Hedges' piece, entitled The Bankruptcy of the American Left, relates a discussion Mr. Hedges had with David North (chief honcho of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP)) and Charles Derber, a fellow who looks as foolish as he sounds. The lede paragraph begins,
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| Charles Derber, sociology prof at Boston College (tuition $52K/year) |
"There will be no economic or political justice for the poor, people of color, women or workers within the framework of global, corporate capitalism. Corporate capitalism, which uses identity politics, multiculturalism and racial justice to masquerade as politics, will never halt the rising social inequality, unchecked militarism, evisceration of civil liberties and omnipotence of the organs of security and surveillance."
On the expectation of "a monumental explosion of class struggle in the United States," David North believes identity politics is a bourgeois-inspired distraction designed to mislead revolutionaries.
He further opines that "[w]e totally reject the narrative that the working class is racist. I think this has been the narrative pushed by the pseudo-left, middle-class groups who are drunk on identity politics..."*
Mr. Derber thinks that "[i]dentity politics is to a large degree a right-wing discourse," and "It focuses on tribalism tied in modern times to nationalism, which is always militaristic."
Mr. Proyect dismisses the whole meshugaas with one sentence: "Unless we are ready to challenge injustice on all fronts, we will never create the vanguard that is so necessary today." Or, socialists (for whom I do not speak) have to fight on a battlefield that actually exists. And that certainly includes identity politics.
Mr. North's description of the battlefield--that we're on the cusp of an explosion of class struggle--is fantasy. Curious how he could be so reality-deprived I went to the SEP's website, which includes this page (not recommended unless you want to go down a rabbit hole). It consists of a history of revolutionary thought from Karl Marx to the present, including this earth-shattering excerpt from paragraph 157 (of 255, and no, I have not read the whole thing).
Mr. Derber's point--that identity politics "focuses on tribalism" is also wrong, but at least it's wrong in an interesting way.
So African-Americans are surely a "tribe," though perhaps ethnic group is a more precise term. They arrived as slaves from among closely related peoples in West Africa, and in the intervening 350 years have forged a unique culture in America. They tend to marry each other and have maintained relatively high fertility rates. They have certainly suffered from "racism" (surely the least of their problems) in the past, and undoubtedly suffer from it today, though the extent of that is disputed. Obama thought it was a serious issue, while Trump either dismisses it or is just not interested.
African-Americans are an ethnic identity, and will necessarily practice identity politics. It's inevitable.
The LGBTQ (occasionally written with more initials) is a collection of people who are in some way gender-different (or alternatively, gender-abnormal). They are a small minority of the population--depending on how you define the acronym probably less than 5%. They are typically infertile and can't reproduce themselves (lesbians are an exception). What offspring they do have are not usually LGBTQ. Further, in the near future it is possible that the gay male population will steeply decline--just as the Downs Syndrome population is declining today--because of selective abortion.
These people are certainly not a tribe. Identity for this group means something very different than it does for African-Americans. The latter are justly insulted by being compared to the LGBTQ community (such as it exists).
White Americans are not an ethnic group--and on this almost all Leftists are mistaken. Instead they are a collection of many tribes, some of whom royally hate each other. I'm informed here by two books (both of which I recommend): Albion's Seed, and the Eleven Nations of North America. Indeed, much of today's politics can be explained by the longstanding rivalry (and mutual hatred) between Yankees and Scots-Irish. The latter are the most populous tribe in America--about 60 million strong. Obama represented Yankee America, while Trump owes his election to the Scots-Irish. This is identity politics pure and simple, but it's not a generic "white" identity.
Finally, 51% of the population--women--is supposed to be an identity. This makes no sense. Women, like men, owe more to kin and clan than they do to some gender abstraction. Scots-Irish women are not about to become raging feminists. For that matter, neither are most African-American women. The whole thing is silly.
And here our foolish friends may have stumbled on to something true--Mr. Derber criticizes Sheryl Sandberg's version of feminism. Similarly, I think the #metoo movement is an upper-class phenomenon. Alpha males (the top 1% of our gender) have the wealth, power, and sex appeal to have their way with women, mostly because women are attracted to wealthy, powerful, and sexy men. Women achieving any relationship with alphas tend to be beautiful, intelligent, talented, or all of the above--in other words, they're elite females. Of course when things go wrong they complain, hence #metoo.
Beta men don't have that hold over women, and most women have sufficient backbone to resist boorish advances from the beta sort. So the problem does not scale to the 99%--it's upper-class self-pity.
Women are not an identity. They're too attached to their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons to hold any real animus against the "patriarchy." Only among infertile members of the upper class and childless academics does feminism have a foothold.
*Superficially this position is similar to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), which is actively trying to recruit Trump supporters to revolutionary politics (albeit with no apparent success). At the same time they do not hide their pro-immigration, anti-racist, pro-gay-rights agenda, about which they hope to educate white workers. In their view there is no contradiction between identity politics and building the Party. In other words, unlike Misters Hedges, North & Derber, the SWP can keep two ideas in their head at the same time--which implies they have at least double the IQ.
Further Reading:
...but also a comprehensive Marxist analysis of the objective situation and the assimilation, by a relatively inexperienced party cadre, of the lessons of the ICFI’s struggle against Pabloite revisionism. Instead, the work of the party assumed, under Wohlforth’s direction, a largely activist character, without a clear political perspective. Wohlforth’s political and personal behavior exhibited disturbing signs of disorientation. Egged on by a new personal companion, Nancy Fields, Wohlforth’s interventions in the party assumed a frenzied, unprincipled and destructive character.Huh? Admittedly I left out some context, but rest assured it adds nothing.
Mr. Derber's point--that identity politics "focuses on tribalism" is also wrong, but at least it's wrong in an interesting way.
So African-Americans are surely a "tribe," though perhaps ethnic group is a more precise term. They arrived as slaves from among closely related peoples in West Africa, and in the intervening 350 years have forged a unique culture in America. They tend to marry each other and have maintained relatively high fertility rates. They have certainly suffered from "racism" (surely the least of their problems) in the past, and undoubtedly suffer from it today, though the extent of that is disputed. Obama thought it was a serious issue, while Trump either dismisses it or is just not interested.
African-Americans are an ethnic identity, and will necessarily practice identity politics. It's inevitable.
The LGBTQ (occasionally written with more initials) is a collection of people who are in some way gender-different (or alternatively, gender-abnormal). They are a small minority of the population--depending on how you define the acronym probably less than 5%. They are typically infertile and can't reproduce themselves (lesbians are an exception). What offspring they do have are not usually LGBTQ. Further, in the near future it is possible that the gay male population will steeply decline--just as the Downs Syndrome population is declining today--because of selective abortion.
These people are certainly not a tribe. Identity for this group means something very different than it does for African-Americans. The latter are justly insulted by being compared to the LGBTQ community (such as it exists).
White Americans are not an ethnic group--and on this almost all Leftists are mistaken. Instead they are a collection of many tribes, some of whom royally hate each other. I'm informed here by two books (both of which I recommend): Albion's Seed, and the Eleven Nations of North America. Indeed, much of today's politics can be explained by the longstanding rivalry (and mutual hatred) between Yankees and Scots-Irish. The latter are the most populous tribe in America--about 60 million strong. Obama represented Yankee America, while Trump owes his election to the Scots-Irish. This is identity politics pure and simple, but it's not a generic "white" identity.
Finally, 51% of the population--women--is supposed to be an identity. This makes no sense. Women, like men, owe more to kin and clan than they do to some gender abstraction. Scots-Irish women are not about to become raging feminists. For that matter, neither are most African-American women. The whole thing is silly.
And here our foolish friends may have stumbled on to something true--Mr. Derber criticizes Sheryl Sandberg's version of feminism. Similarly, I think the #metoo movement is an upper-class phenomenon. Alpha males (the top 1% of our gender) have the wealth, power, and sex appeal to have their way with women, mostly because women are attracted to wealthy, powerful, and sexy men. Women achieving any relationship with alphas tend to be beautiful, intelligent, talented, or all of the above--in other words, they're elite females. Of course when things go wrong they complain, hence #metoo.
Beta men don't have that hold over women, and most women have sufficient backbone to resist boorish advances from the beta sort. So the problem does not scale to the 99%--it's upper-class self-pity.
Women are not an identity. They're too attached to their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons to hold any real animus against the "patriarchy." Only among infertile members of the upper class and childless academics does feminism have a foothold.
*Superficially this position is similar to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), which is actively trying to recruit Trump supporters to revolutionary politics (albeit with no apparent success). At the same time they do not hide their pro-immigration, anti-racist, pro-gay-rights agenda, about which they hope to educate white workers. In their view there is no contradiction between identity politics and building the Party. In other words, unlike Misters Hedges, North & Derber, the SWP can keep two ideas in their head at the same time--which implies they have at least double the IQ.
Further Reading:
Concerning white Americans and leftists, I think it's even worse than you think. I work in an international school in China. I remember one time a Chinese American parent had a complaint. During the course of their complaint, they started ranting about how all white people were the same. His rant was directed to an American, Kiwi, Aussie, and two Englishmen. Finally, the Kiwi had enough of it and said, don't you realize we come from four different countries. I don't think the point was taken.
ReplyDeleteHa ha I laughed at the double the IQ part. People that can deal with contradictions and complexity are smart...what's funny is when you can see the Proyects and others contradict their own narratives in their writing. Trots are funny like that.
ReplyDelete