I fully agree with the 'lack of prioritising,' you are highlighting.
This does not mean I don't fully support trans rights, it just means that I absolutely agree that issues such as ending world hunger and ending the exploitation of people, by a nefarious capitalist global elite, etc etc deserve a higher priority.

Which problem gets focussed on globally, depends on so many factors, yes? We don't have a united species or a world government, so we will rarely get a global consensus, in such a way, that would allow us as a species, to create a correct list of priorities, in such away that we could assign the correct global focus and attention to the biggest current problems facing our species in a united way.
Possibly our best attempt to do so is on climate change and that is not going very well.

I think it's only the national 'peoples' of the world, talking to each other intensely over a medium such as this internet, that will eventually nurture more global consensus on an issue. Then we will all compel national politicians to do what we want them to do or else! they may seriously face national/international and even global, tick tick tick tick boom movements that will tear their political systems apart if they don't do what the people want them to do.

I personally think the target will eventually become something like the UN. That's the only body I know of that if it had real power, could focus global effort and power to make real change happen much more quickly and solve a problem as big as global hunger, poverty or local wars.

I think it's only the national 'peoples' of the world, talking to each other intensely over a medium such as this internet, that will eventually nurture more global consensus on an issue. — universeness

That's a lovely sentiment. Kind of seems to be doing the opposite just now though doesn't it?

Then we will all compel national politicians to do what we want them to do or else! they may seriously face national/international and even global, tick tick tick tick boom movements that will tear their political systems apart if they don't do what the people want them to do. — universeness

Yes. Vive la révolution!

I'm gonna put my commie hat on.

thou 'victim' here is a difficult one to define - I'm going to assume it's both attackers and the attacked who are 'victims' of knife culture — Isaac

Thanks. That's part of why I chose the example.

So unless you've got something to hold against that impression, I'm not buying this story that these new forms of identity politics unite. Not from where I'm standing. If they do, they unite by simply crushing dissent. — Isaac

I get the impression that you are reading that this disunity is the left's problem, whereas it's likely society's. Capital's always going to be doing that thing where any identity division is exacerbated, monetised, coopted in an attempt to create and maintain markets. This ultimately isn't a good or a bad thing, it is just a thing that happens.

So it isn't a surprise that the current formation of emancipatory politics in the west is riddled with geopolitical hypocrisy. That's ideology working as normal. The critical impulse you're providing, as always, is a necessary moment in the dialectic. The Revolution needs people like you to remind The Left that global oriented politics is necessary. As a corrective to hidden hypocrisies. Though also as always, the cry toward heightened awareness of international issues also can serve as a means of blocking emancipatory struggles in left movements in the political north - see big disputes in orgs about class first postures.

The thing is, the cry of admonishment you're providing is less of a corrective and more of a lament. Which is also fine, there is a place for that, let's just not pretend it's directed at a fractiously organised Left, it's directed at a certain image of political north Leftists largely divorced from the situation "on the ground". You and @Moliere both highlighted that when you're in an emancipatory politics org, intersectional and class based theory only matters to the extent it informs your praxis. The corollary is that intersectionality as a theoretical abstraction plays just the same role as the geopolitical corrective you're providing within the left; a lens.

Neither intersectionality, or what you're espousing, have any concrete doctrinal or practical commitments. They're not even organisational principles. They're barely even informative theory for on the ground politics. They sit at least three degrees of organisational abstraction above moving bodies into the right places at the right times. They're means of forming/criticising means of perceiving means of organising norms of praxis, and let's not pretend they're anything but.

The perceived proliferation of identities results from a systemic fragmentation of identity and a partitioning of social space, as should be evident from it being widespread over the political north. The fact that this fragmentation creates a posture in left politics, an identity politics, is as much a reflection of the underlying fragmentation as it is a way that civil liberty destabilises stultifying identities - if they can be monetised somehow, and they will, that serves to make them more accessible. In some respects that can be celebrated. It's in general a good thing that corps must cynically show their commitment to LGBTQIA+ cause, as not doing so results in a widespread loss of social capital. That is an opportunity.

On the ground, a tankie and a blue hair can put their differences aside and get a disabled access ramp for a town hall. Or disrupt government through a well placed protest for a day.

This chat is for the most part a hobby.

That's a lovely sentiment. Kind of seems to be doing the opposite just now though doesn't it? — Isaac

Well, I am sensing an underlying, emergent current of better focus on social media.
On some sites, the vitriol is lessening imo, and many are becoming more reasoned and slower to curl up into a Ninja ball of defence. Anywho!, meeting pals in Glesga for a pub session. Away to get ready! Have a good Saturday night guys!

I'm gonna put my commie hat on. — fdrake

You mean you ever took it off! It's the gulag for you m'boy.

I get the impression that you are reading that this disunity is the left's problem, whereas it's likely society's. Capital's always going to be doing that thing where any identity division is exacerbated, monetised, coopted in an attempt to create and maintain markets. This ultimately isn't a good or a bad thing, it is just a thing that happens. — fdrake

I was with you up to the last. Surely it is a bad thing? Are we saying that the exacerbation of disunity in order to make a fast buck is morally neutral? That doesn't seem quite right.

The Revolution needs people like you to remind The Left that global oriented politics is necessary. — fdrake

That's very kind of you to say so. I might reply to The Revolution that if needs people like me it might want to refrain from sacking us, banning us, labelling us as bigoted anti-[insert minority here], and generally making us feel like we've denied the Holocaust every time we raise the smallest concern about direction. Just a suggestion, of course, it's not my place to tell The Revolution how to run its business!

the cry toward heightened awareness of international issues also can serve as a means of blocking emancipatory struggles in left movements in the political north - see big disputes in orgs about class first postures. — fdrake

Yes I grant that some care is needed. Dialogue, rather than competition. I'm also aware that an emancipated north is much much more likely to engage in poverty reduction than one still under the yoke of various forms of (albeit minor) oppression. Getting our own house in order has merit. My concern is less with the actual focus, more with the way that focus is used. Were I to have confidence in these first-world emancipatory movements actually looking to win, I might be more able to back the idea of some mutuality or even, as I say, getting our own house in order before we try and 'change the world'.

So it's not the focus necessarily on its own that bothers me. It's the means by which that focus is maintained, the superficiality of it all, the 'buy the t-shirt' ease with which one can become a part (from someone who's looked more than a few police horses in the snout, I'm not complaining from an ivory tower). I mean - this more of metaphorical value than the main issue, but blue hair? Not exactly environmentally friendly is it? Remember the Extinction Rebellion t-shirt fiasco? And trans campaigns...? Equal pay for women (but not better pay for seamstresses)? Stamp out sexual harassment in the work place (but no mention of the increasing sex migrant atrocities)?

It's like they're not even trying. Really, really obvious intersectionalities are being missed again and again which just adds to this feeling of glib superficiality to these campaigns. Are we so numb now to poverty that the below poverty line pay for the (majority women) in clothing sweatshops didn't even cross the minds of the campaigners boisterously complaining that some offensively overpaid female TV celebrity wasn't quite as offensively overpaid as her male counterpart? I'm not even asking for a "don't forget the starving children!" announcement attached to every campaign - this was literally a campaign about women's pay, for Christ's sake. The same was true of Black Lives Matter (apart from lives of the majority black children producing your fashion items apparently which, it turns out, don't matter quite so much as trainers do).

So yes, you're right about these things being able to run alongside, and probably they should do. But alongside means something, it's not a universal solvent, that just excuses any and all campaigning strategies. We can't absolve every choice as "at least something's happening", some 'somethings' are worse than nothing. They suck the oxygen.

Neither intersectionality, or what you're espousing, have any concrete doctrinal or practical commitments. They're not even organisational principles. They're barely even informative theory for on the ground politics. They sit at least three degrees of organisational abstraction above moving bodies into the right places at the right times. They're means of forming/criticising means of perceiving means of organising norms of praxis, and let's not pretend they're anything but. — fdrake

I think you're partially right here. I can agree that the academic literature and practice doesn't really inform actual politics, and in that sense my ire is not really directed at academics. That said (and explaining the 'partially') there's not a bright line between the two on account of the very human fact that the people involved in each institution often overlap. The political organisations and the academics. I don't know how much that's still true, but in my day there was very strong union support among the social sciences departments (to the point of parody), but even in the anti-road protests which I was heavily involved with, there was an uncomfortable academic fringe alongside the crusties. And we certainly brought our theoretical commitments to those campaigns (certainly the union activism and tax protests, less so the anti-road stuff 'cos we were a bit scared of the crusties!). I've no idea what is happening in trans, feminist or any other minority on-the-ground action these days, but I'd be surprised if it was radically different.

The perceived proliferation of identities results from a systemic fragmentation of identity and a partitioning of social space, as should be evident from it being widespread over the political north. The fact that this fragmentation creates a posture in left politics, an identity politics, is as much a reflection of the underlying fragmentation as it is a way that civil liberty destabilises stultifying identities - if they can be monetised somehow, and they will, that serves to make them more accessible. — fdrake

Yes. I think that's true, but I don't think the monetisation is the only motive. There was, albeit in it's infancy, quite a serious move after the 2008 crash to push back against the whole system of money, and some of this is a response to that, a diversion - look anywhere but here... Warring tribes are not only monetisable, they're also weak. And that, I think, matters more. The rainbow t-shirts aren't that much of cash cow. It's meaningful opposition that's the biggest worry, division prevents that.

On the ground, a tankie and a blue hair can put their differences aside and get a disabled access ramp for a town hall. Or disrupt government through a well placed protest for a day. — fdrake

They can, but they won't. The folk getting disabled access ramps for the town hall are probably the local council these days - and that's part of the problem. With a lot of the local, human-level stuff, we've won already. We don't need to protest to get disabled ramps, it's illegal not to provide them. We don't need to protest to get equal pay, a court summons will do the job. Hell we don't need to disrupt government much since they hardly run the country any more, having handed the job over to Black Rock. What we need to do is disrupt money - capital, debt, crisis profiteering. To do that we need solidarity.

I was with you up to the last. Surely it is a bad thing? Are we saying that the exacerbation of disunity in order to make a fast buck is morally neutral? That doesn't seem quite right. — Isaac

Oh. The tendency of capital to dissolve social forms also tends to dissolve stultifying ones. Disruption isn't always bad.

Really, really obvious intersectionalities are being missed again and again which just adds to this feeling of glib superficiality to these campaigns. — Isaac

That can be granted without having any import onto intersectionality as critical tool in organising practice. Ineptness, affectation, pick your poison.

I've no idea what is happening in trans, feminist or any other minority on-the-ground action these days, but I'd be surprised if it was radically different. — Isaac

I notice that people bring political commitments too. Just that it doesn't matter if they're an anarchist or a Stalinist, since they agree on the issue. Working out how to deal with marginalised identities within an org is something an intersectional perspective will synergise with. People bring the prejudice with them as a perspective generator, that's then mediated by the "conditions on the ground". Does it really matter if a Stalinist and an identity-first anarchist disagree on almost everything if they can agree on what needs to be done?

The folk getting disabled access ramps for the town hall are probably the local council these days - and that's part of the problem. — Isaac

You still do unfortunately. Getting the authorities to follow their own laws.

The broader point I'm making is that framing a big conflict between intersectional approaches and class first ones in terms of practical consequences isn't really directed to the audience it's intended to effect. If any org ends up shitting itself for reasons like this, it's our tendency toward forming a circular firing line and bullshit office politics. Rather than treating a four steps removed abstraction from the ground as a causal factor in lack of left unity. Would that the left had enough power that our quibbles over intersectionality had any impact on society's "melting into air". We just don't.

The debate about what masculinity/femininity is, and what real men/women are, is often confused by people talking past each other.

Some derive masculinity/femininity from their view of how men/women are typically perceived, and some derive masculinity/femininity from how they think men/women should be. Both of these profiles are of course impacted by each other, but they are different nonetheless. From here on out, I will just talk about masculinity/men, since that is what your post is about, but my comment is general enough to apply to both men and women.

As for the former; before answering what is more or less masculine, one must first define what is typical of men. The most typical man would be a man who has the quantities of every trait in him that is average for men, in the eyes of the average human, right? No, that model does not take into account the synergies between the traits. Although x might be the average aggressivity of a man and although y is the most average happiness of a man, the most average combination of those two values may not be (x,y), since all these traits are not independent. So, not only is this practically very hard to quantify, it is even hard to quantify in principle.

Furthermore, who said the most average man would be regarded as the most typical man? Our perception of typicality is not a perfect representation of actual typicality.

Now, on top of the already complexity of defining what is perceived as typical for men, how does one derive what is the most manly from that? If most people perceive men as typically more disagreeable than most people, would that which we perceive as the manliest man be perceived as being as disagreeable as humanly possible? That which the perceived typical man has more/less of, the perceived manliest man has the most/least of? I do not buy that at all.

One can perhaps bite the bullet and say, actual masculinity does not perfectly align with perceived masculinity, but that doesn't fix the problem of quantifying masculinity. Some might try to get around the quantification issues by reducing it to some small number of independent factors that they purport are correlated with all the traits of masculinity (kind of like what psychometricians did with g and intelligence), but this would only worsen the disconnect between their supposed "masculinity" and perceived masculinity.

And yeah, then there's the discussion of what men ought to be, which is another doozie.

Personally, I leave it as this; I perceive people as more or less masculine and feminine, and I have intuitions about what men and women should be. These perceptions are mine and can be drastically different from other people's (especially those of different cultures). As for my deontic intuitions; I do not force them on anyone, nor do I place any weight on them. As a man, I do not find it morally important to behave as how my intuitions happen to tell me a man ought to behave; I do find it morally important to behave as how my intuitions tell me people should behave, however. I believe they're both instinctual, but at least the latter is less arbitrary.

Oh. The tendency of capital to dissolve social forms also tends to dissolve stultifying ones. Disruption isn't always bad. — fdrake

I see. Then I misunderstood. I was talking about capital cementing social forms, concretising the differences and making convenient little units of identity in order to better market products, herd dissent, and prevent solidarity of the proletariat.

That can be granted without having any import onto intersectionality as critical tool in organising practice. Ineptness, affectation, pick your poison. — fdrake

I can be, sure. I see no reason to. Ineptness and affectation have, presumably, been around since humanity first attempted stuff. I'm looking for an explanation of the recent phenomena.

People are being ostracised, 'cancelled', as well as just flat out sacked, for disagreements about policy, minor infringements of preferred wording, and such. People whose credentials, as far as fighting for the weak against the powerful, are unimpeachable.

The scale of wealth accumulation that's being unopposed is unprecedented, exponentially higher than anything we've seen before. Action on poverty has stagnated whilst action on superficial rights in western countries has increased to the point where there's even some difficulties enacting the law (rights like speech protection, opportunity - not rights like foods, shelter, security...).

These are recent phenomena, so whatever the explanation is cannot be from the "'twas ever thus" category of human failings.

I notice that people bring political commitments too. Just that it doesn't matter if they're an anarchist or a Stalinist, since they agree on the issue. — fdrake

I agree, in those cases. I'm talking about the worryingly increasing number of cases where their commitments mean they don't agree on the issue so nothing gets done. Hence the stagnation on action against poverty, the 'normalising' of starvation on the African continent, the massive shoulder shrug as corporation profit from crises (they had a hand in creating) to degrees we've never before seen. Again, I'm looking for an explanation of what is a recent phenomena in left-wing activism (insofar as it's mainstream is concerned).

The folk getting disabled access ramps for the town hall are probably the local council these days - and that's part of the problem. — Isaac


You still do unfortunately. Getting the authorities to follow their own laws. — fdrake

Fair point, but progress is made (having laws to refer to is better than having none). Where's the equivalent on worker's pay, access to healthcare, housing, food...?

The broader point I'm making is that framing a big conflict between intersectional approaches and class first ones in terms of practical consequences isn't really directed to the audience it's intended to effect. If any org ends up shitting itself for reasons like this, it's our tendency toward forming a circular firing line and bullshit office politics. — fdrake

Again, I'm looking to explain two (possibly related) recent phenomena - namely what's dubiously termed 'cancel culture' and the disparity between the profiteering of the wealthy (unprecedented increase) and the push-back against it (basically 'nothing to see here'). These two phenomena have only arisen in the last couple of years (alongside the increased focus on identity). I might be way off the mark with what I'm suggesting as causal factors, but whatever they are, they're new, not just the same old...

the left wing has been effectively neutered by it's own internal divisions — Isaac

That's hardly news though. Been the case since the Judean People's Front split off from the People's Front of Judea.

Again, it's simply naive to think that this is coincidence. That the only campaigns which receive any air time (from the bought and paid for conglomerate media) are the ones which have zero impact on the ever greedy consumer machine. — Isaac

Capital's always going to be doing that thing where any identity division is exacerbated, monetised, coopted in an attempt to create and maintain markets. This ultimately isn't a good or a bad thing, it is just a thing that happens. — fdrake

Or there's overlap between emancipatory politics and capital here. I noted earlier that capitalism's tendency to eat through whatever institutions you've got has sometimes been a good thing, and that might be what's going on here. Just consider how focused on the workplace emancipatory issues are, equal pay, hiring and firing practices, workplace conditions. Some of that bears some resemblance to labor union struggles of old, but some of it is demanding that everyone have the same opportunity to be a wage slave, right? So that might be emancipatory but it's also capitalism eating through institutions like sexism, ableism, racism. Use those divisions, destroy them, rebuild them, whatever. Capital don't care.

The tendency of capital to dissolve social forms also tends to dissolve stultifying ones. Disruption isn't always bad. — fdrake

Ah, so you said the same thing. Hurray for us.

So it could be that there is no successful left-wing politics anywhere; all we really see is a kind of mirror-image of capitalism's opportunism. Where people can use the universal acid of capitalism on some injustice, there's some redress possible, but only there.

Because it might not be possible to stop capitalism. ("Internal contradictions" always sounded like wish fulfillment to me.)

That's hardly news though. Been the case since the Judean People's Front split off from the People's Front of Judea. — Srap Tasmaner

Possibly, but as I said to @fdrake I'm sort of looking for an explanation of this new phenomena it feels like there is. People (ones I know personally - colleagues at work) are finding themselves more constrained than they've felt before. I've felt it too. Maybe we're all just making it up and jumping at shadows, but to conclude mass delusion, I'm going to need something a bit stronger than 'twas ever thus.

I don't think that 20 years ago, I would have had the same kind of pushback I'm getting today for my 'different' views on the big topics of the day (Ukraine, Covid, Trans). Glen Greenwald is relegated to Rumble. Matt Taibbi has been hung out to dry. Seymour Hersh is a 'conspiracy theorist', Suzanne Moore is now a 'bigot'. These were big names in progressive, anti-corporate, feminist or otherwise generally leftist journalism exiled for what seem like minor disagreements over strategy. I don't recall anything similar happening over anti-apartheid campaigns, road protests, Poll tax, right up the Occupy movement. I'm clearly not alone in thinking something serious has changed (the authors I mentioned above, are saying the same thing).

So the explanation I'm looking is is for that. This new thing. "There's no new thing" is perfectly possible, but it leaves as much unanswered as answered. If there's no new thing, why do so many people think there is?

Actually I have some sympathy for John McWhorter's take, that wokism is a new religion. And that's not based on what young progressives advocate, but on the behavior.

Would that the left had enough power ... We just don't. — fdrake

Would The Left please stop beating itself over the head for not launching a successful revolution.

The last time progressive labor (just an adjective, not the name of a party) had any power, and some of the aspirations of the left were met was during the post WWII economic expansion when government, labor, and capital cooperated to achieve a broad redistribution of of wealth. That happy time ended in the early 1970s. (Peter Turchin: End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration: 2023)

The hard core left of American communists, socialists, and so on (in the US) ended after WWII. Just like the "the labor movement didn't die a natural death; it was murdered", the left was also "murdered". The forces of capital (government, corporations, etc.) bore down hard on the left that existed before WWII. The parties were infiltrated, subjected to prosecution, massive negative propaganda, and so on. By the time the FBI's Cointelpro program was made public, the job was pretty much finished,

From the 1970s to the present, capital abandoned the government/labor coalition and returned to an earlier era of expansion, accumulation, and impoverishment of the working classes.

Capitalism was, is, and (in all likelihood) will be the overwhelming dominant paradigm in the US.

The forces of capital (government, corporations, etc.) bore down hard on the left that existed before WWII. The parties were infiltrated, subjected to prosecution, massive negative propaganda, and so on. By the time the FBI's Cointelpro program was made public, the job was pretty much finished, — BC

It wasn't just that. The left had no answer to stagflation other than to centralize control of the economy. Neither the US nor the UK we're ready for that solution. The right, on the other hand solved the problem robustly.

The 'slow approach' to socialism doesn't work. The door to change only opens every now and then. It has to get bad enough that there really is a revolution. There's no predicting that kind of event.

Actually I have some sympathy for John McWhorter's take, that wokism is a new religion. And that's not based on what young progressives advocate, but on the behavior. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, that's kind of where I'm going. Also, I think @fdrake might have even posted it earlier, but Mark Fisher's seminal article https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/.

My concern really is that, if we follow the modern left, the neocons are basically right. After all we're currently seeing the largest income disparity for decades. The finance sector is making billions printing debt. Corporate lobbying is basically controlling government...

But blacks aren't oppressed by the banks, they're oppressed by white people refusing to check their privilege.

Women aren't oppressed by pernicious working practices, they're oppressed by men sitting with their legs too wide.

Worse, it's basically fine that corporations are running the government. The pharmaceuticals got it right with covid. The arms industry are on the right track with Ukraine...

Basically, left wing mainstream politics is promoting the idea that these unprecedented developments, the complete capture of government by the major corporate sectors, is just fine, not a problem.

Some historians (like Peter Turchin) Think the post WWII era economic regime was pretty close to that of Europe's social democracies: a proactive state (Medicare, Medicaid, AFDC, solid levels of education spending at the state level, etc.); labor/capital cooperation (reduction in taxes for workers, increase of taxes on wealth); a fair amount of labor stability; etc.

Social democracy a la EU isn't socialism, and it isn't a revolution -- but, comparing it to sex that is just OK, it's not that bad (paraphrasing Woody Allen).

The far right, the lunatic fringe, the tea party, crypto-fascists, etc. hate all that stuff--from social security onward to Obama Care. It's all burrs up their butts.

The far right, the lunatic fringe, the tea party, crypto-fascists, etc. hate all that stuff--from social security onward to Obama Care. It's all burrs up their butts. — BC

The elderly are a powerful voting bloc though. Some elderly people are turning to Obamacare to bridge them till medicare kicks in at 65.

This new thing. "There's no new thing" is perfectly possible, but it leaves as much unanswered as answered. If there's no new thing, why do so many people think there is? — Isaac

What helped Occupy take off was the internet. It was an emulation of the Arab Spring. The new thing is the form of media has changed -- it's the material conditions, only the material is tracked through the value form rather than through mass. People interact on the internet differently than they do in meat-space. But as the media grew -- as measured through the value form, again -- so our ways of interacting on the regular changed up to and including meat-space.

Before you could have your everday conversation evaporate into the air. Now it's cemented in the flows of electrons across the world.

Mix that in with some self-righteous moralism, which left-wing views are as easy to moralize as right-wing ones, and badda-bing: you have low-cost propaganda set up with people ready to spread it like a virus. The irony here being we had to offload this emotional work onto algorithms that really didn't care at all about the emotional effects on us but just efficiently selected the emotions which are good at spreading information regardless of ideology or effect: fear, guilt, disgust, anxiety.

Machiavelli made much the same observation a long time ago and was punished for it, so it's little wonder that we needed machine-thinking and efficiency to overcome our emotional hurdles.


At least -- this is my guess as to an explanation for the more recent phenomena. I think it's the media-form and how it relates to the flows of capital. But this is hand-wavey and uncertain (hence, philosophy).

s the material conditions, only the material is tracked through the value form rather than through mass. People interact on the internet differently than they do in meat-space. But as the media grew -- as measured through the value form, again -- so our ways of interacting on the regular changed up to and including meat-space. — Moliere

That's very interesting, I can totally see how it could work that way. So, my question is what's the product? What is the result of this activity, this process? What does it output?

You say...

self-righteous moralism — Moliere

... no argument there. And...

low-cost propaganda set up with people ready to spread it like a virus. — Moliere

... again, I've no dispute with you on that score.

So where is all this "low-cost propaganda"? If it's not Helen Mirren's speech, if it's not the bulk of #MeToo posts, if it's not the BLM knee-bending, or the the drag queen reading groups....

If we're to say all that is honest toil in the service of equality, then what's left to be your "low-cost propaganda"?

So where is all this "low-cost propaganda"? If it's not Helen Mirren's speech, if it's not the bulk of #MeToo posts, if it's not the BLM knee-bending, or the the drag queen reading groups....

If we're to say all that is honest toil in the service of equality, then what's left to be your "low-cost propaganda"? — Isaac

It's all of those things. I wouldn't discount those as propaganda. I mean -- if it's in a newspaper it's probably propaganda, even. It's the media-form which has changed.

I'm not saying these are an honest toil in the service of equality. I'm directly answering your question. I don't think it's the fault of intersectionality, or Feminism, if that's what you're driving at.

Though that's different from persuading you that intersectionality is a Good Thing, too. I couldn't think of anything else to say on that account so dropped it, and went to directly answering your question. In some ways, though, it feels like the old debate between radicals on which problem is the most radical when the underlying concern was trans issues in public, to which I think Feminism is pretty clearly related even if I cannot make the case to your standard for it being related to concerns of international labor.

I'm not saying these are an honest toil in the service of equality. I'm directly answering your question. I don't think it's the fault of intersectionality, or Feminism, if that's what you're driving at. — Moliere

That's fair enough. So let me put it the other way round. If all that I've just alluded to is the "low cost propaganda", but intersectional approaches are intact, then where are they, on the ground? Which campaign approaches are not "low cost propaganda"? Which have sprung from the loins of the intersectional analysis?

Or is it more like...

Would that the left had enough power that our quibbles over intersectionality had any impact on society's "melting into air". We just don't. — fdrake

...for you too?

That's fair enough. So let me put it the other way round. If all that I've just alluded to is the "low cost propaganda", but intersectional approaches are intact, then where are they, on the ground? Which campaign approaches are not "low cost propaganda"? Which have sprung from the loins of the intersectional analysis? — Isaac

OK, that's a good question. I don't think we're at that level. The only people I've known who take intersectionality seriously are people who have tried to put it into practice in building alliances between organizations, and to be at a level of commitment of organizing people you kind of already have to be a believer at some level. You have to have conviction from something or you'd go off to do something else.

Conceptually all I got is "resonances" which isn't clear at all. It's in this space where philosophy is good because it's so unclear to me. All I can do is point to examples, as I've done, to try and explicate. And @fdrake is right to point out there are several conceptual steps from the thought to what I'm reflecting upon.

And I can certainly acknowledge the self-righteousness that's arisen. For that I think it's a mixture of things, but often times when people are disagreeing so harshly it's either because the stakes are high and we have no power or the stakes are incredibly low and all that's at issue is some personal beef. I'm going with the first explanation as a guess.

Or is it more like...

Would that the left had enough power that our quibbles over intersectionality had any impact on society's "melting into air". We just don't.
— fdrake

...for you too? — Isaac

Oh yeah. I recognize how unpopular basically all of my commitments are

OK, that's a good question. I don't think we're at that level. The only people I've known who take intersectionality seriously are people who have tried to put it into practice in building alliances between organizations, and to be at a level of commitment of organizing people you kind of already have to be a believer at some level. You have to have conviction from something or you'd go off to do something else. — Moliere

That makes sense. If the argument is 'intersectionality hasn't really been implemented', I could quite happily substitute that for 'intersectionality has failed'. I'm certainly not in a position to dispute it, being out of the loop at that level now.

I can certainly acknowledge the self-righteousness that's arisen. For that I think it's a mixture of things, but often times when people are disagreeing so harshly it's either because the stakes are high and we have no power or the stakes are incredibly low and all that's at issue is some personal beef. I'm going with the first explanation as a guess. — Moliere

True, but, when have the stakes been lower?

I think to explain the change you need to add in what you were talking about earlier, the low cost of the key form of verbal action. It's too cheap to take actions that's too weak to work.

But I remain suspicious. This all does sound like a reasonable explanation in terms of human nature, unforeseen consequences of new tech, etc. but are we really saying that it all just so happens to act to remove meaningful opposition to capital? Did they just get lucky?

Yeah, that's kind of where I'm going. Also, I think fdrake might have even posted it earlier, but Mark Fisher's seminal article https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/. — Isaac

My concern is that this phenomenon isn't new, it's just out in public. The "Effeminist Manifesto" was written partly in response to perceptions of prejudice between anti-patriarchy groups, and you can see the weaponisation of the rhetoric of liberation for infighting in "Trashing, the Dark Side of Sisterhood". My impression is that the same dynamic is just louder now and is a public spectacle. Which is why I've been making the point that it's the same identity fragmentation dynamic as before. Just looks different due to the social form of organisation. We can see the factionalism out in public, so the representativeness heuristic is going to tell us the groups within movement are getting more factionalised than they were before and that this is stymying progress. Whereas, with @BC, what we're actually observing is the same "post left" period that there has been since Occupy, with the same characteristics of failure, just that the grievances get aired in public.

So I'm saying there are threee big groups of systemic effects;
1) The post left period @BC is right to point out. The institutions of solidarity we're used to imagining either died or have weakened. We should have our systemic analysis hats on after all.
2) social media pumping up the volume on extant left infighting dynamics.

There are two smaller effects:

3) This performative grievance culture mentioned in thread
4) An emphasis on intervening in the attention economy as political praxis among the most vocal

The impact of ( 3 ) looks a lot bigger than it really is because of ( 1 ), ( 2 ) and ( 4 ). ( 4 ) makes ( 2 ) broadcast ( 3 ) even louder, too!

So when I'm saying same shit different day, I'm saying ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) are the major drivers. ( 3 ) is essentially the dirty laundry which never aired in public. ( 4 ) is something we can quibble about, but there's no way it's working as the kind of driver ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) are.

With ( 4 ) I get the impression that the energy spent doing it wouldn't be spent doing grass roots work or coalition building. It's the modern day equivalent of rowdy politics chat in a bar.

True, but, when have the stakes been lower? — Isaac

I'd say the stakes are about constant, but that relative-power fluctuates. Or maybe the perception of relative-power changed as people began to seek information from the big information machine rather than from a trusted organization. With a change in technology that allows for different actors to take stage, so there can also be sour grapes in the mix from that, but my guess is more along the lines of people perceiving themselves as powerless while simultaneously perceiving the ends as high-stakes, and screaming at people who you disagree with serves as an outlet for that kind of rage.

Or, as @fdrake pointed out while I was typing this out, there has always been dirty laundry to air. Another good thing to keep in mind.

I think to explain the change you need to add in what you were talking about earlier, the low cost of the key form of verbal action. It's too cheap to take actions that's too weak to work. — Isaac

Or, from the perspective of a campaign director, it's too cheap to not invest in. :D

With a bit of well-designed propaganda -- or, really, lucky guesses -- the media form takes care of the costs of propagating propaganda. Propaganda has been a tool for awhile. My explanation relies upon the costs of propaganda being lowered. With anonymization not even a reputation is at risk unless you spend a lot of time in an online space. But if you can write the right words -- the virus propagates.

But I remain suspicious. This all does sound like a reasonable explanation in terms of human nature, unforeseen consequences of new tech, etc. but are we really saying that it all just so happens to act to remove meaningful opposition to capital? Did they just get lucky? — Isaac

Partly! Though that's also partly true of a lot of significant social changes -- most social changes are unpredictable because of this multiplicity of causes. That's part of why revolutions are fascinating to historians -- they are the moments when the everyday is suspended, and it doesn't seem like they should work. (and, often, they don't -- being the weaker party rebellions are usually suppressed)

I wouldn't want to lower your suspicion of social explanations, especially mine -- this is a guess, and I believe in multiple causes even if a social explanation happens to make sense. Social explanations are the sorts of things we should always remain suspicious of because it can be too easy to think that a position is right. Since we cannot rely upon falsifiability in even a tangential sense -- politics, and history, can't even be a soft science -- it's pretty easy to add auxiliary beliefs to auxiliary beliefs to auxiliary beliefs and then have them co-refer and help each one make sense but in a vapid way. (one of the reasons I like to read the histories of multiple perspectives is to counter some of this tendency). Plus my explanation is far too clean -- it's very much a theory and not a history, which is always messier.


I've offered a Marxist explanation for the change in norms of discourse: Before the internet mass media was a fairly reliable way states retained identities across such large territorialities, after the internet (especially with social media tuned with an algorithm to maximize engagement) not so much. But that explanation doesn't change the fact that under capital people seek to dominate (and sought, prior to social media). And the media is and has been largely privately owned -- it's already produced by thems who own about what thems who own's parties care about, and the way to make waves and changes is to persuade thems who own that there's more out there to be owned in a politically acceptable way. Or, at least, it's a pretty common method. (hence the concern for the middle class: they have disposable income). So I wouldn't go so far as to say it's only luck, and the desire for a billiards-ball style causal explanation probably won't be satisfied if we decide to at the same time treat our explanations to a critical examination. Politics is done by people after all.

So it's not all dumb luck and just the movement of technology. There are also intentional plans put in place, unintentional plans put in place, consequences upon consequences from plans to counter previous plans -- and most of how we got here in the present has already faded from memory.

It's just a part. And it seems like there's something to it...

But there's also something to @fdrake's point. It's a lot harder to contain dirty laundry in an era when people vent in public on the internet.

Does nobody want to compare the behavior of the (young, online) left to the behavior of the (young and old, online and on-air) right during this period? The insular paranoid style has come back with a vengeance on both sides. The right sees SJWs and RINOs and libtards everywhere, the left white supremacists and transphobes and libertarian trojan horses. Everyone doing their part for the return of religious fundamentalism worldwide, even if your gang isn't officially a religion. QAnon looks a lot like the satanic panic, looked at one way. Hounding Kathleen Stock into retiring looks a lot like McCarthyism in almost every way -- or the Cultural Revolution, jesus.

These last many years I have found plenty of reason to say, "That whole Enlightenment thing -- big waste of time."

My first thought is that people who are afraid, guilty, disgusted, and anxious probably are low on trust.

If bad things are also happening to you, as will be the case under capitalism, you'll search for explanations for why there are bad things when you're overwhelmed from fear, guilt, disgust, or anxiety.

And those are the emotions which work to control people, which means that most successful propaganda will invoke those emotions.

If we live within propaganda echo-chambers, as my thought goes, then paranoia is a natural reaction to living in that kind of an emotional environment.

Then when you get your paranoia confirmed from a friend who you trust.... another feed-back loop.

Here's a curiosity: the crazy right, and let's pick on QAnon, has both superheroes (we've all I assume seen the images of Trump's face on Rambo's body) and supervillains (Barack and Joe and Hilary, George Soros, Bill Gates?!); the crazy left? Kathleen Stock's very presence made certain people feel unsafe, so supervillain evidently. Jo Rowling. Trump obviously. But where's the left's superhero? For some in the US back in 2016 it was kinda Bernie Sanders. Otherwise? There are heroes certainly for the left, activists, but there's not much sign of a Trump-like superhero to rally around.

Is that the difference between authoritarian and anti-authoritarian politics? No superheroes but plenty of supervillains? I suppose we could say that's a good thing, it's just that the other thing going on is that the crazy left seems to have agreed that everyone not a hero-activist is not a bystander, not an opponent, not a villain, but in fact a supervillain. The right still seems to distinguish between the evil masterminds of the new world order and the gullible cucks and libtards that they've taken in.

My concern is that this phenomenon isn't new, it's just out in public. The "Effeminist Manifesto" was written partly in response to perceptions of prejudice between anti-patriarchy groups, and you can see the weaponisation of the rhetoric of liberation for infighting in "Trashing, the Dark Side of Sisterhood". My impression is that the same dynamic is just louder now and is a public spectacle. Which is why I've been making the point that it's the same identity fragmentation dynamic as before. Just looks different due to the social form of organisation. We can see the factionalism out in public, so the representativeness heuristic is going to tell us the groups within movement are getting more factionalised than they were before and that this is stymying progress. Whereas, with BC, what we're actually observing is the same "post left" period that there has been since Occupy, with the same characteristics of failure, just that the grievances get aired in public. — fdrake

Also the following very much addresses your posts too, so I'm going to save repeating, if that's OK.

That's certainly true, but I think you're underestimating the ratcheting effect of this on the beliefs and behaviours of the groups receiving that representation. It may well be that in step one completely normal and pervasive splits between groups are aired and are just as you say, louder and more public now. But then there's an effect of that on the actual function of those dynamics. It would be odd in the extreme if the almost complete suffusion of the public discourse with these 'normal' splits were to have no effect on the people embedded in those discussion spaces would it not?

We see, in other areas, the ratcheting effect of constant positive feedback in social belief construction. So how could these factions remain immune to it?

So yes, I don't think something is generating unusual amounts of factionalism in left-wing politics - just the ususal. But then the very act of airing that factionalism in the one form of media over which almost all social communication takes place these days, the hyper-selection of conflict in that media's filtering process, has an effect on the beliefs of those engaged with it. They become more factionalised, and each faction becomes more opposed to the other because that's the narrative they're being presented with 24 hours a day.

And academics, though we'd love to think otherwise, are not so strong-willed as to be immune from this - which will affect their work, if only incrementally. And academic work, whilst it may not be popular, is not quarantined from public discourse, nor, more importantly, are the Tweets, Facebook posts and Media appearances of those academics who, in those formats, are going to be speaking a lot less guardedly than in their papers.

I've been at the periphery of the 'war' between factions of feminism and trans-activists, but even at this periphery, we can see the unguarded interventions of academics through social media ramping up some of the rhetoric (although it reached its peak with Covid which was an absolute bloodbath - not intersectional, but still very much a left-wing torch). Again, It'd be a miracle of human stoicism if these researchers went back to their labs/offices after an evening's diatribe on Twitter and then conducted the same dispassionate and impartial research they would have done had the previous evening contained nothing but a documentary on elephants. So with regards to...

So when I'm saying same shit different day, I'm saying ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) are the major drivers. ( 3 ) is essentially the dirty laundry which never aired in public. ( 4 ) is something we can quibble about, but there's no way it's working as the kind of driver ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) are. — fdrake

I don't see how any normal human can engage in the kind of 24/7 airing of dirty laundry, amped up to the max by the media platform for several moths/years and not have that show any significant amplification effect on (3). Essentially, I think (3) is underplayed in it's effects on (1) and in the likelihood of people who otherwise wouldn't have considered (4), turning to it.

And I don't see why the corporation who have complete control over this amplification tool would do us the favour of not investing heavily in anything which has the effect of dismembering meaningful opposition. We've seen far more insidious strategies which we know for a fact were discussed and planned at that level to undermine solidarity (see the breaking of the unions in the 80's). I just don't see why corporate powers wouldn't take maximum advantage of this effect.

QAnon looks a lot like the satanic panic, looked at one way. Hounding Kathleen Stock into retiring looks a lot like McCarthyism in almost every way -- or the Cultural Revolution, jesus. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. It chimes with...

That's part of why revolutions are fascinating to historians -- they are the moments when the everyday is suspended — Moliere

From the Reign of Terror, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Purge. there's been a dark side to revolution which fixates of stifling not opposition, but collaborators, parties seen as weakening the message, usually either with nuance or with incompatible strategy.

I guess most of that is born of fear. Once a little power is felt, there's a fear that if one doesn't use it with iron fist right now, the opportunity will be lost. I think that's a strong motivating force behind a lot of the inter-faction warring, like as if trans-activists just let Kathleen Stock have her say, they'd lose the opportunity to push for the changes they want in the noise that such nuance would generate.

But again, I come back to how incredibly useful all this is to corporate power and refusing to see that as mere fortunate happenstance. We have 'warring' tribes, sure, but look at which 'tribes' are winning in terms of changes to the socio-economic system. It's not a random selection. It's not neither side (a pox on both your houses), it's universally the side that promotes a good steady increase in consumer culture, doesn't make a fuss about corporate lobbying, lets the militaristic control of foreign policy and trade carry on untouched... It's not an accident that Occupy has fallen silent with absolutely zero impact whilst there are actual workplace regulations about pronouns. It's because the former threatened Money, and the latter didn't. So if Money had control over the media (and they clearly do) are they going to sit on their hands and just hope for the best when it comes to which gets more air time?

It's not an accident that Occupy has fallen silent with absolutely zero impact whilst there are actual workplace regulations about pronouns. It's because the former threatened Money, and the latter didn't. — Isaac

But also because pronouns are just easier right? I mean, yeah, there's the cultural fight over it, but, as you note, the policy opportunities are straightforward. Even banning teachers from using a student's preferred pronouns is straightforward, if that's what you prefer.

But Occupy, that was a heavy lift. Wholesale restructuring of the world economy is not a before-the-legislature-breaks-for-Thanksgiving kind of thing.