A brilliant left wing take down of identity politics

[leyat]

Wanted to share this video I just watched, it is a brilliant left wing take down of identity politics, totally worth making a cuppa and giving it a wee watch. Nice to have a new exciting online voice out there.

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=2RmO9GUh8pM

(Also for those on twitter you can follow her @tan_1th)

Ok I’m pretty much politically conservative these days, but by god this is what I wish my political/ idealogical opponents were like! She’s smart, eloquent and charismatic I hope to see more of her ilk going forwards. She represents an incarnation of the left that whilst I may not always agree with I’d work with.

Slightly les academic, the Simpsons take on SJW

Student: 'You're worse than Hitler'

Mr Burns: 'Too late for flattery. You're not getting a penny'

She makes some good points. The left has abandoned the people they are supposed to represent with its obsession with identity politics and should stop labelling them and try and understand and address their grievances because others will move into that vacuum for their own ends (hence Trump/Brexit). Nice to see some critical thinkers on the left and not all Owen Jones's.

Good good, I’ll mention my gripe....

This phenomenon gripping the mainstream of political discourse is not leftwing and it is not feminist.

‘The left’ hasn’t abandoned anything IMO... neoliberal Pomo addled identity politics bullshit has a stranglehold and it is redefining the terms of debate for both ‘left’ and ‘right’ so that they are based on identity characteristics (self ID or imposed).

Owen Jones imo is a casualty of academia and fame...

He may have been interesting at one point.

People mean ‘liberal’ when they say ‘leftwing’ now IMO...

Placemarking to watch later.

I think there is an abusive cycle going on here. Political and cultural small c conservativism in the past forced an identity on others. Women, minorities, sexual orientations, you name it. Now they have been supplanted by the rebels and dissidants, the heirs to that are behaving in exactly the same way, and the cycle will probably turn again and I’ll have to get off the right wing bandwagon or reign in my personal politics.

One thing I’ll note from maybe a feminist perspective, and feel free to correct me if I’m talking out of my arse here (it’s not my natural idealogical position): the commonality is women are always in a state of being told what they are or should be, and deviation from this is punished and policed.

I’d dearly love to chime in with a rebuttal to your point Offred, but despite my knee jerk desire to do that, I have a feeling I haven’t quite grasped what you mean (going off some interesting things you’ve posted in other threads), but I have an inkling you may be right, and I need to reflect on your points in more detail.

People mean ‘liberal’ when they say ‘leftwing’ now

I agree.
But, the 'liberal' gender ideologists have found their home in left wing politics because they were accepted into it, unlike the right. So unfortunately the left baby-sat for this whole movement and now finds itself being overrun by it.

Marxism would be turning in his grave at the breakdown in class analysis and individualisation being encouraged by the left right now.

*Marx. Not Marxism.

Marxism would be turning in his grave at the breakdown in class analysis and individualisation being encouraged by the left right now.

Too long for a T-shirt ?

Placemarking to watch later.

Perfect !

Have we had any mainstream left politics since the 80s?

New labour was not leftwing politically and cemented the labour’s slide to the right by adopting Giddens’ ‘third way’.

I would characterise this as rightwing liberal.

This opened the door for the current situation so although the most recent manifesto brings the policy back into the left (comparable with atlee’s labour) the Labour Party is still populated by Right wing liberals.

Blair’s strategy was directly lifted from Clinton’s success re the democrats in the US.

Lots of them think they are left wing but they are confusing ‘liberal’ and ‘leftwing’ IMO.

Lots of people think it is ‘a problem with the left’ or ‘hard left infiltration’ because they automatically associate the Labour Party with being leftwing and also confuse liberal with left IMO.

It’s actually a problem with neoliberal postmodernism affecting both left and right in the mainstream IMO.

I always find your posts very informative, Offred. I didn't know that about Blairs strategy.

Marxism would be turning in his grave at the breakdown in class analysis and individualisation being encouraged by the left right now.

Too long for a T-shirt ?

Where do I buy one? Great posts @Offred. Spot on.

Identity politics is just divide and rule.

"Lots of them think they are left wing but they are confusing ‘liberal’ and ‘leftwing’ IMO."

I dunno, they're not exactly at the liberal end of the authoritarian scale!

It’s actually a problem with neoliberal postmodernism affecting both left and right in the mainstream IMO.

I concur. And I don't think the left is very good at rampant individualism. It makes a dog's dinner of it.

By the left, I mean "the left", obvs.

Offred as usual you're spot on

I think some of the activism the rightwing liberals are supporting is populated by genuinely hard left authoritarians... There is a middle group of well meaning liberals who may be a mix of soft left and soft right and I think it is being supported by a Labour Party that is deeply divided into rightwing liberals (‘moderates’) and the old school left (socialist democrats) is keeping quiet because they largely are uninterested in this crap, have been subjected to a huge amount of crap, are trying not to perpetuate any more division and desperately want to make head way re economic class...