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Since the fading of the New Left, progressivism in general has increasingly turned away from their traditional causes which were rooted in economic concerns and

Since the fading of the New Left, progressivism in general has increasingly turned away from their traditional causes which were rooted in economic concerns and more towards different kinds of social causes. Identity politics isn't the only thing, but it is a primary focus of the left today. Identitarianism was prominent in the New Left, but the one thing that exemplifies the left's use of it today is a decided move away from the systemic to the personal, concerning personal attitudes and how they effect inequalities in society, vs systems of oppression. It's not that the personal doesn't matter, but it is part of a whole; both society and the personal matter[0]. I want to use the N-word (neoliberalism) but that term is a little overused. I guess the better way to express it is a kind of recuperation of identity based issues to fit into the dominant individualist ideology in society (the N word fits here but avoiding it) like the personalization of sexism, racism, turning them from being systems of oppression to being mere personal attitudes. [0] I like this Goldman quote, see the pulled quote on display on this page from _Anarchism: What It Really Stands For_ https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/index.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/index.htm

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Since the fading of the New Left, progressivism in general has increasingly turned away from their traditional causes which were rooted in economic concerns and more towards different kinds of social causes. I don't think that's really true, I think progressivism just faded itself for a while (it's starting to come back again). > Identity politics isn't the only thing, but it is a primary focus of the left today. Identity politics has always been a primary focus of the Left; class consciousness is identity politics. OTOH, class consciousness has spread beyond the left; Neoliberal identity politics is a (deliberate) bourgeois distraction from proletarian class consciousness, and is a tool primarily of the center-right. Progressive identity politics is intersectional, integrates other identity axes with the economic, remains deeply concerned with systems of oppression (economic, patriarchical, racial, and other). Both exist, as do farther-right identity politics. There's perhaps some confusion in American politics because both the neoliberal center-right and progressives are found as wings of the Democratic Party, the former dominant since the early 1990s but decreasingly so in the last few years. > the personalization of sexism, racism, turning them from being systems of oppression to being mere personal attitudes. Sexism, racism, etc., have always been personal attitudes (but not “mere” personal attitudes) that were of particular concern because of their capacity (and reality) of grounding oppressive insitutions and systems. It's true that as a misguided (easy, but ultimately self-limiting in many respects, including where credibility is involved) attempt to deal with certain deflections, some in the racial civil rights community attempted to depersonalize racism and claim that the term only could be applied with a dominant social system of oppression, but that was a reaction, not the original understanding, progressive or otherwise.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> Since the fading of the New Left, progressivism in general has increasingly turned away from their traditional causes which were rooted in economic concerns and more towards different kinds of social causes. I don't think that's really true, I think progressivism just faded itself for a while (it's starting to come back again). > Identity politics isn't the only thing, but it is a primary focus of the left today. Identity politics has always been a primary focus of the Left; class consciousness is identity politics. OTOH, class consciousness has spread beyond the left; Neoliberal identity politics is a (deliberate) bourgeois distraction from proletarian class consciousness, and is a tool primarily of the center-right. Progressive identity politics is intersectional, integrates other identity axes with the economic, remains deeply concerned with systems of oppression (economic, patriarchical, racial, and other). Both exist, as do farther-right identity politics. There's perhaps some confusion in American politics because both the neoliberal center-right and progressives are found as wings of the Democratic Party, the former dominant since the early 1990s but decreasingly so in the last few years. > the personalization of sexism, racism, turning them from being systems of oppression to being mere personal attitudes. Sexism, racism, etc., have always been personal attitudes (but not “mere” personal attitudes) that were of particular concern because of their capacity (and reality) of grounding oppressive insitutions and systems. It's true that as a misguided (easy, but ultimately self-limiting in many respects, including where credibility is involved) attempt to deal with certain deflections, some in the racial civil rights community attempted to depersonalize racism and claim that the term only could be applied with a dominant social system of oppression, but that was a reaction, not the original understanding, progressive or otherwise.