Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Language (Page 1 of 9)

These are posts on language from the blog Base and Superstructure. Topics include political terminology, language use among politicians and political analysts, and the terminology of social movements.

An artistic depiction of three homes - one displaying a NIMBY sign, one displaying a YIMBY sign, and one apartment building.

The NIMBY vs. YIMBY False Dichotomy

February 24, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Housing is a top issue in Iowa City politics.

It’s not difficult to see why. We’re a growing college town of about 75,000 people. And while social and economic change have hit many parts of rural Iowa hard, we’ve weathered the storms relatively well. Iowa City faces more problems of gentrification than universal despair.

However, the prosperity of Iowa City pushes out many long-term and/or working-class residents. For one, the rent is too damn high. In addition, rising property values push less wealthy homeowners to foreclosure and prevent tenants from buying their first homes. Many move to Coralville or North Liberty. And as even those places see the same problems, some move further out to Hills, Tiffin, or Oxford.

Back in Iowa City, our housing debates degenerate into a false dichotomy between NIMBY and YIMBY views. Neither view serves the interests of working people and tenants.

And so, getting past the NIMBY vs. YIMBY false dichotomy is essential to understanding housing from a leftist perspective that’s centered on workers and tenants.

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Attachment Theory: Let’s Not Get Too Attached

March 4, 2024 /

A visual depiction of attachment theory and four attachment styles, namely secure, anxious, avoidance, and fearful.

Attachment theory has gotten big in recent years, in large part due to young people pushing it on social media. It’s especially popular with young people who struggle to understand the motives of others. Especially others they’re dating (or trying to date).

Uh-oh. Dating and pop psychology rarely mix well. They don’t mix well in this case, either.

Laura Pitcher recently wrote in Nylon about the ‘Tiktokification‘ of attachment theory. It’s worth a read for a number of reasons. But one reason stands out to me. And it’s a point I’ve been hitting ever since my grad school days, culminating in my first book – Classify and Label.

We’ll take a look at that point.

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proletariat image of workers

A Note on ‘Proletarian’ and ‘Worker’

April 17, 2023 /

Leftists talk a great deal about the term ‘working class.’ I even included it in my blog lexicon! In this post, I want to say a word about two terms related to all that – ‘proletarian’ and ‘worker.’ I think those terms reveal a great deal about the working class politics of the left.

I won’t exactly define those two terms in this post. But I will take some steps toward defining them. In particular, I’ll argue against using the terms interchangeably. Instead, I’ll suggest thinking about ‘proletarian’ as a subset of ‘worker.’ In doing so, I think we find new insights.

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learning latin

Learning Latin (Again)

March 13, 2023 /

Way back in college I took 7 semesters of Latin courses. I stuck with it from the basics of the language all the way up to Catullus and Tacitus. I was always one of the best students in my classes, and I learned a lot about how the language works. But I never quite felt like I had a full grasp of it. I had a limited vocabulary, and I struggled to translate difficult texts.

More than 20 years later, I decided to learn the language again! I started by busting out my old copy of Wheelock’s – both text and workbook! – and worked through the whole book again.

After that, I decided on a different approach. I picked up a book and workbook series by Hans Ørberg on learning Latin by the natural method. In other words, I decided to learn the language by reading and speaking in Latin without trying to translate it into English.

I found it all…both more and less difficult, in a way. Getting into the first few chapters turned out easy enough, given my significant background in Latin grammar. It got more difficult from there, especially trying to retain long sentences in the original language. But I did find it an intuitive way to learn. I find that I can sight read and pronounce Latin words far better than I could the first time around.

Who knows? Maybe it will help me learn Spanish someday.

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broke white person

Revisiting the Broke White Person

February 2, 2023 /

Nearly a decade ago, the article ‘Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person’ appeared on Huffington Post. It dropped to much acclaim, especially among people dissatisfied by the classic Peggy McIntosh article ‘White Privilege and Male Privilege’.

The basic thought is simple enough: McIntosh comes up with lots of great examples of white privilege. But many of her examples speak more to class than race. Especially given her status as a professional at an elite private university (Wellesley) and the kinds of people she interacts with at that institution.

To the broke white person, such an article amounts to a farce. Who cares about finding a publisher (literally one of McIntosh’s examples) when you can’t even pay rent?

But let’s take a closer look.

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