Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

Month: February 2024

A work of art featuring three men in suits and jackets discussing politics over coffee. Designed to represent leftist cultural spaces.

Leftist Cultural Spaces?

February 26, 2024 /

Nathan J. Robinson spent some time with an old leftist mag called New Masses. And he suggested in a recent issue of Current Affairs that we need more leftist cultural spaces.

From 1926 to 1948, New Masses created an entire system of leftist cultural spaces. It included poetry, fiction, cultural analysis, music, and art. And it did all these things in addition to the political analysis one might expect from a leftist mag. Its Stalinism aside, the mag created a playful, insightful space for leftists to engage with one another.

Robinson flirts with the idea of creating new leftist cultural spaces in the 21st century. Wouldn’t that be a grand idea? At least, Robinson muses that it would be.

Would it?

Maybe. I’m far from opposed to it, at least in principle. But mass cultural narratives in the 21st century create special difficulties for us.

But I want to ask a different question. How would these leftist cultural spaces differ from what we already have?

Let’s face it. The internet encourages leftists to create all sorts of cultural bubbles. Especially Internet based bubbles. Leftists spend a lot of time talking to one another on platforms like Twitter (or Xitter, my favorite term for it). In those spaces, they offer often lousy political analysis, and they compete with one another to see who can use the most elevator words and express the most ultra-progressive sentiment.

So, I’m open to the idea Robinson proposes. But I also want to hear how we can make it better than what we have now. How do we keep leftist cultural spaces from degenerating into Internet based cultural and sub-cultural bubbles?

What do readers think?

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A photo of Theodore Roosevelt. Intended to represent a progressive organizer.

Progressive ‘Organizing’ vs. Leftist Organizing

February 19, 2024 /

Sometime last year, I attended a neighborhood meeting. We were setting up a local org to advocate for neighborhood interests. As well as hold fun parties and events.

Setting up a group like that involves considering lots of issues. But one key issue amounts to deciding who, exactly, makes up the org’s constituency. Whose interests should we include? Did we want an org of residents or residential and commercial property owners?

What is a neighborhood org, anyway? Did we want it to be an org of tenants and homeowners, or an org of homeowners, landlords, and small business owners? As readers might imagine, I advocated strongly for the former.

But during the discussion, a local politician objected to that whole question. He claimed constituency ‘doesn’t matter’ and that ‘debates like this turn people off from joining an org.’ In his opinion, the policies we advocate would matter far more than who makes up the group.

Where might this strange view come from?

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An image of a city with positive and negative economic features. Created for the blog and book Strong Towns.

Is Iowa City a Strong Town?

February 12, 2024 /

I was sitting down a few weeks ago, greatly enjoying the most recent issue of Current Affairs, when I came across an article on the Charles Marohn blog and book Strong Towns.

Here’s the basic idea: Strong Towns pitches itself as a forward thinking, progressive movement. But, in reality, it’s just a warmed over version of a set of libertarian ideas. It advances the view that market incentives and ‘nudges’ should replace the state.

What kinds of market incentives and policies? In short, Strong Towns advocates for things like housing upzoning and bus services targeted at economic development rather than need. We thereby avoid ideas like public housing and working class centered public transit and utilities services.

Thinking about all this reminds me of something…

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A Word On The Israel-Gaza War

February 5, 2024 /

Destroyed buildings in Gaza. Buildings destroyed by Israel.

A few readers have noted that I haven’t posted on the Israel-Gaza War. The war has raged since last October, at times overtaking the news and even U.S. political debate.

That’s true enough. I haven’t written anything new on Israel and Gaza in the last few months. Here’s a brief word about why.

First, the things I said a few years ago about the Israel Palestine Conflict, sadly, still apply pretty well. I wrote a post in 2019 introducing readers to the conflict. I also expanded the post into a full chapter in my second book, Left Foreign Policy. In those outlets, I laid out the conflict as one primarily about resources, which then drives the moves Israel makes as the hegemonic power in the region.

Predictably, much of the mainstream press presents the conflict as one about religion or (Israeli) national security. Almost all sources fail to identify the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the major cause of the current fighting. This all leads the press astray.

Second, I’ve found a few sources worth following closely. Both for the day to day details of the conflict and broader analysis. Early in the Israel Gaza War, the American Prestige podcast established itself as an great source for news, interviews, and commentary. +972 magazine also stands out as a solid source that moves beyond the pro-Israel biases that pervade the U.S. press.

Finally, I’ll admit that I struggle to find useful things to say about the Israel Gaza War. Not that there aren’t things to say, but rather that most of the things worth saying won’t help move us toward a better outcome.

I’ve moved past that phase of life where I think personal displays of awareness on social media do anything positive. Rather, I think people – myself and readers all included – should join orgs like DSA that are trying to build a better U.S. left. DSA, better than any other org, works an internationalist perspective on the Israel Gaza War into a deeper vision of what the left can become. Shouting into the void on Twitter – or even joining single-issue orgs – can’t do anything like that.

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