Some thoughts, in the form of theses, that require extrapolation. Those of us at the centres of global capitalism who define ourselves as "marxist" and "historical materialist" are, to greater and lesser degrees, at this historical juncture of theory. This is not necessarily a good thing…
1) By basing a definition of oppression on sites of identity wrenched from a materialist basis, there emerges a concept of oppression that lacks any revolutionary praxis. There can be no solidarity in a theory that divides along multiple moments of identity and elevates these molecularities above the molar basis that actually divides a given mode of production into ruling and ruled classes. While it may be unfashionable in certain academic circles to make this claim, the only basis of revolutionary unity is still the basis of social class since a given mode of production, as well as the momentum of history, is determined, in the last instance, by class struggle.
2) While it is correct to reject the class essentialism of a crude marxism that in itself produces its own form of identity politics (where the proletariat is automatically and erroneously overcoded according to a white, male, hetero, able-bodied, and cis-gendered identity), it is incorrect to substitute a post-modern politics of difference––which concretely means identity politics––in its place. To argue that the proletariat's composition is defined by these sites of oppression is not the same as clinging to a politics that speaks only of these sites, wrenched from the material basis of social class and treated in an abstract and intersecting manner, rather than the material fact of class division. Class might be determined by these moments of oppression, but it also and simultaneously determines these moments of oppression. Again: in the final instance we have to recognize social/economic class as the basis of revolutionary struggle.
3) The theory of intersectionality, a term flouted about by those committed to an identitarian approach, is ultimately banal. While it is indeed a fact that class, race, sex, gender, nationality, etc. intersect, recognizing this fact is about as useful as recognizing that the clouds are grey when it is close to raining. No theory of intersectionality proposed by proponents of post-modern and identitarian approaches has done anything more significant than inform us of the obvious fact that oppression intersects and overlaps; they generally fail to explain why and how they overlap, and more importantly they fail to provide a praxis of revolutionary unity. Here the statements of intersectionality mean only the recognition of disparate trajectories that happen to intersect, just because they do, rather than provide a precise epistemology of intersection.
4) Revolutionary communists have known, for a long time, that disparate oppressions intersect in the moment of class which is the final instance rather than a separate identitarian trajectory. By pretending that social class is something that is only a moment of intersection, rather than the material basis that makes sense of intersection, identity politics cannot challenge capitalism in a scientific manner. Instead, all it can do is offer moralizations.
5) Those who champion the enshrined practices of identity politics––anti-oppression training, "safe spaces", rarified theories of privilege, abstract movementism––are generally petty-bourgeois academics. The irony is that while many of these people possess a significant level of intellectual privilege (and note that the post-modern theories behind this politics are currently accessible mainly to students and intellectuals) they do not grasp the privilege generated by their social class as the primary moment of privilege, or even recognize that they are economically privileged, when they speak of privilege, oppression, intersectionality, etc. Hence the failure to produce a material analysis of oppression: under capitalism those who possess the most "privilege" are those who possess the most economic autonomy, i.e. the bourgeosie, and those who possess the intellectual autonomy to flourish in the spaces opened by identity politics also possess, in some very significant ways and regardless of their specific identities (oppressed or otherwise), the very privilege they imagine they lack. None of this is to say that these practices were not at one point of time necessary, or at least the logical result of the class essentialism of a crude marxism, but just that they can be nothing more than a petty-bourgeois activism that produces neo-reformism.
6) Although there have been numerous marxist attempts to reject identity politics without falling back into class essentialism, most have ended up reifying the content of identity politics. (Hence the recent bad faith appropriation of proletarian feminism where the same identitarian notion of "privilege" is presupposed and revolutionary theorists such as Anuradha Gandhy are poached by bourgeois feminists who replace exploitation with an idealist concept of oppression.) Generally speaking, in our attempt to supersede a class essentialism while learning from the politics of identity, some of us tend to err more on the side of the latter in an attempt to overcome the problems of the former. This error makes sense in light of the history of crude marxism and yet is still an error… for if we claim we are marxists, then we need to offer something more and beyond the simplest and idealist rejections of a marxism that belongs in the dustbin of history.
7) The legacy of identity politics has produced a problematic language idealism where we focus more on correct words and phrases rather than the material basis of oppression… And even in the moment where we imagine we are indeed combatting real world oppression we are, in fact, simply engaging with the level of appearance. We often fail to recognize that those who lack the privileged education to understand the correct terminology and turns of phrase are not necessarily those who are chauvinist, just as we fail to recognize that those who possess the education to hide their chauvinism with the correct language are indeed the enemy. This language idealism becomes nothing but a self-righteous exercise when it refuses to contemplate a praxis of mass pedagogy based on actually changing the material circumstances and instead focuses on anti-oppression training, atomized concepts of privilege, and how to speak correctly. It becomes utterly rarified and intentionally ignorant when it demands that we waste our time examining every word and turn of phrase at the expense of changing the material circumstances upon which this language is dependent. Moralism abounds.
8) Now there are innumerable marxists who appeal to identity politics in order to justify their lack of praxis. It is no accident that those who are the least active in attempting to engage with the proletarian and declass are also those who most rigidly abide by the dictates of identity politics––indeed, the theoretical constellation of identity politics often provides the inactive marxist with an excuse to remain inactive. One must not engage with the masses if they say the wrong words; one must not engage with concrete reality if it cannot be transformed so easily into a safe space.
9) We need to ask why the [lack of revolutionary] praxis mobilized by identity politics matters only to radicals at the centres of global capitalism. Why is this set politics seen as petty-bourgeois by revolutionary movements at the global peripheries––movements that are tired of those intellectuals who, in the moment of theorizing about the subaltern's ability to speak for itself, attempt to decide the manner in which this subaltern can speak in order to be understood as subaltern? When we ask these questions we may be forced to recognize that identity politics is connected to a radical petty-bourgeois strain of what might be called the labour aristocracy––or at the very least a group of privileged migrant ex-patriates––and that its theorization of privilege is also an attempt to obscure its own especial privilege.
10) The fact that identity politics, and its theoretical basis in post-modern theory, is predominant only at the centres of capitalism is no accident. This is not to say that the insights produced by this ultimately petty-bourgeois practice have not been useful and significant (indeed some crude marxisms it sought to correct were also petty-bourgeois) only that these insights are limited precisely by their petty-bourgeois idealism and inability to examine the material basis of reality––that is, social class. Social class is precisely that which can be obscured at the privileged centres of imperialism.
1) By basing a definition of oppression on sites of identity wrenched from a materialist basis, there emerges a concept of oppression that lacks any revolutionary praxis. There can be no solidarity in a theory that divides along multiple moments of identity and elevates these molecularities above the molar basis that actually divides a given mode of production into ruling and ruled classes. While it may be unfashionable in certain academic circles to make this claim, the only basis of revolutionary unity is still the basis of social class since a given mode of production, as well as the momentum of history, is determined, in the last instance, by class struggle.
2) While it is correct to reject the class essentialism of a crude marxism that in itself produces its own form of identity politics (where the proletariat is automatically and erroneously overcoded according to a white, male, hetero, able-bodied, and cis-gendered identity), it is incorrect to substitute a post-modern politics of difference––which concretely means identity politics––in its place. To argue that the proletariat's composition is defined by these sites of oppression is not the same as clinging to a politics that speaks only of these sites, wrenched from the material basis of social class and treated in an abstract and intersecting manner, rather than the material fact of class division. Class might be determined by these moments of oppression, but it also and simultaneously determines these moments of oppression. Again: in the final instance we have to recognize social/economic class as the basis of revolutionary struggle.
3) The theory of intersectionality, a term flouted about by those committed to an identitarian approach, is ultimately banal. While it is indeed a fact that class, race, sex, gender, nationality, etc. intersect, recognizing this fact is about as useful as recognizing that the clouds are grey when it is close to raining. No theory of intersectionality proposed by proponents of post-modern and identitarian approaches has done anything more significant than inform us of the obvious fact that oppression intersects and overlaps; they generally fail to explain why and how they overlap, and more importantly they fail to provide a praxis of revolutionary unity. Here the statements of intersectionality mean only the recognition of disparate trajectories that happen to intersect, just because they do, rather than provide a precise epistemology of intersection.
 |
| So wtf is the "unity"? |
4) Revolutionary communists have known, for a long time, that disparate oppressions intersect in the moment of class which is the final instance rather than a separate identitarian trajectory. By pretending that social class is something that is only a moment of intersection, rather than the material basis that makes sense of intersection, identity politics cannot challenge capitalism in a scientific manner. Instead, all it can do is offer moralizations.
5) Those who champion the enshrined practices of identity politics––anti-oppression training, "safe spaces", rarified theories of privilege, abstract movementism––are generally petty-bourgeois academics. The irony is that while many of these people possess a significant level of intellectual privilege (and note that the post-modern theories behind this politics are currently accessible mainly to students and intellectuals) they do not grasp the privilege generated by their social class as the primary moment of privilege, or even recognize that they are economically privileged, when they speak of privilege, oppression, intersectionality, etc. Hence the failure to produce a material analysis of oppression: under capitalism those who possess the most "privilege" are those who possess the most economic autonomy, i.e. the bourgeosie, and those who possess the intellectual autonomy to flourish in the spaces opened by identity politics also possess, in some very significant ways and regardless of their specific identities (oppressed or otherwise), the very privilege they imagine they lack. None of this is to say that these practices were not at one point of time necessary, or at least the logical result of the class essentialism of a crude marxism, but just that they can be nothing more than a petty-bourgeois activism that produces neo-reformism.
6) Although there have been numerous marxist attempts to reject identity politics without falling back into class essentialism, most have ended up reifying the content of identity politics. (Hence the recent bad faith appropriation of proletarian feminism where the same identitarian notion of "privilege" is presupposed and revolutionary theorists such as Anuradha Gandhy are poached by bourgeois feminists who replace exploitation with an idealist concept of oppression.) Generally speaking, in our attempt to supersede a class essentialism while learning from the politics of identity, some of us tend to err more on the side of the latter in an attempt to overcome the problems of the former. This error makes sense in light of the history of crude marxism and yet is still an error… for if we claim we are marxists, then we need to offer something more and beyond the simplest and idealist rejections of a marxism that belongs in the dustbin of history.
7) The legacy of identity politics has produced a problematic language idealism where we focus more on correct words and phrases rather than the material basis of oppression… And even in the moment where we imagine we are indeed combatting real world oppression we are, in fact, simply engaging with the level of appearance. We often fail to recognize that those who lack the privileged education to understand the correct terminology and turns of phrase are not necessarily those who are chauvinist, just as we fail to recognize that those who possess the education to hide their chauvinism with the correct language are indeed the enemy. This language idealism becomes nothing but a self-righteous exercise when it refuses to contemplate a praxis of mass pedagogy based on actually changing the material circumstances and instead focuses on anti-oppression training, atomized concepts of privilege, and how to speak correctly. It becomes utterly rarified and intentionally ignorant when it demands that we waste our time examining every word and turn of phrase at the expense of changing the material circumstances upon which this language is dependent. Moralism abounds.
8) Now there are innumerable marxists who appeal to identity politics in order to justify their lack of praxis. It is no accident that those who are the least active in attempting to engage with the proletarian and declass are also those who most rigidly abide by the dictates of identity politics––indeed, the theoretical constellation of identity politics often provides the inactive marxist with an excuse to remain inactive. One must not engage with the masses if they say the wrong words; one must not engage with concrete reality if it cannot be transformed so easily into a safe space.
9) We need to ask why the [lack of revolutionary] praxis mobilized by identity politics matters only to radicals at the centres of global capitalism. Why is this set politics seen as petty-bourgeois by revolutionary movements at the global peripheries––movements that are tired of those intellectuals who, in the moment of theorizing about the subaltern's ability to speak for itself, attempt to decide the manner in which this subaltern can speak in order to be understood as subaltern? When we ask these questions we may be forced to recognize that identity politics is connected to a radical petty-bourgeois strain of what might be called the labour aristocracy––or at the very least a group of privileged migrant ex-patriates––and that its theorization of privilege is also an attempt to obscure its own especial privilege.
10) The fact that identity politics, and its theoretical basis in post-modern theory, is predominant only at the centres of capitalism is no accident. This is not to say that the insights produced by this ultimately petty-bourgeois practice have not been useful and significant (indeed some crude marxisms it sought to correct were also petty-bourgeois) only that these insights are limited precisely by their petty-bourgeois idealism and inability to examine the material basis of reality––that is, social class. Social class is precisely that which can be obscured at the privileged centres of imperialism.
Lemme guess....you're a white straight dude, right?
ReplyDeleteAnnd... This is precisely what is wrong with the identity politics approach. No response to content, simply a focus on questions of identity. What sort of politics does this produce? Also, just to be clear, if you check my back-links, or even read carefully what I wrote here about class essentialism, you will see that the marxism I advocate is not a marxism that privileges some imaginary white/male/straight/cis working class.
DeleteSo a person who points out that the methodological framework of identity politics is now racist? Lovely. The funny part is that this post doesn't reject the central premise of identity politics, the idea of privilege, it just rejects the idea that "identity" is a coherent or even useful way to categorize oppression.
DeleteThere are of course, very real oppression that we can't reduce to class I'm not denying this and I (as well as JMP) have said this multiple times. Still, reducing these actually existing oppression to "identity" renders them ineffective. How is identity even political? Sure I can see it in LGBT questions and in terms of oppressed national identities such as Irish catholics, but if a man were to dress as a vampire 24/7 and get turned down for a job, I won't care about it one bit as a communist. There are of course instances where we should care about this, perhaps in the context of preserving ancient culture, but we shouldn't care about this within the framework of Marxism
I am not a white straight dude nor white, straight, or a dude, and I unite with the critique of identity politics completely. I has neither liberated the oppressed nor posed a credible path of liberation, and thus is a failure politically and theoretically as tool of radical social transformation.
DeleteJMP: I am soon opening a new blog (with a different pseudonym) and will reserve my deeper response to when it opens soon. I do thank you for bring this up in this form, as it provides a basis for critique from liberation and engagement to the valid questions identity politics raises, rather than ignoring or diminishing these questions (as so often has been the case in the broad socialist, communist, and MLM movements). We need more interventions in that spirit, specially from MLM.
Interestingly enough, there are similar rumblings in other traditions:
http://www.leninology.com/2013/01/patriarchy-and-capitalist-state.html
Thanks sks. As you know, many of my past posts have dealt with this aspects of identity politics, from different angles, and I linked them to this one. There is a lot that needs to be done to assess the emergence of this theory and politics in a historical materialist manner, especially since it appeared to answer important questions that were being raised at the centres of capitalism that the revolutionary communist tradition, since it was retreating, was unwilling and unable to examine at the time. Obviously, as much as I think identity politics and the theory behind it is ultimately limited and cannot lead to revolution, I agree that it cannot be dismissed out of hand as is so often done by marxist traditions and trajectories.
DeleteThanks for the link and I look forward to your blog. Do send me a link when it is up and running so I can put it on my links page.
Thanks! will do.
DeleteAs promised here is the blog, and we are working on a comment on this post.
Deletemaosoleum.wordpress.com
What do you mean by "final instance"? I understand that society reproduces itself based on class, but isn't society also structured around the exploitation of women, immigrants and people of colour?
ReplyDeleteI understand that class is essentially different from other identities, and revolution can only be achieved on the basis of class, which is why I'm a communist and not an IP anarchist, but I don't really know how to articulate why that is.
The "final instance" is a term that was often used by Marx and Engels to say that, in order to get a true materialist picture of reality, the economic base is the primary point of origination. But to say that the base is important in the final instance, therefore, is to also say that there are multiple points of superstructural mediation that are also important and may be co-determinant. The point is to grasp that even these mediations, at some point, originated from the material basis of history/society. Hence, using this terminology, means to not ignore the fact that, as you rightfully point out, the exploitation of women, immigrants, people of colour, etc are also extremely important in order to get a full picture of reality. We also have to recognize these sites of oppression, though, as ultimately dependent on class struggle rather than separate sites of struggle. As Butch Lee once pointed out, these are simply the clothing (or, in her words, the "drag") worn by class. That is, class is never naked but is always clothed in race/sexuality/gender/etc.
DeleteIn any case, check out some of the back links where I discuss a more sophisticated understanding of class in clearer terms. That might answer some of your questions.
love this post!!!!!!
ReplyDelete"The fact that identity politics, and its theoretical basis in post-modern theory, is predominant only at the centres of capitalism is no accident."
ReplyDeleteha ha ha ha
this is 100% false but thanks for proving that like pretty much all western communists you have zero idea what happens outside the west
How precisely is it 100% false? This is a trolling comment, and demonstrates your own ignorance of the subject matter. Here's an idea: how about you read the critiques of post-modernism by non-western thinkers and how they claim this precise point, or take seriously the fact that every PW ideologue in the third world sees post-modernism as a first world phenomenon, and make a comment.
DeleteThats an interesting analysis, and there is indeed a great deal wrong with intersectionality *as it is applied*, however the theory itself is solid.
ReplyDeleteIntersectionality is not a development of identity politics, but a challenge to it. It is based on critical ideas that all of us are positioned in some way relative to kyriarchial structures. The most obvious are race and gender, but there are a whole load of others, and consequently what may look good from one perspective may look terrible from another. Consequently we need to take into account where people are in the kyriarchy, not simply promote the concerns of the privilaged within the oppressed (eg straight white women on gender issues; gay white men on sexuality issues; straight black men on issues of racialisation etc.)
The issue that I see is the retreat of consideration of these oppressions into idealism. That Black people are oppressed because whites are racist; that women are oppressed because men are misogynist. Thats simplistic nonsense. Blacks are racialised because the rich ( who are predominantly white; predominently men) want access to land and resources which are controlled by Black people, they assert their right over them by appeal to the kyriarchy (racism) which justifies imperialism; they also want control over the future labour supply, they assert this by appeal to the kyriarchy (sexism) which justifies patriarchy.
Labour and resources are critical material elements. Females produce future labour, Black people control critical resources (the most obvious example is the Congo, cursed first by its rubber in the age of the automobile, now by its coltan in the information age, where a dirty war has been going on for almost a decade).
This link between the material reasons for the kyriarchy is critical in the fight against it. Its not a case of "be nice to the [insert oppressed group]" but of exploring *why* that structure is there, and how we can undermine it.
Thanks for the reply. I agree that there is a tendency that leads to a retreat into idealism and the need to ask questions regarding the material basis for oppression.
DeleteI am very aware what intersectionality *is* but I do not see how you think it is a challenge to identity politics. In fact, it has become a hallmark of the very practice of identity politics, the way in which that its practitioners can say that this practice is unified. There is an intersection, but I would argue that that intersection is social class––but one properly understood as class––and the way in which you have described intersectionality returns us precisely to the set language of identity politics. It is not a challenge but part of the same praxis.
I would go further and challenge the use of the term "kyriarchy", something else that has been incorporated into identity politics and is, in my opinion, laden with idealism of its own since it does not describe a mode of production, and thus not the material structure of a given society at a given period of time.
I think its a challenge to identity politics as it moves away from the position that all [insert oppressed group] experience their oppression in the same way. Black women are the classic intersection - they experience both racialised and gendered oppression, these feed into one another to produce a unique stance.
Delete*How* you are racialised (through indigeneity, through religion, through visible identification) is also relevant as it has a material resonance - inigeneity is racialised as a direct means of aquisition of resources; religion is racialised where its ideology stands in opposition to the ideals of capitalism; visible identification is racialised as a means of justifying exploitation of a section of workers.
Kyriarchy is indeed an idealistic structure, but it is built to justify exploitation, and the ideological justification for it. You are right in saying it is not material, but it manifests materially - for example the US prison industrial complex is built on racism, but it extracts labour from inmates on the basis of it.
I think you're missing the overall point here. Intersectionality is not a challenge to identity politics even if it pretended to be so; rather, it is a buzz word that allows for this political practice to continue. Everyone who adheres to a non-marxist identitarian approach (usually based in post-modern theory) would agree precisely with what you said about intersectionality. My general point is that *yes* there is such a thing as intersectionality but we didn't need this new buzz word to understand something that is, ultimately, a banal point. The intersection is social class, understood properly, rather than just assuming (as identity politics that draws upon that word) that class is just another site of oppressed identity––it is not, it is a material relationship. In any case, those who attempt to build a theory upon intersectionality are usually those who are committed to an identity politics approach and cannot even explain how and why something is intersectional. McClintock's *Imperial Leather* is a paradigm example of this.
DeleteWhen I say that kyriarchy is idealist, I mean that I don't recognize it as anything structural but a concept that has no basis in reality. An idealist concept, as useful as liberal concepts. It is not "built" anywhere but is a term of theological origin that isn't very good at explaining what it is meant to explain. Recently it has become a catch-all term to explain (again) intersecting oppressions but really is just an excuse to not to the hard work of examining the mode of production and the ideological instance, sort of a grouping together of everything under a buzz-word that has the same explanatory depth as "intersectionality"… meaning it does not produce a useful historical materialist analysis. What you have said vis-a-vis the prison industrial complex does not need the concept of kyriarchy and has been explained far better before and after this term became popularized in (some) US anarchist circles.
Those silly women, whining about "oppression" and not blaming class enough!
ReplyDeleteUm, you clearly haven't really read this post thoroughly or understood what I was arguing. "Silly women"? what does that have to do with what I'm discussing? "Whining about oppression"? If you had read this, or bothered to examine the back links, you would realize that I agree that there is such a thing as oppression, particularly patriarchy. This has nothing to do with this critique: it's a critique of a type of politics that is based on an idealist understanding of oppression that a lot of people take on, including activist white men, but that is ultimately limited. Nor do I think that an old school and reductionist understanding of class struggle is a good alternative.
DeleteSo nice seeing an article like this after losing my time on Tumblr for a year or so! (not saying, there are not some interesting stuff on that website, whether they are phrased in the language of identity politics or not, but a lot of it is BS.)
ReplyDeleteI especially like your seventh point, I've seen a lot of language idealism on the prostitution debate : abolitionnist feminists can't be right, apparently they deny "agency" to women in prostitution (WTF does agency even mean, I'm not sure!). Also this language idealism fails to even self-critic : for example, it refuses to acknowledge that if we say "sex work is work [like any other]" we are saying "pimping is just being a boss!" (good article about this here : http://prostitutionresearch.com/pre_blog/2012/05/23/pimps_will_be_pimps_whether_ma/)
Which leaves me with the question : if you are part of agroup that is all about identity politics, how do you change it? How do you convince it to become revolutionary?
At least in my home country, the LGBT movement is either strongly assimilassionist/reactionnary or trying to be "queer" but stuck in identity politics. It's especially the case with bisexuals, who I am afraid to admit, are more busy debating over the differences between bi and pansexuality (answer : there are none, it's exactly the same thing) than fighting violence against and hypersexualization of bi women...
Thanks for the kind comments. Yes, I agree with your thoughts about the sex worker discourse that has affected the privileged and petty-b strata of the mainstream left at the centres of capitalism. And yeah, it does tend to fall into a discursive structure of identity politics to defend its shitty analysis of prostitution (like, for example, the people who claim that being a "sex worker" is an oppressed sexual identity like being queer, which is a ludicrous category mistake).
DeleteAs for your question about what to do with a group that is all about identity politics, I'm not sure that you can change the group if that is its core basis of unity. While, as I've said elsewhere, the identity politics constellation has brought some good tools to left theory, groups founded on this approach are usually not amenable to transformation from within. Particularly since now they usually tend to be, as a whole, liberal organizations (soc-dem at the best) that cloak their poverty of politics with radical language. Although, to be fair, it really depends on the size and composition of the group. If it's a young organization that still engages in reading/discussion groups, the trick is to find people who have similar positions to yourself, start a reading group around material that is critical of the group's current political approach and try to discuss it honestly.
Otherwise I'd advocate doing what a bunch of my current comrades have done: leave these organizations to either join another that fits your politics, or begin a germ organizing committee united around other principles. You'll find that you aren't the only person who comes from that milieu while, not wanting to go back to some white person marxism, does want to transform what gave them some level of agency in the anti-o circles into something critical of those circles' assumptions.
Thanks for the advices!
DeleteWell for the bi group I joined it's very new (I have been to the first meeting, I'm so hip ahah) but I'm already starting to see elements of identity politics. Right now it's mostly going to be discussion groups I feel, not even centered around activism, just ... meeting people who are like you (hello uselessness my old friend)
I like the idea of critical discussions and/or creating a new group. I'll try participating in that whenever I find people ready to join. Now the trick is going to be :
Where do I first find bi specific theory?(even probably crappy and liberal)
Where do I find materialistic bi specific theory? (now, this is a quest for a unicorn)
But I suppose all movement had to struggle with their own creation, and somehow organized in efficient ways. I have to say I'm fairly new to communist/materialistic approaches, but i guess that's where i have to look !
I wouldn't know how to answer the question about "bi specific theory" materialist or non materialist. It could be a quest for a unicorn. Or quest to make it not a quest for a unicorn if it ends up with material being produced.
DeleteI agree 100% with this post I see nothing to really disagree with. This position is correct. However I'd like to ask: Will you be apologizing to Jason Unruhe for attacking him for being against identity politics and calling him a homophobe, or are you going to admit you're a hypocrite?
ReplyDeleteYou clearly don't have a very sophisticated understanding of what I'm saying. Jason Unruhe is a homophobe; it's not "identity politics" to recognize chauvinism––indeed it's the worse kind of identity politics to think that class exists outside of identity positions (which is one thing I've argued in this post). Also, that post was also about his response to charges of homophobia where he called everyone but himself (an internet marxist, someone who admits to not organizing, someone who attacks Canada's main MLM organization despite calling himself a "maoist") himself a liberal. Inability to be self-critical and recognize mistakes is not communist.
DeleteYou seem to think that you have the right to use language that connects with a material history of oppression and that any criticism of this would be "identity politics" or "language idealism." Clearly you don't have an inkling of what I'm getting at and are also most probably a chauvinist… or at least someone, if they rely on Unruhe's understanding of theory (impoverished since it lacks practice), who could probably stand to learn.
No, I understand what anti-identity politics is. You attacked him for not conforming to identity politics on petty language police. He's bisexual himself, that's a total insult to sexual minorities that some so-called academic is spitting on a sexual minority. You're being a mindless hater actually. You gave no argument. You accuse him of not organizing, he actually does as a part of a third world group. You call him a "Maoist: because he doesn't support your RCP group, total non-sequitur, it reeks of not liking him because he doesn't support you. Then you make total assumptions about me of which you know nothing. You've made an entirely emotional response. You're a hater pure and simple. I was hoping to get something useful out of this, but I can see you're not interested in an honest discussion. The RCP is identity politics, you have no connection to the proletariat whatsoever, and instead champion identity politics groups, gays, transgender, etc. as a stand in proletariat. BTW his criticisms (which you call attacks in your furry that someone would dare the tactics of college activists) were perfectly valid. I have watched him consistently destroy anti-third worldists in debate. You're showing nothing but your own petty ego.
DeleteNo, you understand what your definition of "anti-identity" politics is, and it is not a very nuanced understanding. I attacked him for using chauvinist language and refusing self-criticism, calling everyone but himself "liberal." Talk-shopping marxism online and not once going out amongst the masses is not "organizing", but if you want to call it that fine… it's a good excuse to not have any real contact with people in the concrete world or understand what struggle means. My problem is not that he doesn't support the primary MLM party in Canada but that his attacks on it are not "maoist" because they do not come from any social investigation on his part––how could they when he has never done any of the real world steps required for a concrete analysis of a concrete situation? For someone to attack a maoist party but reject any collective discipline is the very essence of liberalism.
DeleteIt is rather amusing that you claim I made an "entirely emotional" response when you: a) began with a rhetorical accusation; b) have filled your response with very emotional clutter (i.e. using the term "hater"); c) claim the PCR-RCP has "no connection" with the proletariat clearly without any investigation (and sorry, no, it doesn't see oppressed people groups as being substitutes for the proletariat, but it does see the proletariat being determined by oppression), or think that as a whole they are "college activists" (hahaha, that's rich).
He's a very dull thinker, but I'm sure your cognitive bias thinks he is some brilliant theorist. As for my "petty ego" I'm actually quite capable of self-criticizing and, because I understand something about collective life, I am very able to engage in valid discussions. In my every day life, Jason Unruhe barely pops into my thought anymore than other people whose only work is online debating––some of us don't think he's worth the time to engage with, and it was probably an error on my part that I bothered to mention him. Indeed, if you want to talk about a "petty ego" that is precisely what my main problem was with Jason Unruhe. Of course, if you think saying that it is not wrong to call people names that connect to a real history of oppression, and that to criticize the use of these terms is tantamount to identity politics, then okay. However, the fact that you use his subject position as a defense of this is *the very essence of identity politics*… and if you've ever attended anti-oppression training (which is the identity politics practice) you would know that what you just said is precisely what everyone says: "because I have this identity it is okay for me to say x or act in x way but if you question me then you're oppressive." Obviously, I prefer struggle sessions.
The thing is, it was quite clear you were trolling from the get-go as your response demonstrates. There was very little from your initial comment (which was just a "you're a hypocrite" and an assumption that I am completely opposed to everything that what is called "identity politics" has brought to the table––funny, these theses just don't say this, and the back-links should explain what I mean in more detail) that demanded any kind of discussion; you presented no real arguments, only self-righteous rhetoric.
Next trolling comment you make––that is a comment that has no substance but is just name-calling and a defense of your favourite internet talking head––will be deleted.
Actually that doesn't make any sense. Liberal is identity politics. He didn't self-criticize because he isn't wrong. Just because you claim he is doesn't make it so. Basically your claim is that he didn't self-criticize because he didn't agree with your liberalism. I don't think you actually know what self-criticism is. He did apologize for offending people, but maintains he isn't wrong, which he isn't. This fit perfectly with your claim he's not a real Maoist because he doesn't follow your organization. It takes a pretty good degree of arrogance to make such a claims.
DeleteYes, your group really are a bunch of collage activists, you don't even show anything of substance, you just claim he's wrong for saying it and end it at that.
In all your replies you're not even answering anything I'm saying, you're literally just hating on him for the aforementioned reasons. When I point this out you call me a troll. In actually Jason Unruhe actually says frequently that he's not anything special and says anyone can do what he does, which I think is funny considering that no one does. You say he's weak on theory yet you provided no example. You're saying that because he's a Third Worldist and he doesn't like you. You dismiss all work he has done. This is a lot to say considering he literally works on his stuff every day. He's done an ton of work over the last 6 years.
He works with the LLCO organizing an actually revolutionary group in Bangladesh, fund raising, theoretical work and what not. You claim he does nothing? The online stuff he did before the LLCO is astronomically more than the RCP has done. You're just dumping on him because you don't like him. You act like a bunch of children pretending to be carrying out revolution when you're not. He says he's not a revolutionary because he isn't. He isn't the one out here faking it.
Your response has done nothing but verify what I have previously said. You never had any intention of actually responding or discussing honestly.
One more thing: Since I know him on Facebook, he's going to present an open challenge In a few days for anyone who thinks they can refute the Third Worldist line. I think you should accept since he's "so bad with theory".
You're the one calling people names here.
You're a troll because you didn't respond to any of the statements I made in a substantial manner. Instead it's just "no-I-understand-better-than-you-just-because". These aren't arguments, they're assertions. Moreover, they're followed by multiple red herrings.
DeleteIt is funny how you can accuse me of name calling when you started this, again, with "hypocrite" and now we're at assertions about the PCR-RCP being "children". You know very little about the Canadian situation or the Canadian comrades. You also keep claiming that putting out youtube videos and not being involved in any concrete movements, actions, etc. counts as "organizing". That's fine, you can believe it, but I come from the very MLM position that the mass line is important, and thus mass work is important. I don't think the PCR-RCP is perfect at mass work but it does have mass organizations in multiple cities, of various types, across Canada and does things in the real world. Which is why it is recognized by third world revolutionary orgs as a comrade organization and part of the same ICM camp.
The LLCO is an internet group that claims it has presence all over the world. Interestingly, third world revolutionary organizations don't know anything about them aside from their internet claims. But I guess they appeal to people who spend their entire organizational life online because it justifies inaction in the world outside of the internet.
I don't care about open challenges online. If I wasted my time responding to every internet theorist I wouldn't have time to do my actual work or even have a life. I actually don't spend much time "dumping on him"… you've decided to create a flame war from your first post. Indeed, responding to your raving has been a great waste of time. I called things what they were and clearly this is evidence that I've been "feeding the troll."
Goodbye.
Also just want to add this, because it's really funny…
DeleteYour assertion that the PCR-RCP and the people in its circles (the latter being me) are "children" really does demonstrate your understanding about struggle in Canada, or anywhere outside of the internet, is very poor. I suspect you are, what, in your early to mid 20s? Maybe 18? I'm sure you can pretend you're in your forties, but communists in their 40s are generally not primarily internet communists because this phenomenon is very recent. I'm in my late 30s and this style of thinking, that you demonstrate, was alien to a generation of radicals who grew up without the social networking technologies that only began to appear in our early adult life. Unruhe is a younger communist as well, very familiar with this kind of thing. (To be fair, I don't think what he does is bad and am probably being overly cruel in my characterization of him due to the way that you have phrased your attacks.)
So for children to call both myself and the people in and around the organization I support "children" is quite ludicrous. Particularly since the people ranged around these circles, in the various cities and provinces where they are, are from the internet generation to the older NCM generation who were part of the struggles in the 1970s and 1980s. Meaning decidedly not children as a whole, which would explain: a) why the organization has a line that it does; b) its general maturity that is often offended by the attitude you've displayed since your first post.