Does class still matter?

[Buckaroo]

Welcome back. How’s the NE? Or were you just there for University?

Thanks for the welcome back but what's with the NE stuff?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Thanks for the welcome back but what's with the NE stuff?

I got mixed up.

I was born in Middlesbrough and if anywhere ever could benefit from a 'non-native, non-ethnically British genetic input' then etc...You're still playing hard to get Scarletrider, it's what you're not saying that is more interesting. We're all grown ups, we can take it. Say it man! Stop fucking about. It's not multiculturalism is it? It's 'them'. At least have the decency to say it, then we can have a discussion. The real problem though is what you propose as a solution to the problems you perceive. What are you advocating? What policies? What do you want?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Self-limiting crap.

Aye. As limiting as it is the antidote isn’t to be found here.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

.

 

[Rivendelboy]

Tories plan to gerrymander, probably not for the first time, disenfranchising those who don't have a passport/driver ID (like me). So yes, class matters

 

[ska invita]

This report from Chav Solidarity crew's Class Workshops is an interesting read




The report bit is here: https://www.chavsolidarity.com/post/class-workshop-summer-2019
overview of workshop here https://www.chavsolidarity.com/classworkshops

Im really curious about how a day like this pans out...much depends on the make up of the group I expect.

 

[Serge Forward]

Is this not just about turning working class into another identity?

 

[Athos]

Is this not just about turning working class into another identity?

Yes, they explicitly see class as one of a number of social identities.

“What's your understanding of yourself as a person of your specific class identity?

What have you experienced regarding your identity? ...

What are some feelings or emotions that come up as you think about how and what influenced your identity over time?

What other social identities (gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, ability and so on) are also important to the way you think about yourself?

How do these identities intersect with your class experience and affect the person you are today?”

To be honest the whole thing sounds pretty confused. For instance:

"... reflect our long term aims, that of the redistribution of the capital within the entire working class..."

Surely, the long-term aim should be the end of capitalism, which would mean the end of capital and class.

 

[Serge Forward]

Ta for that. I'll definitely give them a swerve then. They haven't quite grasped what the class struggle is all about.

 

[butchersapron]

Have to admit, this looks like anti-classism courses they have in elite ivy league colleges in the US where you're taught how not talk down or unconsciously belittle w/c people when you're saving them via your activism. Rather than understanding how the mechanism of economic exploitation that capital is based on produces class and the cultures that historically develop from them. I get that understanding how we feel about this is important and one of the ways in which the above maintained is by either silencing or sidelining voices that directly challenge this or whose understanding via experience of the shittier end of the stick is not valid, but not sure that this almost therapeutic understanding - rather than the opposite - helps. Reminds me of how the way that much of the outside left went into self-focused consciousnesses raising and individual therapy stuff in the late 70s and early 80s. It also seems to start from the idea that w/c means the poorest of the poor. It doesn't.

I know this is a mate of a few people here and understand that the motivation is well intended though.

 

[Serge Forward]

The road to woolly hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[Athos]

Have to admit, this looks like anti-classism courses they have in elite ivy league colleges in the US where you're taught how not talk down or unconsciously belittle w/c people when you're saving them via your activism. Rather than understanding how the mechanism of economic exploitation that capital is based on produces class and the cultures that historically develop from them. I get that understanding how we feel about this is important and one of the ways in which the above maintained is by either silencing or sidelining voices that directly challenge this or whose understanding via experience of the shittier end of the stick is not valid, but not sure that this almost therapeutic understanding - rather than the opposite - helps. Reminds me of how the way that much of the outside left went into self-focused consciousnesses raising and individual therapy stuff in the late 70s and early 80s. It also seems to start from the idea that w/c means the poorest of the poor. It doesn't.

I know this is a mate of a few people here and understand that the motivation is well intended though.

It's not 'poorest of the poor' or 'working class', it's "the Capital Light caucus", now. Those old labels "create unhelpful binaries" apparently.

 

[butchersapron]

The road to woolly hell is paved with good intentions.

Sure.I'll give them another go though.

 

[Athos]

Sure.I'll give them another go though.

I think their hearts are probably in the right place, even if their ideas are all over the show.