I read Johan Pregmo's piece first, and enjoyed it, and also enjoyed this - perhaps it's the fact that I'm tired and on my 4th beer, but I don't see conflict between the two pieces.
Johan argues that the big battles of the left have already been won, and like St George fighting the dragon who kept looking for more dragons, never accepting we won...
And you argue correctly (I'm temporizing) that the continued battles are nothing more than a distraction - which I also agree with.
Not seeing the conflict (yet) between the two pieces.
May 27, 2022·edited May 27, 2022Liked by Jamie Paul
Great stuff. As Frank Zappa sang, “they just take care of #1. And #1 ain’t you! You ain’t even #2”.
And thanks for turning me onto QM. I would normally assume (and this is sad!) that “Queer” would mean dreary celibate activism. Glad I looked and was delighted to find the wonderful Justin Lehmiller writing there.
What happened when liberals abandoned class. Neoliberalism tries to pretend class doesn't exist, so the most you can do is swap labels. Because if it's a woman CEO downsizing you to boost her stock options, that's progress, right? Your company won't pay a living wage and fires anyone who whispers about a union, but you can wear pronoun pins, and that's totally not a distraction from meaningful progress, right?
In conversation after conversation with liberals on privilege, they ignore or minimize class, despite that being a larger factor than anything else. Maybe it's neoliberalism, maybe because fighting back in the class war would take effort, maybe because then all the NPR liberals couldn't look down on the poor white rednecks they love to hate.
The worst part is, for all the talk of "intersectionality," all this culture war just fragments us; cuts us into a million little identities and subgroups, all squabbling with each other over who's more privileged, while the rich keep us begging for scraps.
I read Johan Pregmo's piece first, and enjoyed it, and also enjoyed this - perhaps it's the fact that I'm tired and on my 4th beer, but I don't see conflict between the two pieces.
Johan argues that the big battles of the left have already been won, and like St George fighting the dragon who kept looking for more dragons, never accepting we won...
And you argue correctly (I'm temporizing) that the continued battles are nothing more than a distraction - which I also agree with.
Not seeing the conflict (yet) between the two pieces.
Great stuff. As Frank Zappa sang, “they just take care of #1. And #1 ain’t you! You ain’t even #2”.
And thanks for turning me onto QM. I would normally assume (and this is sad!) that “Queer” would mean dreary celibate activism. Glad I looked and was delighted to find the wonderful Justin Lehmiller writing there.
What happened when liberals abandoned class. Neoliberalism tries to pretend class doesn't exist, so the most you can do is swap labels. Because if it's a woman CEO downsizing you to boost her stock options, that's progress, right? Your company won't pay a living wage and fires anyone who whispers about a union, but you can wear pronoun pins, and that's totally not a distraction from meaningful progress, right?
In conversation after conversation with liberals on privilege, they ignore or minimize class, despite that being a larger factor than anything else. Maybe it's neoliberalism, maybe because fighting back in the class war would take effort, maybe because then all the NPR liberals couldn't look down on the poor white rednecks they love to hate.
The worst part is, for all the talk of "intersectionality," all this culture war just fragments us; cuts us into a million little identities and subgroups, all squabbling with each other over who's more privileged, while the rich keep us begging for scraps.