me. Why would for instance A Vindication of the Rights of Woman not be identity politics? In my opinion there has been no shift that marks identity politics, that is politics pertaining to issues of identity, such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality, as something essentially different now than in for instance 1792. The critique of identity politics from the hard left is also mainly along the same lines as in the 19th and 20th centuries. What you are saying on this thread is also what women demanding votes were told, and women demanding abortion, education, communal child care, dealing with the violence of men against women etc.. It’s also what people fighting against racism and for lgbt-rights have been told by the “hard left” since the dawn of these movements. That if you challenge the position of white men, those men will turn reactionary/fascist, because they will not feel included on the left, and thus turn to the right. The conclusion on this bullshit analysis always being that those pesky women, gays and people of color should shut up, submit and move aside for “real socialism” – and the “important politics” - and when the working class has rallied behind the banner of socialism, these other - minor - issues will more or less deal with themselves. This reactionary and patriarchal instinct on the “real socialism” left is not something that came along with kids being stupid on tumblr, and I thank every brave IDpol activist of earlier centuries for not submitting to it.


That’s a really  interesting point of view. Thanks.


----------



## BigTom (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> While you present a truly compelling argument, I am for some reason not persuaded. In my opinion this piece, by Loki, many of you have been pushing here is a perfect example of this kind of bullshit. Where women "whipped up into a frenzy by radical feminists", the poor things, makes such harrowing abuse of left wing politics as to push the poor men into hard right loons.



the full sentence from the article, and the next one:



> Can we accept that some women, whipped up into a frenzy by radical feminists, have inadvertently denigrated the very concepts that were created to support those who have suffered genuinely harrowing abuse? Safe spaces and trigger warnings have now become a source of misunderstanding as libertarians cite countless examples of privileged women using them in absurd ways.



I read this to be about attacks on transwomen - safe spaces which existed to help create spaces free of oppression now being used to oppress and exclude. On re-reading now though the proper term is Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists so I'm now wondering if when he said radical feminists, whether he was meaning this as a precise term for a group of feminists who seek to use safe spaces ideas to attack transpeople or not.

More broadly though the thrust of the article isn't that it makes such a harrowing abuse of left wing politics that men are pushed to the hard right, it's that it makes "left wing" politics a place that excludes the issues of men from discussion or action. So when a white man experiences issues relating to their masculine identity (and imo it would be crazy to say that men do not experience societal issues, regardless of the fact that women experience more/worse) and they look for groups that can help, they find those right wing groups a place where people will listen and be sympathetic about their problems. And they have solutions to those problems. Horrible, terrible solutions.
Between this and your last post you suggest that it is not an anti-fascist action to work to stop those white men finding their only suggested solution within those fascist groups. How do you propose we stop fascist groups from taking hold? By not presenting alternatives or being open to the inclusion of the main identity group that fascists recruit from?

This isn't about not challenging the privileges they do get from being white men, it's about accepting and responding to the issues they also face (eg: male = higher suicide rates as the manifestation of toxic ideas of masculinity). Acknowledging that there are societal problems that come from being a man is not denying or denigrating the bigger issues that come from being a woman, and a proper analysis will lead you to see that the problems of both stem from patriarchy and that feminism is the way to end societal issues that arise from masculine identities (some socialists would go further, and say that patriarchy stems from capitalism and therefore socialism must also be a part of this. nb: also a part of. Not to the exclusion of).

If "the left" denies that there are issues arising from masculine identity and excludes men from discussions about patriarchy/feminism, but the far right acknowledges those masculine issues, includes men in discussions about them and presents anti-feminism as the solution, where do you think at least a big chunk of men suffering from those problems are going to turn to?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 21, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I'm not sure what the correct view of class is or how the correct one and only way of analysing class helps me. I'm not a scholar, not academic but I will stand up and be counted, I have stood up and marched, shouted and argued.


Surely you can recognise the difference between way danny la rouge is using class and a description of class as an identity, i.e. speaking in certain way, the C2DE classification etc?

As Danny says the point is that it is the former understanding that forms the basis for socialism (like Danny I'm using this word in the widest sense), that there is a division within capitalism of labour, the working class, and capital, the bosses. Now again as Danny has said that doesn't mean there are not internal divisions within the working class, of course there are, but nether the less the class division is still present. The second part that is key to the socialist understanding is that while divisions on gender, race, sexuality, disability are all important and absolutely must be fought against  they differ from the class division in a important way. A capitalist society with complete equality of gender would still be a capitalist society and still exist on the exploitation of workers, but a classless society _could_ not be capitalist. Now, capital has and does use gender, race, sexuality etc to reinforce it's power and thus systematically discriminates on those bases and so looking at the intersection of class with gender/race/etc is vital. But an understanding of class, as connected to the means of production, is key to socialism. 



friendofdorothy said:


> I've yet to hear how this all important analysis can be used practically. How can it be used to build policy or lead to action?


I'm sorry but that just isn't true, people have given numerous examples on this thread of how a socialist understanding of class affects their politics.
But for ease I'll re-use a previous example of mine - the Women's Equality Party. The WEP understanding of class is very much an (like the rest of their politics) an identitarian one, so for them the best way to tackle pay inequality is to get better representation of women in parliament and in boardrooms, to ensure women CEOs to FTSE 100 companies are paid the same as men. From a socialist perspective such policies are at best useless, at worst actively harmful, giving a few tens/hundreds of women the same ability to exploit their workers as some men does absolutely nothing for equality. If we want to tackle the gender pay gap then we want to increase the minimum wage, to bring back tax credits, ensure companies/the state provide high quality free childcare services, etc.


----------



## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

If your goal is as a man to talk about feminism to other men in a way that reaches them, then what makes sense for me to do is to, you know, do that. Just you do you, organize, talk about it. It seems to be straight forward enough. There are not many men doing this (though a dime a dozen critizing women for not doing it). This Michael Kimmel guy does it very well, if you want to check out a man doing this genuinely. For some reason he does not think that should involve mainly going on rants on how frenzied feminists are, though, and trying to discipline our wild female antics. For some reason I do not think men going on rants about how frenzied feminists are, and telling feminists how *they* for some reason should center men in their political agenda, can possibly be in good faith. I at least can not in good faith claim to believe that.

Feminism is not some kind of united front, it has never been, it cannot be and it should not be. If you see something lacking get to it - do not try to appeal to what "feminism" as such should do.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2018)

Athos said:


> Fair enough. We can agree to disagree on whether or not we use 'class' to mean the same thing.



Maybe if we’re just clear on which sense we’re using at the time and try to be diplomatic towards those we don’t normally get on with, then the heat can be directed to more productive areas.


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## emanymton (Jul 21, 2018)

Athos said:


> I don't think every difference of opinion/understanding is necessarily anathema to solidarity.


I'd go further than that. A vital part of the principle of solidity is to give it despite any disagreements.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 21, 2018)

BigTom said:


> the full sentence from the article, and the next one:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


To be a bit of a picky arse. But the suicide bit is not quite true. My understand is that while it is true that men die from suicide at a higher rate then women, men and women attempt suicide in roughly equal numbers  (I think it might actually be higher for women). It is juat that men are more successful, for lack of a better term. And this is where the masculinity comes into it, men tend to die more oftern because they chose more violent methods tham women.

I'll see if I can find anything on this.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 21, 2018)

emanymton said:


> To be a bit of a picky arse. But the suicide bit is not quite true. My understand is that while it is true that men die from suicide at a higher rate then women, men and women attempt suicide in roughly equal numbers  (I think it might actually be higher for women). It is juat that men are more successful, for lack of a better term. And this is where the masculinity comes into it, men tend to die more oftern because they chose more violent methods tham women.
> 
> I'll see if I can find anything on this.


A little bit here

Gender differences in suicide - Wikipedia



> The role that gender plays as a risk factor for suicide has been studied extensively. While females show higher rates of non-fatal suicidal behavior and suicide ideation (thoughts),[11][14] and reportedly attempt suicide more frequently than males do,[9][10]males have a much higher rate of completed suicides


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## JuanTwoThree (Jul 21, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> The WEP understanding of class is very much an (like the rest of their politics) an identitarian one, so for them the best way to tackle pay inequality is to get better representation of women in parliament and in boardrooms, to ensure women CEOs to FTSE 100 companies are paid the same as men. From a socialist perspective such policies are at best useless, at worst actively harmful, giving a few tens/hundreds of women the same ability to exploit their workers as some men does absolutely nothing for equality.



I was thinking along these lines as I read through the whole thread, as part of my education in these things, too little and too late as the following will show...

It occurred to me about identity politics that there is a tendency to simplistically lump people with different aims together: 

Some  Chartist women wanted the same revolutionary French style republic as some of the men while others wanted no women "outside the hearth or the schoolroom" which I would interpret as no great desire to rock the boat and if anything nostalgia for traditional values (compared with the then comparative novelty of women working in dangerous factories for less than the men). 

Black Power was on the one hand revolutionary but also took the form of wanting more millionaires from minorities, James Brown and Jim Brown style, which doesn't sound especially like striking at the roots of American capitalism! 

So the split is between "Include us in the process that brings about radical change to society" and "Include us in society more-or-less how it is now" but white males (for example) may lump both elements of a given IDpol group together. And perhaps the IDpol group does too, which might not be a good thing.


----------



## BigTom (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> If your goal is as a man to talk about feminism to other men in a way that reaches them, then what makes sense for me to do is to, you know, do that. Just you do you, organize, talk about it. It seems to be straight forward enough. There are not many men doing this (though a dime a dozen critizing women for not doing it). This Michael Kimmel guy does it very well, if you want to check out a man doing this genuinely. For some reason he does not think that should involve mainly going on rants on how frenzied feminists are, though, and trying to discipline our wild female antics. For some reason I do not think men going on rants about how frenzied feminists are, and *telling feminists how *they* for some reason should center men in their political agenda*, can possibly be in good faith. I at least can not in good faith claim to believe that.
> 
> Feminism is not some kind of united front, it has never been, it cannot be and it should not be. If you see something lacking get to it - do not try to appeal to what "feminism" as such should do.



Loki doesn't say that in his article though, does he. What he says is that it's important not to exclude men from the process, and that if you do then you feed the far right and anti-feminist agendas, which must go against any form of feminism really (I suppose there are fascist-feminists though). That's very different from saying that the process should be centred on men.

the last sentence is odd and insulting really. Loki is writing an article here, about something he see to be lacking. That is getting to it, and part of getting anything done is appealing to other people to help with it. Loki isn't appealing to "feminism" anyway, he is appealing to the wider left (who all should be feminists but not all feminists are of the left at all). Nobody is trying to claim feminism is some kind of unified body of thought, other than the core idea of gender equality (although exactly what that means is, I'm sure, contentious - how we achieve it is by far the bigger area of disagreement).


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

This whole idea at the center of Lokis piece is about how men are now deprived of care and resources that should rightfully befall to them, because of feminism. This is by definition reactionary. The kid in his story should obviously be taken better care of than is the case, but that is not the fault of feminism, but probably your austerity politics and conservative ways. The fight for children’s rights, for public care and institutions to take collective responsibility for the upbringing of children, is at the core of the feminist movement, it has been for more than a century, and it has never excluded boys. To use some idiots on the internet to make an argument pretending that feminism as such has no care for troubled children if they are male, is absurd and completely ignorant.


Women’s emancipation does lead to women not being compelled to submit their resources to taking care of men. We have really just started that process, so the going should be getting tougher if we succeed further. That is as it should be, in the same way that socialism would entail that the ruling class would be deprived of the dominance, care and resources they have been accustomed to, and so on and so on. That is the nature of movements of liberation – if women are not compelled to do all the housework men will have to do some of it. If women are not compelled to put care of men before themselves, men will get less care. This is oviously a hard transition, but hardly suppresion. This being framed as suppression of men is what fuels the MRA-movement, and it is not something feminism can stop doing to apeace men. So you have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick on this one.


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## Edie (Jul 21, 2018)

xenon said:


> u75 isn’t a working-class  milure  for the most part. Look at some of the posts in other forums on here. It’s middle-class guilty lefty professionals a lot of them. I used to be an anarchist but then I got a promotion.   Come on, you know it. This isn’t a dig  obviously I like it here, ,but let’s not  Talk silly. Oh God have I just done a Magnus McGinty.


Thats certainly true of u75 as a whole. I think for quite a few of us, well me certainly, grew up working class then through education aren't any more. I mean I don't 'own the means of production' or anything like that, but I have a post grad education, I work in the NHS, and my god I've fort very hard to get where I am in life. I am a single Mum, currently earn less than 20k for me and two kids (LTFT) and live in council housing (owner), but I am definitely middle class in terms of my job now. Class is complicated, it's neither 'means of production' any more (where do you put all the office and public sector workers who work in teams ffs, or the self employed or those in the gig economy- socialism needs to work out if it includes or excludes them cos it's a lot of people) or only a cultural reference. It can't only be a cultural reference it has to say something about your relation with job security, with power.



friendofdorothy said:


> I'm not sure what the correct view of class is or how the correct one and only way of analysing class helps me. I'm not a scholar, not academic but I will stand up and be counted, I have stood up and marched, shouted and argued.
> 
> It seems to be used on this thread to divide us. That some people aren't the right type of leftie because they haven't analysed things correctly. Perhaps being female, or BME, or queer somewhat muddies our ideas about class and therefore leaves us open to being shouted down as idpolikers.


Yeah theres something in this too. It's hard if theres something about your identity that you have fort for your whole life, it can feel dismissed by arguments against idpol. I get why someone who is mixed race like Rutita gets angry I really do. And sometimes when I hear men saying the line about a middle class female boss not having anything in common with me that does not ring true because I think well actually I know she will have met sexism, I know she will have struggled against it, given stuff up (maybe like having kids, a lot of older women took that call), or maybe she had kids and knows that responsibility of being the one who has to take the responsibility for them but still have a career or write while her husband won't have. Identity does cut across class politics like that and it does feel uncomfortable.



friendofdorothy said:


> I fear there is very little hope for working class solidarity - the spats and dismissiveness that have gone on throughout this debate show we can't even manage solidarity on this thread.
> 
> I've yet to hear how this all important analysis can be used practically. How can it be used to build policy or lead to action?


Yeah I know that feeling.


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 21, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Should have said Marxist here rather than the left, i think.
> IDpol is very definitely a liberal philosophy and not socialist at all so not part of the left imo but class can and should be used in its cultural sense as well as Marxist sense by those on the left.



Well, if marxist class analysis just restricted itself to the relationship to the means of production then it wouldn't be much different from sociology would it?

Correct me if i am wrong, but i thought the central discovery of marx was the dictatorship of the proletariat.


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## redsquirrel (Jul 21, 2018)

Edie said:


> And sometimes when I hear men saying the line about a middle class female boss not having anything in common with me that does not ring true because I think well actually I know she will have met sexism,


Just a quick point. I don't think anybody on this thread _*is*_ saying this. They are saying that the (class) interests of the female boss are divergent from the workers, whether male or female.


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## Edie (Jul 21, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> Just a quick point. I don't think anybody on this thread _*is*_ saying this. They are saying that the (class) interests of the female boss are divergent from the workers, whether male or female.


Yes, important point, ta


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## Humberto (Jul 21, 2018)

xenon said:


> u75 isn’t a working-class  milure  for the most part. Look at some of the posts in other forums on here. It’s middle-class guilty lefty professionals a lot of them. I used to be an anarchist but then I got a promotion.   Come on, you know it. This isn’t a dig  obviously I like it here, ,but let’s not  Talk silly. Oh God have I just done a Magnus McGinty.



I don't think I am 'talking silly'. 

Athos said:

"Leftists here see it as relationship to the means of production, whereas you appear to see it as more of a social phenomenon."

Its both. That was what I was trying to say at least.


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## Humberto (Jul 21, 2018)

And if you think I'm really too stupid to realise that not every poster here is working class or from a working class background after being on the boards for years then you should stop talking silly yourself.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> The main arguments on this thread seems to take for granted that identity politics came about in the late eighties or something, but that does not seem right to me. Why would for instance A Vindication of the Rights of Woman not be identity politics? In my opinion there has been no shift that marks identity politics, that is politics pertaining to issues of identity, such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality



Misunderstanding the term identity politics.  I'm sure the very OP of the thread set out a definition to avoid this but most counter arguments have been based on misunderstanding the term (e.g. 'so is any movement for woman's rights bad then?'  Obviously not).



Odrade said:


> This whole idea at the center of Lokis piece is about how men are now deprived of care and resources that should rightfully befall to them, because of feminism. This is by definition reactionary. The kid in his story should obviously be taken better care of than is the case, but that is not the fault of feminism



He blamed poverty and capitalism not feminism - his critique was that the feminist understanding of the issue (toxic masculinity) was inaccurate/unhelpful compared to an understand which looks at the role of poverty/stress.


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## DotCommunist (Jul 21, 2018)

the idea of class primarily as 'social phenomenon' can lead us, and does to absurdities though humberto. Theres a book out, authentocrats by joe kennedy. I mean to pick it up.


> As Joe puts it in the book, "A small business owner in Hartlepool is now seen as a more reliable measure of political disenfranchisement than someone from Peckham who works a zero-hour contract in Sports Direct." The book critiques a political culture that purports to speak for people and places, while serving only to turn them into metaphors.


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## Treacle Toes (Jul 21, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> the idea of class primarily as 'social phenomenon' can lead us, and does to absurdities though. Theres a book out, authentocrats by joe kennedy. I mean to pick it up.



Why are you even expanding on this point given that the accusations that anyone on this thread is doing that are untrue?


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

BigTom said:


> What he says is that it's important not to exclude men from the process, and that if you do then you feed the far right and anti-feminist agendas, which must go against any form of feminism really (I suppose there are fascist-feminists though). That's very different from saying that the process should be centred on men.



This is exactly it.  If you have a style of politic that by definition excludes white men then how do you build a movement.  Identity politics assumes someone is progressive or regressive based on identity factors rather than social position - a white man is in the oppressive group by virtue of being a white man.  You get cred in the idpol movement for oppression status based on these identities.  So where do alienated young men find their political home?  Especially if they're thinking: 'hang on a minute, you're a university lecturer and I work in an amazon warehouse but somehow I'm the privileged one?'


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

Identity politics isn't just any historical movement which has fought for the rights of women or minorities.  It is tied in with the development of neoliberalism and an individualisation of class politics.  I think danny la rouge made a real effort to be clear what we are talking about in the OP but time and again we go over the same points, having to fight claims that the socialist left doesn't care about minority struggles.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> identity politics, that is politics pertaining to issues of identity, such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality



This is not the definition people are using


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> This is not the definition people are using



The definition is very unclear to me - besides people being wankers on twitter or something. I've read Nagles book, and it just came of as finding an easy target in stupid kids on tumblr, and doing some really reactionary attacs on the feminist, lgbt and anti-racism movement in genereal from this completely unfair position. If someone could tell me how A vindication of the Rights of Women, or The Second Sex, for that matter, is not identity politics, that would be clarifying.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

xenon said:


> u75 isn’t a working-class  milure  for the most part. Look at some of the posts in other forums on here. It’s middle-class guilty lefty professionals a lot of them. I used to be an anarchist but then I got a promotion.   Come on, you know it. This isn’t a dig  obviously I like it here, ,but let’s not  Talk silly. Oh God have I just done a Magnus McGinty.



Most (not all) idpol supporters are middle-class, it thrives in middle class spaces like universities.  Must be great finding out that despite your comfortable and sheltered life you have all these oppression points.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> The definition is very unclear to me - besides people being wankers on twitter or something. I've read Nagles book, and it just came of as finding an easy target in stupid kids on tumblr, and doing some really reactionary attacs on the feminist, lgbt and anti-racism movement in genereal from this completely unfair position. If someone could tell me how A vindication of the Rights of Women, or The Second Sex, for that matter, is not identity politics, that would be clarifying.



Always this argument too - it's just kids on twitter/tumblr.  Downplaying a phenomenon which is far more pervasive, widespread and significant.

A vindication of the rights was arguing for women to have an education.  Identity politics argues that privilege automatically confers from identity status, so even a highly education woman can claim oppression points over an uneducated man.  They are not even remotely the same.


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

Both Wollstonecraft and de Beauvoir would argue that any man has a level of what you call "privilege" over any woman, on the basis of the world being better adapted to his way of being. Beauvoir even takes it as far as saying that everything is easy for men, because the whole world is adapted to him. I do not agree with her on this - but there it is. They would not deal in points, because that is of course a form of reification of theory that makes it rigid and simplistic. But really, you think a woman doing proto-feminist theory in 18th-century England is going to make finer points about class?


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## JimW (Jul 21, 2018)

IIRC Wollestonecraft didn't think serving girls would need much education, she could have done with a class analysis.


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## campanula (Jul 21, 2018)

JimW said:


> C Wollestonecraft didn't think serving girls would need much education, she could have done with a class analysis.



And, as I recall, the entire battle for women's right's for representation (a vote) have been completely ambushed by the privileged few suffragists while somehow erasing over 50 years of intense political activity from Lancashire millworkers, Nottingham lacemakers, Yorkshire weavers (for a range of working rights and protections...not just a vote)...so that only the likes of the Pankhursts and Kier Hardy (plus a couple of token Pankhurst pets - Mary Kenny et al) are seen as the pioneers of women's enfranchisement. In every age, the ideas of the ruling class achieve dominance...while proletarian action is reduced to the scuffles of the unruly, unnamed mob.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> The definition is very unclear to me - besides people being wankers on twitter or something. I've read Nagles book, and it just came of as finding an easy target in stupid kids on tumblr, and doing some really reactionary attacs on the feminist, lgbt and anti-racism movement in genereal from this completely unfair position. If someone could tell me how A vindication of the Rights of Women, or The Second Sex, for that matter, is not identity politics, that would be clarifying.


This is just a drive-by posting as I'm busy with RL, but it occurs to me that it might be better if I give examples of feminists who don't come from the identitypolitics framework.  The first that came to mind was Silvia Federici Precarious Labor: A Feminist Viewpoint  (Very much still alive.  Member of the influential - on me - Midnight Notes collective).

And the next, Evelyn Reed, whose Women's Evolution had a big impact on me many decades ago.

Women: Caste, Class or Oppressed Sex by Evelyn Reed 1970


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

BigTom said:


> Should have said Marxist here rather than the left, i think.
> IDpol is very definitely a liberal philosophy and not socialist at all so not part of the left imo but class can and should be used in its cultural sense as well as Marxist sense by those on the left.



Yes, I should have been clearer on that.


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

emanymton said:


> I'd go further than that. A vital part of the principle of solidity is to give it despite any disagreements.



Yes, you're right.


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## BigTom (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> This whole idea at the center of Lokis piece is about how men are now deprived of care and resources that should rightfully befall to them, because of feminism. This is by definition reactionary. The kid in his story should obviously be taken better care of than is the case, but that is not the fault of feminism, but probably your austerity politics and conservative ways. The fight for children’s rights, for public care and institutions to take collective responsibility for the upbringing of children, is at the core of the feminist movement, it has been for more than a century, and it has never excluded boys. To use some idiots on the internet to make an argument pretending that feminism as such has no care for troubled children if they are male, is absurd and completely ignorant.
> 
> 
> Women’s emancipation does lead to women not being compelled to submit their resources to taking care of men. We have really just started that process, so the going should be getting tougher if we succeed further. That is as it should be, in the same way that socialism would entail that the ruling class would be deprived of the dominance, care and resources they have been accustomed to, and so on and so on. That is the nature of movements of liberation – if women are not compelled to do all the housework men will have to do some of it. If women are not compelled to put care of men before themselves, men will get less care. This is oviously a hard transition, but hardly suppresion. This being framed as suppression of men is what fuels the MRA-movement, and it is not something feminism can stop doing to apeace men. So you have gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick on this one.



I mean Loki says the following things in his article which I think mean very different things to what you are saying:



> Who’ll be there when the free market drops the ball? Surely social justice will be on hand to pick up the slack?
> 
> Well not exactly. You see, the last thing a lefty wants to do right now is stand up for young men. In every area of life the very concept of being sympathetic to the plight of the young male (white or otherwise) has become laughable.



So it's clearly capitalism (and yes austerity politics) that is failing, and "lefty" not feminism that is not picking up the slack politically. It's also about standing up for the issues young men have rather than denying they exist (this is not the same as resisting the loss of privilege). Those issues are not necessarily masculinity issues as he clearly identifies economic ones here, then goes on to talking about masculinity later.



> This is a natural push back against male dominance and while difficult to traverse at times, is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.



So loki thinks that male dominance should be dismantled. It's not framing it as suppression of men in terms of privilege.



> Can we, for example, concede that some feminist activism is unhelpful while also asserting, unequivocally, that society as a whole benefits from gender equality and that it’s the opposite of rational to generalise all feminists based on the misguided actions of a few?



Clearly identifies a particular group/part of feminism and explicitly not all feminism. Unless you are going to say that anything that calls itself feminism is beyond criticism and therefore any criticism of any feminism is reactionary?



> With the very concept of masculinity up for renewal it is extremely important that we do not, in our virtuous attempt to make overdue space for marginalised voices, inadvertently set up an esoteric talking shop that sneers at the very thought a man (white or otherwise) may have an opinion on his place in this new plural society.
> 
> We cannot allow a small, obtrusive, strain of activism that views the male as an obstacle to progress pervade leftist politics because there is no progress unless a majority of men (white or otherwise) are on-board. This is surely a practical conclusion to draw as opposed to one overly-steeped in idealism. It’s easy to stay in your own conversation and lose sight of how your politics actually plays out in the real world.



Again, clearly identifies one part of feminism he is critical of for excluding men/dismissing issues affecting men, and makes the argument that men need to be included in the process to bring a bout progress. Also explicitly states the space for marginalised voices is overdue. Clearly arguing for a move to a more equal world, and that the issue is not the pain of the removal of privilege but the exclusion of men from the process.



> Partitioning ourselves off from the complexity of the male experience and ignoring the implications of pursuing non-rational, ideologically driven, politically correct solutions to male violence and misogyny will only suffice for so long. If we continue engaging in our own exclusive conversations, where people must agree with certain non-negotiable precepts or be excluded, then don’t be surprised when the young men we inadvertently shun eventually find another tribe.



Again, clearly arguing for a more equal world, but that the ideology he identifies will not get us there, and the journey it is going on will exclude these young white men who will get caught up by the alt-right who present some kind of solution to their problems. I can't really see how arguing that the left needs to consider this in the way it works is reactionary - it is about stopping alt-right groups from growing. He is disagreeing with a particular part of feminism because he thinks it cannot produce ideas and actions that will lead to equality. I do not see it as reactionary to think that someone else with roughly the same aim as you has got the wrong idea about how to achieve that aim and to criticise their ideas.

Do you think this article is no different to what is written by MRAs and others on the alt-right when they are attacking feminism/feminists?


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 21, 2018)

campanula said:


> And, as I recall, the entire battle for women's right's for representation (a vote) have been completely ambushed by the privileged few suffragists while somehow erasing over 50 years of intense political activity from Lancashire millworkers, Nottingham lacemakers, Yorkshire weavers (for a range of working rights and protections...not just a vote)...so that only the likes of the Pankhursts and Kier Hardy (plus a couple of token Pankhurst pets - Mary Kenny et al) are seen as the pioneers of women's enfranchisement. In every age, the ideas of the ruling class achieve dominance...while proletarian action is reduced to the scuffles of the unruly, unnamed mob.



Very similar story in the US. And of course the same upper class types who take the credit for something that actually came from decades of working class struggle will be the ones who put their feet up and say job done as soon as their one goal is achieved, even when there's still a long way to go as there clearly was with the feminist cause in the early 20th century.


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

I think the whole premise of "feminism has an image problem", and this is the reason men become anti-feminist, so what is needed is putting those wrong kind of feminist women in their proper place, is a scary, misguided and deeply patriarcal argument. Going on reassuring us that "some feminist are good", is just, very well known to me, and completely misguided. If this was the case - that facisim grows out of the image-problem of certain strains of internet feminism, the world would be very different from what it is. It would not be Hungary, Poland and Russia striding the tide of autoritarian fascism, but Norway, Sweden and Iceland (because we are some mightily annoying feminists, I can promise you that). Facism and reactionary movements are not a result of the internet excesses of feminism, no matter how much they may occur. And men taking upon themself to "tame the shrew" as it were, so that other white men might join the left instead of being scared into fascism by the scary women, it is wholly misguided.


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## BigTom (Jul 21, 2018)

dialectician said:


> Well, if marxist class analysis just restricted itself to the relationship to the means of production then it wouldn't be much different from sociology would it?
> 
> Correct me if i am wrong, but i thought the central discovery of marx was the dictatorship of the proletariat.



I am by no means an expert but I think Marx's theory of labour value / surplus value (too long since studying this to remember if they are separate things!) is quite distinct from previous economic theories of value / labour value and the whole idea of base/superstructure was his, plus on the philosophical side of things, historical / dialectical materialism (dialectics being Hegel's idea but he was ideationalist and Marx introduced the materialism and historicism). I think these are all key ideas Marx introduced, for me the base/superstructure and surplus value stuff is more important than the little Marx said on the dictatorship of the proletariat. Base/superstructure particularly for the topic of this thread.

No idea about your first question


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## JimW (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> I think the whole premise of "feminism has an image problem", and this is the reason men become anti-feminist, so what is needed is putting those wrong kind of feminist women in their proper place, is a scary, misguided and deeply patriarcal argument. Going on reassuring us that "some feminist are good", is just, very well known to me, and completely misguided. If this was the case - that facisim grows out of the image-problem of certain strains of internet feminism, the world would be very different from what it is. It would not be Hungary, Poland and Russia striding the tide of autoritarian fascism, but Norway, Sweden and Iceland (because we are some mightily annoying feminists, I can promise you that). Facism and reactionary movements are not a result of the internet excesses of feminism, no matter how much they may occur. And men taking upon themself to "tame the shrew" as it were, so that other white men might join the left instead of being scared into fascism by the scary women, it is wholly misguided.


I don't think it's that at all though, it's a distaste for a pseudo feminism that won't liberate the majority of the world's women. Critiques of the failings of the left are welcome and necessary.


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

> Critiques of the failings of the left are welcome and necessary.



Sure, that is what I am trying to do to you guys. At the same time I obviously worry that I might be in danger of excluding white mens perspective from my feminism to the point of driving y'all into the warm embrace of Jordan Peterson. 

What I see in this debate is a case study fitting for Kate Manne's Down Girl: The Logic of Misoginy. This is a great book, amazing feminist analysis, really not that great on class, but you will never find everything you need in one place. You will have to patch it together, and many of those pathces are lifted diretly from liberal feminism. One simply cannot do without. I do hesitate somewhat in recomending you to read Kate Manne, because it will probably care so little for your needs and feelings that it will make you full fledged MRAs by the end of it.


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## JimW (Jul 21, 2018)

Just find it bizarre you think the concern could only be a white or mens perspective. It's that liberal politics are in and of themself not liberatory for most.
As for this MRA shit that's just dishonest debate. Despise alt right identity politics even more. Afaik the argument isn't that you exclude those perspectives, rather that you give them currency by framing the debate in terms of identity. Some arseholes then think they just need to assert theirs too.


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

JimW said:


> Just find it bizarre you think the concern could only be a white or mens perspective. It's that liberal politics are in and of themself not liberatory for most.
> As for this MRA shit that's just dishonest debate. Despise alt right identity politics even more. Afaik the argument isn't that you exclude those perspectives, rather that you give them currency by framing the debate in terms of identity. Some arseholes then think they just need to assert theirs too.



I think the more fruitful approach to the very serious faults of liberalism is to combat it's lack of a class analysis, or even more on point, it's class perspective belonging to the ruling classes. If you take away identity politics from liberalism, class politics will not magically appear. Furthermore, these criticisms are different in the US and in Western-Europe. I really like Adolph Reed Jr., and his approach to identity politics seems relevant when it comes to the US, and their wholly degenerated political sphere. But this kind of approach cannot simply be imported to Western-Europe. If you remeber this sites BFF Marx critique of the German reading of Proudhon: When it is wholesale imported from France to Germany, it ceases to be a materialist analysis, and becomes an idealist analysis, because the material conditions are no longer there. One should sort these things better.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> Sure, that is what I am trying to do to you guys. At the same time I obviously worry that I might be in danger of excluding white mens perspective from my feminism to the point of driving y'all into the warm embrace of Jordan Peterson



I have yet to see a defence of idpol that doesn't rely on this sort of wilful misinterpretation and bad faith


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> I think the whole premise of "feminism has an image problem", and this is the reason men become anti-feminist, so what is needed is putting those wrong kind of feminist women in their proper place, is a scary, misguided and deeply patriarcal argument



Nobody on this thread has said feminism has an image problem.  There have been critiques of a certain style of liberal feminism on the basis that it is damaging to left-wing aims.


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> Nobody on this thread has said feminism has an image problem.  There have been critiques of a certain style of liberal feminism on the basis that it is damaging to left-wing aims.



We were discussing a text by Loki, which many on this thread has agreed with, where he says: 



> The very movement the left adopted to stay relevant is now giving it a bit of an image problem but the sensitivity around some of the issues being discussed, like gender-based violence, mean people are anxious to challenge certain prevailing points of view, even if they disagree. Not only does this stifle the free exchange of ideas but also creates resentment which can quickly escalate to heated accusations.
> In particular, advocates of victims of abuse hold more influence than ever before and some feel this can distort discussion of certain issues.
> 
> Enemies from all sides can smell blood while much of the left, unfortunately, is too caught up in its own conversation to notice. Those who are more aware are either considering defecting to a more libertarian viewpoint or naively underestimating the threat.



Hence the image problem.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 21, 2018)

Loki is talking about the idpol left more generally in that article.  The entire bad rep feminism has online refers to idpol libfem activism, which is certainly worthy of criticism.


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## friendofdorothy (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> The main arguments on this thread seems to take for granted that identity politics came about in the late eighties or something, but that does not seem right to me. Why would for instance A Vindication of the Rights of Woman not be identity politics? In my opinion there has been no shift that marks identity politics, that is politics pertaining to issues of identity, such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality, as something essentially different now than in for instance 1792. The critique of identity politics from the hard left is also mainly along the same lines as in the 19th and 20th centuries. What you are saying on this thread is also what women demanding votes were told, and women demanding abortion, education, communal child care, dealing with the violence of men against women etc.. It’s also what people fighting against racism and for lgbt-rights have been told by the “hard left” since the dawn of these movements. That if you challenge the position of white men, those men will turn reactionary/fascist, because they will not feel included on the left, and thus turn to the right. The conclusion on this bullshit analysis always being that those pesky women, gays and people of color should shut up, submit and move aside for “real socialism” – and the “important politics” - and when the working class has rallied behind the banner of socialism, these other - minor - issues will more or less deal with themselves. This reactionary and patriarchal instinct on the “real socialism” left is not something that came along with kids being stupid on tumblr, and I thank every brave IDpol activist of earlier centuries for not submitting to it.


This is very much my experience of being a lesbian activist in the 80s - the straight lefty men said 'but...' a lot, like we should stand behind the straight men until after their revolution. Like our gender /sexuality was a personal/ private trivial matter. Which is why I chose to join together with similarly oppressed people of various class backgrounds/educational backgrounds/incomes, to challenge the status quo, fight oppression and work for equality. That wasn't ID politics it was freedom fighting. You were as likely to be shunned by your family, community or sacked from your job if you were rich man or poor woman. My social and political life extended across class boundaries and involved working closely with people from all backgrounds. 

What I hear about IDpol on-line or SJ 'warriors' sounds mostly like hot air.  I'm not in favour of the current brand of playing privelege top trumps or of using 'safe' spaces to stifle debate.  But I'm obviously old and jaded and have limited understanding of social media.

I see class a a more complex thing than just relation to the means of production. As someone said up thread what about the middle class, and the self employed? The precarity of employment/debt/lack of ownership or control - isn't only the preserve of 'working class' employees. What about the unemployed / destitute? How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?  

I am into questioning everything, asking questions, building bridges, forging contacts and avoiding cliques. I don't have a word to encapsulate that or a book of analysis to follow.


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## chilango (Jul 21, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> This is just a drive-by posting as I'm busy with RL, but it occurs to me that it might be better if I give examples of feminists who don't come from the identitypolitics framework.  The first that came to mind was Silvia Federici Precarious Labor: A Feminist Viewpoint  (Very much still alive.  Member of the influential - on me - Midnight Notes collective).
> 
> And the next, Evelyn Reed, whose Women's Evolution had a big impact on me many decades ago.
> 
> Women: Caste, Class or Oppressed Sex by Evelyn Reed 1970



I heartily second Danny's recomendarecom of Midnight Notes' stuff. Not particularly on this issue, in general.

Their short book/long pamphlet on the anti-nuclear movement is a good starting point.

https://libcom.org/files/mn1pdfstrangvic0_0.pdf


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## Athos (Jul 21, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I see class a a more complex thing than just relation to the means of production. As someone said up thread what about the middle class, and the self employed? The precarity of employment/debt/lack of ownership or control - isn't only the preserve of 'working class' employees. What about the unemployed / destitute? How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?



What do you understand by the term 'means of production? Because I think there's a lot of talking at cross purposes going on.

And why do you think those aspects of class you've mentioned can't be adequately analysed from a Marxist perspective?


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## Odrade (Jul 21, 2018)

> What I hear about IDpol on-line or SJ 'warriors' sounds mostly like hot air. I'm not in favour of the current brand of playing privelege top trumps or of using 'safe' spaces to stifle debate. But I'm obviously old and jaded and have limited understanding of social media.



I do not disagree on the point that a lot of this SJW, check-your-privilege, safe space, no platforming stuff is bullshit, stupid, hot air, etc. etc. I have read a lot of feminist theory from the last three centuries, and there is a lot of moronic stuff all over the place: the strict religious moralism of the proto-feminists,the racism and classism of the 19th-century (and beyond!),all that running with the wolves and "authentic call to nature" of the seventies, the straigth up man hating of the eighties. But all those morons might not have been the most helpful at all times, most of them still, for all their faults made some meaningful contribution to the feminist movement. They are not the de facto reason that men as such were or are anti-feminists. Not even the lesbian seperatist, p-i-v is rape, feminists were in any relevant way the cause of that. Anti-feminists has always managed this feat on their own. Because the reason for anti-feminism is not stupid feminists, it is the prevalence of sexism and misogyny under a patriarcal order. The reason for racism is not misguided anti-racists, it is the fact that we live in a racist society. The reason for homophobia is not that the lgbt-movement are too loud. To not see that, but see anti-feminism as a failure of feminists to take proper care of men, is anti-feminism.

I know that you are not saying this! I am just trying to agree with you, while droning on about my point.


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## redsquirrel (Jul 21, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I see class a a more complex thing than just relation to the means of production.


No offence but this does not really relate to the posts either myself or danny la rouge have made.
You can see class however you wish, but class as defined as the relationship to the MoP is a definition that socialists use, and one that makes sense of capitalism in a way that social definitions do not (well that's my contention at least).



friendofdorothy said:


> As someone said up thread what about the middle class, and the self employed? The precarity of employment/debt/lack of ownership or control - isn't only the preserve of 'working class' employees. What about the unemployed / destitute?


I'm sorry but all your confusion here seems to be _because_ you are not using a socialist definition of class.

What do you mean by "middle class"? Socially I would be "middle class", probably group B on the census (and of course I do obtain certain privileges from that) but that's irrelevant to my connection to the MoP. I am still required to sell by labour in order to live. The "precarity of employment" might not only be the preserve of people in the C2DE categories but it is certainly not the preserve of capital. You seem to be in a muddle here because you are trying to shoehorn social class definitions into a socialist class perspective.



friendofdorothy said:


> How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?


Well first I'd point out that the idea that "most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?" is false. Hundreds of millions (billions) of people are engaged in manufacturing (butchersapron can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure he's said in the past that the number today is greater than at any time in the past). Billions more will be involved in the service industries.

But leaving that I don't understand why being in employed in administration confuses the relationship to the MoP? It's not like people not being directly engaged on the floor of a factory is something new. Administrators, middle managers, secretaries etc all existed in Marx's day.


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## mojo pixy (Jul 21, 2018)

Odrade said:


> I have read a lot of feminist theory from the last three centuries, and there is a lot of moronic stuff all over the place: the strict religious moralism of the proto-feminists,the racism and classism of the 19th-century (and beyond!),all that running with the wolves and "authentic call to nature" of the seventies, the straigth up man hating of the eighties. But all those morons might not have been the most helpful at all times, most of them still, for all their faults made some meaningful contribution to the feminist movement. They are not the de facto reason that men as such were or are anti-feminists. Not even the lesbian seperatist, p-i-v is rape, feminists were in any relevant way the cause of that. Anti-feminists has always managed this feat on their own. Because the reason for anti-feminism is not stupid feminists, it is the prevalence of sexism and misogyny under a patriarcal order. The reason for racism is not misguided anti-racists, it is the fact that we live in a racist society. The reason for homophobia is not that the lgbt-movement are too loud. To not see that, but see anti-feminism as a failure of feminists to take proper care of men, is anti-feminism.



Do you consider the gains of Feminism should be limited to women?


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## brixtonscot (Jul 21, 2018)

" Thirty years later, the gay-rights movement came to be represented by lobbying organizations, not activist ones, and its top aims became the right to get married and serve in the military. This result was very nearly the opposite of the Gay Liberation Front vision. It reflected a narrow agenda that hardly lent itself to solidarity with other oppressed groups. And it involved a fight for the right to join institutions that the G.L.F. wanted to see abolished: the nuclear family and war, which the organization saw as an expression, solely, of what we now call toxic masculinity. 
_*Most important, the movement started trying to gain access to institutions rather than trying to transform them."*_
_*Martin Duberman Points to the Failures of the Gay-Rights Movement
*_


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## Edie (Jul 21, 2018)

Athos said:


> What do you understand by the term 'means of production? Because I think there's a lot of talking at cross purposes going on.
> 
> And why do you think those aspects of class you've mentioned can't be adequately analysed from a Marxist perspective?


What is owning means of production? I thought now it meant owning a business?


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## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 22, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> I agree with belboid. Awful shallow waffly stuff and exactly what i hoped we weren't doing with this thread and wider critiques of identity politics. Its normalisation of alt-right term, it's ownership of them in fact is rank.



Good to see you picking up on this, her twitter feed is just full of transgender stuff and she’s high fiving fucking Glinner like fuck atm (you could have guessed as much given Miranda Yardley is mentioned in that video). Capitalism might not “care whether you are trans or black” as she puts it but she seems to have a few prejudices and fixations herself. I think we are going to see a lot of this trend in the future, bigotry dressed up as a critique of idpol “from the left”. 

To see this stuff being mentioned alongside the likes of Ralph Leonard and Kenan Malik is really depressing.  Some could really do with paying attention to these 2 writers, as they demonstrate exactly how you critique identity politics without throwing minorities under the bus in the process. 

I hope that wasn’t rambling drunken shite, it feels on point right now urban so it does.


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## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 22, 2018)

Oh and Danny La Rogue. He does a good job as well, absolutely brilliant and accessible writing for eedgits like masel. That video was shit DLR don’t watch it, don’t even watch all of it. Bite your thumb at it!


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## brixtonscot (Jul 22, 2018)

I think a couple of things ( at least ) have happened with what is now referred to as "identity politics"'.

What started out as movements for collective liberation - e.g. Black , women's , gay liberation movements - became appropriated by neoliberal individualism.

To take one example - The Gay Liberation Front was originally set up after the Stonewall riots - which were initiated by w/c trans* & queers of colour - as a challenge to the conservative establishment and for the sexual liberation of EVERYBODY.

Part of the problem was that many on the Left who were "straight/white/male" didn't acknowledge that gender/ethnicity/sexuality also concerned (implicated ?) themselves.

Over time the the "gay rights lobby" was appropriated by m/c white boys wanting to be assimilated INTO the institutions of the conservative establishment - e.g.  the military and matrimony.

Two examples - Angela Mason of Stonewall started out associated with Angry Brigade
NIck Partridge of Terence Higgins Trust , stared out involved in Irish solidarity activism.
They are both now "honoured" darlings of the conservative establishment !


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 22, 2018)

thinking aloud here: So the common complaint about people who prioritise an identity or whatever sometimes revolves in them not taking an active need in organisation or whatever. Seems legit to me. And yet:

When you have say the definition of emotional labour being reduced to this neoliberal pay me for the most trivial of disagreements is it any wonder that say disabled people (in my case) are atomised? Everything feels like a transaction, assistance with making spaces accessible (i didn't say safe) speeding up the chaotic public transport process or whatever, assistance on demos, assistance linking up with other unemployed in my case, all of this gets sidelined. like you gotta have that dynamic of this being a collective endeavoufr rather than just feeling like an individual imprisoned.

Corbyn surge has just made this worse as we're expected to wait for the messiah to get into power

ott: how do i change my username?


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## BigTom (Jul 22, 2018)

dialectician said:


> ott: how do i change my username?



you need to pm editor to ask for a username change.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 22, 2018)

Edie said:


> What is owning means of production? I thought now it meant owning a business?


It's a bit more specific than that: it's the physical things required in order to produce. So, it could be the factory building and land, the machinery in the factory, the desks and filing cabinets in the offices, the tools, the raw materials, and so on.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 22, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> How do we define 'the means of production' when most of us produce only phonecalls or move bits of paper or data about?


The call centre building, the car park, the land it's built on, the computers, the headsets, the stationery, the desks, and so on.


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## emanymton (Jul 22, 2018)

Edie said:


> What is owning means of production? I thought now it meant owning a business?


I'm going to try and answer this and some of the other questions. I don't read like I used to so I might be a bit off. No doubt someone will be along soon to explain why I'm wrong. But this is roughly my understanding.

I'll start with a miny glossary of sorts.

*Means of production* - any tool or object used by humans to produce. This can be a plough, a robot in a car factory, a computer or simply a pen. Anything external to us that we use to produce. It can also include space  (land and buildings) and any raw materials required.

*Labour Power* - The human capacity to work productively. This obviously includes the capacity of our physical bodies but crucially also our minds, our knowledge, skills and training.
*
Productive forces* - collective term for the means of production and Labour power. Basically everything that is needed for production to take place.

*Relations of production* - In order for production to take place within a society labour power needs to be brought together with the means of production. The way in which this is achived is the relations of production. Basically it is how a particular  society organises itself to allow production to take place. Generally this is a series of rights of ownership  (or at least control) over the productive forces. In a slave society the slave master owns both the means of production and the slave's labour power. In a capitalist society the worker owns his own labour power.



The relations of production is where class enters the equation. In a situation where some people don't own their own means of ptoduction there has to be a way to bring them together with the means of production. In a slave society this is brtual and direct, in capitalism it is more subtle. The worker owns their own labour power but without access to the means of production they are foced to sell it to those that do. While not as brutal as the slave society this is still an unequal relationship that results in exploitation. Generally the working class is defined as having ownership (formally at least) over their own labour power, but not the means of production.


An important thing to note is that capitalism is not concerned with the production of physical objects, it is interested in the production of commodities to be bought and sold. And there is a lot more involved in producing a commodity than just the physical production of an object. Just think about the process of shipping goods from one side of the world to the other. Somone has to organise space on a ship, make sure a shipping container is available, it has to be collected and routed to the right warehouse, soneone has to organise insurance. This is just a tiny part of what goes on to produce a commodity beyond producing physical objects.

This is why it is sometimes better to talk about control of the means of production rather than ownership. A worker my own their own equipment but lack the means to use it to effectively produce commodities for the capitalist market. Think of Uber drives who own their own cars but are essentially fighting to be recorgnised as workers.

One final point. Labour power, is itself a commodity that needs to be produced. In a sense then schools, hospitals, universities can all be seen as means.of production producing the single most important commodity in the world, human labour power.


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## mojo pixy (Jul 22, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> The call centre building, the car park, the land it's built on, the computers, the headsets, the stationery, the desks, and so on.



And, importantly in the case of a lot of call centre / admin / sales / customer service work, the information you use to do your job. Who owns that? Could you legally / practically take this info and do the same work for yourself under your own name?


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## danny la rouge (Jul 22, 2018)

emanymton said:


> Labour power, is itself a commodity that needs to be produced. In a sense then schools, hospitals, universities can all be seen as means.of production producing the single most important commodity in the world, human labour power


And though the NHS and state schools in this country may be run by the state and paid for from taxation, don't forget that the buildings are often actually owned by consortia to whom the health board or education board pay rent, using money that is made available by the exchequer _because the staff are there doing the work_. Similarly drugs and cannulas and machines that go beep which are sold to the NHS by private companies. These buildings and machines that go beep are also means of production: they are the tools and resources and materials.


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## Red Cat (Jul 22, 2018)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Oh and Danny La Rogue. He does a good job as well, absolutely brilliant and accessible writing for eedgits like masel. That video was shit DLR don’t watch it, don’t even watch all of it. Bite your thumb at it!



Yes, Danny has been patiently explaining this stuff for years on here. As have others, although I think some people take the view, perhaps, that the finding out and reading yourself might be part of the process of developing political agency.

I have hardly any time to read political stuff but there's plenty out there on Marx without having to read Capital (which I would love to dedicate some time to at some point). It does bug me all this what aboutery like he didn't think about this stuff. Marx, what a dick eh?


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## Shechemite (Jul 22, 2018)

emanymton said:


> One final point. Labour power, is itself a commodity that needs to be produced. In a sense then schools, hospitals, universities can all be seen as means.of production producing the single most important commodity in the world, human labour power.





danny la rouge said:


> And though the NHS and state schools in this country may be run by the state and paid for from taxation, don't forget that the buildings are often actually owned by consortia to whom the health board or education board pay rent, using money that is made available by the exchequer _because the staff are there doing the work_. Similarly drugs and cannulas and machines that go beep which are sold to the NHS by private companies. These buildings and machines that go beep are also means of production: they are the tools and resources and materials.



I've been making similar points on other threads - that the 'nice' elements of the state (eg NHS, education, social care) have the principal function of (helping in) reproducing capitalism - and that abuse/violence in those contexts are a consequence of that (and was called all sorts of horrid names for doing so)

Being under the boot of the 'nice' bits of state and capital involves the experience of being denied your humanity, precisely because thats the point - as useless eater, one is a commodity, to be fashioned (at whatever cost) into something more useful' or at least less burdensome (hence, eugenics, institutionalisation, 'care in the community', 'the recovery model' and so on)

One of the problems of neglecting the role of 'care' in a materialist analysis is that it gives an open goal to the conspiracists/cultists, hippies and idpollers to co-opt struggles around the NHS/'psychiatry'/'care' that are fundamentally about class-struggle.

Is there any work looking at violence (of whatever nature) against people with MH problems/learning disabilities/autism etc from a materialist perspective?

I found this interesting.

http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/cedr/files/2017/06/A-Trade-in-People-CeDR-2017-1.pdf


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 22, 2018)

care in the community is more like isolation from the community.


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 22, 2018)

Also my experiences around NHS therapies have always been individualistic — you can't change what's around you but you can change yourself.

Well no, is it?

And isn't that a kind of state directed identity politics.


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## Shechemite (Jul 22, 2018)

dialectician said:


> care in the community is more like isolation from the community.



Well quite. It’s more efficient for the state to starve people/drive them to suicide/or ‘recover’ them into low-paid work than it is (generally speaking) to institutionalise them.


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## Shechemite (Jul 22, 2018)

dialectician said:


> Also my experiences around therapies have always been individualistic — you can't change what's around you but you can change yourself.
> 
> Well no, is it?



Therapy is class-warfare (not the good sort)


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## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 22, 2018)

dialectician said:


> thinking aloud here: So the common complaint about people who prioritise an identity or whatever sometimes revolves in them not taking an active need in organisation or whatever. Seems legit to me. And yet:
> 
> When you have say the definition of emotional labour being reduced to this neoliberal pay me for the most trivial of disagreements is it any wonder that say disabled people (in my case) are atomised? Everything feels like a transaction, assistance with making spaces accessible (i didn't say safe) speeding up the chaotic public transport process or whatever, assistance on demos, assistance linking up with other unemployed in my case, all of this gets sidelined. like you gotta have that dynamic of this being a collective endeavoufr rather than just feeling like an individual imprisoned.
> 
> ...


I hope you haven’t lost faith in yer dialectics comrade


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## Odrade (Jul 22, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> This is just a drive-by posting as I'm busy with RL, but it occurs to me that it might be better if I give examples of feminists who don't come from the identitypolitics framework.  The first that came to mind was Silvia Federici Precarious Labor: A Feminist Viewpoint  (Very much still alive.  Member of the influential - on me - Midnight Notes collective).
> 
> And the next, Evelyn Reed, whose Women's Evolution had a big impact on me many decades ago.
> 
> Women: Caste, Class or Oppressed Sex by Evelyn Reed 1970



This is not really that clarifying to me. While you seem to be saying that a feminist analysis that remains within a marxist framwork is not what you would define as "identity politics", that does nothing to rule out any feminist analysis outside a marxist framwork, and as we all know, these are legion. It might set The Second Sex outside "identity politics", de Beauvoir being a marxist and all, but the feminist movement is mainly not a marxist movement. Most feminist analysis mainly deal with identity, this is not something new, but has been the case from the onset. The same is true of all these movements. So when does this become "identity politics", is there some break where a feminism that does not deal with class (which is the case for a very, very big part of feminist analysis), becomes "identity politics"? Would the Feminist Mystique be "identity politics" if written today? Was it "identity politics" when written?


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## campanula (Jul 22, 2018)

Odrade said:


> feminism that does not deal with class (which is the case for a very, very big part of feminist analysis)



Really, What would this entail then? My understanding of feminism in no way stems from academic theorising, but from the realpolitick of daily life...which is always filtered through a class prism when poverty, lack of opportunity, employment injustice...especially as applied to the female sex, therefore aligned with biology, culture and social expectations. Maybe there is a place for feminist theorising which is somehow separate from the overarching principles of living under capitalism...but I am not aware of any.


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## Odrade (Jul 22, 2018)

campanula said:


> Really, What would this entail then? My understanding of feminism in no way stems from academic theorising, but from the realpolitick of daily life...which is always filtered through a class prism when poverty, lack of opportunity, employment injustice...especially as applied to the female sex, therefore aligned with biology, culture and social expectations. Maybe there is a place for feminist theorising which is somehow separate from the overarching principles of living under capitalism...but I am not aware of any.



Well, feminism was at the beginning a liberalist endeavour. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor does a brilliant analysis of women's suppression, but they are not capable of dealing with class in a meaningful way, the same is the case for Mary Wollstonecraft. This is the case for a lot of feminist theory. My understanding of feminism comes from reading a lot of theory, but mainly from doing feminist activism. In the realm of feminist activism the people you ally with change from case to case, sometimes it's the liberal feminists, sometimes it's the cristian conservatives, some times it's the social democrats, and the socialists, ect., and sometimes we all rally together. In all these ideological encampments you will find both feminism and anti-feminism, and the most important feminist victories has been achieved by feminists alliances accross party lines.


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## campanula (Jul 22, 2018)

Well mine comes from feminist activism too - I worked for Women's Aid, women's education groups, worked in female collectives and women and homelessness groups...and always, always, the deepest concerns were overwhelmingly based on access to housing, education, childcare, employment, benefits, health services...I mean we didn't sit around and consider the 'male gaze' or sexual dissidence...and I didn't (as I was once told by a scarily right on feminist), feel that I had been 'betrayed by my womb'. It is probably fair to say that I don't really feel much sisterhood between women just because they are women...and while I do recognise particular issues as being specifically female in nature (the whole reproductive cycle, say),  I just cannot separate feminism out from the broader issue of power relations...although I accept I may have a flawed understanding of both class and feminism.

I was struggling to think how or where I might have had an alliance with Christian conservatives...but I do think Women's Aid and certainly the Women's Resource centre may have received funding from such groups...


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 22, 2018)

Odrade said:


> the people you ally with change from case to case, sometimes it's the liberal feminists, sometimes it's the cristian conservatives, some times it's the social democrats, and the socialists, ect., and sometimes we all rally together. In all these ideological encampments you will find both feminism and anti-feminism, and the most important feminist victories has been achieved by feminists alliances accross party lines.



Well obviously you work together with all kinds of people justifying what they do with all kinds of bizarre ideologies prevailing at whatever given time. this isn't exclusive to liberal feminism. but we are talking about political programme and content, which you it seems to me, sidestep and:

All those 'ideollogical alignments' are pro-capitalist and resultantly statist (especially the social democrats and socialists.) they can happily coexist together. So it's class collaboration then. and what becomes the measure, not reproduction of society and gendered labour.

Which communist and materialist feminists advocate an indifferent capitalism?


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## campanula (Jul 22, 2018)

Now I am thinking about it, Odrade (desperately avoiding despair and recrimination over my awful shrivelled allotment), it occurs to me that the idea of a 'patriarchy' is also a bit troubling (to me). I mean, I understand the term as a sort of catch-all reference to the vast inequalities of power/gender...and a historical positioning of women as the subaltern  sex...but I don't actually consider myself to be living under a patriarchy... or find it  that useful as a reference for political engagement tbh.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 22, 2018)

Odrade said:


> TWould the Feminist Mystique be "identity politics" if written today? Was it "identity politics" when written?


No.  Although it could do with the imagination to realise there might be women who aren't middle class.

I’m at a family event, while nursing a recuperating daughter, and don’t have time to explain yet again what I’ve already explained many times on this thread and elsewhere.  But here’s an interview which does so:


The problem with identity politics


Here is a selection of my previous posts:


Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.


Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.


Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.


The Alt-Right


Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.


post-modernism, cultural relativity and identity politics - attitudes of progressives


And in brief conclusion: identitypolitics as I’m criticising it is not just a synonym for anti-racism + feminism + anti-homophobia (etc).  But, as I predicted in my OP, it has become so synonymous with those things that people imagine that to critique identitypolitics is to actually be in favour of racism and sexism and so on.  This has been the reaction time and again in the thread.

But identitypolitics is not the feminism of the 60s, nor the civil rights movement of that era, nor the post-Stonewall gay movement.  Those movements had social agendas, with aims and goals.  Instead, indentitypolitics substitutes individualism for social agendas,  and substitutes vagueness for values, and substitutes essentialism for radicalism ( Mistaken identity | Eurozine ), and has become a platform whereby “community leaders” lobby to be accepted into the establishment, where we’re all supposed to be delighted that a women is paid £130k, as if that’s a victory for all women.  Instead of solidarity and coalition, we have the bastardisation of intersectionality into a form of identity top trumps, where the only way to be radical is to use your own identity as a badge to atomise your group of comrades, where class analysis is dismissed as another identity, and all of which enables the neoliberal elite to have neutered the activism and co-opted identitypolitics.

On top of that, language, tropes, behaviours born in the US environment have been transported wholesale to the UK, where they are now being regurgitated, out of their original contexts, in a feminist bookgroup near you.

If none of that applies to you, then I don’t mean you.  If it doesn’t apply to your favourite writer, I don’t mean your favourite writer.  If it doesn’t apply to your activist group, I don’t mean your activist group.  But it’s real, it exists, and has been experienced by people contributing to this thread. Examples have been given.

I’m needed elsewhere now, but I hope that’s enough to go on.


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## chilango (Jul 22, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Is there any work looking at violence (of whatever nature) against people with MH problems/learning disabilities/autism etc from a materialist perspective?



I was trying to write an essay looking at educational provision for young people with autism from a critical (Marxi_sh_) position the other day, focussing particularly on schools' roles as sites of social reproduction and how that relates to autism...and couldn't find any literature on it. Got feedback from my marker suggesting it was a poor choice of topic as no one has done any work on it.

Hmm.

May try again though.


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## Red Cat (Jul 22, 2018)

chilango said:


> I was trying to write an essay looking at educational provision for young people with autism from a critical (Marxi_sh_) position the other day, focussing particularly on schools' roles as sites of social reproduction and how that relates to autism...and couldn't find any literature on it. Got feedback from my marker suggesting it was a poor choice of topic as no one has done any work on it.
> 
> Hmm.
> 
> May try again though.



Could you explain a bit more? 

Was there nothing in the Disability and Society journal?


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## friendofdorothy (Jul 23, 2018)

Athos said:


> And why do you think those aspects of class you've mentioned can't be adequately analysed from a Marxist perspective?


 I've yet to hear anyone on this thread explain it in a clear or adequate way.


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## Odrade (Jul 23, 2018)

campanula said:


> Well mine comes from feminist activism too - I worked for Women's Aid, women's education groups, worked in female collectives and women and homelessness groups...and always, always, the deepest concerns were overwhelmingly based on access to housing, education, childcare, employment, benefits, health services...I mean we didn't sit around and consider the 'male gaze' or sexual dissidence...and I didn't (as I was once told by a scarily right on feminist), feel that I had been 'betrayed by my womb'. It is probably fair to say that I don't really feel much sisterhood between women just because they are women...and while I do recognise particular issues as being specifically female in nature (the whole reproductive cycle, say),  I just cannot separate feminism out from the broader issue of power relations...although I accept I may have a flawed understanding of both class and feminism.
> 
> I was struggling to think how or where I might have had an alliance with Christian conservatives...but I do think Women's Aid and certainly the Women's Resource centre may have received funding from such groups...



As for having alliances with christian conservatives, well, sometimes you want to put a stop to the sex industry, or you want to extend maternity leave, and in these cases they are your allies. At other times you want to ensure the right to abortion, and these people are youre opponents, and the liberal feministis, that are against extended maternity leave and pro the sex industry, are your allies. As for the concern about housing and education and so on, the one and only way to put this to rights is labour unions. Feminism, or what you chose to call "identity politics", does not impede labour unions. ' This whole thing where you cannot do politics if it is not pure, and anti-capitalist, well, there is no pure thing in this world. If you want abortion rigths, do the work, and build the necessary alliances. This just happened in Ireland. They were not shy about building alliances accross any pile they possibly could, and more power to them.


----------



## Athos (Jul 23, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I've yet to hear anyone on this thread explain it in a clear or adequate way.



Have you read Danny's posts and links?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 23, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I've yet to hear anyone on this thread explain it in a clear or adequate way.


Well people have posted quite long posts explaining how they understand class from a socialist perspective. If you don't find those clear or adequate (TBH I'm not sure what you mean by that) fine, but if you want people to clarify and/or expand things you need to say what it is specifically you think is unclear or disagree with and why.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 23, 2018)

Odrade said:


> As for having alliances with christian conservatives, well, sometimes you want to put a stop to the sex industry, or you want to extend maternity leave, and in these cases they are your allies. At other times you want to ensure the right to abortion, and these people are youre opponents, and the liberal feministis, that are against extended maternity leave and pro the sex industry, are your allies.


I might be, and indeed have been, part of groups containing conservatives and/or liberals but to suggest that socialists ally with conservatives/liberals I can't agree with.

Whatever perspective socialists took on the EU Referendum it's crazy to argue that they should have allied with either of the official campaigns - both were utterly regressive. And I can't agree that whatever their perspective on the sex industry any socialist should be allying with Christian conservatives, again to do so would be regressive. The objections of the religious right to the sex industry are not on the same basis as the criticisms of sex industry that socialists (should) make. Now socialists will end up next to conservative/liberal groups sometimes that's unavoidable, but allying with them, no effing way.

EDIT: Or to take another very pertinent example - Israel. I, like many socialists, am strongly opposed to the actions of the Israeli state (personally I support boycotts) but the idea that socialists should ally with Islamist groups is both disgusting and absolutely nuts. The anti-semitism that is creeping into some on "the left" is precisely because some have been too willing to ally with groups they not only should have never touched with a bargepole but have been actively criticising.


----------



## chilango (Jul 23, 2018)

Red Cat said:


> Could you explain a bit more?



Explain what? My essay topic? My field of interest? Not finding literature? Happy to ramble on!



Red Cat said:


> Was there nothing in the Disability and Society journal?



Nothing came up in my searches. Doesn't mean it's not there of course, but I couldn't find it if so!

My lecturer/marker knew of nothing either.


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## Edie (Jul 23, 2018)

Odrade seriously impressed with your knowledge about feminism


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## danny la rouge (Jul 23, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> I've yet to hear anyone on this thread explain it in a clear or adequate way.


I understand that Capital vol 1 is a significant commitment, and so I'm happy to elucidate when I can. But I do kind of think that people coming to a forum called Theory & Philosophy ought to at least _try_ reading the Communist Manifesto for themselves before proclaiming Marx doesn't cover unemployment, precariousness and all the other things he actually does cover in that basic text.


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## Red Cat (Jul 23, 2018)

chilango said:


> Explain what? My essay topic? My field of interest? Not finding literature? Happy to ramble on!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Your essay topic!


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## mather (Jul 23, 2018)

8ball said:


> It’s also kinda “right on” while posing absolutely no threat to capital.



Exactly. It seems that sections of the left still operate in a time warp in the sense that they still think that the ruling class is ultra socially conservative and that any dissent against it is some big blow against the system. Nothing could be further from the truth and on the whole social liberalism, not social conservatism is now the ruling ideology of the elite. Any why not, the former is much more suited to creating a culture of individualism that atomises people from one another as well as the potential of new markets to exploit and more profits.


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## chilango (Jul 23, 2018)

Red Cat said:


> Your essay topic!



So my intention was to look at how schools are sites of social reproduction - specifically the maintenance of inequality - and the role role of the acquisition of social and cultural capital in this, and then how this applies in provision for autistic young people, .and what impact ASD specific factors and interventions might have on the process of social reproduction.

But without papers to draw upon it was all a bit speculative and essentially "what I might research at some point in the future if I get to the position to be able to do original research on it" type of thing. Which wasn't really what they wanted from the essay.


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## mojo pixy (Jul 23, 2018)

_I know you think we're going to change our minds about some of this,
But we're really, really not. So if there's no deal it'll be an accident,
BUT IT'LL BE BECAUSE OF YOU._

And to think some of these people actually consider themselves adults.


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## Red Cat (Jul 23, 2018)

chilango said:


> So my intention was to look at how schools are sites of social reproduction - specifically the maintenance of inequality - and the role role of the acquisition of social and cultural capital in this, and then how this applies in provision for autistic young people, .and what impact ASD specific factors and interventions might have on the process of social reproduction.
> 
> But without papers to draw upon it was all a bit speculative and essentially "what I might research at some point in the future if I get to the position to be able to do original research on it" type of thing. Which wasn't really what they wanted from the essay.



Sounds very interesting, I'd like to hear more about your ideas.


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## Odrade (Jul 24, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> I’m needed elsewhere now, but I hope that’s enough to go on.



I appreciate the thorough answer to my question. One of these days I will do you the same courtesy. But it may take some time.


----------



## Odrade (Jul 24, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> I might be, and indeed have been, part of groups containing conservatives and/or liberals but to suggest that socialists ally with conservatives/liberals I can't agree with.
> 
> Whatever perspective socialists took on the EU Referendum it's crazy to argue that they should have allied with either of the official campaigns - both were utterly regressive. And I can't agree that whatever their perspective on the sex industry any socialist should be allying with Christian conservatives, again to do so would be regressive. The objections of the religious right to the sex industry are not on the same basis as the criticisms of sex industry that socialists (should) make. Now socialists will end up next to conservative/liberal groups sometimes that's unavoidable, but allying with them, no effing way.
> 
> EDIT: Or to take another very pertinent example - Israel. I, like many socialists, am strongly opposed to the actions of the Israeli state (personally I support boycotts) but the idea that socialists should ally with Islamist groups is both disgusting and absolutely nuts. The anti-semitism that is creeping into some on "the left" is precisely because some have been too willing to ally with groups they not only should have never touched with a bargepole but have been actively criticising.


 
You are surely as pure as the fresh snow on the first of december. And as useless. In my line of activism, and at work, I actually do engage in solidarity work in Gaza. How are you going to do that? I cannot do that without cooperating whith the elected representatives of the people of Gaza. These people are not that great. They are clearly anti-semites. This is not ideal, in any way, but it is what it is, and it is not something that I can or should decide. Where I am at we are doing solidarity work in Palestine. In my line of work we are engaged in a lot of efforts on the Gaza-strip. We are training people to deal with bombs and attacks, we are equping fishers, we do political training sessions for women and youth. But if Hamas are anti-semites (they are), all of this is in your opinion wrong? You English people should probarbly look your Kipling in the eye from time to time, and take some lessons from it in that believing yourselves to be the pure rigthiousness of the world is a terrible, brutal place to be. We should not and do not control every circomstance of everything. Solidarity is still possible, even though the circumstances are not pure. They never are.

You people, the brunt of you on this thread, do not seem, to me, to be doing politics. You appear to be doing Live-Action-Role-Playing-Games. Which is probably fine, and it does no real damage to anyone to sit around playing Dungeons and Dragons. It is nice that you have a hobby. But this suff is not politics.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 24, 2018)

Odrade said:


> You are surely as pure as the fresh snow on the first of december. And as useless.


Lovely. If not allying with misogynistic, homophobic anti-semites is purity then I'm proud to be pure, but of course it's not. Not allowing anti-semitic crap to pass unchallenged is not being pure, not acquiescing in sex-segregated political meetings is not being pure, it's having some political convictions and being willing to fight for them in the hope of a better world.

Anyone with even the slightest familiarity of history should know that _my enemies enemy is my friend_ leads only to betrayals and disaster (as well as being morally repugnant on it's own terms). I've already given the example of anti-semitism, and from just the recent past I could cite the Respect debacle, but a quick look at either the Brexit and/or Trump thread is enough to show the dead end that allying with anybody leads to. We have people approvingly quoting Tory ex-ministers, the IMF/WTO/World Bank, economists, the FBI, the CIA, posting links to far right shit, etc - this is utter nonsense.



Odrade said:


> In my line of activism, and at work, I actually do engage in solidarity work in Gaza. How are you going to do that? I cannot do that without cooperating whith the elected representatives of the people of Gaza. <snip> We are training people to deal with bombs and attacks, we are equping fishers, we do political training sessions for women and youth. But if Hamas are anti-semites (they are), all of this is in your opinion wrong?


There's a very great difference between _allying_ with a group and either working alongside it or cooperating with it. Nobody has said that socialists shouldn't work alongside non-socialist groups or individuals, how deep the co-operation should be is often a strategic and tactical question and will vary on circumstances.

To take a relatively modern example, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) had a high proportion of socialists in it's membership but was initially conceived as a cross party political group. There was nothing wrong with that, the aim (initially) was to get the widest participation possible. However, as time went on I'd argue that StWC was too willing to ally with groups that should not have, both limiting the actions it was willing to endorse (marches from A to B, no NVDA) and not taking a tough enough line with people with dodgy politics.



Odrade said:


> Solidarity is still possible, even though the circumstances are not pure. They never are.


 I absolutely agree and have never argued otherwise. But solidarity does not mean throwing away any socialist politics in order to ally with groups that are at a fundamental level opposed (often violently) to socialism.



Odrade said:


> You people, the brunt of you on this thread, do not seem, to me, to be doing politics. You appear to be doing Live-Action-Role-Playing-Games. Which is probably fine, and it does no real damage to anyone to sit around playing Dungeons and Dragons. It is nice that you have a hobby. But this suff is not politics.


Well considering that you've no idea what activities people on this board/thread are involved in this seems pretty arrogant. But what is politics to you then?


----------



## JuanTwoThree (Jul 24, 2018)

Isn't there a difference too between getting something done and sharing a platform on a wider matter? Obviously in local politics you can end up with strange temporary alliances and in situations of dire international necessities you work with whoever can facilitate your purposes.

But when it's something more nebulous I do find it odd to see

"Campaign for more something-or-other for  whatever-they-are. With speakers E. Smith (Con), J. Brown (Labour), F. Garcia (Lib Dem), S. Murphy (Greens) W. McDonald (Workers' 4th International Fraction)". These are people with such cleavage lines and so many ideological differences between them but they line up with each other, with people who they wouldn't have in their house.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 24, 2018)

I guess when you think about volunteers and medics in conflict zones and areas that have been hit by disasters, they go in to rescue folk, whatever their belief systems. It's the human thing to do.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jul 24, 2018)

JuanTwoThree said:


> Isn't there a difference too between getting something done and sharing a platform on a wider matter? Obviously in local politics you can end up with strange temporary alliances and in situations of dire international necessities you work with whoever can facilitate your purposes.
> 
> But when it's something more nebulous I do find it odd to see
> 
> "Campaign for more something-or-other for  whatever-they-are. With speakers E. Smith (Con), J. Brown (Labour), F. Garcia (Lib Dem), S. Murphy (Greens) W. McDonald (Workers' 4th International Fraction)". These are people with such cleavage lines and so many ideological differences between them but they line up with each other, with people who they wouldn't have in their house.


except they likelihood is they would - lots of friendships in the HoC across political lines, and chances are they'll all have economic interests in commmon (including the senior academic/top union bureaucrat/ex-public school boy turned revolutionary from the W4IF)


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## JuanTwoThree (Jul 24, 2018)

crossthebreeze said:


> lots of friendships in the HoC across political lines



True


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## danny la rouge (Jul 24, 2018)

Odrade said:


> You people, the brunt of you on this thread, do not seem, to me, to be doing politics. You appear to be doing Live-Action-Role-Playing-Games. Which is probably fine, and it does no real damage to anyone to sit around playing Dungeons and Dragons. It is nice that you have a hobby. But this suff is not politics


That's really not a worthy comment. The truth is that identity politics is a fissure line in contemporary activism. (The thread has examples from personal experience, including mine). It does need to be addressed. For you to use the defence that people you perceive to be on the other side of the fissure are by definition not doing "real" politics may be a handy semantic get out, but it's just that: an empty insult.


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## Red Cat (Jul 24, 2018)

You people.


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## danny la rouge (Jul 24, 2018)

For the record: I don't put sugar on my porridge.


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## elbows (Jul 24, 2018)

Funny how the self-righteous types have a habit of reducing the definition of meaningful politics and genuine political activity to the stuff they happen to be doing themselves eh.


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## LDC (Jul 24, 2018)

elbows said:


> Funny how the self-righteous types have a habit of reducing the definition of meaningful politics and genuine political activity to the stuff they happen to be doing themselves eh.



Often stuff that's not in the place they actually live too - the real struggle is always somewhere else.


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## chilango (Jul 24, 2018)

Red Cat said:


> Sounds very interesting, I'd like to hear more about your ideas.


I'll dig out my notes at some point. It might be a while though as I'm "on holiday". Do remind me though as I'd be interested to discuss this stuff and I suspect will carry on looking at it.


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## andysays (Jul 24, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> For the record: I don't put sugar on my porridge.


But do you actively IDENTIFY as someone who doesn't put sugar on their porridge and base your political activity around this, or is it merely an aspect of your individual preferences which places no restrictions on your ability to work with those of us who DO put sugar on our porridge?

(Obviously,  no one sensible would work with anyone who puts salt on their porridge, they should be shunned like the pariahs they are)


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## killer b (Jul 24, 2018)

andysays said:


> But do you actively IDENTIFY as someone who doesn't put sugar on their porridge and base your political activity around this, or is it merely an aspect of your individual preferences which places no restrictions on your ability to work with those of us who DO put sugar on our porridge?


I wonder how useful this kind of stuff is.


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## DotCommunist (Jul 24, 2018)

AD&D/similar is not LARP, I know that its become the fashionable political insult from radical liberals but there is a significant difference.


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## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

To be fair Odrade is totally right about me. This stuff is totally theoretical for me. I’m a single mum to teenage boys who works a full time rota that includes nights. I bearly have time to clean my own house let alone do anything political  And even if I did have time I wouldn’t know what to do. What would the cause be? 

If you look at the Tommy Robinson stuff, even though I know it’s far right at it’s base, there’s anger there and a reason. That people feel silenced and ignored, about immigration, child abuse, left wing identity politics, anger at the elite. It’s all twisted to their own racist agenda, I get that, but the rage about the actual issues isn’t necessarily right wing it’s being co-opted by them.


----------



## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

Also Odrade wtf do you do


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## DotCommunist (Jul 24, 2018)

seriously the 'I bled in gaza, what did you do' line wound me up when I was 22 and age has not improved it in the slightest, struggle tourism as badge of authenticity. I don't mean to knock the work of people doing what they can but jesus. Get off your horse and drink your milk


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 24, 2018)

Odrade said:


> You English people should probarbly look your Kipling in the eye from time to time, and take some lessons from it in that believing yourselves to be the pure rigthiousness of the world is a terrible, brutal place to be. We should not and do not control every circomstance of everything. Solidarity is still possible, even though the circumstances are not pure. They never are.



lol english!  please continue sugarplum!


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## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> seriously the 'I bled in gaza, what did you do' line wound me up when I was 22 and age has not improved it in the slightest, struggle tourism as badge of authenticity. I don't mean to knock the work of people doing what they can but jesus. Get off your horse and drink your milk


Wow. That’s a lot of hatred for someone who sounds like they are doing something pretty fucking brave and admirable?


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## chilango (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> To be fair Odrade is totally right about me. This stuff is totally theoretical for me. I’m a single mum to teenage boys who works a full time rota that includes nights. I bearly have time to clean my own house let alone do anything political  And even if I did have time I wouldn’t know what to do. What would the cause be?



That is all _political._

And a far more important location/site of politics than the spectacular militancy of the activist.


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 24, 2018)

hamas isn't above using force against strikes,  either.


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## Steel Icarus (Jul 24, 2018)

chilango said:


> That is all _political._
> 
> And a far more important location/site of politics than the spectacular militancy of the activist.


Exactly. The bloke who lives next door who asked when he moved in if he could put our bin out when he does his and does it every fortnight - that's political. Me giving my used but still valid dayrider bus ticket to strangers is political. It's not exclusively big flashy gestures, internet petitions or old blokes in suits.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> Wow. That’s a lot of hatred for someone who sounds like they are doing something pretty fucking brave and admirable?


It's not what he says he's doing, more that everyone who isn't doing the same is playing at it. Despite not knowing anything about the political activities of those on Urban. It's patronising bullshit and from a position of privilege - some of us like you say have families/jobs/responsibilities that mean that kind of Big Activism just isn't feasible, even if we were otherwise equipped to do it.


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 24, 2018)

and those not equipped? by odrade's standards they are just dungeons and dragons players.

Or is it going to be the condescending this is not for you bollocks, you can't ever be political.


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## mojo pixy (Jul 24, 2018)

It's also a shit way to debate. _I've been to Gaza so my thoughts mean more! _On the subject of Israeli occupation and actions in Gaza, yes. On anything else, no, not necessarily.

Plus look, this thread is about ID politics .. and the rift between Hamas and Fatah, the main reason why Palestinian solidarity is so hard to achieve on the ground there, is to do with _Palestinian ID politics._

ffs.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 24, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> It's also a shit way to debate. _I've been to Gaza so my thoughts mean more! _On the subject of Israeli occupation and actions in Gaza, yes. On anything else, no, not necessarily.
> 
> Plus look, this thread is about ID politics .. and the rift between Hamas and Fatah, the main reason why Palestinian solidarity is so hard to achieve on the ground there, is to do with _Palestinian ID politics._
> 
> ffs.



It has more to do with the left wing ideology of 'national (self) determination' i think.


----------



## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

S☼I said:


> It's not what he says he's doing, more that everyone who isn't doing the same is playing at it. Despite not knowing anything about the political activities of those on Urban. It's patronising bullshit and from a position of privilege - some of us like you say have families/jobs/responsibilities that mean that kind of Big Activism just isn't feasible, even if we were otherwise equipped to do it.


I see what you are saying here, although I don’t think that was his motivation (her motivation?).


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 24, 2018)

Maybe not, but it came across as condescending


----------



## chilango (Jul 24, 2018)

Intentional or not, it is a useful illustration of a certain mentality that occurs.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> Wow. That’s a lot of hatred for someone who sounds like they are doing something pretty fucking brave and admirable?


gaza boasting at 1 am because they didn't like the direction of conversation. And it was absolutely used to establish an authenticity, then call everyone else LARP cunts. I can read tone pretty damn well (if I may blow my own trumpet), and that post was pure arch middle class snottiness. Glass of wine, 1 am. 'You people, you lumpens. Get a fucking kipling reference in'


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 24, 2018)

Odrade said:


> You people, the brunt of you on this thread, do not seem, to me, to be doing politics. You appear to be doing Live-Action-Role-Playing-Games. Which is probably fine, and it does no real damage to anyone to sit around playing Dungeons and Dragons. It is nice that you have a hobby. But this suff is not politics.



This is quite a shitty perspective. Quite apart from the fact that you have no idea what people on this thread do politically, not everyone is able to get out and about to do things. Doing things online has a value, talking to people on discussion forums has a value. My thoughts have changed and developed a lot over the years thanks to reading what posters have put here. If we don’t talk to each other then nothing changes.


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## 8ball (Jul 24, 2018)

campanula said:


> Now I am thinking about it, Odrade (desperately avoiding despair and recrimination over my awful shrivelled allotment), it occurs to me that the idea of a 'patriarchy' is also a bit troubling (to me). I mean, I understand the term as a sort of catch-all reference to the vast inequalities of power/gender...and a historical positioning of women as the subaltern  sex...but I don't actually consider myself to be living under *a patriarchy*... or find it  that useful as a reference for political engagement tbh.



That's because you are living under *the* patriarchy.


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## Idaho (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> I see what you are saying here, although I don’t think that was his motivation (her motivation?).


From the name, a her. If she is an Atreides.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Jul 24, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> gaza boasting at 1 am because they didn't like the direction of conversation. And it was absolutely used to establish an authenticity, then call everyone else LARP cunts. I can read tone pretty damn well (if I may blow my own trumpet), and that post was pure arch middle class snottiness. Glass of wine, 1 am. 'You people, you lumpens. Get a fucking kipling reference in'



You saw it coming a mile off, constant references to how well-read they were on feminist literature, as if that assertion alone wins the debate.

True radicalism is middle-classes joining an NGO.


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## Sunset Tree (Jul 24, 2018)

At uni I met a lot of people for whom radicalism was travelling to a distant lands to provide charity.  Privileged kids who spent their summers building toilet blocks in Africa.  Never considered these types as a genuine source of radical politics.  I did some volunteering in the third sector and there's loads of those types.  They mean well but are coming at things from a position of privilege and it shows.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 24, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> At uni I met a lot of people for whom radicalism was travelling to a distant lands to provide charity.  Privileged kids who spent their summers building toilet blocks in Africa.  Never considered these types as a genuine source of radical politics.  I did some volunteering in the third sector and there's loads of those types.  They mean well but are coming at things from a position of privilege and it shows.



It's just a larval form of PwC drone.  

No political significance.


----------



## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

Let’s get beyond that tho to the actual point she was making, which I thinks valid. And that is that sometimes to get stuff changed you end up working with or alongside people’s whose political views you don’t 100% agree with. Loki in his article actually made a similar point, that it’s necessarily to concede some issues, recognise that others might have a different POV but the same goal, but work together anyway.


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## krtek a houby (Jul 24, 2018)

I couldn't tell if the poster was a woman/middle class/whatever etc. 

I just thought they were a volunteer or medic - when the rescuers/ambulances/emergency services come to help you/stop you from dying I don't imagine someone's beliefs or politics are the main issue discussed?


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jul 24, 2018)

I work for a humanitarian organisation, we have to be neutral politically.. And tbh being neutral is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to be. If we're not neutral we can't do the work, but at what point does being neutral make you the enemy..and at what point do you risk no longer being able to actually make a real difference in people's lives because you've  had to stand up for your values.

It's a complex area to work in when youre not allowed to be  political,  but it absolutely  gets results.. We actually have to spend a lot of time training to be neutral and impartial and we study ihl to really nail it. I often think it's like being in a cult and I'll probably need an intervention at some point...

However it does seem that if you can keep it up for long enough governments of all flavours come to trust you and invite your counsel


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## LDC (Jul 24, 2018)

Let's not go down the path of confusing humanitarian work with revolutionary politics, nor activism with revolutionary politics.


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## krtek a houby (Jul 24, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Let's not go down the path of confusing humanitarian work with revolutionary politics, nor activism with revolutionary politics.



Surely there's a lot of overlap?


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jul 24, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> Surely there's a lot of overlap?



I'm not sure there is tbh. When I finally got my head around it I was able to see where my own ethical dilemma was coming from. I've always been an activist and a fighter, now I'm picking up the casualties. There's no overlap in this.


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## LDC (Jul 24, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> Surely there's a lot of overlap?



Yeah, for the later I think there can be. The former not so much. Long discussion and not that related to the topic in hand though.

Not saying one is 'good' and t'other 'bad' mind you, just that the differences need to be honestly acknowledged.


----------



## JimW (Jul 24, 2018)

After I graduated I was keen to get back to China but didn't think I'd be any good as a teacher plus wanted to do something "worthwhile" so volunteered in rural development for a couple of years. Remember joking to one of the farmers that I was getting a lot out of it even if him and his community weren't so much; projects in and of themselves often sort of OK but clearly no substitute for grassroots politics and some like microfinance actively pushing the market to places it had barely reached before.


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 24, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> gaza boasting at 1 am because they didn't like the direction of conversation. And it was absolutely used to establish an authenticity, then call everyone else LARP cunts. I can read tone pretty damn well (if I may blow my own trumpet), and that post was pure arch middle class snottiness. Glass of wine, 1 am. 'You people, you lumpens. Get a fucking kipling reference in'



Kipling probably thought we were superstitious barbarians lol. well, onwards barbarian kurds!


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## ManchesterBeth (Jul 24, 2018)

ice-is-forming said:


> I work for a humanitarian organisation, we have to be neutral politically.. And tbh being neutral is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to be. If we're not neutral we can't do the work, but at what point does being neutral make you the enemy..and at what point do you risk no longer being able to actually make a real difference in people's lives because you've  had to stand up for your values.
> 
> It's a complex area to work in when youre not allowed to be  political,  but it absolutely  gets results.. We actually have to spend a lot of time training to be neutral and impartial and we study ihl to really nail it. I often think it's like being in a cult and I'll probably need an intervention at some point...
> 
> However it does seem that if you can keep it up for long enough governments of all flavours come to trust you and invite your counsel



Political neutrality is nonexistent.


----------



## BigTom (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> Let’s get beyond that tho to the actual point she was making, which I thinks valid. And that is that sometimes to get stuff changed you end up working with or alongside people’s whose political views you don’t 100% agree with. Loki in his article actually made a similar point, that it’s necessarily to concede some issues, recognise that others might have a different POV but the same goal, but work together anyway.



How far are you going to take it though? Do you think that I should have worked with the far right for brexit? Even though as someone who is racially Jewish, these same people would put me in a concentration camp then kill me along with my family if they got into power? Even though i will have to put up with racist comments and physical threats/possible abuse should they come to know I am racially Jewish?

More broadly should I work with this group whose aims are the same but whose reasons for wanting that are radically different and often totally opposed to the reasons I want it?

Or with feminism, the christian right are a deeply conservative grouping, ime generally they want to see traditional roles for women - mother and homemaker. As a broad sweep they are deeply regressive when it comes to womens rights but have been mentioned as a potential ally for eg: maternity leave issues. I don't get this at all. They want to roll back the victories of feminism in almost every area but you want to ally with them on the handful of issues they don't? Seems odd to me. We might end up in the same rally or giving evidence to the same parliamentary group or whatever but an alliance? no. The same people who line up outside abortion clinics, abusing women going there, will be in those groups, do you really want to line yourself up alongside them?

So yes, you work with people you don't 100% agree with not least because who on earth agrees 100% with anyone else? You'd always be on your own if you stuck to that. But there has to be a point where you say no, that group is not a group I can work with.

And even where it's a group you can work with, if they want to go one direction, and you think that is the wrong way and should go a different direction, do you still try to work together? If you don't work together, is that because you are a purist, or because the ideas of your groups are fundamentally incompatible, even though the aim is the same?
And if you disagree with the other group, and you argue to go about things another way, does that mean you are against achieving the aim of that other group?


----------



## 8ball (Jul 24, 2018)

dialectician said:


> Political neutrality is nonexistent.



More like meaningless really.
Too multi-dimensional.


----------



## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

BigTom sorry, don’t have answers for you. I just don’t know.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> BigTom sorry, don’t have answers for you. I just don’t know.



Well, I’d vote Labour to get the Tories out.  Regardless of the fact that it’s like stamping on a nail to distract from a severed hand.


----------



## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

Mate I voted Lib Dem last time. I pretty much choose at random now tbh (excluding the tories). Then I think probably shouldn’t bother to vote, then I think I should be grateful I live in a democracy.


----------



## Athos (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> Mate I voted Lib Dem last time. I pretty much choose at random now tbh (excluding the tories). Then I think probably shouldn’t bother to vote, then I think I should be grateful I live in a democracy.



Capital is delighted that you're grateful for the illusion of choice.


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 24, 2018)

Athos said:


> Capital is delighted that you're grateful for the illusion of choice.


You really don't know how to talk to people do you?


----------



## Athos (Jul 24, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> You really don't know how to talk to people do you?



Eh?

ETA: you mean it was a bit abrupt? Yes,  rereading it, it does come across that way. Sorry Edie, I was just trying to convey the idea that the choice is illusory insofar as none of the options challenge capital.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 24, 2018)

Athos said:


> Eh?
> 
> ETA: you mean it was a bit abrupt? Yes,  rereading it, it does come across that way. Sorry Edie, I was just trying to convey the idea that the choice outs illusory insofar as none of the options challenging capital.


Just try and keep it simple, this is just nonsensical


----------



## Athos (Jul 24, 2018)

S☼I said:


> Just try and keep it simple, this is just nonsensical



Autocorrect craziness. Have edited.


----------



## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

Athos said:


> Eh?
> 
> ETA: you mean it was a bit abrupt? Yes,  rereading it, it does come across that way. Sorry Edie, I was just trying to convey the idea that the choice is illusory insofar as none of the options challenge capital.


Oh it’s okay, I think I know what you mean. I think I’m just not quite as cynical (for want of a better word) as you. I genuinely think most MPs (even some Tories) think they are doing their best. It’s just the influence of capitalism, of money and financial interests, just distorts it all. The structure of it (sorry I’m no political analyst). I would like power to be brought down to the lowest levels, like regionally if possible, so the local MPs in the local parliament (Leeds for example) were actually accountable with some stuff run nationally (defence would have to be for example). But then you’d get issues of postcode lottery in the nhs for example. I don’t really know what the answer is, never have. Still vote though, some power is better than none at all?


----------



## Edie (Jul 24, 2018)

And I don’t know how to challenge capital. Anyway this has strayed a long way from identity politics which isn’t fair on DLR.


----------



## Athos (Jul 24, 2018)

Edie said:


> Oh it’s okay, I think I know what you mean. I think I’m just not quite as cynical (for want of a better word) as you. I genuinely think most MPs (even some Tories) think they are doing their best. It’s just the influence of capitalism, of money and financial interests, just distorts it all. The structure of it (sorry I’m no political analyst). I would like power to be brought down to the lowest levels, like regionally if possible, so the local MPs in the local parliament (Leeds for example) were actually accountable with some stuff run nationally (defence would have to be for example). But then you’d get issues of postcode lottery in the nhs for example. I don’t really know what the answer is, never have. Still vote though, some power is better than none at all?



I agree that it's structural.  And that people (from MPs to well- meaning liberals) often think they're doing the right thing.  I'd prefer direct democracy, at the lowest possible level, as opposed to any form of representative democracy.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 25, 2018)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> I hope you haven’t lost faith in yer dialectics comrade



not so much losing faith as being too emotionally volatile and unstable. so quick to anger these days.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 25, 2018)

Athos said:


> Eh?
> 
> ETA: you mean it was a bit abrupt? Yes,  rereading it, it does come across that way. Sorry Edie, I was just trying to convey the idea that the choice is illusory insofar as none of the options challenge capital.



Neither does direct democracy (inherently.)


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jul 25, 2018)

8ball said:


> More like meaningless really.
> Too multi-dimensional.



yeah thats a better way of putting it tbh.


----------



## Edie (Jul 25, 2018)

edit: I googled


----------



## Athos (Jul 25, 2018)

dialectician said:


> Neither does direct democracy (inherently.)



No, they were two separate points, in reply to Edie's.  Obviously, my preference would be direct democracy without capitalism.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jul 26, 2018)

dialectician said:


> not so much losing faith as being too emotionally volatile and unstable. so quick to anger these days.


I know exactly how you feel...


----------



## Odrade (Jul 26, 2018)

I am an idiot for going over the railing about "bleeding in Gaza" as someone precicely put it. That is a bullshit thing to do, regardless of how much bleeding has been done. I got worked up because my impression was that solidarty work in Gaza was being condemned, in the same vein as cross-political feminist work. It turned out, in this instance, that I misunderstood what turned out to be a case of a hard difference between alliance and cooperation. In my language, that is not a hard demarcation, no demarcation at all, really. It is the same thing, as far as my day-to-day discussions go. But I am still, obvilously, kind of not that happy about cross-political feminist work is being "put in place". and I do not think this has any less importance than the whole bleeding in Gaza thing.. The feminist thing is what I think is really, really imortant.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 26, 2018)

So based on that, and on this:



Odrade said:


> I have read a lot of feminist theory from the last three centuries, and there is a lot of moronic stuff all over the place: the strict religious moralism of the proto-feminists,the racism and classism of the 19th-century (and beyond!),all that running with the wolves and "authentic call to nature" of the seventies, the straigth up man hating of the eighties. But all those morons might not have been the most helpful at all times, most of them still, for all their faults made some meaningful contribution to the feminist movement. They are not the de facto reason that men as such were or are anti-feminists. Not even the lesbian seperatist, p-i-v is rape, feminists were in any relevant way the cause of that. Anti-feminists has always managed this feat on their own. Because the reason for anti-feminism is not stupid feminists, it is the prevalence of sexism and misogyny under a patriarcal order. The reason for racism is not misguided anti-racists, it is the fact that we live in a racist society. The reason for homophobia is not that the lgbt-movement are too loud. To not see that, but see anti-feminism as a failure of feminists to take proper care of men, is anti-feminism.



Then I have to ask again,



mojo pixy said:


> Do you consider the gains of Feminism should be limited to women?



In other words, if men are failing to engage positively with feminism because they do not believe there is any advantage in feminism for them, is this perception something that should be actively challenged, or would you just say _Nah, fuckem?_ Do men, in your view, have a stake in feminism that is worth nurturing?

Asking for a friend.


----------



## Edie (Jul 26, 2018)

Of course men have a stake in feminism. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t worry about my lads and the effect that a macho, fights in school and outside on the streets, not cool to learn (whilst girls press ahead), boys don’t cry they just get angry, culture has on them. 

Tangentially related but omg yes New Zealand! 'A huge win': New Zealand brings in paid domestic violence leave in world first



> We know women’s economic situation is pivotal to her choices that decides what she can and can’t do



If that’s been fort for by women of any political background I salute them. Proper understanding of the ‘why don’t they just leave’.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 26, 2018)

apparantly Twitter has banned Godfrey Elwick #wrongskin


----------



## Brownglass (Jul 31, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> It has been suggested that we need a thread specifically to discuss identity politics.  In order for it to have a fighting chance of not collapsing into chaos as people talk past each other, I thought the OP needed a brief exposition of some of the basic issues as I see them.  No doubt others will want to similarly outline what they see as the basics.  This is not intended as exhaustive, and I have written elsewhere on the boards about my views.  It is, however, intended as a starting point for discussion.
> 
> 
> In today’s ‘radical’ politics there is an assumption, sometimes stated, sometimes unstated, but either way underpinning much of the thinking one comes across, that identity and politics are a continuum.  We can see this continuum as analogous to spacetime.  We’ll call it _identitypolitics_.  In this model, identity is politics and politics is identity. The one is but an aspect of the other.  In this model, it is assumed that certain people will _necessarily_ be drawn to ‘radicalism’ because of their identity, and that certain others will tend towards ‘reactionary politics’ because of theirs.  This is essentialism.
> ...


Would it be rude to ask you to be more concise?
I disagree with identity politics, but we now have Hollywood stars coming out against "white privilege".
Presumably this means white, heterosexual men?
This only leads onto one road.
Or does the liberal left wish to drown in its own cess pool


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 31, 2018)

Brownglass said:


> Would it be rude to ask you to be more concise?



I made several other posts on the thread. Maybe one of them is more to your taste.


> I disagree with identity politics, but we now have Hollywood stars coming out against "white privilege".
> Presumably this means white, heterosexual men?
> This only leads onto one road.
> Or does the liberal left wish to drown in its own cess pool


Would you care to be more precise? What road and why?


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 5, 2018)

I don't want this to become a "just seen this on XXX" thread but I really couldn't let this pass without comment

'If it was Lehman Sisters, it would be a different world' – Christine Lagarde


> Lagarde called the collapse of Lehman Brothers a “sobering lesson in groupthink” that many economists had failed to spot coming. In this context, she said a key ingredient of reform would be more female leadership in finance.



I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better example of the regressive nature of identity politics.


----------



## likesfish (Sep 6, 2018)

Trying to destroy the nuclear family is an utterly unachievable goal  getting the army not to kick Gays out achievable and happened.


You can be as radical and righteous as you like but if you don't actually achieve anything what's the point? 

Greenham common big marches lots of noise but the missiles were removed because Reagan and Goby decided mutually limit the number of intermediate nuclear weapons.  Which was a way better plan than unilateral disarmament.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 6, 2018)

likesfish said:


> Trying to destroy the nuclear family is an utterly unachievable goal  getting the army not to kick Gays out achievable and happened.
> 
> 
> You can be as radical and righteous as you like but if you don't actually achieve anything what's the point?
> ...


You think politicians would have cared about mutual disarmament had there not been lots of marches and noise?


----------



## belboid (Sep 6, 2018)

likesfish said:


> Trying to destroy the nuclear family is an utterly unachievable goal  getting the army not to kick Gays out achievable and happened.


It's already being destroyed by modern capitalism. It's only been around a couple of hundred years, so there's no reason at all as to why it won't disappear. 



> You can be as radical and righteous as you like but if you don't actually achieve anything what's the point?
> 
> Greenham common big marches lots of noise but the missiles were removed because Reagan and Goby decided mutually limit the number of intermediate nuclear weapons.  Which was a way better plan than unilateral disarmament.


as kabbes points out, their decision came partly due to pressure from protestors. It's not an either/or situation


----------



## likesfish (Sep 6, 2018)

The  Soviets didn't gulag for you if you complained


----------



## DotCommunist (Sep 6, 2018)

need a vital comma there.


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 6, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> need a vital comma there.


Better still: a colon.


----------



## Shechemite (Sep 6, 2018)

likesfish said:


> The  Soviets didn't gulag for you if you complained



Bastards made you gulag yourself.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 6, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Better still: a colon.


Or even the lesser-spotted semi-... I'd do a Hemmingway and make it a full stop. Short. Pithy.

On reflection... given the author... screaming at us through scattered thoughts... maybe an ellipsis...


----------



## kabbes (Sep 6, 2018)

likesfish said:


> The  Soviets didn't gulag for you if you complained


And that’s why the Soviet empire still exists to this day.


----------



## mojo pixy (Sep 7, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> 'If it was Lehman Sisters, it would be a different world' – Christine Lagarde



Saw this and thought of that


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)




----------



## butchersapron (Sep 9, 2018)

This cunt cheers on the regime barrel bombing and chemical attacks on working class syrians. He is part of the problem.

Still got your account on here eddie?


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> This cunt cheers on the regime barrel bombing and chemical attacks on working class syrians. He is part of the problem.
> 
> Still got your account on here eddie?



Tbh I didn't know who that guy is, someone on my TL retweeted it, linking tweet was just quickest way to share the comic


----------



## belboid (Sep 9, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> Tbh I didn't know who that guy is, someone on my TL retweeted it, linking tweet was just quickest way to share the comic


Why? It's still a shit cartoon by an idiot.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

belboid said:


> Why? It's still a shit cartoon by an idiot.



I've read your posts on the terf thread so will take this with a pinch of salt since you've gone down the idpol rabbit hole yourself


----------



## belboid (Sep 9, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> I've read your posts on the terf thread so will take this with a pinch of salt since you've gone down the idpol rabbit hole yourself


Why? You are the buffoon buying the right wing false dichotomy. The nonsense polarisation between identity politics and 'the working class' is the poison. Bigotry has always been used to split the working class, and you are buying into it.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

belboid said:


> Why? You are the buffoon buying the right wing false dichotomy. The nonsense polarisation between identity politics and 'the working class' is the poison. Bigotry has always been used to split the working class, and you are buying into it.



Yes anyone disagreeing with you are buffoons taken in by right wing propaganda, nice insight into your mindset


----------



## belboid (Sep 9, 2018)

no, anyone who says 'IdPol,' quotes shit cartoons from arseholes, and poses a false dichotomy between liberation politics and working class politics is a buffoon.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

belboid said:


> false dichotomy between liberation politics and working class politics is a buffoon.



Given the thread you are posting on, you must think a lot of people are buffoons


----------



## belboid (Sep 9, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> Given the thread you are posting on, you must think a lot of people are buffoons


No, most participants have developed an argument. I'm afraid I don't believe you have. You're not the only one, but you are the latest.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

belboid said:


> No, most participants have developed an argument. I'm afraid I don't believe you have. You're not the only one, but you are the latest.



I've made loads of posts on this thread where I've developed an argument.  Your argument, that the divisions on the left around idpol are based on a false dichotomy posed by buffoons fooled by right-wing propaganda, is weak and elitist.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

Same shtick on the terf thread too.  Everyone has been duped by terf propaganda, nobody can think for themselves but me.


----------



## belboid (Sep 9, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> Same shtick on the terf thread too.  Everyone has been duped by terf propaganda, nobody can think for themselves but me.


Duped? No. Just wrong. imo. 

Your cartoon was/is shit. Identity politics isn't a development of neo-liberalism, it is a development of capitalism (as is the working class). The two go hand in hand, to try to seperate them is false and leads down dangerous paths, that allow misogyny and other kinds of bigotry divide us.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

belboid said:


> Identity politics isn't a development of neo-liberalism



This is just wrong.  And nobody is trying to separate neoliberalism from capitalism, how could you?

Going back to the OP:



> “Roots of this can be found in neoliberalism and its agenda of dissolving society into individuals and commodities. Of course, neoliberalism does not dissolve classes within production or the division of labour, but it dissolves the political potential of the working class through the individualisation of class. Which is why the left of today, in its inability to cope with the complete destruction of its historical counterpart through the 20th century, has decided to turn towards ideology and strategies of the far right, with its emphasis on the individual, its identity, ethnic romanticism and defence of culture and has replaced the class with it. The class interest of the working class is not what drives the left politics of today as the working class is viewed mainly as one of the ‘underdog’ identities.”



This is what I am talking about with identity politics and neoliberalism.  In your view there should be no polarisation between working class politics and identity politics, as this is just 'buying into a right-wing false dichotomy' and 'anyone who poses this false dichotomy is a buffoon'.  I disagree although I won't drop to your level of superiority and name-calling.


----------



## belboid (Sep 9, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> This is just wrong.  And nobody is trying to separate neoliberalism from capitalism, how could you?
> 
> Going back to the OP:
> 
> ...


Except you did, but hey ho.

Capitalism predates neo-liberalism, which is why it is far more accurate to say capitalism created ID politics, than it is to claim _neo-liberalism_ created ID politics. 

As to the OP.  It's wrong. Or, at least, ahistorical and overly simplistic. The rugged individualism of capitalism isn't a recent creation, it is one of the bedrocks of bourgeois philosophy. Revolutionary socialism is about ending oppression as well as exploitation, we can't do that if we don't recognise how sexism and racism are inbuilt into the system, an inherent part of it that cannot be separated.


----------



## Sunset Tree (Sep 9, 2018)

belboid said:


> Revolutionary socialism is about ending oppression as well as exploitation, we can't do that if we don't recognise how sexism and racism are inbuilt into the system



And I don't think identity politics does this, not as I've seen it manifest, hence why it is incompatible with socialist thinking.  You're denying a conflict exists despite the fact this conflict is constantly playing out on the left just now.


----------



## belboid (Sep 9, 2018)

Sunset Tree said:


> And I don't think identity politics does this, not as I've seen it manifest, hence why it is incompatible with socialist thinking.  You're denying a conflict exists despite the fact this conflict is constantly playing out on the left just now.


Does what? You're not really saying much. There are some shit 'identity politics' movements and individuals, same as their are some shit 'socialist' movements and individuals. So what?


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 24, 2018)

Kenan on point again:

FROM EQUAL RIGHTS TO STAYING IN YOUR LANE


----------



## inva (Sep 24, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Kenan on point again:
> 
> FROM EQUAL RIGHTS TO STAYING IN YOUR LANE


one of his poorer articles imo
seems to be arguing that people taking an interest in family/social history is some sort of alien manifestation of identity politics. leaving aside (as Malik does) the question of whether this kind of dna testing actually works, you're left with him taking aim at someone who for example, based on the belief that they have native american ancestry, wants to learn more about it. they don't even claim to be native american in the quoted bit, as Malik attempts to imply. only that they're 26% native american, which although weirdly precise is a utterly commonplace way of talking about this stuff and was so even in the grand old days of enlightenment universalism.

very quickly the piece runs up against the limits of Malik's own politics, which is to oppose identity politics with his liberal vision of 'equal rights'. well maybe that politics too has its failings, gets co-opted (or doesn't even need to be), and can result in class disunity. Malik often writes well on how this turn emerges out of the collapse of prior movements but from what i've seen he doesn't go further and also tends towards flattening out those movements in retrospect. now we're seeing a renewal, however limited, of a social democratic ideology with an anti idpol wing that failing becomes more pronounced i think.




			
				Kenan Malik said:
			
		

> What makes blackness into an issue in America is job discrimination, voter disqualification, police brutality, mass incarceration


this covers the more active, visible stuff, but there's also a mass of factors that more passively shape the experience of racial difference and make it an issue and i think that is an important part of why holding up equal rights as the answer is not going to work, leaving aside whether it can even deal with the stuff quoted in the first place.


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 24, 2018)

inva said:


> seems to be arguing that people taking an interest in family/social history is some sort of alien manifestation of identity politics.


That's not what he's arguing.  He explicitly says it's the idea of racial essentialism that he's tacking here: the idea that culture is passed on biologically rather than socially.  That's the whole thrust of the piece, so I'm surprised you missed it.

He writes:  "there is a desire to link genetic inheritance to social heritage to contemporary identity."

It's this linkage, with the three steps he enumerates, that he sees as the problem, and I agree with him.  This is a theme Malik has written about many times in articles and books.  



> leaving aside (as Malik does) the question of whether this kind of dna testing actually works


Well, it's a newspaper article with a given word count.  He does provide two relevant links.  And he's covered it in his book, Strange Fruit.


----------



## inva (Sep 24, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> That's not what he's arguing.  He explicitly says it's the idea of racial essentialism that he's tacking here: the idea that culture is passed on biologically rather than socially.  That's the whole thrust of the piece, so I'm surprised you missed it.
> 
> He writes:  "there is a desire to link genetic inheritance to social heritage to contemporary identity."
> 
> It's this linkage, with the three steps he enumerates, that he sees as the problem, and I agree with him.  This is a theme Malik has written about many times in articles and books.


yes i understood his point, but i didn't think building it on examples like that works. maybe i made a bigger deal of it than i needed to because its not really important, it was more what he contrasts that development with that i have a problem with.



danny la rouge said:


> Well, it's a newspaper article with a given word count.  He does provide two relevant links.  And he's covered it in his book, Strange Fruit.


sorry i may not have been clear here, when i said leaving aside i wasn't criticising him for not going into detail on that as i'm totally prepared to believe that this dna testing doesn't give useful/accurate results (don't know anything about it myself but sure its probably riddled with bullshit). i said leaving it aside because i was arguing on the basis of these peoples belief that the dna tests do work as they claim. i've read Strange Fruit and some of his other books and generally like them, though i think they share some of the same problems as this piece.


----------



## LDC (Sep 24, 2018)

Just started the Asad Haider _Mistaken Identity_ book that's probably be mentioned on here. And if it hasn't it should have been. Only a few pages in, but very impressed with it so far.

Short bit here Verso

On the other end of the spectrum just read the _The Xenofeminism Manifesto _which is the biggest pile of drivel my eyes have clapped sight on for ages.


----------



## inva (Sep 24, 2018)

also this might not be the right thread exactly as it is more on intersectionality specifically than identity politics, but i found this article The Limits of Intersectionality by Angry Workers to be interesting and worth a read (its actually a review of the book Striking Women' - Struggles and Strategies of South Asian Women Workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet).



			
				AngryWorkers said:
			
		

> Although ‘intersectionality theory’ does not necessarily end up in affirming identity politics, they both share the tendency to focus on oppression and individual experience of it, rather than on what creates the condition for it. We are currently witnessing a problematic intersection of state ideology and liberal leftist politics when it comes to race, class and gender - and ‘intersectionality’ will be a useless tool to question this. Capitalism needs divide-and-rule to maintain itself but even if it wanted to it couldn't do away with the material basis of racism and sexism.


----------



## flypanam (Sep 25, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just started the Asad Haider _Mistaken Identity_ book that's probably be mentioned on here. And if it hasn't it should have been. Only a few pages in, but very impressed with it so far.



He was on Henwood's show at the end of August defending the book from slurs that appeared in Jacobin. Worth a listen...
Behind The News, 8/30/18 Behind The News With Doug Henwood podcast


----------



## likesfish (Sep 25, 2018)

its a yank think the 26%apache or whatever got taken to task by some yank claiming he was 5th generation Irish American and actually had somebody from Ireland  pointing out that makes him American 
 people should have multiple ids lives complex your not just your gender/class/sexual idenity/nationality/religious/ political  belief system and to think you can see your entire life through one filter is madness ID politics can be useful but its a tool 
sometimes it's appropriate sometimes its not


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 25, 2018)

likesfish said:


> its a yank think the 26%apache or whatever got taken to task by some yank claiming he was 5th generation Irish American and actually had somebody from Ireland  pointing out that makes him American
> people should have multiple ids lives complex your not just your gender/class/sexual idenity/nationality/religious/ political  belief system and to think you can see your entire life through one filter is madness ID politics can be useful but its a tool
> sometimes it's appropriate sometimes its not


I once had an American proudly declare to me that he was "Irish, German, and Cherokee". I think the Cherokee thing comes from a practice that tribe (I hate the word "tribe", but sometimes there's no better substitute) had of taking in people who were on the run from the other side of the frontier.

As for I-Ams, they are different from other Americans, and that's because they hail from my own little patch of heaven.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 25, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> That's not what he's arguing.  He explicitly says it's the idea of racial essentialism that he's tacking here: the idea that culture is passed on biologically rather than socially.



You need a little more than that to get to racial essentialism, unless you’re just talking about “the human race”.

I wonder how the left would respond if the dogmatic axiom that the roots of culture are social pretty much down to the common biological substrate were ever meaningfully challenged..


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 25, 2018)

8ball said:


> I wonder how the left would respond if the dogmatic axiom that the roots of culture are social pretty much down to the common biological substrate were ever meaningfully challenged..


Is it dogmatic? For example, the authors of The Bell Curve, while trying to disprove exactly this point, inadvertently collected together a bunch of evidence that, properly considered, backed up the very opposite point from the one they were trying to make. We're a species with a narrow gene pool and remarkably small differences between geographically widely separated populations. All the evidence I'm aware of backs up that point, in fact makes it the only valid position wrt said evidence.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 25, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Is it dogmatic?



Yes.  Something can be dogma and backed by evidence at the same time.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 25, 2018)

8ball said:


> Yes.  Something can be dogma and backed by evidence at the same time.


We can say some very strong things about certain universalities across all human populations just by following the evidence. So no need for dogma.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 25, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We can say some very strong things about certain universalities across all human populations just by following the evidence. So no need for dogma.



That's not really how dogma works.  Anyway, I was mostly musing on how certain ideological groups would respond to having sacred cows slaughtered in front of them...

I'm interested about that stuff in the Bell Curve which demonstrates the opposite to what it was meant to be proving - do you have any links (cos I'm not going to read that damn book)?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 25, 2018)

8ball said:


> That's not really how dogma works.  Anyway, I was mostly musing on how certain ideological groups would respond to having sacred cows slaughtered in front of them...
> 
> I'm interested about that stuff in the Bell Curve which demonstrates the opposite to what it was meant to be proving - do you have any links (cos I'm not going to read that damn book)?


There was a thread on here about it years ago in which I and others provided various links debunking it using the very data that its authors had so painstakingly collected. irrc ViolentPanda also furnished some of the links. Not sure I want to go trawling through that shit again either tbh.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 25, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There was a thread on here about it years ago in which I and others provided various links debunking it using the very data that its authors had so painstakingly collected. irrc ViolentPanda also furnished some of the links. Not sure I want to go trawling through that shit again either tbh.



Nah, I was just wondering if there was a condensed version anywhere.


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 26, 2018)

8ball said:


> You need a little more than that to get to racial essentialism, unless you’re just talking about “the human race”.


I’m talking about the idea that people who come from a certain supposed “racial” background have defined “authentic” ways to be and do that are assumed to be to do with their biological heritage.  These ways of being and doing are reserved for people of that supposed biological heritage. 

In other words the ways in which identity politics resemble racism.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 26, 2018)

It’s worth bearing in mind that your great great great great grandad (ie going back about 150 years) is already no more related to you than your fourth cousin, which is likely thousands of present day people you have nothing in common with and wouldn’t care about even if you knew.  Throw in a couple more “greats” and you could be up to hundreds of thousands of present day sixth cousins.

The idea that such a tangential relationship to an historical figure somehow defines the present day you is essentialism gone mad.


----------



## TruXta (Sep 26, 2018)

kabbes said:


> It’s worth bearing in mind that your great great great great grandad (ie going back about 150 years) is already no more related to you than your fourth cousin, which is likely thousands of present day people you have nothing in common with and wouldn’t care about even if you knew.  Throw in a couple more “greats” and you could be up to hundreds of thousands of present day sixth cousins.
> 
> The idea that such a tangential relationship to an historical figure somehow defines the present day you is essentialism gone mad.


But mah bloodline!


----------



## kabbes (Sep 26, 2018)

TruXta said:


> But mah bloodline!


Well obviously for the more _inbred_ amongst us, the relationship to ancestors is a touch more direct.


----------



## krtek a houby (Sep 26, 2018)

kabbes said:


> It’s worth bearing in mind that your great great great great grandad (ie going back about 150 years) is already no more related to you than your fourth cousin, which is likely thousands of present day people you have nothing in common with and wouldn’t care about even if you knew.  Throw in a couple more “greats” and you could be up to hundreds of thousands of present day sixth cousins.
> 
> The idea that such a tangential relationship to an historical figure somehow defines the present day you is essentialism gone mad.



I imagine Danny Dyer is unbearable now


----------



## Athos (Sep 26, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> I imagine Danny Dyer is unbearable now


Now?


----------



## TruXta (Sep 26, 2018)

kabbes said:


> Well obviously for the more _inbred_ amongst us, the relationship to ancestors is a touch more direct.


It's not inbreeding  it's recursive reproduction


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 26, 2018)

This PDF is useful in this context:

http://archive.senseaboutscience.or.../119/Sense-About-Genetic-Ancestry-Testing.pdf

Page 2 in particular.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 26, 2018)

kabbes said:


> It’s worth bearing in mind that your great great great great grandad (ie going back about 150 years) is already no more related to you than your fourth cousin, which is likely thousands of present day people you have nothing in common with and wouldn’t care about even if you knew.  Throw in a couple more “greats” and you could be up to hundreds of thousands of present day sixth cousins.
> 
> The idea that such a tangential relationship to an historical figure somehow defines the present day you is essentialism gone mad.


Sixth cousins is what two British people are on average if you know nothing more about them than that they are both British.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 26, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sixth cousins is what two British people are on average if you know nothing more about them than that they are both British.


let's see your working


----------



## belboid (Sep 26, 2018)

Pickman's model said:


> let's see your working


doesn't seem to far off, according to to this - Cousin statistics - ISOGG Wiki


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 26, 2018)

belboid said:


> doesn't seem to far off, according to to this - Cousin statistics - ISOGG Wiki


I don't respond to that cunt Pickman's Model. He is only interested in attempting to make other posters look bad and he can fuck the fuck off.

But I will give my source. The figure I gave came from the geneticist Steve Jones. Jones also said that a random person from the UK and a random person from Pakistan will on average be 12th cousins.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 26, 2018)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't respond to that cunt Pickman's Model. He is only interested in attempting to make other posters look bad and he can fuck the fuck off.
> 
> But I will give my source. The figure I gave came from the geneticist Steve Jones. Jones also said that a random person from the UK and a random person from Pakistan will on average be 12th cousins.


not really giving your source, considering steve jones' great number of writings. Incest and folk-dancing: why sex survives


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 26, 2018)

Not even going to unignore you, Pickman's. Just fuck off.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 26, 2018)

One thing that gets me about all this tracing of bloodlines and family is how often 'illegitimate' children are overlooked.  Lets face it down the years, forever, people have been shagging around.  Loads and loads of children will have been born into families that only one of their parents actually has a blood link to, its really common.  That's without all the informal adoptions.

Its an aspect I find quite sad when people spend ages researching their family trees in the hope of finding royalty or fame or even just a link to themselves whether it it be physical or some other aspect.  Lets face it most of us are not related (as in blood line) to the people we think we are once we go back even two or three generations.


----------



## mojo pixy (Sep 26, 2018)

Really, it's true; obsessing over bloodline and authentic ancestry is well reactionary. There's a bit of a phenomenon going on, usure how new it is, of people claiming to be from where their _parents_ (even grandparents) are from, and essentially renouncing the place they themselves are actually from (ie born in)


----------



## kabbes (Sep 26, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> Really, it's true; obsessing over bloodline and authentic ancestry is well reactionary. There's a bit of a phenomenon going on, usure how new it is, of people claiming to be from where their _parents_ (even grandparents) are from, and essentially renouncing the place they themselves are actually from (ie born in)


That was me until I was about 20 though.  It’s complicated being a second or third generation immigrant.


----------



## mojo pixy (Sep 26, 2018)

I feel for those alienated from .. even disgusted with .. their culture, who have _nowhere _else to go for an identity because all their grandparents were born in the same place they were. I think the extreme right is where many people like this end up.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2018)




----------



## killer b (Sep 27, 2018)

Jasper has been busy this week, some proper facepalm interventions into the labour antisemitism debate too.


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 27, 2018)

They’re self-hating gays?

“The Ku Klux Klan is taking aim at the LGBT community – who they believe should be killed in order to end the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Leaders from the Louisiana chapter of the group have distributed fliers urging people to join their group and slaughter gay people in an effort to “save our land, join the Klan, white power.”

“Stop Aids: Support Gay Bashing,” one of the flyers read. “Homosexual men and their sexual acts are disgusting and inhuman.””

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/08/13/the-kkk-issues-plea-for-members-to-kill-gay-people/


----------



## Athos (Sep 27, 2018)

He's been nothing more than a figure of fun, for some time now.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2018)

What did he say?


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 27, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> What did he say?


Ah, it’s been deleted.

I didn’t realise Fozzie Bear ’s post wasn’t a screenshot.

Jasper retweeted a pic of a Labour Party LGBTQ group and said it was a night out for the gay KKK.

Wish I’d screenshotted it.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2018)

Ta.


----------



## killer b (Sep 27, 2018)

Have a look through his twitter, it's an absolute shitshow.


----------



## killer b (Sep 27, 2018)

He was also putting in some sterling work on the Luciana Berger police escort crisis actor conspiracy. Incredible really.


----------



## keybored (Sep 27, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Ah, it’s been deleted.
> 
> I didn’t realise Fozzie Bear ’s post wasn’t a screenshot.
> 
> ...


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2018)

Labour must be desperate for members or something to allow him in back in.


----------



## keybored (Sep 27, 2018)

```
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tRuiMNUV8uQJ:https://twitter.com/LeeJasper/status/1044921910834999297+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
```

^cached tweet and replies. Tried to post it in last reply but it fucked up.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2018)

I wonder if that press officer role with momentum is a paying gig?


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 27, 2018)

On a very cursory look (and I'm not a member of Momentum so there may be pages I'm not privy to) Momentum Black Caucus looks like an independent organisation not formally affiliated to Momentum itself. It looks like Jasper and some familiar South London Labour names.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2018)

So it's possibly a pathetic attempt to muscle in. Same old jasper. That normally involves payment of some sort for him.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2018)

Right I will do a screenshot this time, then!

Amazing stuff even by his usual standards:


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2018)

There's so much going on here it's hard to know where to start.

Racialise the issue by calling a group of white people the KKK because they are white. Then cry racism when people get pissed off. 

Also it was all a joke, haven't you got a sense of humour.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2018)

He'll be back out soon and can go back to saying that he's too black too strong for the labour party.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2018)

What are the next steps here? 

I reckon a power move would be setting up a black LGBT organisation in Momentum, or better - demanding that one is created.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 27, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> He'll be back out soon and can go back to saying that he's too black too strong for the labour party.



A tearful reunion with Ken Livingstone.


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 27, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> There's so much going on here it's hard to know where to start.
> 
> Racialise the issue by calling a group of white people the KKK because they are white. Then cry racism when people get pissed off.
> 
> Also it was all a joke, haven't you got a sense of humour.


This is what we’re reduced to: competing oppressed groups and competing layers of offence-taking and offence-giving.

Instead of solidarity.


----------



## krtek a houby (Sep 27, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> This is what we’re reduced to: competing oppressed groups and competing layers of offence-taking and offence-giving.
> 
> Instead of solidarity.



Sometimes it's hard not to be offended but yes, solidarity. To my jaded eyes the concept is something of a holy grail but I'd love to see it achieved because the world is becoming more ugly with every passing day.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 27, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> This is what we’re reduced to: competing oppressed groups and competing layers of offence-taking and offence-giving.
> 
> Instead of solidarity.


Funnily enough the momentum black caucus's (the group jasper is now press officer, and i expect de facto leader _for_) twitter's last entry was  pic of fred  hampton next to a quote of his:

_You don’t fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity._


----------



## Athos (Sep 27, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Right I will do a screenshot this time, then!
> 
> Amazing stuff even by his usual standards:
> 
> View attachment 148104


----------



## danny la rouge (Sep 27, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Funnily enough the momentum black caucus's (the group jasper is now press officer, and i expect de facto leader _for_) twitter's last entry was  pic of fred  hampton next to a quote of his:
> 
> _You don’t fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity._


A great quote too.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 27, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> What are the next steps here?
> 
> I reckon a power move would be setting up a black LGBT organisation in Momentum, or better - demanding that one is created.


would this be/include politically black?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 27, 2018)

I'm surprised he can find enough time away from his work at Black Lives Matter...


----------



## Dom Traynor (Sep 27, 2018)

Yep the Momentum Black Caucus is not actually affiliated to Momentum, so this is just Jasper trying to clamber on the bandwagon no doubt for opportunitistic reasons. I see Momentum Black Caucus has a "general secretary" an unlikely role within a formal sub organisation - and one held by former TUSC candidate Kingsley Abrams.


----------



## 19force8 (Sep 28, 2018)

kabbes said:


> It’s worth bearing in mind that your great great great great grandad (ie going back about 150 years)


Not quite, I have one grandad born in 1885 so could be looking at in excess of 400 years, but I get your point.


----------



## 19force8 (Sep 28, 2018)

likesfish said:


> ... people should have multiple ids


Bloody Freudians


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 28, 2018)

Dom Traynor said:


> Yep the Momentum Black Caucus is not actually affiliated to Momentum, so this is just Jasper trying to clamber on the bandwagon no doubt for opportunitistic reasons. I see Momentum Black Caucus has a "general secretary" an unlikely role within a formal sub organisation - and one held by former TUSC candidate Kingsley Abrams.



How can it even be a thing then, isn't that a bit weird? 

Can I just set up the bitter and twisted middle aged jazz fan momentum caucus?


----------



## 19force8 (Sep 28, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> How can it even be a thing then, isn't that a bit weird?
> 
> Can I just set up the bitter and twisted middle aged jazz fan momentum caucus?


That reminds me - I got called middle aged last week. 

I have no plans to live until I'm 129


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Sep 28, 2018)

19force8 said:


> That reminds me - I got called middle aged last week.
> 
> I have no plans to live until I'm 129



You must look quite youthful then?


----------



## Dom Traynor (Sep 29, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> How can it even be a thing then, isn't that a bit weird?
> 
> Can I just set up the bitter and twisted middle aged jazz fan momentum caucus?



Politicos do it all the time, don’t they? The Labour Representation Committee have never had formal recognition neither have the Monday Club?


----------



## killer b (Sep 29, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> How can it even be a thing then, isn't that a bit weird?
> 
> Can I just set up the bitter and twisted middle aged jazz fan momentum caucus?


See to it. I'll join.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 29, 2018)

Dom Traynor said:


> Yep the Momentum Black Caucus is not actually affiliated to Momentum, so this is just Jasper trying to clamber on the bandwagon no doubt for opportunitistic reasons. I see Momentum Black Caucus has a "general secretary" an unlikely role within a formal sub organisation - and one held by former TUSC candidate Kingsley Abrams.



Kingsley was a Labour Cllr for Vassall ward in Lambeth, until he had the whip withdrawn.


----------



## snadge (Oct 3, 2018)

Just thought I would drop this here, my hat goes off to these people, well done.

Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship - Areo

My favourite peer accepted paper blogged about by some sucker.

This Study, 'Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks,' Is, Uh, Real (Update: Nope)*


----------



## TruXta (Oct 3, 2018)

snadge said:


> Just thought I would drop this here, my hat goes off to these people, well done.
> 
> Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship - Areo
> 
> ...


Well done, for doing a Sokal part 8? I can't see what these guys have done except show for the umpteenth time that the publication system in academia is broken.

Or are you saying that nothing that these journals have ever published is of any use, interest or value?


----------



## killer b (Oct 4, 2018)

This Twitter thread has some interesting background on 'these people', who appear to be neck-deep in alt-right filth.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 4, 2018)

Boghossian is one of those new atheism twats


----------



## 8ball (Oct 4, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Boghossian is one of those new atheism twats



They will burn in Hell!! <shakes pitchfork>


----------



## krtek a houby (Oct 4, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Boghossian is one of those new atheism twats



Not heard of that term before. New atheism and old atheism. Is it the reverse of new testament and old testament?


----------



## TruXta (Oct 4, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> Not heard of that term before. New atheism and old atheism. Is it the reverse of new testament and old testament?


No.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 4, 2018)

What would that even be?

Anyway, this is clearly a pox on all your shitty houses situation and i would argue of little or no relevance to this thread. Neither side here is interested in the question's posed in the OP or following debates about whether identity politics undermines class politics, is itself a class politics and the potential effects of this etc. They're just academic dicks and this thread was intended to have a certain grounding that these people are not interested in or actively seek to undermine.


----------



## krtek a houby (Oct 4, 2018)

TruXta said:


> No.



Well, that's me told. Without goofling, I'm guessing it's an alt-right version of atheism...


----------



## killer b (Oct 4, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> What would that even be?
> 
> Anyway, this is clearly a pox on all your shitty houses situation and i would argue of little or no relevance to this thread. Neither side here is interested in the question's posed in the OP or following debates about whether identity politics undermines class politics, is itself a class politics and the potential effects of this etc. They're just academic dicks and this thread was intended to have a certain grounding that these people are not interested in or actively seek to undermine.


Both sides in this particular row are identarians.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 4, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> Well, that's me told. Without goofling, I'm guessing it's an alt-right version of atheism...


It predates the alt right. It's basically what Dawkins has been on about for ages. Religion bad, science good.


----------



## 8ball (Oct 4, 2018)

TruXta said:


> It predates the alt right. It's basically what Dawkins has been on about for ages. Religion bad, science good.



Well, religion bad when it mobilises public policy, education or politics...


----------



## krtek a houby (Oct 4, 2018)

TruXta said:


> It predates the alt right. It's basically what Dawkins has been on about for ages. Religion bad, science good.



Like Hitchens, there's plenty of common sense in what Dawkins says. But when it veers into the realms of Islamaphobia and other prejudices, I'll opt out. Same (to a degree) with science, in as far as when the nazis practices their unspeakable version of science...


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 4, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> Not heard of that term before. New atheism and old atheism. Is it the reverse of new testament and old testament?



Normal atheism is something like_ I don't believe in gods because there's zero evidence for their existence and in all honesty I am trying to rise above such archaic superstition and magical thinking so I can take better responsibility for my own words and actions_.

New atheism is basically the same thing, but involves saying it out loud to religious people at every opportunity, like a dick.


----------



## krtek a houby (Oct 4, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> Normal atheism is something like_ I don't believe in gods because there's zero evidence for their existence and in all honesty I am trying to rise above such archaic superstition and magical thinking so I can take better responsibility for my own words and actions_.
> 
> New atheism is basically the same thing, but involves saying it out loud to religious people at every opportunity, like a dick.



Ah, I get it. I admit to being guilty of the latter on a few occasions over the years but only when I've had some random shouting at me with a loudspeaker (or guitar) that I'm going to hell. Sort of pressed the buttons.

Cheers.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 4, 2018)

Oh well if someone's proselytising at you and you sound off about how their ''truth'' is just a load of medieval crap that's IMO not ''new atheism'', it's just normal atheism set off loud by provocation. _New _atheism is where you go out of your way to create those scenes so you can call people stupid for their beliefs (even if those beliefs make them act better than you in their everyday life, in terms of supporting charitable works, helping community projects or befriending/supporting vulnerable people etc)


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 5, 2018)

The term 'identity politics' should be retired, says Gary Younge - It comes as no shock that the powerful hate ‘identity politics’ | Gary Younge

Broadly sums up how I feel about this. Some people who attack 'identity politics' understand it to be something quite specific, while others use it as a cover to attack pretty much any political action on behalf of a marginalised group. It has become a useless term - or perhaps always was.


----------



## Shechemite (Oct 5, 2018)

About to listen to a talk by celebrity ‘radical psychologist and therapist’ (so radical she doesn’t belong to a professional regulator) and Id-pol personification Guilianne Kinouni. 

Have some empathy viewing of her website to make me feel better 

Race Reflections


----------



## Shechemite (Oct 5, 2018)

She didn’t turn up in the end. Small mercies


----------



## captainmission (Oct 15, 2018)

A couple of books I've read recently on the issue. Assad Haider's Mistaken Identity which quite frankly was a disappointment. Not that it's a bad book- it's a reasonable introduction to left criticisms of identity politics. However his previous articles have been razor sharp and this felt a bit lacking in comparison. 

On a more positive note Wendy Brown's state of Injury (available here) which was quite prophetic  in predicting a identity politics based around a sense of wounded attachment to identity, where collective grievances become individualised and psychologicalised grief, would look to the neoliberal state for redress- legitimising it and limiting the scope of social action.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Oct 15, 2018)

They were discussing Identity politics on R4 at 9am this morning.  Its on again today at 21:30.

*Identity Politics*

Start the Week 

Andrew Marr discusses identity politics with Francis Fukuyama, Josie Rourke, Roseanne Chantiluke and Eric Kaufmann.


> Francis Fukuyama once famously announced ‘the end of history’. He now turns his attention to what he sees as the great challenge to liberal democracy: identity politics. He tells Andrew Marr that today’s descent into identities narrowly focused on nation, religion, race or gender have resulted in an increasingly polarised and factional society.
> 
> 
> Birkbeck Professor of Politics, Eric Kaufmann, is looking at populism, immigration and the future of white majorities. He argues that the concerns of white people should be listened to and questions whether it's possible to transform and redefine the debate about ethnic diversity.
> ...


 I found it interesting.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 15, 2018)

Thanks for the link friendofdorothy  (though I have to I'm suspicious that anything with Marr and Fukuyama's involvement is not going to be wonderfull).


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

shite thread

why is workerism so rarely called out under the umbrella of idpol? 

btw, angela nagle, cited earlier, is literally a nazbol rape apologist so people need to get better sources
twitter.com/zei_nabq/status/1048723937868349440


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

That's right - 2500 posts in support of nagle and her views. Don't even begin to pretend that you've read the thread if that your criticism. Or that that even this covers the breadth of the many sources used in the thread.

Class as an identity has been repeatedly criticised as an example of identity politics - even in this thread.

(Is that you revol? I would be surprised tbh given you weren't ever given to such daft nazbol comparisons).


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 21, 2018)

Weird “newbie” comes straight onto this thread to make weird post. Not at all suspect.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

no I haven't read most of the thread, I'm familiar with the standard good and bad arguments against identity politics and they're all here so why bother


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> no I haven't read most of the thread, I'm familiar with the standard good and bad arguments against identity politics and they're all here so why bother


Don't waste our time then.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

so hey, is workerism - idealist, identitarian approach to class - liberal identity politics or not?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

answer my question


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

and why was a nazbol cited as a good source anyway?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

Read the thread and find out you arrogant 'shite'.


----------



## Shechemite (Oct 21, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> answer my question



Fucking lol


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

ever think you might be primed to accept or reject certain things for - wait for it - identitarian reasons?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

fuck your blokey zombie left


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

Time waster.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 21, 2018)




----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

so, identity politics: essentialism, neoliberal feminism, representational approaches to "social justice", etc

not identity politics: good politics

where to put:
people who have dropped out of activism due to being victimised by the blokey left
-and whose attempts to combat rape culture on the left are shut down with cries of "idpol""
people whose concerns - even ones cited as legitimate ones by the anti-identity crowd on this very thread - have been dismissed and ridiculed by leftyboys in real life in exactly the same ways as liberal indentitarianism is here

I'm not being courteous but I am being sincere. I won't hang around long but I'd like some acknowledgement at least.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

I'm going to have tea with Jean Weir! And kick a car!


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

you seem to dispute that angela nagle is a nazbol. why? she's friends with jordan peterson and richard spencer.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

So are 'we'  - right? So no problem.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

did you know the rape allegations against the SWP and other trot groups have been repeatedly dismissed, by members of those groups, as identity politics? surely this is a bigger issue than bitching about what ever bullshit the guardian published the other day.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

What is this scattergun incoherence. You've shown no interest in anything anyone has said on this thread - yet demand acknowledgement. What arrogant entitlement. Go have your tea.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> So are 'we'  - right? So no problem.



do you agree with her that jordan peterson has some interesting things to say? that antifa are a threat to freedom and basically just as bad as nazis? that SJWs are hysterical about rape and #metoo has gone too far? that people with mental illnesses are inherently funny, unserious, disposable? that no one who hasn't been in military combat can have PTSD? that tumblr has any relevance whatsoever to anything? that germaine greer isn't a paedophile racist bigot who wants trans people dead and dismisses rape victims as bitter, irrelevant whiners?

then yes


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

yes I do demand acknowledgement of the people hurt by the chauvinist left - the men in leadership positions and their enablers and apologists


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> do you agree with her that jordan peterson has some interesting things to say? that antifa are a threat to freedom and basically just as bad as nazis? that SJWs are hysterical about rape and #metoo has gone too far? that people with mental illnesses are inherently funny, unserious, disposable? that no one who hasn't been in military combat can have PTSD? that tumblr has any relevance whatsoever to anything? that germaine greer isn't a paedophile racist bigot who wants trans people dead and dismisses rape victims as bitter, irrelevant whiners?
> 
> then yes


Why are you even asking? You already made that choice for every single poster on here when you made your first post.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> yes I do demand acknowledgement of the people hurt by the chauvinist left - the men in leadership positions and their enablers and apologists


Go on then.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

do you accept that serious issues are routinely dismissed as identity politics by leftists? like rape for example?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

not necessarily here before you start. as an example.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

Do you think that all people with criticisms of identity politics are the men in leadership positions  of the left and their enablers and apologists?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

no


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> do you accept that serious issues are routinely dismissed as identity politics by leftists? like rape for example?


Of course i do. If you'd spent more than few seconds reading either this thread or the ones on the swp rape one or plenty of others you'd see that this is well understood across many/most of those here with serious criticisms of identity politics. Even _leftyboys_.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> no


Then why have you come on here shouting as if they are?

And on a thread you didn't have the courtesy to read and failed to understand the bits that  you did bother with?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

And of course, it was many of gammonish leftyboys posting on this very thread who had been pointing out that the orthodox left's - meaning the SWP really - rhetorical embrace of identity politics post 2001 was going to lead to many nasty outcomes. The delta affair and the way it was dealt with by many in the party bore this out on individual/party level. Leaving aside the wider problems.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

any reservations in participating in a discourse which is routinely abused to shut vulnerable people down? even if you were well intentioned and correct on all matters of fact in any specific instance?

this is a public forum, I'm not reading 70+ pages of whining to get maybe 10 good points and lots and lots of whining about guardian liberals being mean to white men, the backbone of the working class, I am saying what I have wanted to say for years


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 21, 2018)

Well, i'm not going to accept that this discourse is doing that. And you're unable to show how it is as you're too arrogant to even minimally engage with it.

Good for you. Bye.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 21, 2018)

good night then

if when you come across complaints of identity politics they are accompanied by blokey sneering at best and rape threats at worst you make associations. it makes you not want to skim through the shit looking for gold that may not be there. I don't give a shit about the london media clique associated with idpol here - these were my first encounters with the phrase, men loudly shouting down anyone who challenged their dominance and criticised their abusive mates. I'm not sorry for being suspicious.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

just fucking ban the phrase form left discourse so people say what they actually mean instead of insinuating and generalising and talking past each other


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

(CPGB-ML)

this is what happens
fuck the anti-idpol left


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 22, 2018)

Fuck the CPBG-ML, and their Assadist sympathies (which is about all I know about them).  Fuck "Comrade" Delta and his enablers. I haven't read Kill All Normies, and know very little about Nagel, except second hand accounts.  But from what I hear, she can probably get to fuck too. 

So, that's the getting to fuck out of the way, lucillemara.  Do you have any actual criticism of any actual positions taken by anyone on these boards, or did you just drop in to complain about people that nobody here supports and positions that nobody here takes?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

...and to reduce all politics to irrelevant left groups.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> (CPGB-ML)
> 
> this is what happens
> fuck the anti-idpol left


there are more people in the rockingham arms in the elephant and castle as i type than would attend the cpgb-ml congress.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> ...and to reduce all politics to irrelevant left groups.


There's a quote in a very anti-ID politics book that goes:
_
From where we sit as academics, on our comfortable ledge as surplus wage workers in the educational bureaucracy, reasonably well paid to do little more than reproduce a humanitarian worldview by levering its carefully selected cultural issues and approved post-political solutions to the top of the agenda, 'the left' might appear to be alive and in rude health. Enriched and enlivened by its new focus on cultural diversity rather than the dour and intractable neoliberal economy, to some it might even appear stronger than ever, about to regroup itself into a truly potent force and once more become the agent of history. However, for many of the old working class, especially those who occupy the old Labour heartlands, 'the left today is totally irrelevant. It can no longer effect real change, and it can no longer be considered a substantive force in the world. It appears only as a optical illusion from all angles but their own, like an image on an old lenticular novelty card.
_
I suspect that sort of thing may be going on here. (The rise of the Right: English nationalism and the transformation of working-class politics btw)


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 22, 2018)

Pickman's model said:


> there are more people in the rockingham arms in the elephant and castle as i type than would attend the cpgb-ml congress.


Never been to either, but I take your word for it.

For what it's worth, lucillemara, I'm happy to debate things I may be wrong about.  That's how we learn.  My position on lots of things has been changed by honest debate on these boards over the years.  I know very well that I've made mistakes over the years, and will continue to do so.  As a human being, I don't always get it right.  So by all means pick up on things I've said, and if I can I'll try to engage with you on them.  But I'm afraid I have no experience of the London-based micro-left factions you're referencing.

An example of something I was probably wrong about: I did initially think you were a former member of these boards (initially I was thinking beats and pieces or ralph llama), but the more I read your replies here the more I think you're probably new here.

With that in mind, I can recommend some background reading to catch you up on the thread if you like.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Fuck the CPBG-ML, and their Assadist sympathies (which is about all I know about them).  Fuck "Comrade" Delta and his enablers. I haven't read Kill All Normies, and know very little about Nagel, except second hand accounts.  But from what I hear, she can probably get to fuck too.
> 
> So, that's the getting to fuck out of the way, lucillemara.  Do you have any actual criticism of any actual positions taken by anyone on these boards, or did you just drop in to complain about people that nobody here supports and positions that nobody here takes?


Nagel's alright. KAN is flawed in places, and reads like it was dictated over breakfast, but I find its basic conclusions sound.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

basic conclusions are SJWs caused fascism by being mean to 4chan nazis. she is friends with richard spencer. she gets a pass because she knows how to pander to macho socdem podcast scumbags with secret reservations about feminism etc. fuck her and anyone who thinks she's remotely acceptable.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

danny la rouge said:


> Fuck the CPBG-ML, and their Assadist sympathies (which is about all I know about them).  Fuck "Comrade" Delta and his enablers. I haven't read Kill All Normies, and know very little about Nagel, except second hand accounts.  But from what I hear, she can probably get to fuck too.
> 
> So, that's the getting to fuck out of the way, lucillemara.  Do you have any actual criticism of any actual positions taken by anyone on these boards, or did you just drop in to complain about people that nobody here supports and positions that nobody here takes?



my basic problem is anti-idpol stuff has been used for years as a successful trojan horse for fascism, and I am puzzled why so much of the left is up in arms about irrelevant uni culture war bullshit that I rarely come across when this is happening so much more, and frankly why this discourse is tolerated at all at this point in circles that fancy themselves dedicated to liberation

you know trump supporters have picked up the phrase to add to their collection, like they did with PC and SJW. nice going left.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> basic conclusions are SJWs caused fascism by being mean to 4chan nazis. she is friends with richard spencer. she gets a pass because she knows how to pander to macho socdem podcast scumbags with secret reservations about feminism etc. fuck her and anyone who thinks she's remotely acceptable.



Thank you dear, but you have delighted us enough already.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> my basic problem is anti-idpol stuff has been used for years as a successful trojan horse for fascism, and I am puzzled why so much of the left is up in arms about irrelevant uni culture war bullshit that I rarely come across when this is happening so much more, and frankly why this discourse is tolerated at all at this point in circles that fancy themselves dedicated to liberation
> 
> you know trump supporters have picked up the phrase to add to their collection, like they did with PC and SJW. nice going left.


"For years"? You're about 15 - how would you know?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> my basic problem is anti-idpol stuff has been used for years as a successful trojan horse for fascism, and I am puzzled why so much of the left is up in arms about irrelevant uni culture war bullshit that I rarely come across when this is happening so much more, and frankly why this discourse is tolerated at all at this point in circles that fancy themselves dedicated to liberation
> 
> you know trump supporters have picked up the phrase to add to their collection, like they did with PC and SJW. nice going left.


Why don't you read the thread - it might just burst your self-obsessed bubble.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> my basic problem is anti-idpol stuff has been used for years as a successful trojan horse for fascism


i think your basic problem is deeper than that


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> my basic problem is anti-idpol stuff has been used for years as a successful trojan horse for fascism, and I am puzzled why so much of the left is up in arms about irrelevant uni culture war bullshit that I rarely come across when this is happening so much more, and frankly why this discourse is tolerated at all at this point in circles that fancy themselves dedicated to liberation
> 
> you know trump supporters have picked up the phrase to add to their collection, like they did with PC and SJW. nice going left.


Contemporary fascism is actually the best example that there is of the many problems with identity politics rather than being anti-identity politics btw. All in the thread.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Contemporary fascism is actually the best example that there is of the many problems with identity politics rather than being anti-identity politics btw. All in the thread.



those things are not contradictory


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> those things are not contradictory


You're not on twitter now.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 22, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Contemporary fascism is actually the best example that there is of the many problems with identity politics rather than being anti-identity politics btw. All in the thread.


I mean  they call themselves identitarians for goodness sake


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> those things are not contradictory


What things aren't?


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 22, 2018)

TruXta said:


> I mean  they call themselves identitarians for goodness sake


which you'd have thought would give the game away


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> What things aren't?



condemning identity politics and participating in it


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> condemning identity politics and participating in it


Like you making anti-identity politics into a (negative) identity you mean?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

yes, plus the white/male/christian/etc identitarianism of the fascists


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> yes, plus the white/male/christian/etc identitarianism of the fascists


But you saying this is a trojan horse for fascism. Don't say it. 

Do you see the problem?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

what? I am generalising when I say anti identity politics - I don't mean all criticisms of the massive range of things that have been put under that label. I'm talking about a specific approach which dominates anti-idpol discourse, which is obsessively focused on certain minority groups (or by proxy- easy, irrelevant targets like middle class pundits butchering intersectionality used to insinuate and dismiss the issues while maintaining plausible deniability)


----------



## TruXta (Oct 22, 2018)

Does anyone have any idea wtf they're on about?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> what? I am generalising when I say anti identity politics - I don't mean all criticisms of the massive range of things that have been put under that label. I'm talking about a specific approach which dominates anti-idpol discourse, which is obsessively focused on certain minority groups (or by proxy- easy, irrelevant targets like middle class pundits butchering intersectionality used to insinuate and dismiss the issues while maintaining plausible deniability)


I think you just mean that you want to swear at people without fully thinking through the political implications of your shouting. For instance, in this latest post you now seem to argue that anti-identity politics is fine if done in a way that you approve of - when you entered the thread calling anyone who has an anti-identity politics basically soft fascists, racists, misogynists etc


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

I do want to swear at people, it's true, it's cathartic. I don't particularly care if I'm not rigorous enough in my arguments for your liking. I never actually said identity politics is good or bad.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> ...


God, i hope not.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

I also never said everyone who is anti-identity politics is reactionary, except for some specific definitions of identity. I think there is a lot of reaction within the discourse though, and it's toxic. like I said, I never even heard the phrase until people started yelling at me for not liking russell brand or whatever.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> I also never said everyone who is anti-identity politics is reactionary, except for some specific definitions of identity. I think there is a lot of reaction within the discourse though, and it's toxic. like I said, I never even heard the phrase until people started yelling at me for not liking russell brand or whatever.


You really need to define what you're talking about. Identity, anti-identity, politics, fascism, workerism, leftyboys etc I think reading the thread might help you. Stop you tying yourself in knots and having to keep backtracking.


----------



## DotCommunist (Oct 22, 2018)

Theres a long thread calling Brand 10 types of wanker somewhere....


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> You really need to define what you're talking about. Identity, anti-identity, politics, fascism, workerism, leftyboys etc I think reading the thread might help you. Stop you tying yourself in knots and having to keep backtracking.



no I'm not interested in logic and reason debate culture bs. I have been as clear as I can be. you know what these things mean I'm sure. if not you can move on to whatever nonsense hadley freeman said the other day and doesn't this just say it all nudge nudge wink


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> no I'm not interested in logic and reason debate culture bs. I have been as clear as I can be. you know what these things mean I'm sure. if not you can move on to whatever nonsense hadley freeman said the other day and doesn't this just say it all nudge nudge wink


Ok. I think you should go set up a cell of invincible fire to burn down the existent then. That's all that's left.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Does anyone have any idea wtf they're on about?


It's just a teenager engaging in "self-expression".


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> what? I am generalising when I say anti identity politics - I don't mean all criticisms of the massive range of things that have been put under that label. I'm talking about *a specific approach which dominates anti-idpol discourse, which is obsessively focused on certain minority groups (or by proxy- easy, irrelevant targets like middle class pundits butchering intersectionality used to insinuate and dismiss the issues while maintaining plausible deniability)*



Is this happening on this thread? You'd best go back and check. Or just keep yelling at clouds.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> no I'm not interested in logic and reason debate culture bs. I have been as clear as I can be. you know what these things mean I'm sure. if not you can move on to whatever nonsense hadley freeman said the other day and doesn't this just say it all nudge nudge wink


Aka I've no idea wtf I'm saying except it's making me really angry. 

Would you like a cuddle?


----------



## ska invita (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> (CPGB-ML)
> 
> this is what happens
> fuck the anti-idpol left


that is fucked up, however, they are stalinst loons, so "this is what happens" when stalinists have a club to go to


----------



## Shechemite (Oct 22, 2018)

ska invita said:


> that is fucked up, however, they are stalinst loons, so "this is what happens" when stalinists have a club to go to




Yet another thing that the ID-Pols and the chauvinists have in common 

“Compassionate, non-violent course of action”: Goldsmiths University students defend the gulag


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

what so LGBT issues aren't idpol now? I'm so confused!


----------



## TruXta (Oct 22, 2018)

Yes


----------



## ska invita (Oct 22, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Yet another thing that the ID-Pols and the chauvinists have in common
> 
> “Compassionate, non-violent course of action”: Goldsmiths University students defend the gulag



...which brings us back to the behaviour of confused people, particularly students


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

TruXta said:


> Yes



ok so I used to be a trans activist but someone accused me of id pol so I decided to reject that by becoming a terf. but then someone accused me of doing identity politics for doing that! it's all so confusing! it's like you can't win! how do I become a proper activist?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

Games up then.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> ok so I used to be a trans activist but someone accused me of id pol so I decided to reject that by becoming a terf. but then someone accused me of doing identity politics for doing that! it's all so confusing! it's like you can't win! how do I become a proper activist?


Could this be the latest avatar of. . ._ the fastest milkman in the west?_ (those who know will understand)


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

Idris2002 said:


> Could this be the latest avatar of. . ._ the fastest milkman in the west?_ (those who know will understand)


No chance.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 22, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> No chance.


It's the last three sentences where s/he starts JAQing off that made me wonder. . .


----------



## krtek a houby (Oct 22, 2018)

Idris2002 said:


> Could this be the latest avatar of. . ._ the fastest milkman in the west?_ (those who know will understand)



Gods, that tedious fuckwinkle. I sincerely hope not.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

only the last post was a troll really, I was serious to start with and I still am but I don't expect to get anywhere with this crowd


----------



## krtek a houby (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> only the last post was a troll really, I was serious to start with and I still am but I don't expect to get anywhere with this crowd



I tend to listen to danny, he's not patronising and most patient. He won't call you out on your age/gender/inexperience/experience etc. There is no one way to approach the debate, of course. As you no doubt realise.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> only the last post was a troll really, I was serious to start with and I still am but I don't expect to get anywhere with this crowd


This crowd wants reason and arguments rather than screeching and bullshit. Give it a go eh?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

krtek a houby said:


> I tend to listen to danny, he's not patronising and most patient. He won't call you out on your age/gender/inexperience/experience etc. There is no one way to approach the debate, of course. As you no doubt realise.



thank you, his response was the most helpful of the ones I got but I won't press on this too much more

I do get pissed off I am repeatedly accused of identity politics by the reactionary right for not being a nazi and then accused of the same by the left for not treating class as an (usually implicitly gendered, racialised) identity, and lefties refuse to take the abuse of the term seriously. I hear the term more from the right than the left these days.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

TruXta said:


> This crowd wants reason and arguments rather than screeching and bullshit. Give it a go eh?



logical positivism is dead dude


----------



## TruXta (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> logical positivism is dead dude


No it's not, but even if it were that has nothing to do with your content free ramblings.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> thank you, his response was the most helpful of the ones I got but I won't press on this too much more
> 
> I do get pissed off I am repeatedly accused of identity politics by the reactionary right for not being a nazi and then accused of the same by the left for not treating class as an (usually implicitly gendered, racialised) identity, and lefties refuse to take the abuse of the term seriously. I hear the term more from the right than the left these days.


Flipping wild accusations. They ruin everything.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> thank you, his response was the most helpful of the ones I got but I won't press on this too much more
> 
> I do get pissed off I am repeatedly accused of identity politics by the reactionary right for not being a nazi and then accused of the same by the left for not treating class as an (usually implicitly gendered, racialised) identity, and lefties refuse to take the abuse of the term seriously. I hear the term more from the right than the left these days.​


​So you're accused of not being a nazi by all concerned?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 22, 2018)

Accused of not being a nazi by the reactionary right is the worst though. This is shameful.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Oct 22, 2018)

this thread is far too confusing.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> I do get pissed off I am repeatedly accused of identity politics by the reactionary right for not being a nazi and then accused of the same by the left* for not treating class as an (usually implicitly gendered, racialised) identity,* and lefties refuse to take the abuse of the term seriously. I hear the term more from the right than the left these days.



What's this now? What class is meant to he an identity? While we're at it, what apples are oranges?


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2018)

friendofdorothy said:


> this thread is far too confusing.



Since you seem to have 'liked' some of the shit-politics-incoherent-drivel they've spouted in the last few pages I hope that it's the confused bit of you that's been doing that.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 22, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> What's this now? What class is meant to he an identity? While we're at it, what apples are oranges?



no fucksticks can you read?

"class" as identity politics has already been discussed.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 22, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> no fucksticks can you read?
> 
> "class" as identity politics has already been discussed.



Yeah but not by you. Is _angry but confused_ an identity or a class?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

what do you want me to say? the use of "working class" as code for "racist white man regardless of occupation or relation to capital" is ubiquitous on left, right and centre. then liberals accuse anyone talking about class as being racist sexists, and other liberals and some leftists use "identity politics" to dismiss feminism, anti-racism, queer politics etc altogether. I've had both multiple times. it's a problem whether people want to admit it or not. and there's a hell of a lot of equivocation between good critiques of idpol and this kind of bullshit, which makes it harder to critique without being accused of idpol (or racism) yourself.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

angry but confused is the default mode of being in the 21st century so you can't blame it on me


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

Angry confused but lazy isn't compulsory. Read the thread


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

I've read enough to get the gist. I know my points have already been made. I know the majority view here disagrees with me. I'm still not comfortable with the general tone. so I'm good thanks.


----------



## TruXta (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> I've read enough to get the gist. I know my points have already been made. I know the majority view here disagrees with me. I'm still not comfortable with the general tone. so I'm good thanks.


So what's the point of your being here? We're not a fucking group therapy session.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> I've read enough to get the gist. I know my points have already been made. I know the majority view here disagrees with me. I'm still not comfortable with the general tone. so I'm good thanks.


No you haven't.

And you haven't put forward a view for anyone to really disagree with. More a confusing incoherent set of mutually exclusive rants that you've backtracked or ran away for or denied when challenged.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

here's my view: the macho left abuses critiques of liberal idpol to attack and silence things that are neither liberal nor identity politics. literal fascists have adopted the term. people should avoid using it in similar ways, which they do, and I have provided evidence. I fail to see what I have said that is mutually exclusive. you disagree with me so you take the most pedantic uncharitable reading of what I have said. I'm not trying to have a debate, I'm making assertions.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

TruXta said:


> So what's the point of your being here? We're not a fucking group therapy session.



to stir shit up. to vent my frustration at the socially conservative left. because I'm bored and have nothing else to do. because I would be more involved in left activism if this shit wasn't everywhere. because I can. because I haven't been banned yet.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

John Major's children.

Shit well and truly stirred up. That CPGB-ML shit totally crashed peoples world views.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> here's my view: the macho left abuses critiques of liberal idpol to attack and silence things that are neither liberal nor identity politics. literal fascists have adopted the term. people should avoid using it in similar ways, which they do, and I have provided evidence. I fail to see what I have said that is mutually exclusive. you disagree with me so you take the most pedantic uncharitable reading of what I have said. I'm not trying to have a debate, I'm making assertions.


Avoid using what?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

critiques of liberal idpol to attack and silence things that are neither liberal nor identity politics


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

Very authoritarian this - more than a hint of the individualist anarchist elitism about it. _There are genuine critiques of identity politics but only i am allowed to both judge what they are and make them. No one else can be trusted to do so, or have malevolent motives if they do._ 

It's juvenile. Open the door.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> critiques of liberal idpol to attack and silence things that are neither liberal nor identity politics


That's the 'it' in your latest set of 'assertions'? That people should avoid doing bad things. Should they also try and do good things?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> Very authoritarian this - more than a hint of the individualist anarchist elitism about it. _There are genuine critiques of identity politics but only i am allowed to both judge what they are and make them. No one else can be trusted to do so, or have malevolent motives if they do._
> 
> It's juvenile. Open the door.



what's wrong with individualism? it's not in conflict with collectivism. I don't know where I have said anything resembling your paraphrase.



butchersapron said:


> That's the 'it' in your latest rant? That people should avoid doing bad things. Should they also try and do good things?



yes. I don't know why you think that's trivial.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

You haven't said it because you don't understand that it's what your attempt at a summing up of your assertions amounts to. That's because you're proudly and boastfully all over the shop.

I think something so trivial and banal doesn't really 'stir shit up' - priests do that crap 24-7. So well done, priest.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

Birthday cards too.


----------



## Shechemite (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> critiques of liberal idpol to attack and silence things that are neither liberal nor identity politics



How these things ‘silenced’?


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

...and what are they?


----------



## TruXta (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> to stir shit up. to vent my frustration at the socially conservative left. because I'm bored and have nothing else to do. because I would be more involved in left activism if this shit wasn't everywhere. because I can. because I haven't been banned yet.


If you want to stir things up I find it helpful to come with some intelligible content. No one has a clue what you're on about.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

MadeInBedlam said:


> How these things ‘silenced’?



by exclusion, by condescension, by elision, sometimes by actual rape and death threats


----------



## rekil (Oct 23, 2018)

I fear that twitter and its malign bubbleness is a factor in this display.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

copliker said:


> I fear that twitter and its malign bubbleness is a factor in this display.


My first thoughts were (mentally) house/twitter bound private school girl, then the repeated references to wanting to _do activism _ or similar added to increasingly bold assertions made it clear - they are terrified. They need to open the door...


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

of course, I'm a middle class lifestylist idealist who doesn't understand how the real world works, mark fisher has taught you well.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

Surrounded by the internet. And elephant editions.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> what do you want me to say? the use of "working class" as code for "racist white man regardless of occupation or relation to capital" is ubiquitous on left, right and centre.



I don't let stupid people dictate my terminology though, pro tip: that's a bad idea. At the very least you would need to add "white" to "working class" for what you say to be true. And even then you'd be generalising massively and conflating class with identity on purpose.



lucillemara said:


> then liberals accuse anyone talking about class as being racist sexists, and other liberals and some leftists use "identity politics" to dismiss feminism, anti-racism, queer politics etc altogether. I've had both multiple times.



I think you're exaggerating how often this happens and how seriously anyone should take it. That's just my opinion, but I'm ok with admitting my political outlook is class based and not identitarian. I feel more can be achieved for more people, and more fairly, by focussing on class than on identity.

If I'm only interested in me, or in "us" then identity is the answer, sure. If I'm interested in everyone benefitting then identity will be too limited a framework to he useful. It's basically cronyism.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> If I'm only interested in me, or in "us" then identity is the answer, sure. If I'm interested in everyone benefitting then identity will be too limited a framework to he useful. It's basically cronyism.



the whole point of intersectionality as originally formulated is to avoid this
is black lives matter cronyism?


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

Maybe. The question is, does it actually work that way? The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions.

BLM may not be cronyism but BLM isn't identity politics either, same as #metoo isn't.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> Maybe. The question is, does it actually work that way?



sometimes. usually not, because solidarity is hard and the concept has been recuperated



mojo pixy said:


> BLM may not be cronyism but BLM isn't identity politics either, same as #metoo isn't.



why not? people call both identity politics all the time.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> why not? people call both identity politics all the time.



They are wrong. 1. People aren't shot by racist police for _identifying as _black but for _being_ black. Ditto #metoo, identity has nothing to do with sexual abuse. 2. A single-issue campaign is not necessarily "ID Politics" as critiqued in this thread, just because it deals with the effects of racism or sexism or eg. disability discrimination.


----------



## 8ball (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> what's wrong with individualism? it's not in conflict with collectivism.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

let me introduce you to anarchism


----------



## 8ball (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> let me introduce you to anarchism



I'm going to have to introduce you to a fucking dictionary.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> let me introduce you to anarchism


Genuine lol

I knew it, _tea with jean weir._


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

mutual aid is in our self interest


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 23, 2018)

Lemonade is in your string vest.


----------



## 8ball (Oct 23, 2018)

SpineyNorman said:


> Lemonade is in your string vest.



Apalling capitalist apologism!


----------



## LDC (Oct 23, 2018)

Has that auto-insurrectionary text generator been taken over by AI and is that's what's conversing with us here?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

"from each according to his ability" is bullshit then, if self-interest and collective interest are at odds


----------



## friendofdorothy (Oct 23, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Since you seem to have 'liked' some of the shit-politics-incoherent-drivel they've spouted in the last few pages I hope that it's the confused bit of you that's been doing that.


'liked' in a supportive of a different point of view sort of way - not necessarily in agreement. But confused when they kept mentioning groups/language /people I've never heard of and then started to contradict themeslves.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> mutual aid is in our self interest



Oh it's a Randian. How awesome.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

wow I didn't know things were this bad


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

sad how the left has internalised the right's claims that personal freedom is at odds with abolition of hierarchy


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> Oh it's a Randian. How awesome.


That's not from rand, that's basic anarchist communism. Which this person is introducing us to


----------



## 8ball (Oct 23, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> Oh it's a Randian. How awesome.



Pretty sure that's not very Randian.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> ..., and other liberals and some leftists use "identity politics" to dismiss feminism, anti-racism, queer politics etc altogether.


That is something I've experienced and was my point early on in this thread. Till many on this thread decided that the thing that I had been accused of being ID politics were a perfectly valid fight for equality afterall.

I still haven't heard anyone in real life use the term ID politics, but then I'm not up with  the twatterazzi.


----------



## butchersapron (Oct 23, 2018)

8ball said:


> Pretty sure that's not very Randian.


It is a very smithian reading of a basic proposition though.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

butchersapron said:


> That's not from rand, that's basic anarchist communism. Which this person is introducing us to





8ball said:


> Pretty sure that's not very Randian.



Maybe, but when I read:


lucillemara said:


> mutual aid is in our self interest


as a standalone statement that appears to be attempting to encapsulate someone's political outlook, what springs to mind is not anarchism as I understand it, but rational selfishness, ie. I will help you because it's in my self-interest to do so. Not bcause it's the right thing to do or whatever. And that _is _Randian, very much so.

Anyway if I made the wrong assumption maybe some clarification might be in order .. in this case I'm not sure it's going to happen, or would help.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

only if anything that rejects deontology is randian
and only a tiny proportion of humanity was granted enough agency by rand to have self interest, which in her philosophy is about violent domination
you can't pursue your self interest if you're born at the wrong end of a class system, which is why communism is selfish


----------



## Sue (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> only if anything that rejects deontology is randian
> and only a tiny proportion of humanity was granted enough agency by rand to have self interest, which in her philosophy is about violent domination
> you can't pursue your self interest if you're born at the wrong end of a class system, *which is why communism is selfish*


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Oct 23, 2018)

“Deontology, young and warm and wild and free”


----------



## Sue (Oct 23, 2018)

Fozzie Bear said:


> “Deontology, young and warm and wild and free”


Oh Fozzie Bear .


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> only if anything that rejects deontology is randian
> and only a tiny proportion of humanity was granted enough agency by rand to have self interest, which in her philosophy is about violent domination
> you can't pursue your self interest if you're born at the wrong end of a class system, which is why communism is selfish



_amazing, every word in that sentence was wrong._

That's what Luke Skywalker would say, I'd just say it's patronising shite .. ''you can't pursue your self interest if you're born at the wrong end of a class system'' .. where to even start ffs.


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

what is alienation? what is wage slavery?


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

What is agency?


----------



## lucillemara (Oct 23, 2018)

as complex as any other abstract concept. generally used to mean things like an absence of coercion and a wider range of activities available to perform. or simply the ability to do what you want.


----------



## mojo pixy (Oct 23, 2018)

fine, I've had enough. I'm out for now.
there. agency.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 23, 2018)

lucillemara said:


> what is alienation? what is wage slavery?


What is belly button fluff for?


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 23, 2018)

SpineyNorman said:


> What is belly button fluff for?


I use mine to stuff a pillow with. It's taken me 7 years 3 months a week and 2 days to fill my first one.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 24, 2018)

Pickman's model said:


> I use mine to stuff a pillow with. It's taken me 7 years 3 months a week and 2 days to fill my first one.



Good work sir! I once actually did collect belly button fluff in a tin when I was a teenager until my mum fiund it lol


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 10, 2018)

CRI appearing to be writing for the Guardian now. 
Half of white women continue to vote Republican. What's wrong with them?


> The truth is that the 53% of white women who voted for Trump in the last presidential election was actually an improvement on even worse numbers from previous cycles.





> What is wrong with white women? Why do half of them so consistently vote for Republicans, even as the Republican party morphs into a monstrously ugly organization that is increasingly indistinguishable from a hate group? The most likely answer seems to be that white women vote for Republicans for the same reason that white men do: because they are racist.



A moronically stupid and nasty piece. And of course total and utter nonsense, the majority of "white women" won't have voted for Trump.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 10, 2018)

redsquirrel said:


> CRI appearing to be writing for the Guardian now.
> Half of white women continue to vote Republican. What's wrong with them?
> 
> 
> ...



What's this got to do with CRI? Is this a call out or more of your rancid beef?


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 10, 2018)

Spot the difference


CRI said:


> And, I've seen a few reports from exit polls showing 60% of white women voting Cruz, so they can get to fuck as well.


----------



## krtek a houby (Nov 10, 2018)

Still could have just posted the article and said why you think it's shit, without the call out, mind.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Dec 1, 2018)

Really enjoyed this review from our American communist dad Loren Goldner on Elbaum's book, whole thing is worth reading, raises the good point that those attracted to third world ideologies were the emerging middle class (the first of their migrant/racialised families to go to college etc.) I.E: they identified with the transformation of the peasantry into the proletariat after the peasantry had rid itself of feudal colonial remains. (which is the mass scale beginning of capitalist industrialisation) When third worldism and the US new left totally imploaded it was inevitable that there would be a wholescale migration to what we have now. It's not just subjectively bad politics.

Break Their Haughty Power » Review: “Revolution in the Air” by Max Elbaum


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Dec 1, 2018)

Here is also the CWO's review of Asad Haider's book ignore the cringey title though.

Haven't read the book but its sounding very unappetising.


----------



## Serge Forward (Dec 1, 2018)

Cringey? I like the title


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 1, 2018)

dialectician said:


> Here is also the CWO's review of Asad Haider's book ignore the cringey title though.
> 
> Haven't read the book but its sounding very unappetising.


You could read the book rather than a cwo review. It's only about 100 pages. And it's great. Maybe the title is too much. That's one of the worst reviews I've ever seen. Dogmatic tosh. Left com bubble tosh.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Dec 1, 2018)

gonna read it by end of year for sure.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Dec 1, 2018)

Serge Forward said:


> Cringey? I like the title



Come off it.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 1, 2018)

dialectician said:


> Really enjoyed this review from our American communist dad Loren Goldner on Elbaum's book, whole thing is worth reading, raises the good point that those attracted to third world ideologies were the emerging middle class (the first of their migrant/racialised families to go to college etc.) I.E: they identified with the transformation of the peasantry into the proletariat after the peasantry had rid itself of feudal colonial remains. (which is the mass scale beginning of capitalist industrialisation) When third worldism and the US new left totally imploaded it was inevitable that there would be a wholescale migration to what we have now. It's not just subjectively bad politics.
> 
> Break Their Haughty Power » Review: “Revolution in the Air” by Max Elbaum


Feel like i'm going back in time here! The book is worth a read. The discussion around it since from the US PHD left is appalling and it's a real blindspot of even people live viewpoint. The NCM articles and their imperialism issue are beyond dire.


----------



## Edie (Dec 1, 2018)

About to read this on the subject. 
12 Rules for Life by Jordan B Peterson review – a self-help book from a culture warrior

I’m aware of his ?links to the far right (although he rejects this and describes his politics:


> In an emailed rebuttal to a journalist who termed him a figure of the “far right”, he described his own politics as those of a “classic British liberal … temperamentally I am high on openness which tilts me to the left, although I am also conscientious which tilts me to the right. Philosophically I am an individualist, not a collectivist of the right or the left. Metaphysically I am an American pragmatist who has been strongly influenced by the psychoanalytic and clinical thinking of Freud and Jung.”


).

Will read with an open mind anyway. If only for this  “The effect is bizarre, like being shouted at by a rugby coach in a sarong.”

Anyone else read?


----------



## Serge Forward (Dec 1, 2018)

dialectician said:


> Come off it.


You're right. I love it 

From the Jordan Peterson article:

"The psychologist and internet celebrity..."

Stopped reading there


----------



## mojo pixy (Dec 1, 2018)

A good rule for life is, ignore self-important twats and their self-important lists of 'rules for life'


----------



## Edie (Dec 1, 2018)

mojo pixy said:


> A good rule for life is, ignore self-important twats and their self-important lists of 'rules for life'


The opening of this book is something else  I can barely read it it’s making me laugh so hard in disbelief. It’s written by a friend of his, and is easily the most sycophantic thing I’ve _ever_ read. Going on endlessly about how brilliant, modest (no seriously, no shit, despite him _himself_ obviously having decided to include it), intellectual (but like _popular_ intellectual), well read he is.

It’s proper   

Whatever comes after I don’t think I’m gonna be able to take seriously. Guy must be a meglomanic!

Edit: read a fair amount. It’s _terrible_. Really, really bad science shoehorned onto suspect political assumptions and packaged as philosophy  Don’t bother.


----------



## danny la rouge (Dec 1, 2018)

GreatGutsby said:


> shitty bollocks


Go and have your tantrum elsewhere.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 1, 2018)

GreatGutsby said:


> CUNT


Go away wells.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Aug 19, 2019)

A good article by Malik here. And perfectly explains my frustration regarding me ever daring to mention the working class and immediately being accused of meaning “the white working class” - just fuck off.

Working class versus minorities? That’s looking at it the wrong way | Kenan Malik


----------



## ska invita (Aug 19, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> A good article by Malik here. And perfectly explains my frustration regarding me ever daring to mention the working class and immediately being accused of meaning “the white working class” - just fuck off.
> 
> Working class versus minorities? That’s looking at it the wrong way | Kenan Malik


Ive got a feeling that if Kenan Malik posted on these boards he wouldnt be involved in the arguments you get yourself into


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Aug 19, 2019)

ska invita said:


> Ive got a feeling that if Kenan Malik posted on these boards he wouldnt be involved in the arguments you get yourself into



Yeah, you rate him because he isn’t white or working class.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Aug 19, 2019)

So it can’t be racist when he says it.


----------



## ska invita (Aug 19, 2019)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Yeah, you rate him because he isn’t white or working class.



try again


----------



## Magnus McGinty (Aug 19, 2019)

No need, that’s what it is. Unless you want to criticise his points rather than me agreeing with him?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 20, 2019)

When I think about identity politics now I’m increasingly interested in how three regularly observable sets of labelling are deployed and how they interact with each other:

1. The use of the term ‘white working class’ as a cultural signifier of a particular _type _of person with all sorts of negative and othering connotations.
2. The denial of the label working class to black and other minority ethnic groups who are condemned to be labelled by their race rather than their relationship to the economy. Thereby assuming their interests lie with the rest of their race rather than class.
3. The gathering campaign in the media and by some campaigns to suggest group 1 and 2 are in opposition to each other. That anything good for group 1 must be bad for group 2 and vice versa. Given the white working class are the overwhelmingly largest group in Britain and given minority communities are disproportionately working class that this concept has such agency is both surprising and perhaps something that needs to be called out and challenged on a more emphatic basis. 

This is an excellent contribution to the debate by Kenan Malik:

Working class versus minorities? That’s looking at it the wrong way | Kenan Malik

And also by Metzgar (from a US democrat perspective but the idea is directly relevant)

Talking Class and Race at the Same Time



ETA: just noticed Magnus McGinty has posted the Malik article so apologies for the double posting


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 20, 2019)

In the same vein the publication of this report by the Runnymede Trust earlier this year struck me as very important (it was completely overlooked by both sides in the ‘culture war’).

Research and work that points out the blindingly obvious - that class remains the central antagonism - even when coming from an organisation created to pursue the interests of minorities is eschewed.

Both sides are invested instead in trying to efface the centrality of class to the experience of both groups. The reports conclusion puts it well:

“The undue emphasis on what informants themselves say can disguise something more significant. In fact, the most disadvantaged working-class people of whatever
ethnic background, roughly the poorest fifth of the population, are increasingly separated from the more prosperous majority by inequalities of income, housing and education. By emphasizing the virtues of individual self-determination and the exercising of ‘choice’, recent governments have in fact entrenched the ability of the middle and upper classes to avoid downward social mobility and preserve the best of life’s goods for their own children. Moreover, the rhetoric of politicians and commentators has tended to abandon the description ‘working-class’, preferring instead to use terms such as ‘hard working families’ in order to contrast the virtuous many with an underclass perceived as feckless and undeserving. Furthermore, several authors of this volume argue that recent changes in work patterns have contributed fundamentally to these inequalities, as the work of so many of the worst paid has also become part-time, ‘flexible’ and casual – in other words, highly insecure.

Some contributors discuss the decline in status of working-class occupations. A piece of research in Bethnal Green in the 1950s looked at the evaluation by working-class men of the status of different occupations.* The results showed that status was strongly linked by them to the utility and productivity of work; only doctors were ranked more highly than the working class occupations of craftsmen, miners or factory-workers in terms of their value to society. It would be very unlikely for the nature of much of today’s manual work to be valued so highly. As several contributors note, self- esteem is more closely linked to educational achievement today than ever before.
What we learn here is that life chances for today’s children are overwhelmingly linked to parental income, occupations and educational qualifications – in other words, class. The poor white working class share many more problems with the poor from minority ethnic communities than some of them recognize. All the most disadvantaged groups must be helped to improve their joint lot. Competition between them, real or imagined, is just a distraction.”


https://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/WhoCaresAboutTheWhiteWorkingClass-2009.pdf


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 20, 2019)

Meant to say when you posted this the other day, this is from 2009, the new thing with Leeds University literally was a few page briefing that directly attacked all that was in that one above, which tells its own story I guess. I think we had a thread at the time it was originally published.

edit:yep - awful title though (and what a load of now passed on posters)

The white working class; Britain’s forgotten race victims?


----------



## kabbes (Aug 20, 2019)

Smokeandsteam said:


> “ Some contributors discuss the decline in status of working-class occupations. A piece of research in Bethnal Green in the 1950s looked at the evaluation by working-class men of the status of different occupations.* The results showed that status was strongly linked by them to the utility and productivity of work; only doctors were ranked more highly than the working class occupations of craftsmen, miners or factory-workers in terms of their value to society. It would be very unlikely for the nature of much of today’s manual work to be valued so highly. As several contributors note, self- esteem is more closely linked to educational achievement today than ever before.”


I recall this was also a strong theme in Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton. 

Actually, anybody read that particular book and have any thoughts on it as an overall work?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 20, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> Meant to say when you posted this the other day, this is from 2009, the new thing with Leeds University literally was a 2 page briefing that directly attacked all that was in that one above, which tells its own story I guess. I think we had a thread at the time it was originally published.
> 
> edit:yep - awful title though (and what a load of now passed on posters)
> 
> The white working class; Britain’s forgotten race victims?



Yeah, I know. I misread it as January 2019 not 2009. However, the salient point, as you say, is how far the Trust has moved away from research that emphasis routes of solidarity to a paper that crudely pits the communities of the north against each other in a battle for resources.

That said I really need to stop linking to a report that’s a decade old


----------



## Athos (Aug 20, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> ... the new thing with Leeds University literally was a 2 page briefing that directly attacked all that was in that one above...



Do you have a link, please?


----------



## butchersapron (Aug 20, 2019)

Athos said:


> Do you have a link, please?


Here


----------



## Athos (Aug 20, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> Here


Ta.


----------



## pengaleng (Aug 20, 2019)

wow this is still going? identity politics is just collective narcissism, hardly worth bothering with imo, but each to their own init.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 20, 2019)

pengaleng said:


> wow this is still going? identity politics is just collective narcissism, hardly worth bothering with imo, but each to their own init.



Leaving aside the value of identity politics, where I largely agree with you but noting genuine liberation politics is class politics, I think the importance of the debate is about the weight they carry. Particularly in liberal left debate


----------



## pengaleng (Aug 23, 2019)

only war is the class war init, what happened to that?


----------



## brixtonscot (Aug 23, 2019)

"identity politics" of "englishness"..?
Some interesting points here , not sure about all of it....but one consequence of scottish self-determination/autonomy/independence could be rise in assertion of english identity
Nationalism in England is not just a rightwing nostalgia trip | John Denham


----------



## TopCat (Aug 23, 2019)

pengaleng said:


> only war is the class war init, what happened to that?


Middle class liberal Tories don't like it!


----------



## 8ball (Aug 23, 2019)

pengaleng said:


> only war is the class war init, what happened to that?



Lots more wars.


----------



## Serge Forward (Aug 24, 2019)

Class war is something the bosses do very well. We, on the other hand, are in an almost perpetual state of class surrender. Class is not an identity, it's part and parcel of the capitalist system and how it works. Anyone who thinks it is about identity, is not only talking out of their wheato but is also backing up the boss class and their system... And anyone who thinks the idea of "class pride" is useful is really just proud of being a slave. The point for communists, anarchists, revolutionary socialists is to abolish class by destroying capitalism.


----------



## brixtonscot (Aug 24, 2019)

brixtonscot said:


> "identity politics" of "englishness"..?
> Some interesting points here , not sure about all of it....but one consequence of scottish self-determination/autonomy/independence could be rise in assertion of english identity
> Nationalism in England is not just a rightwing nostalgia trip | John Denham



I think there could be confusion over terms "nationalism" and "national identity".
Can working class cultural identities located in England be acknowledged without being "nationalist" ?


----------



## brixtonscot (Aug 24, 2019)

Serge Forward said:


> Class war is something the bosses do very well. We, on the other hand, are in an almost perpetual state of class surrender. Class is not an identity, it's part and parcel of the capitalist system and how it works. Anyone who thinks it is about identity, is not only talking out of their wheato but is also backing up the boss class and their system... And anyone who thinks the idea of "class pride" is useful is really just proud of being a slave. The point for communists, anarchists, revolutionary socialists is to abolish class by destroying capitalism.



Class war by all means.....although within the working class is there not relative dis/advantages that can be acknowledged  
eg. around issues of gender , ethnicity etc. ?


----------



## Serge Forward (Aug 24, 2019)

Yes there are. And these are things we must try and overcome together, while at the same time not brushing things under the carpet... because if we ever do take on the task of smashing the system, it'll need a degree of class unity. A mostly united working class is the only thing that can achieve this - not politicos, not groups of 'enlightened' radicals, not by continually 'calling out' people for being less enlightened... but by a mass movement of the working class with various layers of advantage/disadvantage but with the nous to see a common cause.


----------



## andysays (Aug 24, 2019)

brixtonscot said:


> I think there could be confusion over terms "nationalism" and "national identity".
> Can working class cultural identities located in England be acknowledged without being "nationalist" ?


Depends on whether they are (deliberately or unintentionally) predominantly "english" or whether they embrace and include those who are not english.

Some of the purported "working class cultural identities" we see put forward on these threads are, IMO, specifically or mainly English or at least British Isles working class cultural identities.


----------



## brixtonscot (Aug 24, 2019)

andysays said:


> Depends on whether they are (deliberately or unintentionally) predominantly "english" or whether they embrace and include those who are not english.



Can be tricky to determine.....e.g. Whether John McDonnell's recent reference when he was in Edinburgh to "English parliament" was deliberate or a unthinking slip of the tongue.....
It's not uncommon for English people to confuse English/British


----------



## andysays (Aug 24, 2019)

brixtonscot said:


> Can be tricky to determine.....e.g. Whether John McDonnell's recent reference when he was in Edinburgh to "English parliament" was deliberate or a unthinking slip of the tongue.....
> It's not uncommon for English people to confuse English/British


That's true, but TBH I was thinking more of the tendency of some here to talk about working class culture when what they are actually referring to is native English/British working-class culture


----------



## Serge Forward (Sep 1, 2019)

An interesting article from the SPGB on identity, etc. It contains some hits and misses but I reckon it's worth a read:
No Outsiders: Class Inclusivity – Socialist Party of Great Britain


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 14, 2019)

Great piece  on the many problems with Roediger's Wages of Whiteness and the related approach, been waiting on this for a long time. The whole issue of non-site is full of great stuff, as was the previous one on the legacy of Judith Stein  of which this is a continuation.

The Wages of Roediger: Why Three Decades of Whiteness Studies Has Not Produced the Left We Need  - Cedric Johnson

_This essay examines Roediger’s latest book, but also takes stock of the interpretative assumptions of some three decades of whiteness studies in academe, and its consequences for left thought and action. Throughout what follows, I offer alternative historical analysis and case-study illustrations to demonstrate the limits of whiteness discourse, and how we might approach questions of class power and interests instead.

...

As historian Eric Arnesen pointed out in a critical overview of the whiteness studies literature, “Whiteness is, variously, a metaphor for power, a proxy for racially distributed material benefits, a synonym for ‘white supremacy,’ an epistemological stance defined by power, a position of invisibility or ignorance, and a set of beliefs about racial ‘others’ and one-self that can be rejected through ’treason’ to a racial category.”8 The promiscuity of the concept of whiteness, and related notions of white privilege and white supremacy make it a difficult concept to criticize, as Arnesen adds, “it is nothing less than a moving target.”_

_...
This essay takes aim at this central premise regarding “white interests” running through Roediger’s oeuvre, from The Wages of Whiteness to his most recent book, and widely adopted by other academics, professional trainers, activists and citizens. The academic and popular discourse of whiteness is concerned with the “souls of white folks” if you will, their predilections, behaviors and reactionary tendencies, often relying on retrospective psychoanalysis to discern the interior lives and private motives of the antebellum crowd, the minstrel show audience, southern lynch mobs and middle class suburban strivers alike, even when evidence of those motives and interests is scant.

The historian Barbara Fields once remarked that “Whiteness is the shotgun marriage of two incoherent but well-loved concepts: identity and agency.”10 That said, this essay seeks to begin divorce proceedings because a keen sense of historical interests, the shifting, territorial demands and worlds people fight to realize in their times, is lost in the common inferences made through psychohistory and the false equation of identity and political interests, analytical moves which are central to whiteness studies, and for that matter, much contemporary thinking on blackness and race in the US. As Fields reminds us, whiteness acts as a thimblerig that “performs a series of deft displacements, first substituting race for racism, then postulating identity as the social substance of race, and finally attributing racial identity to persons of European descent.”11 And I would add, the same thimblerig enables attributing political interests to whites (and blacks) without the critical analysis and investigatory rigor that might sharpen our understanding of class and power in American history.

...

Whiteness has come to function not so much as an analysis of interests in historical motion, but rather, it functions as catechism—America’s original sin is racism and redemption in the post-political hereafter lies in white atonement. With respect to class struggle and the maintenance of consent and order by dominant classes, the devil is in the details of history, details that fall out of focus when we evoke “white interests” as a metanarrative of what is wrong with American politics. Roediger’s work has advanced an approach to thinking about history and contemporary politics that reifies whiteness, even as it explores its social construction, presupposes that racial identity is the foremost shaper of working-class thought and action, and silences interracial solidarity.
_


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## danny la rouge (Sep 14, 2019)

Thanks butchersapron 

I keep nonsite on my radar, so I’d spotted that, but didn’t think of posting it here.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 14, 2019)

danny la rouge said:


> Thanks butchersapron
> 
> I keep nonsite on my radar, so I’d spotted that, but didn’t think of posting it here.


It's very good. I get the feeling from his recent longer pieces that he's decided to have his reckoning with every big name like Roediger -  possibly in book form. Been a long time since his last book.


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## danny la rouge (Sep 14, 2019)

That would be good.


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 14, 2019)

butchersapron said:


> ....


Really fascinating piece, and not just on identity politics but lots of other areas. Cheers

The last paragraph absolutely spot on too.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Sep 15, 2019)

Yes. Thanks butchersapron. This wasn’t on my radar so thanks for posting. It’s very good


----------



## Shechemite (Jan 21, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> It has been suggested that we need a thread specifically to discuss identity politics.  In order for it to have a fighting chance of not collapsing into chaos as people talk past each other, I thought the OP needed a brief exposition of some of the basic issues as I see them.  No doubt others will want to similarly outline what they see as the basics.  This is not intended as exhaustive, and I have written elsewhere on the boards about my views.  It is, however, intended as a starting point for discussion.
> 
> 
> In today’s ‘radical’ politics there is an assumption, sometimes stated, sometimes unstated, but either way underpinning much of the thinking one comes across, that identity and politics are a continuum.  We can see this continuum as analogous to spacetime.  We’ll call it _identitypolitics_.  In this model, identity is politics and politics is identity. The one is but an aspect of the other.  In this model, it is assumed that certain people will _necessarily_ be drawn to ‘radicalism’ because of their identity, and that certain others will tend towards ‘reactionary politics’ because of theirs.  This is essentialism.
> ...



seems a long time since this thread


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 10, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Thanks butchersapron
> 
> I keep nonsite on my radar, so I’d spotted that, but didn’t think of posting it here.


Nonsite have just republished Adolph Reed's 









						How Racial Disparity Does Not Help Make Sense of Patterns of Police Violence
					

Despite its proponents’ assertions, antiracism is not a different sort of egalitarian alternative to a class politics but is a class politics itself: the politics of a strain of the professional-managerial class whose worldview and material interests are rooted within a political economy of race...




					nonsite.org
				




Some readers will know that I’ve contended that, despite its proponents’ assertions, antiracism is not a different sort of egalitarian alternative to a class politics but is a class politics itself: the politics of a strain of the professional-managerial class whose worldview and material interests are rooted within a political economy of race and ascriptive identity-group relations. Moreover, although it often comes with a garnish of disparaging but empty references to neoliberalism as a generic sign of bad things, antiracist politics is in fact the left wing of neoliberalism in that its sole metric of social justice is opposition to disparity in the distribution of goods and bads in the society, an ideal that naturalizes the outcomes of capitalist market forces so long as they are equitable along racial (and other identitarian) lines. 


...with a new intro by Cedric Johnson explaining why:









						The Triumph of Black Lives Matter and Neoliberal Redemption
					

Black Lives Matter sentiment is essentially a militant expression of racial liberalism. Such expressions are not a threat but rather a bulwark to the neoliberal project that has obliterated the social wage, gutted public sector employment and worker pensions, undermined collective bargaining and...




					nonsite.org
				




Adolph Reed, Jr.’s “How Racial Disparity Does Not Help Make Sense of Patterns of Police Violence,” should be read again and often during this moment of resurgent Black Lives Matter sentiment, precisely because he so clearly names the limitations of anti-racism as a way of thinking about the problems of carceral power, and cautions against any left-progressive politics that separates racism from historical processes and political economy. As Reed notes, “antiracism is not a different sort of egalitarian alternative to a class politics but is a class politics itself.” Furthermore, antiracist politics is essentially “the left wing of neoliberalism in that its sole metric of social justice is opposition to disparity in the distribution of goods and bads in the society, an ideal that naturalizes the outcomes of capitalist market forces so long as they are equitable along racial (and other identitarian) lines.” Of course, I can already hear some friends of mine, academic colleagues and activists alike, who will grumble and cry foul, quickly asserting the presence of this or that tendency that embodies the true radical spirit of Black Lives Matter. Others will likely point to the scale of recent protests as evidence of a new moment, a turning point that will yield massive substantive reforms. Like Occupy Wall Street protests before, however, Black Lives Matter is more of a sentiment than a fully formed political force. Let’s not forget that it was born as hashtag, and while it has provided a powerful banner for longer-standing organizations and legislative campaigns working to reverse the social toll of carceral expansion, the liberal character of the hashtag should be more apparent now than ever.

Black Lives Matter sentiment is essentially a militant expression of racial liberalism.


----------



## belboid (Jun 11, 2020)

butchersapron said:


> Let’s not forget that it was born as hashtag,


that's the key bit, imo. It has appeared as different things in different places, especially over the last couple of weeks. It isn't just a top down movement, it is one that has developed and spread almost spontaneously. Just looking at the difference between what is happening in Leeds and in Sheffield (as has been referred to on the UK BLM thread) where one is a genuine bottom up movement and one has been the old voices trying to dictate. 'BLM' isn't any one thing.  

"Sure, some activists are calling for defunding police departments and de-carceration, but as a popular slogan, Black Lives Matter is a cry for full recognition within the established terms of liberal democratic capitalism. And the ruling class agrees" the article goes in to say, but even now and in the US it is way beyond 'some activists', its the goddamned council! And the council doesn't equal the ruling class. Defunding the police is now the mainstream belief of BLM, which shows it isnt just the voice of the established liberal left.

It's a movement, and when there's a genuine movement anything is possible, even if it doesn't start out with a fully formed class consciousness.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jun 11, 2020)

butchersapron any update on the book by Cedric Johnson that you mentioned up thread?

Thanks for posting the piece by the way. I again seem to have missed this despite subscribing to Nonsite using the sign up on its page.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 11, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> butchersapron any update on the book by Cedric Johnson that you mentioned up thread?
> 
> Thanks for posting the piece by the way. I again seem to have missed this despite subscribing to Nonsite using the sign up on its page.


Heard nothing further on those lines - would be nice to see it happen.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2020)

Hour long interview with Malik just been made available - not watched yet, so don't take as full endorsement, though he's probably bang on the money.

Stine Jensen spoke extensively with writer Kenan Malik for this episode of Dus Ik Volg, about identity politics, racism and values. Malik's call: look beyond identity, look at what someone's values are.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jun 14, 2020)

Yes, got this in his latest mail out. Haven’t seen it all yet, but first 10 or so minutes are absolute gold.


----------



## Red Cat (Jun 14, 2020)

Thanks for that butchersapron


----------



## treelover (Jun 14, 2020)

deleted, error in posting


----------



## LDC (Jun 14, 2020)

butchersapron said:


> Hour long interview with Malik just been made available - not watched yet, so don't take as full endorsement, though he's probably bang on the money.
> 
> Stine Jensen spoke extensively with writer Kenan Malik for this episode of Dus Ik Volg, about identity politics, racism and values. Malik's call: look beyond identity, look at what someone's values are.



Listening at work, excellent, thanks. Although I thought the interviewer wasn't great.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> Jus been re reading this, Wow, so enlightening, and imo, impossible to have the same conversation now, Kaka Tim, admitting that their was a favouritism towards ethnic minorities with some resource allocation, amongst community managers, etc, even the title could see people lose their jobs(academics) if this was published in a different context, and yes, many went down the IdPol rabbit hole on here, more discusion on transgender toilets than benefit cuts that were leading to people taking their own lives


What are you talking about?  I don't think KT has posted on this thread and no this thread would not mean that people (academics) would lose their jobs.


----------



## treelover (Jun 14, 2020)

Apologies, i have posted on the the wrong thread, it was the one about the white working class, started by Mozaz in 2009. However, it was linked to from this thread, I will delete and repost it on UK politics. I stand by my views on the thread, and KT did say that on it.

which i now can't find, the last comment on it observed how many contributors had passed.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 14, 2020)

OK do you want me to delete your quote in my post? I don't think it is needed really but will do if you want me to.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 14, 2020)

Just watched that Malik interview.  It’s very good.  In the interests of completeness, though, I think there are areas where his answers to some of the challenges are rather narrow in scope (he skirts, for example, the question about how being black is an assigned identity with specific consequences (not that the interviewer put it in those terms) and switched to the safer grounds of talking about being Muslim instead).  I’m also not convinced by his bifurcation between politics derived from values versus those derived from identity, whereas in reality these two things both are socially constructed, giving them reciprocity rather than one linearly causing the other.


----------



## rekil (Jun 15, 2020)

The shit/edgy comedian bit went on for ages and didn't even make any sense as there were no subs when the editor or whoever kept cutting to the two of them staring at the screen. Kenan Malik piece in the guardian as well. He waded through laurie's apparently unsellable piece to give her the mention.









						'White privilege' is a distraction, leaving racism and power untouched | Kenan Malik
					

This is a transformational moment. Let’s use it to challenge structural injustice, not to elicit or wallow in guilt




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## danny la rouge (Jun 15, 2020)

rekil said:


> The shit/edgy comedian bit went on for ages and didn't even make any sense as there were no subs when the editor or whoever kept cutting to the two of them staring at the screen.


The film is uncut. We saw the shit satirist twice. The second time was the reaction shots for cutting into the finished film.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 15, 2020)

One of the main things I take from it is that despite Mailk making his points very clearly, using plenty of examples his points are so out there to the interviewer that they struggle to conceive them. That might partly be a language issue but as this thread shows even for those with the same first language the conceptual windows can so far apart that it does lead to conflict.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 15, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> One of the main things I take from it is that despite Mailk making his points very clearly, using plenty of examples his points are so out there to the interviewer that they struggle to conceive them. That might partly be a language issue but as this thread shows even for those with the same first language the conceptual windows can so far apart that it does lead to conflict.


On that score, my favourite part was when she suggested that all conversations should start by acknowledging somebody’s pain, like the bad guy from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  And Malik just looked at her like, “what do I do with this?”


----------



## CNT36 (Jun 15, 2020)

kabbes said:


> On that score, my favourite part was when she suggested that all conversations should start by acknowledging somebody’s pain, like the bad guy from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.  And Malik just looked at her like, “what do I do with this?”


It's possibly the most patronising way to start a conversation.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jun 15, 2020)

My pain is the general unsatisfactoriness of existence. Your refusal to acknowledge it invalidates my identity.


----------



## Athos (Jun 15, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Just watched that Malik interview.  It’s very good.  In the interests of completeness, though, I think there are areas where his answers to some of the challenges are rather narrow in scope (he skirts, for example, the question about how being black is an assigned identity with specific consequences (not that the interviewer put it in those terms) and switched to the safer grounds of talking about being Muslim instead).  I’m also not convinced by his bifurcation between politics derived from values versus those derived from identity, whereas in reality these two things both are socially constructed, giving them reciprocity rather than one linearly causing the other.



I agree, and I liked it,  too.

But, I think it's a shame that she didn't probe harder on some if these points.  The dichotomy between politics based on values versus that based on identity skates over the role of material interests!

I'd also have liked to see her go into on some of the other common rebuttals to his central argument against the efficacy of identity politics e.g. the idea that minorities are being asked to deprioritise any improvement to their lot in favour of ending capitslism. It'd have given him the opportunity to address them head-on (which, from his writings, I'm sure he'd have done easily).

In particular, it'd have been good to see more talk of class struggle, and why that's not identity politics (i.e. the difference between a personal characteristic and a relationship with the means of production).  And maybe some more about the nuances of how class and identities interact.


----------



## 8ball (Jun 15, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> My pain is the general unsatisfactoriness of existence. Your refusal to acknowledge it invalidates my identity.



I acknowledge your pain.


----------



## killer b (Jun 15, 2020)

I like the _Politics is negotiable, Identity by definition isn't_ line. Seems to me that precise tension has been the source of huge amounts of conflict in recent years.


----------



## 8ball (Jun 16, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> One of the main things I take from it is that despite Mailk making his points very clearly, using plenty of examples his points are so out there to the interviewer that they struggle to conceive them. That might partly be a language issue but as this thread shows even for those with the same first language the conceptual windows can so far apart that it does lead to conflict.



I thought his clarity and patience was great in that interview.  I think you're right that the difficulty comes in making a conceptual shift if you are very deep into the idpol.  I also think the interviewer's English was far too good for language to have been an issue there.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jun 16, 2020)

i wrote this on May 13th - and i feel this debate is really parochial now. who cares about idpol outside of UK and America?

"Meanwhile elsewhere: The protests in Iraq (which have kickstarted the past week) have had one of the most consistent working class anti-imperialist politics, be it from storming and occupying the american-controlled green zone in Baghdad to burning iranian consulates.."











						Irak’ta hükümet karşıtı eylemler yeniden başladı - Yeryüzü Postası
					

Irak'ın başkenti Bağdat'ta, hükümet karşıtı göstericiler yeniden sokağa indi. Bağdat'ın merkezi Tahr




					www.yeryuzupostasi.org


----------



## 8ball (Jun 16, 2020)

dialectician said:


> who cares about idpol outside of UK and America?



Canada, much of Europe, Australia...
Basically all of Whiteyville.


----------



## Athos (Jun 16, 2020)

8ball said:


> Canada, much of Europe, Australia...
> Basically all of Whiteyville.



Or, nothing to do with skin colour, it being a phenomenon in those countries where those representing the interests of capital can more easily obscure class (they must be delighted that the working class is  increasingly fragmented along identity lines).


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jun 16, 2020)

Athos said:


> Or, nothing to do with skin colour, it being a phenomenon in those countries where those representing the interests of capital can more easily obscure class (they must be delighted that the working class is  increasingly fragmented along identity lines).



good thing the working class in the advanced capitalist countries is abandoning the left then eh?

Surely that is a good conclusion for you.

All the western left does is compensate for the failures of activism in their own (middle class) political sphere. It has 0 influence on the working class as it is composed.

This should have been evident from London last Saturday.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Jun 16, 2020)

the problem as such is politics. No good being anti-idpol if you capitulate to ossified trade unionism and labourism is it.

the left says white privilege is terrible. the right says it doesn't exist.

We say, so what? we're not gonna let the phantom of the american oppressor treat us like innocent abstractions. Seeing immigrants as humans requires us to have the dignity to do horrible things with no pseudo anti-imperialist justification.


----------



## belboid (Jun 16, 2020)

what is decried as 'idpol' by the lazy here, is still seen as human and civil rights in many countries where laws supporting women's rights, gay rights, trans rights etc are still needed, oppression still being real n all that.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 16, 2020)

belboid said:


> what is decried as 'idpol' by the lazy here, is still seen as human and civil rights in many countries where laws supporting women's rights, gay rights, trans rights etc are still needed, oppression still being real n all that.


The point is: focus on the need for equality, not on an assumption those with an overlap of identity will have a homogeneity of values resulting from the overlap that just naturally produces a uniformity of politics


----------



## LDC (Jun 16, 2020)

belboid said:


> what is decried as 'idpol' by the lazy here, is still seen as human and civil rights in many countries where laws supporting women's rights, gay rights, trans rights etc are still needed, oppression still being real n all that.



Huh, that post makes me think you've not read lots on this thread.


----------



## belboid (Jun 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Huh, that post makes me think you've not read lots on this thread.


i've read most of this thread and am currently going through the, surprisingly poor, latest bit of Malik.  I'll return anon about that - some of it is just absurd: 'people have the idea that blacks, gays etc must be progressive'!!

But the point I was replying to stated that these questions are only being discussed in the english speaking (or advanced capitalist) world, which is just silly.  The same issues are being fought over and whilst the exact form of those struggles in different in the dominant powers and the dominated powers, there is clear distinction drawn as to why one is good and the other bad. And in the wake of BLM, especially its most recent explosion, it seems to be easily countered.


----------



## 8ball (Jun 16, 2020)

Athos said:


> Or, nothing to do with skin colour...


----------



## 8ball (Jun 16, 2020)

belboid said:


> But the point I was replying to stated that these questions...



Which questions?  What do you think the questions are?


----------



## Athos (Jun 16, 2020)

belboid said:


> what is decried as 'idpol' by the lazy here, is still seen as human and civil rights in many countries where laws supporting women's rights, gay rights, trans rights etc are still needed, oppression still being real n all that.



I don't think there's many here who think like that, to be honest.


----------



## Athos (Jun 16, 2020)

dialectician said:


> good thing the working class in the advanced capitalist countries is abandoning the left then eh?
> 
> Surely that is a good conclusion for you.
> 
> ...





dialectician said:


> the problem as such is politics. No good being anti-idpol if you capitulate to ossified trade unionism and labourism is it.
> 
> the left says white privilege is terrible. the right says it doesn't exist.
> 
> We say, so what? we're not gonna let the phantom of the american oppressor treat us like innocent abstractions. Seeing immigrants as humans requires us to have the dignity to do horrible things with no pseudo anti-imperialist justification.



Sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to say here.


----------



## belboid (Jun 16, 2020)

Having finished the Malik piece I am surprised at how many people are supporting his idealist framework, which comes out quite clearly against the notion of class war.

The interesting bits are right at the beginning and the end when he talks of identity as a matter of relationships. His definition of ID politics that "ones values and aspirations come from ones identity" isn't one I recognise in the vast majority of campaigns that are decried as Idpol. 

As a defender of universalism I am surprised he doesn't recognise the fact that many of these struggles are about being accepted as part of that universal. In contradiction to what he writes in the article quoted later, slogans like 'All lives cant matter till black lives matter' and 'its not black against white its everyone against racists' have dominated over white privilege.shame ones. The whole 'trans v women's rights' argument is about how to ensure the human rights of both are recognised and supported, not saying one is better than the other.


----------



## brixtonscot (Jun 16, 2020)

KM talking about autonomous ( e.g. Black , women , gay ) movements in 60's &  70's that they were attached to a wider political project ( as Asad Hyder also says below ) .....but that now that wider political project had "disintegrated".

The failings or weakness of the wider Left in general over the past 4 or 5 decades coincided with the rise of  liberal "identity politics" - but to what degree is there  a correlation between the two ?

I think Jeffrey Weeks term referring to gay identity as a "necessary fiction" (in combatting homophobia) is useful , if litttle used or understood.

From interview with Asad Hyder about book Mistaken Identity -

*"Your book describes the origins of identity politics as a radical movement for mass emancipation. Could you expand?*

The original presentation of the term was by the black feminist organisation the Combahee River Collective, whose important 1977 statement has now been published, along with illuminating interviews, in the collection _How We Get Free_, which anyone interested in the question should read. The starting point of this statement was to show how the existing political organisations of the black liberation and feminist movements had been based on exclusionary identities that effaced the intra-group differences I mentioned before. Hierarchies internal to these group identities had made it so that black liberation organisations were led by men, and feminist organisations were led by white women. So asserting their identity as black women meant disrupting these exclusionary identities. The conclusion of the statement was to call for an inclusive revolutionary politics, which became possible when black women organised autonomously.
Needless to say, this is not what Democratic Party elites mean when they go on TV and talk about “identity politics.” "








						The problem with identity politics
					

Q&A with Asad Haider, author of "Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump"




					newhumanist.org.uk


----------



## belboid (Jun 16, 2020)

brixtonscot said:


> KM talking about autonomous ( e.g. Black , women , gay ) movements in 60's &  70's that they were attached to a wider political project ( as Asad Hyder also says below ) .....but that now that wider political project had "disintegrated".
> 
> The failings or weakness of the wider Left in general over the past 4 or 5 decades coincided with the rise of  liberal "identity politics" - but to what degree is there  a correlation between the two ?
> 
> ...


Combahee was also a crucial event in the later development of intersectionalism, which, despite its many shortcomings especially as it has become now, was an attempt  at recognising  and showing how these different identities influence one another, that there is no single one that could be said to be 'better than.'  

The part about how identities are formed in opposition to bigotry and oppression is important, indicating (contra KM) that it is still bigotry that is maintaining and recreating discrimination, not simply a reaction to and subversion of anti-racist politics. And it indicates that the argument against narrow IdPol (as defined by KM) is not just about ideas and values, but  is rooted within wider society - ie that it is systemic. 

I also think the Simpsons cartoon is an excellent example of the liberal struggle for universalist rights, not for IDpol ones. Its about not excluding people from positions, not about looking at those systemic biases that will continue whoever is at the top.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 16, 2020)

belboid said:


> His definition of ID politics that "ones values and aspirations come from ones identity" *isn't one I recognise in the vast majority of campaigns* that are decried as Idpol.
> 
> As a defender of universalism I am surprised he doesn't recognise the fact that *many of these struggles are about *being accepted as part of that universal. In contradiction to what he writes in the article quoted later, slogans like 'All lives cant matter till black lives matter' and 'its not black against white its everyone against racists' have dominated over white privilege.shame ones. The whole 'trans v women's rights' argument is about how to ensure the human rights of both are recognised and supported, not saying one is better than the other.


Agree, though how much these negative expressions come up is part of the confusion and talking at cross-purposes (that are all coming back to me now from this thread in the past!).

The most stupid bits of identity politics, such as expecting all black people to have the same politics, doesn't actually exist in the real world very often I don't think.
The Kanye example in the video - a black man supporting a racist president - does make people think wtf, but then most things Kanye does make people think wtf! Kanye singled himself out as probably the most high profile black person to endorse Trump, so it was a shock.
And of course there are many black Republicans - this is nothing new and would be a surprise to few in the US.

For those who have a reductionist, essentialised view of identity - that identity Y automatically means you must think X - it doesn't take long before this crashes up against reality and gets shattered. It does seem to have come up in universities at times, which I would chalk up as youthful naivety, but I just don't expect this is a problem in most peoples lived experiences. Certainly not to the degree there is a panic about identity politics.

Then there's essentialist-tokenism. The notion "we need a female leader of the labour party for once" is wrong-headed if there isn't a single female candidate with the right values and skills to do it, but if you presume there are many, then there's nothing wrong IMO with a bit of positive discrimination if it addressees a long pattern of inequality.

The Hilary Clinton example from the video on one level, yes, is ridiculous, yes she's a woman but she has terrible politics! However it actually makes good sense within the logic of the Democrat party, because the Democrat party has terrible politics and she fits right in to a lot of Democrats expectations!


*This is the bit I have a problem with:*

Struggle for minority rights happening at a time when there's a buoyant left fighting for deeper structural change to which both struggles can synergise (such as black rights struggle in the USA in the 60s-70s) = Good

Struggle for minority rights happening when there isn't a buoyant left (now) = Bad (and must be Liberal)

I'm sure I've said this before on this thread, but it makes it sound as if its those struggling for their minority rights fault that they're not part of a wider left, even though that left is in deep retreat. Many in those struggles _do_ express anticapitalist sentiments, but are as ineffective as any of us at bringing that to fruition. The limitations of the left at this time are a whole other topic.

I still support someone with liberal, continuity-capitalism politics who is campaigning for equality within the system, even if they have no desire or vision to change the system much. Its still part of a bigger struggle, can open other doors, and give momentum to challenge the continued cultural conservatism in many other parts of the world.

If Black Lives Matter activists in the US are pushing relentlessly to get rid of racism they might simultaneously:
-win some small structural differences - such as the choke law
-change some peoples minds and shape cultural attitudes of the future
-still come up against the unresponsive monolith of the state which takes the struggle nearer to it, and might sharpen certain individuals minds as to what the nature of the problem really is
....all the above seems good to me, even if any number of those taking part aren't particularly engaged in any conscious way with anticapitalist and class struggles (yet)


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## Athos (Jun 16, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Struggle for minority rights happening when there isn't a buoyant left (now) = Bad (and must be Liberal)



Does anyone actually argue that, though?


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## ska invita (Jun 16, 2020)

Athos said:


> Does anyone actually argue that, though?


Probably not...certainly not exactly like that....but it can definitely sound like that though...it can sound like it in this video....theres a lot of chasing shadows that goes on in this whole thing.


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## belboid (Jun 17, 2020)

I have a longer post I am reminding myself to come back to, in response to ska's posts.  But for now, it is well worth pointing out that Malik's viewpoint really matters now, because Johnson has appointed his former comrade and co-thinker to head up the commission on racial equality.  Munira Mirza, a repeating Spiked writer, doesn't believe in structural inequality or institutional racism. She says (and Spiked agree, even if no one else does) that she and KM share the same values of defending he enlightenment. But she is someone we can have a dialogue with if we simply taking it on the level of ideas and ignore power.


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## Athos (Jun 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Probably not...certainly not exactly like that....but it can definitely sound like that though...it can sound like it in this video....theres a lot of chasing shadows that goes on in this whole thing.



I don't get that from the video, but you're right that a lot of times people from both sides seen to be tilting at windmills.


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## Athos (Jun 17, 2020)

belboid said:


> I have a longer post I am reminding myself to come back to, in response to ska's posts.  But for now, it is well worth pointing out that Malik's viewpoint really matters now, because Johnson has appointed his former comrade and co-thinker to head up the commission on racial equality.  Munira Mirza, a repeating Spiked writer, doesn't believe in structural inequality or institutional racism. She says (and Spiked agree, even if no one else does) that she and KM share the same values of defending he enlightenment. But she is someone we can have a dialogue with if we simply taking it on the level of ideas and ignore power.



I don't think we should take her word for what Malik thinks. Judge him on his own.  I've not read or heard anything to suggest he doesn't believe in structural inequality; quite the reverse - he explicitly talks about structural racism in the piece quoted up-thread.









						'White privilege' is a distraction, leaving racism and power untouched | Kenan Malik
					

This is a transformational moment. Let’s use it to challenge structural injustice, not to elicit or wallow in guilt




					www.theguardian.com


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## ska invita (Jun 17, 2020)

Athos said:


> I don't get that from the video, but you're right that a lot of times people from both sides seen to be tilting at windmills.


I've relistened to the start of the video and he explicitly says at 7 minutes this is why modern minority movements are bad, unlike those of the 60-70s they are divorced from deeper "universal" movements, and focus only on their own identity rights <its the basis of his definition of bad ID politics as he sets out his stall. Like I said in long post above, I think this is justifiable and even positive within the present circumstances, and also as Bebloid says does in fact look to a universal treatment. Yes I wish there was a stronger left current than there is today, yes I wish minority rights struggles fed into that more than they do today - and vice versa -  but I don't conclude from that this is identity politics gone bad, that its necessarily divisive, that its necessarily an attack on enlightenment values etc.  

There are so many different elements to discuss here that they get confused and even overlap. All X people must think Y is one of the easier ones to deal with. A minority rights campaign that clashes with enlightenment liberation values is a theoretically more complex one: such as Catholics should have the right to ban/prevent abortions, but even then I don't think its that hard to come to a conclusion. Islamaphobia debates pulled the left two ways a bit, those who wanted to support a group that was being particularly prosecuted at the time, and those who saw Islamists as repressive and regressive. Both things can be true, but life is full of contradictions and sometimes its possible to hold two opposing ideas at the same time, though navigating these things can get messy, and in the Iraq war era did lead to some objectionable people being invited up on platforms for example.

What would be useful perhaps if someone is feeling masochistic enough would be to make a numbered list of 1. all the criticisms of theoretical ID positions and a separate thing 2. the shit behaviour by some individuals associated with identity politics, so they can be looked at one by one and without any blurring of lines. This kind of happened over the 90 pages of this thread, but in a very mixed up way.


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## Athos (Jun 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I've relistened to the start of the video and he explicitly says at 7 minutes this is why modern minority movements are bad, unlike those of the 60-70s they are divorced from deeper "universal" movements, and focus only on their own identity rights <its the basis of his definition of bad ID politics as he sets out his stall. Like I said in long post above, I think this is justifiable and even positive within the present circumstances, and also as Bebloid says does in fact look to a universal treatment. Yes I wish there was a stronger left current than there is today, yes I wish minority rights struggles fed into that more than they do today - and vice versa -  but I don't conclude from that this is identity politics gone bad, that its necessarily divisive, that its necessarily an attack on enlightenment values etc.
> 
> There are so many different elements to discuss here that they get confused and even overlap. All X people must think Y is one of the easier ones to deal with. A minority rights campaign that clashes with enlightenment liberation values is a theoretically more complex one: such as Catholics should have the right to ban/prevent abortions, but even then I don't think its that hard to come to a conclusion. Islamaphobia debates pulled the left two ways a bit, those who wanted to support a group that was being particularly prosecuted at the time, and those who saw Islamists as repressive and regressive. Both things can be true, but life is full of contradictions and sometimes its possible to hold two opposing ideas at the same time, though navigating these things can get messy, and in the Iraq war era did lead to some objectionable people being invited up on platforms for example.
> 
> What would be useful perhaps if someone is feeling masochistic enough would be to make a numbered list of 1. all the criticisms of theoretical ID positions and a separate thing 2. the shit behaviour by some individuals associated with identity politics, so they can be looked at one by one and without any blurring of lines. This kind of happened over the 90 pages of this thread, but in a very mixed up way.



For me, the issue isn't as much about campaigns which focus on identity *without being tied to* a wider struggle (though, obviously, I'd prefer if they were), but where that focus on identity is *anathema to* that wider struggle e.g. the examples you give re Islam (albeit my issue with it isn't that it offends enlightenment values, so much as it hampers class struggle).

I can't imagine anyone being masochistic enough for such a list!


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## RTWL (Jun 17, 2020)

Well .... maybe enforcing laws that the government is already pushing is not very radical ...  maybe this all smaks of neoliberalism .... maybe the peace movement is being destroyed by middle class tossers who have a vested interest in the state/war by being middle class .
Maybe freedom of speech is a classical progressive (anarchist ) essential .... basically .. anyone who subscribes to controlling the bewildered herd by enforcing laws cos they are to stupid.... is not an anarchist .... but a classic liberal .

These people incite violence(with no gorilla tactic) thus discrediting the anti war movement. They are the classic stereotype : bourgeois apologists for the war IMO.


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## belboid (Jun 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Agree, though how much these things negative expressions come up is part of the confusion and talking at cross-purposes (that are all coming back to me now from this thread in the past!).
> 
> The most stupid bits of identity politics, such as expecting all black people to have the same politics, doesn't actually exist in the real world very often I don't think.
> The Kanye example in the video - a black man supporting a racist president - does make people think wtf, but then most things Kanye does make people think wtf! Kanye singled himself out as probably the most high profile black person to endorse Trump, so it was a shock.
> ...


I think in the eighties - when Malik n my politics were formed - there was an element of ‘if women/black people ran the world it would be different.  Thatcher, as well as straight forward sexist abuse from blokes, was also accused by some feminists of having simply taken in male values and behaviours.  Going back to that Simpsons cartoon, the IdPol reaction should have been 'if they were women of color we wouldn't have exploitation and wars.'  That really existed in the eighties.

We don’t get that really now, Priti Patel is just a piece of shit, whatever her gender and race.  We might have a view that she should recognise racism more than some other tidies, but that’s down to her (not entirely presumed) lived life experience.  It’s like going ffs at working class tories. 

That’s down to his being an idealist - thinking it’s all down to ideas and not how those ideas interact and, crucially, contradict our day to day lived experience. 



> Then there's essentialist-tokenism. The notion "we need a female leader of the labour party for once" is wrong-headed if there isn't a single female candidate with the right values and skills to do it, but if you presume there are many, then there's nothing wrong IMO with a bit of positive discrimination if it addressees a long pattern of inequality.
> 
> The Hilary Clinton example from the video on one level, yes, is ridiculous, yes she's a woman but she has terrible politics! However it actually makes good sense within the logic of the Democrat party, because the Democrat party has terrible politics and she fits right in to a lot of Democrats expectations!


Within that specific example, or any specific example, it’s absurd to say 'sex over values'. But he doesn’t ask why, in over 100 attempts, there had never previously been one case of a woman having better values.  He misses out the systemic biases. 





> *This is the bit I have a problem with:*





> Struggle for minority rights happening at a time when there's a buoyant left fighting for deeper structural change to which both struggles can synergise (such as black rights struggle in the USA in the 60s-70s) = Good
> 
> Struggle for minority rights happening when there isn't a buoyant left (now) = Bad (and must be Liberal)
> 
> ...


No one is ever going to state it that crudely, but I think there is some truth in it.  ID issues are almost be definition cross class (as are most/many single issue campaigns), even if they impact more heavily upon working class people,  so if you look more likely to get short term results appealing to liberal sentiment rather than long term class analyses, it’s not really surprising when campaigns veer in that direction.  Loads of people are drawn into struggle by things that aren’t strictly class based, we need to show why class politics (not an idealist battle of ideas) are right, not just say why everyone else is wrong.


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## belboid (Jun 17, 2020)

Athos said:


> I don't think we should take her word for what Malik thinks. Judge him on his own.  I've not read or heard anything to suggest he doesn't believe in structural inequality; quite the reverse - he explicitly talks about structural racism in the piece quoted up-thread.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


yes, he mentions it a couple of times, but then stops, as he does in the video. There's not even any description of them let alone analysis or attempt at a solution. That's a definite failing. In the article he starts by saying how BLM _is _taking on systemic issues but spends far more time talking about the smaller numbers talking about 'white privilege,' and then about how police brutality isn't really racism, it's classism (or mainly classism, at least). Which seems to be in contradiction to a recognition of structural problems.  (the Mass Incarceration piece is very interesting and deserves a separate discussion)

But I shouldn't be too hard in him for this piece alone, he is a Guardian columnist and has to give them the copy they want (at the word length they want)- a slightly controversial view of BLM that they wont be slated for printing.


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## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Struggle for minority rights happening at a time when there's a buoyant left fighting for deeper structural change to which both struggles can synergise (such as black rights struggle in the USA in the 60s-70s) = Good
> 
> Struggle for minority rights happening when there isn't a buoyant left (now) = Bad (and must be Liberal)





ska invita said:


> I've relistened to the start of the video and he explicitly says at 7 minutes this is why modern minority movements are bad, unlike those of the 60-70s they are divorced from deeper "universal" movements, and focus only on their own identity rights



Note that the contention in the first quote is not the same as in the one in the second quote.
To say that some struggles for minority rights occurring at the current time are bad because they are divorced from a deeper structural analysis, is not the same as saying struggles for minority rights occurring at the present _must_ be bad because there is no buoyant left.


But Malik does *NOT* explicitly say what you claim. First, the context the statement below is in giving a historical summary of the how identity politics have come about, not about why they are "bad".




			
				Malik said:
			
		

> It's more complicated than that ... because you can see that this is where the seeds of contemporary identity politics lay. But there is a fundamental difference between the movements 60s and 70s and contemporary identity politics.
> Because the movements of the 60s and 70s had an attachment to movements of wider social change, that's what they came out of, that's what they believed in.
> But one of the key changes that has taken place over the past 50 years is that those wider movements have disintegrated ... the left has disintegrated, those old aspirations, universal aspirations ... have largely faded, the organisations that gave rise that embodied those aspirations have largely faded and so these days what you are left with is a demand of recognition, recognition of identity but separated from the wider movement of social change. That's what defines contemporary identity politics and so that's why values and beliefs and aspirations are attached simply to ones identity and not to wider social change.



Second, none of the above states, either explicitly or implicitly, that modern minority movements _must_ be bad. It's not even an argument for such, it is an explanation of _why_ identity politics have come about. The defines here is not a formal statement of what identity politics means but the outlining of how the politics came to be defined, created by material conditions, _i.e._ one might say _class war in the UK 45-75 was defined by the post-war social contract, _that does not mean that the post-war social contract was class war, it is saying that the influence of the post-war social contract played a very important role in (influencing) class during those years.

Third, throughout the whole film piece Malik constantly stresses the the struggle for equality is not the same as the identity politics. Indeed straight after the part quoted above, you have the following discussion.



			
				Presenter said:
			
		

> Do you think identity politics is a useful concept






			
				Malik said:
			
		

> I don't. But to understand that I think we need to distinguish between the struggle for minority rights and for equality, and the politics of identity. Many proponents of identity politics say that identity politics is simply the struggle for equality, and that those who oppose it are abandoning that struggle for equal rights.
> 
> I disagree, I fundamentally think the opposite is true. The first thing to recognise is that racism, discrimination it is rooted in the politics of identity, they express the politics of identity, because they express the idea that by virtue of you being black or a women or gay you have a different set of rights, you have less rights, you have less dignity, you should be discriminated against because of your identity. So the roots of racism of discrimination are in the politics of identity. One of the key problems of the politics of identity is that it seeks not to overthrow social structures in which are rooted discrimination or exploitation but to make to make those structures fairer.
> [example of Adolph Reed Jr cited]
> [Identity politics] is an argument for a fairer exploitative structure not for getting rid of those structures in the first place ... and to me is a fundamental problem



Malick is not making a criticism of "modern minority movements", he is making a criticism of identity politics. And part of that criticism is the equating of the fight for equality with identity politics - something that you have done in your post.

[NB: There may be some mistakes in the passages quoted from the film, I've had to do them by ear.]


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## danny la rouge (Jun 18, 2020)

Thanks for taking the time to do those transcriptions redsquirrel 

I’ve lost the energy required to argue these points. Not the argument itself, but the way that the argument is misunderstood and misrepresented. And it’s not done deliberately or with malicious intent; it’s just that - as you say - the perceptual Windows are so far apart.

So thanks for the effort. It’s important to try to express the argument clearly.


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## Athos (Jun 18, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Malick is not making a criticism of "modern minority movements", he is making a criticism of identity politics. And part of that criticism is the equating of the fight for equality with identity politics - something that you have done in your post.



For me, this is the heart of it.  I suspect that ska invita and belboid think that those of us who criticise identity politics are criticising analysis or organisation which includes race as 'a' (not 'the only') focus.  Whereas I think the critics of identity politics here would agree that it makes sense to recognise that capitalism can affect black workers differently from white workers.  What we don't agree is that the ultimate goal should be a version of capitalism that's 'fairer' on identity lines. But I get how that might be misinterpreted as saying that e.g. black people shouldn't try to improve their lot in the here and now.

I guess the important thing is to do both, to improve the lot of minorities in the short term in a way that doesn't entrench capitalism in the longer term (since the end if capitalism with bring a fairer system for all of us - a seat at the feast our own labour produces, rather than ther crumbs be distributed proportionately to identity characteristics).

To be honest, at the outset, when the focus seemed to be about white privilege and the implied goal of police killings at equal rates, I thought BLM was going down the Idpol route. But, increasingly, it seems to recognise the importance of class (and that black people are over-represented in the working class) and the necessity for solidarity in the working class (regardless of race).  Now, I think that,  whilst I don't agree with every aspect of the politics or actions in the name of BLM, the movement represents an opportunity to improve the lot of all black people and all working class people (obviously a big overlap) in the short and longer terms.


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## belboid (Jun 18, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Note that the contention in the first quote is not the same as in the one in the second quote.
> To say that some struggles for minority rights occurring at the current time are bad because they are divorced from a deeper structural analysis, is not the same as saying struggles for minority rights occurring at the present _must_ be bad because there is no buoyant left.
> 
> 
> ...


Sorry bit this is drivel.  You and all the other ultra liberals here are ignoring the fact that Malik gave a definition of Id politics.  And it is nothing like the one you’re skirting around here.  There is absolutely nothing about those politics being developed due to material conditions because he rejects that argument.    

It’s not that that the ‘perceptual windows’ (lol) are too far apart, it’s that Malik is frequently and importantly wrong. He is a liberal idealist. Who is 100% attacking ‘minority rights’  - because he’s a universalist.  As he said repeatedly.  If you don’t get that you don’t get a single thing he says.


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## Threshers_Flail (Jun 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> Sorry bit this is drivel.  You and all the other ultra liberals here are ignoring the fact that Malik gave a definition of Id politics.  And it is nothing like the one you’re skirting around here.  There is absolutely nothing about those politics being developed due to material conditions because he rejects that argument.
> 
> It’s not that that the ‘perceptual windows’ (lol) are too far apart, it’s that Malik is frequently and importantly wrong. He is a liberal idealist. Who is 100% attacking ‘minority rights’  - because he’s a universalist.  As he said repeatedly.  If you don’t get that you don’t get a single thing he says.



Someone transcribes an interview to try and help you and this is how you respond?


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## Cid (Jun 18, 2020)

So... his definition of identity politics, as stated in the opening bit is: "... the idea that one's values or aspirations comes from one's specific, narrow, identity. You can think of it as the relationship between being and values. What identity politics suggests is that one's being, whether one's black or a woman, or gay, muslim or white European defines one's aspirations, one's values." which he contrasts with being arising from values.

I'm at work and am not going to watch the whole thing again now... But I'm struggling to see how that conflicts with redsquirrel 's interpretation.


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## belboid (Jun 18, 2020)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Someone transcribes an interview to try and help you and this is how you respond?


??? Sorry, whats the point of this comment? Wrong-headed comments dont suddenly become right because someone has typed them out.  And idealism doesn't suddenly became materialism.


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## Athos (Jun 18, 2020)

I do think it's a shame he focusses on values, though; it'd have been better if he'd clearly said material interests (which I suspect is what he was really driving at).  To me, that's the real weakness of idpol: the idea that a black worker always has more in common with a black boss than with a white worker.  And that's where it's danger is: that it can subvert struggles into those between identities, rather than betwen classes (especially as the grouping in the former tend to be dominated by and refelct the values of those at the 'top' of that particular vertical slice i.e. idpol movements for more black CEOs).


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## ska invita (Jun 18, 2020)

Athos said:


> For me, this is the heart of it.  I suspect that ska invita and belboid think that those of us who criticise identity politics are criticising analysis or organisation which includes race as 'a' (not 'the only') focus.  Whereas I think the critics of identity politics here would agree that it makes sense to recognise that capitalism can affect black workers differently from white workers.  What we don't agree is that the ultimate goal should be a version of capitalism that's 'fairer' on identity lines. But I get how that might be misinterpreted as saying that e.g. black people shouldn't try to improve their lot in the here and now.
> 
> I guess the important thing is to do both, to improve the lot of minorities in the short term in a way that doesn't entrench capitalism in the longer term (since the end if capitalism with bring a fairer system for all of us - a seat at the feast our own labour produces, rather than ther crumbs be distributed proportionately to identity characteristics).
> 
> To be honest, at the outset, when the focus seemed to be about white privilege and the implied goal of police killings at equal rates, I thought BLM was going down the Idpol route. But, increasingly, it seems to recognise the importance of class (and that black people are over-represented in the working class) and the necessity for solidarity in the working class (regardless of race).  Now, I think that,  whilst I don't agree with every aspect of the politics or actions in the name of BLM, the movement represents an opportunity to improve the lot of all black people and all working class people (obviously a big overlap) in the short and longer terms.


I don't disagree in principle with any of that, but perhaps do in practice

Perhaps our difference is i think every struggle takes us closer, or to lower expectations from that, at least can potentially go somewhere useful. Talking in abstract without using a concrete example of a campaign, what may seem a small c conservative, liberal, continuity-capitalism campaign to you still often has merits to me. Abstracts aside youve given a concrete example, BLM, and your respone to that, so lets look at the one:

Lets say the (at least partially spontaneous) grassroots mass movement that is BLM only had an "implied goal of police killings at equal rates" - cynical though that summarisation is, lets go with that - to actually achieve that aim (far from easy) lots of things change along the way, materially, psychologically and ideologically, for all who come in contact with the campaign, and potentially way beyond that narrow end goal.  To dismiss it is.....dismissive...of how social change can happen, I think. Smaller victories can have bigger knock on effects, and lead to greater things, especially if successful. Having strategically chosen achievable aims is an important approach.

I read a book last year I liked - How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century by Erik Olin Wright - he makes a cold and i think accurate reckoning of the failures of the revolutionary left of the last century and asks strategically, where are we at now. The conclusion he comes to can be summarised as keep "_eroding_ capitalism", keep at it through the range of traditions and practices, all of which have their merits and should be tried to connect and feed into one another as much as possible. It doesn't rule out more explicitly revolutionary driven action, in fact it hopes for it, and hopes all other actions create fertile ground for that to yet happen.



> Basic summary From the Wright book:
> Four strategic logics have historically been particularly important in anti-capitalist struggles: smashing, taming, resisting, and escaping [capitalism]. Even though in practice these strategies intermingle, each of them constitutes a distinct way of responding to the harms of capitalism. We will begin by examining each of these in turn and then look at various ways in which they can be combined. I will then argue that a particular way of combining these strategies – which I will refer to as eroding capitalism -- offers the most plausible strategic vision for transcending capitalism in the 21st century
> (copied from an early draft PDF i just found online)


...."taming" (reformism) has a role to play within the wider struggle....if the "smashing" element of the wider struggle isn't as strong as it was in the 60s and 70s that's not the fault of people responding to their own particular persecutions seeking immediate reforms in whatever way feels correct to them. Best to discuss why other parts of the left are weak in separation from blaming it on "ID politics" - that blaming can fee like passing the buck and condescension.


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## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

I'm not quite what has got belboid so upset but I will point out that at no point in the last couple of pages have I ever claimed that I am in (total) agreement with Malik's opinions or politics. 

FTR I do think that Malik's politics are overly idealistic and lacking in class politics. Post 2508 was not an argument that Malik is right about everything ever but that ska invita's summary of what Mailk said was incorrect.


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## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> It doesn't rule out more explicitly revolutionary driven action, in fact it hopes for it, and hopes all other actions create fertile ground for that to yet happen.


It explicitly rules out revolutionary socialism (on the basis of a very silly strawman) as a tactic for eroding capitalism.


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## belboid (Jun 18, 2020)

Cid said:


> So... his definition of identity politics, as stated in the opening bit is: "... the idea that one's values or aspirations comes from one's specific, narrow, identity. You can think of it as the relationship between being and values. What identity politics suggests is that one's being, whether one's black or a woman, or gay, muslim or white European defines one's aspirations, one's values." which he contrasts with being arising from values.
> 
> I'm at work and am not going to watch the whole thing again now... But I'm struggling to see how that conflicts with redsquirrel 's interpretation.


That is a central part of his definition, absolutely. But it isn't one that is recognised by most people putting forward 'idpol' arguments. Racism (which he thinks was invented in the late eighteenth century - so he can make it a ‘battle of ideas’ and not a materially routed phenomenon as he would have to if he placed it, as I would (and Marx did) with the development of colonialism) isn't just an idea, or a response to an idea.


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## belboid (Jun 18, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> I'm not quite what has got belboid so upset but I will point out that at no point in the last couple of pages have I ever claimed that I am in (total) agreement with Malik's opinions or politics.
> 
> FTR I do think that Malik's politics are overly idealistic and lacking in class politics. Post 2508 was not an argument that Malik is right about everything ever but that ska invita's summary of what Mailk said was incorrect.


what has gobsmacked me is you claiming this nonsense has a materialist basis! You've said Malik supports things he explicitly rejects, and completely ignore his definition of 'identity politics' and just use it any discussion about identity related issues.   It is the complete inconsistency.


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## Athos (Jun 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I don't disagree in principle with any of that, but perhaps do in practice
> 
> Perhaps our difference is i think every struggle takes us closer, or to lower expectations from that, at least can potentially go somewhere useful. Talking in abstract without using a concrete example of a campaign, what may seem a small c conservative, liberal, continuity-capitalism campaign to you still often has merits to me. Abstracts aside youve given a concrete example, BLM, and your respone to that, so lets look at the one:
> 
> ...



I don't think we're a million miles away, to be honest.

I am not averse to the idea of taming _per se_; my only problem would be where taming in the sort term is detrimental to the prospects of 'smashing' in the longer term i.e. where reformism entrenches capitalism.  In that respect, I don't agree with the idea that every struggle takes us closer  - why would it?  I do accept, though, that many have the potential to do so, though, even where not currently based on what I would consider the right grounds.

On the specific example, I don't agree that to achieve what appeared (at least initially) to be the movement's implied aim would necessarily be an improvement; it could be most easily achieved by killing more (inevitably working class) white people!  That's why I see the more recent stuff - which increasingly recognises class, and relies less on white privilege - as more positive e.g. demilitarising police, interracial solidarity, and addressing economic inequality.  I think those things further the interests of the working class by reducing the disproportionately high rate at which police kill black people (even after controlling for class).

I've not read the book, but seen a lot of the criticism of it.  Perhaps I'll add it to the reading list.

The last point is fair.  We can't blame idpol for all the failings of 'the left'.   In fact, in some respects, the latter has caused the former.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 18, 2020)

Athos said:


> On the specific example, I don't agree that to achieve what appeared (at least initially) to be the movement's implied aim would necessarily be an improvement; it could be most easily achieved by killing more (inevitably working class) white people!


...on this point I think you've gone way too far into clever rhetorical arguing. 

I'd like to bring up one more concrete example: The Campaign For More BAME CEOs! 
Does this even exist? I don't remember hearing What do we want? More BAME CEOs! When do we want it? Now! ringing out in the streets, but lets say a group of BAME middle managers are angry at not getting a further deserved promotion and do make such a campaign. To make there be no doubt, lets say this is happening at a particularly shit racistly-exploitative company like Shell. This is an absolute worst case of ID Politics campaigning, right? Open and shut case, surely.

It would be a fight far removed from my support, however even such a deeply liberal equality-within-capitalism campaign could have at least a smidgen of reducing wider racist attitudes in the here and now, and as someone who doesn't experience racism I am no position to say it isn't worthwhile..... in fact I am happy to see racist attitudes being challenged at all levels of society, including by hypocrites and exploiters. This is a very extreme case, usually there's much more common ground.

That doesn't mean you let people off the hook, it doesn't mean you clap and cheer when neo-colonialists companies like PG Tips play the anti-racism card, however ultimately their attempt to play that card can be useful overall. There's a seeming contradiction there, but I think its possible to call them out on their colonialism whilst being happy they are slapping down UK racists so publicly. To me that's a small act of erosion. 



Athos said:


> I've not read the book, but seen a lot of the criticism of it.  Perhaps I'll add it to the reading list.


My impression is that the book starts from a position of recognising the depth of the weakness of the left, an honest account of its historic failures and shortcomings,  based on a lifetime of personal lived experience. This immediately opens it up to criticism from those who see the world more in terms of pure ideology than actually existing balances of power. I think its a realistic reflection of the here and now in a country like the UK.


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## danny la rouge (Jun 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I'd like to bring up one more concrete example: The Campaign For More BAME CEOs!


Several speakers at the Glasgow BLM protest on Glasgow Green argued precisely that.

Not that it stops me supporting BLM, or feeling generally encouraged by the worldwide response to the murder of George Floyd. Of course not.

I was particularly cheered by the statue going in the river. That was a great moment.

But some people do seem to think that ratios are a substitute for equality.


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## LDC (Jun 18, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Several speakers at the Glasgow BLM protest on Glasgow Green argued precisely that.
> 
> Not that it stops me supporting BLM, or feeling generally encouraged by the worldwide response to the murder of George Floyd. Of course not.
> 
> ...



The speeches at the Leeds BLM event were pretty much exclusively of that kind of demand as well apparently. Ditto what Danny said about that not stopping conditional support for BLM stuff though.

Which I think brings up one of the issues that is problematic about the identity politics/multiculturalism nexus; the issue of leaders and representation, especially with some 'communities' already having entrenched spokespeople and leaders ready to step up and speak for any movement they feel is theirs.


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## Athos (Jun 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> ...lets say a group of BAME middle managers are angry at not getting a further deserved promotion and do make such a campaign. To make there be no doubt, lets say this is happening at a particularly shit racistly-exploitative company like Shell. This is an absolute worst case of ID Politics campaigning, right? Open and shut case, surely.
> 
> It would be a fight far removed from my support, however even such a deeply liberal equality-within-capitalism campaign could have at least a smidgen of reducing wider racist attitudes in the here and now, and as someone who doesn't experience racism I am no position to say it isn't worthwhile..... in fact I am happy to see racist attitudes being challenged at all levels of society, including by hypocrites and exploiters.



I guess the pragmatist in me would feel the same about it as you, but I'd be concerned that the net effect might be doing more harm to both black and working class people by helping Shell paper over the cracks.  I'd also be concerned if such campaigns diverted attentions and resources from struggles - including those conducted through a lens of race - to end capitalism which would help far more black people (and white) people (specifically the working class), or meant the appointment of middle class 'community leaders' whose interests aren't necessarily aligned with most of those they purport to represent.  Apart from anything else, I'm not sure it would reduce racist attitudes in any meaningful way.


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## ignatious (Jun 18, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Several speakers at the Glasgow BLM protest on Glasgow Green argued precisely that.
> 
> Not that it stops me supporting BLM, or feeling generally encouraged by the worldwide response to the murder of George Floyd. Of course not.
> 
> ...


This is where the dogmatic nature of the left grates with so many I think Danny. Businesses are not going to stop existing anytime soon, so there will be a demand for CEOs for the foreseeable future at least.

Are we saying that people should remove themselves from these positions, or not apply for them, on account of their colour, and in deference to an abstract need to satisfy the desires of the ‘pure’ left?

Is it not self evident that having greater numbers of ‘successful’ (as defined by the mores of our time) people of colour in prominent positions, would create better opportunities and greater equality for subsequent generations?

Why, exactly, should people of colour wait for the glorious revolution to get a fair share, and if they shouldn’t wait, how do they achieve that aim without recourse to some variety of identity politics, given that the universal aims of the left seem some way from being reached?


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## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

ignatious said:


> Is it not self evident that having greater numbers of ‘successful’ (as defined by the mores of our time) people of colour in prominent positions, would create better opportunities and greater equality for subsequent generations?


No, not to me anyway. 


ignatious said:


> Why, exactly, should people of colour wait for the glorious revolution to get a fair share, and if they shouldn’t wait, how do they achieve that aim without recourse to some variety of identity politics, given that the universal aims of the left seem some way from being reached?


Again this does exactly what ska did it equates identity politics with the fight for equality. Absolutely nobody on this thread is saying that the fight for equality should be put on hold, they are discussing about the best way to go about that fight. 


ignatious said:


> Are we saying that people should remove themselves from these positions, or not apply for them, on account of their colour, and in deference to an abstract need to satisfy the desires of the ‘pure’ left?


I'm not Danny but I'd say that if you go for a CEO position then you are electing to cross the line, you will become the enemy.


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## ska invita (Jun 18, 2020)

Athos said:


> I guess the pragmatist in me would feel the same about it as you, but I'd be concerned that the net effect might be doing more harm to both black and working class people by helping Shell paper over the cracks.  I'd also be concerned if such campaigns diverted attentions and resources from struggles - including those conducted through a lens of race - to end capitalism which would help far more black people (and white) people (specifically the working class), or meant the appointment of middle class 'community leaders' whose interests aren't necessarily aligned with most of those they purport to represent.  Apart from anything else, I'm not sure it would reduce racist attitudes in any meaningful way.


This is the crux of it I think. I think, on balance, it does have the possibility of reducing racist attitudes and challenging old orthodoxies. I'm as sceptical as anyone else here though. 
I also think the cracks cant ever truly be papered over, that's not where we are in the world, so attempts to do so in vain in themselves serve a useful purpose and bring people closer to the heart of the issues.



danny la rouge said:


> But some people do seem to think that ratios are a substitute for equality.


Sad to hear about these two example from you and Lynn....a substitute, emphatically no, and it needs challenging. As a step though it's hard to argue against, especially so if you've never been held back at work on skin colour grounds.

Id expect people who are active and think it is a substitute are then much more amenable to being pushed further in their thinking. And if they're not, and they end up CEO of Shell and it's business as usual there is still there tiniest of net gains overall on some levels at least.

Obviously its no end game, and such representational goals mustn't be allowed to act as dampeners on more meaningful demands. I guess the bigger the movement (and this wave of BLM has been huge), the shallower the common denominator in terms of analysis. These arguments come out through doing though. Its all fertile ground and should be constructively supported.


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## ignatious (Jun 18, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> No, not to me anyway.


Really? You don’t believe in role models?


redsquirrel said:


> Absolutely nobody on this thread is saying that the fight for equality should be put on hold.


Given the likely timeframe of the Universal aims being met, it is the obvious consequence isn’t it?


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## danny la rouge (Jun 18, 2020)

ignatious said:


> This is where the dogmatic nature of the left grates with so many I think Danny.


I don’t think it’s dogmatic to think that “aspirational role models” like Lord Sugar do fuck all for the lot of East End working class lads called Alan; that having Thatcher or May as PM did anything for working class women; that having Obama as president did anything for working class African Americans. And so on.

The diversity of the ruling class is pretty much irrelevant to the lives of immigrant women cleaners, to my mum when she worked as an admin in a printers’, to the women I pass on Maryhill Road every day.

To me, that’s not dogma, that’s realism.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

ignatious said:


> Really? You don’t believe in role models?


I don't believe it is_ self-eviden_t (your words) that having role models leads to greater equality. Did having Thatcher as PM lead to an increased gender quality? Did Indira Ghandi improve gender equality? I certainly don't believe such claims are self-evident.


ignatious said:


> Given the likely timeframe of the Universal aims being met, it is the obvious consequence isn’t it?


I've not idea how this relates to what I (or others) have said. 
No one has argued that the fight for equality has to be pushed aside for "class war", no one has said that unless the total revolution of society can be achieved that measures that will improve racial/gender equality should not be fought for.


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## danny la rouge (Jun 18, 2020)

ignatious said:


> You don’t believe in role models?


To do what?


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## Athos (Jun 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> This is the crux of it I think. I think, on balance, it does have the possibility of reducing racist attitudes and challenging old orthodoxies. I'm as sceptical as anyone else here though.
> I also think the cracks cant ever truly be papered over, that's not where we are in the world, so attempts to do so in vain in themselves serve a useful purpose and bring people closer to the heart of the issues.


Meh, I'm unconvinced.  Not that it makes much real-world difference; neither of us would necessarily rail against it nor support it enthusiastically.


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## ska invita (Jun 18, 2020)

Athos said:


> Meh, I'm unconvinced.  Not that it makes much real-world difference; neither of us would necessarily rail against it nor support it enthusiastically.


Exactly. If it's holding other people back though that's a problem, I recognise that


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## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> what has gobsmacked me is you claiming this nonsense has a materialist basis! You've said Malik supports things he explicitly rejects, and completely ignore his definition of 'identity politics' and just use it any discussion about identity related issues.   It is the complete inconsistency.


Where does/has Mailk explicitly reject any materials basis for identity politics? Are you making this claim from what he has said in the video or from other his comments elsewhere? 

In the 1st section I transcribed he specifically outlines how the "disintegration" of wider social movements is connected with rise of identity politics (an argument he's made elsewhere too). How is that not an argument with a material basis? You might argue that the material basis is not as developed as it should be, that there is too much idealism in his arguments, ok but that is different to saying that Malik rejects any material basis for the development of identity politics.


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## chilango (Jun 18, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> To do what?



Model a role.

Which, in a Situationist sense, I guess they do perfectly.


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## ignatious (Jun 18, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I don’t think it’s dogmatic to think that “aspirational role models” like Lord Sugar do fuck all for the lot of East End working class lads called Alan; that having Thatcher or May as PM did anything for working class women; that having Obama as president did anything for working class African Americans. And so on.
> 
> The diversity of the ruling class is pretty much irrelevant to the lives of immigrant women cleaners, to my mum when she worked as an admin in a printers’, to the women I pass on Maryhill Road every day.
> 
> To me, that’s not dogma, that’s realism.


I’d guess plenty of Jewish kids in the east end feel a twinge of happiness when they see what Sugar has achieved. Likewise women and Thatcher.

I know from my own extended family the sense of strength/pride (not sure what the right word is) that was felt by many black people when Obama became president. 

That‘s realism too. Having a sense of belonging in the world matters to people.


redsquirrel said:


> Did having Thatcher as PM lead to an increased gender quality?


it probably did, yeah. Still a long way to go, but I’d imagine it made a good number of women think beyond their existing boundaries, and a good number of men question their own opinions too.



redsquirrel said:


> No one has argued that the fight for equality has to be pushed aside for "class war", no one has said that unless the total revolution of society can be achieved that measures that will improve racial/gender equality should not be fought for.


How are they fought for without recourse to identity politics though? All paths seem to lead inexorably to class war, and I just don’t see the appetite for that on anything like the scale required.


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## LDC (Jun 18, 2020)

But this elevation of some selected POC/women into positions of power isn't just neutral and a result of 'pure struggle' either is it? (And it's got nothing to do with equality really either has it?) It's given partly to defuse more radical demands, it's the soft cop of recuperation to the bad cop of repression of radical elements with those social movements.

One of the most instructive discussions I've had about the state of anti-racist struggles was with some ex-Black Panthers while in the US years ago, and they very sternly reminded me that most of the anti-racist organisations and personalities that you see now are the moderate ones that the State funded and facilitated with one hand while murdering their comrades with the other hand.


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## danny la rouge (Jun 18, 2020)

_I, for one, am delighted that Gordon Brown was born in Scotland_.


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## CNT36 (Jun 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> One of the most instructive discussions I've had about the state of anti-racist struggles was with some ex-Black Panthers while in the US years ago, and they very sternly reminded me that most the anti-racist organisations and personalities that you see now are the moderate ones that the State funded and facilitated with one hand while murdering their comrades with the other hand.


What year? Did you enter the country legally?


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## Sue (Jun 18, 2020)

ignatious said:


> I’d guess plenty of Jewish kids in the east end feel a twinge of happiness when they see what Sugar has achieved. *Likewise women and Thatcher*.


I feel more than a twinge but certainly not one of happiness.


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## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

ignatious said:


> it probably did, yeah. Still a long way to go, but I’d imagine it made a good number of women think beyond their existing boundaries, and a good number of men question their own opinions too.


You think Thatcher improved the lot of single women? Of working class women? Well we'll have to agree to disagree on that. 


ignatious said:


> How are they fought for without recourse to identity politics though? All paths seem to lead inexorably to class war, and I just don’t see the appetite for that on anything like the scale required.


Because, yet again, identity politics is *not* the same as the fight for greater equality. 

Class war is happening all the time, there are elements of class war in the BLM actions (there are also elements of identity politics). It is not a choice between class war or greater equality, the point is the to fight for greater equality via class war. 
One simple example, workers fighting to reduce/eliminate casualisation are fighting for greater gender and race equality via class war. Even if totally successful such a fight is not going to result in a transition to socialism that does not mean that most (revolutionary) socialists would not support it.


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## belboid (Jun 18, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Where does/has Mailk explicitly reject any materials basis for identity politics? Are you making this claim from what he has said in the video or from other his comments elsewhere?
> 
> In the 1st section I transcribed he specifically outlines how the "disintegration" of wider social movements is connected with rise of identity politics (an argument he's made elsewhere too). How is that not an argument with a material basis? You might argue that the material basis is not as developed as it should be, that there is too much idealism in his arguments, ok but that is different to saying that Malik rejects any material basis for the development of identity politics.


I say it because he is explicit in doing so.  His drive is defending the enlightenment and universal values.  ‘Social movements’ arent necessarily materialist, they’re frequently idealist - eg nuclear weapons are immoral.  And his view of the development of racism and ideas generally is idealist - as if it is just a debate about ideas and values, not about the material conditions of people’s lives.  That why he says racism was invented in the late eighteenth century, when ‘scientific racism’ came along, not with the creation of colonialism when all foreigners were just savages (who needed to learn the way of the lord).  It’s why he can list a number of occasions ideas did change rapidly and significantly, but fails to relate how those occasions (the ones he chose) were following capitalist crises.  

And that means he doesn’t see how ideas are open to change when they come into struggle, into conflict with the day to day realities of life. 

I still don’t recognise the ‘idpol’ as defined by Malik as being represented in most identity based struggles.  As I said, they are overwhelmingly about simply demanding the same human rights as everyone else.  About recognising that even if formal ‘equality’ is achieved there are still dozens of barriers placed in the way of oppressed people being able to take a full role even within bourgeois society.


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## redsquirrel (Jun 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> I say it because he is explicit in doing so.


OK but where is this explicit statement that reject sany materials basis on identity politics made? I don't recognise it in what I've read/heard from Malik but I'll admit I've not read all of his work.


belboid said:


> ‘Social movements’ arent necessarily materialist, they’re frequently idealist - eg nuclear weapons are immoral.


I'm not claiming otherwise, I'm saying that he links the rise of identity politics to the disintegration of wider social movements - that is linking the "material conditions of people's lives" to the development of identity politics. I the film this is not touched on in much detail but in other pieces of work he expends on it, talking about how the decay of unions, etc is linked with the rise of identity. I'd note that in the Guardian piece linked to he says


> Volatility and polarisation are expressions of the same phenomenon: the detachment of politics from its traditional social moorings. It’s an issue much discussed in recent years in the context of the rise of populism and of the shifting allegiances of working-class voters. Over the past few weeks, we’ve witnessed one of the unpredictable expressions of the current unpredictability of politics.
> ...
> As the old moorings have become detached, so politics has become driven as much by cultural or psychological anxieties as by material concerns – witness the influence of identity politics or the reframing of working-class grievances in terms of cultural loss.





> The problem of racism is primarily social and structural – the laws, practices and institutions that maintain discrimination. The stress on “white privilege” turns a social issue into a matter of personal and group psychology.





> But the heart of the problem lies in warped social relations and deformed institutional structures. As we search for new political moorings, we need to think not just of identity and psychology but of the material and the social, too.


How good a material analysis the above is is up for debate but it clearly connects material conditions to politics in some manner.



belboid said:


> That why he says racism was invented in the late eighteenth century, when ‘scientific racism’ came along, not with the creation of colonialism when all foreigners were just savages (who needed to learn the way of the lord).


 Again what are you referring to? The film, the piece in the guardian or his wider writings (and if so which)?
In the film he does not explicitly say that racism was invented in the late eighteenth century. In reply to the question of how identity politics originated he says (starting at ~1:20)



			
				Malik said:
			
		

> Well the interesting thing is that we think about identity politics as something on the left and as a recent phenomenon, I would argue that the roots of identity politics lie on the reactionary right and to understand it you have to go back to the late eighteenth century, to the counter enlightenment.
> The argument against universalism and equality coming out of the counter enlightenment were the roots of identity politics, we did not call it identity politics but that's what they were. And the biggest expression of identity politics then was that of the concept of race, the idea that ones racial type defined one's place in the world, one's rights, one's aspirations, one's needs.
> As I said we did not call it identity politics but that idea was essential to the politics of identity, that one's identity, one's being defines one's place in the world, one's values, one's aspirations, one's needs and that was applied in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century not just to racial groups but women ....


The above  can be interpreted in different ways. I'll accept that one could interpret the above as "racism was invented in the late eighteenth century", but I don't think that is the most natural interpretation, it is certainly not the only. Of the top of my head I can't remember what, if anything, Malik has said about the creation of racism, so I can't say whether your interpretation is or is not consistent with Malik's general position.


EDIT: There are two pieces, 1, 2, of Malik's on the Enlightenment and race. I'm not sure it directly addressing the claim but probably is of relevance. At the start of part 2 he summarises


> In my last post, on The Enlightenment’s “Race Problem”, I questioned the idea that the modern roots of the idea of race lie in the Enlightenment. The  relationship between race and the Enlightenment is, I argued, far more complex than much contemporary discussion allows for. It was the transformation of Enlightenment attitudes through the course of the nineteenth century that helped mutate the eighteenth century discussion of human variety into the nineteenth century obsession with racial difference. This is the story of that transformation.


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## kropotkin (Jun 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Listening at work, excellent, thanks. Although I thought the interviewer wasn't great.


No, she was very weak. Didn't seem to process any of his arguments- as in nothing he said altered what she was going to say next. It was frustrating to listen to- although as always Malik was excellent.


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## Jeff Robinson (Jun 20, 2020)

The most pervasive form of identity politics is white identity politics. Indeed, white identity politics is hegemonic in Britain. The Boris regime rules through white identity politics (aka British nationalism).


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## Shechemite (Jun 20, 2020)

Jeff Robinson said:


> The most pervasive form of identity politics is white identity politics. Indeed, white identity politics is hegemonic in Britain. The Boris regime rules through white identity politics (aka British nationalism).



what is the ‘white identity’ bit of this politics?


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## Jeff Robinson (Jun 20, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> what is the ‘white identity’ bit of this politics?



The whole racism thing.


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## ska invita (Jun 21, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> _I, for one, am delighted that Gordon Brown was born in Scotland_.



The election of Obama was a hugely significant moment. A complex one, a disappointing one, a million other things arising from it, but hugely significant, particularly for black people in the US and beyond. Im aware of the Ta-Nehesi Coates vs Cornel West reckoning of Obama, which neatly sums up the key differences in understanding his impact, but within all of that it remains an important historical and even emotional moment for many, and rightly so.


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## Shechemite (Jun 21, 2020)

rekil said:


> The shit/edgy comedian bit went on for ages and didn't even make any sense as there were no subs when the editor or whoever kept cutting to the two of them staring at the screen. Kenan Malik piece in the guardian as well. He waded through laurie's apparently unsellable piece to give her the mention.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The Yorkshire tea thing was as transparently co-ordinated as the nice holocaust denying old veteran at the BLM rally furore. Same group of people too


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## rekil (Jun 21, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Same group of people too


Collett filth or keep talking filth? Curran isn't a veteran. Just an old crank and antisemite.


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## Shechemite (Jun 21, 2020)

Yeah meant ‘type’ rather than formal group. I thought Curran was ex services?


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## butchersapron (Jun 21, 2020)

Operation harvest. Or so he'd have you believe.


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## Smokeandsteam (Jun 21, 2020)

Malik’s latest piece. His key argument is that the  ““cultural turn” of recent years has encouraged people to repose political problems as issues of culture or identity. Rather than ask “What are the policy reasons for the lack of housing and stagnating wages?” or “What are the social roots of racism and what structural changes are required to combat it?”, we look to blame the Other, demand recognition for our particular identity and tussle over symbols”









						Culture wars risk blinding us to just how liberal we've become in the past decades | Kenan Malik
					

Britain appears to be fractious, divided. And yet the nation has never been more united in its social attitudes. What’s really going on?




					www.theguardian.com


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## Steel Icarus (Jun 21, 2020)

> What began as protests about police brutality has, for some, morphed into a campaign against racist statues and controversy over an English rugby anthem.


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## killer b (Jun 21, 2020)

I'm curious about this 'review' of _Swing Low Sweet Chariot_. Who was demanding it be banned?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Malik’s latest piece. His key argument is that the  ““cultural turn” of recent years has encouraged people to repose political problems as issues of culture or identity. Rather than ask “What are the policy reasons for the lack of housing and stagnating wages?” or “What are the social roots of racism and what structural changes are required to combat it?”, we look to blame the Other, demand recognition for our particular identity and tussle over symbols”
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I agree with the thrust of that but I think he's wrong to group statues with rugby anthems. Different kinds of phenomena. In the case of the latter, it appears to be a top-down response based in many ways on confusion about what is now happening. In the case of the former,  a broad-based, multi-ethnic group defied the law to carry out a highly public direct action. Bottom-up, no confusion as to why it needed to be done. Symbolism sure but a powerful and subversive act nonetheless that was spectacularly successful. A moment to savour. 

While we of course shouldn't lose sight of the important structural issues, we also shouldn't forget to enjoy these small moments of victory.


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## killer b (Jun 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In the case of the latter, it appears to be a top-down response based in many ways on confusion about what is now happening.


I can't shake of the suspicion it's something a bit more sordid than that - an attempt to delegitimise the demands of BLM while performing a response. There is no chance that Swing Low Sweet Chariot will be banned, and reviewing it with this in mind is a ludicrous, ridiculous thing to do. It's only - and predictable - effect is to rile up fans, give opinion columnists something to get angry about, and make people who haven't been paying much attention think the whole movement must be a similar collection of ridiculous complaints.


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## The39thStep (Jun 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm curious about this 'review' of _Swing Low Sweet Chariot_. Who was demanding it be banned?


Made this point on Twitter. The only reference I could find was some desperate article in the Independent. I had a conversation with two mates in the UK that are into rugby who are decent folk and they are adamant that the song started being sung at rugby in honour  of Martin Offiah . Its a cackhanded  top down response from the RFU . The song is one of my favourite by Paul Robeson.


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## killer b (Jun 21, 2020)

My fave is this afro-jazz version by Dizzy Gillespie


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> I can't shake of the suspicion it's something a bit more sordid than that - an attempt to delegitimise the demands of BLM while performing a response. There is no chance that Swing Low Sweet Chariot will be banned, and reviewing it with this in mind is a ludicrous, ridiculous thing to do. It's only - and predictable - effect is to rile up fans, give opinion columnists something to get angry about, and make people who haven't been paying much attention think the whole movement must be a similar collection of ridiculous complaints.


Maybe. Or more ineptitude than consipracy? While this certainly hasn't been a demand from anyone in BLM from what I know, the issue of that song has come up before. I get the impression of people in high places feeling uncomfortable and an extent of do-something-itis. We shouldn't underestimate the levels of cluelessness in certain circles.

Ironically, I would have thought a big reason why that song was taken up is precisely because of the imperialist and jingoistic sentiments of the alternatives - rule britannia, great escape, etc that get sung at the football. At least they're not singing the national anthem.


----------



## killer b (Jun 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Maybe. Or more ineptitude than consipracy? While this certainly hasn't been a demand from anyone in BLM from what I know, the issue of that song has come up before. I get the impression of people in high places feeling uncomfortable and an extent of do-something-itis. We shouldn't underestimate the levels of cluelessness in certain circles.


I wouldn't ever rule out ineptitude, but it's funny how all this top down ineptitude so perfectly assists those who want to turn the debate away from more material demands.


----------



## LDC (Jun 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Maybe. Or more ineptitude than consipracy? While this certainly hasn't been a demand from anyone in BLM from what I know, the issue of that song has come up before. I get the impression of people in high places feeling uncomfortable and an extent of do-something-itis. We shouldn't underestimate the levels of cluelessness in certain circles.
> 
> Ironically, I would have thought a big reason why that song was taken up is precisely because of the imperialist and jingoistic sentiments of the alternatives - rule britannia, great escape, etc that get sung at the football. At least they're not singing the national anthem.



Don't think it's ineptitude or conspiracy, it's just that the terrain of struggle has changed into the cultural and symbolic rather than material and political, and this is following that trend?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Don't think it's ineptitude or conspiracy, it's just that the terrain of struggle has changed into the cultural and symbolic rather than material and political, and this is following that trend?


Yes, and I get the point - that this is an effective way of undermining it and neutralising wider demands. It just seems more accidental than calculated to me - a bit of a panic from various people 'upstairs', whether sports administrators or tv producers. fwiw I think football has got it right. I was quite taken aback tbh when everyone, including the refs, took the knee right after kick-off. Symbolism does matter, I think, when it's symbolism of the right kind and coming from the right place - in the case of football, they took their lead from the players.


----------



## killer b (Jun 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Don't think it's ineptitude or conspiracy, it's just that the terrain of struggle has changed into the cultural and symbolic rather than material and political, and this is following that trend?


Right - and usually the blame for this is placed on the left-wing cultural warriors - I guess watching the events of the last few weeks has made me wonder how much they're truly to blame - a movement for material change has morphed into an argument about rugby songs, ancient sitcoms and statues - and that change has not really been because of any demands by protesters - it's been because of the responses of various institutions which have chosen things which a) don't really matter, and b) which they can probably expect widespread and angry support over. 

And sure, lots of the left have got pulled into these mostly worthless debates, but it's really difficult not to: when your friends and relatives start complaining about the left-wing fascists coming for our comedies, it's really hard not to get drawn in... and so, the terrain of the struggle changes. And it's hard not to assume that's an intentional result of these kinds of institutional responses.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2020)

I agree with all that. The plop of the cheaply made, hollow statue of Colston into Bristol harbour was a joyous moment, though. No arguments, mind you, just action.


----------



## belboid (Jun 21, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Where does/has Mailk explicitly reject any materials basis for identity politics? Are you making this claim from what he has said in the video or from other his comments elsewhere?
> 
> In the 1st section I transcribed he specifically outlines how the "disintegration" of wider social movements is connected with rise of identity politics (an argument he's made elsewhere too). How is that not an argument with a material basis? You might argue that the material basis is not as developed as it should be, that there is too much idealism in his arguments, ok but that is different to saying that Malik rejects any material basis for the development of identity politics.


he makes passing, vague, mention of social movements, but that is all. Like he makes passing, vague, mention of the need for structural change.  But choose not to develop those comments.   It happens far too often for that to just be a coincidence. In the video he says (23.54 or so), in so few words, that 'racism has been there since the late eighteenth century - because (acc to Strange Fruit, the only book of his I've read) of debates within amongst liberals despairing of making real change.  Now that is clearly related to actual movements, but it is the intellectual debate he is interested in, not the movement itself.  Plus it just ignores the previous couple of hundred years of justifying slave ownership through ideology.

He follows this line with his latest, rather bland, offering (we're not really going to have some cretin posting up each one telling us its a blinding insight, are we?). Apparently BLM has just turned into a discussion group about Statues and telly. Except it isn't really, not amongst the people doing the actual campaigning (with the exception of the very long running Rhodes Must Fall campaign). If he looked past the usual bland commentators and headlines he'd see calls from black workers demanding changes to their industries, for a full recognition of how racism has affected and continues to affect workers (and the wider world). About arguing why representation does matter, why it isn't good enough just to go 'man or woman doesn't matter, its values that count'.  He'd see the demands for changes in our school curriculums and for justice for victims or racist policing. The fact he doesn't see any of these make it look rather like he is just looking for an excuse to turn against it.


----------



## belboid (Jun 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Don't think it's ineptitude or conspiracy, it's just that the terrain of struggle has changed into the cultural and symbolic rather than material and political, and this is following that trend?


As I say above, I don't think this is really true beyond some newspaper stories. Statues and tv are a quick and easy 'fix' that could be a starting point or a complete dead end. I'm happy to see the back of most of them, but its our job to make sure that doesn't become the be all and end all.


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## Edie (Jun 21, 2020)

A bit tangential to the discussion but have people from here been going to the blm protests if they are white? My eldest son has gone along twice, his two best mates are both black. I wondered about going today to show solidarity but hesitated as on the one hand want to show my support, on the other don’t want to be seen as woke and what do I as a middle aged white woman know about it- very little.


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## belboid (Jun 21, 2020)

Lots of white people are going along.  Cos showing solidarity is important.


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## campanula (Jun 21, 2020)

belboid said:


> Cos showing solidarity is important.


 Exactly so.
We are the unruly mob, rough, shambling, multifarious and fucking angry... up against the wall, backs to the sea, we can only stand together.

Apols - I am truly thick when it comes to political theory but I know this in my bones.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 21, 2020)

Edie said:


> A bit tangential to the discussion but have people from here been going to the blm protests if they are white? My eldest son has gone along twice, his two best mates are both black. I wondered about going today to show solidarity but hesitated as on the one hand want to show my support, on the other don’t want to be seen as woke and what do I as a middle aged white woman know about it- very little.


You know that it's right. That's enough.


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## Edie (Jun 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You know that it's right. That's enough.


Here they are when much smaller (they all three tower over me now but still give me a kiss!). They’ve known each other technically since baby massage in the children’s centre, then primary, secondary etc.


and with his way out of his league beautiful but very down to earth girl at prom


They all met up today to go. We were talking about their experiences of “everyday” racism the other day and I was honestly horrified to hear from my son the pure extent of it, shit like them being started on at a bus stop in town just out of nowhere aged 14 (_babies_ basically!) and all three of them having to get involved, right through to stuff I did know like how much it’s restricted their freedom (all of us mums are single mums, but only the other twos mums insisted they were in before 9pm in case they were stopped and searched). What upset me the most though was the young woman’s experience of racism by a playground monitor at primary school, who side eyed her and always treated her differently.

It’s totally different time and place to when I grew up. My kids experiences of race (even as white kids) has been totally different. I didn’t go today, but I might speak to one of the other mums about if she’s going and go with her. Anyone else been? Are they generally distanced and calm (in the uk)?


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## The39thStep (Jun 21, 2020)

It’s simple do the right thing . My son has all sort of reservations about identity politics but he knows right from wrong . He went on a protest in Manchester to show solidarity with his black mates. He said to me people need to stick together .


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## redsquirrel (Jun 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> he makes passing, vague, mention of social movements, but that is all. Like he makes passing, vague, mention of the need for structural change.  But choose not to develop those comments.   It happens far too often for that to just be a coincidence.


But your original claim was not just that Malik does not develop his argument enough with respect to material conditions (as I've already said something on which I'd agree). You went further and stated that "There is absolutely nothing about those politics being developed due to material conditions because [Malik] rejects that argument.", that is something fundamentally different and not a position that is supported by the evidence.


----------



## Shechemite (Jun 22, 2020)

Osborne on radio 4 “this has been humanity’s finest hour”

some American “thats extremely privileged”

we did this to ourselves


----------



## brixtonscot (Jun 22, 2020)

Quote from queer black marxist in USA , Ashon Crawley


----------



## CNT36 (Jun 22, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Osborne on radio 4 “this has been humanity’s finest hour”
> 
> some American “thats extremely privileged”
> 
> we did this to ourselves


Well I never expected them to say "That's bollocks ya tory cunt" tbh.


----------



## Edie (Jun 22, 2020)

What’s interesting to me about the blm movement’s is they are largely young people, and mostly working class? I guess my son isn’t working class as I have been to uni and have a professional job plus I own our ex council house, but his mates certainly are (girlfriend prob not as her Dad owns his own shop fitting set up). Anyway, the point is that none of them have ever been involved in politics before, there was much pisstaking about the climate strikes (how DARE you) etc and certainly not political marches. Obviously this affects them directly (direct racial abuse), but their understanding of institutional racism (poorer opportunity to get a job- white vs black names- more likely to get stopped, go to prison, one of their Dads is in prison- more likely to go to their kind of school- more likely to die of covid etc etc) was very thought through.

I guess that made me think I might of been wrong in my distrust of identity politics as divisive and exclusionary?


----------



## CNT36 (Jun 22, 2020)

Edie said:


> What’s interesting to me about the blm movement’s is they are largely young people, and mostly working class? I guess my son isn’t working class as I have been to uni and have a professional job plus I own our ex council house, but his mates certainly are (girlfriend prob not as her Dad owns his own shop fitting set up). Anyway, the point is that none of them have ever been involved in politics before, there was much pisstaking about the climate strikes (how DARE you) etc and certainly not political marches. Obviously this affects them directly (direct racial abuse), but their understanding of institutional racism (poorer opportunity to get a job- white vs black names- more likely to get stopped, go to prison, one of their Dads is in prison- more likely to go to their kind of school- more likely to die of covid etc etc) was very thought through.
> 
> I guess that made me think I might of been wrong in my distrust of identity politics as divisive and exclusionary?


If it's not divisive and exclusionary it's not identity politics.


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## Athos (Jun 22, 2020)

Edie said:


> What’s interesting to me about the blm movement’s is they are largely young people, and mostly working class? I guess my son isn’t working class as I have been to uni and have a professional job plus I own our ex council house, but his mates certainly are (girlfriend prob not as her Dad owns his own shop fitting set up). Anyway, the point is that none of them have ever been involved in politics before, there was much pisstaking about the climate strikes (how DARE you) etc and certainly not political marches. Obviously this affects them directly (direct racial abuse), but their understanding of institutional racism (poorer opportunity to get a job- white vs black names- more likely to get stopped, go to prison, one of their Dads is in prison- more likely to go to their kind of school- more likely to die of covid etc etc) was very thought through.
> 
> I guess that made me think I might of been wrong in my distrust of identity politics as divisive and exclusionary?



I think you use 'class' to mean something very different from the majority of people in this thread. Most here use it with reference to the means of production i.e. whether or not you have to sell your labour power to live.

Recognising that, in the present situation (i.e. capitalism) black workers face additional challenges, and showing solidarity, isn't identity politics _per se_.


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## LDC (Jun 22, 2020)

Edie said:


> What’s interesting to me about the blm movement’s is they are largely young people, and mostly working class? I guess my son isn’t working class as I have been to uni and have a professional job plus I own our ex council house, but his mates certainly are (girlfriend prob not as her Dad owns his own shop fitting set up). Anyway, the point is that none of them have ever been involved in politics before, there was much pisstaking about the climate strikes (how DARE you) etc and certainly not political marches. Obviously this affects them directly (direct racial abuse), but their understanding of institutional racism (poorer opportunity to get a job- white vs black names- more likely to get stopped, go to prison, one of their Dads is in prison- more likely to go to their kind of school- more likely to die of covid etc etc) was very thought through.
> 
> I guess that made me think I might of been wrong in my distrust of identity politics as divisive and exclusionary?



Quite a lot to be said about class and identity politics after reading that post!

Not sure I'll get round to it but the TL;DR version is I think you're working class, and that not all struggles around sex/race/etc are identity politics. Your kids and their friends sound ace btw, you should be dead proud!


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## Serge Forward (Jun 22, 2020)

Anti racism isn't identity politics.


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## butchersapron (Jun 24, 2020)

Not sure where to put this so i'll put it on a few threads - fair bit of potentially useful stuff:

_We can’t change the world on our own, but we are willing to put expertise at the fingertips of those that share our desire to do so. Knowledge drives progress and one modest action we are taking is opening up validated scholarly content on racism and its prevention, on social and economic justice, on related educational resources and on their effects on society as a whole.

The more we know, the more effectively we can act.

We have curated some of our relevant books and journals content in this area – much of it free to view or open access – and our editorial teams will continue to collaborate with scholars and experts to __organize and publish an expanded reading list on this microsite._


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## Idris2002 (Jun 24, 2020)

Thanks for that, butchersapron - though it looks like a very mixed bag at first sight, I must say.


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## petee (Aug 15, 2020)

_In a disturbing and somewhat baffling turn of events, a DSA political education session featuring one of the nation’s most prominent Marxist intellectuals has been cancelled after coming under fire for “class reductionism” by internal critics. Class Unity condemns in the strongest terms the successful deplatforming of a lifelong socialist by unprincipled and anti-Marxist elements within the organization. We hope that this fiasco makes clear to all Marxists and to all individuals committed to open and honest debate within DSA that if we do not work together to uphold shared norms of free ideological struggle the organization will lose all capacity for it. _









						Spiraling anti-Marxism in the DSA
					

The ease with which the NYCDSA steering committee sabotaged a political education event with Adolph Reed Jr. shows that open debate is in grave danger in DSA. How will Marxists respond?




					classunity.org


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## redsquirrel (Aug 16, 2020)

FFS that is ludicrous.

This seems to be the original letter calling for the cancellation, (google doc warning)
Terrible piece, as that class unity piece says not only is the analysis terrible but there seem to be some serious misreadings, I mean 


> When Reed says, “_It cannot be stressed enough that race is not a natural category; it is a fiction, an entirely made-up idea with no grounding outside of abstract and arbitrary taxonomies—elaborate just-so stories—of human difference. Black people, therefore, cannot be disproportionately vulnerable as a generic category of racial taxonomy_.” Who is claiming that Black people are uniquely vulnerable to COVID 19 due to genetic or “natural category”?


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## Smokeandsteam (Aug 16, 2020)

I mean, how can you engage seriously with people who write stuff like this?


_What Reed and other class reductionists continue to misunderstand or overlook is that race isn't bad in and of itself. Racism is bad and needs to be destroyed. That's an important distinction that class reductionists are continually intent on denying.  The greatest flaw in Reed's logic is the idea that racism is a byproduct of capitalism. Global capitalism has historically relied on the dehumanization of black and indigenous peoples for cheap, expendable, precarious labor. The capitalist economy is not an equalizer, it needs racism to exploit, dominate, and oppress the working class. Capitalism needs racism to break ties of solidarity among workers and those who depend on workers. _


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## brixtonscot (Sep 28, 2020)

This is from introduction to Post Capitalist Desire , Final Lectures of Mark Fisher - 
"As individuals squabble over who has the most privilege on Twitter, for instance, turning on each other, the true enemy — capitalism itself — is left completely off the hook. 
It was Mark Fisher’s hope that these newly raised and yet fragmented forms of consciousness, proliferating under so-called “identity politics”, could still find common ground that included a previously disarticulated class consciousness — a collective consciousness that builds an articulated awareness of minority struggles in order to better grasp the totality of the system at large: capitalism."








						Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures - Repeater Books
					

Edited and with an introduction by Matt Colquhoun, this collection of lecture notes and transcriptions reveals acclaimed writer and blogger Mark Fisher in his element — the classroom — outlining a project that Fisher's death left so bittersweetly unfinished.  Beginning with that most fundamental...




					repeaterbooks.com


----------



## ska invita (Sep 28, 2020)

brixtonscot said:


> "As individuals squabble over who has the most privilege on Twitter, for instance


 i have yet to ever see this happen on twitter...or in real life...just how common a problem is this?


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## friendofdorothy (Sep 28, 2020)

brixtonscot said:


> This is from introduction to Post Capitalist Desire , Final Lectures of Mark Fisher -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That sounds like an interesting book, I'd like to know more about he means by 'post capitalist desire'.


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 8, 2020)

Superb article on debates around cultural appropriation. Rich, thoughtful and deeply useful.










						All Shook Up: The Politics of Cultural Appropriation - Dissent Magazine
					

In the era of global capitalism, imagining the lives of others is a crucial form of solidarity.




					www.dissentmagazine.org


----------



## Serge Forward (Dec 9, 2020)

Agreed, it's an excellent article.


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## chilango (Dec 9, 2020)

Yes. Food for thought certainly.


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## redsquirrel (Dec 9, 2020)

Yep another +1 here. 
I liked this sentence 


> A common humanity: the phrase seems quaint, anachronistic, even as I type it. But I think the restoration of the dignity and prestige of the idea is one of the tasks of the contemporary left.


I've long felt that one of the places where working class activity can be strengthened is to start re-buliding a humanism. Not just on identity politics issues but also, say, environmental issues, where too much politics comes from an almost anti-humanist perspective.


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## ska invita (Dec 9, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Superb article on debates around cultural appropriation. Rich, thoughtful and deeply useful.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its good, but i think it misses some of the more complicated cases and issues of appropriation. The Mexican food stand one sounds ridiculous, the stuff about novels is well explored, agree with all of that, - in fact usually when this stuff makes a headline its over something I consider ridiculous.

But there are times when it gets a bit more complex. For example Elvis Presley is mentioned. I think the issue with Elvis is that whilst black music at the time was ghettoised as race records etc, with Elvis it was repackaged, marketed, and cashed in on for a "mainstream" white audience. The US music world continues to have an awkward, racialised, segregated relationship with music, particularly at the business end.

Taking a musical trend that's "too black" and sticking a doe eyed white boy or girl, repackaging it, and selling it aggressively happens to this day. Also decisions about who to sign and promote in general. At its crudest that does feel 'offensive', though I'm not sure cultural "appropriation" is the best word for it - maybe cultural "exploitation" (for profit) is more accurate. Its complex to unpick though, as the national context/history within which these things happen is crucial.

There was an interesting case this summer with notting hill carnival where Adele got her hair braided a certain (Zulu) way and dressed up in a Jamaican flag outfit. US Twitter attacked her as a cultural appropriator - black London Twitter told US Twitter they didnt understand London carnival culture, and loved that Adele was celebrating carribean and african culture (i think importantly not for a profit motive).

Which shows that this isnt happening in a vacuum - systemic/historic/structural inequalities change how people react to these incidents - and obviously the USA is a very specific case. The author of that article is a white Scottish novelist I gather.

This leads in to a case like the native american headdresses, particularly worn by fashion models. Again, within the context of the USA it is historicaly bad taste, and also probably falls in to the cultural-financial-exploitation bracket.

With that in mind even the ridiculous Mexican food stand isn't totally straightforward. Mexicans are broadly second class citizens in the US. If a couple of middle class white women, with better access to capital, start a business with a gentrifying faux-authentic presentation, it's easy to imagine why people might get defensive. But in cases like this i think its less to do with issues of culture than it is to do with underlying racialised class and economic inequalities.... Or another way of looking at it is that in a hyper capitalist racist state like the US, monetising culture becomes one of the few ways racially marginalised people can take part in the economy, and cultural appropriation becomes another level of suppression and exploitation.


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## kabbes (Dec 9, 2020)

Culture has been the focus of my study this year, one focus being on the differences between cross-cultural and sociocultural approaches.  It strikes me that cultural appropriation belongs to a cross-cultural mindset — that culture is something that exists “out there”, overlaid onto our selves.  It doesn’t stand well with the more recent movement towards sociocultural approach of culture being part of the mind’s framework through which experience is mediated (I say recent but this is also the West rediscovering Vyrgotsky).

Interested in any views about this from those who have rather more experience in it than me?


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## alsoknownas (Dec 9, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Superb article on debates around cultural appropriation. Rich, thoughtful and deeply useful.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think there's an essential lack of perspective here.

For me these defences against charges of appropriation always seem to focus on the potential loss of freedom of expression, rather than seeking to truly understand the perspective of the cultural originators.

The crime of cultural expression is not that people are drawing inspiration from new places - that's always been a wonderful thing (obviously); it's that often times the originators simply have not had the opportunity to profit from, or sometimes even celebrate that culture themselves in the wider society.

The pain is not that White America discovered, and fell in love with rhythm and blues; the pain is that so many Black writers and musicians were left penniless and discarded in its wake.

Now I happen to think that cussing out White women who choose to wear cornrows is a terrible shame - a nearside targeting of people who actually want to engage and participate in a culture they admire.  But I get the pain.  It goes a bit like this I imagine -_ I get bombarded with images of White beauty from the first steps of childhood, held up against it, judged by it, struggle with it, imitate it.  Finally I find a way to remove myself from that loop of deliberate societal racist uglification by creating my own styles, my own aesthetics, and by honouring my own natural beauty.  And then you - casually take it on - while still benefiting from all of the 'White beauty' prejudices and access that you had bestowed on you in the first place!_

That's an example of a charge of 'cultural appropriation' that I'm not 100% behind, but I can still fully understand why it provokes such a powerful response.

This stuff is no joke.  The article talks about people being told to 'stay in their lane', and then brings up Dana Schutz.  It would benefit from making reference to the fact that the Till killing was a dark 'artwork' itself - a deliberate signalling to Black Men in particular to _'stay in their lane'_, through the medium of murder and mutilation.  The pain of that event for Black people worldwide is clearly unfathomable to many in the wider society.  I'm forced to ask - if a gentile artist decided to include gruesome depictions of holocaust victims in their work, do you think it would deserve to stand unchallenged?
That's the kind of measure of emotional response that Black people around the world have towards the Emmett Till murder.  In my opinion it was a clumsy intervention by Ms Schutz.

The article orbits around the pain felt by artists suddenly having to curtail their instincts and hem in their expression, but falls short in recognising the depth and breadth of pain felt by the donor communities.

You end up in some pretty ludicrous places - appropriation as a bedrock of American cultural development - well, yes, but as if that has led to an enlightened society!



> Indeed, for all their traditional antagonisms and obvious differences, the so-called black and so-called white people of the United States resemble nobody else in the world so much as they resemble each other.


Well, maybe, if you conveniently completely ignore the massive economic and stakeholder differences .

The last part of the article is actually the part I find most objectionable.  A kind of well-we're-all-at-it-anyway dismissal of super-exploitation as an excusable by-product of living in a capitalist society.  There are much worse things going on it says - textile workers, union-busting, etc.

No.  Something is either an exploitative practice or it isn't (though of course there always needs to be room to argue the toss).  The whataboutery that follows does nothing to dilute it.  There is an explicit recognition in the article that inequality and power imbalance are being leveraged in many of these cultural transactions.  Not only is this the kind of thing that should alert socialist concerns anyway, it is really disturbing to see a culture emerge on the left to further try to negate and silence these concerns.  Where people feel exploited it's vital that voices are at the very least seriously considered.  It's a shame that even needs to be reiterated.

I'll go a little further and say that this kind of perspective blindness litters a lot of the thinking around identity politics for me.  It's always about deferring our immediate needs in the wake of some imagined greater good.  In the meantime, the people making the critical analysis already have access to many of the things we are desperately trying to organise for.

Like the quoted Lauren Michele Jackson (whose snippets seem to make the most sense to me) says:



> “Appropriation is everywhere, and is also inevitable. . . .



But that doesn't mean it is without responsibility or a duty of awareness.


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## Shechemite (Dec 16, 2020)

The ‘Giving people responsibility bit’ sounds a bit recovery model. 

More transparency in the NHS and social care would be welcome


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## alsoknownas (Dec 17, 2020)

Truss is all about a return to 'old values'.  3 R's type stuff.  Nothing really interesting about it.  I can't believe any on here would take any cues from her utterances, even if they were anti-IP.


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## Shechemite (Dec 17, 2020)

It’s not about ‘taking cues’. It’s about trying to understand how politics is shifting and how best to respond to that. Her talking points are highly unlikely to result in any positive change, but even then it’s better to know what’s going on surely?


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## alsoknownas (Dec 17, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> It’s not about ‘taking cues’. It’s about trying to understand how politics is shifting and how best to respond to that. Her talking points are highly unlikely to result in any positive change, but even then it’s better to know what’s going on surely?


Fair enough.  It seems to me to tie in quite neatly with her 'people should be studying maths not media studies' back-to-basics philosophy.  Calls to mind Randian notions of individual freedom being the real kindness and ideas of engineering equality being the real cruelty, etc.  I don't think there's much (new) on show.


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## alsoknownas (Dec 17, 2020)

Truss today being called out for her record on trade advisor appointments, which thus far have been 95% white, and 75% male.  When she talks about 'choice, opportunity, individual humanity', etc. what she really means in practice is more of the same old status quo, and if you're not already part of the privileged set then you've got no chance.









						Liz Truss' Record of Picking White Male Business Advisers Criticized |  Liz truss - Digis Mak
					

The Labor Party has accused Liz Truss of setting an "appalling standard" on equality in government after it emerged that of the more than 250 business advisers she has appointed, less than a quarter are women and 95% are white.The analysis comes before Truss, who is Minister for Women and…




					digismak.com
				




Now I know that her attack on identity politics is coming from an abruptly different angle from someone like, say, Kenan Malik, but the core element of my contention is on display here.

I broadly agree that the highest goal of political action and understanding should be directed at dismantling the system that maintains inequality in the first place.

But where I think people (who totally oppose IP wherever it emerges) are being short-sighted is in under-valuing the urgent need that people have to come together and fight the immediate inequalities that face them, and the facilitating of insight and motivation that peer solidarity provides towards that.

Of course, it would be ideal if all of these 'micro-struggles' (not so micro for the people involved of course!) could always take place within the context a of wider class movement.  But - _reality check_ - similar to Truss offering 'dignity' while serving up exclusion, I've experienced marginalised groups having to organise their own way of fighting back, their own way of discussing things, their own way of identifying discrimination, because there isn't (and can't be) the same level of insight or direction from the 'concerned left'.  

I can only talk as a Black person that has moved lightly in and out of involvement with politics over the years, but I've seen enough to be sure that - minority concerns often get side-lined or trivialised in political meetings and events; many right-on people have no idea how much racism they have internalised and are carrying with them (I can only imagine that is true of other 'isms' too); similar problems of societal privilege and hierarchies are, naturally, intact in many left forums.

If there was a similar level of enthusiasm for taking up, unprompted, struggles at the core of black communities, or that were say, immediately affecting women, as there is for negating the brands of politics that aim to directly empower and voice them, then I'd be much more convinced.  But I'm really not.


----------



## Favelado (Dec 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> (I say recent but this is also the West rediscovering Vyrgotsky).



Vygotsky - scaffolding and the ZPD are key themes in language teaching. He's always been in fashion at least in that little niche. Interesting to see him pop up here.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 18, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Vygotsky - scaffolding and the ZPD are key themes in language teaching. He's always been in fashion at least in that little niche. Interesting to see him pop up here.


I’m curious — when you say “always”, do you genuinely mean ever since Vyrgotsky wrote about it in the 1930s?  Or does it date from the 1970s, which is when a bunch of his works were translated into English and started to gain traction in the West?  He got quite popular by the late 1970s and had a big influence through the 80s and 90s.  (Then he faded a bit out of fashion but got really popular again in another “rediscovery”, which is his “revisionist revolution” that began in about 2010)


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## Favelado (Dec 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I’m curious — when you say “always”, do you genuinely mean ever since Vyrgotsky wrote about it in the 1930s?  Or does it date from the 1970s, which is when a bunch of his works were translated into English and started to gain traction in the West?  He got quite popular by the late 1970s and had a big influence through the 80s and 90s.  (Then he faded a bit out of fashion but got really popular again in another “rediscovery”, which is his “revisionist revolution” that began in about 2010)



Excuse me.  I meant, Always in my time in the field. If you look at any books for DELTA-level EFL materials for teachers published from the early-mid 2000s the ZPD is invariably mentioned, so definitely pre-2010. When I look through academic papers for EFL, I've definitely seen regular references to him from* way* before 2010 as well. I'll have to look at dates, but I've got a feeling that when European language teaching shifted to CLT in the 70s, his influence will have grown as the new emphasis on communication matches his ideas about the ZPD. If you're saying a lot of his work was translated then that makes sense.

Very closely linked to the ZPD is the idea of 'scaffolding' for learner support, which came about in the 60s, so I'd say one way or another, his influence on modern language teaching stretches back 50 years in one way or another.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Dec 19, 2020)

Favelado said:


> 'll have to look at dates, but I've got a feeling that when European language teaching shifted to CLT in the 70s



Cross-laminated timber?


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## Favelado (Dec 19, 2020)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Cross-laminated timber?




He he. 

Communicative Language Teaching.


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## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

Vygotsky is my homeboy
I did a poster as part of my PGCE and it showed the "learning journey" - and the guide was an owl called Vygotsky


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## alsoknownas (Dec 19, 2020)

I feel like valuable opportunities are missed when grassroots voices and protests are dismissed because they contain elements that align with liberal outcomes.  Up and down the country (as a consequence of BLM) ideas like 'Marxism' and 'defund the police' are being discussed on footy forums, etc.  For a lot of young people particularly this will be the first time they've even seen these notions considered to any serious degree.  To just turn your nose up at it all seems like a big misstep.  I think that the energy and thinking that leads people to stand up for injustices they are directly reeling from can (and often does) lead to a wider consciousness around structural oppression.


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 20, 2020)

alsoknownas said:


> I feel like valuable opportunities are missed when grassroots voices and protests are dismissed because they contain elements that align with liberal outcomes.  Up and down the country (as a consequence of BLM) ideas like 'Marxism' and 'defund the police' are being discussed on footy forums, etc.  For a lot of young people particularly this will be the first time they've even seen these notions considered to any serious degree.  To just turn your nose up at it all seems like a big misstep.  I think that the energy and thinking that leads people to stand up for injustices they are directly reeling from can (and often does) lead to a wider consciousness around structural oppression.



I’m not sure I recognise the point you make. I’ve not seen any turning of noses up here.

However, it’s right - especially given that this is a message board and a theory forum - that people can dig into matters with greater detail.

It’s right to examine what demands are raised and where they might lead and who stands to benefit from them. It’s a good idea to understand what is being constructed, by who and for what purpose. It’s also critical that we understand why some of the narratives being constructed have been seized on and championed so enthusiastically by the opposition. Why? For what ends and purposes?

Most importantly of all, we should remember, as Paul Gilroy write that “different patterns of racial activity and political struggle will appear in determinate historical conditions. They are not conceived as a straightforward alternative to class struggle at the level of economic analysis, but must be recognised to be potentially both an _alternative_ to class consciousness at a political level and as a factor in the contingent processes in which classes themselves are formed”.


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## danny la rouge (Dec 20, 2020)

alsoknownas said:


> To just turn your nose up at it all seems like a big misstep.


I think it would be. But I don’t see it happening here.


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## alsoknownas (Dec 20, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I’m not sure I recognise the point you make. I’ve not seen any turning of noses up here.





danny la rouge said:


> I think it would be. But I don’t see it happening here.


Yes, I've been re-reading the middle part of the thread the past couple of days and I'm a lot more encouraged.  To be honest I found that Dissent article (on cultural appropriation) quite scarily off the mark and was surprised it was getting such good reviews.  But I'll admit - there are a wider range of views on BLM than I had garnered at the time.  Much more that I'm eager to discuss...


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## alsoknownas (Dec 21, 2020)

Kenan Malik on Truss's speech, and he's spot on that it is bland and substance-free fare.  Part of a 'faux-egalitarian agenda' that proposes nothing to redress actual inequalites.









						The Tory ‘class agenda’ is a culture war stunt that will leave inequality untouched | Kenan Malik
					

Equalities minister Liz Truss claims that the government will dump ‘woke orthodoxy’ for the politics of fairness. But where are the policies?




					www.theguardian.com
				




But clearly we are in for some kind of attempted 'culture war'. Will any of it stick? Is it too late now for conservatives to try to turn the ship around on cultural 'righteousness' in the wider sphere?

For instance - there's a pitch here (nothing new of course) to make the 'white working class' the forgotten cause.  Malik neatly points out what a vicious piece of hypocrisy this is, but will it find success?  I could see sentiments like this potentially pushing people away from left wing ideas and towards a Tory-led world view that appears to champion them.

Thankfully I can also see the whole thing falling flat on it's arse  .  The ideas are not very strong, and Truss does not seem anywhere near as incisive as the people squealing around her seem to think.  I think her back story is a big part of what makes the party so excited about her.


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## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

Does Malik ever recognise the role of his former comrades in the RCP with their role in the shaping of the _faux egalitarian agenda_ of Truss' speech?


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## alsoknownas (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Does Malik ever recognise the role of his former comrades in the RCP with their role in the shaping of the _faux egalitarian agenda_ of Truss' speech?


In what respect?


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## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

alsoknownas said:


> In what respect?


The most vigorous and vocal advocates of the _Faux Egalitarian Agenda_ he outlines in the article are his former comrades-in-arms. I've read a lot of Malik's articles over the years, and those guys never seem to feature (or haven't in any I've read) - despite them being one of the main drivers of this ideology in the media, and despite a number of them now being in Downing Street itself (and, I suspect, on Liz Truss' speechwriting team). 

I think it's an odd omission, and I sometimes feel that Malik might be the left flank of the former RCP tendency rather than having left them behind. That might be unfair, and as I say I often find his analysis useful - and of course he's not responsible for anything the people he used to organise with do. But... he still moves in a lot of the same circles - panellist on the Moral Maze, a regular named speaker at the Batttle of Ideas... hard to shake the feeling. So I was wondering if there had been much more detail about his criticism of the faux egalitarian agenda, and how it's found it's way to prominence in the UK in the last decade or so.


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## alsoknownas (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> The most vigorous and vocal advocates of the _Faux Egalitarian Agenda_ he outlines in the article are his former comrades-in-arms...


Interesting.  Pardon my ignorance, but did the RCP itself completely change course at one point?  Are the people you're talking about complete convertniks like Truss (assuming she ever held left wing views as an adult - not sure if she did or not) ?

My family were quite involved in MIlitant at the time, so would have probably been viewed as 'co-opted' by the likes of RCP.

I found this (from Wiki, about RCP) odd:


----------



## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

The RCP had, by the time I firstencountered them in the early 90s, moved from their Trot origins to a contrarian-for-the-hell-of-it tryp position infused with an enthusiasm for the kind of libertarianism of the right.

Would be interesting to know when they first started getting funded by the likes of the Koch brothers.


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## 8ball (Dec 21, 2020)

I remember being on an anti-Nazi demo around 1994 and the RCP contingent on my bus had clearly missed the memo about being right-wing at that point.


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## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I remember being on an anti-Nazi demo around 1994 and the RCP contingent on my bus had clearly missed the memo about being right-wing at that point.



At the big Welling demo they were greeting people getting off coaches with clipboards and arguments about why we shouldn't be having demos like this.


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## 8ball (Dec 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> At the big Welling demo they were greeting people getting off coaches with clipboards and arguments about why we shouldn't be having demos like this.



I'm now wondering whether this was a small hold-out.  There were only two of them.
It wasn't the Welling one - no trouble at all.  Was early summer.


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## hitmouse (Dec 21, 2020)

alsoknownas said:


> Interesting.  Pardon my ignorance, but did the RCP itself completely change course at one point?  Are the people you're talking about complete convertniks like Truss (assuming she ever held left wing views as an adult - not sure if she did or not) ?


For a shortish summary, see:
*The Revolutionary Communist Party, Living Marxism and the road to free speech absolutism    *
*The RCP's long march from anti-imperialist outsiders to the doors of Downing Street *
If you feel like a longer read, Who Are They? Jenny Turner reports from the Battle of Ideas is the classic.


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## alsoknownas (Dec 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> At the big Welling demo they were greeting people getting off coaches with clipboards and arguments about why we shouldn't be having demos like this.


I was at that demo, blissfully ignorant to all that!


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## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I'm now wondering whether this was a small hold-out.  There were only two of them.
> It wasn't the Welling one - no trouble at all.  Was early summer.



I guess some of their members were more peripheral. As late as 94 I met at couple of RCP members at Earth First! stuff - despite their organisation's virulent anti-environmentalist turn.


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## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

alsoknownas said:


> Interesting.  Pardon my ignorance, but did the RCP itself completely change course at one point?  Are the people you're talking about complete convertniks like Truss (assuming she ever held left wing views as an adult - not sure if she did or not) ?


Truss wasn't involved with the RCP (as far as I know!), although she was a Lib Dem at university. 

The RCP (or it's successor organisation/s) did change course, and it's members & ex members changed course wholesale - Malik is something of an outlier, at least as far as the high-profile members are concerned.


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## alsoknownas (Dec 21, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> For a shortish summary, see:
> *The Revolutionary Communist Party, Living Marxism and the road to free speech absolutism    *
> *The RCP's long march from anti-imperialist outsiders to the doors of Downing Street *
> If you feel like a longer read, Who Are They? Jenny Turner reports from the Battle of Ideas is the classic.


Perfect.  Thanks.


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## alsoknownas (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Truss wasn't involved with the RCP (as far as I know!), although she was a Lib Dem at university.


Yeah, I was more thinking about her lefty folks, and being dragged to meetings as a kid and that.


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## hitmouse (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Truss wasn't involved with the RCP (as far as I know!), although she was a Lib Dem at university.
> 
> The RCP (or it's successor organisation/s) did change course, and it's members & ex members changed course wholesale - Malik is something of an outlier, at least as far as the high-profile members are concerned.


Thinking about it, Heartfield has a kind of in-betweeny position - I don't think he's anywhere near as respected on the left as Malik, but I think he does kind of argue "AS A MARXIST" a fair bit and seems kind of more involved with lefty debates than most of that lot. Published a fairly lefty-sounding book on Zero in the last decade, and I think before Zero went really down the drain, that sort of thing.


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 21, 2020)

Whilst this focuses on BLM it’s also a contribution to the debate about the personalisation of political outlooks, a marked retreat away from battles and struggles happening literally in the  street/workplace round the corner and the sense that, at root, much of what is termed as ID politics is a globalised and performative process that “obliterates national political cultures, and even their own traditions of anti-racism, in favor of a US template that hardly ever maps onto local antagonisms”.

A liminal opting out from the grind of contingent and uphill battles closer to home in favour of some imagined participation in a battle thousands of miles away. The article is spot on about the importation of American language and symbols and about the nostalgia that perhaps makes this form of ‘politics’ attractive for whom politics is an intensely personal structure of feeling









						The Triumph of American Idealism - Damage
					

In worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, protestors are fantasizing their participation in America's problems, and in the process ignoring their own.




					www.damagemag.com


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Does Malik ever recognise the role of his former comrades in the RCP with their role in the shaping of the _faux egalitarian agenda_ of Truss' speech?



Why don’t you ask him? He normally replies to tweets it seems. To be fair to him, if I’d been in the RCP I’d prefer to forget it had ever happened too....


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

fuck national political cultures though. It was those very national political cultures which opened up the playing field for identity politics - and, really, America's imperialism when it comes to idpol, but the left is too unwilling to criticise the nation state - even though the class relationship is present within the value form as such.

I like to perversely misquote the afropessimists on this. to see class is to see all class everything. Not to see nation, or even state anti-racism.

I'm surprised more people haven't read this re blm: Why Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati Is Changing Its Name


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> Thinking about it, Heartfield has a kind of in-betweeny position - I don't think he's anywhere near as respected on the left as Malik, but I think he does kind of argue "AS A MARXIST" a fair bit and seems kind of more involved with lefty debates than most of that lot. Published a fairly lefty-sounding book on Zero in the last decade, and I think before Zero went really down the drain, that sort of thing.



Everyone can be a marxist these days, including those who argue that we must respect the will of a popular democratic referendum of 'the people.' 'The people' of course is an abstraction of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and has no grounding in the writings of Marx, but hey-ho.


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## 8ball (Dec 21, 2020)

dialectician said:


> I'm surprised more people haven't read this re blm: Why Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati Is Changing Its Name



Nope, haven't read it.
Reading it now...


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## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Why don’t you ask him? He normally replies to tweets it seems. To be fair to him, if I’d been in the RCP I’d prefer to forget it had ever happened too....


nah, it's a question he'll get asked often enough. If there's no answer to it already out there, then I doubt I'd get one direct. Plus I deleted my politics twitter account and I don't want to end up getting sucked back in on my music account.

If he wanted to forget his membership of RCP then why appear at their conferences and write for their publications? (he hasn't admittedly had a byline in Spiked! since 2009, but it's not as if it wasn't clear then what they were about)


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Nope, haven't read it.
> Reading it now...



important point here:



> This was a huge blow to the struggle for Black trans rights, because it fit perfectly into the false, transphobic narrative that that marginalized grouping has “an agenda” at odds with Black liberation for all. While BLM is an organization that centers Black queer and trans rights, it DOES NOT represent queer and trans Black people as a whole.
> 
> Families, who were very gracious under those conditions, were pushed so far out of the conference politically that even their workshops (which were informative and powerful) were sideline issues and a tiny percentage of workshops on the whole. It would have been very easy to weave the important questions of gender sovereignty into the event in an organic and meaningful way. It was a moment that could have educated layers of people new to that struggle. Instead, it caused a veneer of resentment.
> There have been similar stories of betrayal told by families and activists involved in fights from California to Boston and from to Minneapolis and Baltimore.
> Furthermore, in every police brutality case we’ve witnessed, BLM refuses to call for the jailing of killer cops. This is a universal demand of families whose loved ones have been killed by police.


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> If he wanted to forget his membership of RCP then why appear at their conferences and write for their publications? (he hasn't admittedly had a byline in Spiked! since 2009, but it's not as if it wasn't clear then what they were about)



Friendships and old loyalties? When I left the militant I remained in its periphery for two years because there were people in it who were mates and who I rated and respected even though I’d concluded Trotskyism and the endless Party building was shite


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## hitmouse (Dec 21, 2020)

dialectician said:


> important point here:
> ...Furthermore, in every police brutality case we’ve witnessed, BLM refuses to call for the jailing of killer cops. This is a universal demand of families whose loved ones have been killed by police.


This might be off topic, but fwiw that point actually sort of makes me feel a bit more sympathetic to them, and makes BLM national sound a bit more in tune with where the movement's arrived at this year. I mean, if your argument isn't just about a few bad apples but about an entire system, if you aim to be an abolitionist or whatever, then you do sound a bit silly asking for the Good Cops to arrest the bad cops so the Good Prosecutors can prosecute them and then sentence them to the Good Prisons. No?


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## 8ball (Dec 21, 2020)

Good Prisons?


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> This might be off topic, but fwiw that point actually sort of makes me feel a bit more sympathetic to them, and makes BLM national sound a bit more in tune with where the movement's arrived at this year. I mean, if your argument isn't just about a few bad apples but about an entire system, if you aim to be an abolitionist or whatever, then you do sound a bit silly asking for the Good Cops to arrest the bad cops so the Good Prosecutors can prosecute them and then sentence them to the Good Prisons. No?



I think police abolition on its own is an empty and abstract demand. However when that criticism turns into voting for Joe Biden...

So yes, I do have criticisms of that article which can't seem to break from the amerocentrism of BLM national.

I do object to the concept that what we need is more national political culture though. All that will do is resurrect old ghosts of social democracy and reinvert identity politics, not abolish it. Like it or not, the yearning for localisation is petit-bourgeois shopkeeper ideology. We live in a globalised international capitalist system at the height of its maturity and even quantitatively different to what it was 70 years ago. Our struggle can only start out from the international. There are relatively few (remote) parts of the world which are pre-capitalist at the moment.


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## 8ball (Dec 21, 2020)

Did you mean qualitatively different?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Did you mean qualitatively different?



No, quantitatively. it's still the same capitalism in terms of qualities, it's just that the capitalist state-form worldwide has expanded its quantitative scope, especially after WW II and the decolonisation and national liberation movements.



> In the light of today, nineteenth century capitalism appears to have been an ‘undeveloped’ capitalism, not fully emancipated from its feudalistic past. Capitalism, challenging not exploitation but only the monopolistic position of a particular form of exploitation, could truly unfold itself ‘within the shell’ of the old society. Its revolutionary actions were aimed at governmental control merely in order to break through feudalism’s restrictive borders and to secure capitalistic liberties. The capitalists were thoroughly occupied with and satisfied by their extension of world trade, their creation of the proletariat and industry and their accumulation of capital. ’Economic freedom’ was their chief concern and as long as the state supported their exploitative social position, the state’s composition and separateness were none of their concern.
> The relative independence of the state was not a main characteristic of capitalism, however, but merely an expression of capitalistic growth within incomplete capitalistic conditions. The further development of capitalism implied the capitalisation of the state. What the state lost in ‘independence’ it gained in power; what the capitalists lost to the state they regained in increased social control. In time the interests of state and capital became identical, which indicated that the capitalist mode of production and its competitive practice were now generally accepted. State-wide, nationally-organised capitalism made it apparent once more that it had subdued all opposition, that the whole of society, including the labour movement -- and no longer merely the capitalist entrepreneurs -- had become capitalistic. That the capitalisation of the labour movement was an accomplished fact was manifest in its increasing interest in the state as the instrument of emancipation. To be ‘revolutionary’ meant escaping the narrow ‘trade union consciousness’ of the period of Manchester-capitalism, fighting for the control of the state and increasing the latter’s importance by extending its powers over ever wider areas of social activity. The merging of state and capital was simultaneously the merging of both with the organised labour movement.







__





						Spontaneity and Organisation by Paul Mattick 1949
					





					www.marxists.org


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 21, 2020)

dialectician said:


> fuck national political cultures though. It was those very national political cultures which opened up the playing field for identity politics - and, really, America's imperialism when it comes to idpol, but the left is too unwilling to criticise the nation state - even though the class relationship is present within the value form as such.



I’d argue the opposite is the case. The left cannot _engage _intellectually or politically with the nation state. It’s why it got Brexit so wrong.

I think the way to approach this question isn’t about where you’d want to end but where you begin. On that basis we can say two things: 1. The nation state remains a critical, possibly even the most critical, way that capital arranges itself and achieves ‘consent’. second, most people view the world through the prism of the nation state and community imagined or constructed or otherwise. Certainly most working class people do.

If that’s where we start from, and I think we have to, then we can move from there. Starting from a point of ‘fuck the nation state’ takes us not very far in my experience


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I’d argue the opposite is the case. The left cannot _engage _intellectually or politically with the nation state. It’s why it got Brexit so wrong.
> 
> I think the way to approach this question isn’t about where you’d want to end but where you begin. On that basis we can say two things: 1. The nation state remains a critical, possibly even the most critical, way that capital arranges itself and achieves ‘consent’. second, most people view the world through the prism of the nation state and community imagined or constructed or otherwise. Certainly most working class people do.
> 
> If that’s where we start from, and I think we have to, then we can move from there. Starting from a point of ‘fuck the nation state’ takes us not very far in my experience



perhaps, but isn't this what rank-and-file labour party people also say? and as we can see all their attempts to engage with the nation state have led to nothing but capitulation and reneging on basic principles. The question isn't fuck the nation state - although that's my personal position granted, but how to ensure that people don't renounce fundamentals. I just don't think anyone has offered a convincing way of how that can be done in political party formations.


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 21, 2020)

dialectician said:


> perhaps, but isn't this what rank-and-file labour party people also say? and as we can see all their attempts to engage with the nation state have led to nothing but capitulation and reneging on basic principles. The question isn't fuck the nation state - although that's my personal position granted, but how to ensure that people don't renounce fundamentals. I just don't think anyone has offered a convincing way of how that can be done in political party formations.



The key difference between us and the Labour Party of course is that Labour not only thinks the nation state is inevitable but also, under pressure, always puts the ‘national interest’ above the interests of the class. A critical point.


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> The key difference between us and the Labour Party of course is that Labour not only thinks the nation state is inevitable but also, under pressure, always puts the ‘national interest’ above the interests of the class. A critical point.



Sure, but I'm arguing that labour unconsciously has no choice but to put the national interest above the interest of the class. I'm asking how one can engage with the nation state - unless you're arguing that this engagement won't take the form of political parties.

Or put it in a phrase from Mattick, how do you ensure a working class labour movement is not capitalised?

For instance, I agree that the labour party is not really social democratic (in the European mould) - the closest we had was the BSP, but the European social democracy also voted for war credits, whilst advocating proletarian internationalism during peacetime!


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## Smokeandsteam (Dec 21, 2020)

I’m most definitely arguing it won’t take the form of political parties.


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I’m most definitely arguing it won’t take the form of political parties.



What form do you envision it taking then? Obviously, saying just 'fuck the state' is insufficient, but communists disdain to conceal their aims, etc...


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## 8ball (Dec 21, 2020)

dialectician said:


> No, quantitatively. it's still the same capitalism in terms of qualities, it's just that the capitalist state-form worldwide has expanded its quantitative scope, especially after WW II and the decolonisation and national liberation movements.



Fair enough - just figured the quantitative difference would be obvious given differences in timescale - hence maybe you meant the other one.


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Fair enough - just figured the quantitative difference would be obvious given differences in timescale - hence maybe you meant the other one.



It is obvious but I don't think the left has really come to terms with it, hence the afterlife of anti-imperialism to liberate the oppressed from feudal comprador domination, even though that basically never applies in these cases.

In this sense, the traditional post-war left allowed identity politics to fester, especially its Maoist varieties in the US.


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## ManchesterBeth (Dec 21, 2020)

The language of  oppression is also straight out of Stalinist-maoism, oppressed nations and the like. This is the language of a technical intelligentsia wanting liberation from a colonial aristocracy. In the US, given no such aristocracy existed, this became a new form of middle class career consolidation. Goldner talks about it quite a bit here.



> But Elbaum does put his finger on the fact that the Third World Marxist- Stalinist- Marxist-Leninist and Maoist milieu was much more successful, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, in attracting and influencing militants of color. And he is equally right in saying that most of the Trotskyist currents, not to mention the “post-Trotskyists” to whom I was closest, were partially blind to America’s “blind spot”, the centrality of race, in the American class equation. The ISC, when I was in it in Berkeley in the late 1960’s, was all for black power, and (like many other groups) worked with the Black Panthers, but itself had virtually no black members. Trotskyist groups such as the SWP did have some, as did all the others. but there is no question that Elbaum’s milieu was far more successful with blacks, Latinos, and Asians (as was the CPUSA). To cut to the quick, I think that the answer to this difference was relatively straightforward. As Elbaum himself points out, many people of color who threw themselves into the ferment of the 1960’s and 1970’s and joined revolutionary groups were the first generation of their families to attend college, and were-whether they knew it or not– on their way into the middle class. Thus it is hardly surprising, when one thinks about it, that they would be attracted to the regimes and movements of “progressive” middle-class elites in the Third World. This was just as true, in a different way, for many transient militants of the white New Left, similarly bound (after 1973) for the professional classes, not to mention the actually ruling class offspring one found in groups such as the Weathermen. Elbaum does point out that the white memberships of many Third World Marxist groups were from working-class families and were similarly the first generation of their families to attend college. He also shows a preponderant origin of such people in the “prairie radicalism” (i.e. populism) of the Midwest, in contrast to the more “European” left of the two coasts, one important clue to their essentially populist politics. These are important social- historical- cultural insights, which could be developed much further. Charles Denby’s Black Worker’s Notebook (Denby was a member of Raya Dunayevskaya’s New and Letters group) effectively identifies the middle-class character of the Black Power milieu around Stokely Carmichael et al., as well as black workers’ distance from it; the Detroit-based League of Revolutionary Black Workers similarly critiqued the black nationalist middle class, though it was hardly anti-nationalist itself.)











						Break Their Haughty Power » Review: “Revolution in the Air” by Max Elbaum
					

<p>Without exactly setting out to do so, Max Elbaum in his book Revolution In The Air, has managed to demonstrate the existence of progress in human history, namely in the decline and disappearance of the grotesque Stalinist- Maoist- ‘Third World Marxist” and Marxist-Leninist groups and...



					breaktheirhaughtypower.org


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 23, 2020)

Good point made in the NLR paper about the States  Dylan Riley, Faultlines, NLR 126, November–December 2020


----------



## kabbes (Jan 31, 2021)

Here is something I came across that is literally identity politics, in that it is a government-commissioned report into how changing identities could influence policy.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/273966/13-523-future-identities-changing-identities-report.pdf
		


It’s a cross-disciplinary academic report, which makes it interesting reading.  They draw upon those various disciplines to conceive of identity across three overlapping dimensions — social, biographical and biometric — noting that the implications and reality of identity change across these can be qualitatively different.

This was an interesting comment regarding why identities matter to policy makers:


> Identities influence people’s behaviour, but are not necessarily predictive of behaviour, especially at the level of the individual. While identities can provide a guide to likely behaviours (for example, a worker would be expected to travel to their place of work), it is important to understand which identities could come to the fore at any particular time and disrupt behavioural patterns (for example, the worker might instead stay at home to care for their sick child). As there are many potential variables which can affect the situation, it is problematic to extrapolate in simple terms from an ‘identity’ to ‘behaviour’.



I think that is a neat encapsulation of some of the issues raised in this thread.  Identity politics tends to want to make that extrapolation, and not just in relation to behaviour either but also in terms of interests.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 31, 2021)

Meant to post this sooner (but forgot).

The article’s premise is that black and Latino Trump supporters (but really applies to anyone from a racial minority who is on the right) aren’t black or Latino people after all, but in fact are part of a new racial grouping ‘multi-racial whiteness’.

This adjustment allows a number of positions to be adopted:

1. That black and Latino people cannot hold reactionary views,
2. That the prism through which all of politics can be boiled down to is a battle between two competing identity blocs
3. Most significantly, we see that some ‘anti-racists’ have come full circle and in doing are required to adopt a set of reactionary politics that’s once designated certain groups who were once othered (the Irish, for instance) to become “white”.

Astonishing stuff.



			https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/15/understand-trumps-support-we-must-think-terms-multiracial-whiteness/


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2021)

Logical extension of that way of thinking. Whiteness and blackness are political terms after all.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Feb 14, 2021)

Another useful piece from KM, who seems to be the one ‘thinker’ in the mainstream media really digging underneath the ‘culture war’ to unearth precisely what’s going on and why.

As Malik notes here, being critical of ideas that some “may call “woke”. Of viewing white people as the problem. Of seeing racism where the problem may be other forms of discrimination. Of the concept of white privilege. Of presenting disagreement as bigotry. Of the politics of identity.
The anti-wokeness shtick that has suddenly erupted is, though, equally unattractive. Part of the problem is that so many words critical to political debate have lost meaning. Fascism. Radicalism. Racism. Words used so promiscuously that their value is only as a means of political positioning. To say “Boris Johnson heads a far-right government” or “JK Rowling is a bigot” is not to engage in discussion but to signal the tribe to which one belongs

Dismissing something as “woke” is similarly a means of marking out territory rather than engaging in meaningful debate.”


----------



## belboid (Feb 14, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Dismissing something as “woke” is similarly a means of marking out territory rather than engaging in meaningful debate.”


he gets paid to write something as bland as that?   I cant wait for his expose on the popes religion


----------



## Geoffers (Feb 14, 2021)

After Andrew Neil mentioned the 'w' word the other day, Twitter was full of Dictionary Bores proudly spending literally no time or effort investigating the fascinating reality of what 'woke' means. Did they really think American university campuses all started to mis-conjugate the verb 'to wake' wrongly? I mean really.

The truth is so much more fascinating and I am surprised that Kenan Malik quotes James Lindsay yet still doesn't understand it. As Lindsay says,

"The hard truth is this: if you don’t yet understand this, you don’t know the fight we’re in or have the slightest idea what to do about it."


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Feb 14, 2021)

Geoffers said:


> After Andrew Neil mentioned the 'w' word the other day, Twitter was full of Dictionary Bores proudly spending literally no time or effort investigating the fascinating reality of what 'woke' means. Did they really think American university campuses all started to mis-conjugate the verb 'to wake' wrongly? I mean really.
> 
> The truth is so much more fascinating and I am surprised that Kenan Malik quotes James Lindsay yet still doesn't understand it. As Lindsay says,
> 
> "The hard truth is this: if you don’t yet understand this, you don’t know the fight we’re in or have the slightest idea what to do about it."


I gave that a go. (slow day)

And nope, can't say I'm all that much the wiser. Other than that he likes writing 'woke' a lot. That and 'Critical Social Justice'. And talking about such things as if there were some group out there with membership subs and a rule book.

I'm with Malik - as soon as I hear someone using a term like 'woke' I assume there isn't going to be all that much that is worthwhile in what they subsequently say. I think that Lindsay essay may be a case in point.


----------



## belboid (Feb 14, 2021)

Nobody seriously says they’re woke, no articles on the subject have any merit really.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Feb 14, 2021)

Well from what I can make out in the Lindsay article, he appears to be warning about a position that considers the basics of argument (logic, evidence, etc) to be unnecessary, and he quotes one person to somehow prove that this is 'the fight we're in'.

I dunno. I don't have any experience of engagement with that. Sounds more like a position espousing Trumpist 'fake news' than anything to me.


----------



## hitmouse (Feb 15, 2021)

Geoffers said:


> After Andrew Neil mentioned the 'w' word the other day, Twitter was full of Dictionary Bores proudly spending literally no time or effort investigating the fascinating reality of what 'woke' means. Did they really think American university campuses all started to mis-conjugate the verb 'to wake' wrongly? I mean really.
> 
> The truth is so much more fascinating and I am surprised that Kenan Malik quotes James Lindsay yet still doesn't understand it. As Lindsay says,
> 
> "The hard truth is this: if you don’t yet understand this, you don’t know the fight we’re in or have the slightest idea what to do about it."


I think it might be that Kenan Malik, whatever other shortcomings he may have, is capable of recognising and understanding that James Lindsay is a daft twat. I did have a go at reading Lindsay's stuff, this bit quite tickled me (emphasis in original):


> Theirs [that is, the worldview held by the Evil Woke] is, very much in particular, _not liberal_.


People who are... not liberal? Whatever next?


----------



## Geoffers (Feb 15, 2021)

Except that is how some people are defining it in order to defend it.

The real definition is fascinating though isn't it? Even hypothetically. Angry young people who don't want to hear logic or evidence, don't want to discuss ideas, but are entirely focussed on _what tribe you belong to _and _how oppressed or privileged it is_.


----------



## hitmouse (Feb 15, 2021)

That first person you link to also says '"Politically correct" means "polite" and "sensitive to others feelings"'. Do you think that, based on this evidence, "politically correct" is also a precise and helpful piece of terminology to use?


----------



## mojo pixy (Feb 15, 2021)

An obvious corollary of someone calling themselves _woke _is that anyone who disagrees must be somehow _asleep_. It comes across 100% like a kind of antonym to the term 'sheeple' and IMO comes from a similar arrogant mindset. It's weaponized language.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Feb 15, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> I think it might be that Kenan Malik, whatever other shortcomings he may have, is capable of recognising and understanding that James Lindsay is a daft twat.


Yes, from what little sense I could glean from that piece, that was also my impression.


----------



## Sue (Feb 15, 2021)

I'm now aspiring to being an Evil Woke.


----------



## hitmouse (Feb 15, 2021)




----------



## hitmouse (Feb 17, 2021)

Geoffers said:


> The truth is so much more fascinating and I am surprised that Kenan Malik quotes James Lindsay yet still doesn't understand it. As Lindsay says,
> 
> "The hard truth is this: if you don’t yet understand this, you don’t know the fight we’re in or have the slightest idea what to do about it."


OK, I've now got around to reading that Malik essay, and I'm curious about what it is that you think Malik doesn't understand and he needs to learn from Lindsay. For the record, here's the part where Malik quotes Lindsay:



			
				Kenan Malik said:
			
		

> Consider the strange case of James Lindsay. An American mathematician, last year he published with Helen Pluckrose _Cynical Theories_, a critique of postmodernism and critical theory. Lindsay has a particular bugbear about woke Jews. “Extra rightwing antisemitism”, he tweeted recently, “is arising because lots of progressive Jews are nonsensically Woke.”
> 
> He claimed, too, that the Frankfurt School – a group of German and German-American Marxists that emerged in the interwar years – wanted “to end Western Civilization and is almost wholly comprised of Jews. This allows antisemites to recruit new antisemites”. Critics who rightly condemned this as blaming Jews for antisemitism were accused of spreading “smears”. An obsession with wokeness, as much as with whiteness, can make you blind.


I think that Malik is correct there, and that "antisemites are able to recruit because there really was a conspiracy of Jews who wanted to destroy civilisation" is not a helpful way of understanding and explaining the world. Is it your contention that Malik is getting it wrong, and that he needs to adopt more of Lindsay's ideas?


----------



## Jeff Robinson (May 16, 2021)

LMFAO. This is surely the nadir of this bullshit no?


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 16, 2021)

Intersectionally destabilising countries, toppling governments, coopting opposition movements, neutralising threats to capital, assassinating union leaders, running guns and trafficking drugs 👍


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 16, 2021)

Hydrotherapeutically interviewing key in-demand outreach subjects globally since 1947 😎


----------



## Shechemite (May 16, 2021)




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## Athos (May 16, 2021)

MadeInBedlam said:


> View attachment 268559


Loooooollllllll!


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## Shechemite (May 16, 2021)

Lots of tweets responding that complaining it’s a ‘misuse’ of intersectionality. That’s the real lol


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## BillRiver (May 16, 2021)

MadeInBedlam said:


> View attachment 268559



Pinkwashing.

Grim, always.


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## splonkydoo (May 16, 2021)

The outrage on twitter this week was about how this map/image 'centres' Irish people and is therefore totally unacceptable to use. 
Can you fucking imagine? These people lack basic ideas about solidarity and human empathy.


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## maomao (May 16, 2021)

splonkydoo said:


> The outrage on twitter this week was about how this map/image 'centres' Irish people and is therefore totally unacceptable to use.
> Can you fucking imagine? These people lack basic ideas about solidarity and human empathy.
> 
> View attachment 268571


I don't understand the word 'centres' in this context. And have no wish to sully myself with Twitter. Any chance of explaining?


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## splonkydoo (May 16, 2021)

maomao said:


> I don't understand the word 'centres' in this context. And have no wish to sully myself with Twitter. Any chance of explaining?


It's most often used in terms of racism, and in how white people can often centre the discussion about it around themselves instead of those actually affected.


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## BillRiver (May 16, 2021)

What is gained by placing it on a map of Ireland instead of a map of Palestine?


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## splonkydoo (May 16, 2021)

centers.... ignore my typo


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## splonkydoo (May 16, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> What is gained by placing it on a map of Ireland instead of a map of Palestine?



Do you want to guess why?


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## BillRiver (May 16, 2021)

splonkydoo said:


> Do you want to guess why?



No I want someone to tell me. That's why I asked.


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## splonkydoo (May 16, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> No I want someone to tell me. That's why I asked.



Surely you can think of at least one reason.


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## splonkydoo (May 16, 2021)

OK, maybe I am being mean. The idea is to relate what has happened to a context and geography that people are intimately familiar with. It can make the issue much more vivid, especially if one was unaware or less educated of the Palestinian struggle in general.

Maybe you are getting tied up with relating it to some wider point, but if you are resident/from Ireland I think it is a decent graphic to draw attention and I have zero idea why people would have an issue with it.


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## BillRiver (May 16, 2021)

splonkydoo said:


> I have zero idea why people would have an issue with it.



Do you want to guess why?

Surely you can think of at least one reason...

Perhaps ask those who have an issue with it, why they do?


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## Idris2002 (May 18, 2021)

Edward Said's comment on the Oslo accords was "it was as if Michael Collins had settled for Cork city and Donegal".


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## hitmouse (May 19, 2021)

New York cops are not happy about the decision to ban NYPD from commemorating the Stonewall Riots:


> “Heritage of Pride is well aware that the city would not allow a large scale event to occur without police presence. So their response to activist pressure is to take the low road by preventing their fellow community members from celebrating their identities and honoring the shared legacy of the Stonewall Riots,” says GOAL President Brian Downey. He continues: “It is demoralizing that Heritage of Pride didn’t have the courage to refer to GOAL by name in its announcement, referring to us only as ‘Law Enforcement Exhibitors.’ The label is not only offensive but dehumanizing for our members.”


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## Smokeandsteam (May 22, 2021)

60% of British people don’t know what ‘woke’ means. I think it’s fair to suggest a similar number don’t care.

A further reminder for those engaged in, or exercised by, the ‘culture war’ that it’s a game played between two sides - both directly counterposed to our interests - who should be roundly opposed and exposed. Note also the low score for those ‘who are left wing’...


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## krtek a houby (May 22, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> 60% of British people don’t know what ‘woke’ means. I think it’s fair to suggest a similar number don’t care.
> 
> A further reminder for those engaged in, or exercised by, the ‘culture war’ that it’s a game played between two sides - both directly counterposed to our interests - who should be roundly opposed and exposed. Note also the low score for those ‘who are left wing’...



Please excuse ignorance; who should be opposed and exposed? Woke folk or volk folk? Both?

Am on other sites where right wingers conflate antifa/socialism/Marxism/BLM/liberalism/pro-Palestinian/pro-LGBT rights with being "woke".

Apologies if have read your statement incorrectly.


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## Shechemite (May 22, 2021)

Is Irish nationalism woke or volk krtek a houby?


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## krtek a houby (May 22, 2021)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Is Irish nationalism woke or volk krtek a houby?


Good question.

If you mean the struggle for a 32 county socialist (and inclusive) Republic, as opposed to a small but vocal number of far right Irish nationalists?

It's entirely legitimate.


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## butchersapron (May 22, 2021)

If you think the incorporation of NI into a EU rules based ireland is or will lead to a socialist republic then you're clearly back on the glue.


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## Idris2002 (May 22, 2021)

Mmmmm. Glue.

The cause of, and solution to, all life's problems.


----------



## PTK (May 22, 2021)

butchersapron said:


> If you think the incorporation of NI into a EU rules based ireland is or will lead to a socialist republic then you're clearly back on the glue.


Can there be a socialist republic in one country?


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## krtek a houby (May 23, 2021)

PTK said:


> Can there be a socialist republic in one country?


 When Ireland is reunited, it's certainly a hope.


----------



## splonkydoo (May 23, 2021)

butchersapron said:


> If you think the incorporation of NI into a EU rules based ireland is or will lead to a socialist republic then you're clearly back on the glue.



The provo-trots are at it agin..


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 23, 2021)

PTK said:


> Can there be a socialist republic in one country?


Hmmnn. Socialism in one country. I'm surprised no-one ever suggested that before.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 23, 2021)

butchersapron said:


> If you think the incorporation of NI into a EU rules based ireland is or will lead to a socialist republic then you're clearly back on the glue.


I suspect most people assume a 32 co state will just be a larger 26 co one, that the precedent would be the two Germanies.


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## butchersapron (May 23, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> I suspect most people assume a 32 co state will just be a larger 26 co one, that the precedent would be the two Germanies.


I fear that you may be being too generous is assuming that they have thought about in that detail. It's just green rhetoric mostly.


----------



## krtek a houby (May 23, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Hmmnn. Socialism in one country. I'm surprised no-one ever suggested that before.



All countries eventually, of course


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## PTK (May 23, 2021)

krtek a houby said:


> All countries eventually, of course


There were right-wing Tories in the 1970s who claimed to believe that the Provisional IRA aimed to create "a Cuba", and thereby pose a threat to all things good in Britain.


----------



## danny la rouge (May 23, 2021)

PTK said:


> There were right-wing Tories in the 1970s who claimed to believe that the Provisional IRA aimed to create "a Cuba", and thereby pose a threat to all things good in Britain.


Even brown sauce? If a United Ireland threatens brown sauce, it can do one.


----------



## JimW (May 23, 2021)

It was an Irish bloke did the famous Che poster, maybe they were on to something.


----------



## A380 (May 23, 2021)

I could go a Country Cork cigar and rum made from the sunny sugar cane fields aroundl Coleraine.


----------



## BillRiver (May 23, 2021)

PTK said:


> There were right-wing Tories in the 1970s who claimed to believe that the Provisional IRA aimed to create "a Cuba", and thereby pose a threat to all things good in Britain.



There was a large group of political prisoners (IRA members) on H wing who were educating each other about international socialism, communism, feminism, etc. around that time.


----------



## butchersapron (May 23, 2021)

If you believe that you are too on the glue. That IRA broke with the OIRA precisely because they were getting filled in on that 'stuff'.  The right-wing background of the provos - up till right now . This  greenwash is bad bad bad.


----------



## PTK (May 23, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> There was a large group of political prisoners (IRA members) on H wing who were educating each other about international socialism, communism, feminism, etc. around that time.


Actually, the claim of which I am thinking was made before the H Blocks came into being.


----------



## krtek a houby (May 23, 2021)

JimW said:


> It was an Irish bloke did the famous Che poster, maybe they were on to something.


Jim Fitzpatrick, also did the classic Thin Lizzy album art.


----------



## krtek a houby (May 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Even brown sauce? If a United Ireland threatens brown sauce, it can do one.



You're grand, we've got Chef


----------



## JimW (May 23, 2021)

krtek a houby said:


> Jim Fitzpatrick, also did the classic Thin Lizzy album art.


I had his Lebor Gabala


----------



## Threshers_Flail (May 24, 2021)

Has anyone here read _What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition _by Emma Dabiri?

It's good, although a lot of what she covers has already been done to death on here tbh! She critiques allyship, performative/individualized nature of a lot of ID politics (especially in regards to online activism) and calls for a more coalitional approach to organising around shared interests. 

It's quite a frustrating read in that it's getting a lot of traction amongst people (anecdotally) who would've balked at some of the critiques/concerns being raised last summer. I find myself being reminded of debates I had in the past year around these topics, and get frustrated that I couldn't express myself as well as ED does! I guess a lot of people are now coming round to the debates on the limits of ID politics and are in a position to talk about them more openly.


----------



## ska invita (May 24, 2021)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Has anyone here read _What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition _by Emma Dabiri?
> 
> It's good, although a lot of what she covers has already been done to death on here tbh! She critiques allyship, performative/individualized nature of a lot of ID politics (especially in regards to online activism) and calls for a more coalitional approach to organising around shared interests.
> 
> It's quite a frustrating read in that it's getting a lot of traction amongst people (anecdotally) who would've balked at some of the critiques/concerns being raised last summer. I find myself being reminded of debates I had in the past year around these topics, and get frustrated that I couldn't express myself as well as ED does! I guess a lot of people are now coming round to the debates on the limits of ID politics and are in a position to talk about them more openly.


Yes I mentioned on the Bell Hooka thread - repeating here in case it is useful and will link the talk:

-------------
ive been thinking if i have any critical thoughts towards Aint I A Woman specifically and the only issue that comes to mind is her talking in absolute groups of "black men", "white women" etc. This is totally justified in the text and given solid historical context as these groupings are created BY slavery-racism, and she shows how the dynamics repeat and remain throughout US history.

ive just heard a talk by Irish-Nigerian author Emma Dibiri - her new book is called "What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition ". 


In the talk she went to lengths to distance herself from the title, saying the use of "White People" as a category is a "provocation", and often a successful one at that. But she wanted to make clear how it can be problematic to talk about "white people", "black women" etc etc, as if these categories have solid boundaries, and she despairs when people fall into that thinking. She said she challenges this kind of essentialising-a-group in her book, and also when encountering it in real life, and her politics seemed sound to me - strong class and anti-capitalist groundings.

Overall I dont personally have a problem with this talking about colour-gender-groups, if done properly. There are times its useful to talk about "white men" etc, and as long as it is underpinned in a more nuanced and critical context - though it definitely can carry a danger of being understood crudely and perpetuating colour-gender stereotyping.

To me this boils down to the point that to talk about racism you have to use the language of racism, and theres a degree of vicious circle in doing that. Scientifically there's no such thing as race, but racism is real, and inevitably talking about racist social dynamics adds at least some energy to racialising terms <though ideally in the spirit of destroying racism, not perpetuating it.

Supposedly bell hooks has addressed this elsewhere, I think in All About Love...would be interested to read precisely what she says

-------------


----------



## ska invita (May 24, 2021)

Threshers_Flail said:


> I guess a lot of people are now coming round to the debates on the limits of ID politics and are in a position to talk about them more openly.


yes and i think the process is a healthy one, and we're in a better place for having had a surge of "identity politics" with its positives and negatives as the rough edges get worn away <the broad gist of what ive been trying to say all along on this topic.


----------



## flypanam (May 24, 2021)

butchersapron said:


> I fear that you may be being too generous is assuming that they have thought about in that detail. It's just green rhetoric mostly.


As it is often stated South Korea has had a ministry for reunification in some form or other since 1969. We've a couple of civil servants working out of the dept of the Taoiseach.


----------



## Idris2002 (May 24, 2021)

flypanam said:


> As it is often stated South Korea has had a ministry for reunification in some form or other since 1969. We've a couple of civil servants working out of the dept of the Taoiseach.


In fairness, the Korean peninsula is a rather more . . . challenging space than our four green fields.


----------



## dilberto (May 30, 2021)

On the general point.

Progressive change, by causing the social environment of progressive societies to diverge from their traditional native surviving character, has created a social environment which is no longer compatible with a surviving human population which is manifest in the demographic, cultural and class trends of progressive societies and in adapting to that social environment the values of such societies have become intolerant of their own traditional surviving native character and that intolerance is reflected in the historically extreme identity politics of progressive societies.


----------



## belboid (May 30, 2021)

lol


----------



## The39thStep (May 30, 2021)

dilberto said:


> On the general point.
> 
> Progressive change, by causing the social environment of progressive societies to diverge from their traditional native surviving character, has created a social environment which is no longer compatible with a surviving human population which is manifest in the demographic, cultural and class trends of progressive societies and in adapting to that social environment the values of such societies have become intolerant of their own traditional surviving native character and that intolerance is reflected in the historically extreme identity politics of progressive societies.


That’s why I’m always in the kitchen at parties


----------



## Brainaddict (May 31, 2021)

dilberto said:


> On the general point.
> 
> Progressive change, by causing the social environment of progressive societies to diverge from their traditional native surviving character, has created a social environment which is no longer compatible with a surviving human population which is manifest in the demographic, cultural and class trends of progressive societies and in adapting to that social environment the values of such societies have become intolerant of their own traditional surviving native character and that intolerance is reflected in the historically extreme identity politics of progressive societies.


I don't quite understand all of that due to the minimalist approach to punctuation, but fairly sure that any sentence including 'native character' is going to turn out to be trash.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 31, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't quite understand all of that due to the minimalist approach to punctuation, but fairly sure that any sentence including 'native character' is going to turn out to be trash.


Wot BA said


----------



## 8ball (May 31, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't quite understand all of that due to the minimalist approach to punctuation, but fairly sure that any sentence including 'native character' is going to turn out to be trash.



I assumed two extra commas, cancelled out some bracketed terms and a tautology masquerading as reasoning, and the algebra suggests “progressives = extremists” as the full meaning of the paragraph.


----------



## NoXion (Jun 1, 2021)

dilberto said:


> On the general point.
> 
> Progressive change, by causing the social environment of progressive societies to diverge from their traditional native surviving character, has created a social environment which is no longer compatible with a surviving human population which is manifest in the demographic, cultural and class trends of progressive societies and in adapting to that social environment the values of such societies have become intolerant of their own traditional surviving native character and that intolerance is reflected in the historically extreme identity politics of progressive societies.



As much as I have disdain for bourgeois progressivism, it's not the reason why fewer people are having kids. The reason is capitalism; have you seen how expensive it is to raise a child these days? Have you not noticed how the current employment situation leaves most people with no _time_ for reproduction, let alone the funds required?


----------



## rekil (Jun 1, 2021)

JimW said:


> It was an Irish bloke did the famous Che poster, maybe they were on to something.


Years of this assadist shit from himself lordblessusandsaveus.



Obligatory link to you'll never guess who.



Spoiler


----------



## CNT36 (Jun 1, 2021)

Like a fucking plague.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 8, 2021)

Moving on from dilberto's turgid regurgitation of half-digested new right and identitarian ideas, rendered even more confused by the inept attempt to disguise their views and do a  _who are the real racists eh _at the same time...



danny la rouge said:


> Thanks butchersapron
> 
> I keep nonsite on my radar, so I’d spotted that, but didn’t think of posting it here.


They have just put up  new symposium on Checking Your Privilege? Perspectives on the Politics of White Identity, which is a talk/debate thing between Katherine Rader, Ashley Jardina, Walter Benn Michaels & Hadass Silver. The first two reprsenting an almost comical view of the ID guilt crap. The latter two are, of course, much better, and WBM gets in a few good shots:


> So white identity does a lot of work, and—since naturalizing the inequalities produced by capitalism confronts rich people not with the prospect of their extinction but only with the need to add a few black and brown people to their mix—it does it mainly for rich white people. Every time a white student at Wharton checks his privilege, a venture capitalist gets her wings.5



(There's full vid for the missing presentations btw - and to get to to the essays you need to click on the authors name which then opens it within the page, took me a while to work that out)

The latest issue of the mag is a bit rubbish btw, but there was one fantastic piece that deserves wider circulation (and this week the NFL dropped the plans that the article discusses):

Betting on “The Greek”: How the NFL Is Banking on Biological Racism



> Yet a resurgence of racialized medicine, legitimized by a reductionist preoccupation with racial disparities, has produced a new wave of reactionary thinking and practice that threatens black players. On August 25 of last year, two retired NFL players filed legal actions against the NFL in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. In their filings, Najeh Davenport and Kevin Henry allege that the league employs racially discriminatory criteria in evaluating former players for neurocognitive impairments, the presence of which are used to determine eligibility for compensation related to the NFL’s landmark 2013 billion-dollar concussion settlement. In short, the suits allege that NFL-approved doctors are instructed to use different scales for scoring cognitive functioning among black and white former players, with the scale for black players being set at a lower threshold. These differential benchmarks, Davenport and Henry claim, have been used to deny them and other black claimants access to payouts for dementia and other neurocognitive impairments stemming from head traumas sustained while playing in the NFL.3





> For its part, the NFL does not seem to be denying these allegations. Rather, it claims that the use of racial “adjustments” in scoring neurocognitive test results* reflects standard medical practice* and was included as part of the 2013 legal settlement. (My bold)






> Race,” then, no more explains patterns of neurocognitive functioning among ex-NFL players today than it explained the enslavement of those descended from Africa in the antebellum United States. Since race is a historical construct with no biological basis, it is incapable of making things happen or explaining anything. The degradation associated with slavery produced the notion of racial inferiority, not the other way around. Similarly, racial difference does not produce the allegedly lower average levels of cognitive functioning among African Americans today—though the medical practice of treating race as an independent variable in analyzing neurocognitive scores reinforces this gravely misguided and dangerous notion. Fields and her sister, Karen E. Fields, refer to this tendency to misattribute material causation to race as “racecraft,” analogous to a belief in witchcraft.7


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 8, 2021)

.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 8, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't quite understand all of that due to the minimalist approach to punctuation, but fairly sure that any sentence including 'native character' is going to turn out to be trash.


I do understand it and it's even worse


----------



## Diamond (Jun 19, 2021)

Can I just recommend the following book?






						Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity--And Why This Harms Everybody: Amazon.co.uk: 9781634312028: Books
					

Buy Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity--And Why This Harms Everybody by (ISBN: 9781634312028) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.



					www.amazon.co.uk
				




It's a fascinating read that connects up the kind of stuff that dissuaded me from academia towards the end of my undergrad history degree (Spivak, and faculty politics mainly) into what we now call "woke" stuff - probably better framed as "Critical Theory".


----------



## Colin Hunt (Jun 20, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Can I just recommend the following book?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


From what I can tell this seems to be James Lindsay's career path.

Step 1: Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists.
Step 2: Make a tortured link from those generalisations to contemporary social justice movements.
Step 3: Become a darling of the right-wing media.
Step 4: Partner with a Christian nationalist to set up a fake liberal website and spend most of your time laundering right-wing talking points (A cabal of Jews was trying to bring down Western civilisation from the inside and that's why the far-right can recruit more anti-semites; queer theory is in bed with radical Islamism; climate justice is communism; etc).
Step 5: Profit? If you haven't already profited enough from steps 1-4, that is.

That book isn't really serious scholarship, but then it's not supposed to be.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 20, 2021)

splonkydoo said:


> OK, maybe I am being mean. The idea is to relate what has happened to a context and geography that people are intimately familiar with. It can make the issue much more vivid, especially if one was unaware or less educated of the Palestinian struggle in general.


But in order to get it, you need to already get it.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 20, 2021)

Colin Hunt said:


> From what I can tell this seems to be James Lindsay's career path.
> 
> Step 1: Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists.
> Step 2: Make a tortured link from those generalisations to contemporary social justice movements.
> ...



Well, I've read at least some of the theorists that the authors are representing and the summaries that the authors provide seem, at least in those instances, perfectly reasonable.

The links between some of the ideas that the theorists have advanced and the social justice movements is reasonably clear as well - particularly when activists rely on very abstract concepts to try and make very tangible points that everyone is supposed to just get on board with, such as the bonkers idea that taking linguistic offence is the same as experiencing the delivery of actual violence.

With all the rest you're spiralling off into an ad hominem attack of little substance.


----------



## andysays (Jun 20, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Can I just recommend the following book?
> 
> <Link to Amazon removed>
> 
> It's a fascinating read that connects up the kind of stuff that dissuaded me from academia towards the end of my undergrad history degree (Spivak, and faculty politics mainly) into what we now call "woke" stuff - probably better framed as "Critical Theory".


Whatever the merits or otherwise of this book, can I request that when recommending anything in future, you (people in general) don't link to Amazon but instead link to the publisher or whatever.

As you may be aware, there is currently a campaign challenging Amazon's union-busting practices, as well as long standing concerns about their tax avoidance. If people still want to use them, that's up to them, but it would be good if Urban isn't used to actively encourage this.

Action on Amazon

I'm going to check if there is already a thread devoted to this, and if not I'll start one...

(Good to see you back posting again, BTW Diamond )


----------



## andysays (Jun 20, 2021)

Here's a link to the existing Amazon thread for anyone interested

Solidarity with Amazon Workers​


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jun 20, 2021)

Colin Hunt said:


> From what I can tell this seems to be James Lindsay's career path.
> 
> Step 1: Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists.
> Step 2: Make a tortured link from those generalisations to contemporary social justice movements.
> ...



Genuine question here. Can you show me where Lindsay claims that "a cabal of Jews was trying to bring down Western civilisation"?


----------



## Colin Hunt (Jun 20, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Well, I've read at least some of the theorists that the authors are representing and the summaries that the authors provide seem, at least in those instances, perfectly reasonable.
> 
> The links between some of the ideas that the theorists have advanced and the social justice movements is reasonably clear as well - particularly when activists rely on very abstract concepts to try and make very tangible points that everyone is supposed to just get on board with, such as the bonkers idea that taking linguistic offence is the same as experiencing the delivery of actual violence.
> 
> With all the rest you're spiralling off into an ad hominem attack of little substance.


OK there's a few things to unpack here. Firstly, if someone's criticising a book that you've recommended for making incorrect generalisations, saying 'it seems OK to me' isn't a brilliant defense. With that in mind I'll go through my first post and add some substance.

*Step 1: Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists. *Here's a quote about postmodernism from the book.

“[A] new religion, a tradition of faith that is actively hostile to reason, falsification, disconfirmation, and disagreement of any kind.” Which of course ignores the fact that postmodernism is not hostile to reason, and that most postmodernist thinkers spent a lot of time disagreeing with each other, and responding to criticism of their work by non-postmodern thinkers.

Then there's the fact that they boil the entirety of Foucault's thought down into 2 points: radical skepticism about whether objective knowledge is possible and a belief that structures in society decide what is true. That's not what Foucault says. Firstly, he wasn't interested in finding out what was true, but rather in what we think is true causes us to act like, so they've got it backwards. And secondly Foucault wrote about power being relational and not zero-sum. So again they've got him backwards (perhaps deliberately in an attempt to link him to contemporary scholars).

So they've inappropriately lumped together a bunch of distinct theorists with different views and the main intellectual thrust of the book is based on a misreading of Foucault. I wouldn't call either of those things "perfectly reasonable" but you've already mentioned how the book spoke to your lived experience so perhaps you looked at these missteps with a less critical eye than I did.

*Step 2: Make a tortured link from those generalisations to contemporary social justice movements. *The book traces postmodernism through an 'applied postmodernism' phase and then into contemporary 'reified postmodernism'. The problem is that most of the contemporary thinkers are not postmodernists at all. In fact, some of them sit within the liberal tradition that the authors claim to be defending. Then there's the fact that quite a lot of the theorists that they claim to be quoting are actually misquoted, quoted out of context, or quoted to mean a completely different thing to what they're actually saying. So the authors are making up quotes and attributing them to people that never said them, in order to justify the link between (their misreading of) Foucault and (their caricature of) modern theorists.

As an aside, I'm not sure that there's much of a link between activists and social theorists. Postmodernism is primarily a tool of literary analysis, not a way of mobilising people onto the streets in protest movements.

*Step 3: Become a darling of the right-wing media. *This is just a description of what happened to Lindsay after the book was published. While theorists either vehemently disagreed with it, ignored it, or mocked it, right-wing media outlets gave it gushing coverage.

OK, now let's talk about me "spiralling off into an ad hominem attack of little substance".

*Step 4: Partner with a Christian nationalist to set up a fake liberal website and spend most of your time laundering right-wing talking points (A cabal of Jews was trying to bring down Western civilisation from the inside and that's why the far-right can recruit more anti-semites; queer theory is in bed with radical Islamism; climate justice is communism; etc). *Is it an ad hominem attack to point out who is funding someone's research? Because New Discourses, the website that Lindsay writes for, is funded by Michael O'Fallon, who also runs a website called Sovereign Nations which aims (I'm not going to link to it) to be "a prolegomenon to the formation of a new, and not just sentimental, conservative and Constitutional Republic" and is heavily involved in right-wing religious nationalism. O'Fallon and Lindsay have also shared numerous other platforms where they promote absurd theories together. So, to reiterate, is it ad hominem for me to point out that this team of so-called liberal rationalists are either partnered with or employed by (possibly both) the religious right? Is it ad hominem to say that they're laundering right-wing talking points when that is what they're actually doing? Or is it an honest description of their activities?

So what about the substance? Well on a previous page of this thread somebody linked to some of Lindsay's tweets, where he says that woke Jews cause anti-semitism (link) and that "the Frankfurt School really did want to end Western Civilization and is almost wholly comprised of Jews. This allows anti-Semites to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_" (link). So victim-blaming and some classic cultural Marxism conspiracy stuff. In other words, laundering far-right nonsense.

In the same twitter thread he states that "another Critical Theory, Queer Theory, partners with radical Islamists (not famous for their tolerance of gays) against Israel" (link). And I'm not going to link to it but if you search for 'Michael O'Fallon James Lindsay climate' it'll bring up a youtube video where they make the link between climate justice and communism.

*That book isn't really serious scholarship, but then it's not supposed to be. *There's two arms to this point. The first is that this book isn't serious scholarship. It's not. Between the massive simplification of decades of theory written by people with many differing viewpoints, the misreading of Foucault, and the misquoting of modern scholars, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the scholarship isn't serious. There are also technical issues with the scholarship, including incorrectly citing works, which don't fill me with confidence about the depth of their critical engagement with the material.

As for the what the work actually is, if it's not serious scholarship, that's a bit more of a reach. However, to me there are two reasons for supposing that this is a work of culture war positioning rather than serious scholarship. The first reason is Lindsay's connections to reactionary right-wing figures such as Michael O'Fallon and Christopher Rufo.

The second reason is that the very accusations that the authors level (wrongly) at reified postmodernism can be leveled at their work. For example, they claim that postmodernism is “[A] new religion, a tradition of faith that is actively hostile to reason, falsification, disconfirmation, and disagreement of any kind” while only 1 of the theorists that they cite even comes close to making that claim. According to their view, reified postmodernists accept no disagreement, because your disagreement with them is representative of your power and your power means that your disagreement is invalid. I think Robin DiAngelo would probably agree with that statement, but none of the other cited theorists would.

But what happens if you disagree with Lindsay et al.? Then you become part of the evil woke that's trying to silence them. Which appears to me to be exactly the argument that they reject when it comes from reified postmodernists. As such, to me the book reads more as a sketch of right-wing victimhood and projection and a new frontier in the culture wars than a serious piece of scholarship.



ItWillNeverWork said:


> Genuine question here. Can you show me where Lindsay claims that "a cabal of Jews was trying to bring down Western civilisation"?


I'm always suspicious of so-called 'genuine questions' but the source for that statement is here. "[T]he Frankfurt School really did want to end Western Civilization and is almost wholly comprised of Jews. This allows anti-Semites to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_". It's been briefly discussed on a previous page of this thread too.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 20, 2021)

Colin Hunt said:


> OK there's a few things to unpack here. Firstly, if someone's criticising a book that you've recommended for making incorrect generalisations, saying 'it seems OK to me' isn't a brilliant defense. With that in mind I'll go through my first post and add some substance.
> 
> *Step 1: Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists. *Here's a quote about postmodernism from the book.
> 
> ...



Thank you! Brilliant post, much appreciated.


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Jun 21, 2021)

Colin Hunt said:


> I'm always suspicious of so-called 'genuine questions'



Forget I asked then


----------



## Dom Traynor (Jun 21, 2021)

Idris2002 said:


> Mmmmm. Glue.
> 
> The cause of, and solution to, all life's problems.


Do you think you can make that claim stick?


----------



## Shechemite (Jun 21, 2021)

Doesn’t pass the sniff test


----------



## splonkydoo (Jun 21, 2021)

Have read in-depth reports about it in the Huffington Post.


----------



## Idris2002 (Jun 21, 2021)

Dom Traynor said:


> Do you think you can make that claim stick?


With the help of Mac Giolla Gorilla adhesive . . .


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

There's an awful lot to get through here so will do my best.



> OK there's a few things to unpack here. Firstly, if someone's criticising a book that you've recommended for making incorrect generalisations, saying 'it seems OK to me' isn't a brilliant defense. With that in mind I'll go through my first post and add some substance.
> 
> *Step 1: Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists. *Here's a quote about postmodernism from the book.
> 
> ...



Your first sentence is more accurately applied as a criticism to yourself, I would argue.  Your point, as far as I understand it, seems to be a call for evidence to support a view.  What is notable is that your views, as originally advanced in your points 1-5 post, were similarly unsupported.  And I'm afraid that is inconsistent and hypocritical.

The next point to make is that the quotation that you provide is slightly besides the point.  The quote is not a description of a theorist, nor is it an attempt to summarise a theorist's work.  It is a description, at the most general level, of a school of thought.

Following on from that, the authors do rely very heavily on what they term (i) the postmodern knowledge principle and (ii) the postmodern political principle.  Neither of these are derived specifically from a narrow focus on Foucault's work.  While they do discuss Foucault, they actually spend much more time on Butler, Crenshaw, Spivak etc - the second and third generation.  In fact, it is difficult to trace their postmodern political principle into an analysis of Foucault at all...



> *Step 2: Make a tortured link from those generalisations to contemporary social justice movements. *The book traces postmodernism through an 'applied postmodernism' phase and then into contemporary 'reified postmodernism'. The problem is that most of the contemporary thinkers are not postmodernists at all. In fact, some of them sit within the liberal tradition that the authors claim to be defending. Then there's the fact that quite a lot of the theorists that they claim to be quoting are actually misquoted, quoted out of context, or quoted to mean a completely different thing to what they're actually saying. So the authors are making up quotes and attributing them to people that never said them, in order to justify the link between (their misreading of) Foucault and (their caricature of) modern theorists.
> 
> As an aside, I'm not sure that there's much of a link between activists and social theorists. Postmodernism is primarily a tool of literary analysis, not a way of mobilising people onto the streets in protest movements.



I think there are 2 points to make here.  The first is that you will have a hard time persuading anyone that the second and third generation theorists such as Butler, Crenshaw, Spivak etc are not postmodern theorists.  I'm afraid that argument simply fails for being _prima facie _wrong and illogical.  Or, even if you are right and we apply a different label, they are still doing fundamentally the same things in the same tradition.

The second point to make links in to the inconsistency, hypocrisy stuff at the top of your post re: evidencing one's case.  You make some pretty extraordinary claims about authors being misquoted or even having stuff completely invented and false attributed to them.  These are profoundly serious claims.

Yet, you provide no evidence in support.



> *Step 3: Become a darling of the right-wing media. *This is just a description of what happened to Lindsay after the book was published. While theorists either vehemently disagreed with it, ignored it, or mocked it, right-wing media outlets gave it gushing coverage.
> 
> OK, now let's talk about me "spiralling off into an ad hominem attack of little substance".



I note that you focus in on James Lindsay with a certain laser-like intensity.  However, the book has two authors, does it not?  Do you have anything to say about Helen Pluckrose?

And, beyond that, your problem seems to be that...it got good reviews from right-wing people

Do you write off everything that right-wing people like as prohibitively contaminated?  If so, do you think that is a reasonable, productive position to take?



> *Step 4: Partner with a Christian nationalist to set up a fake liberal website and spend most of your time laundering right-wing talking points (A cabal of Jews was trying to bring down Western civilisation from the inside and that's why the far-right can recruit more anti-semites; queer theory is in bed with radical Islamism; climate justice is communism; etc). *Is it an ad hominem attack to point out who is funding someone's research? Because New Discourses, the website that Lindsay writes for, is funded by Michael O'Fallon, who also runs a website called Sovereign Nations which aims (I'm not going to link to it) to be "a prolegomenon to the formation of a new, and not just sentimental, conservative and Constitutional Republic" and is heavily involved in right-wing religious nationalism. O'Fallon and Lindsay have also shared numerous other platforms where they promote absurd theories together. So, to reiterate, is it ad hominem for me to point out that this team of so-called liberal rationalists are either partnered with or employed by (possibly both) the religious right? Is it ad hominem to say that they're laundering right-wing talking points when that is what they're actually doing? Or is it an honest description of their activities?
> 
> <snip for msg length>



And now we're in to the meat of what you really, really want to talk about and, frankly, it has nothing to do with the book or its contents whatsoever.  Have you read the New Discourses website?  I hadn't until you brought it to my attention, for which many thanks as I think it has a huge amount of really interesting material on it.  You may not agree with it but this is just the kind of stuff that would never be published in the mainstream media today and that's a pretty good reason to read it.  Link here:









						New Discourses
					

Pursuing the light of objective truth in subjective darkness.




					newdiscourses.com
				




More widely, I really think you have got the wrong end of the stick on those Lindsay tweets.  They really do not say what you say they do.  Not even slightly.  I mean the first tweet that you link to - _literally the very next tweet in that thread is the author rejecting your characterisation_.  Have you read it?  If so, why are you going in for such a serious misrepresentation?  Your characterisation is almost wholly in error.  That's really, really poor, extremely manipulative behaviour in my book.



> *That book isn't really serious scholarship, but then it's not supposed to be. *There's two arms to this point. The first is that this book isn't serious scholarship. It's not. Between the massive simplification of decades of theory written by people with many differing viewpoints, the misreading of Foucault, and the misquoting of modern scholars, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the scholarship isn't serious. There are also technical issues with the scholarship, including incorrectly citing works, which don't fill me with confidence about the depth of their critical engagement with the material.
> 
> <snip for msg length>



This can be dealt with fairly efficiently.  No it is not a book of "serious scholarship", by which I assume you mean that it is not a peer-reviewed academic work.  It is a work of popular theory/philosophy.  That does not mean that it is somehow inferior or not worthwhile, far from it, in fact.

misreading of Foucault = never demonstrated by you
misquoting of modern scholars = never demonstrated by you
"technical issues with the scholarship" = no idea what this supercilious and rather arrogant reference is about
incorrectly citing works = never demonstrated by you
"depth of critical engagement with the material" = this literally does not mean anything at all
Beyond that, I think you were running out of steam in the final few paras and, frankly, so am I.

The main argument though seems to a battlelines one.

"You're either with us or against us."

Never listen to a single person who tells you that.  It is always a lie to try and get you to do something to their advantage, usually without any benefits accruing to you.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

What does come out of their book though, which is really worth flagging up is the idea that these critical theorists are becoming more radical and fundamentalist in each successive generation.

For instance, the first generation of "classic" postmodernists had almost no interest in any kind of practical application of their theories (with perhaps the very unique exception of De Certeau - still my favourite) and would probably view where we have got to with the advance of critical theory into the institutions with mounting horror.

It was the second and third generation, largely American and not that bright, who "applied" it and then added in some epistemic-logic traps that have consigned it all to an escalating cycle of fundamentalism.  They are much the same traps as have been sprung in religious fundamentalisms - particularly the idea that if you offer any criticism of the diagnosis, you become the disease and must be attacked.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Following on from that, the authors do rely very heavily on what they term (i) the postmodern knowledge principle and (ii) the postmodern political principle.  Neither of these are derived specifically from a narrow focus on Foucault's work.  While they do discuss Foucault, they actually spend much more time on Butler, Crenshaw, Spivak etc - the second and third generation.  In fact, it is difficult to trace their postmodern political principle into an analysis of Foucault at all...
> 
> I think there are 2 points to make here.  The first it that you will have a hard time persuading anyone that the second and third generation theorists such as Butler, Crenshaw, Spivak etc are not postmodern theorists.  I'm afraid that argument simply fails for being _prima facie _wrong and illogical.  Or, even if you are right and we apply a different label, they are still doing fundamentally the same things in the same tradition.


Lol. First of all, what's the neutral, mutually agreed-upon and widespread, definition of postmodern theorist you're using here? Do any of those people ever say they're postmodern theorists? Or if not, what is it about them that makes them postmodern theorists, possibly without their knowledge?



> You may not agree with it but this is just the kind of stuff that would never be published in the mainstream media today and that's a pretty good reason to read it.


wait till you find out about this site called the canary, it is going to blow your mind.


> More widely, I really think you have got the wrong end of the stick on those Lindsay tweets.  They really do not say what you say they do.  Not even slightly.  I mean the first tweet that you link to - _literally the very next tweet in that thread is the author rejecting your characterisation_.  Have you read it?  If so, why are you going in for such a serious misrepresentation?  Your characterisation is almost wholly in error.  That's really, really poor, extremely manipulative behaviour in my book.


Let's go over this a bit - when you say that, are we talking about the "woke Jews causing antisemitism" thing here? Because if so, let's look at what he says:




> 1 Anti-Semitism is on the rise again, truly. Wokeness contains left-wing anti-Semitism. Normal right-wing anti-Semitism is flared up because of conditions and identity politics. Extra right-wing anti-Semitism is arising because lots of progressive Jews are nonsensically Woke.
> 2 "Jews do not cause anti-Semitism."
> 
> Ok, fine, they don't, but the dynamic above is still happening.
> 3 DUDES! It's not Jews being JEWISH; it's Jews being WOKE. Cut the shit.


James Lindsay is rejecting the idea that antisemitism is caused by Jews being Jewish, in favour of his preferred explanation, which is that [at least some] antisemitism is caused by Jews being woke. Replace "WOKE" with "Bolshevik" and you'd had some absolutely bogstandard Churchill/Ford-esque 1930s antisemitism going there. Do you think I'm also misreading it? What do you think the accurate reading would be? Similarly, in the other thread linked to, about the Jewish conspiracy to destroy Western civilisation, he writes


> This isn't time for some superficial thought-stopping garbage like, "Jews do not cause anti-Semites"


If you can't see where his argument is going here, then frankly that's on your reading comprehension, not anyone else.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> Lol. First of all, what's the neutral, mutually agreed-upon and widespread, definition of postmodern theorist you're using here? Do any of those people ever say they're postmodern theorists? Or if not, what is it about them that makes them postmodern theorists, possibly without their knowledge?
> 
> 
> wait till you find out about this site called the canary, it is going to blow your mind.
> ...




You have the wrong end of the stick.  The poster said that individual theorists were being misrepresented in a particular book but then cited a quote from that book that failed to reference any theorists at all.  That was my point.

Yes, I do think you are misreading the Lindsay tweet thread.  We can see that because to make your point you have had to change one of the words and then attack that formulation instead.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Anyway, this article looks worthwhile:









						How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory
					

To Christopher Rufo, a term for a school of legal scholarship looked like the perfect weapon.




					www.newyorker.com
				




If it's paywalled for people, this version should be readable:





						Outline.com
					






					outline.com


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> You have the wrong end of the stick.  The poster said that individual theorists were being misrepresented in a particular book but then cited a quote from that book that failed to reference any theorists at all.  That was my point.
> 
> Yes, I do think you are misreading the Lindsay tweet thread.  We can see that because to make your point you have had to change one of the words and then attack that formulation instead.


What do you think the correct reading is?
Just to remind you, here's how Colin Hunt originally characterised it:


Colin Hunt said:


> Well on a previous page of this thread somebody linked to some of Lindsay's tweets, where he says that woke Jews cause anti-semitism (link)


We've seen what Lindsay said:


And you said that:


Diamond said:


> More widely, I really think you have got the wrong end of the stick on those Lindsay tweets.  They really do not say what you say they do.  Not even slightly.  I mean the first tweet that you link to - _literally the very next tweet in that thread is the author rejecting your characterisation_.  Have you read it?  If so, why are you going in for such a serious misrepresentation?  Your characterisation is almost wholly in error.  That's really, really poor, extremely manipulative behaviour in my book.


I think that Lindsay is saying [some] antisemitism, in his words "Extra right-wing anti-Semitism" is caused by "Woke Jews", and if Jews were less woke then that particular antisemitism would not be arising. If you think that's a serious misrepresentation, and that's not what he's saying, then what is he saying?


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> What do you think the correct reading is?
> Just to remind you, here's how Colin Hunt originally characterised it:
> 
> We've seen what Lindsay said:
> ...




His point is both a little complex and quite straightforward.

1. Wokeness contains anti-semitism intrinsically as a matter of woke theory (this in many ways is the most controversial part) - this is likely to be a reference to the treatment of Israel and Palestine by those on the left
2. The right is inherently anti-semitic as well and that is being stimulated right now thanks to the culture wars.
3. Part of those culture wars is Jewish people, along with other groups, adopting a woke outlook.

Pull that together and you have a lot of stimulus to anti-semitism.  Wokeness is part of that picture.

You could summarise it all by saying that no-one likes Jews and now even Jews are getting in on the act thanks to wokeness.


----------



## JimW (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> His point is both a little complex and quite straightforward.
> 
> 1. Wokeness contains anti-semitism intrinsically as a matter of woke theory (this in many ways is the most controversial part) - this is likely to be a reference to the treatment of Israel and Palestine by those on the left
> 2. The right is inherently anti-semitic as well and that is being stimulated right now thanks to the culture wars.
> ...


Mate, Colin Hunt has utterly taken the book to pieces in that post so you might as well just throw your hands up. Any further argument means you're either as thick or bad faith as the authors appear to be.


----------



## killer b (Jun 22, 2021)

wow i've missed this prick.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

JimW said:


> Mate, Colin Hunt has utterly taken the book to pieces in that post so you might as well just throw your hands up. Any further argument means you're either as thick or bad faith as the authors appear to be.



Well, you're entitled to your opinion.  To anyone else, I would say read the posts.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> Anyway, this article looks worthwhile:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks, that was an interesting read.


----------



## belboid (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> His point is both a little complex and quite straightforward.
> 
> 1. Wokeness contains anti-semitism intrinsically as a matter of woke theory (this in many ways is the most controversial part) - this is likely to be a reference to the treatment of Israel and Palestine by those on the left
> 2. The right is inherently anti-semitic as well and that is being stimulated right now thanks to the culture wars.
> ...


This is such laughable crap you even have to make a bit up for it to make any sense


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

belboid said:


> This is such laughable crap you even have to make a bit up for it to make any sense



Maybe it is.

That's not really my point - my point is that it is not:



> A cabal of Jews was trying to bring down Western civilisation from the inside and that's why the far-right can recruit more anti-semites



It is literally nowhere near that zone of Bolshevik Jewish conspiracy.  But that is what Colin Hunt would have you believe...


----------



## belboid (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Maybe it is.
> 
> That's not really my point - my point is that it is not:
> 
> ...


Stop shifting them goalposts.   He writes crap, that’s all that really matters.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Maybe it is.
> 
> That's not really my point - my point is that it is not:
> 
> ...


That's not the point Lindsay makes in that particular series of tweets, no. It is, however, the point Lindsay makes in this particular tweet/series of tweets:





> The narrative being pushed is dangerously accurate in many details, as the Frankfurt School really did want to end Western Civilization and is almost wholly comprised of Jews. This allows anti-Semites to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_...
> 
> The reactionaries and anti-Semites are in the wrong, but their argument touches enough truth to persuade.


When Hunt said "A cabal of Jews was trying to bring down Western civilisation from the inside and that's why the far-right can recruit more anti-semites", we can all see that it was a description of that particular series of Lindsay posts (and an accurate one at that).


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> That's not the point Lindsay makes in that particular series of tweets, no. It is, however, the point Lindsay makes in this particular tweet/series of tweets:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




No, no, no.  It really is not!

He is not saying that there is a cabal of Jews conspiring against society!  If he is, show me where he does?

This is so so obvious. Why can you not see that!?


----------



## Colin Hunt (Jun 22, 2021)

OK here's my response to your reply.


Diamond said:


> Your first sentence is more accurately applied as a criticism to yourself, I would argue. Your point, as far as I understand it, seems to be a call for evidence to support a view. What is notable is that your views, as originally advanced in your points 1-5 post, were similarly unsupported. And I'm afraid that is inconsistent and hypocritical.
> 
> The next point to make is that the quotation that you provide is slightly besides the point. The quote is not a description of a theorist, nor is it an attempt to summarise a theorist's work. It is a description, at the most general level, of a school of thought.
> 
> Following on from that, the authors do rely very heavily on what they term (i) the postmodern knowledge principle and (ii) the postmodern political principle. Neither of these are derived specifically from a narrow focus on Foucault's work. While they do discuss Foucault, they actually spend much more time on Butler, Crenshaw, Spivak etc - the second and third generation. In fact, it is difficult to trace their postmodern political principle into an analysis of Foucault at all...


You could argue that my first sentence is more accurately applied as a criticism of myself. But you'd be wrong. I was describing the work of Lindsay and Pluckrose, which reduces the work of a diverse body of scholars working across several fields into a few principles (which are mostly based on incorrect readings of the material).

You then agree with this in paragraph 2 when you say that they were describing "at the most general level" a school of thought. That's exactly what I said in my earlier post when I said "*Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists*". My contention was that it is impossible to make generalisations about such a diverse school of thought. You then asked for substance and I provided an instance where the authors made such a generalisation. You're now agreeing that the quote I provided was a generalisation.

In paragraph 3 you mention that neither of those principles are derived from a narrow focus on Foucault's work. So why do the definitions of each term and their history make specific reference to Foucault almost before any other scholar? And if Foucault is discussed less than those other scholars, why does his name appear in the text more than all 3 of the names you mention put together?


Diamond said:


> I think there are 2 points to make here. The first is that you will have a hard time persuading anyone that the second and third generation theorists such as Butler, Crenshaw, Spivak etc are not postmodern theorists. I'm afraid that argument simply fails for being _prima facie _wrong and illogical. Or, even if you are right and we apply a different label, they are still doing fundamentally the same things in the same tradition.
> 
> The second point to make links in to the inconsistency, hypocrisy stuff at the top of your post re: evidencing one's case. You make some pretty extraordinary claims about authors being misquoted or even having stuff completely invented and false attributed to them. These are profoundly serious claims.
> 
> Yet, you provide no evidence in support.


The book cites more than just those 3 theorists though, including those who fall squarely within the liberal tradition. As I said in my earlier post, to lump them all under a postmodernist banner is intellectually lazy and does their argument no favours.

As for people being misquoted, if you can sit through an hour-long podcast which details all the misquotations and poor scholarship in just one chapter of the book, you can listen here. It'll provide you with much of the evidence that you seek. Bear in mind that this podcast only really covers chapter 8 of the book, so there's a lot more poor scholarship under the surface.


Diamond said:


> I note that you focus in on James Lindsay with a certain laser-like intensity. However, the book has two authors, does it not? Do you have anything to say about Helen Pluckrose?
> 
> And, beyond that, your problem seems to be that...it got good reviews from right-wing people
> 
> Do you write off everything that right-wing people like as prohibitively contaminated? If so, do you think that is a reasonable, productive position to take?


Helen Pluckrose is clearly more moderate in her views than James Lindsay, which you can tell by the fact that the book is far less unhinged than his tweets. Apart from that, what do you want me to say about her? That she also shares a platform with the religious right? That she chose to cowrite a book with a conspiracy-peddler? Are you happy now that I've broadened my focus?

I never had a problem with the book getting good reviews from right-wing media figures. As I said in my earlier post, "this is just a description of what happened to Lindsay after the book was published". No more, no less. So there's really no point in me engaging with the rest of this part of your post.


Diamond said:


> And now we're in to the meat of what you really, really want to talk about and, frankly, it has nothing to do with the book or its contents whatsoever. Have you read the New Discourses website? I hadn't until you brought it to my attention, for which many thanks as I think it has a huge amount of really interesting material on it. You may not agree with it but this is just the kind of stuff that would never be published in the mainstream media today and that's a pretty good reason to read it. Link here:


The people behind the book, who is funding them, and other things that they have written is very relevant to the book and its contents.

If you like the ramblings on New Discourses you should check out all the stuff Lindsay has done with Michael O'Fallon. It has all the great points of view of New Discourses without needing to pretend to be anything other than a Christian nationalist blog.


Diamond said:


> More widely, I really think you have got the wrong end of the stick on those Lindsay tweets. They really do not say what you say they do. Not even slightly. I mean the first tweet that you link to - _literally the very next tweet in that thread is the author rejecting your characterisation_. Have you read it? If so, why are you going in for such a serious misrepresentation? Your characterisation is almost wholly in error. That's really, really poor, extremely manipulative behaviour in my book.


So you asked for substance, and I provided it. You then only chose to talk about one of the 4 pieces of substance that I provided. One that I hadn't even mentioned in my original post and was just including for completeness. Then, after selectively quoting me and ignoring most of the substance of this part of my earlier post you have the nerve to say that I'm being manipulative. Deal with the other right-wing conspiracy laundering stuff too please, rather than dancing around the edges by focusing on the least serious example provided.


Diamond said:


> This can be dealt with fairly efficiently. No it is not a book of "serious scholarship", by which I assume you mean that it is not a peer-reviewed academic work. It is a work of popular theory/philosophy. That does not mean that it is somehow inferior or not worthwhile, far from it, in fact.
> 
> misreading of Foucault = never demonstrated by you
> misquoting of modern scholars = never demonstrated by you
> ...


I'm glad you agree that it's not a book of serious scholarship. My characterisation of the work as not serious has nothing to do with it not being peer-reviewd. It has everything to do with "the massive simplification of decades of theory written by people with many differing viewpoints, the misreading of Foucault, and the misquoting of modern scholars". This is referenced in my earlier post, so your attempt to paint me as some sort of academic gatekeeper is bizarre and unhelpful.

If you want evidence for all of the points provided, I'll refer you back to the hour-long podcast dealing with all the holes in chapter 8 of the book alone (link).


Diamond said:


> Beyond that, I think you were running out of steam in the final few paras and, frankly, so am I.
> 
> The main argument though seems to a battlelines one.
> 
> ...


Your first sentence is pretty snide, and sticks in the craw a bit because I waded through this post expecting proper disagreement and found most of the evidence that I had provided was either not responded to, or was deliberately misunderstood.

My position is not "you're either with us or against us", just that you recommended a shit book written by a pair of charlatans with dodgy connections to the religious right. Despite all the words you've typed in this reply, my mind hasn't changed.

You're more than welcome to listen to that podcast, or read some of the more critical reviews of the book that are easily found online, if you want some more evidence to support my positions. But please don't respond to me unless you're going to talk about what James Lindsay means when he says ""the Frankfurt School really did want to end Western Civilization and is almost wholly comprised of Jews. This allows anti-Semites to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_", or "another Critical Theory, Queer Theory, partners with radical Islamists (not famous for their tolerance of gays) against Israel", or that climate justice contains communism. I'd rather not waste my time typing up long replies to have most of my words ignored.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> No, no, no.  It really is not!
> 
> He is not saying that there is a cabal of Jews conspiring against society!  If he is, show me where he does?
> 
> This is so so obvious. Why can you not see that!?


He is saying that anti-Semites are able to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_ because of the fact that the Frankfurt School really did want to end Western Civilization and was almost wholly comprised of Jews. That's literally almost a word for word quote, just slightly moved around and with the tenses sorted out a bit. You can argue whether or not it's accurate to call the Frankfurt School a cabal, or whether "wanting to end Western Civilization" is the same thing as "conspiring against society", but really you're grasping at straws there.


----------



## Colin Hunt (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> He is saying that anti-Semites are able to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_ because of the fact that the Frankfurt School really did want to end Western Civilization and was almost wholly comprised of Jews. That's literally almost a word for word quote, just slightly moved around and with the tenses sorted out a bit. You can argue whether or not it's accurate to call the Frankfurt School a cabal, or whether "wanting to end Western Civilization" is the same thing as "conspiring against society", but really you're grasping at straws there.


Cheers for your help. Ultimately I tend to believe that if you're arguing over semantic differences between 'school' and 'cabal' and 'conspiring against' versus 'wanting to end', then you're not really arguing in good faith.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

I'm just off to watch the footy.

You still haven't provided a single example of an author being misquoted or wrongly cited, despite making much hay out of such claims.

Can you support them Colin Hunt ?


----------



## bimble (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse just feel like saying I’m glad you joined this website, if it’s the only positive consequence of the whole Labour antisemitism thing that’s still a plus.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> He is saying that anti-Semites are able to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_ because of the fact that the Frankfurt School really did want to end Western Civilization and was almost wholly comprised of Jews. That's literally almost a word for word quote, just slightly moved around and with the tenses sorted out a bit. You can argue whether or not it's accurate to call the Frankfurt School a cabal, or whether "wanting to end Western Civilization" is the same thing as "conspiring against society", but really you're grasping at straws there.


 
Your logic is appalling.

He is not saying but for the Frankfurt School we would have less anti-semitism.

Your argument depends on it and is frankly absurd.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Your logic is appalling.
> 
> He is not saying but for the Frankfurt School we would have less anti-semitism.
> 
> Your argument depends on it and is frankly absurd.


What do you think "This allows anti-Semites to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_" means? What would you say is a fair and accurate summary of that statement?


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> What do you think "This allows anti-Semites to recruit new anti-Semites _who wouldn't have otherwise been recruited_" means? What would you say is a fair and accurate summary of that statement?



Talk to me about causation and the verb "allow"


----------



## JimW (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> I'm just off to watch the footy.
> 
> You still haven't provided a single example of an author being misquoted or wrongly cited, despite making much hay out of such claims.
> 
> Can you support them Colin Hunt ?


This sort of sixth form debating style is probably why you get suckered by shit books.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Talk to me about causation and the verb "allow"


This thread has caused me to doubt your reading comprehension, and I'm going to allow people who've read up to this point to make up their own minds.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

Touché


----------



## Athos (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> He is not saying but for the Frankfurt School we would have less anti-semitism.


Given the words he used and the mileu in which he moves, it strikes me that this is *exactly* (part of*) the message he's trying to convey (even if he's left enough semantic wiggle room for plausible deniability). 

*He goes further, in fact, using the Frankfurt School as a proxy for a classic antisemitic trope.

You're either being incredibly naive here, or arguing in bad faith.


----------



## Colin Hunt (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> I'm just off to watch the footy.
> 
> You still haven't provided a single example of an author being misquoted or wrongly cited, despite making much hay out of such claims.
> 
> Can you support them Colin Hunt ?


I've linked twice to a podcast which is roughly an hour long and goes through the misquoting and misciting in just chapter 8 of the book. I've also noted two instances where they've got Foucault's thought completely backwards and made it a key part of the book.

Nevertheless, I'll bite. Here's a quote from the authors on page 192: "Dotson famously called the dominance of reason and science a 'culture of justification' in 2012 and argued instead for a 'culture of praxis,' which would incorporate multiple ways of knowing in order to include more diverse groups of people in philosophy."

Dotson never called the dominance of reason and science a culture of justification. In fact, she calls “processes aimed at establishing the soundness of some belief, process, and/or practice,” (in other words, the exercise of reason) to be 'validation' and not 'justification'.

What Dotson calls a 'culture of justification' “privileges legitimation according to presumed, commonly held, univocally relevant justifying norms”. In other words, denying the exercise of reason the label of philosophy because of who is exercising the reason. So, a culture where philosophers in the Chinese and African traditions (regardless of race) have to constantly justify that their field is philosophy, while philosophers in the European tradition (again, regardless of race) do not have to do so. Her point was that if you are exercising reason and science to reach conclusions, you should not have to justify calling yourself a philosopher, not that reason is bad and needs to be dispensed with in favour of lived experience. Source.


Diamond said:


> Talk to me about causation and the verb "allow"


In Lindsay's view, but for the existence of the Frankfurt school, anti-semites wouldn't have been able to recruit as many new anti-semites. There's your causation, because had the Frankfurt school not existed, less anti-semites would've been recruited.

Again though we're deep in the weeds if you're splitting hairs about the definition of the word allow and its application in this instance.

Enjoy the football.


----------



## bimble (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Talk to me about causation and the verb "allow"


This sentence, it’s a pretty risible attempt at  an argument but might work on a dating profile.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> This sentence, it’s a pretty risible attempt at  an argument but might work on a dating profile.


I'm now trying to imagine it as a Smiths lyric:

_We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
Like causation and the word "allow"_


----------



## killer b (Jun 22, 2021)

That sentence on a dating profile would be a real red flag for some tool of a pick-up artist though.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

Colin Hunt said:


> I've linked twice to a podcast which is roughly an hour long and goes through the misquoting and misciting in just chapter 8 of the book. I've also noted two instances where they've got Foucault's thought completely backwards and made it a key part of the book.
> 
> Nevertheless, I'll bite. Here's a quote from the authors on page 192: "Dotson famously called the dominance of reason and science a 'culture of justification' in 2012 and argued instead for a 'culture of praxis,' which would incorporate multiple ways of knowing in order to include more diverse groups of people in philosophy."
> 
> ...



Yes, you have mentioned this podcast on a number of occasions as some kind of evidence in support.  Can you not just summarise the points?

But thank you for taking the time to provide a specific example of misquotation/miscitation.  Unfortunately I have lent my copy of the book to a friend but I think they are almost done with it so I'll pick it up at some point the next few days and come back to you.

On the Dotson point, I am slightly wary at taking at you at face value here as (i) the evidence you cite doesn't look like a misquotation, (ii) nor does it look like a miscitation, and (iii) you have already misrepresented material on this thread to date.  My suspicion is that this is an interpretation and/or a critical argument that you are not a fan of.  However, were that to be the case, that is not evidence in support of misquotation or miscitation, which are issues of dishonesty.

Yes, you have the right logical formulation of Lindsay's view there. See how it demonstrates no causation _from_ the Frankfurt School _to_ the antisemites...?  The anti-semites use the material in the world available to them.  The Frankfurt School is some of that material.


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

Athos said:


> Given the words he used and the mileu in which he moves, it strikes me that this is *exactly* (part of*) the message he's trying to convey (even if he's left enough semantic wiggle room for plausible deniability).
> 
> *He goes further, in fact, using the Frankfurt School as a proxy for a classic antisemitic trope.
> 
> You're either being incredibly naive here, or arguing in bad faith.



What about her?


----------



## Athos (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> What about her?



Quite.  What abut her?


----------



## Diamond (Jun 22, 2021)

You seem to know so much about this milieu Athos, paint me a picture for how it all fits together...?


----------



## Athos (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> You seem to know so much about this milieu Athos, paint me a picture for how it all fits together...?



Never mind putting it all together, Colin Hunt hunt has aready taken your argument apart!  Including on this very point; see his comments on steps 3 and 4.


----------



## Colin Hunt (Jun 22, 2021)

This is a bit tedious to be honest. There are whole posts of mine that you haven't responded to yet you insist on assuming that I'm acting in bad faith.


Diamond said:


> Yes, you have mentioned this podcast on a number of occasions as some kind of evidence in support. Can you not just summarise the points?


I can't summarise an hour-long piece of audio into 'points'. But if you want to read a piece by one of the podcast participants talking about chapter 8 of the book, you can find it here. It deals with many of the issues raised in the podcast. It also contains the source material for the Dotson quote below.


Diamond said:


> But thank you for taking the time to provide a specific example of misquotation/miscitation. Unfortunately I have lent my copy of the book to a friend but I think they are almost done with it so I'll pick it up at some point the next few days and come back to you.
> 
> On the Dotson point, I am slightly wary at taking at you at face value here as (i) the evidence you cite doesn't look like a misquotation, (ii) nor does it look like a miscitation, and (iii) you have already misrepresented material on this thread to date. My suspicion is that this is an interpretation and/or a critical argument that you are not a fan of. However, were that to be the case, that is not evidence in support of misquotation or miscitation, which are issues of dishonesty.


What is a misquotation if not someone being quoted as saying something which they did not say? In fact, Dotson explicitly states that she is supportive of the exercise of reason. You could read the linked source material if you want to, and compare it to the quote from the book. I'm not hiding anything here, nor am I misrepresenting anything. The author's quote Dotson as being hostile to reason to support their claim that reified postmodernists are hostile to science. That is intellectually dishonest because she never said any such thing in the work that they cite.

As a final point, what exactly have I misrepresented on this thread?


Diamond said:


> Yes, you have the right logical formulation of Lindsay's view there. See how it demonstrates no causation _from_ the Frankfurt School _to_ the antisemites...? The anti-semites use the material in the world available to them. The Frankfurt School is some of that material.


Yes, according to Lindsay the Frankfurt school's existence in the world provides material for anti-semites to recruit more anti-semites.

I'm glad we're finally in agreement that his tweets were propagating the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, although the road here was very tedious.


----------



## hitmouse (Jun 22, 2021)

Diamond said:


> Yes, you have the right logical formulation of Lindsay's view there. See how it demonstrates no causation _from_ the Frankfurt School _to_ the antisemites...?  The anti-semites use the material in the world available to them.  The Frankfurt School is some of that material.


Is the Frankfurt School's desire to end Western Civilization some of that material, or is this a place where it might be helpful to challenge the worldview of antisemitic conspiracy theorists rather than accepting it as broadly accurate?


----------



## killer b (Jun 25, 2021)

there's a worthwhile piece on postmodernism in the Statesman today - How postmodernism became the universal scapegoat of the era


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Jun 25, 2021)

Colin Hunt said:


> OK there's a few things to unpack here. Firstly, if someone's criticising a book that you've recommended for making incorrect generalisations, saying 'it seems OK to me' isn't a brilliant defense. With that in mind I'll go through my first post and add some substance.
> 
> *Step 1: Make some generalisations and misrepresentations about a diverse group of theorists. *Here's a quote about postmodernism from the book.
> 
> ...



The People's Iron Fist Award for Excellent Posting goes to Colin Hunt!


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Jun 25, 2021)

Diamond said:


> You seem to know so much about this milieu Athos, paint me a picture for how it all fits together...?



Defending the racist and conspiracy theorist Lindsay is a really bad hill to die on dude. He's so bad that even the co-author of the book you're recommending has ditched him because he's such a toxic nutter.


----------



## dilberto (Jul 22, 2021)

It is a prejudiced position to presume that something can never happen.

Sorry to repeat myself. 

Progressive change, by causing the social environment of progressive societies to diverge from their traditional native surviving character, has created a social environment which is no longer compatible with a surviving human population which is manifest in the demographic, cultural and class trends of progressive societies and in adapting to that social environment the values of such societies have become intolerant of their own traditional surviving native character and that intolerance is reflected in the historically extreme identity politics of progressive societies. 

The best adapted to that social environment and in whom that intolerance is more strongly imbued will increasingly come to dominate the institutions of progressive societies with those who are the object of that intolerance excluded from those institutions reflecting its anti-native institutional bias, this is the cause of the current division of western society and its divisive identity politics which has led western native people to see themselves as being betrayed by the institutions and leaders of their own homeland.


----------



## NoXion (Jul 22, 2021)

dilberto said:


> It is a prejudiced position to presume that something can never happen.
> 
> Sorry to repeat myself.
> 
> ...



This just sounds like a far more wordy version of "they let the blacks and queers in, and now the Muslims will take over".


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 23, 2021)

dilberto said:


> It is a prejudiced position to presume that something can never happen.
> 
> Sorry to repeat myself.
> 
> ...


You're using a very particular language here, I'm curious to know where it has come from. What reading have you been doing that has influenced this?


----------



## JimW (Jul 23, 2021)

It also farcically posits an ur native identity, flying in the face of a history of constant flux, Britain more than most with reformation, industry and empire.


----------



## mojo pixy (Jul 23, 2021)

dilberto said:


> It is a prejudiced position to presume that something can never happen.
> 
> Sorry to repeat myself.
> 
> Progressive change, by causing the social environment of progressive societies to diverge from their traditional native surviving character, has created a social environment which is no longer compatible with a surviving human population which is manifest in the demographic, cultural and class trends of progressive societies and in adapting to that social environment the values of such societies have become intolerant of their own traditional surviving native character and *that intolerance is reflected in the historically extreme identity politics of progressive societies.*



I think you need to give a few examples of this rather universal claim, because it looks a bit hand wavy to me.



dilberto said:


> The best adapted to that social environment and in whom that intolerance is more strongly imbued will increasingly come to dominate the institutions of progressive societies with those who are the object of that intolerance excluded from those institutions reflecting its anti-native institutional bias, this is the cause of the current division of western society and its divisive identity politics which has led western native people to see themselves as being betrayed by the institutions and leaders of their own homeland.



_Anti-native institutional bias_ .. are you talking about Protestants oppressing Catholics? Normans oppressing Anglo-Saxons? But Catholicism (in fact Christianity at all) and Anglo-Saxon culture were immigrant cultures. Maybe you mean Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and Irish oppressing Romano-British? Or Romans oppressing Britons? But none of these were 'native' to the British Isles, they all arrived from somewhere else. I'm not sure who the 'natives" are, in the Britain in your mind. You mean Europe, are you talking about Mongol invasions, or maybe the Moorish ownership of most of Iberia, or..

I just don't understand what anti-native bias you mean. Or what natives you mean.

But I'd most like to read your answer to Brainaddict above.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jul 23, 2021)

Whilst you are musing on the posts immediately above dilberto it would also help if you could specify (or paste it from the book you've been reading) exactly what you'd recommend progressive societies do to address the fact that "western native people" see themselves as being betrayed by the institutions and leaders of their own homeland? It would also help further if you could sharpen up your definition of who the native people are and who they are not in your (the books) opinion.


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## dilberto (Jul 24, 2021)

#2,787
These are my opinions.

#2,789

Critical race theory and white privilege.


The difficulty some people have in accepting concepts like native identity and native interests in the western context may simply reflect their own cosmopolitan anti-native bias imbued by progressive change and often contrasts markedly with their attitudes to the same concepts in a foreign context. 

It is instructive perhaps that two social models which refuse to recognise native rights and deprive native people of a voice in their homelands are colonial societies and multicultural societies, until they are forced to.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 24, 2021)

Oh come off it, you are patently just delivering the usual far right white supremacist crap.

Sorry* but that's it.

*obviously I am not in the slightest sorry


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 25, 2021)

I was genuinely interested to know what he'd been reading/watching. He's been here for ten years and I can't remember what he's posted politically but it can't have been this stuff or he never would have lasted so long. Just another white man disappointed with his status in life who fell down the alt-right youtube rabbit hole into far right ideology? Or some other route?


----------



## inva (Jul 25, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I was genuinely interested to know what he'd been reading/watching. He's been here for ten years and I can't remember what he's posted politically but it can't have been this stuff or he never would have lasted so long. Just another white man disappointed with his status in life who fell down the alt-right youtube rabbit hole into far right ideology? Or some other route?


No, it literally is ten years of vacuous drive by far right posts.


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## Brainaddict (Jul 25, 2021)

inva said:


> No, it literally is ten years of vacuous drive by far right posts.


Ah okay. Fuckety-bye I guess.


----------



## inva (Jul 25, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Ah okay. Fuckety-bye I guess.


Think the secret of his success was to be too dull for anyone to bother banning him until now.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 18, 2021)

New ACG pamphlet on identity politics: New pamphlet – the Politics of Division - Anarchist Communist Group


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## LDC (Aug 18, 2021)

Brave!


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Brave!


Tell your enemies!


----------



## kabbes (Aug 18, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> New ACG pamphlet on identity politics: New pamphlet – the Politics of Division - Anarchist Communist Group


Am I going to have to put my hand in my pocket for TWO WHOLE POUNDS here?  I can get, like, a tub of hummus or something for that, you know.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Aug 18, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Am I going to have to put my hand in my pocket for TWO WHOLE POUNDS here?  I can get, like, a tub of hummus or something for that, you know.


Most shop-bought hummus is too oily, though. Try making your own. Then you can afford the pamphlet.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 19, 2021)

Okay, I am convinced. Onto my next problem: it doesn’t seem to be available in the shop!

This is the shop link despite what the title page of the URL seems to want to unfurl as


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Okay, I am convinced. Onto my next problem: it doesn’t seem to be available in the shop!
> 
> This is the shop link despite what the title page of the URL seems to want to unfurl as


Please contact londonacg@gmail and then pay to paypal on that email.


----------



## LDC (Aug 19, 2021)

Just ordered from the ACG ruthless propaganda machine.


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## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

Which committee ordered that title, or rather those titles? They’re not good


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> Which committee ordered that title, or rather those titles? They’re not good


What, specifically the new one, or everything they've published?


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> What, specifically the new one, or everything they've published?


The three titles given to that one pamphlet.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> The three titles given to that one pamphlet.


It’s an important pamphlet. Frankly I think it deserved more.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> Which committee ordered that title, or rather those titles? They’re not good


<hard stare>


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> The three titles given to that one pamphlet.


Oh, I see what you mean. I suppose you'd probably say that "Genoa 2001: Memories from the Front Lines: Taking on the G8 at the Climax of a Movement" has too many titles as well?


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> Oh, I see what you mean. I suppose you'd probably say that "Genoa 2001: Memories from the Front Lines: Taking on the G8 at the Climax of a Movement" has too many titles as well?


Yes, one subtitle max. Tho at least those ones aren’t contradictory.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 19, 2021)

Whilst we’re talking reading material:

I’ve been reading Psychology, Humour and Class: A Critique of Contemporary Psychology (also available from bookshops for less than the publisher’s cover price).  It goes a lot, lot broader than the topic of this thread, but it certainly includes this ground.  The author divides the field of psychology into “upper class prescriptions“ (the use of psychology as ways to encourage and support society’s structures), “middle-class musings” (the use of a critical approach to psychology to question how power is embedded into psychology and sociology, but not really provide ways that this can be addressed) and “working-class stuttering” (which is the so-far embryonic notions of a ‘postpsychology’ that can support Marxist ideas rather than get in their way).  The book as a whole is worth a read, if you are into that kind of thing.  The first and second parts are rather better realised than the third, but there are plenty of interesting ideas generally.  However, there are a number of particularly pertinent areas for identity politics.

First, he points out that, “when we have full control of our identity and have the space to develop it, an identity might be useful.  However, when it becomes allied to the prescriptive work of religion, psychiatry, medicine or the law, identity becomes an imposition and a crude tactic of power.”. The point is that, as per Foucault, modern power is enabled sustained through “confessionals” — ways in which individuals weigh themselves against norms and categories, would be my interpretation — and identities are an interface for which power to manage this.

He also spends some time discussing the concept of intersectionality.  He points out that Crenshaw’s original conceptualisation as well as her follow-up of it is all about legal rights, and that little of this can be extrapolated beyond the original purpose.  He quotes Crenshaw herself, who said,

”[Some] often mistakenly think intersectionality is about multiple identity.  I have got 3 [identities] you’ve got 6.  Some colleagues in Germany undertook to count how many intersections there are. Last count there were 17 or something… there was an attempt to map intersectionality… that’s not my articulation of intersectionality.  Intersectionality is not primarily about identity.  It is about how structures make certain identities… the vehicle for vulnerability.“

In other words, it is not about quantifying discrimination or “double discrimination”.  As Crenshaw said, ”[Black women] experience discrimination as Black women — not the sum of race and sex discrimination, but as Black women.“. Her aim (according to the book, not Crenshaw herself), was to “update and modernise bourgeois law rather than to quantify discrimination…. To advocate more effectively on behalf of those who have hitherto been ‘invisible’ within the legal system.“  He then moves on from Crenshaw to talk about the negative implications of doing the aggregation of discrimination she warned against.

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to note this book in this thread, so there it is.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> Yes, one subtitle max. Tho at least those ones aren’t contradictory.


I didn’t think you’d like the pamphlet.  But I did think you might at least get to the bottom of the front cover without kicking off. 😉


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> I didn’t think you’d like the pamphlet.  But I did think you might at least get to the bottom of the front cover without kicking off. 😉


Hey, I didn’t choose the contradictory titles or the entirely superfluous one, blame your editor!


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> Hey, I didn’t choose the contradictory titles or the entirely superfluous one, blame your editor!


They’re not contradictory.


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

In my experience, if you want to engage with an idea or group it’s best not to say it’s the enemy, which ‘the politics of division’ does.  

‘a contribution to the debate’ is just pointless.  Of course that’s what it is.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> In my experience, if you want to engage with an idea or group it’s best not to say it’s the enemy, which ‘the politics of division’ does.
> 
> ‘a contribution to the debate’ is just pointless.  Of course that’s what it is.


“An engagement with” is not the same as “Engaging with”


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Aug 19, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> I didn’t think you’d like the pamphlet.  But I did think you might at least get to the bottom of the front cover without kicking off. 😉


I was uncertain about the first word, tbh. Surely it should be '*A *Politics of Division'. There's plenty more division to be found out there if you look hard enough.


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

kabbes said:


> “An engagement with” is not the same as “Engaging with”


if it just means 'a critique' then say 'a critique,'  if its a memoir, call it that.  What is the advantage of calling it an engagement?


----------



## LDC (Aug 19, 2021)

More of this please, it's fantastic. I do hope the pamphlet lives up to this level of savage criticism. 

And I want a refund, that green on the cover clashes with my sofa cushions.


----------



## keybored (Aug 19, 2021)

nm, found it.


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 19, 2021)

I hope youse have learned a valuable lesson from this, and the next time you want to publish a pamphlet it'll be publicly drafted on here to ensure all aspects of the design are acceptable to all U75 posters.


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## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

Aah, bless.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

I look forward to every word being interrogated, Derrida-style. 

_Now we move on to the first heading.  What do we suppose the authors mean by “Introduction”?  Do they merely mean preamble? And don’t forget that amble can also mean a stroll: are we being invited to stroll with them? Of course in introducing us to the subject, they could be making the assumption that they already know the subject while we do not. This is a patronising tone to begin with. Indeed, one might say more a gamble than an amble._


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

Ohh get over yourself.  Titles are a political decision, they state the parameters of the topic under discussion.   So they’re quite important.  

Really, what is the point of ‘a contribution to the debate’? It’s either obvious and thus pointless, or it undermines the previous titles.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

😎 That’s the spirit. There’s probably several more pages to be had from the titles.


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

Aah, bless


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 19, 2021)

I've had a look at that front cover again, and I have to say I'm not a fan of the kerning.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

Somebody have a go at the graphics.


----------



## andysays (Aug 19, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Somebody have a go at the graphics.


I haven't actually looked at it yet, but was about to ask about the typeface before I commit myself to doing so...


----------



## Athos (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> Ohh get over yourself.  Titles are a political decision, they state the parameters of the topic under discussion.   So they’re quite important.
> 
> Really, what is the point of ‘a contribution to the debate’? It’s either obvious and thus pointless, or it undermines the previous titles.


To me, the subtext is recognising that there's a debate to be had amongst the left, rather than it being a dogmatic assertion.


----------



## A380 (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> Ohh get over yourself.  Titles are a political decision, they state the parameters of the topic under discussion.   So they’re quite important.
> 
> Really, what is the point of ‘a contribution to the debate’? It’s either obvious and thus pointless, or it undermines the previous titles.


Yeah, would sell more  if it was titled " Harry Potter and the the Politics of Division: An engagement with identity politics A contribution to the debate."


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

Athos said:


> To me, the subtext is recognising that there's a debate to be had amongst the left, rather than it being a dogmatic assertion.


That was precisely the intention of the committee.


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

If this is the way you 'engage' with the debate in the pamphlet, then it seems a pretty one -sided 'engagement'.

(If I was being really fussy, I'd also have pointed out that it is silly to capitalise Identity but not  Politics in the first subtitle.  One or the other, that's basic)


----------



## Athos (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> If this is the way you 'engage' with the debate in the pamphlet, then it seems a pretty one -sided 'engagement'.


That's precisely the difference between debate and discussion.


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 19, 2021)

The red side of the divide is populated by almost formless caricatures behind a single flag while the green side feels lived in by fully formed individuals with not only two flags but a placard no doubt emblazoned with a humorous slogan to promote a single issue imbued with deep personal meaning. The hyper individualism of the green further symbolised by the a single strand of hair highlighted against the background versus the bleakness across the divide their dull bureaucratic styles squeezed of all vitality by the cold hand of the red dictatorship. I reject both the bleak suppression of the human spirit and the atomisation so inherent to late capitalism presented here as all there is.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 19, 2021)

I’ve had to pay £1.53 postage, which is, like, an entire second tub of hummus. What am I going to put on my toast?  Sort out your digital platform, comrades!


----------



## LDC (Aug 19, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Somebody have a go at the graphics.



Red _versus _green hey? Are you suggesting it's not possible to be both a socialist and a green? What kind of fucked up artificial divisions are you sowing here? It's just needlessly antagonistic, can't we call just get along?


----------



## Athos (Aug 19, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Red _versus _green hey? Are you suggesting it's not possible to be both a socialist and a green? What kind of fucked up artificial divisions are you sowing here? It's just needlessly antagonistic, can't we call just get along?


And not very inclusive to our colourblind comrades


----------



## Sue (Aug 19, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Red _versus _green hey? Are you suggesting it's not possible to be both a socialist and a green? What kind of fucked up artificial divisions are you sowing here? It's just needlessly antagonistic, can't we call just get along?


And what about the Irish colleens, eh?


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 19, 2021)

Shameless plug - but for those in the West Riding and nearby, this and other great material/badly titled reactionary propaganda will be available at the Bradford Anarchist Bookfair - September 4th, 1in12 club, 11-4.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 19, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Shameless plug - but for those in the West Riding and nearby, this and other great material/badly titled reactionary propaganda will be available at the Bradford Anarchist Bookfair - September 4th, 1in12 club, 11-4.



To be fair, that’s what I call graphics.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 19, 2021)

Christ, imagine the row when we’ve all actually read the fucking pamphlet!


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Aug 19, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Christ, imagine the row when we’ve all actually read the fucking pamphlet!


As a person of colour blindness I'm not sure I should read it, after all the adverse publicity.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 19, 2021)

I’m tempted to wait for a reprint in the hope that ACG sticks Belboid’s comments on the back:

‘Silly’ ‘pointless titles’ ‘basic capitalisation errors’ etc


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I’m tempted to wait for a reprint in the hope that ACG sticks Belboid’s comments on the back:
> 
> ‘Silly’ ‘pointless titles’ ‘basic capitalisation errors’ etc


you could at least use the correct case on my name, you fucker.  I'm an anti-capitalist, you  know


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 19, 2021)

belboid said:


> you could at least use the correct case on my name, you fucker.  I'm an anti-capitalist, you  know



I _knew _you wouldn’t be able to resist…!


----------



## Flavour (Aug 20, 2021)

well this is more fun than it was 25 pages ago eh


----------



## charlie mowbray (Aug 20, 2021)

PDF of  ACG ID Politics pamphlet is now available for £1 from ACG website.


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## hitmouse (Aug 20, 2021)

The Politics of Division: An engagement with identity politics: A contribution to the debate: A PDF.

(Also, on a proofreading note, the text on the website looks alright in my laptop browser, but on my mobile the line spacing's all over the place, makes it look like modernist poetry or something.)


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 20, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> The Politics of Division: An engagement with identity politics: A contribution to the debate: A PDF.
> 
> (Also, on a proofreading note, the text on the website looks alright in my laptop browser, but on my mobile the line spacing's all over the place, makes it look like modernist poetry or something.)


The curse of line breaks.

charlie mowbray - good news about the PDF, I shall grab that.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 20, 2021)

charlie mowbray said:


> PDF of  ACG ID Politics pamphlet is now available for £1 from ACG website.


I literally asked for that yesterday and was told it didn’t exist.  £3.53, I paid!  I will extract £2.53 worth of revenge.


----------



## Sue (Aug 20, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I literally asked for that yesterday and was told it didn’t exist.  £3.53, I paid!  I will extract £2.53 worth of revenge.


Bit of wealth redistribution right there.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 20, 2021)

Random thought for this thread. Was thinking the other day about how often leftish groups ask people to identify as oppressed. Class-focused people as well as identity-focused people. I think it can be very agitational when people are really in the shit (wages not enough to feed their kids, or racist police harassing them in the street daily) but once people have even a small level of comfort in life it is often not a welcome framing. It's a dead end whenever you frame oppression as being key to who you are, and I reckon that's very apparent to people who aren't immersed in lots of abstract theory.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 20, 2021)

I’m going to write a competing pamphlet called The Politics of Delayed Distribution Channels and use £2.53 to market it


----------



## kabbes (Aug 20, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Random thought for this thread. Was thinking the other day about how often leftish groups ask people to identify as oppressed. Class-focused people as well as identity-focused people. I think it can be very agitational when people are really in the shit (wages not enough to feed their kids, or racist police harassing them in the street daily) but once people have even a small level of comfort in life it is often not a welcome framing. It's a dead end whenever you frame oppression as being key to who you are, and I reckon that's very apparent to people who aren't immersed in lots of abstract theory.


Left groups don’t ask people to identify as oppressed. Left groups identify that people _are_ oppressed, whether they have realised it or not.


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 20, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Random thought for this thread. Was thinking the other day about how often leftish groups ask people to identify as oppressed. Class-focused people as well as identity-focused people. I think it can be very agitational when people are really in the shit (wages not enough to feed their kids, or racist police harassing them in the street daily) but once people have even a small level of comfort in life it is often not a welcome framing. It's a dead end whenever you frame oppression as being key to who you are, and I reckon that's very apparent to people who aren't immersed in lots of abstract theory.


I mean, I suppose people at what I'd think of as the more u75 end of the left, or ultra-left or insisting that you please don't call them left or whatever, the anarcho/autonomisty/workerist side of things, would say that's what's different about class, that asking people to have a class perspective is not just about seeing yourself as oppressed/exploited but also about being part of a group that makes up the vast majority of the population, keeps society running and so holds immense power. Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn, picture of a hospitalised copper, that sort of thing. How effective they/we are at communicating that message is another question, though.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 21, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> I mean, I suppose people at what I'd think of as the more u75 end of the left, or ultra-left or insisting that you please don't call them left or whatever, the anarcho/autonomisty/workerist side of things, would say that's what's different about class, that asking people to have a class perspective is not just about seeing yourself as oppressed/exploited but also about being part of a group that makes up the vast majority of the population, keeps society running and so holds immense power. Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn, picture of a hospitalised copper, that sort of thing. How effective they/we are at communicating that message is another question, though.


Yeah, I know, but I feel like it's often seen as the first step to convince people they are exploited, and then the next step to convince people they have the power if they are willling to step up and take it. And often that first step fails, because people like their job or their boss, or because even if they don't their job gives them a sense of worth so they don't want to undermine that by turning themselves into the victim, or because their salary is enough for a house and a car and holidays so how bad is that really, or - and I think this is sometimes true among low-salaried people - just because it would seem to them to be admitting to weakness to cast themselves as being exploited. Additionally in a post-Thatcher society a lot of people might see themselves as temporarily exploited and moving on to better things soon, so why bother focusing on the exploitation - just plot your route out.

I suppose you could start your pitch to workers by talking about their importance in the economy and their latent power. I'd be interested in seeing the results of starting with that rather than starting with them being exploited. Alas social movements don't always experiment as much as they could, or at least they don't do it in formalised enough ways that you can be sure of the outcome.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 21, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Left groups don’t ask people to identify as oppressed. Left groups identify that people _are_ oppressed, whether they have realised it or not.


And then they go and tell people they are oppressed, and that that is a defining feature of their place in society.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 21, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> And then they go and tell people they are oppressed, and that that is a defining feature of their place in society.


I’m imagining Frank and Nancy singing this post.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 21, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> would say that's what's different about class, that asking people to have a class perspective is not just about seeing yourself as oppressed/exploited but also about being part of a group that makes up the vast majority of the population, keeps society running and so holds immense power.



And conversely the development of identity politics has become a) utterly abstracted from our _material relationships_ with the economy, state and society and b) a set of demands for disparity correction within the current structures. As such it often manifests in division and moralising attitudes instead of facilitating wider  solidarities.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 21, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> a set of demands for disparity correction within the current structures.


Ooh, good phrase.  I might steal that.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Aug 21, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Ooh, good phrase.  I might steal that.



Help yourself, I nicked it from Adolf Reed Jr!…









						The Trouble with Disparity
					

Every time racial disparity is invoked as the lens through which to see American inequality, the overwhelming role played by the increased inequality in the American class system is made invisible. And this is, of course, true on the right as well as the left—think of all the conservative...




					nonsite.org


----------



## A380 (Aug 21, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Left groups don’t ask people to identify as oppressed. Left groups identify that people _are_ oppressed, whether they have realised it or not.


The trouble is that can lead down the same rabbit hole Baader Minehoff/RAF went down. I.e upper middle class people thinking that the working class weren't clever enough to see the oppression and so committing actions with the intent of making the lives of working people worse through bringing down the weight of the state upon them in the hope the working class would then rise up. And of course the strata of society from which the activist came was less affected by any state response. There was one small problem with this strategy.


It was bollocks.

But you can still see echos today in every middle class revolutionary sneering about 'reformists' whist wondering if the Algarve will stay green long enough for a quick autumn get away.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 21, 2021)

I just want to look at its beautiful colours and high print quality for a while before I open it.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 21, 2021)

I’ve had it for 20 minutes and the kabbess has already dripped some water on it. There’s some bloody division right there for you


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 21, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’ve had it for 20 minutes and the kabbess has already dripped some water on it. There’s some bloody division right there for you


Practical critique.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 21, 2021)

I like almost all the pamphlet.  So do I talk about the 20 pages I agree with or the 2 pages that I am more dubious about?  

What do you think?  Of course I talk about the bit I'm less keen on.

The two pages in question are those on "cultural relativism".  My issues on this are that firstly, I think it portrays a caricature, which it then attacks as a strawman.  And secondly, I think that even on its own terms, even ignoring this caricature, it misunderstands (or at leasts fails to engage with) the complexity of how culture mediates thought.

So, the caricature.  The argument is that those who engage in identity politics are somehow giving a free pass to other cultures.  Furthermore, they are actually attacking those who do not.  The claim on p.9 is, "One of the main problems with cultural relativism is that no one is allowed to criticise another culture because if right and wrong are relative... there is no objective way of assessing any idea of practice of a cutlure you do not belong to."  What do you think, danny la rouge -- is this _really_ what you think that those who are reflecting on the subjectivity of culture are saying is a necessary and universal consequence of that subjectivity?  This seems to me to be as dangerously oversimplified as saying that the pamphlet's authors believe their own set of morals and ethics to be universals against which all other cultures are to be judged, to the extent that any alien traditions are evil.  I won't belabour this point as it isn't really my main issue, but I don't think such caricature of opposing views ends up helping the argument being made.

Secondly, the misunderstanding of culture.  This whole section on "culture as identity" only deals with cross-cultural conceptualisations (and then only at a surface level).  This is a conceptualisation that takes the individual as an atomised unit that is immersed in a culture that becomes overlaid, like clothing.  It approaches the human as having universal attributes and culture as something that merely expresses this universalism in different ways.  However, I do not subscribe to this concept either of humans or of how the entire subjective sense of reality (or the individual's ontology, if I want to use the ten dollar words) is mediated through culture. I prefer a Vyrgotskian perspective that development only takes place _through_ the use of cultural tools, with subsequent impact on the very conceptualisations of the self, of society, of, well, everything.  The positivist, universalist perspective centred on in pp.8-10 feels like one expressed by those who have not really engaged with the subject.

Anyway, I don't think any of this massively impacts the rest of the pamphlet, and certainly not the important points it makes.  I just kind of wish that it had been left out.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 22, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The positivist, universalist perspective centred on in pp.8-10 feels like one expressed by those who have not really engaged with the subject.


The discussion around the examples on those pages (FGM and the Pascoe Jamilmira case ) is a vital part of the pamphlet and needed to be expressed.

"A Northern Territory judge ruled in October that a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl “knew what was expected of her” and “didn’t need protection” when a 50-year-old man committed statutory rape against the girl and shot a gun into the air when she complained about it. [...]. Expert testimony submitted by an anthropologist in the case called the man’s arrangement with the girl “traditional” and therefore “morally correct.”"

We need to counter the thinking behind both that judgement and the anthropologist's expert testimony.  If we hadn't, the pamphlet would have been lacking.


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## kabbes (Aug 22, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> The discussion around the examples on those pages (FGM and the Pascoe case ) is a vital part of the pamphlet and needed to be expressed.
> 
> "A Northern Territory judge ruled in October that a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl “knew what was expected of her” and “didn’t need protection” when a 50-year-old man committed statutory rape against the girl and shot a gun into the air when she complained about it. [...]. Expert testimony submitted by an anthropologist in the case called the man’s arrangement with the girl “traditional” and therefore “morally correct.”"
> 
> We need to counter the thinking behind both that judgement and the anthropologist's expert testimony.  If we hadn't, the pamphlet would have been lacking.


But you’re arguing a general case — and making some highly contestable claims to do it — and then trying to evidence that general argument based on specific examples. The fact that those specific examples are easy to agree on neither shows the reality of the strawman that has been claimed nor does it engage with the sociocultural reality of how the artefacts, traditions, processes, rituals and language of a culture determine the very subjective reality experienced by an individual.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 22, 2021)

I'm sorry you think it's a strawman.  That you do demonstrates how far apart our thinking is on this, so on this aspect I doubt we'll get any closer through discussion.  Thanks for the feedback though.


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## kabbes (Aug 22, 2021)

Well I would describe myself as a cultural relativist, in that I take a Vyrgotskian view of development as being mediated through culture (and I’ll post more on that later to demonstrate how deeply culture affects the very neurology of the brain), meaning that subjective reality can only ever be situated within that cultural upbringing. However, I wouldn’t describe myself as having really any of the _moral_ relativist positions you ascribe to cultural relativism. Not least because part of cultural relativism is reflecting on your own cultural priorities, and being able to apply them to your own subjective reality just as much as vice versa. This means that I can take moral positions based on my own cultural imperatives. I’m just  not claiming that these are essential or universal, rather than axiomatic.  That’s why your claim about cultural relativism is a strawman


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## Steel Icarus (Aug 22, 2021)

Just a small point - and I'm not attempting to be a cock, my intentions are good - but I assume you're talking about Vygotsky, he of _zone of proximal development_ fame, not Vrygotsky, who Google hasn't heard of


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## kabbes (Aug 22, 2021)

This might help place some concrete meaning on the idea of culture not being some cloak we wear, though which universal attributes apply, but rather being the way in which our subjective reality develops.

Luria was a long-time collaborator of Vyrgotsky, and almost unique in the psy-disciplines of his marrying of neuroscience with detailed case studies and embedding it all in its sociocultural context.  In the early 1930s, he travelled to the Asian part of Rusia to investigate the Uzbekistani tribes.  These tribes still operated largely in a Feudal way, although the state capitalism of Bolshevism and Stalinism was beginning to make its presence felt.  One thing Luria did was present the tribesmen with the kind of straightforward syllogism that are so second nature to anybody who developed within a market economy that _we don't even understand _why there is a question to be answered.  For example, he asked them things like

"In the Far North, where there is snow, all bears are white.  Novaya Zemlya is in the Far North.  What colour bears are there?"

Subjects referred exclusively to their personal experience, failed to accept the premises as universals, but as particular statements to be judged in terms of experience, and failed to construct logical links between the premises. They might respond, "I've never been in the north and never seen bears," or "There are different kinds of bears. If one is born red, he will stay that way."  Luria concluded that the processes of abstraction and generalization are not invariant at all stages of socioeconomic and cultural development. Rather, such processes are themselves products of the cultural environment.  

I hope the point is clear.  Culture isn't just different types of clothes worn by people who nevertheless all think the same way.  It changes the very way that you think -- the way you experience the world..


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## kabbes (Aug 22, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Just a small point - and I'm not attempting to be a cock, my intentions are good - but I assume you're talking about Vygotsky, he of _zone of proximal development_ fame, not Vrygotsky, who Google hasn't heard of


You know how there are some words and some names that you get wrong and then you realise that you always get them wrong and you try to fix it and then over the years, you cement the wrong spelling in your head and nothing you can do will fix it?  Well, that.


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## belboid (Aug 22, 2021)

Well, the titles turn out not to be the worst thing about the pamphlet, but..... it really isn't very good at all.

Three minor points:
Forced justification looks shit. It's just big blocks of text without a break.  White space is your friend and makes things much more user friendly.

"if you identify as a jazz-fan, then you are not a jazz-hater." - this is not true. It is perfectly possible to be both at once, colloquially having a love/hate relationship with something is not merely possible, it is a common occurrence.  Within formal logic 'fan' and 'hater' are not contradictory. So identifying with one thing does not automatically mean you cannot identify as something else.

"For example, in the trade union movement, thirty or forty years ago, there were very few women or Black activists, and the workplace and social issues important to them largely went ignored."  I think the author has forgotten how old they are, cos thirty to forty years ago was the eighties, when the countries biggest union was led by a black man, where black groups were being set up throughout all unions and forcing their way onto the agenda.  It was probably the highpoint of the black power movement in this country. There was a woman leading one of the male 'bastions' in the print.  Gay rights issues were massive (and we all remember the miners' role in that).


The more important points:

There is far far too much generalisation and claims made without any supporting evidence. Who are the essentialists that are, apparently, everywhere?  If 'It has become common to see the formulation....' why cannot you quote an example of someone using the formulation? These become strawmen and paper tigers. Who _actually _opposes opposing FGM, other than practitioners? There have been a small number of cases where someone has tried to overturn laws banning it on grounds of religious freedom, but none of them won on those grounds (the US did overturn the law, but because they only thought it was a mater for individual states, not the federal government.) It's an argument against something that isn't happening, there are no significant groups, states or even individuals arguing for such a thing. You only quote a single case from halfway around the world two decades ago.  And whilst that is bad, it clearly is an exception rather than the norm and so is a bad point to generalise from.

More importantly, it completely and utterly fails to draw a proper distinction between groups practising 'identity politics' and one that are the acceptable 'autonomous organisation of [oppressed group].' It just isn't there. Women's groups in the unions were apparently autonomous when they were set up, but now the ones that exist are central to the machine. Often with the very same people.  Is this a problem of 'identity politics,' 'autonomous groups' or is it about reformism? Why does BLM not gain the honour of being an 'autonomous group?' It is set up and run by black people, on their own terms, so why exclude it?  Considering this is the one and only current IP issue that is directly discussed, it is a massive omission. The brief sections on it are appalling.

_The Black Lives Matter protests involve all sorts of people with very different politics, and while some called to defund the police, others called for parity by employing more Black police.
This is true too of the white people who paraded their shame at their privilege at Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2020, lining up to cry on podiums in parks across the world. _

If that is all you actually noticed of the BLM demos then you weren't paying any attention. I attended several and watched many more online, and normally there weren't any white people on the platform at all.  I certainly never once saw people 'lining up to cry on podiums' and, frankly, I don't think it ever happened.  Even if it did, why only pick that out, rather than the many more calls for an end to all police harassment an end to substandard housing, the ones that explicitly called for opposition to the police & sentencing bill. Or even mention that statue that went for a swim.  They are all far more typical of BLM activities than some white liberal.

Finally, there is that funny old falsehood derived from Malik.
_Giving social groups essential characteristics implies that individuals from oppressed groups are inherently better than those from other groups._

But this is just bollocks. I do not know anyone in any 'idpol' group who would agree with it, most would laugh at you for saying it. Trans people don't think they're better than cis people, (most) Scottish nationalists dont think they're _better than_ the English.  They just want a seat at the table/to be able to go to work, or home at night, without harassment. They want the same rights as the rest of us and they want autonomy. Fair fucking play. Some of the TERFy groups probably do still have a bit of the seventies 'boys and their toys' / 'women would run the world much better' stuff, but they are absent from this piece and are the exception. 

The pamphlet doesn't really have a critique of what Identity Politics actually _is_, it has points of criticism for what it _could be_. Any single issue campaign can be approached in a radical/revolutionary way, or a liberal/reformist way. The movements themselves are not inherently one or the other and where they end up depends upon who works with them and how. The job for radicals/revolutionaries is, surely, to argue for the radical approach in every circumstance, to put the movement to the left and say 'defund the police' not employ more black cops. Otherwise you are just leaving those movements to the careerists and reformists (which creates a nice fait accompli, 'look, i told you it would end up rubbish'). And every movement contains all kinds of seeds in it, dismissing all of 'identity politics' because of a few cherry picked examples is like dismissing the entirety of anarchism cos Stirner is a load of wank, or because it sometimes descends into vague soggy liberalism.


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## Kevbad the Bad (Aug 22, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This might help place some concrete meaning on the idea of culture not being some cloak we wear, though which universal attributes apply, but rather being the way in which our subjective reality develops.
> 
> Luria was a long-time collaborator of Vyrgotsky, and almost unique in the psy-disciplines of his marrying of neuroscience with detailed case studies and embedding it all in its sociocultural context.  In the early 1930s, he travelled to the Asian part of Rusia to investigate the Uzbekistani tribes.  These tribes still operated largely in a Feudal way, although the state capitalism of Bolshevism and Stalinism was beginning to make its presence felt.  One thing Luria did was present the tribesmen with the kind of straightforward syllogism that are so second nature to anybody who developed within a market economy that _we don't even understand _why there is a question to be answered.  For example, he asked them things like
> 
> ...


I don't know the first thing about Luria or Vyrgotsky, so I might well be doing them an injustice. But you have to be really careful with Soviet studies of anything. Everything was seen through the lens of ideology. Whilst the Bolsheviks claimed to be in favour of a union of peoples, this vision was always contradictory, hypocritical and partial. Non-Russians were second class in practice, a relic of the Russian empire which the Bolsheviks inherited. Muslim, Buddhist and shamanic cultures were deemed backward by comparison with the now Marxist Russian state. Peasants were also backward, lagging behind their proletarian cousins. Nomadic, semi-nomadic, Hunter-gatherer, pastoralist cultures were even more primitive. Their more advanced Russian brothers would guide them towards a socialist future in a friendly, paternalistic and patronising way. 
When Russian researchers went out to the wilds of Central Asia to interview illiterate Uzbeks they took their derogatory assumptions with them. Someone else would have had to translate, with all the potential misunderstandings that can generate. Asking theoretical questions of people who may never have seen photographs, certainly never saw TV programs or films, were illiterate and uneducated, would have been unconcerned about the end results of the interviews and who may even have been taking the piss, was nothing like the scientific enterprise it pretended to be.
Like I say, I may be doing these geezers a disservice, but I wouldn't trust the results of cultural investigations coming out of 1930's Stalinist Russia one little bit.


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## Raheem (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> The discussion around the examples on those pages (FGM and the Pascoe Jamilmira case ) is a vital part of the pamphlet and needed to be expressed.
> 
> "A Northern Territory judge ruled in October that a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl “knew what was expected of her” and “didn’t need protection” when a 50-year-old man committed statutory rape against the girl and shot a gun into the air when she complained about it. [...]. Expert testimony submitted by an anthropologist in the case called the man’s arrangement with the girl “traditional” and therefore “morally correct.”"
> 
> We need to counter the thinking behind both that judgement and the anthropologist's expert testimony.  If we hadn't, the pamphlet would have been lacking.


I think this case is a little misrepresented and miscast. There's no denying it's a depressing case, but I don't see it as being about a bunch of tofu-munching do-gooders rewriting the law out of respect for aboriginal cultural practices. It is, rather, about something older: the unaddressed legacy of a legal apartheid in Australia, never properly formalised or reformed. Although things might have changed since this case, there has been a laissez-faire approach to policing aboriginal communities which predates any particular date of origin that might be proposed for "identity politics". The problem that arises is really that of prosecuting one individual for behaviour which is generally tolerated not just within his community, but also by wider Australian society by dint of not giving a fuck what those people get up to.

Incidentally, it doesn't seem fair to say that anybody involved in the case made the judgement that "traditional" = "morally correct". The full quote for the anthropologist who testified for the defence is:

_The enjoining of sexual relations between a significantly older man and his promised wife (often under the age of 16) or, indeed, between such a man and any socially legitimated post-menarche (i.e. after first_ menstruation_) female spouse, is not considered aberrant in _Burarra society_. Rather, it is the cultural ideal, sanctioned and underpinned by a complex system of customary law and practice.That such behaviour may be at variance with contemporary Western sensibilities, mores and laws… in no way diminishes the fact that it is regarded as entirely appropriate- indeed, morally correct- conduct within the traditional parameters of the Burarra life-world_.

I can't see that there's anything obviously wrong with this statement, or with the defence using it in evidence.


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## kabbes (Aug 23, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> I don't know the first thing about Luria or Vyrgotsky, so I might well be doing them an injustice. But you have to be really careful with Soviet studies of anything. Everything was seen through the lens of ideology. Whilst the Bolsheviks claimed to be in favour of a union of peoples, this vision was always contradictory, hypocritical and partial. Non-Russians were second class in practice, a relic of the Russian empire which the Bolsheviks inherited. Muslim, Buddhist and shamanic cultures were deemed backward by comparison with the now Marxist Russian state. Peasants were also backward, lagging behind their proletarian cousins. Nomadic, semi-nomadic, Hunter-gatherer, pastoralist cultures were even more primitive. Their more advanced Russian brothers would guide them towards a socialist future in a friendly, paternalistic and patronising way.
> When Russian researchers went out to the wilds of Central Asia to interview illiterate Uzbeks they took their derogatory assumptions with them. Someone else would have had to translate, with all the potential misunderstandings that can generate. Asking theoretical questions of people who may never have seen photographs, certainly never saw TV programs or films, were illiterate and uneducated, would have been unconcerned about the end results of the interviews and who may even have been taking the piss, was nothing like the scientific enterprise it pretended to be.
> Like I say, I may be doing these geezers a disservice, but I wouldn't trust the results of cultural investigations coming out of 1930's Stalinist Russia one little bit.


I think this is an area where it might have helped you to know a little bit about Vygotsky and Luria. Vygotsky’s work was specifically informed directly by Marx and remained at odds with Bolshevism. In fact, one reason his work ended up relatively buried for 40 years (he died in 1934 and remained relatively obscure until being rediscovered in the 1970s) is that it didn’t fit with Bolshevik ideology.

Meanwhile, Luria got heavily in trouble with the Soviet authorities for his Uzbekistan work, because, again, it ran counter to Soviet ideology.  Amongst other things, his findings showed that there was no reason to have derogatory views of ethnic groups; there was no essential underpinning to any form of racism. 

The fact that both Vygotsky and Luria managed to produce such original and extraordinary insights into the way culture impacts development, subjectivity, learning and cognition in spite of and in the face of hostile Stalinism is reason to be even more impressed by what they produced.

Of course, _all_ work is heavily influenced by its ideological underpinnings. That’s kind of the whole point of what I’m saying. That’s precisely why you need to understand and lay bare what it is that the research relies on, in terms of its theories both of the nature of reality and the nature of knowledge. And those ideological influences include the influences on all work on and understandings of culture created from within the capitalist and individualist ideologies of the west.  The cross-cultural assumptions relied on to produce the section on cultural relativism within this pamphlet are not explicitly acknowledged.  However, they are, ironically, underpinned by the ideologies of western market capitalism.  They are based on an essentialist ontology of the self as having universal, atomised attributes, and culture just beings overlaid on top as the way these attributes are expressed.


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## hitmouse (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> Why does BLM not gain the honour of being an 'autonomous group?' It is set up and run by black people, on their own terms, so why exclude it?  Considering this is the one and only current IP issue that is directly discussed, it is a massive omission. The brief sections on it are appalling.
> 
> _The Black Lives Matter protests involve all sorts of people with very different politics, and while some called to defund the police, others called for parity by employing more Black police.
> This is true too of the white people who paraded their shame at their privilege at Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2020, lining up to cry on podiums in parks across the world. _
> ...


Will have to get round to ordering the pamphlet and giving it a proper read at some point, but if that is the level at which BLM's discussed then it does sound like a pretty poor critique. ETA: and also seems kind of at odds with the stuff that the ACG was actually publishing last summer, like All around the world the police are our enemy - Anarchist Communist Group


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## Kevbad the Bad (Aug 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I think this is an area where it might have helped you to know a little bit about Vygotsky and Luria.


Fair point


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## maomao (Aug 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I think this is an area where it might have helped you to know a little bit about Vygotsky and Luria. Vygotsky’s work was specifically informed directly by Marx and remained at odds with Bolshevism. In fact, one reason his work ended up relatively buried for 40 years (he died in 1934 and remained relatively obscure until being rediscovered in the 1970s) is that it didn’t fit with Bolshevik ideology.
> 
> Meanwhile, Luria got heavily in trouble with the Soviet authorities for his Uzbekistan work, because, again, it ran counter to Soviet ideology.  Amongst other things, his findings showed that there was no reason to have derogatory views of ethnic groups; there was no essential underpinning to any form of racism.
> 
> ...


You might be interested in Daniel Everett's books on the Piraha language which have been at the forefront of recent arguments for linguistic relativity.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> Will have to get round to ordering the pamphlet and giving it a proper read at some point, but if that is the level at which BLM's discussed then it does sound like a pretty poor critique. ETA: and also seems kind of at odds with the stuff that the ACG was actually publishing last summer, like All around the world the police are our enemy - Anarchist Communist Group


The passages belboid quotes are separate mentions, the first (p15) from a section specifically discussing cross class alliances, and the second (p18) from a section about the practical inadequacy of guilt.   The contexts are important.  

The article you link to (and others) are to be taken as our commentary on BLM.  This, for example: The Fire This Time - Anarchist Communist Group

This pamphlet is a critique on the shortcomings of identity politics as defined in the pamphlet.  We state several times throughout the pamphlet that we are making a distinction.  We deal with the issue in the introduction.  For example, we say:

Being critical of identity politics is controversial and widely misunderstood and misconstrued. We
must therefore begin by being clear that when we say we are critical of identity
politics, this does not mean we oppose fighting oppression. Indeed, we disagree
with identity politics precisely because we believe it entrenches inequality and
oppression and makes it more difficult for us to achieve the overall goal of
anarchist communism. Focusing only on discrimination against one particular
group within capitalism can often lead to a reinforcement of inequalities. It is not
about ensuring there is the right proportion of women, black and disabled
business leaders or trans, Muslim and gay cops. It is about ending oppression,
not about having oppressors with the right diversity ratio.  (pp4/5).


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## hitmouse (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> The passages belboid quotes are separate mentions, the first (p15) from a section specifically discussing cross class alliances, and the second (p18) from a section about the practical inadequacy of guilt.   The contexts are important.
> 
> The article you link to (and others) are to be taken as our commentary on BLM.  This, for example: The Fire This Time - Anarchist Communist Group
> 
> ...


See, that sounds fair enough as far as it goes, but I would say that - especially when making an argument that you know is going to be controversial and widely misunderstood and misconstrued - it's important to not just say that you support fighting oppression, but to explicitly spell out what your alternative strategy looks like, and preferably not just at the level of "it would be nice if there was a hypothetical anarchist communist mass movement" but with reference to contemporary real-world examples. Such as BLM, or at least specific elements within the BLM protests. If the pamphlet doesn't do that then it seems like it's setting itself up to be more misunderstood and misconstrued than it needs to be?

I should probably get around to ordering and reading it before I have any more opinions about it, though.


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## Fozzie Bear (Aug 23, 2021)

Well the ACG has certainly _contributed to the debate_.


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## Fozzie Bear (Aug 23, 2021)

I thought the pamphlet was OK, although obviously raises other questions. I need to read it again.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

Fozzie Bear said:


> I thought the pamphlet was OK, although obviously raises other questions. I need to read it again.


As you say. It’s not a final word; it’s a contribution to the debate.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> I should probably get around to ordering and reading it before I have any more opinions about it, though.


Please do.  It took a long time to prepare because we had a lot of things we needed to cover, but we absolutely know it hasn’t covered everything.  Good faith engagement is the aim.


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## LDC (Aug 23, 2021)

Speaking of good faith... it's been mentioned on the Bookfair thread, but has there been any contact or response from the London Bookfair about the ACG being there?


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Speaking of good faith... it's been mentioned on the Bookfair thread, but has there been any contact or response from the London Bookfair about the ACG being there?


Not last I heard. But we are involved in the anti-university programme.


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## kabbes (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> As you say. It’s not a final word; it’s a contribution to the debate.


That’s not great, though, when your answer to somebody responding to that debate is, “well, we’re not going to agree so I won’t respond further.”


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## steeplejack (Aug 23, 2021)

Beyond the walls of U75, who actually reads pamphlets, anyway?

I fear it's only a few grizzled old walruses, tusks yellow and worn, on one of the few remaining ice floes of what was once a giant continental shelf, called "the left".

I am a fan of the fanzine like graphics though which is a nod and a wink both to samizdat and the hipster-inflected re-emergence of fanzine culture, a pale echo of the 80s and 90s originals.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> That’s not great, though, when your answer to somebody responding to that debate is, “well, we’re not going to agree so I won’t respond further.”


Not what I said. But specifically on you being a declared cultural relativist and me being declared against cultural relativism I’m not sure where it would get us.

Also, although I am an author of the pamphlet I’m not the only author, and if we disappear off down a detour about Vygotsy,  I don’t want people assuming I’m speaking for the ACG.  I’m not the ACG spokesperson on Vygotsky.  You will be unsurprised to learn we don’t have one.

The pamphlet is not, however, presented as all there is to say.  It is, as it declares from the outset, a contribution.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

steeplejack said:


> Beyond the walls of U75, who actually reads pamphlets, anyway?


Other political nerds who want to judge each other.


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## kabbes (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Not what I said. But specifically on you being a declared cultural relativist and me being declared against cultural relativism I’m not sure where it would get us.
> 
> Also, although I am an author of the pamphlet I’m not the only author, and if we disappear off down a detour about Vygotsy,  I don’t want people assuming I’m speaking for the ACG.  I’m not the ACG spokesperson on Vygotsky.  You will be unsurprised to learn we don’t have one.
> 
> The pamphlet is not, however, presented as all there is to say.  It is, as it declares from the outset, a contribution.


But your declaration against cultural relativism is made on incorrect grounds and based on a strawman for what its implications are.  Why is that not worthy of engaging with?


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> But your declaration against cultural relativism is made on incorrect grounds and based on a strawman for what its implications are.  Why is that not worthy of engaging with?


You did engage.  And I said I don’t agree it’s a straw man.  You responded that it is.  I thought probably thread readers had had enough of that exchange.  

Your criticism is there for people to see.  If they read the pamphlet and also reflect on what you’ve said, I’m happy.


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## hitmouse (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Not last I heard. But we are involved in the anti-university programme.



Which all feels a bit confusing given that the antiuni thing is specifically advertised as being in collaboration with the bookfair: ANTIUNIVERSITY NOW x ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR IN LONDON 2021

Having said that, I've just had a look at the main bookfair site, and either my browser's playing up or else they've just not confirmed many stalls so far:

(possibly this is on the wrong thread though?)


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> possibly this is on the wrong thread though?)


Almost certainly.


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## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> The passages belboid quotes are separate mentions, the first (p15) from a section specifically discussing cross class alliances, and the second (p18) from a section about the practical inadequacy of guilt.   The contexts are important.
> 
> The article you link to (and others) are to be taken as our commentary on BLM.  This, for example: The Fire This Time - Anarchist Communist Group
> 
> ...


So you admit my statement was correct but say it doesn’t matter because there’s a separate article about it?   What a joke.  

you were meant to have written about identity politics, to have identified its praxis and critiqued it.   But you didn’t you just reposted a bunch of general criticisms and made a few dubious claims.  You pointed out the role of praxis so know that it’s how you put your principles into practise that counts.  But it’s not here.  

a single mention of a current movement and it grossly misrepresents the organisation.   Why should anyone continue reading after such a lie?

and you don’t define identity politics as distinct from ‘good’ anti oppression movements.  You just say ‘what we do good, what they do bad’


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> So you admit my statement was correct but say it doesn’t matter because there’s a separate article about it? What a joke.


No. Neither of those claims is correct.


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> No. Neither of those claims is correct.


What the claim that those are the only mentions of BLM is incorrect? Or have I missed you mentioning another actual current movement?

I certainly didn’t miss this mythical definition of IP you say is in there. It isn’t.


----------



## LDC (Aug 23, 2021)

What are your politics belboid? Are you in any groups or political party?


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What are your politics belboid? Are you in any groups or political party?


Irrelevant to this thread.  

some kind of post Trotskyist or something.   I support RS21, or give them some dosh anyway.  

We need to take part in liberation politics movements (even if stereotyped as ip) as (long as) the cause is right (like it is with BLM and trans rights). And we need to make our arguments (eg around cross class collaboration and the lack of value in getting more mixed boardrooms) _within_ them, as we are supporting the struggle.  The job of revolutionaries is to change the world not just interpret  it.


----------



## LDC (Aug 23, 2021)

Cheers for answering, I find it useful for context in discussions. I do find it relevant btw, it often helps me understand why people have the positions they do.


----------



## Serge Forward (Aug 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What are your politics belboid? Are you in any groups or political party?


Whatever belboid's politics, I get the impression they are not arguing in good faith. The ACG makes it clear from the outset that this is a "contribution to a debate" rather than the last word on this subject - how could it be otherwise - and in no way claims that the ACG has all the answers. 

Also, the ACG would agree about involvement with "liberation politics" but this is not the same as identity politics and we shouldn't conflate the two.

Finally, cultural relativism is wank.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 23, 2021)

Serge Forward said:


> Finally, cultural relativism is wank.


Strawmen generally are. And easy to knock over, to boot.


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

Serge Forward said:


> Whatever belboid's politics, I get the impression they are not arguing in good faith. The ACG makes it clear from the outset that this is a "contribution to a debate" rather than the last word on this subject - how could it be otherwise - and in no way claims that the ACG has all the answers.
> 
> Also, the ACG would agree about involvement with "liberation politics" but this is not the same as identity politics and we shouldn't conflate the two.
> 
> Finally, cultural relativism is wank.


I would be very happy if this pamphlet was well argued and convincing.  But it isn’t.  To dismiss criticisms I make as ‘bad faith’ is a pisspoor way of avoiding criticisms.   Especially considering how BLM is misrepresented in the pamphlet.   If that isn’t bad faith, what is?

The fact that this is merely a ‘contribution to the debate’ doesn’t absolve it of the need to cite sources, be factually accurate and to actually define terms.   Anyone can say they support ‘liberation politics’ but without stating what the distinction between them and identity politics are, then it’s a meaningless statement.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> What the claim that those are the only mentions of BLM is incorrect? Or have I missed you mentioning another actual current movement?
> 
> I certainly didn’t miss this mythical definition of IP you say is in there. It isn’t.


It’s fairly straightforward. This pamphlet is about things we are critical of.  That is explained in the pamphlet.  At some length.  

BLM is a cause we support.  At its core it is a straightforward and clear message about police violence against black people.  We clearly have no disagreement there.  (I have personally been involved in BLM actions.  I even have posters in my windows).  

On the specific instances mentioned we do have criticism.  As you note, those are brief.

If you’re commissioning a pamphlet on Things We Agree With, get in touch with our pamphlets group with funding details.


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> It’s fairly straightforward. This pamphlet is about things we are critical of.  That is explained in the pamphlet.  At some length.
> 
> BLM is a cause we support.  At its core it is a straightforward and clear message about police violence against black people.  We clearly have no disagreement there.  (I have personally been involved in BLM actions.  I even have posters in my windows).
> 
> ...


So it isn’t an ‘engagement with’ it’s just a string of criticisms.  Not as good a subtitle I guess. 

this is a one off pamphlet, not part of a series.  Who knows what the acg have said about BLM elsewhere? It doesn’t take much to say you support various aspects of BLM, so why not? It would indicate you are taking the issue seriously not just setting up a straw man. 

and none of that is any excuse for failing to cite any sources.   When and where did this mythical meeting with the liberal tears actually happen?

likewise, who actually opposes opposing fgm? You make these assertions but show no evidence to back them up.  Straw man after straw man.

How does anyone know you agree with various points if you don’t actually say so?


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> So it isn’t an ‘engagement with’ it’s just a string of criticisms.  Not as good a subtitle I guess.
> 
> this is a one off pamphlet, not part of a series.  Who knows what the acg have said about BLM elsewhere? It doesn’t take much to say you support various aspects of BLM, so why not? It would indicate you are taking the issue seriously not just setting up a straw man.


The pamphlet I read is not just a string of criticisms.

I think it is clear from the title that has been discussed here at length that this is not the only statement that the ACG has ever, or will ever, make on the subject. Indeed you'd think that the nature of debate is that people make contributions at various points.

A small point I was going to make was about the section on supporting autonomous groups towards the end. Possibly what those might be (and at what point an autonomous group stops being one and becomes a vehicle for identity politics) could have been made clearer. But I think it would be a pretty ungenerous reading of the pamphlet to suggest that the ACG has absolutely no truck whatsoever with BLM.


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

Fozzie Bear said:


> The pamphlet I read is not just a string of criticisms.
> 
> I think it is clear from the title that has been discussed here at length that this is not the only statement that the ACG has ever, or will ever, make on the subject. Indeed you'd think that the nature of debate is that people make contributions at various points.
> 
> A small point I was going to make was about the section on supporting autonomous groups towards the end. Possibly what those might be (and at what point an autonomous groups stops being one and becomes a vehicle for identity politics) could have been made clearer. But I think it would be a pretty ungenerous reading of the pamphlet to suggest that the ACG has absolutely no truck whatsoever with BLM.


As I said, there are only two mentions of it, both highly critical.   There is no mention of anything positive at all.   Are we meant to be mind readers? We can only go on what is actually said.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Aug 23, 2021)

I think it's clear, that inasmuch as BLM is an autonomous movement that is pro-working class and anti-racist, that the ACG would support it. 

I assume they would be critical of black nationalists and teary white liberals who use the BLM banner to further their own agendas.


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

‘Inasmuch as’ - but how much is that? There is no mention of it being any such thing.  If I were a young person going on a BLM demo and picked up this pamphlet there, as my first interaction with the acg, i would only know what is written.   

and I’m still waiting to find out when and where this mythical event occurred.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> How does anyone know you agree with various points if you don’t actually say so?


Is that a singular me or a collective us?

The ACG has a website with articles on a range of topics. Including BLM.  You chose for some reason to discount those.  But if you allow those, you’ll find out.

We also have social media accounts. And  occasional statements on topics we consider we should have statements on are released on our website.

I think the issue here is that you’ve gone in with one view of what identity politics is, and have therefore been looking for us to fall foul of that.  I do think that if you go in without those expectations you’ll find we’re quite clear about what are criticisms are of.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

Fozzie Bear said:


> A small point I was going to make was about the section on supporting autonomous groups towards the end. Possibly what those might be (and at what point an autonomous group stops being one and becomes a vehicle for identity politics) could have been made clearer.


Indeed. We could possibly have expanded on that.  Autonomous groups are included in our Aims and Principles.  But maybe a future edition of the pamphlet (which isn’t imminent) should take that section further.

However, from memory I think we’re clear that an autonomous group within the working class is quite different from a cross class alliance (which will result in such “advances” as a better diversity ratio of oppressors).


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Is that a singular me or a collective us?


The latter/either


danny la rouge said:


> The ACG has a website with articles on a range of topics. Including BLM.  You chose for some reason to discount those.  But if you allow those, you’ll find out.
> 
> We also have social media accounts. And  occasional statements on topics we consider we should have statements on are released on our website.



I’m not discounting anything, although it would have been sensible to include some of those links in the pamphlet, or how is anyone to know? ‘It’s all on the website’ isn’t really a particularly useful answer. 


danny la rouge said:


> I think the issue here is that you’ve gone in with one view of what identity politics is, and have therefore been looking for us to fall foul of that.  I do think that if you go in without those expectations you’ll find we’re quite clear about what are criticisms are of.


Nope, I don’t think this is true.  Of course I have a view of what ‘identity politics’ is.  I don’t know whether it is the same as yours because you never really state it. 

and even if that were true, it’s still no excuse for you barely citing any sources for your claims or the things which are just plain wrong. 

who opposes opposing fgm? Which trans groups say trans people are better than cis people? etc etc


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> who opposes opposing fgm?


Eg BBC News | UK POLITICS | MPs attack Greer on female circumcision


belboid said:


> Which trans groups say trans people are better than cis people? etc etc


Do you have a page reference for that? I don’t remember the pamphlet making such a claim.

As for “etc etc”, that’s not particularly helpful.


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Eg BBC News | UK POLITICS | MPs attack Greer on female circumcision
> 
> Do you have a page reference for that? I don’t remember the pamphlet making such a claim.
> 
> As for “etc etc”, that’s not particularly helpful.


The Greer piece (from 22 years ago) has people saying her comments are ‘simplistic’.  It says they are working with practitioners to stop it, providing practical ways for them to do something else.   Simply outlawing it simply drives the practise underground and makes it more dangerous.   Hence, what they are doing is using a different method to end fgm.  The fact that it is embedded within certain cultures means you have to show awareness of those cultures or you won’t be effective.   And effectiveness is what matters, not moral grandstanding.    Now there may we’ll be practical issues with that approach, it may we’ll have underestimated how many people in those communities were already opposed to the practise.   But it is not excusing fgm for cultural reasons and when people have tried that argument in court they’ve failed.  

the quote as para 3, page 18.  

and you don’t really want me list every uncited assertion, do you? There on virtually every page.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> the quote as para 3, page 18.


That’s a passage dealing with the fallacious assumption by some that being from an oppressed group necessitates one having good (non reactionary) politics.  And before you ask “who says that?”, you know very well that one comes across the assumption all the time.


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> That’s a passage dealing with the fallacious assumption by some that being from an oppressed group necessitates one having good (non reactionary) politics.  And before you ask “who says that?”, you know very well that one comes across the assumption all the time.


No I don’t.  I don’t know anyone who’d make that assumption, especially not in the age of Pritti Patel.   I’ve often come across the argument that being in an oppressed group makes one more _amenable_ to progressive politics, because you’ve been thrown into conflict with the state and because people undertaking struggle generally are (ie, the same reasons as in the pamphlet). But _necessarily? _Never_.  

Giving social groups essen�al characteris�cs implies that individuals from oppressed groups are inherently be�er than those from other groups. So, if you are a woman or a person of colour you will be less likely to be an oppressor yourself. This also goes for the working class. _

Again, there is nothing inherent in this. Not even if we ignore the moralistic term ‘better.’ That there is no automatic unity of the oppressed is pretty much axiomatic.  Indeed it was a driver of intersectionality and modern ‘identity politics’.

I’m not sure why the working class is mentioned here. Is there really a train of thought that promotes the W-c because it is _morally_ better?

Maybe it’s an anarchist thing, if socialists thought these things were automatic there’d be no need for a party to explain it all.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> No I don’t. I don’t know anyone who’d make that assumption, especially not in the age of Pritti Patel.


*How can Kanye say that about slavery when he’s African American?
How can Jewish people support Israeli apartheid given their history?*

You’ve never seen those kinds of arguments?


----------



## belboid (Aug 23, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> *How can Kanye say that about slavery when he’s African American?
> How can Jewish people support Israeli apartheid given their history?*
> 
> You’ve never seen those kinds of arguments?


Seen and heard them as statements of exasperation, not as a serious statement of political position.  At best, its 'some man in a pub said' stuff, not a general position of those within the IP 'movement.'  

A movement which is no more monolithic than any 'community' is. Which debates many of the issues being raised here (as well as others of course, some of which I'm surprised haven't been touched on, such as the supposed conflict between trans and women's rights'. This is clearly one of the trickier questions to address, and shows up some of the shortcomings of a lot of identity based politics, as well as being so obviously topical so I am really surprised at its omission). By cherry picking examples from all over the shop it leaves it all too open to the (IP leaning) reader to dismiss it with a 'well that's not what I/we think at all). 

I think this (and the majority of my criticisms) all flows from the lack of clear distinction between 'identity politics' and anti-oppression politics'.


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 23, 2021)

belboid said:


> Seen and heard them as statements of exasperation, not as a serious statement of political position.  At best, its 'some man in a pub said' stuff, not a general position of those within the IP 'movement.'
> 
> A movement which is no more monolithic than any 'community' is. Which debates many of the issues being raised here (as well as others of course, some of which I'm surprised haven't been touched on, such as the supposed conflict between trans and women's rights'. This is clearly one of the trickier questions to address, and shows up some of the shortcomings of a lot of identity based politics, as well as being so obviously topical so I am really surprised at its omission).


Tbh, as you mention above, terf stuff is one of the places where you can see pretty explicit examples of this logic - "the way this person acts proves that we're right to call them a man, no woman would behave like that". And more generally just "trans women must be kept out of women's spaces because they're really men and therefore inherently dangerous", etc.


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## danny la rouge (Aug 23, 2021)

Since it’s sort of come up, this is our most recent statement on trans rights:


*Trans Rights Statement*​We, the ACG, reaffirm our support for trans and non-binary people. We recognise the oppression faced by the trans community. In our aims and principles we stress the importance of ending all oppressions as well as an end to capitalism and the State.

In an anarchist communist society there will continue to be differences between people, a flourishing of diversity as people are freed from the indoctrination and limitations of this society. However, these differences will not mean new hierarchies or inequalities. We fight today against all oppressions and inequality both because of the hardship and suffering it causes and because we need to unite as a class if we are to be effective in our struggles.

We fully recognise that the experience of transgender people has been one of inequality, discrimination and violence. The struggle for equality is difficult and needs to be supported.

The particular relationship between trans women and some other feminists has been fraught and has resulted in extreme polarisation, making it very difficult to unite against patriarchy, gender oppression and capitalism. Sensitivity and understanding of the oppression that different groups experience – those socialised as women, trans women, trans men, and non-binary people – is needed in order to move forward.

We believe that it is unhelpful to set up a false dichotomy, as has widely been done, between “feminism” and “trans rights”. These are not struggles inherently in opposition to each other, but which are worth fighting for together, while working towards a wider understanding of both the shared issues and the differences.

We must come together to end all oppression as well as to help create a united working class movement which can effectively challenge capitalism and hierarchical society.


----------



## hitmouse (Aug 23, 2021)

Thinking about it, this text is possibly relevant:








						George Floyd Solidarity in the Bay Area: Representation and Power
					

Cover Image from Split Cocoa with Permission A critique of weaponized identity politics used to silence rebels and gain political capital. Written by anarchist people of color and originally published to Indybay. “We must never forget that the insurrectionary project belongs to the masses alone...




					itsgoingdown.org
				




“Self-pronounced leaders in the Bay Area have tried to insinuate that anyone who desires conflict with the police after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis are “White people [who] DON’T get to use Black pain to justify living out riot fantasies.” As if the real white fantasy isn’t people of color policing their own behavior in order to save the white supremacist society from being destroyed. This is an old trick that is worth being exposed, again. Power operates through representation…


In movements it’s the leaders who pretend to represent us when saying it’s not time or it’s not safe for us to revolt, usually hiding behind the vulnerability and power of the uncontrollable youth of color. They mediate our rage in order to gain a seat at the table of power. They are aspiring politicians. This type of power, similar to state power, operates on false binaries. George W. Bush told us “you’re either with us, or with the terrorists” and the movement leaders tell us “you’re either peaceful or you’re a provocateur”, or in this case they weaponize identity politics for obedience to their ideology: “you do what we say or you’re white.””


----------



## belboid (Aug 24, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> Tbh, as you mention above, terf stuff is one of the places where you can see pretty explicit examples of this logic - "the way this person acts proves that we're right to call them a man, no woman would behave like that". And more generally just "trans women must be kept out of women's spaces because they're really men and therefore inherently dangerous", etc.


Yeah, there was some of it about thirty/forty years ago.  Nation of Islam stuff as well.  But since then.......

Movements move on, analyses need to too


----------



## Serge Forward (Aug 24, 2021)

Movements may move on but essentialism remains in one form or another. There's as much of this nonsense now as there was 30/40 years ago.


----------



## belboid (Aug 24, 2021)

Serge Forward said:


> Movements may move on but essentialism remains in one form or another. There's as much of this nonsense now as there was 30/40 years ago.


'in one form or another'

Yes, forms change and so the way we respond to them changes - not fundamentally perhaps, but according to circumstance.  That's the basis of a materialist analysis of society. If you want to take an idealist approach to dealing with the issue, go ahead, but it'll be weaker, cos its idealist.   The arguments deployed change, they will sometimes have taken on previous criticism - bell hooks, for instance is mentioned in the pamphlet as being highly critical of many IdPol ideas. She is also absolutely central to the development of intersectionalism.  Ignoring that is just,. well, ignorant. It undermines the author and their supposed knowledge of the subject.

It's also just fucking lazy.


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 24, 2021)

belboid said:


> I’m not sure why the working class is mentioned here. Is there really a train of thought that promotes the W-c because it is _morally_ better?


I'm genuinely surprised that someone who has been on U75 for so long, has seen the P&P forum move from a a place which class politics was a major (possibly a majority current) to the current situation where progressive politics has been prioritised could make such a statement.

OK few progressives would explicitly make such an argument but it is implicit behind their politics. Mason's construction of a progressive (morally good) working class of the socially liberal city dwellers that is to be supported, in contrast to the reactionary (white) working class leave voting home dwellers is absolutely on moral lines.

ETA: Also worth noting that in _The Retreat from Class_ Ellen Meiksins Wood quotes this passage by Francis Mulhern


> Creativity is a potential, not an achievement – true enough. But the potential itself is not determined by the moral and political vicissitudes of the labour movement


Which only makes sense if Mulhern, and Meiksins Wood, believed that at some were connecting their politics to the morality of the wc.


----------



## belboid (Aug 24, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> I'm genuinely surprised that someone who has been on U75 for so long, has seen the P&P forum move from a a place which class politics was a major (possibly a majority current) to the current situation where progressive politics has been prioritised could make such a statement.
> 
> OK few progressives would explicitly make such an argument but it is implicit behind their politics. Mason's construction of a progressive (morally good) working class of the socially liberal city dwellers that is to be supported, in contrast to the reactionary (white) working class leave voting home dwellers is absolutely on moral lines.


Maybe it is, but if so _quote it _and show it, or we're just left to assumptions_.  _It's certainly moralistic, but so is much of anarchism, including within these fair pages.

There _has _always been a 'socialism is a moral crusade or it is nothing' brigade, but even they don't generally elevate the class to being _morally _better per se. They often/usually thought they needed saving.


----------



## Dom Traynor (Aug 24, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Okay, I am convinced. Onto my next problem: it doesn’t seem to be available in the shop!
> 
> This is the shop link despite what the title page of the URL seems to want to unfurl as


The bigger issue is that these granddads in the time of COVID and like the internet don't make it available to just read online or in ebook format.


----------



## danny la rouge (Aug 24, 2021)

Dom Traynor said:


> The bigger issue is that these granddads in the time of COVID and like the internet don't make it available to just read online or in ebook format.


You youngsters and your inability to look in shops: The Politics of Division: An engagement with identity politics (PDF ebook) - Anarchist Communist Group


----------



## Dom Traynor (Aug 25, 2021)

Well done for doing a pdf


----------



## extra dry (Oct 25, 2021)

careful next time you are outer space








						Demi Lovato says we should stop calling extraterrestrials "aliens" because it's "a derogatory term" 😐
					

We live in the greatest, and also worst, moment of human history:




					notthebee.com


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Oct 25, 2021)

I think that’s ok. “Aliens” is basically the intergalactic version of “foreigners”. 

Given our historic mission to unite with the interplanetary working class, the least we can do is not communicate with them in Earth-centric language.


----------



## hitmouse (Oct 25, 2021)

Counterpoint: I think we should start calling psychiatrists alienists again.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Oct 25, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> Counterpoint: I think we should start calling psychiatrists alienists again.



That sounds cooler, tbf.


----------



## Serge Forward (Oct 25, 2021)

Posadist?


----------



## Dom Traynor (Oct 25, 2021)

Whenever I meet off worlders I call them fellow workers.


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 25, 2021)

Dom Traynor said:


> Whenever I meet off worlders I call them fellow workers.


Next time keep them talking until I can get there and cadge a lift.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Oct 25, 2021)

Serge Forward said:


> Posadist?


----------



## extra dry (Oct 26, 2021)

Fozzie Bear said:


> View attachment 294199


 A....A.....A


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 12, 2021)

I think this is really interesting. In one way a critique of shallow identity politics, it creates room for a more sophisticated take on it, in which the material structures available to people in different subject positions are what we should be focusing on, rather than any politics of representation: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference - Olufemi O. Taiwo

It also talks about how trauma is most often debilitating rather than purifying. It's a difficult thing to talk about in real life when you are sitting in a room with people with trauma arising in part from their social position. In fact while I suspect he's right I have no idea how I would talk about it in public.


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## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

Is being Jewish a matter of religion, or in some way a matter of race? Or is it a mixture of the two and if so in what proportions?
If a person converts to Judaism for religious reasons, would they then be a victim of anti-semitism if it is round and about?
Or is it a matter of culture, like if you are a recent convert you’re not quite as Jewish as a person from a family where the religious observance goes back for generations?


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 28, 2021)

philosophical said:


> Is being Jewish a matter of religion, or in some way a matter of race? Or is it a mixture of the two and if so in what proportions?
> If a person converts to Judaism for religious reasons, would they then be a victim of anti-semitism if it is round and about?
> Or is it a matter of culture, like if you are a recent convert you’re not quite as Jewish as a person from a family where the religious observance goes back for generations?


I’d recommend to you Living Judaism, by Rabbi Wayne Dosick.  It goes into those questions. You’ll be unsurprised to learn that there aren’t one size fits all answers to those questions. Different Jewish traditions will have different answers to them all.

Life, in short, doesn’t do handy equations.


----------



## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> I’d recommend to you Living Judaism, by Rabbi Wayne Dosick.  It goes into those questions. You’ll be unsurprised to learn that there aren’t one size fits all answers to those questions. Different Jewish traditions will have different answers to them all.
> 
> Life, in short, doesn’t do handy equations.


Thank you.
I suspect it is complicated,
I imagine a prospective Jewish convert has to say which Jewish tradition they are converting to.
Unless the religious aspect of Judaism stands apart from any particular tradition.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 28, 2021)

philosophical said:


> Is being Jewish a matter of religion, or in some way a matter of race? Or is it a mixture of the two and if so in what proportions?
> If a person converts to Judaism for religious reasons, would they then be a victim of anti-semitism if it is round and about?
> Or is it a matter of culture, like if you are a recent convert you’re not quite as Jewish as a person from a family where the religious observance goes back for generations?


'Dominion' by Tom Holland has some really interesting discussion of the notion of Jews as a race - he arugues that in many ways 'religion' was a concept invented by Christianity. The Jews started as 'a people', but Christianity really kicked off seeing things as a 'religion' because it's adherents were united by faith/belief, not background and now everyone sees things through that lens, and my husband and I have noted that people often look on Judaism this way and find it hard to get the concept of people like us (and, I'd say, most members of our synagogue) who don't believe in God, but practice Judaism and attend synagogue. Because our Judaism is not about faith, but it is our cultural identity and our spiritual practice.

Yes, a convert could face antisemitism by simply identifying as Jew. Ironically, a bloke called Simon Schneider who has dark hair and wears glasses but isn't Jewish could also face antisemitism ('So, Simon who works in accounts, he a Yid then?') because people think he's Jewish, whereas I very seldom face any as I have an anglicised surname and I don't 'look Jewish'.

Converts have to go through a synagogue so they will be converting that movement - Orthodox conversion will be recognised by 'less observant' synagogues, but they won't recognise conversions from movements they don't consider up to scratch.

Religious observance has never mattered to antisemites - some of the Nazi's victims didn't even know they were Jewish. The anomosity seems to exist towards the Jews as a people, not as a practice.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 28, 2021)

On the religious aspect and tradition - our synagogue is part of the Masorti movement, where the actual service is totally recognisable and indeed pretty much the same as an Orthodox one. The difference is we're egalitarian, so women can take part in the service, sit anywhere etc  - when I was a kid, services were still separately seated and only men could lead them, but now the egalitarian services, which started as parallel services in different rooms, are well on their way to becoming the 'mainstream' ones in our synagogue. The other difference from orthodox is that the approach is that no one is judged on how observant they are, although the aim is to encourage people to get more involved if they would like.

The Reform synagogue movement has a different service which is mostly in English, with much less Torah reading.


----------



## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> 'Dominion' by Tom Holland has some really interesting discussion of the notion of Jews as a race - he arugues that in many ways 'religion' was a concept invented by Christianity. The Jews started as 'a people', but Christianity really kicked off seeing things as a 'religion' because it's adherents were united by faith/belief, not background and now everyone sees things through that lens, and my husband and I have noted that people often look on Judaism this way and find it hard to get the concept of people like us (and, I'd say, most members of our synagogue) who don't believe in God, but practice Judaism and attend synagogue. Because our Judaism is not about faith, but it is our cultural identity and our spiritual practice.
> 
> Yes, a convert could face antisemitism by simply identifying as Jew. Ironically, a bloke called Simon Schneider who has dark hair and wears glasses but isn't Jewish could also face antisemitism ('So, Simon who works in accounts, he a Yid then?') because people think he's Jewish, whereas I very seldom face any as I have an anglicised surname and I don't 'look Jewish'.
> 
> ...


Thank you for this very interesting reply.
Even more complex both in practical and philosophical terms.
I am a bit confused about a convert not being recognised as Jewish by some other Jewish people if they came from a place that was ‘not up to scratch’. Does that mean a person who previously practiced Buddhism or Islam or whatever wouldn’t ‘count’ in the eyes of some Jewish people if they converted for spiritual reasons?
Is the use of the word ‘spiritual’ inappropriate?


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

I was interested in what the word “spiritual” meant in that context too.

Really interesting post, thanks.  I seem to have gone through life knowing no Jewish people well and having one acquaintance in Uni, so I don’t really know about the history and lived context outside the Biblical and the events of last century, which leaves huge gaps.

One other thing, your example hit home because there was a guy at my company who people commonly assumed was Jewish because of his name and looks.  

Also very clever and had a wide range of knowledge l (had a hobby of going on TV quiz shows and winning money), and I believe there’s a “bookish”’element to the stereotype.


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## Cloo (Nov 28, 2021)

In terms of 'not up to scratch', the United Synagogue in the UK (the orthodox one) doesn't recognise my kids or me as Jewish because my maternal grandmother converted under the auspices of a synagogue in Czechoslovakia after WWII and there was no paper record of it. Also, it wouldn't recognise any convert from our synagogue or Reform - it's not about what you were before but who carried out and certified the conversion.  I think our synagogue recognises all converts as long as the conversion is recorded somewhere. Some individuals are arsey about converts generally, unfortunately, but that's just people being shit.

Basically, you get all kinds of Jews. We're relatively observant I suppose and attend synagogue other than at big festivals, but most of our friends aren't Jewish. You get some people who don't really observe at all, but might send their kids to a Jewish school and their social circle is almost 100% Jewish. And all points in between, as well as yourestraight up observant socially and spiritually Jewish Jew  

In terms of spirituality - we like going to synagogue (well,  my husband and I do) and it is a spiritual and reflective occasion to come together and to carry on a 3000-year-old desert religion in North London in 2021, which is pretty cool really when you think about it. In a similar way to going to a gig or a rave or, I imagine, a footy match is also a spiritual experience.


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> In terms of spirituality - we like going to synagogue (well,  my husband and I do) and it is a spiritual and reflective occasion to come together and to carry on a 3000-year-old desert religion in North London in 2021, which is pretty cool really when you think about it. In a similar way to going to a gig or a rave or, I imagine, a footy match is also a spiritual experience.



I think that’s close to the nub of the question when seen from the perspective of a Christian tradition (including as an atheist from a Christian position).

That question being, in what sense is it carrying on a 3000 year old desert religion if you don’t actually believe in the deity or the details of the events described in scripture or many of the edicts etc.?


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## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> In terms of 'not up to scratch', the United Synagogue in the UK (the orthodox one) doesn't recognise my kids or me as Jewish because my maternal grandmother converted under the auspices of a synagogue in Czechoslovakia after WWII and there was no paper record of it. Also, it wouldn't recognise any convert from our synagogue or Reform - it's not about what you were before but who carried out and certified the conversion.  I think our synagogue recognises all converts as long as the conversion is recorded somewhere. Some individuals are arsey about converts generally, unfortunately, but that's just people being shit.
> 
> Basically, you get all kinds of Jews. We're relatively observant I suppose and attend synagogue other than at big festivals, but most of our friends aren't Jewish. You get some people who don't really observe at all, but might send their kids to a Jewish school and their social circle is almost 100% Jewish. And all points in between, as well as yourestraight up observant socially and spiritually Jewish Jew
> 
> In terms of spirituality - we like going to synagogue (well,  my husband and I do) and it is a spiritual and reflective occasion to come together and to carry on a 3000-year-old desert religion in North London in 2021, which is pretty cool really when you think about it. In a similar way to going to a gig or a rave or, I imagine, a footy match is also a spiritual experience.



The purity of conversion is interesting. Maybe that applies to all religions (apart from Scientology where you have to pay to join it seems😵‍💫).
If any religion is essentially a spiritual covenant between the individual and their god, then I don’t see how any earthly organisation would put up barriers to that relationship.
This is a philosophical question, but could I simply say I am Jewish and that’s that? Would I end up isolated from organised Jewish groups? Conversely if I were one of the latest generation of ‘Jewish’ people going back faithfully for 3000 years, could I declare to all and sundry that I am not Jewish and for that to be valid in the eyes of all Jews?


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

I think a lot of this will come back to what danny said about life not always doing handy equations.

I say this as a big fan of handy equations (where they work).


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

You know, I totally forgot about frogwoman being Jewish.  So that’s another Jewish person that I know, though it has never come up much in direct conversation. Aside from my question about the spelling of “God” a long while back which danny may remember.

I guess I’ve always just seen Jews as “people who sometimes do something different on Saturday”.

Apols for rambling.


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## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

As was mentioned above I have a great big hooter, and a long standing colleague surprisingly said he always thought I was Jewish, can only be going by the size of my nose I imagine.
I come from an Irish Catholic tradition, although I wouldn’t describe myself as Christian or anything else particularly.
Mind you Catholic ‘indoctrination’ experienced as an uncritical child tends to run deep and probably dangerous.
I am presently stuck at the Ten Commandments and vegetarianism.
Does ‘thou shalt not kill/murder’ apply to animals?
Or plants for that matter.


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

philosophical said:


> Does ‘thou shalt not kill/murder’ apply to animals?
> Or plants for that matter.



No.  The “kill” bit doesn’t even apply to humans in all cases.


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## Raheem (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball said:


> No.


Or yes.


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## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball said:


> No.



That leads on to another philosophical question regarding the taking of life.


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Or yes.



Well, I guess, if counting humans as animals.  Don’t think that’s what was meant.


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

philosophical said:


> That leads on to another philosophical question regarding the taking of life.



You should see how tangled it gets once you start talking about the Feast Of The Unleavened Cakes. (Exodus 12:17)


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## Raheem (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball said:


> Well, I guess, if counting humans as animals.  Don’t think that’s what was meant.


The answer to most theologico-ethical question is in fact: "No. Or yes."


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

Raheem said:


> The answer to most theologico-ethical question is in fact: "No. Or yes."



Or “sometimes, sort of, maybe..”.

Just not in this case.


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## Cloo (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball said:


> I think that’s close to the nub of the question when seen from the perspective of a Christian tradition (including as an atheist from a Christian position).
> 
> That question being, in what sense is it carrying on a 3000 year old desert religion if you don’t actually believe in the deity or the details of the events described in scripture or many of the edicts etc.?


I suppose 'practicing' could be the operative word here. I suppose it suggests we are more 'people' than 'faith' - i think the 'doing' has always had more weight than 'believing' in some senses in Judiasm.

philosophical -  if someone of Jewish descent (even probaby patrilienal, which strictly speaking doesn't count) says to all and sundry that they're not, most Jews  would still say they are Jewish on some level. A person can't claim to be Jewish in isolation of any descent, practise or learning. It's one reason I object to the argument some have about 'People shouldn't push their religion on their kids, they should leave it until they're old enought to decide for themselves'. Uhm, A) Not really an option if you're Jewish, the whole point is you learn about it as you grow up, you'd have a hard time relating to it if you suddenly had to pick it all up at 16 and B) Growing up in a culture doesn't have to be 'pushing' or 'indoctrinating' into it (again, Christian-world lens 'You must be insisting in them believing certain things I think are nonsense') and people can do that (as we intend to) and not insist their kids follow it.


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

Thanks, that bit on the emphasis re “doing” is something I’ve heard before in other contexts and makes a lot of sense.


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## hitmouse (Nov 28, 2021)

philosophical said:


> This is a philosophical question...


Well, I suppose it is by definition.


Raheem said:


> The answer to most theologico-ethical question is in fact: "No. Or yes."


THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!

Anyway, having just finished reading There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart, the chapter in that called "Spilling out Juice and Brightness" by rosza daniel lang/levitsky had some interesting writing on this question/pointers to further reading if you're interested:

_First, there is no single jewish culture, and there are no universal jewish cultural materials. Jewish communities emerge in particular places at particular times, primarily (today as always) through conversion and intermarriage rather than group migration, and have distinct cultures from the moment they emerge. Those cultures change through time (and fissure and mix) and in many cases have been transformed by displacement from their original homes. Every recognizable form of jewishness has always been a decentralized project - not without hierarchies or elites, but always refusing a single central authority...


Some of the pieces of jewish traditional text that have most consistently been used for radical purposes are the ones dealing with the ger. _["Ger" is a term from the Toral with a dense net of meanings in the tradition: stranger, neighbor, foreigner, convert/jew by choice, or Other.]_ These passages, found in most jewish communities' liturgical texts, place the relationship between jewish communities and the ger at the heart of ethical action. During the period when the Talmud was compiled (roughly the third to sixth centuries of the Christian era) they were at the heart of the debates about the future of jewishness. Would the people of Judea remain a nationality/ethnicity/race (based on parentage)? Would they follow the newly invented Christian model and become a religion (based on belief)? Or would they create something more flexible and ambiguous, an extended chosen family based on affinity? By answering that the ger (here meaning "jew by choice") does pray in the name of "Abraham our father" - than an active decision to join the jewish community creates kinship - we opted for the last choice and allowed for the emergence of everything that we would today recognize as jewish. _[It's a bit more complicated, of course. There were divergences between different communities, and these specific debates reemerged occasionally until the 1500s. For details, see Shaye J.D. Cohen, _The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties _(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).]_ 
Illustrating the pull of that tradition of radical challenge to exclusionary versions of jewishness, the past two decades have seen even jewish liberal NGOs move in their invocations of the ger from supporting immigrant workers' labor rights during the 2006 Day Without Immigrants actions, to condeming the Obama administration's mass deportations, to taking concrete direct action to disrupt the concentration camp system caging immigrants and refugees across the United States. _[I specify "concrete" here to distinguish those Never Again actions that materially impact the operation of the US deportation system from symbolic actions that are often - wrongly - described as direct action because they involve paricipants getting arrested (which itself does nothing to affect that system.]...

_There's a tendency, absorbed from christian religious studies scholars, to think of jewishness as something whose cultures are primarily textual or at least directed by textual authorities. This has never been true, even for the small circles of elite men whose commentaries, legal opinions, and liturgical poetry form the bulk of the high-status canon in most jewish communities. Until the late twentieth century, the function of the canonical texts in traditional jewish communities was to justify existing embodied practices. What folks did was determined by minhag (local custom) as handed down through intergenerational observation and person-to-person instruction; the texts were used to explain why existing custom was correct, even (especially!) when it contradicted another community's practice. Observant communities have recently shifted toward the protestant christian model, changing their practice to match abstract conclusions drawn from texts and rejecting existing minhogim. But we don't have to follow them in this christianizing move._

There's also some interesting stuff in there about midrash, but I'm fucked if I can be arsed doing any more typing right now.


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## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

Gosh, what a lot of interesting stuff on here today to muse on.
I am taken in the post above by the notion (as I think it means) by the concept of being of a religion through some sort of 'textual' route.
Now it both makes sense and makes little sense at the same time.
Crudely put, if one can boil down the essence of a religion without the fog of too much text or 'interpretation', to some kind of fundamental essence like 'the sanctity of life', or 'love your neighbour as yourself' or 'the five pillars of Islam' or 'life death and reincarnation' would that be helpful without the need for tons of text? Indeed hasn't there been conflict in Sikhism between those who say you must adhere to a sacred text, and those who seem to say 'god' exists in a community gathering?
I suppose I am trying to probe the personal spirituality of what a particular religion means? Is it necessarily predicated upon family tradition, sacred texts, or scholarship or instruction? Can it be, or indeed is spirituality something to do with a person's relationship to some kind of uncomplicated fundamental tenet, where the interpretation is one's own?


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## JimW (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball There's a really interesting book on Confucianism by an American philosopher called Herbert Fingarette which deals with something very akin to what we call religious practice absent any god or theology The Secular as Sacred


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

JimW said:


> 8ball There's a really interesting book on Confucianism by an American philosopher called Herbert Fingarette which deals with something very akin to what we call religious practice absent any god or theology The Secular as Sacred



 Cheers - rings a bell - I think I may have read a book on it a long time ago.

Confucianism is a very different case to
Judaism, though.


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## Cloo (Nov 28, 2021)

'Minchag' is definitely an interesting concept, and one that varies right down to households (gsv's family tear their challah on shabbat, my family cuts a slice)

philosophical - to boil it down, there is this famous story of Rabbi Hillel:



> One famous account in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a) tells about a gentile who wanted to convert to Judaism. This happened not infrequently, and this individual stated that he would accept Judaism only if a rabbi would teach him the entire Torah while he, the prospective convert, stood on one foot. First he went to Shammai, who, insulted by this ridiculous request, threw him out of the house. The man did not give up and went to Hillel. This gentle sage accepted the challenge, and said:
> 
> 
> 
> > "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!"


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## danny la rouge (Nov 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> gsv's family tear their challah on shabbat, my family cuts a slice)


You ain’t no challah hent girl.


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## hitmouse (Nov 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> 'Minchag' is definitely an interesting concept, and one that varies right down to households (gsv's family tear their challah on shabbat, my family cuts a slice)
> 
> philosophical - to boil it down, there is this famous story of Rabbi Hillel:


I always like that story, especially because of the way that Shammai's contribution makes the point that "go away and stop bothering me with stupid questions" is an entirely valid way to respond to someone asking you to teach them the entire Torah.


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## Cloo (Nov 28, 2021)

Shammai Does Not Have Time For Your Shit.


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## philosophical (Nov 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> 'Minchag' is definitely an interesting concept, and one that varies right down to households (gsv's family tear their challah on shabbat, my family cuts a slice)
> 
> philosophical - to boil it down, there is this famous story of Rabbi Hillel:


My initial instinct would be to say 'Sounds good, but the Torah is man made, have you got anything else?'


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> You ain’t no challah hent girl.



I am totally lost with yoof speak nowadays.


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## danny la rouge (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball said:


> I am totally lost with yoof speak nowadays.


It’s a desperate attempt at a Gwen Stefani pun.


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## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> It’s a desperate attempt at a Gwen Stefani pun.



 Zoomed about 200 feet over my head.


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## hitmouse (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball said:


> Zoomed about 200 feet over my head.


Tbf, that shit was pretty bananas.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Dec 3, 2021)

hitmouse said:


> Tbf, that shit was pretty bananas.



No doubt


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## Jeff Robinson (Jan 7, 2022)

Looooool car crash tv at its finest. You love to see it


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## splonkydoo (Jan 7, 2022)

Jeff Robinson said:


> Looooool car crash tv at its finest. You love to see it




Just goes to show how identity politics can wreck people's brains on both sides of the extreme. Years ago that Lindsey might have had some intelligible points to make, but consequently his life has been consumed by a singular debate and drifted in with a very conservative set prone to conspiratorial thinking. Quite strange and sad to see people get stuck so far down the rabbit hole - reminds me of some brief but dark moments I've had with my eyes firmly stuck on the twitterspehere/culture wars stuff. In the end, it does nobody any good to become so obsessed with this shit (unless some type of gift is part of your end goal)


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## krtek a houby (Jan 7, 2022)

Always suspicious of anyone who says they don't watch telly


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## Jennaonthebeach (Jan 8, 2022)

philosophical said:


> Is being Jewish a matter of religion, or in some way a matter of race? Or is it a mixture of the two and if so in what proportions?
> If a person converts to Judaism for religious reasons, would they then be a victim of anti-semitism if it is round and about?
> Or is it a matter of culture, like if you are a recent convert you’re not quite as Jewish as a person from a family where the religious observance goes back for generations?


There's an episode of Seinfeld that deals with this - the one where his dentist converts to Judaism and immediately starts making Jewish jokes.


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## philosophical (Jan 8, 2022)

Never seen Seinfeld.


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## Santino (Jan 8, 2022)

philosophical said:


> Never seen Seinfeld.


There's a great episode about the Irish border.


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## Pickman's model (Jan 8, 2022)

krtek a houby said:


> Always suspicious of anyone who says they don't watch telly


And rightly so


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## krtek a houby (Jan 8, 2022)

philosophical said:


> Never seen Seinfeld.



It's a show about nothing


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## hitmouse (Sep 11, 2022)

Has anyone read/is anyone planning on reading this? 








						Fractured
					

Identity politics has been a smear for decades. The right use it to lament the loss of free speech, while many on the left bemoan it as the end of class poli...




					www.plutobooks.com
				



12 Rules just interviewed the authors, if anyone feels like listening to a podcast interview with them.


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## Fozzie Bear (Sep 11, 2022)

hitmouse said:


> Has anyone read/is anyone planning on reading this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


One of them seems quite decent on Twitter and the interview on that podcast was pretty good so I may well give the book a go.


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## brixtonscot (Sep 12, 2022)

My initial understanding of what has become known as Identity Politics was from when I first became active in left wing politics in 1970’s.
It was in support of the autonomous political activity of ( for example ) women , gay & black people in determining their own liberation as part of a wider movement for liberation - ie. a contributory collective part of a means to an end.

It was not unproblematic then , as this quote from gay historian and activist Jeffrey Weeks notes , writing in 1978 -
“…_ what is the relationship between these autonomous groupings and the wider struggle, especially that of the working class, for socialism ?_
*https://files.libcom.org/files/Hocquenghem - Homosexual Desire.pdf*

Since that time much of what is now called Identity Politics has been appropriated to primarily become self-centred competitive individualist aspirations for some to be assimilated within the unchallenged conservative mainstream - ie. as an end in itself.

Excerpt from introduction to Fractured 
 ‘The personal is the political may produce radical individualism, the political is personal produces a radical society.’

This gets us to the nub of the identity problem: what working-class vantage points and perspectives were innovated by participants who brought their own personal experiences to them? If they became overshadowed and overpowered by conformist trends and identity-thinking – nationalism, careerism, sectarianism – how did this occur? 

These same questions should be applied to socialist movements which, Sivanandan acknowledges, repressed the kind of expanded analytical frames that feminist enquiries innovated. 

This matters not because bad actors need rooting out, but because we can understand more concretely how liberal societies are constituted by fracture: polarisation is nothing new, on the contrary, it is the point.

Fractured
https://s3.amazonaws.com/supadu-imgix/plutopress-uk/pdfs/look-inside/LI-9780745346564.pdf


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## brixtonscot (Oct 10, 2022)

From Rhyd Wildermuth
Identity is How Capitalism Intends to Perpetuate Itself​Identity politics as the new capitalist cosmology​“ I tend to agree more with the conservative writer John Gray that social justice identity politics is functioning as a “successor” ideology to neoconservativism, and with black Marxist Adolph Reed that it’s the core moral constellation of neoliberalism. Though coming from apparently different political traditions, they—and quite a few others—are essentially arguing the same thing: identity is how capitalism intends to perpetuate itself.”









						Identity is How Capitalism Intends to Perpetuate Itself
					

Identity politics as the new capitalist cosmology




					rhyd.substack.com


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## Brainaddict (Oct 31, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> I think this is really interesting. In one way a critique of shallow identity politics, it creates room for a more sophisticated take on it, in which the material structures available to people in different subject positions are what we should be focusing on, rather than any politics of representation: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference - Olufemi O. Taiwo
> 
> It also talks about how trauma is most often debilitating rather than purifying. It's a difficult thing to talk about in real life when you are sitting in a room with people with trauma arising in part from their social position. In fact while I suspect he's right I have no idea how I would talk about it in public.


Has anyone else read his book yet? I saw Taiwo talk the other day and he was a bit reluctant to talk about practical organising solutions arising from his critique, so I'd like to see more practical offerings come out of his critique, perhaps written by other people.


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## Fozzie Bear (Oct 31, 2022)

I'm about half way through "Fractured" and am enjoying it. There are some very good points in there about the working class having always been, erm, fractured which is in opposition to the idea that pesky identity politics is somehow getting in the way of an idealised united working class. There's a great chapter on the importance of the perspective of black feminists and the ongoing usefulness of their contributions.


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