shit MANarchists say

[cesare]

even the racial underpinnings have been swamped by sexualised elements - like in one of revol69's posts earlier, the woman dressed up as a native American is apparently not only mocking their culture but more importantly, sexualising it

I'm still not sure if that was meant to be a pisstake or not. In the context of her arguing with revol, was she just going completely overboard to prove a point and provide some lols, or was she deadly serious in which case, eek.

 

[Das Uberdog]

it's a good joke if it's a joke

 

[Vintage Paw]

That seems equally bizarre, as if to say it's only rape if you get started while the person is awake.
It's as bizarre as the 'short skirt' or the 'she came to my flat of her own accord' defences, and doesn't look to me like the description of what GG said, which, again, I don't know in full but seemed to hinge on explicit verbal consent.

I think it was more that he was saying that this poor man is being villified for nothing more than what amounts to 'poor sexual etiquette' and doing so in a way that suggested that he, and others, were the arbiters of what rape was or wasn't, and that the alleged victims were getting their knickers in a twist about absolutely nothing. I saw it not so much as being about him necessarily sticking up for Assange, nor that he was saying 'she asked for it,' but that he gets to define whether a woman can feel like she has been raped or not.

Tbf it's all a fucking messy business now, with various arguments in support of him often jumping around illogically between saying the women made it all up; they didn't make it up but it's not rape, I should know because I understand what is and isn't rape better than you; and focusing on the Sweden-US extradition thing and why he isn't being questioned in London, and thus tacitly agreeing there is a case to be heard since the allegations have been made. I say illogically, because sometimes the same person will use all three arguments in the same conversation.

And again, to the cause of the anger: for women watching all this play out, who have been victims of sexual assault or who are very aware of the shaming and blaming that goes on every day wrt it, it's a very, very high profile example of how the women who allege abuse are so often the very last people who matter in these cases. In that context, it's very easy to understand why it's an emotive issue.

 

[8ball]

I think it was more that he was saying that this poor man is being villified for nothing more than what amounts to 'poor sexual etiquette' and doing so in a way that suggested that he, and others, were the arbiters of what rape was or wasn't, and that the alleged victims were getting their knickers in a twist about absolutely nothing. I saw it not so much as being about him necessarily sticking up for Assange, nor that he was saying 'she asked for it,' but that he gets to define whether a woman can feel like she has been raped or not.

Tbf it's all a fucking messy business now, with various arguments in support of him often jumping around illogically between saying the women made it all up; they didn't make it up but it's not rape, I should know because I understand what is and isn't rape better than you; and focusing on the Sweden-US extradition thing and why he isn't being questioned in London, and thus tacitly agreeing there is a case to be heard since the allegations have been made. I say illogically, because sometimes the same person will use all three arguments in the same conversation.

And again, to the cause of the anger: for women watching all this play out, who have been victims of sexual assault or who are very aware of the shaming and blaming that goes on every day wrt it, it's a very, very high profile example of how the women who allege abuse are so often the very last people who matter in these cases. In that context, it's very easy to understand why it's an emotive issue.

Thanks - good reply (and apols to cesare for narkiness - it's not something I was up to speed on, but was just reacting to another poster's description - it all sounds like a right old mess).

 

[el-ahrairah]

Occupy was full of muppets though.

identity politics

 

[cesare]

it's a good joke if it's a joke

Especially if it infuriated revol.

 

[sihhi]

White privilege is not being quizzed on the history of the NHL every time you say that you like hockey.

Also - forgive me for stating the obvious, but how mental is it that Manchester AF would do a checklist of privilege and not even mention class?

They don't want class to be mentioned. If they did it might reveal family connections and excessive wealth locked up for a rainy day.
(Not exclusive to Manchester or anarchists).

More generally: What does 'male privilege' means above sexism and male chauvinism?
What does 'manarchism' mean above sexism and male chauvinism within the anarchist movement?
What does 'white privilege' mean above racism?
It's almost as if a grouping of people are inventing a new term just to make them smarter than others.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Regardless of the 'proper' politics of it all, I don't think it's surprising that privilege is a popular concept... ...it seems to be, in part, a way of grabbing onto something - anything - that can give you back a little bit of agency, and trying to combat something that is equally as harmful.

I quite agree with you here. I don't think it's inexplicable or baffling that this stuff will have a resonance for some people and will seem useful to them, for pretty good reasons. I just think that its surface utility hides a lot of actively harmful political assumptions, so that adopting it not only doesn't fix the problems it was intended to fix but creates new ones.

 

[Vintage Paw]

White privilege is not being quizzed on the history of the NHL every time you say that you like hockey.


They don't want class to be mentioned. If they did it might reveal family connections and excessive wealth locked up for a rainy day.
(Not exclusive to Manchester or anarchists).

More generally: What does 'male privilege' means above sexism and male chauvinism?
What does 'manarchism' mean above sexism and male chauvinism within the anarchist movement?
What does 'white privilege' mean above racism?
It's almost as if a grouping of people are inventing a new term just to make them smarter than others.

I think in that case, the 'privilege' part of the equation is meant as a way to explain or understand why a person's position in society at any one moment might make them blind to the plight of those they are sexist/racist/whatever towards. So it's saying, "there is sexism, and this (the 'privilege') is why."

But yes, I'd agree that there can certainly be an element of claiming superiority and worthiness by creating a name for something and then staking ownership to the terms of its application.

 

[cesare]

I quite agree with you here. I don't think it's inexplicable or baffling that this stuff will have a resonance for some people and will seem useful to them, for pretty good reasons. I just think that its surface utility hides a lot of actively harmful political assumptions, so that adopting it not only doesn't fix the problems it was intended to fix but creates new ones.

It's as if no lessons were learned from some of the adverse consequences that arose from "multiculturalism" and it all feels a bit retro - a sudden transportation back into second wave feminism.

 

[el-ahrairah]

If I neglect to do the washing up, my other half calls me a lazy cunt.

Challenging bullshit behaviour is obviously important but the idea that people need a specialised vocabulary to do it seems like a very "activist" way of going about it.

yeah, but people need to frame it that way sometimes. white male privilege is pretty real*, and if that privilege allows them to frame their activism in some macho heroic way that ignores the day-to-day realities of running a camp (for example) and the women are left to do the unglamourous dirty work then whose change is it?

my activism doesn't include cleaning up people's shit because they're too self-important or lazy to concern themselves with it. i am involved in politics because i want a better world, not the same one run by different people, which is what a certain type of male activist is aiming for - if my mother, daughter, girlfriend still gets to live in a world where they're not respected equally then what's my incentive?

*unless you're a white male, of course.

 

[revol68]

Especially if it infuriated revol.

Nah its no joke, she just shared it, i wasnt arguing with her. She's obsessed with "community" and queer theory, into Butler but ztill spouts the shite shot through with essentialism. In short a middle class academic poser.

 

[el-ahrairah]

manarchists are just a current incarnation of good old chauvanism that has always infected movements because we are brought up in a chauvenist environment and some people don't question that, or don't consider that they are chavuanists. and will shout you down if you say otherwise.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I quite agree with you here. I don't think it's inexplicable or baffling that this stuff will have a resonance for some people and will seem useful to them, for pretty good reasons. I just think that its surface utility hides a lot of actively harmful political assumptions, so that adopting it not only doesn't fix the problems it was intended to fix but creates new ones.

And I agree. Quite apart from anything else, it's often used (not by everyone, I must add, but by a fair few) as a way of shutting down discussion immediately. Being shouted at to "CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE" isn't exactly going to enamour someone to 'the feminist cause' or any other cause for that matter. But, I'm wary of suggesting everyone is doing that, because they're not, and there are plenty of incredibly well-meaning people for whom this idea of privilege is their first encounter with some sort of politics. That it's so incredibly popular across the internet (you can't move on tumblr for it) shows that for a lot of people it's probably their only contact point with thinking about inequality, disenfranchisement, and whatever. As a starting point, it's not necessarily a completely bad one. At least it is a starting point; the problem is with how to get people to move beyond it to a more sophisticated analysis. I'd argue that just as people shouting "check your privilege" can be alienating and shut down debate, so too can dismissing a whole swathe of tentatively politically-engaged people just because they're 'doing it wrong.'

 

[cesare]

Nah its no joke, she just shared it, i wasnt arguing with her. She's obsessed with "community" and queer theory, into Butler but ztill spouts the shite shot through with essentialism. In short a middle class academic poser.

That's a pity.

 

[el-ahrairah]

to be honest i reckon that CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE should be an entry point into trying to formulate a better world. for all of us. we need to check our assumptions and understand that our experiences are not universal.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

That's a pity.

It is also a good indicator of how mental some of this stuff is that we had to get revol to confirm whether or not it was a joke.

 

[Lo Siento.]

I've only ever been told to "check my privilege" once. For describing Sarah Palin as a "loon".

 

[Nigel Irritable]

It's as if no lessons were learned from some of the adverse consequences that arose from "multiculturalism" and it all feels a bit retro - a sudden transportation back into second wave feminism.

To be honest, I've never liked that periodisation of feminism. It's too obviously polemical, a rhetorical advice used by some mostly younger elements of the feminist movement to portray the ideas of older feminists (and other younger feminists) as old hat and out dated. There hasn't ever been a "third wave" of feminism in the sense of a mass movement upsurge, and most, though not quite all, of the distinctive positions associated with the "third wave" could also be found amongst elements of the "second".

And anyway, those old hat outdated second wavers knew how to write a polemic without mincing their words, which will always endear a political movement to me.

 

[Vintage Paw]

It's as if no lessons were learned from some of the adverse consequences that arose from "multiculturalism" and it all feels a bit retro - a sudden transportation back into second wave feminism.

I think the reason for that is what was touched on above, when someone suggested a new generation of anarchists who haven't dealt with the class struggles the previous generation had to.

The internet is making it very easy for otherwise disengaged people to get access to these ideas, and there's a huge element of politicisation (albeit around these identity politics) that's happening for the first time amongst teens, and those in their 20s and beyond, as a result. They haven't been through the 2 usual ways these kind of things happen: 1) either experiencing it first hand by being an activist during the various waves of feminism; or 2) learning about the various waves at university, and planting your flag in the soil of whichever you believe more worthy by the end of it. They are experiencing a political education through communities of people who are all doing the same thing.

After class was firmly stamped out as an issue* by the glorious 1980s clusterfucks (politically and culturally), a new generation grew up being even less politically engaged than before, and with seemingly no need to be so. We all know the origins of identity politics, though, so no need to go over them. But the point being, they are now all flooding back to politics, in one way or another, and this kind of identity politics is the easiest - and most obvious, and most comfortable and acceptable to capital - way of doing that. Ultimately I think it's counter-productive to broadly slag them all off and then disregard them because they're doing it wrong, because then you've lost them forever. It seems to me more useful to understand why it's a starting point for them, and then encourage something more.

*I'm not saying it actually stopped being an issue, but that everyone was told it was no longer an issue, and that was internalised to a degree.

 

[revol68]

I've only ever been told to "check my privilege" once. For describing Sarah Palin as a "loon".

What was your privilege, basic reasoning skills?

 

[cesare]

to be honest i reckon that CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE should be an entry point into trying to formulate a better world. for all of us. we need to check our assumptions and understand that our experiences are not universal.

Yebbut ... I think it's counter productive to do much of it, especially when class doesn't seem to enter the equation here.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

What was your privilege, basic reasoning skills?

Mental health privilege.

 

[Lo Siento.]

Mental health privilege.

Yeah, that.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

And I agree. Quite apart from anything else, it's often used (not by everyone, I must add, but by a fair few) as a way of shutting down discussion immediately. Being shouted at to "CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE" isn't exactly going to enamour someone to 'the feminist cause' or any other cause for that matter. But, I'm wary of suggesting everyone is doing that, because they're not, and there are plenty of incredibly well-meaning people for whom this idea of privilege is their first encounter with some sort of politics. That it's so incredibly popular across the internet (you can't move on tumblr for it) shows that for a lot of people it's probably their only contact point with thinking about inequality, disenfranchisement, and whatever. As a starting point, it's not necessarily a completely bad one. At least it is a starting point; the problem is with how to get people to move beyond it to a more sophisticated analysis. I'd argue that just as people shouting "check your privilege" can be alienating and shut down debate, so too can dismissing a whole swathe of tentatively politically-engaged people just because they're 'doing it wrong.'

I think that this is an important point. The only quibble I'd have with it is that there's a distinction between analysing and consequently being very hostile to a set of political ideas and thinking that the way to deal with someone who is "tentatively politically- engaged" is to snarl at them and tell them they're a liberal fool. Even if they are a liberal fool (and there are few of us who weren't fools of some description).

Here for instance, we aren't talking about some random teenager on the internet who has been unlucky enough to first encounter a liberal "privilege theory" critique of sexism or some other kind of inequality, but about a bunch of members of the Anarchist Federation, who really don't have that excuse.

 

[revol68]

Oh and that image i posted isnt an isolated thing, my ex used to show me masses of ONTD threads that were absolutely fixated on similar notions of identity.

I think this rise identity politics is in part a response to the break down in social solidarity and rise of individualised consumption since the eighties. The hipster obsession with authenticity could also be understood in this way, not to mention it acting as a form of accumulating cultural capital as a response to large swathes of the middle class being proletarianised.

 

[sihhi]

I think in that case, the 'privilege' part of the equation is meant as a way to explain or understand why a person's position in society at any one moment might make them blind to the plight of those they are sexist/racist/whatever towards. So it's saying, "there is sexism, and this (the 'privilege') is why."

But yes, I'd agree that there can certainly be an element of claiming superiority and worthiness by creating a name for something and then staking ownership to the terms of its application.

But that's what Marxist feminism and Marxist anti-racism can do. Privilege analysis fails to make any meaningful explanations.
Instead we get a litany of racist things and sexist things - large and small - dumped together perpetuated by a groups defined solely by their white-ness and man-ness - with virtually zero explanation.

Here's one example

http://thisiswhiteprivilege.tumblr.com/

Things there are entirely worthy of observation and opposition. Agreed. We could call it 'stop racism' or 'examples of everyday racism' instead by calling it white privilege, it works only to confuse those who are white and at ask risk of having their kids centres shut down and job cuts etc who think straight away 'My family is white, I'm not privileged. WTF. What a load of bull'.

That's the only application I can see it having in the real world. I don't see it as a non-white project trying to motivate other foreign non-white people to stand together and fight white racism.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Yebbut ... I think it's counter productive to do much of it, especially when class doesn't seem to enter the equation here.

Thing is, there is quite a bit about class out there when people are talking about privilege, just that it's not being used as the main issue, but one of many. The link isn't being made to the actual system of capitalism as helping perpetuate all of these various inequalities and 'privileges,' but nevertheless, when you look at the individual (and yes, that they are all individual accounts is a problem here) accounts of people 'recognising privilege' and talking about how it affects them, class plays a part in that.

Whatever the whole Occupy thing may or may not have achieved, one thing it has done is put the idea of inequalities of wealth back on the table, even if it's not always in a very sophisticated way (and even if so much of the mainstream use of it is in terms of the poor, squeezed middle class, bless their little cotton socks). In a way, even the presence of Mitt the Shit in the presidential race is serving to keep it an issue. But, of course, it's stopping massively short of any kind of systematic analysis and/or criticism of the capitalist system, but that's not to say it can't be used to gently steer the debate and consciousness in that direction.

 

[cesare]

To be honest, I've never liked that periodisation of feminism. It's too obviously polemical, a rhetorical advice used by some mostly younger elements of the feminist movement to portray the ideas of older feminists (and other younger feminists) as old hat and out dated. There hasn't ever been a "third wave" of feminism in the sense of a mass movement upsurge, and most, though not quite all, of the distinctive positions associated with the "third wave" could also be found amongst elements of the "second".

And anyway, those old hat outdated second wavers knew how to write a polemic without mincing their words, which will always endear a political movement to me.

When I say "a sudden transportation back into second wave feminism" I wasn't criticising what was happening during the 60s and 70s. I don't think there was a viable alternative then, and I think a lot was achieved. However, it did bring with it a whole set of other consequences that pretty much laid the foundation of multicuralism and identity politics. What I intended to convey was that the concept of "manarchism" seems to hark back to the 80s.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Oh and that image i posted isnt an isolated thing, my ex used to show me masses of ONTD threads that were absolutely fixated on similar notions of identity.

I think this rise identity politics is in part a response to the break down in social solidarity and rise of individualised consumption since the eighties. The hipster obsession with authenticity could also be understood in this way, not to mention it acting as a form of accumulating cultural capital as a response to large swathes of the middle class being proletarianised.

'Authenticity' bullshit makes me want to smash things.