What does a marxist make of the so called "culture war"

[Fire]

You hear about it a lot in the mainstream imperialist mecia but I wanted your perspective. Sometimes it gets thought of as a distraction from issues of class war but at the same time I do feel that there are genuine injustices worth fighting against.

I am a trans gender woman. Though I am not out at work, I am a high school special ed math teacher. That makes me subject to demonization by certain sectors and a future boogeyman, a pervert running an elaborate plot to get in to the women's restroom and perv out, a poster child against anti-discrimination laws. I support marriage equality, as someone who is planning on getting married to my fiance, but while marriage is nice and all, but it didn't keep me from being thrown out of a house because of hostile neighbors. I've only experience the tip of the iceberg of what is to come. And for trans women of color, it is even worse. Then there is the issue of access to abortion for AFAB women which is incredibly important.

So often in US politics there is a conflict between on one side, evangelicals and social conservatives who hold a lot of sway among working class and petty bourgeois people, and on the other side people like me, queer people, people with minority religious views, social liberals, and their allies. And it does matter. Liberals will hem and haw about "well I guess the truth is somewhere in the middle" and unprincipled compromise but for me, this is potentially a life or death situation. It is even more so for women who need an abortion or queer people of color.

But it also seems to defy class boundaries, I hate this expression, but it looks as though people in a position to side with us, often don't because of their social conservatism and capitalists may sometimes side in favor of social justice when it comes to these culture war issues.

I hope I haven't offended anyone or come across as reactionary, I am new at this.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The culture wars in the US are a specific tactic used by the two main voting blocs for purely cynical purposes. There's no doubt that many of the players behind the various issues truly believe in them and have legitimate subjective stakes in them, but a casual glance at the domestic news shows how often and how easily both parties can betray their supposedly deeply held convictions. Bread and circuses. It truly does boil down to a life and death situation for the people being toyed with in the meantime, however. Which is obviously the issue at hand for us. This kind of relationship plays out in all countries though, in all kinds of insane forms. This is the warm, sublime embrace of ideology.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, as I don't know what 'the Culture Wars' are, I can't really comment, but if your thesis is that sometimes the working class is racist, homophobic, xenophobic and transphobic, while the bourgeoisie sometimes promotes liberalism, then yes, this is true.

[Fire]

Why does that happen?

[Blake's Baby]

Because the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. Racism sexism and homophobia are beneficial to the ruling class because they keep the working class divided. So they're, in general, promoted by the ruling class.

If sections of the ruling class adopt more 'progressive' politics, and part of the ruling class then starts promoting that (also through bourgeois media), then some of the working class will be 'progressive' and some 'reactionary', while some of the ruling class will be progressive and some reactionary. In other words, because the ruling class controls the propogation of ideas and the education system, all shades of bourgeois opinion will be found in the working class. How could it be otherwise? Until the working class challenges the bourgeoisie's cultural hegemony, it is by and large a consumer of bourgeois culture.

[The Modern Prometheus]

^ Basically what was said above though i would add that perhaps one of the steps towards Socialism is the destruction of such petty identity politics as race, gender and other ways the Bourgeois use to keep the working class from uniting. Though there is a contradiction in how to do this when we ourselves are slaves to a system that fosters prejudice as a way of keeping us in line.

[ckaihatsu]

^ Basically what was said above though i would add that perhaps one of the steps towards Socialism is the destruction of such petty identity politics as race, gender and other ways the Bourgeois use to keep the working class from uniting. Though there is a contradiction in how to do this when we ourselves are slaves to a system that fosters prejudice as a way of keeping us in line.


philosophical abstractions

http://s6.postimg.org/cw2jljmgh/120404_philosophical_abstractions_RENDER_sc_12_1.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/i7hg698j1/full/)