this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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"Culture war" = "issues that don't affect me personally".
Yeah, class reductionism will only ever lead to more oppression of those already marginalised.
If your leftism doesn't include intersectionality, you're doing it wrong.
(to be clear - "culture wars" are a right winged distraction, but they are based on very real and massively impactful systems of oppression that they are trying to maintain, ignoring this only enables them, and guarantees those systems will remain even if we get economical change)
Similarly, if your intersectionality doesn't include leftism, it's literally worse than useless because it functionally works to maintain the underlying material conditions that served to create whatever social injustice you are fighting.
This also is true, yes.
This is the right take, IMO. Labelling race, gender etc issues as "diversions" has the same flavour as "I know the slaves are oppressed, but freeing them doesn't end capitalism, does it?"
The diversion is the idea of rainbow capitalism. For example: fighting for the right for people of any identity to own slaves is not a valid goal and also won't "free the slaves." Ending slavery is the goal. Rainbow capitalism acts as a shell game to divert energy toward token concessions and labels them victories. Anti-racism and feminism should be (and I would say, are) at the core of any coherent flavor of leftism, but diverse oppression is still oppression and a rainbow flag on a Raytheon missile is not a win.
Edit: should have read the comment further down. Said what I meant but with gooder words.
I definitely don't equate intersectionality with culture war, but I think it's important to understand why capitalism has adopted intersectionality in the specific way it has. A lot of the debates about it on the left seem to be rooted in conflating intersectionality with how it's commodified. Like you can think Robin D'Angelo is ridiculous without throwing intersectionality out the window.
All the big names I've seen labeled class reductionists are basically involved with diversity and intersectionality at some level, and openly express their support of those sort of initiatives, or have actually benefitted from them and admit it. Adolph Reed had a great example of when they were negotiating their collective agreement the EDI commitments were one of the first thing signed off and agreed to, but it took them a year of arbitration to get more sick days or something like that. It's the same with my union as well. It just shows how capital is not against EDI or intersectionality, they're against exploiting people less.
Yeah as a culture war target I don't have anymore choice in being a part of the war than Ukraine does. I don't get to opt out, and people can say, "Just don't fight the culture war, fight the class war," and it's like, dude, you're telling the majority of your potential allies to fuck off and die so you can charge a pillbox solo. It ain't gonna go well.
Issues that don't alter economic arrangements yet are the focus of mainstream politics, or issues amplified and masqueraded as politics for this specific purpose. The idea that people you resent being treated worse than you is a political achievement, is the foundational mechanism of culture war. As the basic economic arrangement is no longer on the table or negotiable politically, politics increasingly becomes focused on individual resentments. The right is fueled by culture war right now more than any other political faction.
It does seem like a good diversion tactic to blame a completely unrelated minority for a completely unrelated problem when you really want to protect billionaires from raised taxes.
I mean just move the discussion as far away as possible from them.
They want people to punch down, blame the person scraping by on welfare or the person who's identity is maligned for what is actually caused by massive wealth disparity. MLK Jr didn't advocate fighting a vague notion of racism, he convinced black and white unions they were stronger together and that economic equality as a class program was the mechanism to combat the issue, with specific laws and legislation and job action as the tools available. In a certain context, the biggest advocacy group for the rights of gender non-conforming individuals in the world right now is the AFL-CIO.
The right is way more hooked into the culture war, but plenty of leftist communities cannibalize each other via "no true Scots"-ing each other with intersectionality. I see very little patience or compassionate education on intersectionality, and instead see a competition about how quickly one can scold. Regardless of whether that's valid, it sure as hell makes it difficult to build bonds with other groups or onboard new folks to leftist ideas.
Definitely agree and I think sometimes people conflate intersectionality with the way it's been commodified and adopted by capital and it causes debates because it's not precise about what the problem is. A lot of left scholars have been a lot more pointed about the "problem with diversity" not being about "diversity" or inclusion etc. It's just important to recognize why it doesn't threaten capitalist institutions, which doesn't mean it's bad, it means it's ineffective for that purpose, it's like being nice to people at work. Education on intersectionality that a lot of people are exposed to is often mediated/coerced by employers through business relationships with HR/diversity industry consultants. They're presenting very specific notions of the topic that they're able to sell to employers, and employers are being sold on it as basically a branding/marketing thing to "make the company look good," but leadership might even be personally invested in it and genuinely want people to feel included at their company, it's not a radical notion at all. The problem is the inherent conflict between employers and employees and how it dictates what notions of intersectionality or EDI are presented in that context.
Its our job to turn the Culture War into Class War by showing how the Cultural injustices are caused by Class Oppression.
"Culture wars" = divide and conquer
The funny thing is you're both right.