[lbo-talk] Marx's Rejection of a Moral Critique of Capital

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Sun Apr 15 12:58:00 PDT 2012


At 03:50 PM 4/14/2012, Michael Smith wrote:
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>There's a lot to be said for indignation.

see, my experience is that getting indignant usually leaves me hoisted on my own petard. almost invariable exposed to a charge of hypocrisy. or something like, "right. you are so perfect yourself." or the best one, "so what would you do, smarty pants? think you marxists can create a better world? knock yourself out." :)

the demand for right action on the part of the indignados exposes them to the demand to operate that way as well. in the context of feminism, the demand is destructive because the focus is turned toward policing individual behavior. and then it turns into a search for the "man in your male-identified head" telling you to act in ways the uphold and reproduce the patriarchy. thus, your job is focused on rooting out the man in your head. and the same approach is used to root out the male identified among the feminists. This search for the people within the group, considered by radical feminsts (leaders of the moralizing approach to feminism) then argue, often, that the worst enemy, the worst offender, is the leftist mnale identified women and leftist men themselves (e.g., Andrea Dworkin)

The destructive impulse is turned inward.

David Graeber discusses this same dynamic as one of the major drawbacks of small anarchists/direct action organizations.

anyway, personally, after a few year of the moralizing indignado approach, i gave up. i have a lot more success with something like this:

someone at work who's not a leftist but who is outraged about some corporate excess will have his say. I listen and nod and say, but that's capitalism for you. you like capitalism, right? that's the way it works. it is the point. that's not a bad capitalist. that's a good one.

this usually stops them dead in their tracks. in order to defend their view, they have to come up with examples of good capitalism. and they can't - if they are a left leaning moralizer and not just a confused conservative. in other words, it's a good way to distinguish between the dipshits who are culturally conservative.



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