On "Solidarity in Marginality" Politics

[JB DoulosChristou]

Wrote this a few days ago, before the Big 2017 TWeb Hiccup. So, here it is again:

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R. R. Reno and others have employed

• The interest of workers in selling their labor at a high price irrespective of its value to buyers, or the interest of the poor in have affordable access to useful or desirable commodities?
• The interest of children in having familial environments designed for their success, or the interest of sexual minorities to enforce the equal validity of reconstructed family notions on all sectors of society (e.g., private adoption agencies)?
• The interest of women in having the unique contributions of femininity affirmed, or the interest of women in deconstructing 'femininity' as such, or the interest of male-to-female transgender individuals in reappropriating femininity?
• The interest of transgender individuals in having others affirm their assertions of gender identity, or the interest of sexual-assault survivors and children in having security and privacy in vulnerability-enhancing environments (e.g., public bathrooms)?
• The interest of women in equal treatment in all situations, or the interest of transcultural immigrants and ethnic-minority or religious-minority populations in living unhindered according to distinctive codes of conduct, including gender roles?
• The interest of ethnic-minority populations in expressing frustration against institutional abuses of power, or the interest of similar populations to receive protection by institutions of power?
• The interest of low(er)-socioeconomic-class traditionalists to govern their own behavior, or the interest of high(er)-socioeconomic-class sexual minorities to employ coercion?

Kulturkampf

[Starlight]

It strikes me that helpful to your thoughts here would be to consider what the highly-used political terms right and left mean and where they come from.

Right-wing politics hold that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically defending this position on the basis of natural law, economics or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be viewed as natural results of traditional social differences or the competition in market economies.

The types of social orders and hierarchies supported by the right have included:
- The rule of the aristocracy or nobility over the people
- Monarchy over democracy
- The rich over the poor
- Whites over blacks
- Men over women
- Straight people over gay people
- The institutional Church (established religion) over the free religious choice of the individual (secularism)

The original 'right wing' were the monarchists in France who supported the continued rule of the nobility over the people and the authority of the established church. Over and against this were the 'left wing' who wanted freedom and equality for all and thus wanted democracy and religious liberty. In each case the right supports power being consolidated among a particular group who are special/good/authoritative relative to another group who are disliked/bad/lacking power, whereas the left opposes this and wants to distribute power more equally, giving it back to the marginalized and preventing their further marginalization.

Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. It typically involves a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others, as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished (by advocating for social justice).

The key difference between the two ideas is that right holds that there is some sort of power hierarchy that is justified where one group holds power over another (one or more of things like: nobles over the people; rich over poor; slave masters over slaves; white over black), and the left believes it isn't justified and opposes the power hierarchy and wants to distribute the power (and freedom that comes with it) to all and through doings so maximize the freedom and well-being of all.

Now bear in my that the above is a definition of "left wing" in politics. So when you say...
...you seem to be giving a reasonably accurate standard definition of 'left-wing' politics as it has been defined by political scientists for the last century.

For some reason you seem to think this is a political 'strategy' rather than just a political stance (i.e. "being left wing"), and you seem to think that those in the US doing "solidarity in marginality" are doing something different to what I would call "being left wing". You say:
I, naturally, being extremely left-wing in my politics, agree there's a great deal to be said in its favor, and that extending human rights to everyone equally and preventing the oppression of one group by another and thereby maximizing freedom and well-being among all peoples and groups is an extremely admirable goal.

But I think it needs more thought on your part as to what you mean when you call this a "strategy". I mean, yes, the political left - by it's definition - is naturally a place on the political spectrum that every kind of marginalized group will tend to gravitate towards. Ethic minorities, religious minorities, sexual minorities will all find themselves gravitating to left-wing political positions on the political issues that directly concern them. Even if one group on the left tends to hate another group on the left (e.g. gay people might be inclined to be anti-Islam for its anti-gay teachings, and Muslims might be against gay people for the same reason) they might still find themselves largely voting for the same party if both of them are minorities in the country and are both voting for a left-wing party out of self-interest to protect their own political interests and give to themselves the freedom to not be marginalized (i.e. they want to protect themselves more strongly than they want to hurt the other group politically).

One strategy the right typically uses is to try and break up those factions of the left and set them against each other as much as possible. Obviously on the issue of wealth, the 1% are never going to be able to win in a democracy against the 99%. So in order to continue political policies that entrench and defend the extreme wealth hierarchies (e.g. world's richest 8 people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the world's population [~3.5 billlion people]), the 1% have to create right-wing parties that not merely defend their interests, but also try to create some 'wedge issues' that can split up those factions on the left and distract them into casting their vote based on some other issue entirely. In the US, 'moral issues' are used for this purpose, and those tend to make for fairly good wedge issues because you can always find an issue the population is split close to 50-50 on, so if you harp on and on about that issue and get people to cast their votes based on that, then the party defending the rich's excessive wealth suddenly goes from getting ~1% of the vote to getting ~50% of it, because you've been able to trick the factions on the left into splitting up through the use of an unrelated distraction.

In that sense, I guess "solidarity in marginality" can be a political strategy that the left can use to try and psychologically unite its factions to defend against the right's attempts to distract with wedge issues. It can also help provide empathy between the different factions. (For example, in the US, black people on the whole haven't tended to be very strongly supportive of LGBT rights, despite having had to fight for their own civil rights not so long ago... helping them see the similarities between different civil rights struggles in different time periods can empower and unite the left.)

I, for one, find it humbling to look at history and see how much 'the arc of history has bent towards justice.' When the US was founded, blacks were slaves, women couldn't vote, gay sex carried the death penalty... but in ~250 years there has been changes on all these issues and each time society was forced to go through a period of reflection and controversy before finally extending to the marginalized the recognition of full human rights, and undoing the social hierarchies that had previously been in place. And the US itself was deliberately founded as a democracy rather than a monarchy, and with freedom of religion rather than established religion... as compared to the European countries of its day it was a great leftist experiment. The left has thus systematically and gradually won over the last 250 years, and no major change towards equality has ever been undone or later regretted, and today we live in a more equal and more free society than ever existed before.

[Starlight]

Er, sure. As a secular humanist I see great value in human beings, and consider empathy and love for others to be of central importance. Loving others is called the "Golden Rule" because it occurs in so many different moral philosophies throughout human history. So I agree with what you say and with the general goals of the political left and solidarity with the marginal etc, but I do so personally for non-religious reasons rather than the religious ones you bring up here. So, obviously, your implication that a religious basis to such thinking is necessary, is false.

But what you really seem to be trying to challenge is that there's something inherently wonderful about being marginalized, that we should all have some sort of love of being persecuted and marginalized. And, I agree with you, that sort of idea just seems dumb. I think it is probably a slight misunderstanding of the ideas of caring for others, helping the marginalized, and drawing the attention of those who have been marginalized to the observation that their experience has things in common with other marginalized groups and therefore trying to evoke in them a greater level of sympathy and empathy than they would otherwise have been feeling about those other groups. Those ideas strike me as fine. I suspect many on the right deliberately misunderstand and misconstrue them.

Well I think your objections here are just problems of utilitarian / leftist politics in general: i.e. if the goal is to maximize freedom and well-being for all, what does one do when the freedoms and well-being of some are at cross-purposes with the freedoms and well-being of others?

To help us navigate these sorts of dilemmas, people have come up with a lot of useful ways of thinking about it over time. e.g. "One person's freedom ends where another person's freedom begins" was the cry of the original Left in France, which is a proverb that means each person has a kind of freedom-bubble around themselves where they are free to act in their own ways and with their own actions (e.g. watch TV), but when they start acting in a way that would affect another (e.g. murder them) - i.e. impinge into another person's freedom bubble, then they are no longer free to do that thing. Another way of approaching this problem has been to use "human rights", to create minimum standards for all, and thus through these we can been sure that no one is being oppressed too much and all have at least a fairly decent standard of freedom and life. Of course it is the very few edge cases where multiple freedoms and rights are being impinged by each other (e.g. "hate speech") that warrant the bulk of the discussion, and commonly such issues end up with leftists on both sides of the debate, because there is no universally agreed way to resolve the particular paradoxes so as to maximize freedom and well-being for all and prevent all marginalization and oppression.

Of course, it is quite common for the right to present misleading arguments designed or purporting to show that some of the hierarchies and oppression they are defending are in the real interest of society and the greater freedom and well-being of everyone, and that those people need to or should be marginalized because other people want to marginalize them. The most common form this takes is religiously-motivated oppression - i.e. "most of our society is religious and our religion tells us to oppress these people, and thus you are bullying us by stopping us from bullying them the way our religion tells us to. How dare you oppress us by preventing us oppressing them!" I don't personally find that a cogent objection on their part, and lack any sympathy for it, just as I would lack sympathy for a playground bully who got upset when the teacher gave him detention for bullying the other kids and who said to his teacher "you're not anti-bullying because you're bulling me by preventing me bullying them!" Any sane teacher would just roll her ideas at such a comment rather than take it seriously, yet religiously-motivated oppressors seem to think we should take seriously their idea that we are oppressing them by blocking their desire to oppress others.

But what history shows actually happens in practice with religion is that it turns out that religion is quite malleable and so once the practice chances (e.g. slavery is abolished) then those who were defending the practice on religious grounds die out, and 100 years later all the religious people are agreeing that their religion is anti-slavery and those pro-slavery religious people were not true Christians etc.

Well it temporarily disrupts a false peace in society to achieve a goal of longer-term true justice and equality. I'm as white-boy as they come, but I don't have a problem with marching beside someone carrying a "#@&$ White People!" sign because I would understand where they are coming from: Their goal is not promoting hatred of white people as those on the right so often deliberately chose to misunderstand it as, but instead to point to the problems and causes of those problems in society with a long term view to working to fix them.

As Trump would say: "Wrong!" The political left, from its beginnings over 250 years ago, has rested on very clearly laid our principles of equality, fairness, justices, freedom, egalitarianism, well-being, anti-hierarchy, distribution of power, empathy, etc, and explicitly attempts to maximize social freedom and well-being in a utilitarian way. From the very beginning, endless books have been written about it by its advocates (e.g. Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man etc) It can't have a slippery slope towards social harms because social harms is exactly what it is against, by definition.

Suffice it to say, I generally don't agree with the enumerated points you made that I haven't commented on, but I omitted comment simply because I didn't feel they made important points so weren't worth discussing in detail.

[demi-conservative]

It can't have a slippery slope towards social harms because social harms is exactly what it is against, by definition.

Faith of true believer!!

[Darth Executor]

My excellent post disappeared and was replaced by fartlight's drivel.

Blatantly untrue.

[Mountain Man]

Liberals need to stop crying about the election.

[elam]

And the US itself was deliberately founded as a democracy rather than a monarchy...

Was it! Or has the rhetoric of political propaganda embedded in "social memory" clouded your judgement?

Source: BBC Magazine - May 15, 2015

A Point of View: Is the US president an elected monarch?
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32741802c

... ironically, when the leaders of the American Revolution tried to work out what powers they should give to the newly created American presidency, the only models available were those of contemporary European monarchies, and especially the British. And so the founding fathers gave to the American presidency just those powers they erroneously believed King George III still possessed - to appoint and dismiss his cabinet, to make war and peace, and to veto bills sent up by the legislature. From the outset, then, the American presidency was vested with what might be termed monarchical authority, which meant that it really was a form of elective kingship. So when Henry Clay, the leader of the American Whig Party regretted that, under Andrew Jackson, the presidency was "rapidly tending towards an elective monarchy", he was in error because it had been an elective monarchy from the very beginning...

[Mountain Man]

And the US itself was deliberately founded as a democracy rather than a monarchy...

It was founded as a Republic, you ignorant tool. Our Founding Fathers were staunchly opposed to democracy, having the wisdom to know that it can quickly descend into mob rule.

Source: Liberty Under Fire

Republichttp://libertyunderfire.org/2010/06/...ted-democracy/

© Copyright Original Source

[elam]

It was founded as a Republic, you ignorant tool. Our Founding Fathers were staunchly opposed to democracy, having the wisdom to know that it can quickly descend into mob rule.

Source: Liberty Under Fire

Republichttp://libertyunderfire.org/2010/06/...ted-democracy/

© Copyright Original Source

I read through the article you cited...I found the rant totally unrealistic...

Marx who was more of a historical & social analyst rather than an economist, in the formulation of his manifesto speculated exclusively on the Prussian circumstance in his era and predicted that the merchant class (bourgeoisie) would rebel against and replace the industrial barons (aristocracy), dragging the working class (proletariat) up the ladder of the classes. He predicted that the proletariat would in time rebel against and replace the bourgeoisie.

It didn't happen!

Why not!

Simple, the aristocracy bought off the bourgeoisie who bought off the proletariat.

Merchant Guilds kept the Industrial Barons (aristocracy) in check, and Workers' Collectives kept the aristocracy & bourgeoisie in check.

Result: shared wealth. Those that create wealth are exclusively the workers, whether they be bourgeoisie or proletariat. The aristocracy & bourgeoisie might provide capital but unless they are benevolent they are a social deficit = societally non-contributing, other than meagre consumption.

The natural human instinct is to rebel against suppression to improve life. The worker ethic is "we work to live, not live to work". Hence they anticipate a share in the wealth they create. Henry Ford realised this, doubled the workers' pay, created the five day week and reduced work hours per week to 40 hours. Plus he established education and training for his workers and installed infirmaries for health care. Most will acknowledge him as both enlightened and the most successful industrialist in his era.

In this regard the role of any government is to prevent anarchy = keep the economy growing, and the best way to do that is via a collective purse = where collections are made according to capacity to pay. The rich get richer because the collective purse provides roads, bridges, hospitals (a pool of healthy workers), schools (a pool of educated workers), recreation facilities (stressed out workers are more inefficient) and a social safety-net for the sick & unemployed (To ensure wage stability a certain level of unemployed workers is desirable).

This is pure capitalism as it has evolved in the reality of the modern world.

It is absurd that the mega rich have become our modern day useless aristocracy. The Oz multi billionaire was so bored he gambled big. One event that hit the headlines worldwide was when on a single bet he lost US$1million. He said at the time: For me it is like you putting a dime in a slot machine. Not worth a thought.

[Mountain Man]

I read through the article you cited...I found the rant totally unrealistic...

I don't necessarily endorse everything in the editorial, but the opening paragraph is certainly accurate enough, and there are enough quotes from our Founding Fathers denouncing democracy that it's absurd to say they wanted a democratic nation.

[elam]

I don't necessarily endorse everything in the editorial, but the opening paragraph is certainly accurate enough, and there are enough quotes from our Founding Fathers denouncing democracy that it's absurd to say they wanted a democratic nation.

I agree with that remark.

In Oz we describe ourselves as a Constitutional Monarchy (read figure head with no powers) and a Parliamentary Democracy. What our fore fathers did was pick out the best bits of the Westminster System & the USA Fed System, likewise they rejected what was viewed as the less than desirable bits. We don't directly elect our "Head of State" that's a matter for the elected members of the House of Representatives (actually the majority party or coalition). We don't have a Bill of Rights, such is considered as lacking equilibrium.Our rights are enshrined in Oz Common Law & the Oz Constitution. Also we don't elect public officials, they are appointed by the government or by government institutions. In Oz, positions such as Trump's appointments, are called "Ministers" and are appointed by the executive of the ruling part or coalition. The other big difference between Oz & the USA, we don't have a first-past-the-post vote counting scenario. Instead we have proportional voting for the Senate and preference voting for the House. The idea is to ensure that the guys that get elected are representative of the peoples will.

That is how our democracy currently works, and it is pretty efficient (though I'm sure it could be improved).

[Darth Executor]

Result: shared wealth. Those that create wealth are exclusively the workers

lolno

[elam]

lolno

lol yes!

I can only assume you are intellectually imprisoned, bound in a cave...

In his allegory of the cave "Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave [in front of them]. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see...

Such prisoners would mistake appearance for reality. They would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the shadows"

https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm

In the last 50 or so years traditional capitalism has eroded more & more into insignificance. The 2007 global crisis demonstrated the global failure of economies like the USA that are based on greed (the rich getting richer at the expense of the less well off).



http://www.businesspundit.com/10-cou...ancial-crisis/

It is remarkable that the top 10 nations that survived the GFC were Socialist Democracies or Socialist Republics.

[i]"Australia takes the top spot followed by China with India and Singapore in equal third place. Qatar is the only gulf nation that figures in this "relatively" recession-proof list...The [top 12] countries perceived to be surviving the economic crisis the best, as voted by international business people are:" 1. Australia, 2. China, 3. India & Singapore, 4. Hong Kong, 5. Canada, 6. Japan & Qatar, 7. New Zealand, 8. Malaysia, Sweden & Vietnam..."

https://www.labnol.org/internet/coun...ecession/8814/

Capitalism in its traditional form is essentially dead in the water. Mum's & Dad's via their pension/superannuation funds now control the capital markets. Entrepreneurs now source capital via "crowd funding" & "micro loans"...

You really should free yourself from your intellectual shackles, leave your cave and bask in the sunshine...

[Terraceth]

I don't necessarily endorse everything in the editorial, but the opening paragraph is certainly accurate enough, and there are enough quotes from our Founding Fathers denouncing democracy that it's absurd to say they wanted a democratic nation.

The problem is that "democracy" back then had a much more narrow definition than it does in modern day use. So yes, they had a lot of negative things to say about democracy, but the "democracy" they refer to is not the modern term because words can change meaning over the course of several centuries. The kind of country they wanted was, by the modern usage of democracy, a democracy.

[Darth Executor]

*retarded crap*

Nothing in this pile of excrement has anything to do with the absurd claim (invented by marx and repeated by you) that only workers create wealth. Take your meds.