[lbo-talk] Condescension (Was Re: labor bitchiness)

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Sat May 26 10:27:28 PDT 2007


I guess my point was that it seems odd to say that your political opponents are "repugs," by which you mean to say: all Republicans are repugnant, and then criticize them for dehumanizing their opponents -- and then criticize them Republicans who seem nice, but really are cynical manipulators? is that what you mean?) for cynically manipulating the public with a capacity for empathy from which they are weirdly disengaged. It also seem silly to bash the GOP in particular; it's not like the Democrats are a whole lot better. The party, its leaders and candidates, are pretty repugnant too. Its constituency is fairly varied, like the Democrats.

Quite independently of the problematic approach of dehumanizing your opponents for dehumanizing their opponents, I think your approach smacks of the sort of down-the-nose condescension that makes lots of people who go off the rails about the "liberal elite." People on the left cannot afford to condescend to the working class constituencies that the GOP has been able to win away from our side. If you give working class people reason to think that _you_ think that you are better than they are, that will foster further resentment that the GOP will be able to aggravate to retain the support of people who we must and, if we do alienate them by hi-hatting them, can win over.

--- Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:


> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> > There's a certain amount of pragmatic self
> > contradiction in saying:
> >
> > Leave
> >
> >>the trope of
> >>dehumanizing opponents to the repugs.
> >
> >
> > isn't there?
> >
>
> Well, I'd say they have the capacity for empathy,
> but they use this
> trope because it's politically effective. This
> isn't really a dig at
> repug's lack of humanity.
>
> Miles
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>
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