babyfinland posted:
if your definition of sanity is irretrievable from this world then it is a meaningless one. Welcome to the Platonism of the Real.
well that's true, there is no such thing really as sanity, just wild pursuit of arbitrary desires.
getfiscal posted:babyfinland posted:
if your definition of sanity is irretrievable from this world then it is a meaningless one. Welcome to the Platonism of the Real.well that's true, there is no such thing really as sanity, just wild pursuit of arbitrary desires.
arbitrary desires out of NOWHERe
tpaine posted:
i can only do like 75 nuggets before i ralph. but unlike khamsek, i don't waste it, i let my dog lap up the vomitus. this makes me more efficent and more communist
check your privilege, dog owner
babyfinland posted:
arbitrary desires out of NOWHERe
god is a drunk college girl that loves saying "that's so random" and then creating universes where fat dudes have mao posters or whatever
getfiscal posted:babyfinland posted:
arbitrary desires out of NOWHERegod is a drunk college girl that loves saying "that's so random" and then creating universes where fat dudes have mao posters or whatever
you really should read zizeks ontology broyo
babyfinland posted:
you really should read zizeks ontology broyo
does it discuss how zizek is a lacanian and therefore thinks that the only thing we can do is "enjoy your symptom"
getfiscal posted:babyfinland posted:
you really should read zizeks ontology broyodoes it discuss how zizek is a lacanian and therefore thinks that the only thing we can do is "enjoy your symptom"
yes, in excruciating detail. not so much the second part though
babyfinland posted:
eduardo limonov, prop manager at cbc
i thought the same thing
presented without comment, its the dm so unlikely to take a sensitive view but also shes an extremely irritating rich woman having some kind of existential crisis
cleanhands posted:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323278/Tony-Blairs-sister-law-Lauren-Booth-converts-Islam-holy-experience-Iran.htmlpresented without comment, its the dm so unlikely to take a sensitive view but also shes an extremely irritating rich woman having some kind of existential crisis
why is she extremely irritating to you, i like her
tpaine posted:elemennop posted:
not to mention there are plenty of "white" practitioners of islam in the balkanscatchphrase
babyfinland posted:cleanhands posted:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323278/Tony-Blairs-sister-law-Lauren-Booth-converts-Islam-holy-experience-Iran.htmlpresented without comment, its the dm so unlikely to take a sensitive view but also shes an extremely irritating rich woman having some kind of existential crisiswhy is she extremely irritating to you, i like her
i dont trust her even slightly but then i havent been paying attention, maybe shes a legit activist for all i know
But then I got invited to a rib dinner and boy fuck I love ribs.
I think privilege isn't such a bad topic after all.
however, we have to understand gender scientifically. just as lenin wrote of the “split in the working class,” there is also a split among women today. imperialism has changed the game. in general, first world women are now enemies of third world women.
in the first world, gender is less and less connected to biology. due to the high standard of living made possible through imperialism and advances in technology, first world women are less and less confined to traditional social and reproductive roles. women are no longer stuck in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, in the first world. first world women have access to a wide range of life options that are not strictly limited by reproduction. for this reason, inequalities between first world men and first world women should not be confused with traditional patriarchal oppression which is centered around biology and reproduction. rather, these remaining inequalities should be considered a residual effect from traditional patriarchal oppression.
it is clear that over time, these echoes of traditional oppression will continue to become less and less pronounced in the first world.
the status of both first world men and first world women is maintained at the expense not only of class and national oppression of third world peoples, but also gender oppression of third world peoples. in other words, first world women benefit from the gender oppression of third world women.
the end of traditional patriarchal oppression for most first world women has been made possible by the enormous concentrations of wealth that imperialism has generated for the first world at the expense of the third world. first world women have gained the ability to enter the economy and earn superwages. this gives them the option of opting out of the traditional role where the woman’s survival depends on her husband as earner. first world women have the option of living independently, without a male partner. thus they are freed from the traditional oppression connected up with their role in reproduction, i.e. motherhood. their liberation from traditional male-centered conceptions of sexuality has also been made possible.
first world women have access to a greater range of life options open to them. they are able to earn exploiter superwages alongside first world men. they are able to partake of the spoils of imperialism on a more and more equal basis with first world men.
the increasing equality between the sexes in the First World is a result of the capitalist-imperialist world system. a significant tool in maintaining the global system of oppression is the fusion of various aspects of feudalism and capitalism in large parts of the third world. third world women are some of the biggest victims of the capitalist-imperialist system. they tend to be locked into traditional, feudalistic oppression in agrarian societies.
in industrialized areas, they find themselves the most exploited, working for more hours and for lower wages than their male counterparts. they increasingly find themselves enslaved, often by the global sex industry. the situation of these women is a function of, among other things, their gender oppression. and, gender oppression in the third world aids the imperial system that channels wealth from the third to the first world. gender oppression in the third world props up the gender equality in the first world.
fake gender “liberation” in the first world has meant the increased access to the traditional privileges and lifestyles enjoyed by men in the first world. this liberation has gone beyond first world women. first world gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-gendered persons, and queers, have more and more access to the traditional power and privileges of first world heterosexual males. however, this social democratic opening up of first world society is based on continued gender oppression of the third world. for this reason, there is less and less reason to consider first world women as separate from first world males from the standpoint of global power analysis. and, there is more and more reason to consider first world women as separate and distinct from third world women. it is correct to see first world men and first world women as having more in common. this state of affairs is borne out by material analysis and the historical record. almost all first world people are enemies.
revolutionary feminism rejects the lie of the universal sisterhood.
such lies only serve imperialism at this point. this lie tells third world women that their "true" allies are first world women -- not the third world men fighting alongside them for national liberation. this lie tells third world women to put their futures in the hands of benevolent imperialism. we need to recognize the great division between the third world and first world affects gender too.
it is obvious that first world women as a whole are not going to support communist and anti-imperialist revolution. we need to understand this fact and deal with it. we should all seek to be egalitarian and just in our personal interactions. we should live the revolution. we should stand for right and wrong. we should be good people. however, the only real feminism is proletarian feminism -- third worldist feminism.
real feminism is feminism that supports the destruction of the first world. it does not seek alliances with the first world so-called “working class” or first world women. revolutionary feminism recognizes that the contradiction between first world women and third world women is antagonistic.
revolutionary feminism identifies first world men and first world women as the enemy. revolutionary feminism is the feminism of the global people’s war waged by the global countryside against the global city, waged by the third world against the first world.
the revolution will come from the dark places, from the most oppressed. third world women and children will lead the way to a better world. mothers. daughters. sons. they will play a key role. real revolutionaries unite with third world women against first world men and women.
real revolutionaries support a new democratic revolution to create basic rights for women and men in the third world. real revolutionaries support the global people’s war waged by women and men in the third world against the first world. real revolutionaries support communism, total liberation.
communism is a revolutionary strategy that accounts for the real world, not the world as we imagine it. all real feminists stand with the vast majority of women in the third world. all real feminists are communists.
the white singer is suggesting (with irony) that they've never had to fight in their lives, that everything has been fairly easy, but he's heard about struggles, and he thinks that it must be tough. much like a white first world progressive.
discipline posted:
the problem with discussing privilege is that the arguments generally target individuals who are supposed to "give up privilege" as opposed to challenging systems that recognize and reward privilege or whatever. it's very neoliberal. in the way I have seen it or encountered it, privilege related arguments are arguments used to bring down an individual and rarely a system. one might argue that there is another tactic-strategy for bringing down systems but then I would wonder at the usefulness of a tactic-strategy used solely for bringing down individuals. I can imagine the purpose in attacking white male academics for writing theory or policy related to third world women or whatever, but I think that's a misdirection of resources and effort, that if the white male academic is not necessarily writing anything in conflict with third world women and their goals or self-actualized positions then what is the problem? likewise, if there is a problem with the white male academic writing on third world women surely it is better to criticize his work rather than his whiteness or maleness. I guess I'm seeing the value in critically analyzing structures and systems of privilege, but I don't much see the use in critically analyzing individuals and their privilege. like tink said, you can get them to recant their privilege (and what the hell does this mean and who determines it?) and whip themselves, but as privilege is such a biopower concept according to its criteria, how could you say anyone has ever truly "given up" or "disowned" their privilege? I think of kate borenstein's work which focuses very heavily on privilege wherein she posits a pyramid of privilege or whatever. that's great, now I know who the enemy is (not "what"), but what am I supposed to do with this information? we are asked to "check" our privilege... to what end? ok, I recognize and admit that I bring privilege to the conversation - everyone does - now what does this do except draw attention away from systems of oppression and onto myself?
Sorry it took so long to respond to this, it took a while to gather my thoughts and motivate my self to write anything up.
Anyway the obvious response to what you're saying is that oppression isn't merely systematic but personal as well. Whatever structures of oppression may exist, they are ultimately realized and experienced by individuals. We cannot confine our efforts to dismantle oppression to some higher structural plane while ignoring the very real and immediate ways these structures are enacted, overtly and subtly, in daily life. This is of course all entirely uncontroversial and I can't imagine you'd disagree, but it's none the less very difficult to reconcile with what you're saying here. The guy saying that racism was over after the 60s and the guy going off about hysterical feminists are not just privileged individuals, they are part of an oppressive structure and are, through discourse, providing that structure with social support if not outright enacting it, as the case may be.
also, BF, I'm not going to respond to that earlier post because I'm still having a lot of trouble with the language, I had to have jools spend thirty minutes explaining it to me in layman's terms
discipline posted:
As for what you posted, obviously oppression is both systemic and personal. Yet there is something really dangerous in boiling it down to the individual experience. This is a neoliberal's game and I won't play it. The importance of situating it is to recognize the class, gender, race, etc structures behind it. Yelling down some idiot for being racist at the dinner table is fine and I've spent enough time doing it myself to realize it doesn't get you anywhere on the systemic front. You are fighting (and winning, no one is going to defend a racist/bigot) numerous personal battles while losing the war. I see the value in discussing privilege while addressing systemic issues but I don't see the value in doing it in a personal way. I am in fact deeply embarrassed to ever pull a card that says "I am a woman" or "I am a muslim" because I believe that people should be thinking on a higher level about such issues than "Oh well, I don't want this person to get upset." If I am discussing systemic issues I am not going to turn it into a conversation that suddenly revolves around the personalities involved in the conversation. That's counterproductive imo. Of course it can be noted, but I don't want to turn each and every conversation I have about politics into a "come to Jesus" speech.
This goes back to that post about narcissism I made. I don't take racism and misogyny errrrr how do I put this... personally. Rather I take the attack against my person personally. I object against racism, misogyny, bigotry etc not solely on the basis of how it affects individuals. Obviously some individuals benefit from any system while others do not, often at the expense of one another. I don't just mean bipolar examples, I mean colonial overlords were always able to find willing parties to crush their brethren, Herman Cain was so popular because of systemic racism, etc. I object instead against the inherent lack of justice in the systems of misogyny and racism et al. I don't make my sex or my race or my religion the cornerstone of what my identity is, and I understand this is a privileged position as well, but I think the main point behind fighting privilege is that no one should be making something so uncontrollable a cornerstone of who they are.
I have no small amount of sympathy for what you're saying here, but a few things immediately jump out at me. Firstly, not all oppressed people report the same experience as yourself. To many women and people of color this is an intensely personal issue and these discussions are extremely taxing for them, and I'm not willing to dismiss this as over-sensitivity or outright lunacy. This isn't confined to neoliberals by the way - the black radicals of the 60s and 70s could hardly be described as diplomatic individuals who didn't take racism personally and just wanted to educate people. They didn't reduce white supremacy to individual experience either though, and I don't think you'll find many that do.
With that in mind, it's probably time to realize that the privilege discourse (or something like it) isn't going away. We can line up theoretical objections to it all day, and point out any number of perceived errors in how it plays out, but in practical terms this does very little to resolve anything. The only options we really have are to either bite our tongues and ignore it while struggling to create a world where it won't be necessary, or try to find some way to reconcile with those who consider privilege to be of prime importance. The former's very difficult for me because I think it causes problems when these views go entirely unchallenged, and as for the latter I have no idea where to even begin.
Lessons posted:
possibly undermining solidarity
discipline posted:
It's also not surprising to me that it broke down because of neoliberal based discourses such as these.
cum hoc. propter hoc?
discipline posted:gyrofry posted:
cum hoc. propter hoc?do you doubt it? what do you think broke it down if not the neoliberal discourse around and within it?
neoliberal discourse emerges from material conditions