[lbo-talk] Left wing loathing for the working class (Was Re: Zizek

[Jim Straub]

I think it has to do with the degree to which most leftists self-segregate
themselves into an ideological bubble.  If one lacks any real personal
connections to ordinary, relatively apolitical, or relatively conservative
(or even just non-radical) people, one is likely to have a distorted view of
politics,  and eventually arrive at a frustrated loathing of all those
outside one's bubble whose political behavior seems mystifying and
horrifying (which it is, in a sense, but... if we hold the ideals we do, we
must believe our fellow creatures are more than herds of bleating ignorant
sheep).  I think if most leftists had friends, co-workers, partners,
co-congregants and fellow members of social circles and organizations whose
political leanings better reflected those of society at large, we as a
movement would be better able to 'move' the public on more issues, and have
a more realstic sense of what will happen and what can be changed and how.
Not that transformative, sustaining vision is unimportant, but rather, we
can't there from here erecting a prefigurative myopiatopia around us.

In the past this sense would motivate me to try to shock my fellow
travellers with extreme sorts of pronunciations like that the left won't get
anywhere until its adherents are deported from the bay area, new york and
college towns, and scattered across the land to live in inner-ring suburbs
and exurbs and neighborhoods and the nameless cookie cutter apartment
buildings of decatur, dayton, new haven, houston, charlotte, phoenix and
fort wayne.  But really, we just to make an effort to socialize broadly,
value neighbors of all political orientations as individuals with
contradictions just like us, and participate in social institutions where
our views are present in reasonable proportion to their presence in working
peoples society at large.  I think it would help.


> > There seems to be a whole lot of left wing arrogance
> > and condescension going around. You guys really hate
> > the working class, don't you? There _are_ really
> > privileged Americans, and most of them are white, but
> > they are not anywhere near 35% of the population, and
> > they are far too sophisticated to listen to Rush or
> > watch Faux. Those people think that Rush-Faux are
> > crude and vulgar. They read the NYT, the WSJ, the FT,
> > watch CNN, and listen to NPR because they think
> > commercials are crass.
>
> That stated, too many whites vote against their own self interests but
> this doesn't make me hate them. It does confuse the hell out of me
> however.
> I have no idea how to reach them. In almost all one on one conversations
> it's pretty easy to get them to admit to very progressive ideas.
> How to get them to act on them is beyond me.
>
> ***************************************
>
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