"Here, the demand for real equality, the abolition of class society, is replaced with demands for formal equality, an equality within the capitalist paradigm. This tactical scenario, which leaves production relations intact – I haven’t seen ‘affirmative action’ depicted as a revolutionary demand much recently, even on the left – is the hallmark of the left’s capitulation to the existing order. It no longer even cares. The lens through which this kind of critique views the social has confined itself to ‘race’, leaving the real abstraction of class unscathed."
Yes, this is a drum I've been banging on for a while. My argument is that the "classism" discourse does the same.
also.. Sensible Captain, which band is that featured in your image at the header of this essay? I'm intrigued by the bass drum with a clock on it. It seems to offer a semi-ironic embrace of and/or, rejoinder to Adorno's culture industry critique of popular music.
This is great analysis in my opinion. I'm struggling to see the moment NOW though, as things are really incredibly in flux. I measure the level of flux by my own mental "habits of mind", which themselves are prompted by what I hear in the media. I say "NOW" because the narratives seem to change by the day. Yes I think the there is a IdPol "drumbeat" but I also feel its grasp on power (and the imagination) is much more tentative than we think. Maybe this is overly optimistic, but it doesn't feel like optimism, but rather it feels like a recognition that the machinery of ideology is in some kind of free state, where models "at hand" are adopted and enacted by those left holding the levers. I'm currently getting into Alex Hochulli's ideas about the left-liberal PMC suddenly finding itself holding the levers, while the real neo-liberals behave like the proverbial rats leaving a sinking ship, possibly moving towards state capitalism in an early iteration of China mimicry.
"Here, the demand for real equality, the abolition of class society, is replaced with demands for formal equality, an equality within the capitalist paradigm. This tactical scenario, which leaves production relations intact – I haven’t seen ‘affirmative action’ depicted as a revolutionary demand much recently, even on the left – is the hallmark of the left’s capitulation to the existing order. It no longer even cares. The lens through which this kind of critique views the social has confined itself to ‘race’, leaving the real abstraction of class unscathed."
Yes, this is a drum I've been banging on for a while. My argument is that the "classism" discourse does the same.
also.. Sensible Captain, which band is that featured in your image at the header of this essay? I'm intrigued by the bass drum with a clock on it. It seems to offer a semi-ironic embrace of and/or, rejoinder to Adorno's culture industry critique of popular music.
This is great analysis in my opinion. I'm struggling to see the moment NOW though, as things are really incredibly in flux. I measure the level of flux by my own mental "habits of mind", which themselves are prompted by what I hear in the media. I say "NOW" because the narratives seem to change by the day. Yes I think the there is a IdPol "drumbeat" but I also feel its grasp on power (and the imagination) is much more tentative than we think. Maybe this is overly optimistic, but it doesn't feel like optimism, but rather it feels like a recognition that the machinery of ideology is in some kind of free state, where models "at hand" are adopted and enacted by those left holding the levers. I'm currently getting into Alex Hochulli's ideas about the left-liberal PMC suddenly finding itself holding the levers, while the real neo-liberals behave like the proverbial rats leaving a sinking ship, possibly moving towards state capitalism in an early iteration of China mimicry.