Urban v's the Commentariat

[ViolentPanda]

how many copies of this marvelous tome have been sold?

Literally hundreds!

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I genuinely can't believe that some of you tried to bite that lure. This is a forum with a proud record of subtle and not so subtle trolling. You should all know better. For shame.

 

[Pickman's model]

Literally hundreds!

but how many read?

 

[Delroy Booth]

Yes, to be honest I'm a bit surprised that the response hasn't been to just focus on your crudest, rantiest, formulations and use them to dismiss your views as a whole. I suspect that you hit on a sweet spot of hostility to Penny and Seymour, and also appealed to some twitter Marxist sorts who are slowly getting a bit more skeptical of the politics of many of the more straightforwardly liberal intersectionalists they interact with.

(Also, the back and forth reminds me just how fucking terrible twitter is as a medium for debate).

It was 3am when I wrote it, and i'd resolved a while before to try keep out of these Penny-related threads, cos it's not good to be ranting all the time and frankly as much as I detest her I don't want to be part of a chorus of abuse every time she comes up with something. I've tried avoiding these discussions on here and elsewhere for a while for exactly those reasons, because of what a terrible trainwreck the previous Penny thread ended up becoming.

But when two well known professional hacks take aim at socialism and marxism, using their platform to get into a bit of insult throwing and red baiting that would make any Tory smile with glee, you've gotta respond. It's a direct attack on us, filled with crude ad hominem and strawman arguments, and arguments that seems to return to the theme of being a socialist/marxist/anarchist or to hold any kind of class based political analysis is a manifestation of privilege, that it necessarily implies anything outside of class to be discarded entirely or reduced to a lesser degree of importance. It's taking this very liberal and longstanding Popper-ish critique of "Marxism as economic determinism" to it's most ridiculous level, then applying it to anyone and everyone who calls themself a socialist/marxist/anarchist. It's a caricature and a strawman and they can get away with it because they have a platform as professional journalists.

I don't think sexism, racism and the multiude of forms oppression can take rank 2nd to class. It's insulting and offensive to make that assumption on my behalf. It's insulting and offensive to accuse some of being a fucking "brocialist" or "manarchist" based on no more than the fact they aren't as well versed in the jargon and etiquette of intersectionalism as they are. Just like it's dishonest and unprofessional to describe was said at that talk she spoke as a dismissal of feminism as irrelevant, when we have the video and the transcript of what was said on this thread and can see for ourselves. But we all know that anyone who thinks Laurie Penny would do anything dishonest or unprofessional, who would deliberately misrepresent or outright lie, would only say those things because they hate brave pioneering female voices such as hers being heard etc etc

It's especially fucking galling when I've made decisions in my own life on these issues like that which have cost me, whereas I doubt I'd see Penny turn down a wedge from the New Statesman when they get Brand in as editor to boost their circulation. She was "out of the office" when Russell Brand guest edited oh how fucking convenient. She's never going to let principle get in the way of earning a crust.

That's what Penny and Seymour are getting at here and it's shameful shit. The fact that my crappy little late night whinge ended up sparking a bit of twitter aggro suggests that there's probably quite a few people unhappy with the direction these media types are going, who can spot their fakery and hypocrisy too, and that there's few people openly taking them on but are quite happy to see it happen when it does. I think that's why the old Laurie Penny thread ended up with so many views and posts.

I know there's no inherent reason why "intersectonalism" ought to be tied to this pathetic liberalism, and I know there are marxists and anarchists who find it useful. Fine, my beef's really not with them. I'll discuss the pro and cons of it with them no problem. But I don't see many of them with paid jobs in the media, so they'll get talked over and dismissed quite easily. I do see a lot of fucking career liberals who like using this terminology because it can rebrand much of the same old liberal shit they've always been into, only now it comes with the bonus of looking a bit more superficially radical, and also means it's easier to dismiss critique with ad homs.

And I perhaps wouldn't mind so much if this stuff actually led to something, to mass movements that can challenge to slow steady decline into irrelevance and the rise of the far-right, but it patently isn't. It's failing miserably. It's incredibly small and narrow and London-centric. It's common denominator isn't a shared racial or gendered oppression but shared university education and social scene. Oh alright maybe that's unfair.

 

[eatmorecheese]

Because Richard Seymour has written some excellent books such as The Meaning of David Cameron that has accelerated class conciousness in this country more than posts on a forum ever will.

 

[emanymton]

He's write though isn't she?

Arguably, but I find it hard to imagine someone would write that his books have 'accelerated class conciousness' and mean it seriously.

 

[ViolentPanda]

but how many read?

I suspect around the same proportion of readers to buyers as anything written by Calinicos or Nineham.

 

[Bakunin]

Because Richard Seymour has written some excellent books such as The Meaning of David Cameron that has accelerated class conciousness in this country more than posts on a forum ever will.

Richard Seymour and the SWP have accelerated class consciousness about as constructively as a guillotine relieves a headache.

 

[apoptosis]

Have you read it?

Bits of it

 

[barney_pig]

It's going to be at the very top of my Christmas list.

 

[caleb]

And I perhaps wouldn't mind so much if this stuff actually led to something, to mass movements that can challenge to slow steady decline into irrelevance and the rise of the far-right, but it patently isn't. It's failing miserably. It's incredibly small and narrow and London-centric. It's common denominator isn't a shared racial or gendered oppression but shared university education and social scene. Oh alright maybe that's unfair.

I don't think it's fair to say it's "London-centric" (I don't actually think that's possible anymore with the internet and all that), but it's definitely Anglo-centric, for one. These ideas have no currency outside of the US and now, of course, the UK. It also only exists within the realm of twitter politicos and university halls, but we all already know that.

It's interesting you mention the stemming the rise of the far-right in relation to intersectionalists. If you look at them on twitter or elsewhere, aside from discussion of privilege, etc. their political memes tend to be 'FULL COMMUNISM', 'ACAB' and 'ANTIFA'. These are basically just slogans of course. They never actually talk about communism, and the use of "ACAB" and "ANTIFA" just seem weird to me. Anybody else noticed this?

 

[butchersapron]

They are these things used ironically not full-bloodily. There is no commitment of any sort to them. It's advertising. It's this:

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The twitter rows are actually pretty entertaining.

A particularly hilarious interlude:

Zoe Stavri, objected to one of the Marxist types using the word "blacks", presumably as opposed to the PoC terminology that arrived over from the US campuses with intersectionality and privilege theory. The response?

"Please enlighten me, this humble black working class person, on how I should refer to myself for today's assembly".

There's no comeback to that within the rules of intersectional top trumps, and Stavri, who is certainly not stupid and has plenty of practice at the game, immediately reversed course. The revised angle of attack was that his view that black workers had more in common with white workers than the black middle class was at least permissible (if not necessarily correct) as it came from personal experience, but his personal experience does not allow him to generalise to, for example, gender.

 

[Delroy Booth]

The twitter rows are actually pretty entertaining.

A particularly hilarious interlude:

Zoe Stavri, objected to one of the Marxist types using the word "blacks", presumably as opposed to the PoC terminology that arrived over from the US campuses with intersectionality and privilege theory. The response?

"Please enlighten me, this humble black working class person, on how I should refer to myself for today's assembly".

There's no comeback to that within the rules of intersectional top trumps, and Stavri, who is certainly not stupid and has plenty of practice at the game, immediately reversed course. The revised angle of attack was that his view that black workers had more in common with white workers than the black middle class was at least permissible (if not necessarily correct) as it came from personal experience, but his personal experience does not allow him to generalise to, for example, gender.

That's fucking horrible. Eurgh.

Reminded me of Stavri's to the response to the Daily Mail hatchet job on Ralph Miliband with this article:

HEY GUESS WHAT EVERYONE, THE DAILY MAIL ARE BEING MEAN ABOUT A DEAD WHITE GUY.

WE SHOULD, LIKE, SET THEM ON FIRE OR SOMETHING.

Which is a perfect example of someone having their myriad of varying oppressions dismissed (Lithuanian Marxist Jewish immigrant fleeing Nazi persecution etc) because they're superficially white in terms of skin colour. Doesn't actually seem like a very intersectional way of looking at it to me.

 

[butchersapron]

He was really white, not superficially white.

 

[Sue]

They are these things used ironically not full-bloodily. There is no commitment of any sort to them. It's advertising. It's this:

Don't look much like hipsters to me.

 

[butchersapron]

...and these ones don't look much like real 'FULL COMMUNISM', 'ACAB' and 'ANTIFA' to me.

 

[equationgirl]

Because Richard Seymour has written some excellent books such as The Meaning of David Cameron that has accelerated class conciousness in this country more than posts on a forum ever will.

I'm intrigued - why did you choose pre-programmed cell death as a username? Will you self-combust after a predetermined number of posts?

 

[Delroy Booth]

He was really white, not superficially white.

Either way, does it matter? Did being white spare him from having to flee his country? Would his skin colour have kept him from the death camps had he not gotten out when he did?

 

[Delroy Booth]

Will you self-combust after a predetermined number of posts?

You have no idea how accurate that is

 

[butchersapron]

Either way, does it matter? Did being white spare him from having to flee his country? Would his skin colour have kept him from the death camps had he not gotten out when he did?

Is that a serious response? I thought you'd given up these twitter highs?

 

[equationgirl]

Don't look much like hipsters to me.

hipsters-in-the-country

 

[equationgirl]

You have no idea how accurate that is

Is it Firky AGAIN?

 

[Delroy Booth]

Is that a serious response? I thought you'd given up these twitter highs?

I'm just saying to dismiss someone who was a victim of racial and religious persecution because they're white is ridiculous and reductive.

To reduce oppression down to what someone skin colour looks like is obscene.

What about the people who died in the Warsaw ghetto were they just worthless dead white guys too?

 

[butchersapron]

I'm just saying to dismiss someone who was a victim of racial and religious persecution because they're white is ridiculous and reductive.

To reduce oppression down to what someone skin colour looks like is obscene.

What about the people who died in the Warsaw ghetto were they just worthless dead white guys too?

Where the fuck did i do that? Oh i get it, you're being delroy funny. I see why you don't bother so much.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I'm just saying to dismiss someone who was a victim of racial and religious persecution because they're white is ridiculous and reductive.

To reduce oppression down to what someone skin colour looks like is obscene.

What about the people who died in the Warsaw ghetto were they just worthless dead white guys too?

Are you accidentally trolling yourself now?

 

[butchersapron]

Twitter high nigel.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Are you accidentally trolling yourself now?

Slightly tongue-in-cheek as ever but there's a serious point there. Somewhere

delroy funny.

If only I could change my name

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, you'd be like a little lenny henry.

 

[revol68]

I only wish Harvey or Mattick had told Laurie Penny to "Sit down you petulant child, adults are talking", they were far too polite.