Date: Sun, 22 Mar 1998 13:42:11 -0500
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: Re: M-TH: The "Identity" Politics That Dares Not Speak Its Name


Jim replying to Leo..
>> because in this glorification of class origins and
>>biography, it reveals that the worst of what may be called "identity" politics
>>-- the use of identity qua social position (class origins, race, gender,
>>sexual orientation) as some sort of moral trump over rational argument, as if
>>one's "identity" leads forthwith to "politically correct" politics, and as if
>>someone with a different social position could not be articulating a position
>>with considerable more insight. (The same argument, although with considerable
>>more sophistication, lies at the root of Yoshie's recent interventions on the
>>question of "As a lesbian of color...")
>>
>>Call it Marxism if you want, but IMHO this is just one more form of the worst
>>of what is now called "identity" politics. 
>
>I don't often agree with Leo, but this is the most astute comment on any
>of these threads for a long time.

Astute comment but what has it to do with living reality.. Yup we all have 
our deviations based on class and experience in life.. Leo just today gave 
us a big dose of "identity" with all those college kids.. Nothing to do with 
politics just sort of the American dream of university life as Leo sees it 
and experiences it. And what would we call his objectivity here now.. Why 
not just say that we are all molded in one way or another in this system..
 
>
>Workerism as identity politics: very good. Identity politics as a trump
>card that negates all argument: even better.
>
>The point in all this is that Marx' point about the working class was
>that in transforming society it also transformed itself. Far from being
>praise for the existing level of consciousness amongst the working
>class, the Marxist project is about transforming that consciousness.

A bit one sided coming from the intellectual crowd. And this has always been 
the lame excuse to get poor and working class people to shut up Jim..Should 
I kiss the alter now or later Jim? Thanking you all for dragging me out of 
the prolo mud to a higher stage of understanding. By the way Jim would you 
oppose a newspaper in Ebonics? And what about those horrible Panthers trying 
to scratch their way out of the ghettoes. It certainly was not victorian 
rules of enchangement. But of course living class struggle tends to explode 
in your face. Remember what those crude workers did to the Romanovs?

Naturally their is a back side of this stuff encompensated in the Stalinist 
Prolo culture which took extreme bizaar forms. Which reminds me that Mark 
"Malentov" Jones jumped in here today on his white horse to save Yoshie. 
Watch it Yoshie this guy was parading the shining path around a few months 
ago until he and Proyect jumped on the envionmental--indigous peoples 
wagon..And Jerry can tell you stories about is blantant anti homosexual line 
if I remember correctly..


>
>To take the industrial labour movement as identical to Marx's broad
>definition of the proletariate as that section of society that had no
>vested interest in the status quo is already a mistake. To consider that
>Marx meant to enshrine the culturally degraded conditions of the
>proletariate as the exemplar of the new society is doubly so. (read
>Trotsky's pamphlet against swearing and you'll know what I mean)

I doubt if anyone including myself sees ourselfs on any pedistal to be 
looked up to. But the point is we are dealing with poor and working class 
people where they are today and how we are going to get to point b from 
point a.. And Marx did say that the working class liberation must be their 
own work..It would be interesting to see how many workers read LM stuff and 
even more so understand it...This goes for Communist Revolutionaries also. 
So how do we bridge the gap between the backwardness of the working class 
and its vanguard? Perhaps ballet lessons and ettiquet training?
>
>I guess the difference between Marxism and workerism is that Marx saw
>the ultimate goal as the abolition of the working class, not its
>deification. 'To be a productive labourer is not a piece of luck, but a
>misfortune' (Cap 1, p477)

Does this mean that after the revolution I get to sit on my ass? What luck! 
Over and above this Lenin developed Marx on this stuff and saw the 
neccessity of building a combat party of the vanguard of the working class. 

You also take up trotsky on this stuff. he addressed the problem in the 
context of a victorious revolution and the working class in power. This is 
naturally the pre'equsite for combating the leftovers from bougeois society..

>If I understood Leo right, he was saying that his own sexual orientation
>in itself has no pertinence to the discussion, because it did not give
>his comments any more or less weight. In free discussion we weigh up the
>claim of the ideas expressed, not the relative worth of their authors. 
>-- 
>James Heartfield

Have you got religion Jim? Cause you advocate the real possibility of 
seperating the mind from the body when it comes to Leo..

Ah yes Leo the sexless symbol of thaxis. How quaint. Are there any women on 
this list that believe what Jim is implying about Leo's words of his being a 
man is not a point? If this is true... 

Well, I must confess. I have been lying all the time about my background. In 
reality I am the tooth fairy! So the next time you loose a tooth Jim --put 
it under your pillow and I will leave a nickel. I am a cheap unemployed 
tooth fairy these days..

Warm regards
Bob Malecki



     --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---