Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

Like, I just find that bit from Reed totally contradictory.

I guess this is his objectionable idea;

Complaints about disproportionality are neoliberal math. They tell us that the increasing wealth of the one percent would be okay if only there were more black, brown, and LGBTQIA+ billionaires. And the fact that anti-racism and anti-discrimination of all kinds would validate rather than undermine the stratification of wealth in American society is completely visible to those who currently possess that wealth—all the rich people eager to embark on a course of moral purification that will make them less racist but with no interest whatsoever in a politics that would make them less rich.

As generations of black proponents of social democracy understood clearly, it is practically impossible to imagine a serious strategy for winning the kinds of reforms that would actually improve black and brown working people's conditions without winning them for all working people and without doing so through a struggle anchored to broad working-class solidarity. Our further point is that even if it were possible, it would be wrong. A society where making black and white people equal means making them equally subordinate to a (mainly white but, really, what does it matter?) ruling class is not a more just society, just a differently unjust one. That's the trouble with disparity.

I think it’s entirely fine to disagree with this, but to characterize it as ‘moving right’ or finding it so dangerous that it cannot be allowed to enter the ears of sensitive DSA members is the sign of a movement that is going to keep failing

when reed uses the word "reputable" he doesn't (in this excerpt) explain who the gatekeepers of this reputation are actually likely to be, and how they're going to establish the norms required effectively. without a clarity here, any potential saving materialism will quickly morph back into moralistic culture-wars handwaving (i mean lol if history teaches us anything, it's that the far left has a tendency towards sectarianism).

assuming he's the designated grown-up in this exchange, it's his job to deploy his own favoured political tools, first to explain why the big-name radicals of yore have so lost reputation among the young (as i say above, i think the material reasons are pretty evident but i'm not a tenured academic, im a idiot on a tiny mostly liberal messageboard), and then (practically speaking) how to counter this in a non bullshit way. if this works, then it's a sign the tools are good ones -- until they work, not so much.

Do I kind of agree with Reed? Sure.

Do I also think that the idea that one needs to supplant the other is ridiculous on its face? Also sure.

If black people are getting paid more but still getting murdered in the streets by cops and vigilantes, and still facing mass incarceration, poor health outcomes, and systemic racism, NO AMOUNT of working class solidarity is going to matter.

That said,.do I think the DSA could have dealt with hearing him speak? Sure.

But in the end, do I give much of a fuck about the DSA? Not really!

thanks for posting that article. that reading group debate is so stupid and childish. i think everyone should read everything and just be adults and capable of disagreeing and synthesizing ideas--or don't! just let it be that not everything fits together, walk and chew gum, etc. i have managed to find reed very eye-opening and still believe in a lot of stuff he probably doesn't like. weird.

Exactly. If anything, one of the big problems with the Reed issue is that it demonstrates that people who are ostensibly on the same side continue to be incapable of holding multiple ideas at the same time.

Agreed. Happy to see this is the ilx consensus. And in response to something upthread, there is a difference between choosing not to invite a certain speaker, and making a big deal out of it with the aim of making the speaker’s ideas taboo. In the case of Reed, it involved misrepresenting his ideas.

Exactly. If anything, one of the big problems with the Reed issue is that it demonstrates that people who are ostensibly on the same side continue to be incapable of holding multiple ideas at the same time.

It's almost as if they had problems with dialectical thinking!

that excerpt is not too offensive but it’s pretty vague about its targets unless there is more contextualisation not quoted (where’s this from? is it specifically related to the current controversy or just a representative sample?)

there are people who think we just need to diversify the ruling class but I doubt many of them are in the DSA and it’s certainly not what anyone objected to in this case. he repudiates “anti-racism” as a barrier to egalitarianism, later mentioning social democracy- maintaining capital and national borders because how could it be otherwise- so he checks his own egalitarianism in a far more obviously limiting way. he wants more equitable distribution within limits. I assume the limits are the real issue here & I hope no one is pretending it’s actually about people being angry doesn’t like black billionaires. but all of this stuff is in line with what DSA politics I’ve seen so I don’t know why this blew up, unless the party or a faction thereof is becoming a lot more radical

related issue is how much we are supposed to put up with in the name of coalition building & which/whose issues are class issues in the first place. what I’ve heard from social democrats is not encouraging on this front. also related issue that has blown up a lot lately is the theoretical separation of class & race, racism & capitalism, in the first place- Reed seems to imply it’s both possible and desirable- as well as the idea that race is somehow less material than class- which he also seems to imply. but all of this has been pervasive on the left for decades, as have the challenges to it. NYT & wider liberal media doesn’t give a shit so their interest now can only be to slot in into their preexisting culture war narrative

I have problems with dialectical thinking but mainly because I don’t trust things that seem to (want to) subsume everything into their logic

people who are ostensibly on the same side continue to be incapable of holding multiple ideas at the same time.

I heard some interesting stuff from Joshua Kahn Russell kinda related to this, more so about the idea of being ok with contradictions and multiple truths. It was in the context of social movements, activists, and organizations in general. I'll try and dig it up, it was a while ago, I think maybe on the Michael Brooks show

Paraphrasing but around the idea of how to make being and working in groups work better

he repudiates “anti-racism” as a barrier to egalitarianism

ok, but as you acknowledge by putting it under quotes, "anti-racism" here means something specific, a certain model of fighting racism that involves elevating what robin diangelo calls "racial consciousness" among whites. whether this project will actually help minority communities is an open question. i don't think adolph reed, a black man born in the 1940s, should be shut down for having opinions on this topic.

and that's the whole issue. people don't like reed's perspective on this, so they try to make him taboo. you even said he was "moving right" with no evidence, or maybe just a personal definition for what it means to "move right."

if there is in fact a conflict between minority concerns and broad base social programs, this has to be confronted and navigated by organs like the DSA. if they're just going to scream that anyone who disagrees with them is a reactionary who isn't worth listening to, they'll never accomplish anything.

I hate all that white ally self help shit. I regret saying moving, which implies a trajectory I haven’t followed closely enough. His concerns generally seem to be in line with the right wing of the left, which I’m familiar enough with. The DSA is an example. I don’t for second trust that type of org not to sacrifice “minority concerns” for some alleged greater good whenever they can. This is why I don’t like political parties.

the right wing of the left...The DSA is an example

You're seriously the funniest poster on ILX. Never change.

Both candidates were black women. The incumbent lost her primary, but let me tell you, having DSA dudes tell me that homophobic attacks don't matter because the candidate was on the side of the working people was enough to make me write off the DSA forever.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table)

same except instead of "write off the DSA forever" substitute "write off dudes forever"

not really sure how to do content warnings on message boards like this but content warning: gonna talk about suicide here

When I had that two-day bout of acute suicidality last week I read through a lot of books on the topic. One of the books I read was a survivor's story, a woman talking about her dad and his suicide. She spent more than a decade working on the book, coming at it from every angle, trying to understand why her dad did what he did. Her critical gaze was thoughtful, deep, and unsparing.

At one point she asked her mom how he shot himself with a rifle. Her mom said oh, no, it wasn't a rifle, it was a handgun. The writer didn't know her dad owned a handgun. Oh yes, her mom said, he bought it in 1964, during the Watts riots.

The writer is white. Her dad is white. Neither of these facts are acknowledged. What was her dad's mindset when he bought the gun? She doesn't ask. She asks what he might have been thinking, might have been feeling, at pretty much every other time in his life _except_ the time he bought the gun he killed himself with. I'm white. I understand why. I understand what she didn't want to have to ever say to herself.

Her father shot himself with a gun that he bought to kill Black people.

not a bad allegory for racism. james baldwin writes about how in unjust societies, the oppressed groups are hurt and killed, but the oppressors are spiritually mutilated basically, they are constantly living with a truth they can't really face and so can't attain the dignity that comes from real honesty

best wishes to you, kate

I am reminded of the doc Did You Know Who Fired the Gun? which is worthy of everyone's time

There's a chapter in Metzl's book about how in Missouri, white people fight against stricter gun laws in the name of maintaining white supremacy....yet there is an epidemic of firearm suicides by young white men in Missouri.

Really recommend it: Dying of Whiteness.

Speaking of Metzl, he was confronted by some fascists in a DC bookstore last year..that's the kind of free speech shit that is actually an issue, IMHO.

Also, Left is right about the DSA-- they're the center-right of the left.

this is like a Johnny Cash song

unfortunately there are no non-embarrassing political organizations

except for Chumbawumba

(I say this as someone who was recently a member of two of em simultaneously)

you were in chumbawumba?!

I confess I did stints as both chumba *and* wumba, never at the same time tho

Had no idea they were one of those bands that split into rival touring lineups, like Yes or the Coasters. But factionalism abounds on the left, as we can clearly see.

it goes back all the way to the days of marx. the socialists and anarchists all over europe were constantly splitting into different parties and writing treatises against one another. that's the fun of it.

lenin was the best at this game, probably. he had a knack for re-stating other people's arguments in ways that made them seem like absolute blockheaded morons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Left-Wing%22_Communism:_An_Infantile_Disorder#/media/File:20-lenin-infantilesickness.jpg

scare quotes and everything. and this a whole book--with ten chapters! just digging into people.

aw, link didn't work. the bookcover was for lenin's "left-wing" communism: an infantile disorder

well, when you're trying reach utopia, you don't want some dummy to get there before you

this is like a Johnny Cash song

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes)

shot a man in reno just to watch him die

twist ending the man i shot was ME

I did try to read that Facebook post denouncing Reed but stopped at "bad faith argument"

there is an asad haider response to this kerfuffle https://asadhaider.substack.com/p/class-cancelled (i have to read it later because i'm supposed to be working so don't blame me if it's crap)

lol I fucking hate that lenin book

the haider piece is mostly good I think

Worth thinking about the Facebook banning of a number of anarchist and antifa-related groups today, in the same cull that rid the platform of a lot of QAnon fashie crap.

Obviously, organizing over social media sites isn't intelligent, but some of the groups banned are essentially radical left news sources.

I guess I just worry about the extension of such logic, but maybe I'm paranoid.

it's not paranoid at all imo

not because of this thread (i wanted to read it before and just got it a few weeks ago), i am reading adolph reed's class notes and almost done with it and i cannot believe the people who wrote the dsa afrosocialist thing have actually read him? this dude hates racism. i'm not that invested in either side i just don't get it. i will read the black marxism book they said to read.

Obviously, organizing over social media sites isn't intelligent

It's fast, cheap and easy. And vulnerable af.

yes it's concerning, any form of discourse that's beholden to capital is vulnerable to attack

there's a genuine need to find methods of discourse outside the corporate internet. they could sever us from each other at any second. i got no answers to this, to anything, but it is a high probability that technology will explicitly be used to silence us if/when we are perceived as a threat.

some really good analysis of the ban here

https://freedomnews.org.uk/a-note-on-facebooks-crackdown-against-us-anarchist-groups/

Thanks Kate. The IGD statement was good, underlining the struggle anarchists and like-minded people are up against...

Free speech warrior Yascha Mounk runs to the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health to complain that an employee there tweeted about an interview with a Harvard Ph.D. student Mounk didn't agree with

Dear Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health,

Do you think that this kind of content is likely to increase public trust in experts and scientists in the midst of an unprecedented pandemic?

No?

Well, then you should cut out the crap.

Yours,

Yascha Mounk https://t.co/FLEE8W23oM

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) August 30, 2020

I think these people would be totally fine if they would stop trying to pretend they were staking out some kind on universalist "let all views be heard" stance and just said "of course some views should be censured or even suppressed, but not my particular views, because mine are good"

Yeah I was just talking about this in the context of another shittier social media site's high value placed on 'freezing the peaches' and how it really just reflects their Overton window.

from the new republic article - table posted:

On an afternoon in July, nearly 200 people packed into the ballroom of a local community center in northern Oakland for a general meeting of the East Bay chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

lol, I am 99.99% sure I know exactly where this was.