shit MANarchists say

[Fez909]

OK ... how are you going to make them irrelevant?

I don't have a good answer to that. But I'm pretty sure more labels isn't the way to do it.

 

[Das Uberdog]

So are these groups mainly middle-class, d'ya reckon?

completely and utterly. not that i'd condemn them completely on that basis, as i've said on here before i'm from a middle-class background and i still take me seriously - but yeah they are, and with very little reach to working class people ime.

 

[Vintage Paw]

worse than that is when it does engage with the outside world, and imposes its mad and often vindictive ideas on people who have nothing to do with it... not to bring it up again but they are in charge of NUS these days as the GG controversy shows

Saying something like that though, you're making as much a 'them and us' thing as they are (or might be). "But they did it first." Who cares? What happens now?

 

[revol68]

Baudrillard had a great quote about identity, "Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you have nothing better to do."

Which explains why middle class liberal art students are obsessed.

 

[cesare]

completely and utterly. not that i'd condemn them completely on that basis, as i've said on here before i'm from a middle-class background and i still take me seriously - but yeah they are, and with very little reach to working class people ime.

I suppose this goes back to me asking el if Occupy were representative. It strikes me that Occupy were mainly composed of middle class activists (but that was just a general impression of mine, I wasn't there) & now you are saying that these groups are mainly composed of middle class activists.

So my next point, is to ask whether these groups are checking their own privilege every time they ask someone else to check theirs? Is there any irony to all of this at all?

 

[Lo Siento.]

completely and utterly. not that i'd condemn them completely on that basis, as i've said on here before i'm from a middle-class background and i still take me seriously - but yeah they are, and with very little reach to working class people ime.

How would they even sustain it if they did? I mean university-educated, privileged-background, relatively prosperous (or maybe slumming it), how do you tell (a) working-class white men that they are the privileged ones and (b) working-class women that your struggle is their struggle?

 

[cesare]

I don't have a good answer to that. But I'm pretty sure more labels isn't the way to do it.

You could always try and normalise it by calling everyone you disagree with a retard or similar derogatory epithet? (Not a suggestion either that you do this, or that you do).

 

[Vintage Paw]

Baudrillard had a great quote about identity, "Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you have nothing better to do."

Which explains why middle class liberal art students are obsessed.

Let's not forget the legions of w/c folks buying into various brands and images, through aspirational shit and so on. The very, very poor can't, because they simply don't have money to spend on anything other than food, heating, whatever. Or maybe they don't have a roof over their head at all. But then do you start differentiating between the worthiness of the working class who are very, very poor, and the working class who can afford a 50 inch tv? It's no longer enough to say the middle class are the only ones who buy into this identity shenanigans.

 

[cesare]

Incidentally, I love the way that both Fez and 8ball interpreted me posting a link as anything more than explanation.

 

[Das Uberdog]

Saying something like that though, you're making as much a 'them and us' thing as they are (or might be). "But they did it first." Who cares? What happens now?

they created the 'them and us' - they're actually impossible to work with. believe me, ruffle too many feathers and you'll be branded a racist/sexist/misogynist before you can say 'how'd you do'...

this thing goes deep. i know of some scary instances.

the most recent was about a long-standing second generation member of the SWP in Sheffield - Let's call him L. his dad's been in the party since god knows when, and the guy himself was always seen as charismatic, eloquent and well read (total gobshite). he was also pretty insecure and clingy. he dated an SWP member from down south for about a year, before she dumped him.

L's ex bitched to some of the SWP girls in Sheffield about how L was clingy and possessive, and basically a chore to go out with. completely separately of L's ex, these two SWP girls decided that his conduct in that relationship proved him to be a sexist and chauvanist (claims further evidenced by his confidence at public speaking and other 'masculine' traits). they complained to the central party that L was predatory and a dangerous sexist; despite L's ex having no part in these accusations whatsoever, L was called to London for a disciplinary. even by the kangaroo court that met him in London, he could not be found 'guilty' of the accusations set against him, however the panel obviously wanted to do something. at Marxism that year, L was confronted in public by Charlie Kimber who screamed at him calling him a sexist and demanding to know how he had the gall to show his face, before pulling in some heavies to physically remove L from the event. L's dad, longstanding member and Trade Unionist resigned demanding an apology, which has not been heeded. let me repeat, L's ex never played any part in the official accusations made by the party.

there's literally no reasoning with this kind of attitude, and believe me i've tried!

 

[cesare]

No bloody idea how to investigate and effectively deal with allegations of <whatever> abuse too (as illustrated above). Another bugbear of mine.

 

[Vintage Paw]

they created the 'them and us' - they're actually impossible to work with. believe me, ruffle too many feathers and you'll be branded a racist/sexist/misogynist before you can say 'how'd you do'...

this thing goes deep. i know of some scary instances.

the most recent was about a long-standing second generation member of the SWP in Sheffield - Let's call him L. his dad's been in the party since god knows when, and the guy himself was always seen as charismatic, eloquent and well read (total gobshite). he was also pretty insecure and clingy. he dated an SWP member from down south for about a year, before she dumped him.

L's ex bitched to some of the SWP girls in Sheffield about how L was clingy and possessive, and basically a chore to go out with. completely separately of L's ex, these two SWP girls decided that his conduct in that relationship proved him to be a sexist and chauvanist (claims further evidenced by his confidence at public speaking and other 'masculine' traits). they complained to the central party that L was predatory and a dangerous sexist; despite L's ex having no part in these accusations whatsoever, L was called to London for a disciplinary. even by the kangaroo court that met him in London, he could not be found 'guilty' of the accusations set against him, however the panel obviously wanted to do something. at Marxism that year, L was confronted in public by Charlie Kimber who screamed at him calling him a sexist and demanding to know how he had the gall to show his face, before pulling in some heavies to physically remove L from the event. L's dad, longstanding member and Trade Unionist resigned demanding an apology, which has not been heeded. let me repeat, L's ex never played any part in the official accusations made by the party.

there's literally no reasoning with this kind of attitude, and believe me i've tried!

I'm not sure how that one example should be used to tar every person who ever decides to be a part of a group identified under the banner of 'identity politics.' Which is pretty much what you're saying. None of 'them' can be reasoned with.

Not to mention it's a shit example anyway. In matters of personal relationships, everything is a case of a disgustingly messy he said she said, where friends get involved sticking up for their mates, and sometimes some dark shit can happen. It's not an example of how terribly evil all teh feminists are.

 

[Das Uberdog]

i have more examples, an anarchist who was put on 'trial' for sexism after sleeping with loads of girls on the 'scene' in London and not calling them back was another shocker. he's been banned from freedom bookshop. a friend of mine, former Afed, has been effectively excluded from anarchist/autonomist events in Manchester for 'Manarchism'. whilst i was in the SWP i would always be coming up against untraceable accusations of sexism which had been flung around the gossip circuit in my absence. if you're ever, for any godforsaken reason, taken to the 'socialist memes caucus' on facebook you'll see that the AWL, SWP and SP 'yoof' have all traded in their old theoretical spats for accusations of sexism and misogyny and anti-working class attacks on 'lad culture'.

it's appalling, and needs to be purged.

 

[DotCommunist]

can\t read the phrase 'check your privilege' without mentally adding 'daddy-o'

 

[Nigel Irritable]

they created the 'them and us' - they're actually impossible to work with. believe me, ruffle too many feathers and you'll be branded a racist/sexist/misogynist before you can say 'how'd you do'...

I'm not sure that this example is particularly closely linked to the issue of "privilege theory", other than in the broadest sense that they both have something to do with identity politics. In fact, this sounds centrally like an unfortunate combination of rumours running out of control, an ill-judged attempt to "do the right thing" and the SWP's typical autocratic style merging to unfortunate effect.

 

[cesare]

i have more examples, an anarchist who was put on 'trial' for sexism after sleeping with loads of girls on the 'scene' in London and not calling them back was another shocker. he's been banned from freedom bookshop. a friend of mine, former Afed, has been effectively excluded from anarchist/autonomist events in Manchester for 'Manarchism'. whilst i was in the SWP i would always be coming up against untraceable accusations of sexism which had been flung around the gossip circuit in my absence. if you're ever, for any godforsaken reason, taken to the 'socialist memes caucus' on facebook you'll see that the AWL, SWP and SP 'yoof' have all traded in their old theoretical spats for accusations of sexism and misogyny and anti-working class attacks on 'lad culture'.

it's appalling, and needs to be purged.

There's more than a hint of personal gripe starting to tinge your posts. Banned from Freedom bookshop, eh? Does that happen a lot?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

i have more examples, an anarchist who was put on 'trial' for sexism after sleeping with loads of girls on the 'scene' in London and not calling them back was another shocker. he's been banned from freedom bookshop. a friend of mine, former Afed, has been effectively excluded from anarchist/autonomist events in Manchester for 'Manarchism'. whilst i was in the SWP i would always be coming up against untraceable accusations of sexism which had been flung around the gossip circuit in my absence. if you're ever, for any godforsaken reason, taken to the 'socialist memes caucus' on facebook you'll see that the AWL, SWP and SP 'yoof' have all traded in their old theoretical spats for accusations of sexism and misogyny and anti-working class attacks on 'lad culture'.

it's appalling, and needs to be purged.

1) The Socialist Memes Caucus is shit, but most of it is shit because it's made up of not particularly funny in jokes rather than because it's dominated by privilege theory gibberish.

2) Attacks on "lad culture" are not automatically "anti-working class", as anyone who has ever encountered a bunch of public school rugby players out on the town or a university rowing club can tell you.

3) I can safely say that the Socialist Party's near imperviousness to intellectual fashion means that we won't have to deal with this shit for another about twenty years!

4) Are you talking about those couple of dudes who were the centre of twitter lefty-spats for a while recently in your examples above? Because I certainly got the impression that there was more to that than someone not calling back a couple of girls he'd slept with.

 

[Fez909]

Incidentally, I love the way that both Fez and 8ball interpreted me posting a link as anything more than explanation.

Well, I inferred you are for the use of that term due to the content of the link you provided. You could have gone with the Wikipedia page, which is neutral on the matter, if you didn't want me to infer a position.

 

[Das Uberdog]

the privilege theory ran deep behind the whole incident, as the whole 'privilege' concept allowed for L's personal relationship to somehow be claimed as the public property of two caustic busybodies. L refused to 'check his privilege', he was confident and a gobshite, his 'masculine' traits were seen as 'threatening' to the 'safe space' of the local SWP branch and he was raked through the muck for it on the basis of nothing more the say-so of two capricious girls.

i have no love for the guy, we never got on and ironically he used to encourage these kinds of batshit attitudes - very big on post-68 identity politics leftism and multiculturalism (which all provide elements of the 'privilege' theoretical base).

here's the socialist memes caucus btw...

http://www.facebook.com/socialistmemecaucus

this stuff is all they talk about

 

[Vintage Paw]

i have more examples, an anarchist who was put on 'trial' for sexism after sleeping with loads of girls on the 'scene' in London and not calling them back was another shocker. he's been banned from freedom bookshop. a friend of mine, former Afed, has been effectively excluded from anarchist/autonomist events in Manchester for 'Manarchism'. whilst i was in the SWP i would always be coming up against untraceable accusations of sexism which had been flung around the gossip circuit in my absence. if you're ever, for any godforsaken reason, taken to the 'socialist memes caucus' on facebook you'll see that the AWL, SWP and SP 'yoof' have all traded in their old theoretical spats for accusations of sexism and misogyny and anti-working class attacks on 'lad culture'.

it's appalling, and needs to be purged.

Whether this is a true estimation or not, you are starting to sound in these past 2 posts like you have a bit of a personal 'thing' against this whole issue.

It's also worth nothing that there would, broadly speaking, be no need for 'accusations of misogyny' if there was no misogyny. Whether x, y or z actually happened as you describe or not, be careful of not coming across as if you're implying "women make all this shit up."

In terms of 'lad culture,' most of the stuff I've seen has been against typically middle class 'lads' at universities being stupid wankers. All this, "but it's just a bit of banter, love" stuff, the stuff that plays rape for laughs, and so on. Be careful not to make links where there might not be any.

 

[Das Uberdog]

There's more than a hint of personal gripe starting to tinge your posts. Banned from Freedom bookshop, eh? Does that happen a lot?

yes it's personal, i've been wading through this bullshit for the past 4 years. some of the worst human beings i've ever encountered have been through the identity politics circuit.

 

[sihhi]

racism and feminism etc. should be a part of a Marxist analysis as par for the course, and not as some kind of special adjunct to it. Identity politics as they are configured currently are a product of capitalism, and without systematically analysing the various ways in which people are marginalised, and then linking it to a broader (or more detailed, whichever way you want to look at it) understanding of class and capital relations, you end up ignoring a very real reality (tautology, apols) that exists for so many people. And while that happens, they'll just go elsewhere.

I agree entirely feminism should be, as should racism. i think every single 'marxist' attempt failed so catastrophically because of the intense chauvinist sexism and the wish to support the nuclear family. in st petersburg and moscow it was male engineering workers angry because their wages had been equalised to that of women (who had less strenuous work), it was one group of workers against another fighting extra rations to look after their own special nuclear family vs other families. In the countryside it was land to the peasant - meaning in effect the peasant extended family with the males at the head. in spain it was, in many areas, women in the fields and men with the guns on the front line, allowing some uncontrolled republican units to requisition unfairly from female collectives.
the struggle for gender equality has broadly stopped still and gone backwards in a few spots for the past 30 years for the majority of working women.

on racism as black asian and other immigrants from the past are 'incorporated' and it is rarer to be afraid of street abuse (unless you're wearing a headscarf or a prominent religious beard), new sub-national groups are formed against which racism is carried out: latvian workers - male+female escaping 30% unemployment, young somali youths, chavs, estate dwellers (40 years ago elite universities did parties etc on themes of men vs women, with vicious sexism, now it's teenage mothers http://www.cherwell.org/news/2010/10/29/-quot-disgusting-quot-initiations-condemned , potential nhs tourists in elderly people from abroad, 40 years ago if you look at NF and other publications it's all about how jews continue pornography and have child abuse rings, now it's muslims see white girls as easy meat... that's main message they draw)...
the ways of chauvinism are changed it's no longer we give civilization to the world, it's we are the most tolerant in the world (well done us, we're special, the same rules international law, not blowing up children from drones don't apply to us)... etc

However a line must be drawn 'carnism' its privilege counterpart 'vegan shaming' as a concept is just crazy.

See examples here:

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/carnist or http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/carnism

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/vegan-shaming

'Thinism' and its privilege counterpart is borderline too.

http://thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com/

 

[Das Uberdog]

4) Are you talking about those couple of dudes who were the centre of twitter lefty-spats for a while recently in your examples above? Because I certainly got the impression that there was more to that than someone not calling back a couple of girls he'd slept with

i don't think i am - certainly not in respect to my second example (the guy from Manc)

 

[cesare]

Well, I inferred you are for the use of that term due to the content of the link you provided. You could have gone with the Wikipedia page, which is neutral on the matter, if you didn't want me to infer a position.

Oh yeah, wiki's always my first reference point and I never assume that people are quite capable of looking at wiki themselves. The point of the link was to show where the terminology was coming from in the context of manarchistic politics and in response to a facepalm smiley that could have meant anything.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I agree entirely feminism should be, as should racism. i think every single 'marxist' attempt failed so catastrophically because of the intense chauvinist sexism and the wish to support the nuclear family. in st petersburg and moscow it was male engineering workers angry because their wages had been equalised to that of women (who had less strenuous work), it was one group of workers against another fighting extra rations to look after their own special nuclear family vs other families. In the countryside it was land to the peasant - meaning in effect the peasant extended family with the males at the head. in spain it was, in many areas, women in the fields and men with the guns on the front line, allowing some uncontrolled republican units to requisition unfairly from female collectives.
the struggle for gender equality has broadly stopped still and gone backwards in a few spots for the past 30 years for the majority of working women.

on racism as black asian and other immigrants from the past are 'incorporated' and it is rarer to be afraid of street abuse (unless you're wearing a headscarf or a prominent religious beard), new sub-national groups are formed against which racism is carried out: latvian workers - male+female escaping 30% unemployment, young somali youths, chavs, estate dwellers (40 years ago elite universities did parties etc on themes of men vs women, with vicious sexism, now it's teenage mothers http://www.cherwell.org/news/2010/10/29/-quot-disgusting-quot-initiations-condemned , potential nhs tourists in elderly people from abroad, 40 years ago if you look at NF and other publications it's all about how jews continue pornography and have child abuse rings, now it's muslims see white girls as easy meat... that's main message they draw)...
the ways of chauvinism are changed it's no longer we give civilization to the world, it's we are the most tolerant in the world (well done us, we're special, the same rules international law, not blowing up children from drones don't apply to us)... etc

However a line must be drawn 'carnism' its privilege counterpart 'vegan shaming' as a concept is just crazy.

See examples here:

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/carnist or http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/carnism

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/vegan-shaming

'Thinism' and its privilege counterpart is borderline too.

http://thisisthinprivilege.tumblr.com/

No doubt it manifests in some truly weird ways. But (and I'm not suggesting you're doing this) the presence of the 'less relevant' (whoever decides what that is, that's the problem with drawing lines) stuff shouldn't be used as a way to wave it all to the side.

 

[cesare]

yes it's personal, i've been wading through this bullshit for the past 4 years. some of the worst human beings i've ever encountered have been through the identity politics circuit.

I can see why you feel so strongly about it. I haven't had the experiences you have; my experiences (not of manarchism, but of sexism) have been different but they also contribute to my perception.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

the privilege theory ran deep behind the whole incident, as the whole 'privilege' concept allowed for L's personal relationship to somehow be claimed as the public property of two caustic busybodies.

Was any of this actually expressed in terms of "privilege" or "privilege theory"? I strongly suspect that it wasn't, even if some of the identity politics style assumptions were broadly similar.

this stuff is all they talk about

It really isn't. It's mostly shit jokes about the AWL, shit jokes about Ed Miliband, shit jokes about imperialism and some shit jokes about Galloway. Only the Galloway stuff goes remotely near the sort of thing you are complaning about.

It's not that I think you are wrong about there being a bit of a revival of certain types of identity politics, and that this has had at least some influence over younger members of political groups, but I think that you are considerably overstating the case. I suspect, for instance, that there about four people in my local Socialist Party branch who know what "privilege theory" is, and all would be hostile to it in so far as they could muster the energy to give a shit.

 

[el-ahrairah]

Is there such a thing as a representative sample? Hopefully. I'm asking whether Occupy provided it.

i can't answer that because i'm not sure that i have enough data. there were lots of nice people of all sorts and lots of idiots of even greater variety, and the social mix was kind of what you'd expect in london political terms i suppose, mostly young, mostly white, middle class but not overwhelmingly etc , and whenever someone tried to pigeonhole the movement's politics "anarchist / anti-capitalist / liberal" arguments started up.

the anarchist booksale is whiter, maler, and probably more middle class than the occupy site. although the council isn't sending homeless people to the bootsale for lols.

 

[8ball]

Incidentally, I love the way that both Fez and 8ball interpreted me posting a link as anything more than explanation.

Not sure what this means.

 

[cesare]

i can't answer that because i'm not sure that i have enough data. there were lots of nice people of all sorts and lots of idiots of even greater variety, and the social mix was kind of what you'd expect in london political terms i suppose, mostly young, mostly white, middle class but not overwhelmingly etc , and whenever someone tried to pigeonhole the movement's politics "anarchist / anti-capitalist / liberal" arguments started up.

the anarchist booksale is whiter, maler, and probably more middle class than the occupy site. although the council isn't sending homeless people to the bootsale for lols.

Cheers, el.