discipline posted:I feel like sometimes the way I see people attacking each other there's a snark to it that's not about solving an issue, it's a snark that is trying to set the blame elsewhere. like it's YOUR Fault capitalism is still around, and I can beat on you for it because you're right here and willing to talk to me and aren't laughing at me, and if I tried to get close to anyone who was realistically more responsible for it I'd be shot down in a hail of gunfire
this seems really accurate to me and the same kinds o f things are happening in feminist and antiracist circles too. but I guess the counterpoint would be that it's always been like that. and the counter-counterpoint would be thats why capitalism is still going strong.
and these patterns of abuse are protected by fear, real radical organizations are continuously under siege and confronting this problem involves a real risk, which no one is willing to take because they are afraid of blowing up the fragile bond that tenuously holds them together.
but if we aren't willing to risk losing the groups that we are a part of in order to make them effective and healthy spaces, how can we say that we are willing to put it on the line to fight capitalism effectively? this is the other side of infamous left divisiveness, shitty behavior and structures that are tolerated out of fear of schism.
in my own work lately I am frequently reminded of Combat Liberalism, lots of folks are all too willing to invoke it in a petty dogmatic dispute about doctrine as an excuse to shit on someone, missing the point that it is just as important to combat liberalism in how we organize and relate to each other.
getfiscal posted:the infighting is caused by sin.
We tried to build a leftist Tower of Babel so God in his wisdom knocked it down and doomed us all to talk past each other forever
roseweird posted:it is all a courtship ritual gone badly wrong. "i want to smash capitalism ! ... but not with you."
the flip side of this is that people expect to be liked by the sole virtue of their political beliefs. like hey guy who owns mustache wax, you call me when we are setting up roadblocks because i am not going to suffer through your explanation of why you think 4chan is the modern iskra or whatever. like hey nonexerciser in a white sports bra with a slogan painted on who insists that i look mad because i'm a sagittarius and my moon was crossed with owl dicks last weekend, i look mad because i know you're gonna tell me the same thing again at the Citizens' Perfect Justice Administration Arena while we hold a clear tarp up against the blood jets. like hey vietnam hyperveteran, who is accusing me of being a government spook because i'm not carrying a tiny white sign, you put all your wild accusations in writing and i will lead the house-to-house paramilitary raiding on their basis, and eventually drugs will be invented to make you regret getting a marvin the martian tattoo on your calf
http://publicautonomy.org/2014/01/27/the-rise-of-the-post-new-left-political-vocabulary/
The old vocabulary assumed that political analysis should study large-scale, often transnational social systems and structures, centuries in the making, e.g., systems of oppression and exploitation. In contrast, the new vocabulary assumes that race and gender and other forms of privilege are enacted in everyday, interpersonal interactions.
i do think there is a ton of pent-up frustration in people in the left generally, and with good reason. people have a lot to say and a lot of anger (rightfully) in their chest, and sometimes it has to come out. i guess this is where leadership is supposed to come in to focus it, but activist leftists are also uniquely and ironically "individualist," at least in the US.
toy posted:the issue, i think, and that the article i just posted describes fairly well, is not 'identity politics' per se. you can have politics around 'identity' issues that aren't founded on an analysis of power/powerlessness as being (re)produced primarily in everyday interactions, but rather as structural issues that must be addressed in an entirely different domain by a unified group.
uuggh i basically agree with you but still I really wana stiCK AN ICEPICK IN YOUR FUCK HEAD RRRRGGG
NoFreeWill posted:the fact that no leftist gun owners have shot any bankers is very pathetic.n
but im the only one here who DOESNT live in new york!
i don't think that a common enemy is really enough to hold together a movement, and a strong enemy isn't enough to make it fall apart. the problems are within the left.
imo the anti-humanism that is the fundament of most modern leftism is really crippling. like obviously bourgeois humanism sucks, but i really, really do not see why it is necessarily the only possible form of humanism, and that is something that the majority of contemporary leftists just seem to assume without any question. i don't believe in Human Rights, but you can see how powerful even a flawed humanist idea is for organizing compared to a politics rooted in the notion of difference. iirc this came up in a thread not too long ago.
if you take the late marx->althusser anti-humanist route, i think you end up undermining a lot of the most powerful and unifying arguments against capitalism. if you follow it to the logical conclusion you end up at laclau and mouffe, whose idea seems to be to forget the working class and turn every facet of life into a twitter flamewar.
i've been reading through some old effortposts where getfiscal talks about laclau and mouffe, and people were like "sounds like they suck and are shitty liberals". laclau and mouffe's arguments are really good if you take the ideas that i think most of the zzone subscribe to as a starting point. people just don't like to be confronted with the conclusion those ideas engender, and for good reason
