Intersectionality.
Readers of this blog might have understood the periphereal status of both feminism and anti-racism in it. To a great extent this has to do with my own lack of experience and learning in these matters. This is, of course, an easy alibi for a white, working class man.
So what I am going to do is that I am going to discuss intersectionality: the new academic hope. Though it might have something of an intellectual fad over itself, it is critically necessary. We live, today, in a world suffused with imperialist wars, a world where women are raped, mutilitated and killed for attempting to lead their own lives, a world where a foreign-sounding name can mean segregation, alienation and isolation for years, or potentially life.
We are also facing a Left that is tattered; bloodied, but not broken. The dreams of '68 have fallen by the wayside, lost in a haze of neoliberalism, drugs and the Soviet collapse. One of the great problems of theorists of that time, beyond sectarianism and all of that, is the pervasive ideology of humanism. I connect to Althusser in this matter: humanism is ideological, it is not Marxist. To open the door for humanism is to open the door to a great manner of conflicting and confusing ideas that serve only to weaken class consciousness for the abstraction of 'Humanity'. The anti-racist and feminist movements of the 60's and 70's were typically suffused with humanism and we are still labouring under it. The Left means, to a great deal of people, that you should be nice to kids and dogs.
This is, quite obviously, not my own standpoint. One of the greatest theoretical struggles and challenges that we have is to incorporate anti-racism, feminism and revolutionary socialism under one, explosive banner, without all turning into burgeoise humanists (vaguely against an undefined oppression). To find the Archimedean space from where we can lift the entirety of human exploitation in it's various guises is no easy feat; which is why ever since the Frankfurt School's attempts we have failed to offer a conclusive view. On the one hand, we have overestimated the status of the class struggle, and on another, we have underestimated it.
Though I rarely (if ever) manage to give any kind of solution to anything that I write about when it comes to theory, I am going to say this. Perhaps we are starting in the wrong end. Perhaps what we truly need to do is to engage, more fiercely and more bitterly than we have ever done before, in the struggle for liberation. The key to the solution might be in the collective praxis rather than a direct, academic solution. Not the turn of an abstract key, but the erasure of borders between individuals engaged in the same concrete situation. Praxis erases the sharp line between theory and practice, and it unites individuals in new constellations.
We must never forget the lessons of the past. Currently, I am engaged in reading Angela Davis book "Women, Race & Class". It illuminates in many sharp examples the mutual betrayals of the working class men towards women, of petty burgeoise women towards working class women, of those towards the Black women, etc. None of these lessons can be forgotten.
We must realize, again, that all of these things are connected, and we must manage to find a principle - or set of them - from which we can make a concrete analysis rather than the chopping work that we so often find. We must also avoid chauvinism from both men, from white groups, and from the petty burgeoise in doing so. Though I must reiterate my partisanship for the revolutionary struggle to create a grassroots analysis, so to speak, we must remember that the different types of oppression are not the same. The development and structure of capitalism suffuses and even breeds racism and sexism, but they are rather upheld by the praxis of existing collectives rather than an economical model as such. That is to say: we can change the internal political subjects and 'solve' (aufheben) gender roles and racism - capitalism is a problem that needs to be overthrown with mass political action in revolution.
However, even as we state that, we are bound to remember a few things about capitalism that will weaken the divide between the class struggle and gender/race conflicts. If the political subject in capitalism (the working class) simply ceases to engage in it's usual, concrete action (working) the entire system will fall apart (the old syndicalist idea). If we decide to organize our society in an entirely different manner tomorrow, then so it will be, we will enter into a new praxis. Of course, this will never happen, but neither will racism end without struggle, and without the Fanonian changes in the oppressed subject's psyche. Praxis continues to be the integrating link between individuals and collectives that make up and are made up of collective action.
So what I am going to do is that I am going to discuss intersectionality: the new academic hope. Though it might have something of an intellectual fad over itself, it is critically necessary. We live, today, in a world suffused with imperialist wars, a world where women are raped, mutilitated and killed for attempting to lead their own lives, a world where a foreign-sounding name can mean segregation, alienation and isolation for years, or potentially life.
We are also facing a Left that is tattered; bloodied, but not broken. The dreams of '68 have fallen by the wayside, lost in a haze of neoliberalism, drugs and the Soviet collapse. One of the great problems of theorists of that time, beyond sectarianism and all of that, is the pervasive ideology of humanism. I connect to Althusser in this matter: humanism is ideological, it is not Marxist. To open the door for humanism is to open the door to a great manner of conflicting and confusing ideas that serve only to weaken class consciousness for the abstraction of 'Humanity'. The anti-racist and feminist movements of the 60's and 70's were typically suffused with humanism and we are still labouring under it. The Left means, to a great deal of people, that you should be nice to kids and dogs.
This is, quite obviously, not my own standpoint. One of the greatest theoretical struggles and challenges that we have is to incorporate anti-racism, feminism and revolutionary socialism under one, explosive banner, without all turning into burgeoise humanists (vaguely against an undefined oppression). To find the Archimedean space from where we can lift the entirety of human exploitation in it's various guises is no easy feat; which is why ever since the Frankfurt School's attempts we have failed to offer a conclusive view. On the one hand, we have overestimated the status of the class struggle, and on another, we have underestimated it.
Though I rarely (if ever) manage to give any kind of solution to anything that I write about when it comes to theory, I am going to say this. Perhaps we are starting in the wrong end. Perhaps what we truly need to do is to engage, more fiercely and more bitterly than we have ever done before, in the struggle for liberation. The key to the solution might be in the collective praxis rather than a direct, academic solution. Not the turn of an abstract key, but the erasure of borders between individuals engaged in the same concrete situation. Praxis erases the sharp line between theory and practice, and it unites individuals in new constellations.
We must never forget the lessons of the past. Currently, I am engaged in reading Angela Davis book "Women, Race & Class". It illuminates in many sharp examples the mutual betrayals of the working class men towards women, of petty burgeoise women towards working class women, of those towards the Black women, etc. None of these lessons can be forgotten.
We must realize, again, that all of these things are connected, and we must manage to find a principle - or set of them - from which we can make a concrete analysis rather than the chopping work that we so often find. We must also avoid chauvinism from both men, from white groups, and from the petty burgeoise in doing so. Though I must reiterate my partisanship for the revolutionary struggle to create a grassroots analysis, so to speak, we must remember that the different types of oppression are not the same. The development and structure of capitalism suffuses and even breeds racism and sexism, but they are rather upheld by the praxis of existing collectives rather than an economical model as such. That is to say: we can change the internal political subjects and 'solve' (aufheben) gender roles and racism - capitalism is a problem that needs to be overthrown with mass political action in revolution.
However, even as we state that, we are bound to remember a few things about capitalism that will weaken the divide between the class struggle and gender/race conflicts. If the political subject in capitalism (the working class) simply ceases to engage in it's usual, concrete action (working) the entire system will fall apart (the old syndicalist idea). If we decide to organize our society in an entirely different manner tomorrow, then so it will be, we will enter into a new praxis. Of course, this will never happen, but neither will racism end without struggle, and without the Fanonian changes in the oppressed subject's psyche. Praxis continues to be the integrating link between individuals and collectives that make up and are made up of collective action.
Labels: anti-racism, Feminism, intersectionality, Praxism, socialism
posted by Björn at 10:47 PM
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