[lbo-talk] "Theory's Empire," an anti-"Theory" anthology

Jenny Brown jbrown72073 at cs.com
Tue May 27 08:39:40 PDT 2008


Carrol:
>The assumption itself is an expression of identity politics!
>Unfortunately, for 150 years working-class politics have not been class
>politics but idenitity politics, the assumption being that class gives
>identity, and that "working class"is an identity, a classification that
>gives knowledge of the items in that classification as individual items.
>This is true of the class "bumblebee," as I pointed out recently, but it
>is not true of the category/class, "working class."

Why do you say for 150 years? Wouldn't that pretty much mean never? The identity politics version of class is certainly in full flower in "Working-Class Studies." In the course of writing a paper on WCS I was reminded that in the Manifesto class was explicitly seen as a political expression forged through conflict--"If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to constitute itself as a class..."

Jenny Brown



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