There's another element to the democrats upcoming demise, their routine inability to materially deliver on their promises. Obama was profoundly guilty of this: squandering a supermajority in the house and senate to pass a conservative health care plan that was a windfall for private insurance, appointing timothy geitner as treasury secretary; forgiving the banks, but foreclosing on homeowners. I really struggle with the near universal deification of Obama of pretty much every single liberal person I know and I would ask, why exactly did you love him so, beyond that he made you feel good? Our relationship to politicians as a sort of friend/boss/celebrity proxy is unhealthy and irrational. Every year with almost unanimous support the defense budget increases by hundreds of billions of dollars. The democrats are so far from even the most conservative actions on climate change as to make their "better" position almost irrelevant. Republicans are of course in the process of reversing Roe v Wade across the country, but I hold tremendous resentment to RBG for not retiring in 2014 and for Obama for not at least attempting to appoint a supreme court justice in recess and then daring McConnell to impeach them. We both hate the democrats, but for different reasons.
I think Obama inherited a shitshow from Bush/Cheney/Rove and maintained as much integrity as possible in the face of overwhelming opposition and resentment. His primary remit from day one was healthcare, and while Obamacare is indeed a castrated thing (in red states especially), it is the only reason I have any medical insurance at all. I think he is a truly decent person—one of the last major politicians I feel that way about. His interpersonal diplomacy and grace is a thing that I try to conjure when I am about to have a hard conversation with someone I don't like or respect. In other words, he is a role model for me to this day.
I'm definitely with Neil on this one. I don't think Obama gave us much more than an image of progress while continuing the same neoliberal policies and imperialist war mongering. The fit-throwing obstruction of the republicans would have been the same either way, but he alienated all of us who want a materialist politics.
I understand what you're saying. The level of congressional toxin was appalling. He tried to work with the Republicans, but they behaved like angry children. I'm afraid he "played nice" too long though. I do get your appreciation of his grace and intelligence. Call me an old leftie, but I think he should have gone in swinging sooner than he did. My particular disappointment in him is based on a sort of comparison between him and Junior. I thought Obama would go after the Goldman Sachs people for their sloppy and greedy behavior. I also though he should have punished people for the horrors like Abu Ghraib and other stuff in Iraq. I knew Bush was a silly tool, so it was a simple thing for me to assess him from the get-go. Obama was twice as smart and twice as capable, yet not much changed after he assumed the office. I think he knew better, yet somehow he was carried along by the inertia and general sleaze of the way things are done in Washington.
Obama disappointed me entirely. I took my family out of the US right after Bush's reelection. For a short time I thought Obama's soaring rhetoric about "Wall Street" vs. "Main Street" actually meant something, but when I saw him holding hands with war criminal Dubya the day of his inauguration, then when I saw his choices for the Cabinet, I knew Wall Street just had another golden boy, and we were fucked. Now Biden's VP is going to get slaughtered by Trump in the next presidential election. The Democrats are idiots. The Republicans are fascists. At least the French didn't elect a fascist last week.
ugh...been waiting for your next installment bc it's been a minute...this one did not disappoint, BUT it did discourage me...and I am not sure what to do...as in a past comment I'd made, I'll reference the trans activist, Buck Angel again, who I follow on IG and love...and he is known as a loose friend by a close friend of mine...I've known his journey for many years and wow talk about forging a very rough path...yet he is attacked viciously on every post and has been in and out of being banned on IG...the majority of attacks come from young trans ppl...his post today had several rude but mild comments from young ppl in the "queer" community...I'm flabbergasted bc if someone like him, with his far reaching life experience, is accused of trans hate, yes the far left has lost the thread...i've been living out (as a bisexual) since the community was still called the "gay and lesbian community" and lesbians were angry about being second...I attended the Pride parade in SF the first year the bisexual community marched and it became the "LGB community"...I am NOT queer...the term queer was not used respectfully when I was younger and it was used as part of theory or art discussions in my time as an art student at SFAI...queer was a loaded term for use in spaces (those ivory towers) where we could dissect it...and even being bi, I received more than my share of eye rolls...but as you said in your post, we fucked who we wanted and transgression was explored as a response to conservative mores we wanted to show as hypocrisy...think Ron Athey or Karen Finley...now, maybe being "transgressive" means being ultra-conservative?...I enjoy reading and also posting comments in your space bc it's a pretty mellow and educated group here, who seem to mostly hail from Gen X (as do I) and rather than sitting around circle jerking about the "good ole days", you remind me that shit is really terrifying these days and we won nothing really...and we have to do something...I did say on the night Obama was first elected (while sitting in the Bluestocking Bookstore cafe) if Obama makes it out alive through his entire presidency, I would be shocked...and I read in his first month of office, he got 3x as many death threats as any other president before him...I knew shit was off the rails, but I didn't know how far off the rails...I am curious though, do you have any suggestions for us "elders" or just as thinking and feeling humans who find the GOP and it's plans for the future terrifying?
Let me think on this, but in the meantime I will agree with you that Buck Angel is doing great work and at huge personal cost. Also: watch comedy right before you go to sleep, to get the serotonin and dopamine going. We're all kinda fucked now, but good comedians seem to tell the truth. As do the great writers, from Dostoyevsky to Roth. We're all just human. Everything that's happening now has befallen humanity before, again and again. We just have tech now, to make the cycle weirder and faster. Democracy and the Enlightenment were great ideas, but evidently too fragile for our species to maintain. We have lived through the highest point of civilization and should be glad we got to experience it, even if it's over.
Thanks for this piece, as it articulates some concerns I’ve been chewing on while also presenting a position I don’t entirely agree with- I don’t have the language to address why that is, but appreciate the content to consider.
…
I do have language about Buck, and as he’s popped up twice here, I would like to share my perspective as a millennial trans man.
I respect Buck as a trans elder, I don’t believe he should be “canceled”, AND, I still find his rhetoric harmful. I’m more inline with Adrienne Marie Brown’s position she outlines in “We Will Not Cancel Us”, regarding how I feel we should engage with him.
My issue, is with his underlining thesis that gender is a binary based on a sexual binary and that we are a medical condition; neither of which are scientifically true. XY, XX, XXY, XYY, XXX all exist naturally. Society, and scientific frameworks, puts us into categories-not biology.
He has a super hard and fast definition of who/what trans people are and this language is often the same language conservatives use to pass harmful legislation against us. He claims to only be talking about himself, but when you have 80k followers, you are influencing minds whether you agree with it or not.
His warnings of trans youth detransitioning, or that there aren’t enough medical checks in place for folx to access hormones, are similar to conservative scare tactics. There are SO MANY medical barriers for trans people to access care, we don’t need someone from the community saying planned parenthood isn’t doing their do diligence. And, a lot of detransition stories come from NB folx, who “don’t” exist in his definition of transness.
All this, “I say what I say or you can shove it” business is equally as bad as “you are old and toxic”. His resistance to change in philosophy and that he knows because he’s dealt with it longer, prevents us from imagining or having a different future.
Just from a humanist position, telling me, or any other person, that I’m a man trapped in a woman’s body, or I’m making my body match my brain, is incredibly painful and limiting. Once I allowed myself to identify as a human first, not a gendered body, I was no longer bound by a fictional reality exclaiming I will always be in the wrong form. My body is not wrong. It does not need to be fixed. His body might be wrong for him, but he doesn’t get to declare that for everyone who comes after, nor should he be promoting that idea to cis people as it only fuels conservative rationale.
I agree with him that discourse is needed and change is fought for, but I also think bringing folx to the table is a lot healthier than yelling at them or telling them they are too young to understand.
Part of normalizing trans folx within our society comes from having diverse representations of us just as Phyllis Schlafly helped to normalize women in politics. I still don’t like Phyllis Scafly’s positions.
I’m glad he has the courage to speak up and I’m glad he’s out there causing discourse, but if you want to promote dialog, you have to listen too-not just preach.
…
Thanks again for this. I’m sending it to my pops, and will be rereading it. 👍
Freedom of speech is being suppressed by fear and loathing, which leads to reactionary politics. Politicians feed off of it, and journalists make their living from it. Truth lies in the eddies, soaking their feet, drinking a beer.
I came here from a link Andrew Sullivan posted on your most recent article and immediately subscribed. I then read this post and knew right away I would not regret it. This post says EVERYTHING I have been wanting to say about our current state of culture and politics, but couldn't find the right words to express it. I am your new #1 fan and can't wait for your next article.
It is significant how the creative cadre has been delegated the "liberal" duty of fulfilling any or all hope of a "great society" via narrowly- defined activist aesthetics. The free-range potential of artistic disinterest is increasingly impressed into the duty of being way too interested. Its visionary potential is therefore neutralized by being preoccupied with window dressing a larger house that progressive political ambition was/is supposed to get in order. At the same time the radical right wing has made an art form out of regressive argument, thereby appropriating disinterest ( in this case argument for argument's sake) in the guise of conservative progressivism. A so- called "deplorable" majority are the fastest growing art audience, in this regard. If art has ever had any "common" sense, that sense is currently being most effectively weaponized by the far right.
I'm going to try not to re-hash any old arguments here, but I just wish there could be a little distinction between the "post-marxist/Foucault/Identity politics" left and the "marxist/materialist/economic progress" left. The two overlap, but they aren't monolithic. I'm glad you mention social media as a big culprit though, because certainly people have been reading Foucault and Judith Butler for a long time now, and the mobilization of shame as a performative "political tool" is a pretty recent phenomenon... I've been told by readers of Robin DiAngelo that it's racist to even bring up class issues...
Also, I'd point to how comfortable mainstream politicians in the democratic party are with identity politics, and how allergic they are to economic redistribution. I don't feel like the "far left" (at least economically speaking) is the problem here.
MM: hello. Quick question: Would you consider yourself a Marxist? I'm not looking for much more than a yes or no right this second... depending on your answer, I can attend to your above statement.
I think I'd loosely say yes, though I'm critical of some aspects of Marx too. I'm firmly anti-authoritarian, but I find a lot of wisdom in Marx's analysis, particularly the idea of alienated labor or his theory of value. I don't think I believe in revolution though, based on a number of failed revolutions I've witnessed. Living in Egypt and seeing the aftermath of the revolution here makes me very skeptical about creating power vacuums. So, I can at least say I'm a socialist, if not a totally orthodox Marxist.
Marxism is the problem. Marxism is looking for the oppressor in all things; looking for the “receipts” on all production. Including culture production. “Who suffered in the making of this? Let’s find the exploiters and make them pay.” It is a worldview based on resentment. The far left is Marxist. Marxism gave rise to the relativism that you believe in, and it is perpetuated by that leftist, and now Democratic, agenda.
You are “loosely” a Marxist, and in keeping with that, once told me that you don't believe there is such a thing as human nature.
It’s starting to look like Democrats don’t, either.
I don’t mind this back-and-forth tradition we seem to have forged, but we are never going to agree on the language I use when I write for an audience. I can explain that. Let's do an exercise. A series of questions for you:
No matter your sexual orientation, do you have or want a partner, and would you like to have sex with that person? When you make your art, would you like to share it with others? Do you pursue ideas that interest you, and do you want to master those ideas? Do you want others to respect that effort? Do you enjoy sharing meals with other humans? Do you get angry when someone breaks into your home and steals your camera and shoots your dog and stomps on your cat? If you had a child, would you be cool with someone stealing and abusing that child? And, what drives your impulse to correct me in the comments each time I write? Is it the need to feel like ideas you care about are understood by others?
How do you answer each of these? Do you think your instincts— these feelings and behaviors are... a roll of the dice? Totally random? A Western construct you have blindly bought into? Before you even answer the above questions, we know the answers. Because you are human.
There are always exceptions. And the exceptions prove the consistencies in human nature.
Human nature is just animal nature. We are animals. We are only a degree away from chimpanzees. There is such a thing as observable, general human behaviors, across time and space. We are still reading Shakespeare, and Plato, and all major founding religious texts, and reproducing foundational myths and narratives for a reason. We are consistent animals.
I use the language I do in my posts because I believe in human nature, and I understand the dynamics that drive clear and empathetic communication between human animals. I, too, want to be understood, and I’d like anyone reading what I write to know that I indeed care about how they receive my message. I wish to meet them where they are, in the moment, including a socio-political one. This blog is not the academy. So I will continue to do my thing with my language, and not your thing.
I am not a fan of Marxism, post-Marxism, and critical theory. I do read theory, and talk about it, because It is fun, because ideas are fun, and humans like this kind of play. And yet applied out in the real world these ideas are incredibly destructive. The may be ideas cooked up by humans in the academy, but they deny human nature itself. See: Defund the police. See: Biology isn’t real. See: Mathematics are racist. See: We will erase your history and everything that’s meaningful to you, and you will be happy about it.
I’m glad you take my comments seriously enough to keep responding, but I really think it’s unfair to dismiss me as “academic” here just because there’s a language breakdown. Yeah I teach in universities but I teach filmmaking, not critical theory. No one taught me Marx in school. No one forced me to read Foucault and Derrida. What’s happening is a breakdown of language that has more to do with what parts of the internet we reside in.
For example, no one who calls themselves a Marxist would agree that the post-structuralist theory you take aim at is Marxist at all, because Marx was a materialist. No post-structuralist would confess to be a Marxist because it goes against their whole project of eliminating grand narratives. Do you read / listen to Jordan Peterson a lot? Because this is exactly his perspective that he continues to argue, and I really think he’s got it wrong.
I don’t keep commenting because I want to be right, I really think the distinction in language might be leading you to a misdiagnosis of the problem. That’s really all it is.
Couple of weeks ago Andrew Sullivan wrote the essay below which may interest you alot. And this week he and Barri Weiss discuss trans questions vis a vis gays/lesbian. I think much about them will resonate.
(BTW, I find alot of trans/queer theory....which isn't the same as trans people...to be implicitly misogynist and homophobic. In fact trans ideology is alot like a new gay conversion therapy: in the past the homosexual mind was pushed to change to match the body, whereas today the body is encouraged to be changed to accord with the trans mind.)
"Who Is Looking Out For Gay Kids?
The risks of imposing critical gender theory on young children"
Ok, I love what you’re saying and disagree with most of what you’re saying. Need some time to think. Coming from a queer: what the hell is an allosexual
"You can use the term 'allosexual' to describe a person who feels a sexual attraction to anyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Someone who identifies as allosexual may experience sexual attraction toward people in any capacity! The only group of people who aren't allosexual are those who identify as asexual.Mar 22, 2022"
BTW, there are now hundreds and hundreds of genders....and I have read each one has its own flag.
As with the most of my post-apocalyptic nightmares, most tribalism just paves the way for more shitbirds to put themselves in charge. This is a harrowing read!
I know Vonnegut said it first, but librarians and libraries are really the America that functions, and even those are censored, book bans, etc. and not just from the right. Schools have dropping texts all around. Pretty soon it will just be all palatable, feel good baby food learning. Numb numnumnum.
ooof that last sentence...a gut punch that forced out a big laugh...I'll start planning my post "Pocylypse" wardrobe...the shoes are critical...thank you for the thoughts and the laugh...
There's another element to the democrats upcoming demise, their routine inability to materially deliver on their promises. Obama was profoundly guilty of this: squandering a supermajority in the house and senate to pass a conservative health care plan that was a windfall for private insurance, appointing timothy geitner as treasury secretary; forgiving the banks, but foreclosing on homeowners. I really struggle with the near universal deification of Obama of pretty much every single liberal person I know and I would ask, why exactly did you love him so, beyond that he made you feel good? Our relationship to politicians as a sort of friend/boss/celebrity proxy is unhealthy and irrational. Every year with almost unanimous support the defense budget increases by hundreds of billions of dollars. The democrats are so far from even the most conservative actions on climate change as to make their "better" position almost irrelevant. Republicans are of course in the process of reversing Roe v Wade across the country, but I hold tremendous resentment to RBG for not retiring in 2014 and for Obama for not at least attempting to appoint a supreme court justice in recess and then daring McConnell to impeach them. We both hate the democrats, but for different reasons.
I think Obama inherited a shitshow from Bush/Cheney/Rove and maintained as much integrity as possible in the face of overwhelming opposition and resentment. His primary remit from day one was healthcare, and while Obamacare is indeed a castrated thing (in red states especially), it is the only reason I have any medical insurance at all. I think he is a truly decent person—one of the last major politicians I feel that way about. His interpersonal diplomacy and grace is a thing that I try to conjure when I am about to have a hard conversation with someone I don't like or respect. In other words, he is a role model for me to this day.
I'm definitely with Neil on this one. I don't think Obama gave us much more than an image of progress while continuing the same neoliberal policies and imperialist war mongering. The fit-throwing obstruction of the republicans would have been the same either way, but he alienated all of us who want a materialist politics.
I understand what you're saying. The level of congressional toxin was appalling. He tried to work with the Republicans, but they behaved like angry children. I'm afraid he "played nice" too long though. I do get your appreciation of his grace and intelligence. Call me an old leftie, but I think he should have gone in swinging sooner than he did. My particular disappointment in him is based on a sort of comparison between him and Junior. I thought Obama would go after the Goldman Sachs people for their sloppy and greedy behavior. I also though he should have punished people for the horrors like Abu Ghraib and other stuff in Iraq. I knew Bush was a silly tool, so it was a simple thing for me to assess him from the get-go. Obama was twice as smart and twice as capable, yet not much changed after he assumed the office. I think he knew better, yet somehow he was carried along by the inertia and general sleaze of the way things are done in Washington.
Obama disappointed me entirely. I took my family out of the US right after Bush's reelection. For a short time I thought Obama's soaring rhetoric about "Wall Street" vs. "Main Street" actually meant something, but when I saw him holding hands with war criminal Dubya the day of his inauguration, then when I saw his choices for the Cabinet, I knew Wall Street just had another golden boy, and we were fucked. Now Biden's VP is going to get slaughtered by Trump in the next presidential election. The Democrats are idiots. The Republicans are fascists. At least the French didn't elect a fascist last week.
I would like to add to my original comment by recommending that people watch a film called "The Con", produced by Patrick Lovell and Eric Vaughan. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thecon/ The film contains a summation in the final fifteen minutes that will fill any reasonable American with rage. Wall Street investment banks, particularly Goldman Sachs, are liable for fraud on a scale unprecedented in history. The issues that divide Americans now are just diversions that distract us from the real culprits. The Democratic and Republican Parties are both irretrievably corrupt. The system is broken, poisoned by money. I also recommend a book, "Listen, Liberal", by Thomas Frank. https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Thomas-Frank-audiobook/dp/B01BLTQYGC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=10BB1Z1OSG9X2&keywords=listen%2C+liberal&qid=1654626426&s=books&sprefix=listen%2C+liberal%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C145&sr=1-1
ugh...been waiting for your next installment bc it's been a minute...this one did not disappoint, BUT it did discourage me...and I am not sure what to do...as in a past comment I'd made, I'll reference the trans activist, Buck Angel again, who I follow on IG and love...and he is known as a loose friend by a close friend of mine...I've known his journey for many years and wow talk about forging a very rough path...yet he is attacked viciously on every post and has been in and out of being banned on IG...the majority of attacks come from young trans ppl...his post today had several rude but mild comments from young ppl in the "queer" community...I'm flabbergasted bc if someone like him, with his far reaching life experience, is accused of trans hate, yes the far left has lost the thread...i've been living out (as a bisexual) since the community was still called the "gay and lesbian community" and lesbians were angry about being second...I attended the Pride parade in SF the first year the bisexual community marched and it became the "LGB community"...I am NOT queer...the term queer was not used respectfully when I was younger and it was used as part of theory or art discussions in my time as an art student at SFAI...queer was a loaded term for use in spaces (those ivory towers) where we could dissect it...and even being bi, I received more than my share of eye rolls...but as you said in your post, we fucked who we wanted and transgression was explored as a response to conservative mores we wanted to show as hypocrisy...think Ron Athey or Karen Finley...now, maybe being "transgressive" means being ultra-conservative?...I enjoy reading and also posting comments in your space bc it's a pretty mellow and educated group here, who seem to mostly hail from Gen X (as do I) and rather than sitting around circle jerking about the "good ole days", you remind me that shit is really terrifying these days and we won nothing really...and we have to do something...I did say on the night Obama was first elected (while sitting in the Bluestocking Bookstore cafe) if Obama makes it out alive through his entire presidency, I would be shocked...and I read in his first month of office, he got 3x as many death threats as any other president before him...I knew shit was off the rails, but I didn't know how far off the rails...I am curious though, do you have any suggestions for us "elders" or just as thinking and feeling humans who find the GOP and it's plans for the future terrifying?
Let me think on this, but in the meantime I will agree with you that Buck Angel is doing great work and at huge personal cost. Also: watch comedy right before you go to sleep, to get the serotonin and dopamine going. We're all kinda fucked now, but good comedians seem to tell the truth. As do the great writers, from Dostoyevsky to Roth. We're all just human. Everything that's happening now has befallen humanity before, again and again. We just have tech now, to make the cycle weirder and faster. Democracy and the Enlightenment were great ideas, but evidently too fragile for our species to maintain. We have lived through the highest point of civilization and should be glad we got to experience it, even if it's over.
Thanks for this piece, as it articulates some concerns I’ve been chewing on while also presenting a position I don’t entirely agree with- I don’t have the language to address why that is, but appreciate the content to consider.
…
I do have language about Buck, and as he’s popped up twice here, I would like to share my perspective as a millennial trans man.
I respect Buck as a trans elder, I don’t believe he should be “canceled”, AND, I still find his rhetoric harmful. I’m more inline with Adrienne Marie Brown’s position she outlines in “We Will Not Cancel Us”, regarding how I feel we should engage with him.
My issue, is with his underlining thesis that gender is a binary based on a sexual binary and that we are a medical condition; neither of which are scientifically true. XY, XX, XXY, XYY, XXX all exist naturally. Society, and scientific frameworks, puts us into categories-not biology.
He has a super hard and fast definition of who/what trans people are and this language is often the same language conservatives use to pass harmful legislation against us. He claims to only be talking about himself, but when you have 80k followers, you are influencing minds whether you agree with it or not.
His warnings of trans youth detransitioning, or that there aren’t enough medical checks in place for folx to access hormones, are similar to conservative scare tactics. There are SO MANY medical barriers for trans people to access care, we don’t need someone from the community saying planned parenthood isn’t doing their do diligence. And, a lot of detransition stories come from NB folx, who “don’t” exist in his definition of transness.
All this, “I say what I say or you can shove it” business is equally as bad as “you are old and toxic”. His resistance to change in philosophy and that he knows because he’s dealt with it longer, prevents us from imagining or having a different future.
Just from a humanist position, telling me, or any other person, that I’m a man trapped in a woman’s body, or I’m making my body match my brain, is incredibly painful and limiting. Once I allowed myself to identify as a human first, not a gendered body, I was no longer bound by a fictional reality exclaiming I will always be in the wrong form. My body is not wrong. It does not need to be fixed. His body might be wrong for him, but he doesn’t get to declare that for everyone who comes after, nor should he be promoting that idea to cis people as it only fuels conservative rationale.
I agree with him that discourse is needed and change is fought for, but I also think bringing folx to the table is a lot healthier than yelling at them or telling them they are too young to understand.
Part of normalizing trans folx within our society comes from having diverse representations of us just as Phyllis Schlafly helped to normalize women in politics. I still don’t like Phyllis Scafly’s positions.
I’m glad he has the courage to speak up and I’m glad he’s out there causing discourse, but if you want to promote dialog, you have to listen too-not just preach.
…
Thanks again for this. I’m sending it to my pops, and will be rereading it. 👍
Nice to hear from you, H. Hope you are well.
Freedom of speech is being suppressed by fear and loathing, which leads to reactionary politics. Politicians feed off of it, and journalists make their living from it. Truth lies in the eddies, soaking their feet, drinking a beer.
I came here from a link Andrew Sullivan posted on your most recent article and immediately subscribed. I then read this post and knew right away I would not regret it. This post says EVERYTHING I have been wanting to say about our current state of culture and politics, but couldn't find the right words to express it. I am your new #1 fan and can't wait for your next article.
It is significant how the creative cadre has been delegated the "liberal" duty of fulfilling any or all hope of a "great society" via narrowly- defined activist aesthetics. The free-range potential of artistic disinterest is increasingly impressed into the duty of being way too interested. Its visionary potential is therefore neutralized by being preoccupied with window dressing a larger house that progressive political ambition was/is supposed to get in order. At the same time the radical right wing has made an art form out of regressive argument, thereby appropriating disinterest ( in this case argument for argument's sake) in the guise of conservative progressivism. A so- called "deplorable" majority are the fastest growing art audience, in this regard. If art has ever had any "common" sense, that sense is currently being most effectively weaponized by the far right.
I'm going to try not to re-hash any old arguments here, but I just wish there could be a little distinction between the "post-marxist/Foucault/Identity politics" left and the "marxist/materialist/economic progress" left. The two overlap, but they aren't monolithic. I'm glad you mention social media as a big culprit though, because certainly people have been reading Foucault and Judith Butler for a long time now, and the mobilization of shame as a performative "political tool" is a pretty recent phenomenon... I've been told by readers of Robin DiAngelo that it's racist to even bring up class issues...
Also, I'd point to how comfortable mainstream politicians in the democratic party are with identity politics, and how allergic they are to economic redistribution. I don't feel like the "far left" (at least economically speaking) is the problem here.
MM: hello. Quick question: Would you consider yourself a Marxist? I'm not looking for much more than a yes or no right this second... depending on your answer, I can attend to your above statement.
I think I'd loosely say yes, though I'm critical of some aspects of Marx too. I'm firmly anti-authoritarian, but I find a lot of wisdom in Marx's analysis, particularly the idea of alienated labor or his theory of value. I don't think I believe in revolution though, based on a number of failed revolutions I've witnessed. Living in Egypt and seeing the aftermath of the revolution here makes me very skeptical about creating power vacuums. So, I can at least say I'm a socialist, if not a totally orthodox Marxist.
Marxism is the problem. Marxism is looking for the oppressor in all things; looking for the “receipts” on all production. Including culture production. “Who suffered in the making of this? Let’s find the exploiters and make them pay.” It is a worldview based on resentment. The far left is Marxist. Marxism gave rise to the relativism that you believe in, and it is perpetuated by that leftist, and now Democratic, agenda.
You are “loosely” a Marxist, and in keeping with that, once told me that you don't believe there is such a thing as human nature.
It’s starting to look like Democrats don’t, either.
I don’t mind this back-and-forth tradition we seem to have forged, but we are never going to agree on the language I use when I write for an audience. I can explain that. Let's do an exercise. A series of questions for you:
No matter your sexual orientation, do you have or want a partner, and would you like to have sex with that person? When you make your art, would you like to share it with others? Do you pursue ideas that interest you, and do you want to master those ideas? Do you want others to respect that effort? Do you enjoy sharing meals with other humans? Do you get angry when someone breaks into your home and steals your camera and shoots your dog and stomps on your cat? If you had a child, would you be cool with someone stealing and abusing that child? And, what drives your impulse to correct me in the comments each time I write? Is it the need to feel like ideas you care about are understood by others?
How do you answer each of these? Do you think your instincts— these feelings and behaviors are... a roll of the dice? Totally random? A Western construct you have blindly bought into? Before you even answer the above questions, we know the answers. Because you are human.
There are always exceptions. And the exceptions prove the consistencies in human nature.
Human nature is just animal nature. We are animals. We are only a degree away from chimpanzees. There is such a thing as observable, general human behaviors, across time and space. We are still reading Shakespeare, and Plato, and all major founding religious texts, and reproducing foundational myths and narratives for a reason. We are consistent animals.
I use the language I do in my posts because I believe in human nature, and I understand the dynamics that drive clear and empathetic communication between human animals. I, too, want to be understood, and I’d like anyone reading what I write to know that I indeed care about how they receive my message. I wish to meet them where they are, in the moment, including a socio-political one. This blog is not the academy. So I will continue to do my thing with my language, and not your thing.
I am not a fan of Marxism, post-Marxism, and critical theory. I do read theory, and talk about it, because It is fun, because ideas are fun, and humans like this kind of play. And yet applied out in the real world these ideas are incredibly destructive. The may be ideas cooked up by humans in the academy, but they deny human nature itself. See: Defund the police. See: Biology isn’t real. See: Mathematics are racist. See: We will erase your history and everything that’s meaningful to you, and you will be happy about it.
I’m glad you take my comments seriously enough to keep responding, but I really think it’s unfair to dismiss me as “academic” here just because there’s a language breakdown. Yeah I teach in universities but I teach filmmaking, not critical theory. No one taught me Marx in school. No one forced me to read Foucault and Derrida. What’s happening is a breakdown of language that has more to do with what parts of the internet we reside in.
For example, no one who calls themselves a Marxist would agree that the post-structuralist theory you take aim at is Marxist at all, because Marx was a materialist. No post-structuralist would confess to be a Marxist because it goes against their whole project of eliminating grand narratives. Do you read / listen to Jordan Peterson a lot? Because this is exactly his perspective that he continues to argue, and I really think he’s got it wrong.
I don’t keep commenting because I want to be right, I really think the distinction in language might be leading you to a misdiagnosis of the problem. That’s really all it is.
Couple of weeks ago Andrew Sullivan wrote the essay below which may interest you alot. And this week he and Barri Weiss discuss trans questions vis a vis gays/lesbian. I think much about them will resonate.
(BTW, I find alot of trans/queer theory....which isn't the same as trans people...to be implicitly misogynist and homophobic. In fact trans ideology is alot like a new gay conversion therapy: in the past the homosexual mind was pushed to change to match the body, whereas today the body is encouraged to be changed to accord with the trans mind.)
"Who Is Looking Out For Gay Kids?
The risks of imposing critical gender theory on young children"
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/who-is-looking-out-for-gay-kids
"Bari Weiss On Saving Liberalism From Right And Left
I chat with the MSM apostate about critical queer theory and the right-wing backlash."
https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/bari-weiss-on-saving-liberalism-from
Ok, I love what you’re saying and disagree with most of what you’re saying. Need some time to think. Coming from a queer: what the hell is an allosexual
"You can use the term 'allosexual' to describe a person who feels a sexual attraction to anyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Someone who identifies as allosexual may experience sexual attraction toward people in any capacity! The only group of people who aren't allosexual are those who identify as asexual.Mar 22, 2022"
BTW, there are now hundreds and hundreds of genders....and I have read each one has its own flag.
As with the most of my post-apocalyptic nightmares, most tribalism just paves the way for more shitbirds to put themselves in charge. This is a harrowing read!
I know Vonnegut said it first, but librarians and libraries are really the America that functions, and even those are censored, book bans, etc. and not just from the right. Schools have dropping texts all around. Pretty soon it will just be all palatable, feel good baby food learning. Numb numnumnum.
ooof that last sentence...a gut punch that forced out a big laugh...I'll start planning my post "Pocylypse" wardrobe...the shoes are critical...thank you for the thoughts and the laugh...