This comment section: "Actually I'm pretty sure the bike fell over for reasons unrelated to the stick"
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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I cannot speak for "that country", assuming you mean the US, as I don't live there. That said, I think people don't have actual past lives as a reference. If my grandfather or father lived in a different world, this can at most create expectations, but cannot be really generating a feeling of prosecution, because the current one is the only life I have actually lived and I know.
Then there is another issue, which is that in reality there are a lot of factors that determine whether you are born "in third base". Gender, historically, has been one of them, but it's far from being a guarantee. However, the political discourse often flattens this issue and makes it almost two-dimensional. If you are a white man, you are privileged, period. Fact is, there are tons of white man that are absolutely not privileged, and are also victim of an unequal and oppressive society. These people are substantially alienated because their voice is simply not represented anywhere. My leftist interpretation is that some of the egalitarian discourse (feminism, LGBT rights etc.) has been to some extent swallowed by the status quo, and lost a lot of the revolutionary potential it had, becoming more focused on individual perception and rights, rather than on systemic issues that therefore could capture also the dynamics of a white man being also oppressed, even if from a different angle. In other words, if feminism is purely focused on battles of women as a group of individuals, and not as part of a system that oppresses them within a wider mechanism, then oppressed people that don't strictly belong to that category have a much harder time to see in women a reflection of their own oppression.
Basically, a realization such as:
was true already decades (centuries) ago, and that's why lots of feminist battles were linked to socialism and leftist ideologies. This is nothing new, really, and forcing to read the current issues only from the racial perspective or only from the gender perspective (etc.) makes it much harder to build solidarity between groups who are instead left to fight battles within the system, without a perspective or a struggle to move past it.
The problem is that even if your grandfather isn't around to tell you about it, the evidence of his accomplishments outlive him. You don't need to embody someone's personal lives to understand that your grandfather lived an upper middle class working at a factory, and you can barely afford to make rent. That your father married his highschool sweetheart and started a family in his twenties, and you're thirty and can barely afford groceries for yourself.
Right.....but can you claim in an academically honest way that a poor white man has historically been offered more opportunities to succeed than a poor black man? That poor white men and poor black men have the same opportunities to lift themselves out of their class structure?
Idk, I would say the majority of the United States Congress has been very open to mens rights advocacy. This discourse revolves around people like Tate who have created space specifically for men to air their grievances.
Some say they are driven there because they have no progressive place to go. I just think they don't want anything to do with progressive spaces, because progressive spaces do not put them on a pedestal. They are included vicariously, the progressive ideology of supporting young people doesn't preclude young men. It just isn't solely focused on them.
I agree, but until recently there has always been a social understanding that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. So long as the upper class threw enough scraps down from the table, the pet class would support the hierarchy.
That is my problem with specifically focusing on mens rights, it's just another division in class solidarity.
Sure, and that's why I spoke about expectations. But a feeling of being prosecuted requires something else, in my opinion. Everyone in the situation you describe would realize that the problems are common, and not "mine" because male. What I thought you were referring to was the dissonance between expecting a privileged life and having a regular one, such as not being handed over things on a silver platter and having to simply "work" for them.
Sure, but that doesn't help anybody, because we don't live in statistics and we don't live historically. If I am a struggling person, telling me that historically the category that I happened to belong to was privileged hence I am privileged feels like adding insult to injury. In fact, the moment arguments such as "sorry, it has been centuries the turn for [CATEGORY] now it's the turn of [OTHER CATEGORY]" are thrown around is the moment those categories will see themselves as adversaries for vital space, and not on the same side fighting against an oppressor, which is exactly what I think happens in many instances today. And make no mistake, I think this is by no means a coincidence, this is absolutely functional as such struggle is less threatening to who detains power.
I am talking about mainstream and daily life. And it's not even about men's right, it's about struggle of people independently from the individual social group(s) they belong to, but more focused on class (for example). The "men's right" movement is a reactionary movement that sees in feminism and other movements a threat, and to some extend, they are a threat. Intersectional feminism is not mainstream, it did not really breach the social norm or discourse. What did breach is the superficial/apolitical version of it that stays on the surface. This is what people see everyday in movies, TV series, on the workplace, on social media etc. This is what I mean by not having representation, not having a voice.
I can't talk about what's going on in US, but what reaches on the other side of the ocean, doesn't include men at all. In fact, the main cultural result of progressive movements that I can observe from here is "woke"-ism, which I lack a better term to define, which is basically apolitical and fully focused on individual elements within the status quo, but lacks a proper political frame and analysis and therefore is very narrow in scope (women, race and LGBT).
I mean, the biggest political struggles happened almost 50 years ago. I really don't see what you are referring to, nor I do see right now in any form a coherent political movement who focuses on the class struggle as main objective. Am I missing something, maybe?
I addressed this point earlier, but I will repeat it just to elaborate. I don't care about men's rights. I care about a class analysis and a political movement that uses it, which is able to channel all the struggles from oppressed people, starting from women and other minorities, without alienating some of them due to irrelevant differences. This is in essence my problem: the current mainstream "progressive" discourse has been so neutered politically that has become individualist and as such doesn't capture the whole dynamic of class oppression. To make a concrete example, in tech the debate about women and other minorities is extremely hot and it's absolutely common to be the sole focus of diversity initiatives etc. Obviously this is posturing from the companies' perspective, but even the progressive people often fail to talk about other issues such as ageism (and many other things, ofc), which is an even bigger discriminatory factor in tech. It's not that one is more important of the other (or viceversa), it's that they are both results of the same exploitative dynamic and focusing on one of them without capturing the higher level problem becomes neutered and alienates people.
I am not that confident this is true. I don't expect that level of self awareness in the majority of young people.
First I do think we live in statistics, some of us may be unaware of this but it affects nus either way. Secondly, I think the internal contradiction is that a poor white person is likely to believe they should be more privileged based on their race, but are not because of progressive policy. The same way poor people protect the wealthy from taxation.
Finally we are discussing social class, not how individuals react to the idea of social class. I didn't say all white people were privileged people, I said white people belong to a privileged class. It's the same as saying San Fransisco is a rich city, instead of saying everyone in San Francisco is rich. If you are not a rich person in San Francisco, and I said the problem is inherent in the wealth of San Francisco, would you take it personally?
Right, but who does have that kind of representation or voice if not white men? Even in your example you highlighted how intersectional feminism never got its time in the mainstream.
I mean, I think that's fairly natural if there really isn't much room for men to progress in a society. If you're already at the top, where else is there to make progress other than supporting allies who haven't made it yet?
What I mean is that if I am a white unemployed, poor, knowing that 90% of rich people are white and male doesn't make me any richer or privileged.
based on what you think so?
But this is the problem. Class is not tied with demography in itself, class has to do with relationship to wealth. White people don't belong to a privileged class, the privileged class is mostly composed by white people. They are not the same thing. I would take it personally if you defined policy that worked on the assumption that "San Francisco" is rich, if I am one of the thousands of homeless people, indeed.
Women and other minorities today have that representation. Mainstream discourse involves a lot these topics. Unfortunately not intersectional feminism, because that's way too threatening.
That's the thing, being a man doesn't make you on top. Thinking this way, with airtight categories is indicative of the kind of idea that as long as "a proportionate amount of women" are going to be "on top" (i.e., in position of power), we are fine. We are not. This always leave a significant amount of people oppressed. That's why I think feminism should be (and partly is!) a transformative movement, and why I think it's a problem that it has been swallowed by the status quo. This, to me, is the wrong battle. If someone told me that since I am man I am "on top", and therefore I should just be an ally, I would feel alienated, because this fails completely to capture the mechanism of the system that oppresses both me and women.
Would that person be claiming that young white men are the most disadvantaged class?
Remember, I didn't claim that all white people were privileged. Only that if you were to for some reason break class down to race and gender, young white men would not more discriminated against than anyone else.
I mean we are talking about people who are claiming that young white males are being ignored or specifically discriminated against. So they're already drawing conclusions based on race. In America a common trope is to blame minorities for economic disparity. Going back prior to the civil war, where poor white farmers blamed the slaves for ruining the labor market.
Again, the original context was about a group who already specified their demography. The premise was that young white men were specifically disadvantaged.
My rebuttal was that specifying young white men, instead of just young people was problematic. But if we were to examine this demographic as a class, it would be hard to say they were disadvantaged. I did not define the structure of class in this argument, the person I was originally responding to did.
And white men do not?
When I said the top, I meant in policy. If we are talking about political equality, there are not a lot of reasons for men to justifiably advance their own rights.
And if they told you they were progressive about mens rights?
I don't think so, and I don't see why it's relevant. Young white men are not a class, also, and I don't see why they should think in those terms. The fact is, if you are told that you are on top due to the population you belong to, but you effectively are not, you are alienated by that movement. I think it's fairly straightforward, no? A movement that considers "young white men" a class (a privileged one), is alienating because it fails to capture the reality of class structure.
And I agree with this.
Yeah but we are not talking about the people of this article specifically, are we? I am talking about generally poor men. Why these people should think that they should be more privileged based on race? I think that the majority of people would simply want to have more, exactly like everyone else. The idea that people should deserve more based on their race seems closer to white suprematism which is a minoritarian ideology. Also this is very unlikely in countries that don't have the same racial divide as the US.
And this - to some extent - is also my argument. Specifically, they are because their oppression is not acknowledged nor part of the agenda for the progressive movements. They are alienated as oppressed and they are not member of the upper class by virtue of their population, hence they are as oppressed as others, without anybody representing their problems. So they are specifically disadvantaged from this perspective as there is not even a movement that they can support in which they recognize themselves. Some of them, turn to reactionary ideologies/people (like the ones in this article) that capture their problems.
Not in the same way. Again, the mainstream cultural discourse lost a lot of the political connotation and flattened purely on gender/racial issues, so no, white oppressed men don't have a political outlet that capture their struggle in the same way, right now. This to me explains the growth of the Jordan Peterson & co., which act as representation for those people's issues, and are the exact reflection of the progressive movement who -failing to put class struggle at the center, and focusing on individual populations- pushes the idea that oppressed populations are actually in competition with each other for vital space (sorry, nothing to do for white men, you are already on top, now we need to support [POPULATION]).
Well this in my opinion is an extremely limited perspective, because oppression and inequality is not solved by policy.
I would answer the same I answered before, I don't care about mens right per se. I generally strongly oppose this idea that class should be divided in the different population, each with its own set of problems and demands. This to me seems like a perfect way to shatter class unity which becomes purely based on mutual support (being an ally) rather than on common interests and reciprocal recognition as members of the same class and victim of the same dynamics.
I think this has been our problem, yes I have been specifically talking about men who have already self identified as being more disadvantaged because they are young white men.
I don't believe that class has to do with race, but that was the specific claim I was originally negating. My arguments surrounding race were attempts to point out internal contradictions within this claim. If we do accept the framework of race specifying class, as the claim was stated, things don't really make sense.
It is only a minority view depending on what part of the country you are in. When I went to elementary school in South Carolina they taught that the civil war was about state rights, and that the majority of southerners didn't even like slavery, and that was because slaves made them poorer.
I think you are underestimating just how racist certain parts of this country are, and how important racial ideology is to their culture. And just how effectively it utilized race in class division. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Right, but that's namely because western politics is devoid of any actual class consciousness. It primarily is still focused on individual rights, of which white men aren't really disadvantaged.
See that's where I disagree, there are progressive political parties who engage in class consciousness. They just aren't popular, and don't tend to attract a lot of white young men, or at least in my area.
Fox News doesn't match that description? Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, a slew of other networks or anchors that specifically talk about this constantly? They have plenty of political outlets, just not a lot of healthy ones. But again, this is because those same networks are ran by the people who benefit from preserving the status quo.
Plus, i think the same problems are endemic to minority groups as well. It's not like this representation is really focusing on class politics, they're all based around individual rights. What exactly is the difference between the leaders of black lives matter and Jordan Peterson, other than one may have more legitimate complaints?
Yes, but that is typically what progressiveness looks like outside of class consciousness, and I don't really foresee us evolving past that any time soon.
Right, but this debate did not start in a vacuum. The original affirmation was that young white men were specifically disadvantaged.
I think there was a confusion where you thought my arguments within the framework of the original affirmation were taken as individual claims instead of rebuttals to claims. I think part of that is due to me responding to a slew of gish gallop made by the op.
I think we have essentially been in agreement, with maybe some differences in opinion about the scope of white supremacist ideology being practiced in America.
I also want to expand the perspective and not be US-centric. I am not from US, I don't live there. There are many other places that share similar situations. I can agree that perhaps in some parts of US what you are saying is true. I am saying that this is definitely not the case in many european countries where there is no such racial divide. Of course, right-wing parties still utilize race whenever they can (e.g., immigration).
Yeah, of course they exist, this is the same in Europe. They are not mainstream, they are not among the parties people vote to see their representative in parliament etc. This is why I stressed on the "mainstream" aspect.
You are right, and probably I did not specify well enough. I am talking about progressive (and leftist) political outlets. You quoted exactly the kind of people I was referring to when I mentioned those who end up capturing the problems for these people and then using them for their own interests. To simplify: if a poor white man sees in his interest the Carlson's agenda and not the one from a progressive movement, this is a failure first and foremost of that movement imho. To me it is a failure in building an analysis and making proposals that people from all races and genders can understand and recognize themselves into. This is why I mentioned that imho the Carlsons are just the flipside of the coin of a neutered progressive (mainstream!) movement.
Exactly my point! And yet BLM is the mainstream movement that reaches the news and essentially the only one that we know of from US on the other side of the ocean. I am sure that for locals things might be different, but that's exactly what I am referring to as the problem. The main political discourse is occupied by movements which lost all traits of class politics, therefore laying the ground for people to entrench themselves into movements based on characteristics which are (politically) irrelevant. If you are a poor (maybe relatively uneducated) white man, your political opinion is hardly shaped on niche analysis and research, and more based on what you see around you (TV, socials etc.). If all this person sees are movement who don't talk at all about problems they might be facing, then they will turn to those who do, Carlson and these other toxic guys.
Me neither, but this means that the struggle is completely neutered and within the boundaries of the system, and as such cannot address systemic issues. I think it's absolutely necessary to see past it, given the global political situation.
Very likely, and probably also because I live in a different world and I have a different background, so I did not want to dismiss but also did not want to focus solely on US issues/perspective. I also believe that the people the article talks about are -unfortunately- not only is US. I remember Peterson having a talk (or whatever you can call those) where I live and it was fully booked...