Class analysis...

[BertrandRussell]

Why do people find it so difficult? Am I being too simplistic and missing something?
White people as a class have more power than black people as a class.. Men as a class are more violent than women as a class. Is there anything controversial there?

[fmsfms]

"Class analysis doesn’t say it is. At all. That’s why the phrase ‘as a class’ is used .... You’re missing the point"

lol ok, sure I am

[grandplans]

Excellent. @fmsfms must have the key to @BertrandRussell's question!

fmsfms pleaae could you explain what your problem is with this statement?

"White people as a class have more power than black people as a class."

Is it that you think Bertrand is trying to say ALL individual white people are more powerful than ALL black people so the statement seems wrong?

Or do you think it's never valid to look at group behaviour?

Or does it irritate you as it feels lime she's having a go at you?

Or something else?

I'm genuinely intetested.

[Bowlofbabelfish]

lol ok, sure I am

Oh good. Yes you are. That was easy.

[Tinycitrus]

"White people as a class have more power than black people as a class."

That’s true.

[Tinycitrus]

But it doesn’t help anything g or anyone.

[RatRolyPoly]

Class analysis is a really useful tool. Like all tools there are times when it is appropriate to use it, and times when it is not. But most times you get the best results when using it to some degree, and in conjunction with other tools.

I don't know that I've ever met anyone who can't understand class analysis, but that doesn't stop them on occasion thinking it isn't the best tool for the job, or perhaps that it is being given undue weight in a particular argument or situation.

[PatriarchyPersonified]

I think the problem isn't a lack of education. Most people understand that you can look at something as a characteristic of a collective, and as a characteristic of an individual.

However anyone who knows anything about critical thinking can tell you that these are very different things.

The problem with identity politics is that it routinely conflates the two.

The other issue is that it uses the identity of the person making the argument as a way to attack that argument itself.

For example if a white person critiques white privilege or a man talks about The Patriarchy, their identity in itself becomes grounds to invalidate their argument. "You can't say that, your not black/a woman, so shut up and listen to those who know better"

This is a logical fallacy (ad hominem) and doesn't address the argument. If a black person/women came along and made the exact same argument, where would the rebuttal be?

[grasspigeons]

I don't find it difficult to understand and sometimes its very useful to talk in terms of class analysis without a whole lot of whataboutery.

However, I don't always find it relevant or helpful. Sometimes the discussion really is about individuals within a group who do not personally have the privilege normally associated with that group and sometimes the discussion turns into a silly top trumps with peoples lives.

[changeypants]

i meet lots of people who don't understand it! hence the constant need to NAMALT both online and IRL.

and whilst i think i understand it, i don't know if i spend enough time thinking about the implications of being in one of the more powerful classes: does that confer a responsibility on me for instance? and if it does how best to act on that?

[changeypants]

patriarchypersonified i really agree with your post

[Beachcomber]

Because it's out of fashion at the moment and it suits current western politics to pretend that it is all about individuals.

Because classes have power. And we must stop knowing that..

[changeypants]

i think the conflation of class analysis and identity politics is really being used against feminists. its a great way to divide women who might otherwise have been fighting together for better treatment.

if you can dismiss women who are white, because identity politics, you are silencing the voices of women who might be able to use the benefits that come with being in a more powerful class to help ALL women.

[grandplans]

it suits current western politics to pretend that it is all about individuals

Because classes have power. And we must stop knowing that.

This.

[thebewilderness]

White males kill, torture, and abuse, more than any other demographic.
For being a shockingly small portion of the world population they score astonishingly high of the deadly to be around hierarchy.
I reported your racist comment Moody.

[thebewilderness]

Seriously Moody! Christian nations are bombing Muslim nations every effing day. Read a newspaper.

[MoodyDench]

I meant 'a religion not a race'...

[TheDowagerCuntess]

If a black person/women came along and made the exact same argument, where would the rebuttal be?

In my [online] expertise this rarely happens.

White men hardly ever make the same comments about the patriarchy as, say, a black women.

Black women tend to say, 'well, my experience is ...', while white men tend to just deny the existence of the patriarchy.

So I suppose what you're saying is, if a black woman comes along and denies the existence of the patriarchy, where's the rebuttal? As if a tiny minority of black woman doing that invalidates everyone else, and somehow proves the white guy right.

[thebewilderness]

I think we all have your measure by now, Moody.

[thebewilderness]

Speaking only for myself, I think your statements demonstrate to everyone precisely who you are in no uncertain terms.

[womanformallyknownaswoman]

Because people have been generally mind controlled by neocon policies for decades now that the individual can achieve anything. Success is all down to the individual, and nothing else, and whether they try hard enough.

If you don't succeed, or are targeted by male violence and /or systemic injustice, then it's all your fault. No problem with the system or men, just with you. /s

They have been poisoned by the US cult-like mantras, as have the Labour Party, the traditional advocates for the dispossessed plus working classes.

So because no-one in politics is talking class, people don't know what it is nor that there is another way of analysing power, privilege and disadvantage - and to that list I would add male violence.

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

I spent years teaching subjects which required the development of a strategic understanding of the field. That is, to consider not only the mechanics of their job but the political and social implications and contexts of that job, (it was a politically sensitive area).

While it may have been a failure of my teaching, in end I started to think that some people struggle with big picture thinking - either their training, their experience or their wiring hinder their capacity to do strategic analysis. This is not to say they were unintelligent or uninvolved, but that this was a tool they didn't, or maybe couldn't, master.

Feminist and class analysis require the strategic analysis of systems and groups. It is difficult to consider the impact of systems if your thinking keeps bringing you back to individual cases.

I think this is why, when you say, "women are more oppressed than men (as a class), someone will always chime in with, "yes, but I know a woman who is the CEO of a corporation, so how is that oppressed. Hey? Hey?"

Class analysis depends on making broad generalisations in order to discern the systems which create particular conditions. Identity politics is the exact opposite of this kind of thinking because it privileges individuals. Not to say that personal experience isn't important, but the struggle or success of individuals only tells you about those people. Class analysis tells you about what the structural mechanisms are which create oppression.

Identity politics is a logical outcome of the myth of the individual, and it is, as was said above, a useful tool for maintaining privilege.

It's why feminism and Marxism are such powerful tools for the analysis of society: and why they face such hostility.

I don't know how to fix the thinking bit - a concentration of the development of thinking skills in school maybe?

Sorry if this is a bit incoherent - I'm typing on my phone between chores.

[PatriarchyPersonified]

In my experience this rarely happens

But Dowager surely you can see that the frequency that an argument is made has no bearing on whether or not it's true.

I know numerous women who are critical of the idea of 'Patriarchy', and one of my best friends (who happens to be black and from Zimbabwe) hates the entire concept of 'white privilege'. That's just in my (admittedly limited) experience.

The point remains, if your entire rebuttal consists of 'your argument is invalid because you are white/a man', then you don't actually have a rebuttal.