Not All Woke on the Left

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Alphus and Omegus
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:43 pm
The far right has been whining about godless, communist, politically correct, marxist, woke professors for more than 100 years. According to Republicans, American universities have been controlled by nefarious communists for decades, always supposedly just a few years from turning everyone into a violent communist revolutionary.

This nonsensical claim was the subject of William F. Buckley's 1951 book, "God and Man at Yale," which claimed that godless socialists were poisoning children's minds and that they needed to be forcibly canceled and brought to heel by authoritarian Christians.

Very obviously, if Buckley's claims had been true, the United States would have long ago become an atheistic Stalinist dictatorship. That did not happen because Buckley was fearmongering about non-Christians being allowed to have free speech and to challenge dogmatic fundamentalist notions about the Bible and evolution.

Since then, Christian fundamentalist reactionaries have repeated Buckley's grift many times, trying to scare moderates and conservatives into seeing communists under every dorm room bed.

That isn't to say there's nothing to these complaints, but rather that they are dramatically overblown. And as I said earlier, whatever merits they may have, it is obviously the case that Donald Trump and other Republicans are far more totalitarian in their ambitions and actual enacted policies.
To my shame I was not aware of God and Man at Yale, or I long ago forgot it. Yes, I agree that this is an old GOP/conservative playbook. I agree with you that the concerns are overblown. They are still overblown. That said, I have observed too many circular firing squads among liberal activists to dismiss the concern as made up and wholly irrational. I remember when a pedagogy course I was teaching came close to complete collapse because certain SJW grad students were pushing not to have certain topics taught in our classes for ideological reasons. Thankfully I had the presence of mind and fortitude in the moment to prevent their bullying tactics from dividing the class into camps.
I'm sure it can be exhausting having to deal with such people. But I hope you can take at least take some solace in that outside of academia, they do not have political power.

The emergence of the small "woke" subculture is basically the only type of leftism that multi-millionaire university chancellors have allowed to emerge because it does not present a threat to their rule. Universities almost without exception exploit their students and employees with low wages and oppressive employment rules. Within the University of California system, for instance, many employees have been making less than minimum wage based on hours worked and they received zero help with living or transportation costs until they went on strike last year.

The small woke subculture also exists because young adulthood is when people are really beginning to find their personal identity and so they are more prone to excessive rhetorical policing.
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Kishkumen »

Alphus and Omegus wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:51 pm
This alleged "split" is the creation of Republican campaign consultants who want people to imagine that there is a conflict between trying to improve justice for all groups. There is not. Having health care for everyone is a goal that every other major industrial country has solved. They've similarly solved for gun violence as well. And as we saw during the pandemic, poverty is also something that can be drastically lowered by proper policy. Similarly, creating policies that create equal opportunities for people of all races while helping people who are economically disadvantaged should be the goal. Barack Obama has said that was his aspiration, saying repeatedly that he did not want wealthy people like his daughters to be beneficiaries of affirmative action programs.

It's easy for people to see only one facet of injustice if it impacts them personally, but the truth is that almost everyone experiences it, save for wealthy white Christians living in the South who lead very charmed lives.
I’m unconvinced. It is regularly observed that most Americans want the same good, progressive policies. I think that is true. So what’s the problem, then? Something is motivating people to vote Republican just enough to keep these dreams from being realized, no? Are we going to blame gerrymandering? Republican propaganda? What is it that makes us blame Putin for Trump instead of Hillary for failing to wipe the floor with him? Our stupidity or that of others?
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:32 pm
The Republican Party is built entirely around identity politics. It's been this way since the Tea Party forcibly canceled and threw out the few remaining Republicans who were not interested in Christian supremacism.

White Christian Republicans invented identity politics when they burst onto the scene in the 1950s through the John Birch Society and Joe McCarthy. Other groups started to advocate for themselves in response as a defensive measure.
I would be very surprised if any of us who are left of center did not know this. So, what is your point? Yes, I am being a little blunt. So you are saying identity politics are bad when Republicans use them but good when Democrats use them? Or is it possible that instead they are a wonderful way to distract people from core economic concerns?
My point is that to a large degree, all politics could be said to be identity-based. I don't think it's wrong for people to try to make sure that people like them are not subjected to injustices. What is wrong is when they fabricate or exaggerate their claims.
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Kishkumen »

I'm sure it can be exhausting having to deal with such people. But I hope you can take at least take some solace in that outside of academia, they do not have political power.

The emergence of the small "woke" subculture is basically the only type of leftism that multi-millionaire university chancellors have allowed to emerge because it does not present a threat to their rule. Universities almost without exception exploit their students and employees with low wages and oppressive employment rules. Within the University of California system, for instance, many employees have been making less than minimum wage based on hours worked and they received zero help with living or transportation costs until they went on strike last year.

The small woke subculture also exists because young adulthood is when people are really beginning to find their personal identity and so they are more prone to excessive rhetorical policing.
This I believe. Florida education is a nightmare these days.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Morley »

Some Schmo wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 7:46 pm
I've never been able to relate to identity politics, but that might have something to do with the fact that I'm a heterosexual male.

For a long time, I've been of the opinion that politics should never cover any topics except law and finance. I have no "F"s for what a politician's opinion is on most cultural topics. I want to know their policies on law and how they intend to manage our money, and that's it. That's supposed to be their goddamn job. Most of the insane crap people talk about under the rubric of "politics" has no business being in political conversations.

They should have no public opinion on, say, abortion, and the law should reflect that. The law should be based on the general opinion of medical experts. Politicians should be taking the advice of people smarter than they are, and then writing laws based on that information, not based on their own emotionally driven nonsense.

And of course, I blame the electorate for that. We seem to be clamoring to argue over idiotic crap like gender pronouns and Wuhan labs rather than the real problems, so the politicians are simply representing us (i. e. what we seem to want to argue over), which makes all the oligarchs in this country very happy (or, at least, feel safe for now).
Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:36 pm
This is basically how I feel.

Except that everything in society has something to do with law and finance, from zoning requirements to who gets taxed. Public funding of universities and public health research ensured that abortion, Wuhan labs, and gender pronouns would be political.

You're kidding yourself to think that you can (or even should) cordon off politics. As you know, the fact that we even have disciplines such Spanish, Near East Studies, or Classics taught in universities is, and always has been, a political statement.


edit clarity
Last edited by Morley on Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Res Ipsa »

Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:53 pm
I don't consider it to be a talking point. I think it's a valid response to a claim that we must choose between this and that. I also disagree that the purpose of identity politics is to "emphasize division" and that it is antithetical to promoting shared economic progress. When the U.S. government built the middle class post WW-II, certain structures of society prevented large numbers of black folks from being a part of that middle class. in my opinion, that was a mistake because a much smaller percentage of black folks were invested in the importance of having a strong middle class. It seems sheer folly to me to take on the project of rebuilding the middle class while replicating the same type of racial exclusion that existed when the middle class was first built. But the same principle applies to other "identity groups" such as segments of rural America, which have also been economically left behind. If we fail to reduce or eliminate economic and social structures that prevent boats belonging to certain segments of Americans, then a rising tide cannot lift all boats.
I know how you see things. You have been very clear about this before. I never said anything about seeking to replicate oppressive and exclusionary practices. The question is really one of what the core focus is. If it is on issues of identity politics, I predict failure.
And I never said that you said anything about seeking to replicate oppressive and exclusionary practices. ;) I think I was pretty clearly talking about the consequences of portraying the two concepts of being at odds or being an either or choice. I see no reason why rebuilding the middle class couldn't or shouldn't be approached as building a solid middle class that treats equality of opportunity seriously, making sure that no groups or classes of Americans are excluded. I don't see why the two concepts should be treated as being in opposition.

I have no quibble with making economic issues the primary focus, as long as the proposed solution includes the fairness issues that underly identity politics. I do quibble with the notion that they are fundamentally at odds.
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Alphus and Omegus »

Kishkumen wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 9:01 pm
Alphus and Omegus wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2023 8:51 pm
This alleged "split" is the creation of Republican campaign consultants who want people to imagine that there is a conflict between trying to improve justice for all groups. There is not. Having health care for everyone is a goal that every other major industrial country has solved. They've similarly solved for gun violence as well. And as we saw during the pandemic, poverty is also something that can be drastically lowered by proper policy. Similarly, creating policies that create equal opportunities for people of all races while helping people who are economically disadvantaged should be the goal. Barack Obama has said that was his aspiration, saying repeatedly that he did not want wealthy people like his daughters to be beneficiaries of affirmative action programs.

It's easy for people to see only one facet of injustice if it impacts them personally, but the truth is that almost everyone experiences it, save for wealthy white Christians living in the South who lead very charmed lives.
I’m unconvinced. It is regularly observed that most Americans want the same good, progressive policies. I think that is true. So what’s the problem, then? Something is motivating people to vote Republican just enough to keep these dreams from being realized, no? Are we going to blame gerrymandering? Republican propaganda? What is it that makes us blame Putin for Trump instead of Hillary for failing to wipe the floor with him? Our stupidity or that of others?
This is a very complicated question to answer in a message board comment. Americans do not agree with most of the reactionary agenda that Republicans pursue. But there are a number of reasons why more has not been done to effect the progressive policies that most people want:
1) The Senate filibuster. It is not in the Constitution and exists solely to block popular measures. Republicans represent a minority of the public but they enjoy vastly disproportionate ability to block policies they dislike because of it.
2) The Electoral College. For the same reasons. But Democrats refuse to learn to play by the rules. Instead, they just complain about them.
3) The messed up US campaign finance system allows wealthy people far more influence on American policies than they enjoy in most other countries which have public funding or significant limits.
4) The US left has become academicized. This has led to center-left leaders losing touch with their own electorate and focusing too much on business leaders rather than the people
5) The Democratic party's move to the right under Clinton and Carter. After Goldwater and Reagan crazies flooded into the Republican party, many people left in terror and went to the Democratic side. They did not change their viewpoints, however, and it made the Democrats more conservative based on who showed up as candidates.
6) The drastically superior understanding of politics and electioneering by Republican political consultants. Democrats have the majority on their side so this has made them lazy and only to think about "get out the vote," rather than asking why people do not want to vote for them.

There are a number of other reasons but I don't have time to list more, alas.
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by huckelberry »

Reading along I note various observations about how issues can be used to avoid more important issues.

Perhaps I slept through some important events but I have not heard very many strong suggestions for policies to fix important issues like the ballooning cost of housing and education. Without a strong strategy to seriously help these then diversionary political issues will continue to get the focus.
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Kishkumen »

This is a very complicated question to answer in a message board comment. Americans do not agree with most of the reactionary agenda that Republicans pursue. But there are a number of reasons why more has not been done to effect the progressive policies that most people want:
1) The Senate filibuster. It is not in the Constitution and exists solely to block popular measures. Republicans represent a minority of the public but they enjoy vastly disproportionate ability to block policies they dislike because of it.
2) The Electoral College. For the same reasons. But Democrats refuse to learn to play by the rules. Instead, they just complain about them.
3) The messed up US campaign finance system allows wealthy people far more influence on American policies than they enjoy in most other countries which have public funding or significant limits.
4) The US left has become academicized. This has led to center-left leaders losing touch with their own electorate and focusing too much on business leaders rather than the people
5) The Democratic party's move to the right under Clinton and Carter. After Goldwater and Reagan crazies flooded into the Republican party, many people left in terror and went to the Democratic side. They did not change their viewpoints, however, and it made the Democrats more conservative based on who showed up as candidates.
6) The drastically superior understanding of politics and electioneering by Republican political consultants. Democrats have the majority on their side so this has made them lazy and only to think about "get out the vote," rather than asking why people do not want to vote for them.

There are a number of other reasons but I don't have time to list more, alas.
Good list. Don’t the Dems also benefit from the filibuster when they are in the minority? 4, 5 & 6 look really important to me.
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Re: Not All Woke on the Left

Post by Kishkumen »

And I never said that you said anything about seeking to replicate oppressive and exclusionary practices. ;) I think I was pretty clearly talking about the consequences of portraying the two concepts of being at odds or being an either or choice. I see no reason why rebuilding the middle class couldn't or shouldn't be approached as building a solid middle class that treats equality of opportunity seriously, making sure that no groups or classes of Americans are excluded. I don't see why the two concepts should be treated as being in opposition.

I have no quibble with making economic issues the primary focus, as long as the proposed solution includes the fairness issues that underly identity politics. I do quibble with the notion that they are fundamentally at odds.
I don’t think I said they were fundamentally at odds.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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