back at it with another ridiculous question. As I have been developing my personal ideology, I’ve found that I reject much of the socially progressive ideas in corpo media and twitter (conservatives call it identity politics). Stuff like abolishing the nuclear family (or pride flag on drones joke) that doesn’t look to change any economic or material reality I find I don’t agree with.
First and second wave feminism I support as they changed the material realities for women, but the push for things like gender reassignment surgery under 16 years (i wanted to be in the cia when I was this age, people change personalities quickly during their teenage years) among other socially progressive ideas (bedtime abolition and the like) seem to be far removed from any type of class struggle and even hurt the working class.
Expressing this on Twitter got me called a nazbol (of course) but am I? Does being socially conservative but economically progressive make me a redfash? I understand intersectionality and that you can be trans and poor but focusing so heavily on non class issues seems detrimental for workers, even if they get some progressive tidbits.
plz feel free to own me if I’m spitting straight crap wrote this on my phone b4 work
edit: the thoughtful genzedong comments/commenters make this community the only place I’d be willing to ask a question like this, thanks for that, and the info you share so that myself and others can be better communists 💪🇨🇳👍
Most people advocating the abolition of the nuclear family aren’t trying to make families smaller. Most are trying to make them larger by recognizing extended family, lgbt couples in places where that’s still illegal or at risk of being made illegal, or groups of parents who share childcare duties. The nuclear family is extremely atomizing in its physical separation of human beings into small households of ~2-5 people that, in the west, also psychologically separates them from their communities. This was not typical in human history, where most humans lived with extended families or with the families of their spouse.
The more freeform nature of modern “found family” rhetoric in the left is a response to capital using nuclear families as an economic unit through which it can cheaply produce workers at the expense of the parents physical and mental health (+ what essentially amounts to VAST amounts of free labor, esp. from women). Anti-nuclear family types would prefer to communalize the raising of children in one form or another until it roughly resembles the ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ sort of mentality. Kibbutz-style stuff is a bit extreme, though, and I personally don’t advocate for that.
As far as third wave feminism and trans stuff goes: most everyone else here has already answered this well enough. But I’m trans and am able to answer questions on that and intersectionality.
I think what I’m against are the Kibbuts ideas, I would definitely be pro smaller village communities helping to raise children. Great explication of the “abolition of the nuclear family” into something constructive.
In “Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend”, Domenico Lusordo goes into detail at one point regarding the destructive nature of the left-SRs and some radical feminists of the era who called for the dismantling of the nuclear family incl. the great revolutionaries Luxembourg and Kollontai, in opposition to the claims that Stalin, Lenin et al attempted to reify the man-woman-two-and-a-half-children archetype. Lusordo makes a compelling argument for the idea that well-meaning anarchists and leftcoms can often unintentionally propagate horrible violence in their calls to radically alter society, such as using the state to forcibly rip children away from their already established families and establish Kibbutz style communalized parenting without a protracted cultural revolution first.
There are constructive ways to dismantle oppressive and socially atomizing systems such as the nuclear family, as the comrade above pointed out, such as said protracted cultural and ideological revolution teaching people over many years about the benefits of a more communal-style parenting, and the eventual withering away of the nuclear family. I apologize if this is rambly, but I bring it up because I don’t think you’re a Nazbol, I think you’re just having an understandable reaction to the Malthusian / destructive tendencies that can be seen from sort of extreme sections of the left, and perhaps kneejerking a little bit the other direction, but it’s an understandable reaction like I said. Hope this makes any sense.
edit: you can see this destructive misanthropy elsewhere in the so-called “culture war”, such as pro-choice people attempting to make abortion seem cool and fun and conflating the procedure with birth control, rather than what it is, a very difficult choice for a would-be mother/parent to make and one that should be theirs alone. this can have negative repercussions like a lack of progressive focus on promoting easy-access contraceptives like condoms and medications, because abortion advocacy is taken to its extreme rather than logical endpoint. it comes from a well-intentioned place I think, but it is not constructive.
Bringing up Cuba as an example here, the National Center for Sex Education was established in 1989. It advocated for trans rights in the 90s/00s and succeeded in its namesake, by educating people on the importance of transitioning and SRS, and eventually getting state-funded HRT and SRS drafted to law in 2005 and passed in 2008. They more recently helped draft the new family code in 2019 (to legalize gay marriage and recognize alternative family structures), which will be voted on this September.
If this passes, a gay transperson would have a significantly higher quality of life in Cuba than in the most liberal states.
Absolutely this! While the west regresses, Cuba continues to march steadily onward on this front. I’ve read that things are progressing in China, too – albeit perhaps slower – especially in the classroom, teaching kids about LGBT issues from a young age and teaching them ideas of tolerance etc.
China’s polling on the topic, on the individual level, is odd because it doesn’t really line up with western lib/con politics. Most Chinese people polled are fairly chill with transgender people and homosexuality as a concept, but when the questions get down to proximity, they’re not even comfortable with queer people being their neighbors, let alone their own kids.
From the docs I’ve seen, there is a tendency for transpeople in China to transition a bit later after they live on their own, and their parents tend to just kinda…change their minds about the proximity thing when faced with the new reality they don’t have the power to change. It’s particularly easier for transmen to gain acceptance relatively quickly (esp if they have a job). I think at some point they’re going to have a reckoning like in western countries where enough people suddenly know of enough out queer people to have to reconsider their position.
Nah not too rambly and we all do it here. I do support the community parenting mentioned above and have some experience with a form of it myself.
Yall really make me sit down and think everytime I post it’s great
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That’s my understanding of it talking to my friend who is trans. Surgery under 16 is rare if at all and used as a bad faith argument by terfs.
Thanks for clarifying, asking a question like this anywhere else would be met with hate and vitriol
Thank me by listening to a lot of the good responses you’ve gotten in this thread 👍
We all never stop learning after all, just don’t get bogged down in the “culture war” phenomenon buzzword stuff.
Neither the liberals or the conservatives actually give a shit or care about minority rights, its all performative allyship used as an armour to make themselves feel better about the abject discrimination their own ideologies and politics enable and rely on to function. If they actually cared they’d listen to us when we tell them what the problem is. They don’t.
A truly socialist society wouldn’t let discrimination like that fly. Its why its important to listen to these people and understand their needs so that the Marxist solution to capitalist’s problems addresses ALL of capitalism’s problems.
Straight facts, and a shout out to the big educators doing the heavy lifting in these comments
Marxist-Leninists have strong backs from carrying everyone else’s class consciousness for them.
If you look hard enough, you can find one hardcore ultra to be used as the strawman. Great way for the reactionaries to retreat into their bullshit instead of having a sober good faith engagement with the situations.
Don’t be class reductionist about social issues would be my advice.
Yes a lot of problems can be tracked back to a common source but given that transphobia, homophobia, racism, discrimination against neurodivergent people etc are now systemic problems that have infested society, ignoring those individual struggles and reducing the argument back to “workers liberation is the main goal” erases and ignores those issues that workers liberation won’t fix.
I think you should listen to comrades who face the struggles you might not identify or understand. It’s their struggle not yours and they are best placed to explain the difficulties they face.
E.g. there’s homophobic communists, class awareness hasn’t removed their bigotry, it hasn’t opened their eyes to queer struggle. If anything they’ve doubled down because they have chosen to continue to ignore that particular struggle with the lense of “yeah but workers struggle solves all” and it just don’t.
In the end its not workers liberation OR any other liberation. Why can’t those struggles be included in our main goal? Essentially why not both?
They certainly don’t distract from it and while you can be as trad as you want with your own life, it’s not your place to comment or stop others living theirs and as a communist you should want liberation for all of us working class.
Don’t let this reactionary idea that minority struggle is some capitalist grift (e.g. homosexuality is bourgeois decadence) when it absolutely isn’t.
If we want to build an equal and fair society, then we can’t do that if we ignore the specific problems minority groups face. If we ignore them and plow ahead with just this reductionist “workers only” take then we create a society that’s socially as unequal for minorities as the one we live in and in turn it just replaces one status quo for another.
As another user said, be prepared to change your perception and understanding.
I mean if you’re out here totally dismissing the legitimate struggles of women, trans folk, etc just because from a surface level idealist analysis you don’t see the connection to class I’d at the very least say you aren’t a Marxist. Applying historical materialism and studying just a tiny bit about the origins of things like the nuclear family and the role they serve in maintaining class society would tell you these struggles are 100% intertwined with the struggle of working people- they are one and the same and the idea that they aren’t is capitalist propaganda to divide the working class. Funnily enough if you’re taking this position based on “class is all that matters” you are ignoring huge amounts of the class struggle as well as taking steps to exclude many working people from the movement and alienating them.
Definitely not dismissing their struggle, and I’ve read the bit on the nuclear family in the manifesto but I also see the practical application in china where people have respect for the family and I personally find that admirable.
What I am against is how media enflames culture war propaganda and how people eat it up, pushing them towards red vs blue and away from communism. Once people realize their issues are tied to class issues then really change can happen but I just can’t see social change under capitalism truly liberating anyone
I mean no communist thinks social change under capitalism leads to liberation- our exact point is that for true liberation for these oppressed groups we need socialism/communism, which is why you see a lot of LGBT comrades, women, people of color, etc in the anti-capitalist space. That’s the whole point of the meme with a pride flag themed plane dropping bombs on whatever country, making fun of the idea that we just need trans or women imperialists.
The issue comes when people who call themselves “communist” go out and push these ruling class talking points- “the progressives want to force transition surgery on our children!” Type shit does nothing but fuel the culture war bullshit. I’m sorry but that kind of rhetoric is legit identical to what Tucker Carlson does so well- 80%+ of his time on television is focused on drumming up culture war divisions and then he’ll be like “the left only cares about the culture war”. It’s so obvious because they’re reduced to constantly going after ultra fringe examples, like people who want to allow kids to transition via irreversible surgery. We know this facade of only caring about those crazies is bullshit because then they pull shit like Jordan Peterson just did, calling Elliott Page’s physician “criminal” and deadnaming them refusing to even do the bare minimum to pretend like they don’t hate these people.
I think you are confused. There is a difference on how identity politics are assimilated by capitalism, and the important role they fulfill within a Marxist praxis. A lot of what you seem to critique in this post seems to be of the first case I mentioned, some of the second which you seem to not identify. My recommendation is that you read more theory and ask more questions to comrades but with an open mind. It is fine to have doubts and not understand certain subjects, but topics like these are very delicate and chances are the one s who will be responding are the same minorities who are oppressed by these kinds of struggles.
In brief, yes, what capitalism does is to provide identity politics without class consciousness, but this means not identity politics are notuseful or necessary. They are a standpoint upon which real organization is to be formed, upon whih material analysis and understandment of reality is created. Regarding specific questions like “Why do teenagers get sex reasignment surgery?”, ask trans people, but be ready to change your perspective, be respectful, be calm.
This makes a lot of sense. I see the more socially conservative china (even though they have minority rep) with less idpol and more class consciousness as they embrace a more collective society. While I believe that we can and should have praxis for minority allies but we should be critical of the culture war perpetrated by the corporate media as a whole. Conservatives and liberals fighting about idpol draws prospective communists into the red vs blue bullshit because both camps are anti China and AES
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Yeah that’s what I disagree with mostly not the people who got duped and are now defending the liberal virtue signalars (vote blue no matter who types and anarchists mostly) so frustrated seeing people defend something against their interest
Many of these issues are not gonna get solved by finishing class struggle, but they are not mutually exclusive. There is no reason not to push for both.
For the gender reassignment surgery under 16, I can’t speak from experience but I think even youger teenagers would realize the gravity of this choice and people usually don’t suddenly want to swap their gender. Besides, surgery is the last step in the process and there is a lot of space to turn around if it was “just a phase”.
For the nuclear family you can find a lot of articles and videos on the issue that are based on Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. I would say there are a lot of video essays on all the issues that can give you a better info than me.
If you disagree with the social progress because it doesn’t push forward class struggle then you should realize that these issues are gonna stick around even after the revolution and they will have to be solved eventually. Assuming that you do support social progress but don’t see it as “useful” in progressing the class struggle. But if you disagree because you see it as “capitalist influence that tries to divide the working class” and if you genuinely subscribe to some reactionary views (transphobia and such) then yikes.
This is referred to as class reductionist and has been shown in theory and in practice to result in unsustainable outcomes. Intersectionality has been the dominant model for praxis for some decades now and, while it may be uncomfortable for some, it has been shown in theory and in practice to solve the issues inherent in class reductionism.
If your goal is to build a sustainable society without internal contradictions that will result in its collapse, you need to understand and use intersectionality.
Intersectionality abandons the idea that there is only form of oppression that matters and instead says that oppression of nearly all forms share a single root cause when you go back far enough in the abstraction. So, you still get your class-based analysis, which intersectionality is based upon.
But intersectionality then goes further to engage in dialectic with each form of oppression and in so doing simultaneously understand the system that oppressed more thoroughly (which makes you more effective in the revolutionary project) and build solidarity because you are able to address ever increasing numbers of people on their terms and not on yours. The result is that you end up with a revolutionary program that is adapted to your context, which is the actual make up the proletariat in your society, and therefore avoids mistakes of oppression for idealistic instead of material reasons. And this is required for success because oppression for idealistic reasons while running a revolutik are program on dialectical materialism is a contradiction that will be resolved when the oppressed revolt and overthrow the revolution or when the revolution literally physically exterminates sufficient numbers of oppressed to prevent them from revolting, which will inevitably lead to external humanitarian interventions, this overthrowing the revolution.
I definitely agree, I just feel that the class consciousness part should come first before expanding the discussion to a specific type of oppression because like you said that’s the stem of many issues. Corporate media loves to just pick the flowers and misdirect people from the root. I guess what I’m really against is the people who twist intersectionality to not include class, not the people who are fooled.
I definitely agree
Good starting point.
I just feel that the class consciousness part should come first
Feels and shoulds. I hope you can find the humility to understand that there are people being stalked and murdered over these issues literally right now and that your feelings about what “should” be done are more than irrelevant to their trauma and their oppression.
first before expanding the discussion to a specific type of oppression
All oppression everywhere is both different and the same. It must all be addressed together. We have learned this throughout the last 100 years of struggle, and the most marginalized of us have known it for far longer. If you require resolution of one lifelong struggle before even acknowledging the validity of other struggles, you are more than simply telling people to wait, you are perpetuating oppression because it is convenient.
Corporate media loves to just pick the flowers and misdirect people from the root
This is a problem with propaganda, not with intersectionality. Do not aim your derision at the struggle of the oppressed, aim it squarely at the corporate media for exploiting the struggle of the oppressed to protect the bourgeoisie.
I guess what I’m really against is the people who twist intersectionality to not include class, not the people who are fooled.
Precisely. And dialectically, we can see that those who are fooled while still being oppressed are fooled precisely because of the nature of their oppression, we can see that this nature of their oppression stems from the common root of class war, and we can see that denying people the legitimacy of their real struggle against oppression while wearing the hammer and sickle does not create the mass movement required to succeed. We can also see that acknowledging their struggle and learning about their oppression enables us to enrich our theory which we can then test in our practice by engaging in mutual aid and mutual defense, solidarity on the ground and in propaganda, and in the defense against and ultimate dismantling of oppressive systems.
We cannot wait, for if we wait, we starve ourselves of the necessary experiences that drive praxis, and we will build the revolution on false assumptions about the world, about our comrades, and about ourselves, and these contradictions will almost assuredly result in a failed revolution.
When I say feel I’m taking inspiration from mao running around china liberating peasants and abolishing the feudal culture (foot binding etc. ikyk). Without the class consious peasant army nothing could’ve been done. The people being stalked and murdered for their sexuality today can’t be helped under capitalism either. I also don’t think addressing class before other opressions means that other opressions aren’t being addressed at all or that we should completly win the class war before addressing other opressions. I especially think that Marxism and material analysis is the best framework to apply to one’s personal experiences
For example, I’d rather explain marx before queer theory to someone in that community as they can then apply marx to their own opression and empethize with other types of opression. They also don’t need me to explain queer theory as it’s something they live but that’s basically my point.
To clarify, my social “conservatism” is more anti ultra and western leftist (radlibs) and not a desire to go back to the 50s. I also see China and the DPRK who lean on culture and some nationalism to rally their people. The US labor movement has a long history and diverse culture that we should be proud to be a part of.
Liberals hyperfocus on identity issues because they cannot talk about class within the framework of a systemic critique of capitalism. The system is sacrosanct for them and in order to compensate and distract from their failures to materially improve the lives of the working class they over-emphasize and exaggerate their achievements in the cultural sphere. In reality actual progressive cultural achievements by liberalism have been extremely few and far between, and more tangible progress was achieved in terms of things like women’s liberation, anti-racism, etc. in revolutionary societies like the USSR and the People’s Republic of China within the span of the first few years of their existence than liberalism has achieved in decades. And most of the social progress in the West has benefited the well-off upper-middle class and above, while poor, working class women, people of color and LGBT people to name just a few groups, are still disproportionately victimized by the capitalist system. Even today while the US is backsliding heavily in terms of women’s reproductive rights and falling into anti-trans hysteria, China is quietly making steady progress on LGBT issues. It is clear only a revolutionary socialist system can achieve true liberation for all marginalized groups, and conversely only by allying with the most marginalized in our society - who are naturally the most revolutionary and the most aware of and opposed to the system that oppresses them - can we build a revolutionary movement rooted in the entire working class, not one divided against itself by various bigotries. Remember that bigotry serves an important function of social control for the ruling class.
abolishing the nuclear family (or pride flag on drones joke) that doesn’t look to change any economic or material reality
What about the material reality of women stuck in a loveless and abusive relationship? Should they stay so op’s image of nuclear family remains intact? Should gay men pretend to be straight (and therefore be materiality miserable) because op only agrees with nuclear families? How does asking people to play a role that will make them miserable further the cause of the revolution? In fact, I would argue that your position is counter-revolutionary.
but the push for things like gender reassignment surgery under 16 years
Whose pushing this? This is a reactionary argument that isn’t based in reality. It’s fine to recognize trans persons while making them wait to be old enough to make permanent decisions about their body.
Guess I dont know shit about trans movement with all the crap online but I’d say a woman should have the right to choose their family, and I’ve personally lived a non traditional household (no dad lol) and I can see the difference in me and other young men my age, and having 2 parents (a caretaker and role model, gender doesn’t matter but the roles do) is very helpful in development in my opinion. No one should put up with a shit family women included
I’m also from a 1 parent household. Most of the struggles I had after my parents divorced were financial, not social. If housing were guaranteed and school was free, I’m not sure my parents divorce would have mattered at all. For that matter, I’m not even sure if they would have gotten divorced if not for the financial pressures of vulture capitalism.
Guess I dont know shit about trans movement
Probably because you don’t know any trans people, or you don’t know that a person in your life is trans. It’s a very small population that isn’t well understood, which is why they make a good target for reactionary hate. Attacking homosexuals doesn’t hit the same way it did 30 years ago, so they’ve moved on to a smaller and more vulnerable minority. Don’t get dragged along by the reactionaries.
Yeah I definitely felt the fiscal struggle and it was a big part of my parents divorce as well, but unless my mother did twice the parenting (which I didn’t expect as she was doing twice the work, love ya mum) I probably wouldn’t have made a lot of the stupid decisions I made in my youth.
Community mentors could have provided what you needed if that was the priority. As it is, that’s not the priority as everyone is charged with the financial and social well being of only those they are directly related to. We push these units we call “family” into isolated suburban hellholes and we are conditioned to fear everyone from outside the walls of our home. Society did not work this way for much of human history. The privilege of having both your parents survive into even your 30s was something that just didn’t happen before the industrial revolution.
True, and a lot of young people are also more dependent on their parents due to late stage capitalism and the development of the suburb🤢
I come from a divorced family as well.
So allow me to share my experience. My dad was a well off yet alcoholic and emotionally abusive asshole. My mother was a good hearted Christian god fearing woman. I grew up in a household with two parents until I was about 14.
Having 2 parents and having them split and one being estranged from me wasnt all that different.
There are folks who came from single parent families or even gay parents who were more well adjusted than me.
Having two parents in a nuclear orientation isnt a magick bullet for dodging the traumas of growing up.
The family I chose is far far closer and greater and more important to me than the so called god given blood relations I was born with.
being raised by 2 parents isn’t a silver bullet unfortunately. having 2 abusive parents around didn’t do any good for me. they actually have an okay relationship with each other (they’re still together), they’re just not great at being parents. they’re not cartoonishly evil or anything, but that doesn’t mean that they’re overall good.
Yeah a lot of my friends parents are shit but happily married. My mom subconsciously took out a lot of the financial burden on me when I was a kid, hopefully a more just system would help alivieate most of these cases
This is a talking point I’ve heard almost word for word, multiple times, from all sorts of reactionaries - young men are struggling because they grow up in single mother households without a strong role model. They really like telling you that your problems can be fixed if we just returned to tradition, but the fact is that having two parents around isn’t a magical trick that generates healthy childhoods, and I know way too many people who grew up in abusive and dysfunctional nuclear families.
Also, why do you think the caretaker must be something separate from the role model? What is the logic for splitting them up? Can’t one parent, or both, or multiple people in a communal parenting scenario be both caretakers and role models at the same time?
I don’t think theyre wrong about the first part but obviously a “return to tradition” is not gonna make families happier or healthier. (Unless we legalize all the meds ppl were hopped up on to cope lol)
On the care giver/ role model thing and extreme example would be if Mao himself was my father and fighting in the revolution. As his wife is caring for me, I learn about his actions and he becomes a role model. I definitely don’t think just because one parent it automatically makes the other a role model. (pops wasn’t super responsible when he was around so it wouldn’t really have mattered as much in my case)
Kinda rambly I know but I do see a community parenting situation where one of many caregivers is also role model. Grandparents raising their kids also proves me wrong as they’ve had time to become good role models before they are caregivers, just thought about this while I was replying.
(Ive also basically changed most of my stance on this stuff after all the counterpoints backed up with evidence in the comments)
seem to be far removed from any type of class struggle and even hurt the working class.
but focusing so heavily on non class issues seems detrimental for workers, even if they get some progressive tidbits.
I will answer these points by quoting Lenin in What is to be Done:
Is it true that, in general,[3] the economic struggle “is the most widely applicable means” of drawing the masses into the political struggle? It is entirely untrue. Any and every manifestation of police tyranny and autocratic outrage, not only in connection with the economic struggle, is not one whit less “widely applicable” as a means of “drawing in” the masses. The rural superintendents and the flogging of peasants, the corruption of the officials and the police treatment of the “common people” in the cities, the fight against the famine-stricken and the suppression of the popular striving towards enlightenment and knowledge, the extortion of taxes and the persecution of the religious sects, the humiliating treatment of soldiers and the barrack methods in the treatment of the students and liberal intellectuals — do all these and a thousand other similar manifestations of tyranny, though not directly connected with the “economic” struggle, represent, in general, less “widely applicable” means and occasions for political agitation and for drawing the masses into the political struggle? The very opposite is true. Of the sum total of cases in which the workers suffer (either on their own account or on account of those closely connected with them) from tyranny, violence, and the lack of rights, undoubtedly only a small minority represent cases of police tyranny in the trade union struggle as such. Why then should we, beforehand, restrict the scope of political agitation by declaring only one of the means to be “the most widely applicable”, when Social-Democrats must have, in addition, other, generally speaking, no less “widely applicable” means?
Lenin here telling you to get over this mindset of focusing solely on class struggle and economic arguments.
I’ll add that you should probably also get over this mindset of what you agree with and what you disagree with. If you’re already on board with socialism then you know that the goal is revolution. All struggle is a vessel through which to bring members of different sections of society into the political struggle that will lead to revolution. You do not bring these people into the political struggle by refusing to support their various non-class battles because you personally don’t understand them or because they’re outside of your sphere of personal experience or understanding.
Nice quote
It’s my goto for basically almost any class reduction style issues, Lenin eloquently picks it apart. I used this image on twitter for it as it frames neatly in the square twitter embeds:
American leftists have a really annoying tendency of calling everyone not at the spearpoint of social progressivism “nazbol”
Fortunately there isn’t much of that here, but on twitter there are and on reddit you will get banned really easy for little.
EDIT: i was being little unfair, so edited.
damn I wanna know what the original post was as a nazbol I love unfairness lol
and American leftists are the worst, me included 😂
(I wish we had a forigin exchange program with china where we could farm cotton and read theory in xinjiang unironically, we need to learn a thing or two)
Edit: this is basically what xi and many party communists did during the cultural revolution, I think many of us westoids would benefit
