Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
I’m not big on prayer. I’ve been an atheist since about age 15. That’s more than 20 years ago, so it’s something that probably won’t change. But here’s one situation that comes close to driving me to prayer. It pops up from time to time from social justice activists who take perspectives like this one from DiDi Delgado writing in Medium.
Let’s take a look at what’s wrong with this perspective.
Many leftists propose some form of vanguard theory of socialist change. From the Leninist idea that a vanguard party will form working-class consciousness to the identitarian view that certain identity groups will lead the way, leftists have long looked for shortcuts to change. Some – most recently, various DSA caucuses – propose unions as a vanguard. This calls to mind older ideas like workerism or certain forms of class reductionism.
But, whether new or not, is it right? Can unions be a vanguard for socialist change?
No. At least, not in anything like their present form. Nor in any form they’re likely to take in the near future. Let’s talk about why.
Let’s follow up on one of those lessons from the Trump Administration. The Lincoln Project – a group of Republican ‘Never Trumpers‘ – ran a ton of anti-Trump ads during the 2020 campaign. Specifically, let’s look at how the Lincoln Project might influence the future of the Democratic Party.
Many mainstream Democrats believe they won in 2018 and/or 2020 because they won those mythical suburban, college-educated white voters who just love squishy, bipartisan moderates. We see this in, among other sources, the public words of Nancy Pelosi. We also see it in local candidates like Abby Finkenauer and national ones like Joe Biden.
The ideology of identitarianism – the reduction of political issues to issues of identity – formed one of the earliest focuses of this blog. Mostly we find this view on the far right, specifically with Trumpism in a U.S. context. But we find a milder, less offensive version on the ‘left’ – in the work of, say, Ta-Nehisi Coates. As I’ve pointed out, identitarianism tends to lead to nihilism. Nowhere do we see that more clearly than in the view called ‘Afropessimism.’
With the second reading list post of 2021, I’ve moved mostly to fiction (with a bit of feminist geography thrown in!). No TV shows or movies this time. Just books.
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