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shit MANarchists say

Vintage Paw said:
Yes, the bit at the end. That's how I see it anyway, others may disagree.
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In which case I agree with you.

Though I can see why people might be attracted to identity politics in the belief that, whilst the end of capitalism might ultimately do more to bring about the demise of a number of forms of domination, identity politics is likely to achieve more in the short term.
 
Vintage Paw said:
Also, a victim of an 'ism' isn't necessarily a victim of class inequality, they might be a beneficiary of class inequality, but class inequality is always there.
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Which is the point I was making in my first post. :)
 
Athos said:
In which case I agree with you.

Though I can see why people might be attracted to identity politics in the belief that, whilst the end of capitalism might ultimately do more to bring about the demise of a number of forms of domination, identity politics is likely to achieve more in the short term.
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Also, I think that many activists in these 'single issue' groups don't see how the domination which they suffer arises out of capitalism.
 
Athos said:
In which case I agree with you.

Though I can see why people might be attracted to identity politics in the belief that, whilst the end of capitalism might ultimately do more to bring about the demise of a number of forms of domination, identity politics is likely to achieve more in the short term.
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I agree. I don't think it's surprising people turn to it at all. And I don't necessarily castigate people for it either.

As a broader concept, it's frustrating to see how a move towards identity politics, along with all the philosophy and cultural criticism of pomo that gave it various kinds of authority, took class politics out of stuff. From my own point of view having studied literary criticism, it's hard to not be frustrated when class isn't even mentioned. I first studied it in the mid-late 90s, and I remember lectures on Gramsci, and Eagleton was recommended at times. But coming back to it in the mid-2000s, it was all Auster. That's still interesting, making the mental gymnastics required to have a big wank to pomo stuff, but it's not exactly very useful.
 
Apparently it's the organisers of the Bookfair that finally decide on the meetings and who has which slot. So (for the sake of example, and exagerating for effect) if they reviewed which slots had been allocated where and realised that they still needed one that dealt with feminism they'd turn to the lists of who'd submitted what and allocate it accordingly. "Shit, we haven't included feminism again, who's submitted something? Here we go, AFED's said privilege theory at number 23 out of 25, we'll go with that".
 
Athos said:
Also, I think that many activists in these 'single issue' groups don't see how the domination which they suffer arises out of capitalism.
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Absolutely. Probably because it's a relatively abstract notion, especially if financially speaking you're not doing too badly for yourself.
 
Athos said:
Though the same person could be the victim of one of the 'isms' at the same time as being a beneficiary of class inequality. Doesn't it make more sense to say that the other forms of domination are an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Or perhaps that's what you meant?
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Sorry for the delay in answering, was cooking the rice and peas. :)

Pretty much what I meant is that all other social cleavages originate in class cleavages, so yeah, they are inevitable consequences of capitalism.
 
Athos said:
It's just that I don't quite follow what you mean by the overarching nature of class.
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Class is like a net or web that all society is tangled in. We have enough agency to move to be able to realise this, and to know we can't escape, under capitalism, the class structure.

Some of the posts here seem to imply that a victim of an 'ism' is necessarily a victim of class inequality. But that can't be right, can it?
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Why not? Aren't "isms" essentially stratifiers and markers of social position relative to another position, that validate or otherwise allow behaviours?
If we take that as being the case, where do all "isms" lead back to? To the assumption that some people are better than others, something that has manifested in every early society. Class cleavage. You can't have "leaders", according to this assumption, without having "the led". The justification for all other "isms" originates in classism.

Not very elegantly put, I know. :)

Also, I understand that, regardless of any other attribute which might mean we are subject to unfavorable treatment, we all stand somewhere in relation to the means of production. But I don't see that there's anything in the internal logic of privilege theory which requires class to be be afforded any more significance than any other attribute. Or is that your point? That privilege theory fails to recognise that many forms of domination arise from capitalism.
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IMO (other opinions may differ) it's not a failure to recognise, it's a failure to engage with a subject that would hole the privilege theory argument below the waterline, and therefore sink its adherents. recognising the all-encompassing nature of class means one of two things for privilege theory: 1) that it has to be accepted that any identity politics that doesn't acknowledge the nature of class has little validity (unlikely!), or 2) that privilege theory's adherents have to accept that it's an ideological position rather than an intellectual one.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Class is like a net or web that all society is tangled in. We have enough agency to move to be able to realise this, and to know we can't escape, under capitalism, the class structure.
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Yeah, I get that bit.


ViolentPanda said:
Why not? Aren't "isms" essentially stratifiers and markers of social position relative to another position, that validate or otherwise allow behaviours? If we take that as being the case, where do all "isms" lead back to? To the assumption that some people are better than others, something that has manifested in every early society. Class cleavage. You can't have "leaders", according to this assumption, without having "the led". The justification for all other "isms" originates in classism.

Not very elegantly put, I know. :)
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And I agree with the idea that capitalism creates forms of domination. But I don't think it follows that a victim of an 'ism' can't also be a benificiary of class inequality. That was really the only point I was initially making - that whilst it's true to say that capitalism creates forms of domination, it's not necessarily true to suggest that the victims of those forms are only ever the victims of capitalism.


ViolentPanda said:
IMO (other opinions may differ) it's not a failure to recognise, it's a failure to engage with a subject that would hole the privilege theory argument below the waterline, and therefore sink its adherents. recognising the all-encompassing nature of class means one of two things for privilege theory: 1) that it has to be accepted that any identity politics that doesn't acknowledge the nature of class has little validity (unlikely!), or 2) that privilege theory's adherents have to accept that it's an ideological position rather than an intellectual one.
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I agree that identity politics is flawed because it fails to recognise to distinguish between class and other other forms of domination, and thereby fails to recognise the extent that the latter can flow from the former. But, as I pointed out above, I can understand the attraction of identity politics insofar as it can present more obviously acheivable short-term gains.
 
Athos said:
Though I can see why people might be attracted to identity politics in the belief that, whilst the end of capitalism might ultimately do more to bring about the demise of a number of forms of domination, identity politics is likely to achieve more in the short term.
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I think the endless anal-gazing over issues of identity is what gave cunts like Atos the room to exist.

edit: I said ATOS!
 
Das Uberdog said:
the problems the anarchist 'scene' has with attracting immature kids in it for aesthetic notions of rebellion and 'babes' has more fundamental roots in the general shitty nature of how they organise and the theories which are popular within their groups than it has to do with 'masculinity' or 'masculine attitudes'.
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the anarchist 'scene' has no problem attracting immature kids.
 
Which is, essentially, the way identity politics and privilege drive people away from becoming involved :(
 
8115 said:
I think that's a bit like having Dolmio sauce and then saying, "I don't like Italian food".
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But if you've never tried any Italian style food but Dolmio, and are told that it is real Italian food, how would you know?
 
When it comes to getting involved in political activism, as evidenced on this thread in places, sometimes you get the shit dolmio sauce and it drives you away from all Italian food for good.

So maybe, yeah.
 
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