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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3447 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 29, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Can anyone recommend a left-wing analysis of how economic Marxism* seemingly got supplanted by "woke" or "bioleninist" Marxism in the U.S.? I'm interested in learning (1) what caused the shift, (2) a history of the shift itself, and (3) how economic Marxists view this change (i.e. how would they describe the phenomenon in Marxist language).

  • There's probably a better term for this, but I don't know it. I'm referring to labor union/working class Marxism that seemed to dominate for most of the 20th century.

I think "seemingly" may be doing a lot of work there. While certainly not universal, a lot of the people (most?) I've encountered on- or off-line who are outspoken about their left-leaning beliefs are pretty strongly anti-capitalism and talk about economic issues a lot. That is, looking for why there are fewer economic Marxists might be the wrong question; you should be asking why you don't hear about them and their beliefs. The generally proposed answer is that the Culture War is an intentionally imposed distraction from real economic issues, but that doesn't really answer the question (imposed by whom and by what mechanism, for instance).

Thanks, this is something I hadn't considered.

The generally proposed answer is that the Culture War is an intentionally imposed distraction from real economic issues, but that doesn't really answer the question (imposed by whom and by what mechanism, for instance).

What's your opinion on this? It gives me flashbacks to discussing politics in college where it was always "They" and "The Capitalist" and "The System" and "They" who were implied to be conspiring to prevent regular Joes from developing class consciousness, but I never got any clear explanation when I pressed for more detail. I freely admit that this is probably an uncharitable take though. Is there a steelman for such a conspiracy/prospiracy?

I think the usual claim is that all media companies are owned by rich people with a vested interest in exercising their editorial control to limit talk of class consciousnesses.

The coverage of Occupy Wall Street was probably the place I can recall where this was most blatant, where working class solidarity got to be big enough a news item that the news media couldn't completely ignore it, but instead did everything they could to downplay it and not talk about the goals of the protests. Even so, the protest managed to have one meme that was too good/pithy for the media to completely suppress, the idea of the "1%" vs. the "99%", which is a pretty concise message of working class solidarity, although Sanders's focus "billionaires" may be a clearer version of that message.

The Toxoplasma of Rage should probably also be considered: that is, you don't need a secret cabal pushing Culture War items, modern (social) media structurally encourages Culture War content because it maximizes engagement=ad money.

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