Revolutionary versus Trendy bourgeois liberal approach toward oppression/oppressed

[Coach Trotsky]

Let's start a thread to discuss what RevLeft members feel are differences in outlook and approach between revolutionaries versus trendy bourgeois liberals regarding oppression and the oppressed.

What do you think are the differences?
Lets' say some worker tells you he or she thinks that most Lefties are basically just proxies for the main bourgeois liberal faction of the ruling class, and hardly any real clear-cut distinction in their social policies and practices can be found. Basically, this worker just called YOU a "trendy liberal", revLefter, and my question is how the hell are you gonna respond to that worker?

What contemporary examples can you give of revolutionaries actually standing up to oppose bourgeois liberals' bullshit regarding oppression and the oppressed? What alternatives do RevLefters suggest regarding oppression and the oppressed that are fundamentally distinct from what, say, supporters of the US Democratic Party or the UK' Labour Party might suggest?

I ask this because I feel there is far too much Popular Front liquidationism/opportunism on the Left. and this is most obviously manifested today regarding issues of oppression and the oppressed.

So, since this is the Learning section, teach us how you effectively distinguish yourselves from the trendy bourgeois liberals regarding oppression and the oppressed, and give examples of contemporary revolutionaries (I'm talking within the last ten years, not way back in the 60s) actually getting in the faces of trendy bourgeois liberals and confronting them around their bullshit outlook and approach to oppression/the oppressed, in a similar manner to what Leftists typically do when engaging right-wing foes on those matters.
I can't even remember a time where I saw ostensibly revolutionary Leftists exchange fighting words with US Democrats or UK Labourites or similar bourgeois liberals on matters of oppression/the oppressed. Not once. Why is that?

[Post-Something]

Sorry, what are you talking about? can you give examples of when popular front liquidationism has really gone too far? What do you mean by the oppressed and where? Which policies of the "trendy liberals" annoy you?

[Coach Trotsky]

Sorry, what are you talking about? can you give examples of when popular front liquidationism has really gone too far? What do you mean by the oppressed and where? Which policies of the "trendy liberals" annoy you?

I asked my question. This ain't just about me, and it will not become about me.
It's about whether most ostensible Leftists are actually just trendy bourgeois liberals or not. I'm asking YOU and other revlefters what social policies of the "trendy liberals" annoy YOU to the point where you actually confront them. Or do you think the bourgeois liberals are really genuinely progressive on issues of social oppression and actually work effectively for the liberation of all the oppressed?

You're a "revolutionary Marxist" and yet you don't think that "the Left" has been utterly overtaken by trendy bourgeois liberal outlooks and approaches?

[Coach Trotsky]

In 15th century Russia during the Mongol occupation, a farmer and his wife were walking along a road. A Mongol warrior on a horse stops at their side, and tells the farmer that he will now rape his wife. He then adds “But since there is a lot of dust on the ground, you will hold my testicles while I am raping your wife so they do not get dirty”. After the Mongol finishes his job and rides away, the farmer starts to laugh and jump with joy. The surprised wife asks him, “How can you be jumping with joy when I was just brutally raped?” The farmer answers “But I got him his balls are now full of dust!”
This sad joke tells of the predicament of dissidents, they thought they were dealing serious blows to the party nomenclature, but all they were doing was getting a little bit of dust on the nomenclature’s testicles. Is today’s critical left all to often not in a similar position, we think we are doing something terribly subversive, but we are just….Our task is to discover how to make a step further, our thesis 11 today should be, critical-leftists hitherto have only dirtied with dust the balls of those in power. The point is to cut them off.

From Slavoj Žižek's "Revolution" video.

[Ocean Seal]

The difference. They often talk about what they do to alleviate poverty or one of the terrible consequences of capitalism without attempting to understand why the problem even exists in the first place. Then they often pride themselves in that poverty exists and that they are a crucial force in combating the worst effects of it. At the end of the day, they feel good about what they have done, but we don't. We don't feel that alleviating poverty is enough. We go for the jugular, eliminating poverty. We don't alter our lifestyles in a trendy manner, we want to systematically alter society such that all of the problems that they're having fun "curing", will cease to exist. Such that charity will be a mere memory not a necessity.

[Coach Trotsky]

The difference. They often talk about what they do to alleviate poverty or one of the terrible consequences of capitalism without attempting to understand why the problem even exists in the first place. Then they often pride themselves in that poverty exists and that they are a crucial force in combating the worst effects of it. At the end of the day, they feel good about what they have done, but we don't. We don't feel that alleviating poverty is enough. We go for the jugular, eliminating poverty. We don't alter our lifestyles in a trendy manner, we want to systematically alter society such that all of the problems that they're having fun "curing", will cease to exist. Such that charity will be a mere memory not a necessity.

So, what's in it for the bourgeois liberals? I don't believe this is about altruism at all. Indeed, I think they are using workers and oppressed peoples like pawns for their own advantage in this system's game. They are as greedy, as cynical, and egotistical, and as much dirty rotten oppressive scum as the bourgeois Right. Where many Leftists seem to think bourgeois liberals are being "progressive', I see workers and oppressed peoples being USED...not at all for our interests, but actually for theirs!

I want to see if any of the ostensible revolutionaries on this forum notice the difference, and can elaborate specifically what they notice, without the bourgeois liberals who dominate 'the Left' running for their ban-hammers or trying to play 'political correctness' policemen's games or whip up the more naive and self-interested forces who don't want any revolutionaries rocking their emotional boat, upsetting the political apple carts, and pulling the rug from under their bourgeois liberal sugar daddy sponsors.
So, I challenge RevLefters to describe just how racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-proletarian the bourgeois liberals actually are, in no uncertain terms, holding nothing back. Can we stop pretending that the bourgeois liberals care about workers and oppressed people, and stop pretending that they are any more genuinely "progressive" then the bourgeois Right-wingers? Can Revlefters describe the difference between their "internationalism" and the "internationalism" of bourgeois liberals?

[Fawkes]

The difference is that liberals tend to use a civil rights approach. Take the example of gay marriage in the U.S.: for years, major efforts have been put forth to publicize and address homophobia and heterosexism. These have been coming from all areas of society, from the most marginalized groups to the most privileged. Now, once this opposition grew big enough where it posed a threat to the existing power structures, the bourgeois began to accept a civil rights approach of legalizing marriage (or let people in the military). What this does is it gives the illusion of progress, it maintains existing power structures, and it further marginalizes the most oppressed groups. Rather than attempting to address the institutions and systems that are responsible for heteronormativity, the most privileged and empowered individuals have been allowed to assimilate in a completely unthreatening manner ("see, we're just like you") into one of the very institutions responsible for this oppression. The oppression still exists, stratification is increased, and everybody goes on thinking we've made some great step forward. So, the difference is that liberals want the right to marry, we want to destroy marriage.

[MarxSchmarx]

The difference is that liberals tend to use a civil rights approach. Take the example of gay marriage in the U.S.: for years, major efforts have been put forth to publicize and address homophobia and heterosexism. These have been coming from all areas of society, from the most marginalized groups to the most privileged. Now, once this opposition grew big enough where it posed a threat to the existing power structures, the bourgeois began to accept a civil rights approach of legalizing marriage (or let people in the military). What this does is it gives the illusion of progress, it maintains existing power structures, and it further marginalizes the most oppressed groups. Rather than attempting to address the institutions and systems that are responsible for heteronormativity, the most privileged and empowered individuals have been allowed to assimilate in a completely unthreatening manner ("see, we're just like you") into one of the very institutions responsible for this oppression. The oppression still exists, stratification is increased, and everybody goes on thinking we've made some great step forward. So, the difference is that liberals want the right to marry, we want to destroy marriage.

What's worse is that in the process of "assimilating" they actually promulgate the very problems that caused the need for action in the first place. So for example if gay marriage eventually becomes legal in all of America, people will say "Look the system worked, isn't America great?" - already people in Canada say things like this.

Another example is the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. When the discourse only went sofar as the "trendy bourgeois" values of majority rule and equality under the law, when these things were granted, eventually a lot of the networks and institutions that had been built in fighting apartheid waned or even in some cases disbanded. As a result, no one was left to carry on the struggle. Indeed the legitimacy of the south african state and international capital's grip on south africa arguably were bolstered as a result of the anti-apartheid movement ending with the granting of formal equality. This isn't to say that apartheid should have continued, only that a lot of groups failed to understand that apartheid was a major component, but ultimately just a component, of a much more insidious threat to the well being of ordinary south africans.

[NewSocialist]

we want to destroy marriage.

Why? What the hell will that achieve? Do you honestly believe that "destroying" the institution of marriage will somehow abolish sexist and/or homophobic sentiments within a population (even after a prolonged period of time)? Frankly, I think such a notion is incredibly ridiculous (to put it mildly).

Abolish the economic privileges married people receive, sure, but don't try to mandate that the entire institution be banned. Marriage is nothing more than a voluntary act wherein two people celebrate their fidelity and love for one another. To think this, in and of itself, is "oppressive" is insane.

[Post-Something]

I asked my question. This ain't just about me, and it will not become about me.
It's about whether most ostensible Leftists are actually just trendy bourgeois liberals or not. I'm asking YOU and other revlefters what social policies of the "trendy liberals" annoy YOU to the point where you actually confront them. Or do you think the bourgeois liberals are really genuinely progressive on issues of social oppression and actually work effectively for the liberation of all the oppressed?

You're a "revolutionary Marxist" and yet you don't think that "the Left" has been utterly overtaken by trendy bourgeois liberal outlooks and approaches?

Ok, well I don't really see it as clear cut as that, I was just asking what you meant. You know some of the social policies of the "bourgeois liberals" aren't that bad, and you can't take this kind of us and them approach all the time. You asked me, and for me personally, I get annoyed at some people who work in sustainable development and peacekeeping, I'm a bit skeptical.

But a lot of people in Politics care about oppressed people, regardless of where on the political spectrum they land, look at Sweden in the 60s and you'll see that loads of people cared about these issues all over. And no, I don't think that "the left" has been overtaken by trendy bourgeois liberals. I think its fragmented a bit. The fact of the matter is that some of their approaches work, and some of them don't, just like some of your ideas probably wouldn't work in real life.

[Mettalian]

I, to a very small degree, respect 'trendy liberals'. My living conditions, as a member of the working class, have increased since my father's and his father's due to their reforms. But they only see short term, reformist solutions, that can be easily overturned. And worse, they listen foremost to lobbyists and their cash, rather than the needy and oppressed, and they will switch opinions at the sight of a nice fat cheque. They do not wish to delve into the root of the problem, that is, the capitalist system, because they too have interests in keeping the lumbering system going. I believe that they do feel they're doing what's best, but they have too much invested in the system to truly do what's right.

[Fawkes]

Do you honestly believe that "destroying" the institution of marriage will somehow abolish sexist and/or homophobic sentiments within a population (even after a prolonged period of time)? Frankly, I think such a notion is incredibly ridiculous (to put it mildly).



Not exclusively, but as part of a much broader struggle of subverting and destroying the institutions (both formal and informal) that serve to perpetuate social stratification and heteronormativity.


Abolish the economic privileges married people receive, sure, but don't try to mandate that the entire institution be banned.
Marriage is a way for the state to mandate what social relationships are acceptable and what aren't. This is done through an allocation of legal rights and recognition to those deemed acceptable. When you have abolished the legal and economic privileges ensured by marriage, you've effectively taken the major step toward abolishing the institution itself, for what other purpose would it then serve? I know plenty of people that love each other that are not married and I know plenty of people that are married that don't love each other.


Marriage is nothing more than a voluntary act wherein two people celebrate their fidelity and love for one another.
Yeah, it is. If it was simply two (and only two) people celebrating their love for one another, why would the state need to be involved?


To think this, in and of itself, is "oppressive" is insane.
A legal institution where rights are granted to certain individuals based off of their declared love to another person provided the relationship is not in violation of whatever the dictated social norms are is not oppressive?



To further reiterate the point I made to the OP, here's a good quote from Urvashi Vaid:
“Civil rights strategies do not challenge the moral and antisexual underpinnings of homophobia, because homophobia does not originate in our lack of full civil equality. Rather, homophobia arises from the nature and construction of the political, legal, economic, sexual, racial and family systems within which we live”

[Coach Trotsky]

The difference is that liberals tend to use a civil rights approach. Take the example of gay marriage in the U.S.: for years, major efforts have been put forth to publicize and address homophobia and heterosexism. These have been coming from all areas of society, from the most marginalized groups to the most privileged. Now, once this opposition grew big enough where it posed a threat to the existing power structures, the bourgeois began to accept a civil rights approach of legalizing marriage (or let people in the military). What this does is it gives the illusion of progress, it maintains existing power structures, and it further marginalizes the most oppressed groups. Rather than attempting to address the institutions and systems that are responsible for heteronormativity, the most privileged and empowered individuals have been allowed to assimilate in a completely unthreatening manner ("see, we're just like you") into one of the very institutions responsible for this oppression. The oppression still exists, stratification is increased, and everybody goes on thinking we've made some great step forward. So, the difference is that liberals want the right to marry, we want to destroy marriage.

Yes, this is the process that I see also. But what I don't seem to ever see is any significant distinct intervention about this by "the Left" , any confrontation with the bourgeois liberal misleaders and (you certainly never see this) also their co-opted minority movement sellout bureaucrats and system-supporting minions among oppressed groups, nor any distinct revolutionary alternatives/approaches seriously offered by "the Left".
Why is that?

Why is it that you can count on "the Left" to come out to oppose anything they see as racist, but they never seem to raise a fuss about middle class 'white' people adopting minority children in order to use them as objectified status symbols or outward expressions of their "enlightened progressive" outlook to be dangled about in "high class" society? I see middle class liberals, particularly the churchy sort, engaged in this sort of oppressive racist behavior towards minority children all the time where I live...and personally, I'd love to smack that so-called progressive egotistical smirk off of their faces (for millions of reasons, but let's start with this one). It makes me think of the ways of the "gentile" slave-owners in the old American South! But do you ever see any "Leftists' speak up about it, and tell those middle class racist liberals to fuck off and stop using minority children as their playthings to abuse, their personal property, and their "progressive" status symbol novelty tokens for liberals to put on display in social situations? Oh, hell no! And let's not even pretend that bourgeois liberals treat adopted minority children the same as adopted 'white' children. Anyone who has ever been in a public social situation where such bourgeois liberals are present knows from the experience that just ain't the case. Middle class liberals treat minority children like they're trophies...and oh my, if you give them a dirty look about it, you must be one of those unreconstructed 'uneducated" bigot cavemen or something.

So there, one example of the oppressive dirty secret side of bourgeois liberals that's too taboo to talk about it public, lest 'political correctness' policemen get dispatched to defend the status quo and the 'progressive' liberals who practice exploitation and oppression of minorities in their own filthy 'special' ways.

Can you think of other examples? Do you dare to raise them publicly, or even within a forum exclusively for communication between revolutionaries?
If we're revolutionaries, we must cast off any blindspots about the exploitative and oppressive ways of the bourgeois liberals and those "Leftists' who refuse to stand up to them and offer revolutionary alternatives that could actually achieve the liberation of ALL the workers and the oppressed.

[Kléber]

What the fuck trollbait is this. Don't talk about "leftists" as a whole - if some "revolutionary" groups trail behind the Democrats (and plenty do), name them. If you can't, then get active. Anyone can sit on their computer and come up with reasons why they are the most leftist person ever, and everyone who's actually politically active sucks - because the only way to avoid making mistakes is to do nothing.

I think the real definition of "trendy bourgeois wankery" that disgusts advanced workers would be refusing to vote for gay marriage because, ohhh it's bolstering the feudal institution of marriage and there's no point if we don't go all the way to abolition of marriage.

[Coach Trotsky]

What the fuck trollbait is this. Don't talk about "leftists" as a whole - if some "revolutionary" groups trail behind the Democrats (and plenty do), name them. If you can't, then get active. Anyone can sit on their computer and come up with reasons why they are the most leftist person ever, and everyone who's actually politically active sucks - because the only way to avoid making mistakes is to do nothing.

So 'the Left' tails the liberals and silently consents to their bullshit and their exploitive and oppressive ways because "at least we're doing something?"

You want to know why I'm asking this question? Because I want "the Left today' to give people like me some good reason not to see them as just as much part of the problem as the ruling class and their fascist minions. I wanna know why the streets, workplaces, and social institutions shouldn't be cleaned ---by any means necessary--of all the system-defending forces in politics today, including "the Left". Why should the workers and the oppressed treat bourgeois liberals and "the Left' who tail and aid them any different from the bourgeois conservatives and their fascist forces?
Is there any current leadership in modern politics who deserves to be spared the wrath of mass militant workers' action? Or should the workers and oppressed destroy the whole predatory beast system, ripping apart both wings?

And just so you know, I'm particularly ticked off at today's "Trotskyists". The Fourth International really have dropped the ball, and should have known better. I can't hardly tell the difference between a "Trotskyist" and a bourgeois liberal or labor bureaucrat these days, and so I know a lot of copies of Trotsky's Transitional Program are collecting dust or abandoned in landfills right now. So, why should I tell working people and the oppressed to make distinctions between "Trotskyists" and bourgeois liberals? Why shouldn't I tell them to expropriate Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky away from "the Left" that has soiled the red banner and tossed out any program and method for achieving revolutionary socialism in favor of defending THIS SYSTEM with their Popular Front bourgeois liberal buddies, sellout union bureaucrats, and co-opted sellout minority group bureaucrats?

[bcbm]

I want "the Left today' to give people like me some good reason not to see them as just as much part of the problem as the ruling class and their fascist minions.

there is no good reason, they are part of the problem

[Kléber]

Who are you even talking about? The ISO? Yeah, they do tail the democrats and deserve to be called out - as an organization. The social-democracy, which represents the official "left" in most countries, is everywhere in competition with the traditional "right" to implement the most anti-worker austerity measures. "The left" is a vague and useless term.

[Dumb]

Bourgeois liberals and revolutionary leftists also differentiate themselves in this manner: liberals depict oppression as something that's going on over there, whereas leftists recognize that oppression is inescapable for 99.9% of the global population no matter where you are. Liberals say "we have to do this for the middle class," while revolutionaries say "We, the working class, must do this together for ourselves"; liberals point to sweat-shop workers in China and say, "This is exploitation," while revolutionaries recognize that exploitation is inherent in capitalism worldwide. Liberalism is ultimately the expression of a privileged class looking to bestow its magnanimity upon a chosen underclass, whereas leftism is the struggle of a united working class to achieve its own liberation.

As a side note, this explains why today's liberalism struggles to maintain any wide audience in the U.S. Not many people are feeling privileged in post-Reagan America, and even fewer people are interested in a politics of bestowing what little they have left upon somebody else. While liberalism does not have that end effect for many working-class people, that's the rhetoric and the logic behind the ideology - for liberalism is, after all, an elite ideology, premised upon the belief that the ills of the world someplace else are merely a moral (rather than systemic) failure. "Preach our liberal gospel, and people will be kind to one another" - without ever realizing that the disease is right under your nose.

[Rainsborough]

"The left" is a vague and useless term.

Its neither vague or useless when applied across the whole 'left' movement.

[Franz Fanonipants]

material analysis or gtfo

that's p. much the very basis of the liberal-marxist split

[Coach Trotsky]

material analysis or gtfo

that's p. much the very basis of the liberal-marxist split

I don't see much splitting going on between liberals and Marxists. I'm just wondering how many "Marxists" will be volunteering to help the Obama 2012 presidential campaign (either directly or indirectly by supporting organizations that are supporting Obama and Democratic party candidates), justifying it by saying "at least we're doing something progressive".

Where the heck was "The Left" in 2008? Why did "the Left" get eerily quiet about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the Democrats took control of Congress back in 2006? What's "the Left" doing about Wisconsin, or the fact that less then 7% of American private sector workers are unionized? When was the last time there was anything like DRUM within the Black American working class? When is "the Left" going to finally tell the Democrats and all its subsidiaries, auxillary orgs and bourgeois liberal "progressive' functionaries to GTFO? When will "the Left" finally break from the Popular Front? If I see 'the Left' carrying Obama 2012 signs and running around to "get out the vote" for Democrats, I'm gonna look at them as if they were carrying Tea Party signs and their banners say "Bomb Libya! Kill 'em All!" or "Bust Unions! Austerity Now! All Power to the Invisible Hand of Global Capitalism!"

[Lucretia]

The fundamental difference is that revolutionary leftists think that forms of social oppression are connected to the root of the way a society is configured, and therefore cannot be reformed away with the passage of laws, etc. This is why they are radicals. Liberals are naively optimistic about the power of such reforms, and think that through the correct amount of enlightened inquiry, you can uncover ways to reform all the systemic ills out of modern capitalist societies.

[Rocky Rococo]

Liberals address the problems of the working class thorough the means of "advocacy" and "social services". Credentialed professionals who treat the problem of the poor/working person as an individual problem, with the only solutions being individual in nature. There's nothing wrong with the system and how it is treating the poor/working person, it is that the poor/working person needs to be adjusted or advocated for to be fit into the operation of the system.

There's two huge systemic elements here that a genuine radical/revolutionary rejects.

First is the liberal's premise that all problems are individual, with only individual solutions, there are no collective or social solutions to collective social problems. The ideology of individualism is one of the bulwarks of capitalist hegemony, and until it is broken, capital remains largely impervious to challenge because it is an ideology that keeps the potential challenge to the rule of capital shattered, atomized and alienated from each other.

Secondly, by taking resolution of the problems out of the hands of the working class people, and placing them in the hands of the paid, professionally credentialed "advocate" or "social service provider", the powerlessness of the working class people is reiterated and reinforced, even if the process actually results in the alleviation of a specific problem. The power structure, the lines of authority and dependency, of power and powerlessness are maintained.

The radical or revolutionary on the other hand sees the whole point of the process to be working with the poor and working class people for our own self-empowerment, which poses an immediately challenge to the existing relations of power, and since the only way working class people can build and exercise power is through collective self-organization, it also undermines the bourgeois ideology of individualism, that there are only individual problems with individual solutions, or individual lack of solutions.

[Blackburn]

Can we stop pretending that the bourgeois liberals care about workers and oppressed people, and stop pretending that they are any more genuinely "progressive" then the bourgeois Right-wingers? Can Revlefters describe the difference between their "internationalism" and the "internationalism" of bourgeois liberals?

I've stop pretending. My disillusionment is complete. That's why I've come to Rev Left :)

Maybe I should of come years ago?

[Blackburn]

Bourgeois liberals and revolutionary leftists also differentiate themselves in this manner: liberals depict oppression as something that's going on over there, whereas leftists recognize that oppression is inescapable for 99.9% of the global population no matter where you are. Liberals say "we have to do this for the middle class," while revolutionaries say "We, the working class, must do this together for ourselves"; liberals point to sweat-shop workers in China and say, "This is exploitation," while revolutionaries recognize that exploitation is inherent in capitalism worldwide. Liberalism is ultimately the expression of a privileged class looking to bestow its magnanimity upon a chosen underclass, whereas leftism is the struggle of a united working class to achieve its own liberation.

As a side note, this explains why today's liberalism struggles to maintain any wide audience in the U.S. Not many people are feeling privileged in post-Reagan America, and even fewer people are interested in a politics of bestowing what little they have left upon somebody else. While liberalism does not have that end effect for many working-class people, that's the rhetoric and the logic behind the ideology - for liberalism is, after all, an elite ideology, premised upon the belief that the ills of the world someplace else are merely a moral (rather than systemic) failure. "Preach our liberal gospel, and people will be kind to one another" - without ever realizing that the disease is right under your nose.


Maybe people need to taste a bit of exploitation themselves before they will be class concious? I wish I could say I was never exploited, or an unskilled worker, but I was for years.

I guess if I lived in an upper middle class burb, went to university and straight to some white college job and I was a clean cut White boy, then yeah I'm not sure how much I would understand about the reality of the situation.

[Mr. Cervantes]

All the liberals want to change the world but none of them want to step outside their ivory towers and give up their own privileged social perks to do it.

None of them want to go down into the streets with the gutter rift raft and actually engage the people that they supposedly want to help which is why as the ultimate hypocrites they live in the most segregated of neighborhoods.

[Dumb]

Maybe people need to taste a bit of exploitation themselves before they will be class concious? I wish I could say I was never exploited, or an unskilled worker, but I was for years.

I guess if I lived in an upper middle class burb, went to university and straight to some white college job and I was a clean cut White boy, then yeah I'm not sure how much I would understand about the reality of the situation.

Under capitalism, if you work, then you are by definition being exploited. Most workers just don't realize this. Any time your employer trumpets company profits, (s)he is essentially saying, "Look how much we've taken from you - and you ain't getting it back!"