Athos
Well-Known Member
I don't think every difference of opinion/understanding is necessarily anathema to solidarity.
Identity Politics: the impasse, the debate, the thread.
- Thread starter danny la rouge
- Start date
I don't think every difference of opinion/understanding is necessarily anathema to solidarity.
Shechemite
Be the sun and all will see you
I’d wager that the petty battles on this thread have little impact either way on working class solidarity
Athos
Well-Known Member
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.
friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
Athos
Well-Known Member
That's cool. It's a discussion board; would be boring if we all agreed about everything all the time.
Humberto
Callooh! Callay!
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.
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.
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.
Shechemite
Be the sun and all will see you
Athos
Well-Known Member
Cui bono?
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
Well-Known Member
This is complete bollocks. Nobody on the left is saying any such thing.
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.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
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.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
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
see those nasty socialists arguing against equality for women. How terrible things will be when they get into power...
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.
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
see those nasty socialists arguing against equality for women. How terrible things will be when they get into power...
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.
That’s a really interesting point of view. Thanks.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
the full sentence from the article, and the next one:
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
This Machine Kills Progressives
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.
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.
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.
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
Decolonise colons!
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.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
I'd go further than that. A vital part of the principle of solidity is to give it despite any disagreements.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
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
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
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
Well-Known Member
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah I know that feeling.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
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.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
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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