The Hierarchy Of Oppression/Fragmentation

[Crixus]

http://www.isreview.org/issues/46/whiteness.shtml



Whiteness theory and the politics of “difference”
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe—self-described post-Marxists—first articulated the theoretical framework for identity politics in their 1985 book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics.13 Laclau and Mouffe’s (extremely) abstract theory divorces every form of oppression not only from society generally, but also from each other. As they put it, society is a field “criss-crossed with antagonisms” in which each form of oppression exists as an entirely autonomous system.
According to this schema, social class is just another form of oppression, separate from all others, leaving the system of exploitation equally adrift. Furthermore, each separate system of oppression has its own unique set of beneficiaries: all whites benefit from racism, all men benefit from sexism and all heterosexuals benefit from homophobia—each in a free-floating system of “subordination.”
Not surprisingly, Laclau and Mouffe argue,


[T]he possibility of a unified discourse of the left is also erased. If the various subject positions and the diverse antagonisms and points of rupture constitute a diversity and not a diversification, it is clear they cannot be led back to a point from which they could all be embraced and explained by a single discourse.14

[Crixus]

Privilege Politics is Reformism (http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/)




Privilege theory has a set of basic principles: a) Privilege theory argues that movement spaces should be safe for all oppressed groups. One way to make such a space safe is by negotiating one anothers’ actions in non-oppressive ways. For example, this means straight white men should talk less or think about the privileges they have when discussing an action or political question. b) Privilege theory justifies that militancy and political sophistication is the domain of a privileged elite based on class, gender and racial privileges. c) Privilege theory roots political and strategic mistakes in the personal privileges that people bring into the movement. d) Privilege theory seeks to deal with these issues primarily through education, teach-ins and conversations. This piece will point out key failures in all four principles of Privilege theory. It will tentatively lay out some ways forward, while recognizing more research and, more importantly, more struggle is needed to resolve some of the outstanding problems facing the movement......(continued via the link below)

http://blackorchidcollective.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/guest-post-privilege-politics/

[Crixus]

I'd like to get a discussion going surrounding privilege theory, identity politics and idealism within the broader socialist tradition- arguments for and against. Arguments also for a synthesis between accepting or rejecting privilege theory, identity politics and idealism outright. What's the grand narrative? What's the proper course of action? How should communists formulate theory? What impact will action have without proper theory? Is the working class fragmented and compartmentalized into various competing categories of oppressors and oppressed with separate interests? Why is the left so insignificant? These are questions I'd like to answer myself but feel free to chime in with your opinion.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'd like to get a discussion going surrounding privilege theory, identity politics and idealism within the broader socialist tradition- arguments for and against.In general I'd say that privilage theory is a step-forward from identity politics. I'd hope that if I.D. politics were sort of the last stop for the new-left anti-oppression politics, then maybe Privilage is the starting point for a whole new wave of struggles. But that's more of a hope than anything concrete.

At any rate I think it's a step forward in 2 ways: that it doesn't seek to limit anti-oppression struggles to those directly involved which provides a better framework from which a more connected movement involving the oppressed as well as non-oppressed that can potentially grow. This might also under-cut the tendency to counterpose or rank oppressions that happened with I.D. politics. With privilage theory you can be a lesbian woman, for example, who doesn't have to pick which identity to fight around. Third, there is a better understanding in Privilage Theory of oppression being systemic and therefore potentially changeable.

The drawback of I.D. politics theory was leading somtimes to echoing the liberal borgoise conception of society being seperate groups in a "war of each against all". Oppressions might have links to eachother, but it comes out of "groups" in society, rather than the way our society is organized and the way people are made to compete with eachother - epsecially in neoliberalist capitalism.

In practice, I.D. politics were problematic because they were divisive and accepted oppression to a certain extent as "natural". A straight person couldn't support LGBT struggles, they must just get out of the way. This often led to refomist politics by default - each identity must eek out their own protection and benifits, so trying to get favorable legislation was an option since any mass movement is bound to have people with multipule identities.

Privilage theory as an academic theory is problematic. When some activists use this framework, I think by framing oppression and inequality in terms of privilage, there is a sense of capitalist repression and oppression being unalterable - the problem is that white people aren't also as subject to police repression, rather than police repression being the problem. There is also the moralism of "checking privilage" which, again, I think puts the emphasis on the wrong things and leads to moralism and could tend towards people looking inward or locating oppression in interpersonal attitudes.

But the best academics and activists IMO use privilage theory as a way to talk about both "mixed consiousness" (privilaged attitudes) and systemic inequality and oppression. If someone says "privilage" when they mean racial or sexual inequalities, then there is no real need for a semantic argument on terminology (like if someone says "patriarchy" but don't mean "all men have power", they just mean "the ubiquitous sexism of our society"). On the other hand if people are saying we need to combat racism by having white people think about all the ways they aren't subject to racism, then I think it's worth arguing over because that is ultimately a dead-end.

So I guess my overall attitude about Privilage theory is that it's a big advantage that people have begun to try and grapple with the oppression rooted in our society; it's an advantage that the new default ideas leave open the potential for a more unified fight against oppression. So in dealing with people from this viewpoint I think it's best not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" but instead to try and start our arguments from the points of agreement (that racism is systemic and aids our rulers more than anyone else) but then try and expand this understanding and argue for how oppression isn't just ingranined and a tool of rulers, but is rooted in capitalism and in the need to create a specific order for our society.

You ask why the left is insignificant (I assume, in regards to wider understandings of oppression) and I think it's mainly due to a wider retreat on struggles oppression. The black power movement was smashed with one hand and co-opted into the Democrats with the other and this is more or less the same for other struggles. Privilage theory still isn't the dominant view of oppression, in fact post-feminism, post-racism ideas are probably more widespread because they are constantly promoted in the media. So that there are groups of people now trying to figure this out means that there is more potential to struggle and more potential to win people to a revolutionary class view of liberation from oppression.

[Crixus]

Privilege Theory in action:

TBRwiuJ8K7w

A Marxist response:

http://sherrytalksback.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/the-paralysis-of-white-privilege/

[Crixus]

Privilege theory in action:

http://decolonizeoakland.org/2012/09/17/occupy-was-never-4-me-1-yr-later/

I'll edit this later with my response. After a few people read the post.

EDIT:

My experience with Bay Area occupy (San Fransisco, Sacramento, Richmond, Oakland), if the experience of a white male matters, was, on many occasions, being told to quiet down, shut up, check my privilege etc anytime a person of color, woman or member of a more oppressed group began to advocate reformism, votes for democrats, racial nationalism, separatism and in one case even free market capitalism. I was told I was racist for telling a person of color his free market ideology had no place at Occupy. I was told to not talk when women of color (Native Americans) began speaking about white people leaving 'their' land (as if European workers haven't been dispossessed via force/violence). I was told my skin color and maleness determined how I saw and experienced the world (through oppressors eyes) and that it meant I had less to offer in regards to pretty much anything to do with oppression. My goal was to try to keep people focused on the capitalist system, the way it functions both socially and systemically to oppress all working class and the need to end the system itself (as should have been the goal for any Marxist). What I saw happen was people with rather suspect politics were given 'leadership' type roles, 'leadership' as far as molding opinion through the process of having all the focus. Their experience with oppression was fetishized at the expense of actual class struggle. I've been homeless, I could have very well declared my homeless past as proof of my deeper experience with oppression and used that to push total focus on issues of homelessness. I've been to jail as a result of homelessness and I could have pushed that oppression as the focus. "Think of all the homeless men in jail!....quiet down! Listen to me!....this is my time! The homeless shall rise!" Sounds rather absurd in the context of an anti-capitalist movement doesn't it? Maybe I could have pushed for social reforms to end homelessness?

When she says this I have to cringe at the lack of class analysis:


Perhaps its because the majority of the “occupiers” were from the police using neighborhoods, and/or currently or recently had those homes and student debt and credit and cars and mortgages and stocks and bonds and jobs. Perhaps its because Occupy was never for me or people like me. In Oakland and San Francisco, the alleged “bastions” of consciousness there was a slightly different perspective. Many of the houseless people were in fact part of the organizing and then eventually, due to deep class and race differences, were intentionally left out or self-segregated themselves from the main “occupy” groups and began their own revolutions or groups or cliques, or just defeated huddles around the camp.Some of the Anarchists who buy into privilege theory even went as far as to call home ownership bourgeois. Students, in this line of thinking, become class enemies, white people from the suburbs need to stay away etc. The end result, if we are to organize like this, is fragmentation of struggle with absolutely no eye on the potential to actually replace capitalism via a united mass movement. Where is Occupy now? What did it accomplish? Nowhere. Nothing. We cannibalized it from within. Radical Feminists in one corner (and they had their own space/marches), homeless in another (again the same), Native Americans making these demands, black small business owners making those demands, the extremely poor pointing fingers at the marginally poor who in turn point at the middle "class"....The Mo Larry and Curly of revolution?

a4-spBDcJyk


She goes on to say:


Finally, in Oakland there was a powerful push to re-think the arrogant notion of Occupy” itself on already stolen and occupied native lands and became one of the clearest examples of the hypocritical irony of occupy.After at least a five hour testimony from indigenous leaders and people of color supporters at a herstoric Oakland General Assembly (http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4194), to officially change the name of Occupy Oakland to Decolonize Oakland, with first nations warriors like Corrina Gould and Morning Star, Krea Gomez, artists Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantez and so many more powerful peoples of color supporters presenting testifying and reading a beautiful statement on decolonization and occupation, it was still voted on that Oakland, the stolen and occupied territory of Ohlone peoples would remain Occupy Oakland. Clearly this person has no grasp of history, how a working class was created in Europe via the process of dispossession which was extremely violent and brutal for Europeans as well. Like Native Americans Europeans had no centralized defense against dispossession and the ruling class either exterminated Europeans or pushed them into the system, granted this process took place in different times, through different methods and with different results- the overall point is European workers also had our ability to live free on the land taken away by the ruling class. This is not a racial issue it's the very basis of capitalism. People would understand things like this if privilege theory wasnt the basis of organizing.

Her conclusion is:


So one year after Occupy was launched, while lots of exciting media was generated, massive resources were spent, a great number of people were supposedly politicized and the world started to listen to the concept of the %99, the same number of black, brown, poor, disabled and migrant folks are being incarcerated, policed, and deported in the US. The racist and classist Sit-lie laws, gang injunctions and Stop and Frisk ordinances still rage on and we are still being pushed out of our communities of color by the forces of gentriFUKation and poverty. So, I wonder, how have these political gentrifyers changed things for black and brown and poor people? Not at all, actually, but then again, Occupy was never really for us.But that's the thing, of course just because some vague 99% language was used doesn't mean each oppressed group was equally represented but each oppressed group didn't necessarily have ending capitalism and replacing it with communism in mind nor did many have the slightest idea what socialism was. I'm not advocating some vulgar class reductionism where people need to just put whatever issue they're facing aside because fighting racism, sexism, homophobia etc is clearly a necessary strategy in daily struggle but when we organize, with the goal of bringing anti-capitalist sentiment to the masses, should we place privilege theory as the foundation of our organizing efforts? Should Marxists work within the community to end racism, homophobia, sexism? Yes. Should we organize with those issues at the absolute forefront and focal point of struggle in such large events as Occupy? Should privilege theory be given any validity in daily struggle as it has been since the late 1970's seeing it has affected the way we organize? Does anyone seriously think a mass movement is going to be built with the foundation being a hierarchy of oppressed groups fighting amongst each other for their issue to take center stage?

[#FF0000]

I have a lot of disparate/unorganized/under-developed thoughts on the topic but I think the Black Orchid Collective article is pretty spot on in pointing out the problems with privilege theory. When I first heard about it I appreciated that it was a decent model for de-facto racism and was pretty good at pointing out how this group has things to deal with that another group might not. But it obviously has its limits and I think the language around "privilege" is really off-putting and counter-productive. You tell a person "yo white people have it a little easier, generally, than black people" and if they're not a total asshole they'll say "yeah probably". You go up to a person and tell them "yo you have privilege" and they're going to get pissed, understandably so.

Moving on from that, I'd say that generally speaking, communists have been really, really shitty at taking new perspectives and adopting what works and what doesn't -- and as a result either take a really dumb/regressive/outdated view on the issues of racism and sexism (among others), or just sort of take other perspectives entirely without doing much to explain how this or that works into the Marxist framework, if that makes any sense. You either have people who say things that are totally irrelevant or who take an analysis that's internally inconsistent or really poorly tacked on to their Marxist take on things. That's a general problem too, I'd say, and not just one that we have with issues of race and gender. I would just really like to see more work on explaining how race and gender issues are integral to capitalism and class society.

[blake 3:17]

I lived through the Culture Wars, which I was attentive to both for for art and politics, & did Women's Studies as a white guy in the 90s.

I've no time for hierarchies of oppression -- EXCEPT some people are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more fucked over than others and to say otherwise is a pack of lies.

From the OP quoting Mouffe: "If the various subject positions and the diverse antagonisms and points of rupture constitute a diversity and not a diversification, it is clear they cannot be led back to a point from which they could all be embraced and explained by a single discourse."

Mouffe is absolutely correct on this. Marxism is capable of talking about certain things very well, Marxists can use this to talk about other stuff in a way that non-Marxists wouldn't get to.

The crazy urge to totalize is a simple reflection of capitalist bureaucracy except for "communist" purposes. I think we need to get rid of these fantasies.

@ #FF0000 -- there are endless writings which put it all together. What's more interesting is looking for the weak links where localized or "minority" issues become plainer as universalist freedom struggles. The international BDS movement against Israeli apartheid, which others on this board dismiss as bourgeois liberalism, is at once a movement of solidarity of people in a very particular place but a broader struggle for self determination, radical republicanism, and opposition to genocide and ethnic cleansing.

In the US one of the most campaigns is the Drop the I Word campaign: http://colorlines.com/droptheiword/

If you actually spend any time following up on black feminist thought, the notion of 'difference' is very different than the capitalist colonialist one.

PS I was trying to find a reference & came across this: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/07/bogg-j02.html The bad joke of David North telling Grace Lee Boggs not to be encouraging urban farming in Detroit! What mischief! It only meets human needs on a non-market non-state basis, rather than rallying the troops for .... ???

[Sidagma]

Leftists like to talk shit on social justice/"Identity Politics", but if you take a look at the contributions of both movements in the last ten years, social justice practitioners have taught a generation to accept and work with each other on a really genuine level. We're not talking 60's style talk of "tolerance" or "independence", we're talking genuinely embracing differences and forging friendships and alliances across lines of gender, race, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, religion, etc. We're far from perfect, but the thing is that we've had enough talks about how to go about improving that it isn't a new idea, and we're actively getting better at it. We've influenced existing groups and established our own social and support groups based on social justice theory that has proven incredibly effective in creating supportive and accepting environments and built a community that, for many of us, did not exist before.

At the end of the day, social justice has done a hell of a lot of good for a lot of people in a lot of ways. It affects our material circumstances in teaching us how to have meaningful friendships and relationships with each other and unlearning the toxic ideas that have been forced on so many communities. It's not a movement in opposition to the Left; on the contrary, I've found that the overwhelming majority of people with any exposure whatsoever to anti-oppressive organizing will take it as self-evident that capitalism needs to go, because all capitalism is is the subordination of some groups by other groups which then establish themselves as superior in myriad ways which many of us can deconstruct at a moment's notice. They are really pretty basic.

I mean, the Left can adjust and adopt anti-oppressive politics or not, but in the end, if we don't, it's our loss, because they are proven effective and meaningful. Anti-oppressive organizing is meaningful to people, unlike anything the western Left has accomplished in the last twenty years.

[Crixus]

Leftists like to talk shit on social justice/"Identity Politics", but if you take a look at the contributions of both movements in the last ten years, but social justice practitioners have taught a generation to accept and work with each other on a really genuine level. We're not talking 60's style talk of "tolerance" or "independence", we're talking genuinely embracing differences and forging friendships and alliances across lines of gender, race, culture, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, religion, etc. We're far from perfect, but the thing is that we've had enough talks about how to go about improving that it isn't a new idea, and we're actively getting better at it. We've influenced existing groups and established our own social and support groups based on social justice theory that has proven incredibly effective in creating supportive and accepting environments and built a community that, for many of us, did not exist before.

At the end of the day, social justice has done a hell of a lot of good for a lot of people in a lot of ways. It affects our material circumstances in teaching us how to have meaningful friendships and relationships with each other and unlearning the toxic ideas that have been forced on so many communities. It's not a movement in opposition to the Left; on the contrary, I've found that the overwhelming majority of people with any exposure whatsoever to anti-oppressive organizing will take it as self-evident that capitalism needs to go, because all capitalism is is the subordination of some groups by other groups which then establish themselves as superior in myriad ways which many of us can deconstruct at a moment's notice. They are really pretty basic.

I mean, the Left can adjust and adopt anti-oppressive politics or not, but in the end, if we don't, it's our loss, because they are proven effective and meaningful. Anti-oppressive organizing is meaningful to people, unlike anything the western Left has accomplished in the last twenty years.

That all sounds great, whatever it was you just said, but, in practice, I've seen privilege theory do nothing but largely drive wedges between people (over the last 15 years or so). Between women of color feminists and white feminists. Between Native American and American. Between feminists and the broader socialist community. Between this or that group of oppressed and group of "oppressors". I'm not exactly in the business of oppressing people so being told to quiet down at a GA because I'm a white male, quite frankly, almost gives me seizures.

OWS events was the largest stage or arena for me to witness privilege theory in practice and what I saw repulsed me almost to the point of complete mental breakdown. Take you for example. From what I've gathered from reading your posts is that you know, well, not much about Marxism and a lot about organizing around issues of oppression. Why should I feel comfortable in a movement led by your sort of mentality? I've seen nothing but baseless accusations of racism and sexism from you. Just think if you had a bullhorn and 1,000 people believing every word you said. Solidarity? I think not.

This isn't to say oppression doesn't exist and fighting it shouldn't be a cornerstone of efforts to built a new society it's just, using your baseless claims of sexism and racism as an example, the mindset privilege theory nurtures is one of idealism swimming in the realm of subjective opinion and organizing a Marxist resistance to capitalism should have at it's foundation a materialist approach with less sub divisions of identity all fighting separate battles for this or that piece of the pie. Marxism shows us how to organize not some academic new left quasi Maoist nonsense which was basically formulated with the foundation that the American working class isn't capable of revolution.

[Crixus]

From the OP quoting Mouffe: "If the various subject positions and the diverse antagonisms and points of rupture constitute a diversity and not a diversification, it is clear they cannot be led back to a point from which they could all be embraced and explained by a single discourse."

Mouffe is absolutely correct on this. Marxism is capable of talking about certain things very well, Marxists can use this to talk about other stuff in a way that non-Marxists wouldn't get to.

The crazy urge to totalize is a simple reflection of capitalist bureaucracy except for "communist" purposes. I think we need to get rid of these fantasies.



I don't think you understand how much damage socialists accepting Laclau/Mouffe's new left/post Marxist organizing model has done.

[Sidagma]

That all sounds great, whatever it was you just said, but, in practice, I've seen privilege theory do nothing but largely drive wedges between people (over the last 15 years or so). Between women of color feminists and white feminists. Between Native American and American. Between feminists and the broader socialist community. Between this or that group of oppressed and group of "oppressors". I'm not exactly in the business of oppressing people so being told to quiet down at a GA because I'm a white male, quite frankly, almost gives me seizures.

OWS events was the largest stage or arena for me to witness privilege theory in practice and what I saw repulsed me almost to the point of complete mental breakdown. Take you for example. From what I've gathered from reading your posts is that you know, well, not much about Marxism and a lot about organizing around issues of oppression. Why should I feel comfortable in a movement led by your sort of mentality? I've seen nothing but baseless accusations of racism and sexism from you. Just think if you had a bullhorn and 1,000 people believing every word you said. Solidarity? I think not.

This isn't to say oppression doesn't exist and fighting it shouldn't be a cornerstone of efforts to built a new society it's just, using your baseless claims of sexism and racism as an example, the mindset privilege theory nurtures is one of idealism swimming in the realm of subjective opinion and organizing a Marxist resistance to capitalism should have at it's foundation a materialist approach with less sub divisions of identity all fighting separate battles for this or that piece of the pie. Marxism shows us how to organize not some academic new left quasi Maoist nonsense which was basically formulated with the foundation that the American working class isn't capable of revolution.

Errrr.

Well, I can't speak for your experience, but in mine it's always been a case of the oppressor groups doing oppressing, and causing wedges within movements, excluding people of certain groups, etc. Oppressor groups then make visible these conflicts, which is misinterpreted as causing the conflict. This makes about as much sense as blaming the poor for class warfare, and for many of the same reasons. I assure you, nobody wants to address society's ills as much as women of color, native americans, this or that oppressed group of people. We're not here to sabotage anyone unless the things being advocated are things that will bring harm to marginalized groups.

I don't have any interest in continuing your personal vendetta against me from other threads; I actually didn't recognize you until I checked your post history. I will say that your assessment of me is correct in that I do know a whole lot more about organizing around issues of oppression than I do economics or Marxist organizing; that is why I am here, so I can learn. Meanwhile, I'm also doing what I would ask of anyone else. I'm bringing the subjects of my own expertise to the table in order to educate others. These aims aren't at odds with each other in the slightest.

As for why you should feel comfortable in a movement that takes anti-oppression issues into consideration; your comfort is not a priority to me. Revolutionary struggle is never, nor should it ever be, comfortable. Growing as a person, let alone as a revolutionary, involves leaving our comfort zones and putting ourselves in new situations. That anyone would demand "comfort" in a revolutionary movement is preposterous to me. Organizing around issues of oppression involves dissecting deeply embedded social attitudes. Mine, yours, and everyone else's.

I don't agree with your assessment that a Marxist movement involves glossing over or eliminating peoples' differences. We are different from each other. There is no shame in admitting that, and what's more, these differences drastically affect our material conditions. And in solving that problem, how we go about organizing matters, because if we aren't careful we will replicate the same oppressive dynamics that already exist in our revolutionary movements.

Being anti-oppressive isn't an ideology. It is a skill. We can replicate existing power structures, or we can be deliberate about not doing so. Significant gains in learning and teaching this skill have been made in recent years, and we would do well to update our praxis accordingly. There is no advantage whatsoever to keeping our analyses of race, gender, ability, and sexuality the exact same as they've been since the 60's.

[Quail]

I think it's useful for leftists to be aware of "privilege" in order to avoid replicating the oppressive power structures of a capitalist society within their own circles. Historically there has been a problem with sexism within anarchist and communist groups. Honestly, reading about some of the problems the women in the Spanish civil war faced, such as women being underrepresented and not taken seriously in meetings and women being expected to do stuff like take minutes and make tea... These are problems which still fucking exist today. So for example if male comrades were aware that they've been brought up to take for granted that someone is going to do all the menial tasks that make their existence possible, then they could volunteer to take minutes or make tea instead of women doing it all the damn time. If they were aware that men are more likely to interrupt and talk over women than other men, they could make sure they don't do that so that women get heard. I've used sexism as an example here, but it could equally apply to any kind of oppression.