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To sincerely answer a rhetorical question:
It’s because they want to mystify actual class relations.
The “working class means truck and gun” thing isn’t a benign idea, and it isn’t sui generis. It is literally propaganda by the actual capitalist elite—the actual bourgeoisie. https://twitter.com/leftistthot420/status/1329200041437880322
It’s because they want to mystify actual class relations.
The “working class means truck and gun” thing isn’t a benign idea, and it isn’t sui generis. It is literally propaganda by the actual capitalist elite—the actual bourgeoisie. https://twitter.com/leftistthot420/status/1329200041437880322
This how we got “blue collar billionaire” Trump. Imagine how useful it is for the bourgeoisie to be able to brand someone like Trump “blue collar”.
For god’s sake, he isn’t just a rich guy, he’s a guy whose entire celebrity was built on *literally owning property*
For god’s sake, he isn’t just a rich guy, he’s a guy whose entire celebrity was built on *literally owning property*
Owning capital is the guy’s entire fucking brand! And our media credulously treats him like a working class icon because he’s a boorish, racist sex offender
There’s a twofold program here:
1) Confuse people about their class interests by excluding them from the working class for cultural-aesthetic reasons
2) Make people who might nonetheless still see their class interests hate the (other) working class, by demonizing them
1) Confuse people about their class interests by excluding them from the working class for cultural-aesthetic reasons
2) Make people who might nonetheless still see their class interests hate the (other) working class, by demonizing them
The “working class means slurs and guns” ideology is utterly anathema and toxic to any actual material class politics.
It both injects class enemies into the ranks of who is considered “a worker” and deprives the working class of self-knowledge by excluding *actual* workers
It both injects class enemies into the ranks of who is considered “a worker” and deprives the working class of self-knowledge by excluding *actual* workers
And even people who aren’t outright excluded (say, some white workers in traditionally “worker” jobs who nevertheless are repulsed by bigotry and avarice) may come to see themselves as opposed to the “working class” that the media tells them they’re a part of
This is why “leftists” who push this kind of cultural-aesthetic idea of the working class are so poisonous and need to be ostracized. Intentionally or not, they’re tools for capital to keep the working class divided and mystified. They’re class enemies.
This is why I’ve been railing against people who push this type of shit, identifying reactionary cultural politics with material class position, for years now.
It is irreconcilable with socialist politics. It is actively *opposed* to socialist politics.
It shouldn’t be accepted
It is irreconcilable with socialist politics. It is actively *opposed* to socialist politics.
It shouldn’t be accepted
This should be treated as a basic article of what it means to be a leftist/socialist, and anyone who enables this anti-materialist understanding of class-as-cultural-performance as opposed to class-as-relation-of-production shouldn’t be taken seriously. Shouldn’t be tolerated.
Most of the Twitter left still doesn’t get this. Even if they themselves don’t agree with it, they see people who spout this crap as still basically legitimate voices within the internal debates on the left, and we can’t see it that way. They are *opposed to class consciousness*
They are *actively undermining class consciousness* by confusing class with cultural reaction. This isn’t just a *not* socialist position, it’s an *anti* socialist position.
These people can’t be part of the tent, not when they are making careers out of burning the fucking tent down
And yes I am talking about most of your favorite podcasters and Jacobin editors and DSA nano-celebrities etc etc
