The identity politics discussion is hard to talk about because it takes a lot of different forms. In a very general "influential" sense, it's prevalence is debatable. There's some truth to the fact that "extreme" identity politics discourse doesn't really exist outside of like, twitter/youtube/reddit/tiktok/etc, but a form of what is commonly considered identity politics definitely exists as a fabricated version promoted by large conglomerates, academia, the media, and (to an extent) the government, which then trickles its way into the overton window of discussion as people begin to discuss it or identify with its themes/topics. It's true that in the wider scheme of things identity politics is a massive infectant in leftist circles, but leftist circles are already a fringe, so you're really talking about a fringe of a fringe - yes, the DSA exists for example but who gives a s*** about them besides other people on the left, even with their issues and the like, they're barely influential except for echoing the calls which exist elsewhere - i.e. supporting LGBT stuff because LGBT stuff already exists in politics. None of the "fringe" DSA ideas exist outside the DSA influentially at all, so the identity politics stuff that exists there is just a reflection of it existing elsewhere the same way. In a more hyper general sense though, "identity politics" meaning less the internet stuff and more "politics as defined by cultural parties" definitely exists more prominently, but it's not what people generally refer to when they use the word.

I don't have the exact quote, but he's been a long proponent of of class-first discussion and has reiterated over time the root of oppression is economics and poverty, not race, which stirred a ton of s*** among college campus leftist activists and got him banned from speaking at a lot of universities. There was a petition to get him deplatformed from academia in general following it calling him a reactionary and white supremacist.

god damn thats stupid as f*** its not like he even denied that people are oppressed by race. Communists really need to stop organising within universities and actually try to get to the point of production if we ever want to be successful;

daily.jstor.org/adolph-reed-jr-the-perils-of-race-reductionism

heres an interview with him i found where he explains his views more sufficiently

While I do think Reed can be a bit too reductive to class sometimes, his views are generally on-point.

I just recognize both concepts are generally intertwined in today’s world, and we must focus on them as combined rather than separate.

Even the concept of “racism” is made to denote people to the lowest of the class hierarchy on the basis of a false sense of inferiority/superiority based on physical traits

true they are intertwined. a big problem also is to flat out cancel someone for being "class reductionist" or just having a different line instead of struggling with em to find the correct line

Did you read the OP? I am not fully disregarding idpol in its entirety but I hate the way it has been co-opted into something that is counter-productive and doesn’t look at the bigger picture and encourages symbolic BS rather than fixing the root

if you think this is the case:

A. you dont understand the end goal of left/etc politics if you thinking being against identity politics is somehow diametrically opposed to this
or
B.you think people are entitled to certain capitalist-derivative goals based on background

I've never really understood calling him (or those adjacent to him) reductive. It's not like he's saying things like "because class is the primary vector we therefore should pretend racism doesn't exist otherwise", it's more like he simply thinks systematic racism is the only vector of racism which is possible to actually address politically, and under his ideal government, eliminating class conflict would prevent racism from being a problem; this is pretty consistent with "orthodox" marxist ideology, no one thinks it's possible to get a guy to stop thinking of slurs in the privacy of his bedroom (because its not possible), but trying to legislate that instead of legislating if said guy (or a placeholder who could be him) could have power over someone who fits the bill of a race he's prejudiced against is a massive waste of time, only the latter is both possible and would have a material effect

Theodore Allen's The Invention of the White Race is a fundamental text on the subject. Here is a summary of it.

As for addressing the subject within the movement, good luck. The movement itself is pretty meager in the US. I don't think that's going to change based on messaging. There is so much infrastructure to support the status quo and the way it obfuscates class is hard to combat. Consumer goods, d****, food, entertainment, pick your poison.

That's without talking about actual intelligence infiltration or think tanks or corporate groups that have immense resources going back decades in disrupting anything approaching a labor movement. This is a sophisticated hegemony against what exactly? The DSA? Even half measures like M4A and $15 an hour have been defeated with very little effort.

Blaming identity politics or whatever is a losing game. This s*** is a book club, and the more reading you do the less you can speak the language of the average worker who you want to animate. The academia (and growing influencer/media racket) is cope and personal enrichment in the absence of mass based political institutions.

You had stuff like the Employee Free Choice Act that would've probably grown union membership, but we're headed to a gig economy that will not only make unionizing virtually impossible, the minimum wage will be a concept that doesn't apply to a large swath of the population. We'll only see the bare minimum political concessions to keep people sated and defuse whatever unrest arises from whatever crisis there is.

I don't think the United States will be seriously pressured into socialism until enough of the countries flooding it with surplus value have undergone change first. That's why imperialism should be the cornerstone issue imo. The idpol crowd can get onboard with that at least.

Amazing post

On a deeper level, everyone (regardless of political orientation) basically is aware that all political movements are just book clubs, no one really thinks their political ideology is gonna come forward tomorrow (at least I sure hope not), if they do they're just LARPers. The detachment of political philosophy from political action is basically a tale as old as time, even some of the most prominent philosophers (even decades if not centuries later) had 0 actual effect on anything material - for the most part "praxis" is essentially a myth for all backgrounds. I don't mean this in a nihilistic manner, but rather that I doubt anyone here really thinks if they fixed the DSA being full of immature liberals on twitter we'd have a revolution tomorrow. All fundamental structural change comes from violent revolution and war, anyone who says anything else is basically just coping, and it's far more likely to see active political violence from right wingers fed up with liberals at the behest of a conspiracy theories than it is to see it from angry DSA members or white educated maoists. Those fed up right wingers are the working class too, they're the ones who the DSA should theoretically be working for, but in reality all ideology is topsy-tervy, and the DSA is advocating champagne socialism while working class people are advocating libertarianism

moreso to my other post too, people not only don't have the luxury of choosing their vanguard, but people also don't have the luxury of picking how their vanguard interprets their ideology. When Mao for example rose to power, people didn't really get the luxury of questioning "well ackshually this isn't exactly like marxism because when you really think about it, its ackshually like...", it simply became the understanding of the ideology within the country until his death. So If you have a societal class of prominent leaders who have hierarchically and deeply hijacked leftism elsewhere to be an establishment-derivative flanderized idea focused on racialism or social justice, then that's leftism now. This has happened throughout history. The originators of Fascism will now forever be understood through the lens of Evola and Hitler rather than Corradini and De Ambris. Libertarianism will be remembered through the lens of liberals like Rawls and Friedman rather than Thoreau and Herbert. Leftism is not immune to this.

On a deeper level, everyone (regardless of political orientation) basically is aware that all political movements are just book clubs, no one really thinks their political ideology is gonna come forward tomorrow (at least I sure hope not), if they do they're just LARPers.

Considering most politically engaged people are just throwing their lot in with the people actually in power in a top down system that caricatures democracy, I don't think that's the case. Fringe political movements of all stripes are the ones in that boat. They are in the minority by definition as well.

The detachment of political philosophy from political action is basically a tale as old as time, even some of the most prominent philosophers (even decades if not centuries later) had 0 actual effect on anything material - for the most part "praxis" is essentially a myth for all backgrounds. I don't mean this in a nihilistic manner, but rather that I doubt anyone here really thinks if they fixed the DSA being full of immature liberals on twitter we'd have a revolution tomorrow.

Anyone who wants to call themselves a Marxist should by definition practice historical materialism and therefore understand that the ideals are only embodied under the proper conditions. So we're really just spinning our wheels at the moment if you want radical change. If you want to work within the present system in a pragmatic manner, you get what you have now. Conflating the two is dishonest. AOC isn't Che Guevera. Shocker.

All fundamental structural change comes from violent revolution and war, anyone who says anything else is basically just coping, and it's far more likely to see active political violence from right wingers fed up with liberals at the behest of a conspiracy theories than it is to see angry DSA members.

I think you're conflating revolutionary violence with stochastic violence. Even January 6th was basically a counter coup intelligence operation when scrutinized it at all.

Those fed up right wingers are the working class too, they're the ones who the DSA should theoretically be working for, but in reality all ideology is topsy-tervy, and the DSA is advocating champagne socialism while working class people are advocating libertarianism

Eh, the right wingers you're talking about are wannabe blackshirts. There are enough relatively apolitical working people to activate in working class struggle. "Champagne socialism" is just defaming the professionals and intellectuals who are valid allies.

"Libertarianism" is written into the DNA of this country. When they destroyed the labor movement they couldn't offer concessions in that realm so the conservative offer was "we'll cut your taxes" and the liberal offer was, uh, a virtuous austerity. So you hate government as a concept instead of its form or function. Culture war is what you have left.

Mao embodied the plight of the destitute peasants.
Vanguard is a political strategy, not a historical a***ysis.

Love reading this

Considering most politically engaged people are just throwing their lot in with the people actually in power in a top down system that caricatures democracy, I don't think that's the case. Fringe political movements of all stripes are the ones in that boat. They are in the minority by definition as well.

I had to re-read this a few times because I wasn't really sure what you were saying. I guess what you're saying is that politically engaged people just take their ideas from representatives, so therefore they are seeing their politics realized? Like someone who praises Trump/Bannon/Alex Jones/etc who then has Trump elected is having their ideology realized, similar with people who like AOC and then vote for her? I mean I guess, but that's not really what I'm talking about.

Anyone who wants to call themselves a Marxist should by definition practice historical materialism and therefore understand that the ideals are only embodied under the proper conditions. So we're really just spinning our wheels at the moment if you want radical change. If you want to work within the present system in a pragmatic manner, you get what you have now. Conflating the two is dishonest. AOC isn't Che Guevera. Shocker.

Sure, I agree with you that everything done now is basically useless - hence why I said that praxis in the west is at best cope and at worst just an excuse to fight for social causes individuals like more than others under the coat of paint of something greater. However HM isn't worth debating in any sense, regardless of if you agree with it or not- it's non-falsifiable and generally only applied retroactively, regardless of how strongly you either believe it or think it's flawed within Marxist dogma, it's a complete non-starter for any form of conversation or discourse. That said I will continue to double down on leftism being a failed ideology in the west. This is also why I reiterate that all discourse is just book club and everyone who isn't LARPing is aware of this; this isn't really that different from what you're saying except that you've kind of repackaged it as confrontational.

I think you're conflating revolutionary violence with stochastic violence. Even January 6th was basically a counter coup intelligence operation when scrutinized it at all.

I disagree with the idea that only prim and proper orthodox leftists are capable of revolution, because I still consider revolution a generalized deconstructive concept rather than something primarily owned by marxist economic cycles I'm aware this makes me a "bad" marxist, which is why I've said before I don't fully identify with the ideology. I agree with you 100% things like Jan 6th are fake intelligence ops, so was the dumb s*** however long ago about that one governor being at threat of "kidnapping". I still fundamentally all think all structural change comes from violence and war - obviously A) this isn't going to happen anytime soon and B) again, even the most "extreme" participants in discourse are just LARPers, both on the right and left. However, I still think if you're looking outside the US, in a more general sense, you're likely to see "right wing" (as in, at least, not leftist or marxist) gain more ground as the US & EU become increasingly caring about social causes in their policies for the most powerful parties in power.

Eh, the right wingers you're talking about are wannabe blackshirts. There are enough relatively apolitical working people to activate in working class struggle. "Champagne socialism" is just defaming the professionals and intellectuals who are valid allies

Agree about wannabe blackshirts to a degree, agree with the middle part if modern leftism was theoretically only economic (it's not), disagree with the rest, I don't think they're valid allies nor do I think allies exist as a concept, I genuinely believe the sole point of allyship is exploitation by hierarchy, they serve no wider purpose otherwise.

"Libertarianism" is written into the DNA of this country. When they destroyed the labor movement they couldn't offer concessions in that realm so the conservative offer was "we'll cut your taxes" and the liberal offer was, uh, a virtuous austerity. So you hate government as a concept instead of its form or function. Culture war is what you have left.

Agree overall but have to say culture war runs deeper than that. The deconstructionist movement said it best - "if nothing truly exists as objective within flux, then the relativity of culture through flux - or, in the least, the security of a culture apart from others - can only be understood as either anarchic to point of nihilism or so utterly important that it can only be practiced as eternal and spiritual" (butchered the quote there so my apologies)

Mao embodied the plight of the destitute peasants. Vanguard is a political strategy, not a historical a***ysis.

Sure on the beginning, that wasn't my point thoug. I stick by what I said and I still believe any attempt to basically deny that phenomena exists is just an attempt at creating a non-falsifiable argument, or admitting that marxism is spiritually eternal in truth and cannot dogmatically be wrong. Even if you believe marxism as a science, science is still falsifiable and subject to a***ysis and debate, science being ultimately dogmatic is how you end up with liberalism.

if modern leftism was theoretically only economic (it's not),

Yeah, we're f***ed

The application of marxist economic theory to social phenomena is what destroyed western leftism and I will die on this hill. Applying (essentially an understanding of, for lack of a better term) anarchism to culture theory by and far was the most detrimental thing to ever enter the western conscious and western leftism will forever be defined by this imo.

Even if you believe marxism as a science, science is still falsifiable and subject to a***ysis and debate, science being ultimately dogmatic is how you end up with liberalism.

This is my ultimate contention with many "Marxists" who do not seem to recognize this. Marxism is not a science IMO. Dialectical Materialism was never meant to apply to the whole of reality. It is a general theory for social phenomena and should be treated as such. That's how you end up with idiocy like Soviet Lysenkoism

what do u mean social phenomena? cause u can relate race based oppression back to economics as well

So many dumb things about this post that I'm reeling.

What was "western leftism"? The New Deal? Was that Marxism? As far as I'm concerned, Marx is a critique of capital. The New Deal was the minimum concession to conserve capitalism. It did good stuff. Some people got cut out of it. It didn't reorient the relationship between labor and capital. Labor was then gutted in the 70s and 80s. The government as an institution for social alleviation has withered since.

Various leaders of social movements were literally assassinated prior. Socialist leaders outside the US were also literally assassinated. But sure, it was "cultural Marxism" not capital in crisis exporting labor and gutting unions with an iron fist. What does anarchism have to do with this? You're saying a lot of words and talking about a lot of history without appearing to have the slightest grasp of it.