Anyone up to speed with the Lindsay Shepherd case (the Canadian TA)?

Oh and your right about prostitution and probably right about porn as well.

Communism IS totalitarian and collectivist. It shakes out that way every. Single. Time. It pretty much only functions well if run in smaller communities where everyone knows one another, otherwise it scales incredibly badly. The fact that Marxism/Communism intuits as a pretty sensible and fair system is part of what makes it so dangerous.

However I recognise it’s not the only show in town re: totalitarianism and collectivism. The far right and far left become practically indistinguishable at the extremes. The main difference is anyone who sits on the right has to fight a constant rearguard action to disavow any and all bad actors on the extremes. The left however can slap down Mao’s little red book in the houses of fucking parliament and not much is made of it. If someone slapped down Mein Kampf all hell would (rightly!) break loose. The left writes itself a pass for its extremes.

Also how Corbyn will never really condemn the Venezuelan govt despite having prosletyzing about it for years. The whole problem the left has is it needs a magic grandad to make it work, and I say grandad specifically as it’s never a grandmother! As feminism really only is useful for the left as a stick to beat right wing men with. Note Jess Phillips rhetoric over Tory mp’s sexual harrassment vs Brendan Cox actually having his hand round women’s necks for a recent example.

There are arseholes and angels on both the right and the left and a fair mix of people who are a mixture. The wiser amongst us don’t differentiate based on political affiliation but treat people as individuals. Tonnes of people will disregard all I say simply because I have MRA in my username, but actually that’s partly why it’s there as people who would automatically disregard me tend to filter themselves out.

I don’t completely disregard feminism as your points on trans issues and sexual violence are pretty much incontrovertible. I’m less on board when it gets to identity politics and hailndmaidening to the left, which is usually just handing more power to men who think they should be in charge.

*has been used in practice....

Rather than ‘in reality’ 🤦🏻‍♀️

That’s fine Bamc, I don’t think you are trying to state disbelief!

I do think that in the second point (and an earlier post) you conflate communism and totalitarianism.

The first point I do not think is a coherent explanation of what is meant by equality, it’s a common interpretation of equality and it has been so in reality but it is a bit of a stretch to attribute that to equality itself.

You might enjoy this short video by joe Klein;

@offred. I gave you the only definition of cultural Marxism that I know of or have ever heard. This doesn’t mean I think you are wrong. Just that the one I gave is the only one I know. Two things I find interesting and similar between old Marxism and new identity politics are:

1. Demands for equality rather than equality of opportunity. People cannot be both free to make their own life choices and all have equal outcomes. I don’t want to have to bear the consequences of anyone else’s life choices and I don’t expect anyone else to have to beat the consequences of mine.
2. Marxism didn’t make people equal, the leaders of these revolutions were always more equal than others. The leaders of Identity politics seem to aim to turn the tables of oppression, not do away with it. Leaders like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King always wanted to stop oppression, not merely change who the victims were. Identity politics in my opinion is therefore not a struggle for civil rights.

Re the urban dictionary link prawn, the whole thing is just a brilliant illustration of the dynamic of ridding discussion of any analysis and instead centring it around insult based one upmanship.

‘Cultural marxism’ as an insult to call up echoes of ‘reds under the bed’ as a tactic to delegitimise the person rather than unpick the ideas, response is ‘conspiracy theory’ not because those making the accusation believe they are talking to people who believe in the conspiracy theory or they are interested in unpacking that theory but because they want to smear them as anti-semites in order to ‘win’.

Note those characterised as ‘the real left’ are characterised as such because they use the chosen term of the opposing group to condemn those who are ‘meant to be’ part of ‘their own group’ so earning support and legitimising language.

Obviously there is a lot about this which is understandable but it’s replaced the discussion of ideas.

Well no Bamc ‘cultural marxism’ can be an insult from radical Marxists to liberal Marxists who follow the Frankfurt model (broadly the professors could be accused of using their teaching in this way). It could be an expression of belief in a conspiracy theory regarding Jewish marxism. It could be an expression of dissatisfaction with a particular group or behaviour and an appeal (through the use of an identifying term) to inclusion in a different group....

That’s why I asked what was meant by it in the context of this discussion.

Yes, I also think people generally assume the left will be ‘better at’ this stuff because it is ‘meant to be’ their remit according to cultural ideas about what left and right are.

Also, entirely separate to any of these modern issues, academia has a long history of appalling and regressive attitudes and contrary to the modern view (academia should be progressive) academia has been a fundamental cog in the wheel; providing credibility and legitimacy to orthodox thought/political agendas.

So this is not really a new thing....

Marxism saw the world through an oppressor vs oppressed lens. The oppressed were those who had no choice but to sell their labour to those who owned the means of production (their oppressors). The goal of Marxism was to overthrow this economic order and replace it with a new power hierarchy where the leaders of the revolution would be at the top. All the working class had to do was act as a class and follow their leaders, anyone who didn’t do this was a counter revolutionary and unpersoned. In practice pitting one group against another lead to failure and the death of millions wherever and whenever it was tried. These who complain about cultural Marxism believe Marxism is back repackaged as identity politics complete with a hierarchy of privilege and oppression instead of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeois. Liberal newspapers help perpetuate this belief when they publish articles describing trans rights as a class struggle.

No, you're right. It definitely does affect both left and right.

However in academia it's the left that holds most of the power. That's why Jordan Peterson is under attack, why yhose appalling blokes thought they had the right to speak to Lindsay Shepherd as they did.

This has a big effect on the gender debate too. It's what emboldens TRA to raise the lady penis thing in university LGBT socs - socs which used to be where very young lesbians could feel free and supported.

It’s not a criticism prawn, I’m just interested to know because I think part of the problem is the reduction of arguments based on ideas to buzzwords which are more about social signalling than advancing understanding.

I do not think this is coming from specifically ‘the left’.

I think you can see that both sides do it, you even did it yourself just then by using the modern version of ‘reds under the bed’; ‘the far left’.

I see it as a much wider cultural problem affecting the mainstream, not driven by the fringes (the fringe people are not fussed about influencing the mainstream by and large). I believe it is driven by individualism and though there are observable differences in superficial aspects and behaviour between left wing and right wing tribes, the behaviour is remarkably similar at it’s core.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www-urbandictionary-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&term=cultural%20marxism&amp=true&usqp=mq331AQECAE4AQ%3D%3D#referrer=www.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.urbandictionary.com%2Fdefine.php%3Fterm%3Dcultural%2520marxism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Oops, link here.

To be perfectly honest, Offred, I don't know precisely what I mean. It's just a phrase I must have seen a hundred times and the meaning I glean from the context.

Cultural Marxism is the idea that the left presents itself as progressive and liberal, where as the truth is that identity politics are authoritarian, and very judgemental. Makes me think of the propaganda of smiling universal brotherhood of communist Russia compared to the millions who died under Stalin.

“My biggest shock was seeing how misrepresented his opinions have been, although that no longer surprises me” - mine too, to be perfectly honest. When Donald Trump first started calling the media fake news I thought the man was a clown and a narcissist. Now I think he’s a narcissist with a point. There seems to be a disturbing trend to attempt to discredit a person rather than discredit their arguments coming from the far left and the Labour Party recently. The Cathy Newman interview was eye opening for me. And Channel 4 is supposed to be a trustworthy news organisation and I believe it even gets public funding.

(I am assuming that you do not mean that you believe there is a global Jewish communist conspiracy to destroy capitalism by bullying one TA at a time)

FloralBunting
Very well said and I'm in a similar boat - there are some aspects of feminist theory that I still have a question mark over but at this point I'm willing to listen and believe that it's likely my ignorance showing...

A friend of mine spoke with the Hands Across the Aisle people and they do sound reasonable. Apparently there are two 'don't go there' topics, agree to disagree and come together for the greater good. I'm sure we can all guess what they are.

In this context, I am interested to know what you mean by ‘cultural marxism’?

However, in my view, there's some cult-like phenomenon developing around him and I find that rather disturbing. I hope he resists the temptation of getting high on his own supply

I've noticed this too and agree. There was one particular video where I felt he crossed a line by relating tearfully how his lecture videos were 'helping people'. He is open about his generally poor mental health. I hope that he can remain stable. My biggest shock was seeing how misrepresented his opinions have been, although that no longer surprises me.

Well the law suit says that Lindsey is effectively unemployable in academia now as a result of all this, so that would imply it’s everywhere? Unless an academic institution was like this one I can’t se why she would be unemployable given that she did nothing wrong?

Bamc, that "cultural Marxism" accusation rings more and more true. The preposterous mental acrobatics involved in some of the group think are very troubling, as is the approval of "safe spaces" where ideas cannot be challenged.

The debate over trans versus women's rights has brought lots of unlikely groups together. The Hands Across the Aisle initiative is one such, where radfem lesbians unite with conservative Christian women over this one topic under the slogan Biology is not bigotry.

'But more worrying than that it means that these so called ‘far right activists’ who complain that ‘cultural Marxism’ has taken over the educational establishment aren’t far wrong either. '

Well, that would depend how typical this one clearly very shitty institution is.

Jordan Peterson says some things I agree with and some I disagree with, and that's how it should be. However, in my view, there's some cult-like phenomenon developing around him and I find that rather disturbing. I hope he resists the temptation of getting high on his own supply.