[lbo-talk] queers and steerers

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Wed Apr 28 16:02:55 PDT 2010


a couple of things i wondered with regard to this issue doug raised about gay marriage.

does anyone know if anyone has argued that gay marriage will undermine capitalism?

I'm trying to think of queer theorists (as opposed to gay and lesbian studies) who've ever advanced any notion such that queer liberation or queerness, in general, undermines capitalism. usually, the argument was that queer identity emerged as a result of changes attendant in capitalist society. but i don't remember anyone arguing that queer identities are the path to socialist revolution.

there was the argument, born out of the identity politics embraced by western marxism (search for the subject of history; reliance on standpoint theories of knowledge and emancipation), in which it was argued that the proletariat had turned out to be a piss poor subject of history, so it'd have to be some "more oppressed" subgroup of proles who would serve as the subject of history. in which case successive groups were advanced: blacks, third world people, women, women of color, queer women of color, and so forth until post-structuralism came along and put the kabosh on that wankery.

so, i'm wondering if there were ever queer theorists (who, janet halley argues were largelyoperating from a poststructuralist perspective) who made such an argument. it seems totally couinter to poststructuralism, though. So....

shag

-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)



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