cesare
shady's dreams ♥
No point asking me, you'll have gleaned by now (I hope) that I'm really not up on all this stuff.
shit MANarchists say
- Thread starter DrRingDing
- Start date
8ball
Testicle Menace
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Your first paragraph sets up a straw man and knocks it down ("You're not automatically better at sorting out what the best way to go about something is or what the most important issues are just because you're working class.") No one here has suggested this - could you point where anyone has even come close to that. You want to defend middle-class people in lefty organisations but no one is attacking them, I personally think they should become less middle-class if they're serious, give up some of their excess loot (and not just do it for a year a la Polly Toynbee). That would give greater space for working-class people. They should also not trample over working-class organisation and activity, smothering it with their vision of "what should be done", newspaper sales, 'you've been around campaigns long enough, most people decide to join a party' said by an organiser of the Socialist Party TM. [Hoarding their social capital not sharing it with others (we can afford plane tickets to visit students in quebec in struggle, we've already visited 8 different countries but let's go anyway, let's have a meeting far away in a big hall with an (admittedly small) entrance charge, instead of a cruddy hall but no entrance charge)
I've experienced some little stuff - not as demeaning as life in workplaces or elsewhere- but i think for anyone from a tougher and harder course of life it would be worse and harder to bear: Looking down on people with X/Y/Z habits/experiences has come from middle-class people not working-class people: 'saying my family is excited about the new lidl' was a serious crime for some, being told you're being obtuse for questioning why x is the best person to speak to the media because (reasons later: given he has most experience, he's good with press statements), being told 'poor people can't afford to strike you have to concentrate on who can take action', being told in a severely harsh and bitter fashion you're mental for suggesting that some people have very good reasons for arsoning their school and that you don't they need to be placed in YOI (you get called middle-class and loving violence for the sake of it), being told 'really, is that true... you're making it up aren't ya' when you're honestly describing a detail of one of your parent's (poorer) life, but only when in passing describing something else).
It must be 5x times worse for women, if you've a child it must be like 10x worse - with serious difficulties placed in the way of meaningful participation at every turn.
revol68
what, fucking what?
What has this lifestylist anti consumer nonsense got to do with what I posted. Your characterisation of people who buy large tvs reads like something from the guardian weekend supplements, to argue its the same as identity politics is bullshit.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
No, it's wrong to characterise people according to their gender. Unless they're men.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Vintage Paw said:
No to start differentiating like that would be a massive step backwards to suggest all homeless people are somehow oppressed by those who have residence-privilege (i.e. a roof over their heads) and to set up a movement against residencism.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
If you read back you'll see I didn't say anyone here was making these claims. I said it's something I'm interested in. If any one is making assumptions and big leaps, it's you. I was exploring the types of arguments and their implications that sometimes get made. When I said "but then do you start differentiating...." the implication was no, you don't. Not yes you should. I thought that was clear. I was merely giving voice to things I've noticed about some of the ways some people talk about middle class activists. If some of you want to assume it was an attack on anything you've said here, go right ahead and think that. You'll be wrong, but go right ahead.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
My entire point was that buying into distinctions between classes that are set out by media or whoever is stupid. I'm not entirely sure where you got the idea that I'm saying "omg there are worthy poor people and then there are those fake poor people who can afford to spend it all on fags." I was shining a light on that kind of harmful grouping between types of people who must be X because they 'fit the type.'
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
To be fair, if you bring up Baudrillard you can fairly much predict that anyone that answers you might extend the metaphor using commodity and consumption.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
And Baudrillard's hardly the poster boy for a rigorous class politics.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
Anyway, back on the original subject, something I wanted to mention earlier (but got waylaid), is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy
Talking about how 'privilege theory' is all the rage, the term (and concept) of kyriarchy seems to be transplanting 'patriarchy' for some of them. I don't think anyone is necessarily suggesting patriarchy is a one-issue concept, and I've seen people arguing that patriarchy is perfectly capable of being used to describe a web of oppressions (they all being implicit in the idea of patriarchy anyway, class included) and it not just being shorthand for 'men oppressing women.' But nevertheless, the argument I've seen about calling it kyriarchy instead is that it draws attention to multiplicities of oppression, to make it more useful for everyone and not give it the automatic alarmist 'omg the wimminz are coming' ring to it (which I'm not sure it has anyway, but whatever).
Again, it's one of those things where I can see why they want to use the term, but it's another example of changing the vocabulary in the hopes that that's enough to change the problem itself. When it isn't.
Talking about how 'privilege theory' is all the rage, the term (and concept) of kyriarchy seems to be transplanting 'patriarchy' for some of them. I don't think anyone is necessarily suggesting patriarchy is a one-issue concept, and I've seen people arguing that patriarchy is perfectly capable of being used to describe a web of oppressions (they all being implicit in the idea of patriarchy anyway, class included) and it not just being shorthand for 'men oppressing women.' But nevertheless, the argument I've seen about calling it kyriarchy instead is that it draws attention to multiplicities of oppression, to make it more useful for everyone and not give it the automatic alarmist 'omg the wimminz are coming' ring to it (which I'm not sure it has anyway, but whatever).
Again, it's one of those things where I can see why they want to use the term, but it's another example of changing the vocabulary in the hopes that that's enough to change the problem itself. When it isn't.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Well I think* that was partly Revol's point.
*Actually "hope" would be a better word as I'm crediting Revol with using Baudrillard not just to diss identity politics.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
VP, I misunderstood, I'm sorry, but it's hard to catch every rhetorical question in short internet posts.
I don't think any of the implications of anyone's posting here point to middle-class activists being unfairly described or put off from x or y.
I think 'privilege politics' is almost entirely a middle-class phenomenon. Black nationalist politics, a very different thing, that's still sort of there but seriously diminished and weakened. I think privilege politics' insights are often a poncy rehash of radical anti-racist politics, occasionally stupid, and, in the worst cases, outright crazy. They don't further action, they're often used for moralising individual purposes:- 'Check your privilege Luke..." says privilege-checked I.
revol68
what, fucking what?
What has this lifestylist anti consumer nonsense got to do with what I posted. Your characterisation of people who buy large tvs reads like something from the guardian weekend supplements, to argue its the same as identity politics is bullshit.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
You've already got a couple of replies to this.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
It's okay, rhetorical is difficult to get across in type, especially in an environment when people tend to expect direct argument as opposed to general musing and questions. It doesn't help that I sometimes have a habit of quoting a post for no other reason that it sparked off an idea in my head, and then talk about something tangentially related in reply, which I'm aware can sometimes come across as me directly using what I'm saying to counter what I quoted. Which isn't always the case. My mind jumps around a fair bit. I get a bit of flak for that in other places too. And for being too verbose. But that's another matter.
Anyway, I agree with you about identity/privilege politics. While many people who engage in it might think they are trying to be inclusive and get to the bottom of a messy tangle of various oppressions, it's very inward-looking, and ends up closing down much that's useful, and as a way of justifying the self, to an extent. The history of intersectional feminism, bell hooks and beyond, I suppose is part of it, and I think they'd do well to look at what was and wasn't achieved as a result, and of the problems with the various 'hierarchies of oppression' that grew out of it.
8ball
Testicle Menace
Their follow up, 'Broken Wings' wasn't as good.
8ball
Testicle Menace
What do you see the problem as being?
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
Vintage Paw said:
are there any good critical histories of this?
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
fair whack of manarchism on these boards tbh. of course, the thing about patriarchal bullshit by those who should know better is that they generally don't realise they're doing it; that their opinions are independent of systemic sexism is not possible to them as they have rejected other aspects of the prevailing dogma, they preach equality in law but do not realise that their behaviour shows off ingrained patriachal behaviour. this is why many are unwilling to hear it - they do not believe they are sexist, or that their behaviour is anything other than well intentioned. my partner is a rad fem type, so obv i would be sympathetic to this type of idea or we'd never get along. she finds that many women are drawn to her groups because they don't feel safe or empowered within mixed activist groups. so there is a problem, unless they're all suffering from imaginary patriarchy.
and with my tuppence worth i'm leaving this thread for my own sanity. ta ra.
and with my tuppence worth i'm leaving this thread for my own sanity. ta ra.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
I'm referring quite generally there to the way some focus purely on language (and the control of it) as a way to solve social problems. In this case, I see how what I said could be taken two ways: 1) the possible 'problem' of the term patriarchy being seen by some as only referring to men's oppression of women, of which using kyriarchy instead hopes to clear up; 2) the bigger 'problem' of actual patriarchy and what it entails, i.e. as a system of power relations (again, speaking in broad terms), and that somehow using the term kyriarchy - which they think better describes the processes actually in play - will help combat it better than calling it patriarchy will.
The point I was trying to make was that changing what you call it might feel quite empowering, but too often it's used as the ends, rather than the means. "If we can control how we describe something, we have some control finally, right?" That's what I meant. Taking control of the terms of the debate, but only so you can continue debating, and not ever actually 'doing' anything.
I'm sorry if I'm not describing myself well enough.
revol68
what, fucking what?
Pussy whipped!
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
good riddance
Das Uberdog
remembers the alamo
gayboy!!
8ball
Testicle Menace
Cornetto
yesh
The video was funny it had some resonance for me and my memories of the false 'right o'n men, who were just misogynist ball sacks attempting to get the actvist leg over and wrapping it up in Howard Zinn, Bakunin or Chomsky. The worlds full of them why would anarchism be different?
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
Not sure really. Most of what I've read is the source stuff, hooks, then Patricia Hill Collins did a lot of the early intersectionality stuff. It's basically cogent stuff, all very obvious really, because it's clear that intersections of different things, like race, class, sexual orientation, whatever, will impact you in different ways at different times depending on who you are, what you are and where you are. The basic theory is sound, it's the applications, really, where you get into problems, of which this privilege theory and how it's playing out is one of them.
It's been a while since I was reading any of it, but there were different ways people interpreted how to think about it, from 'additive' models to 'hierarchies' of oppression and so on. During none of it was class put at the forefront, or rather, it wasn't really examined closely as a product of capitalism, but rather class was one aspect (it certainly wasn't absent). I could, however, just have been reading the wrong stuff. I didn't go massively deeply into it at the time.
