Urban v's the Commentariat

[SpineyNorman]

Yet another reason why private schools should be nuked and nuked and nuked until there's nothing left but a great big brat shaped crater of victory.

Was?

 

[emanymton]

Was?

OK, are people on this thread reading my mind? As these are the exact reactions I had.

 

[equationgirl]

OK, are people on this thread reading my mind? As these are the exact reactions I had.

You must be part of the monothought clique.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

http://bilgewatch.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/the-current-nonsense-about-religion/

 

[butchersapron]

My god, how many sites do you have? Not so sure promoting the 'Jews killed jesus myth' is very useful. Nor your conflation of green with Green Party for that matter.

 

[Idris2002]

My god, how many sites do you have? Not so sure promoting the 'Jews killed jesus myth' is very useful. Not your conflation of green with Green Party for that matter.

Nail the buggers up, it's the only language they understand.

 

[brogdale]

Penny Red's apology to da students....

Whilst I find myself agreeing with some of the sentiments...

....they should go to university for the love of learning, because they were talented and brilliant and longed to study....If I could go back in time and speak to the pupils I mentored in 2006, I'd still tell them to go out and get the best education they can – not because it'll get them a good job, but because reading, learning and expanding your horizons is necessary if you're going to understand what's being done to the world around you, and change your collective circumstances.

...a 'socialist' commentator worrying about social mobility? How does that stack up?

 

[butchersapron]

Isn't it odd that she was ever so silent on the graduate premium - the amount a graduate earns above a non-graduate - when it was higher and only writes about it when it declines? She starts to care when inequality lessens. Interesting that despite the sheen of love of education the thing she chooses to base the article around is the small decline in graduate premium. Money, not love of learning.

And for the record, the graduate premium remains at around 7 grand per year - we're talking near 1/4 million quid over a working lifetime - but given we know lots of graduates receive no such premium we're really talking about part of the graduate population receiving even more than that - not to mention working less, at a slower rate, in better conditions and retiring earlier.

 

[J Ed]

Penny Red's apology to da students....

Whilst I find myself agreeing with some of the sentiments...


...a 'socialist' commentator worrying about social mobility? How does that stack up?

I have an apology to make. Some years ago, when I was a student, I worked as a mentor and teacher for the Aimhigher programme, which was designed to encourage gifted pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply to university. In return for room, board and sandwich money I spent my days giving lectures about exciting books, and my nights trying to find where my eager pupils had stashed their vodka.

So a privately educated uni student was begging for (or stealing?) vodka from school aged pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds? Class system in action right there..

 

[butchersapron]

Room and board and sandwich money - the latter commonly known as pay.

Tbh, if there was anything that would be put me off university it's a load of penny's telling me how wonderful it is and getting paid for it.

 

[DotCommunist]

So a privately educated uni student was begging for (or stealing?) vodka from school aged pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds? Class system in action right there..

no schoolie has a stolichnya stash. Its hyperbole. or, lies.


stash of white lightening maybe

 

[J Ed]

no schoolie has a stolichnya stash. Its hyperbole. or, lies.

I don't know whether it's better whether it's a lie or not. What a weird world she inhabits to either do it or to think it would be a good thing to lie about.

 

[Theisticle]

 

[captainmission]

An okish, if not particularly insightful piece by owen jones. But why the pretense that it's an incredibly tough piece to write? I'd presume half competent hack could knock out a piece like this in less than an hour. And any gay man that's capable even a basic degree of self reflection has thought about issues of their masculinity. Is it just a columnist aggrandising their essentially rather easy job? Or the intersectionalist idea that self reflection is a taxing process of public self flagellation rather than an ordinary part of exisitance?

 

[equationgirl]

An okish, if not particularly insightful piece by owen jones. But why the pretense that it's an incredibly tough piece to write? I'd presume half competent hack could knock out a piece like this in less than an hour. And any gay man that's capable even a basic degree of self reflection has thought about issues of their masculinity. Is it just a columnist aggrandising their essentially rather easy job? Or the intersectionalist idea that self reflection is a taxing process of public self flagellation rather than an ordinary part of exisitance?

My guess would be he found it tough because he simply couldn't understand the viewpoint he was trying to write from.

 

[tbtommyb]

That's not all it says tho is it? It explicitly relegates class, not being able to pay bills etc, to an 'identity'

Is it though? Or is it saying that, even in an equal, classless society, sexism/homophobia/racism would still be problems and they need to be addressed now, because class equality alone will not deliver them?

 

[tbtommyb]

In the way privilege theory is used by the majority of its' "commentariat" proponents, it addresses complex socio-cultural situations and developments with what are effectively simplistic binary oppositions - black=oppressed, white=privileged, and so forth. There's little nuance or acceptance that nothing is quite as simple as binary oppositions lead you (them) to believe.

It's really, in this incarnation, not about guarding against discrimination (many people, regardless of ethnicity, skin colour etc do that anyway, as part of how they act within society), it's more about playing categorisation games, and "allying" yourself to people you perceive to be non-privileged. If it were purely about theory, and how theory could inform a wider social understanding of the gradiated asymmetry of privilege, I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, it isn't currently, it's about "privilege theory" as a tool used by an elite to neutralise arguments that they don't interpellate/identify with, hence the virtual absence of class arguments.

But to turn that around, in the way socialism is used by the majority of its 'commentariat' proponents, it reduces complex situations to binary oppositions - rich=poor, capitalist=worker and so on. But we don't dismiss socialism on that basis, so what's the difference? What is solidarity if not allying?

Rather than trying to neutralise arguments, could it not be seen as trying to carve out a space to discuss things that, in the view of their proponents, have not been fully explored before? Maybe there is an absence of class arguments because they're being discussed elsewhere?

As far as I can tell they are taking the language of class and applying it to other social constructs. So why would they apply it back to class?

 

[butchersapron]

Wtf are you on about? They're using class privilege to cut out the non-poshoes and impose a restricted posho langauge on how oppositional politics plays out. It's their game.

 

[frogwoman]

Is it though? Or is it saying that, even in an equal, classless society, sexism/homophobia/racism would still be problems and they need to be addressed now, because class equality alone will not deliver them?

I don't think that anyone disputes this but this isn't how its used by the people on the thread who were discussing, Penny, crabapple etc

I actually have some time for Cranshaw, bell hooks etc

 

[captainmission]

My guess would be he found it tough because he simply couldn't understand the viewpoint he was trying to write from.

Yeah, i suppose those checked shirts do scream straight acting

 

[tbtommyb]

Wtf are you on about? They're using class privilege to cut out the non-poshoes and impose a restricted posho langauge on how oppositional politics plays out. It's their game.

how, exactly?

 

[butchersapron]

how, exactly?

By defining the terms of legitimate political debate around a series of injuries - ones that the privileged suffer from as much as the rest of us. By turning debate around inequality from one of how inequality is produced and sustained into one of the effects of inequality hits one group (and it's always their fave token group of the week) and is designed to, by helping foster the central structuring idea of how the ruling class operates as just an identity.

And by making people like you think that you have to ask people like me questions like this.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

But to turn that around, in the way socialism is used by the majority of its 'commentariat' proponents, it reduces complex situations to binary oppositions - rich=poor, capitalist=worker and so on. But we don't dismiss socialism on that basis, so what's the difference? What is solidarity if not allying?

Rather than trying to neutralise arguments, could it not be seen as trying to carve out a space to discuss things that, in the view of their proponents, have not been fully explored before? Maybe there is an absence of class arguments because they're being discussed elsewhere?

As far as I can tell they are taking the language of class and applying it to other social constructs. So why would they apply it back to class?

You are persistently confusing taking issues of oppression seriously with adopting the language, outlook, mores, theories and politics associated with the privilege / intersectionality / standpoint package. That is to say you are treating one particular set of theoretical approaches as if they are synonymous with the wider issues they seek to explain.

As long as you continue to do this, you will continue to be perplexed by the answers you get here. Perhaps if you were to cease assuming that those criticising social media privilege talk here are semi-mythical class-is-all-that-matters whippet-eating monsters, and start instead to assume that they object to the conversion of radical politics into a glorified scorecard determining who has to shut up in twitter arguments, you may make more progress.

 

[Theisticle]

The hashtag is a great social media fail for the New York police. However, Crabapple must remind everyone, not once, but twice that she was once arrested.

 

[J Ed]

If you squint a bit you can enter an alternate reality where she is being arrested by the People's Militia for this

 

[frogwoman]

taking oppression, racism, sexism etc seriously does not mean taking their views seriously and not taking then seriously does not mean you are some Ted Grant type dinosaur. There are other ways to view this stuff - in terms of the function things like racism play for capital in terms of dividing people, the ideological views and material interests of who want this stuff to continue etc, even various feminist views of rape culture etc and how sexism is structurally reinforced which is nothing to do with privilege theory

 

[Casually Red]

If you squint a bit you can enter an alternate reality where she is being arrested by the People's Militia for this

whos house is that in the pic ?

eta

oh right its yer wan, didnt recognise

Shes not big into the old dusting i see from just over her shoulder. Thats like been dead for a few years and never got round to it level dust

 

[Casually Red]

Queer/Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Transgender/Transsexual, Bisexual, Allied/Asexual, Gay/Genderqueer, apparently

fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck

 

[frogwoman]

Also it really fucks me off that the only way they can seem to argue is by calling people racist etc and having been on the receiving end of various types of prejudice myself, having been sexually assaulted myself etc, I don't really like that based solely on the fact I don't agree with their stupid little philosophy. and they of course can say whatever the hell they want, weird sexism about women's hair and dress sense etc, provided they use the right buzzwords and seem to be a 'good ally'

 

[frogwoman]

Calling women bitches for wearing an item of clothing, lecturing ethnic minorities on what is racism, being racist/homophobic themselves, nah all fine because they checked their privilege