There’s plenty more. There is tons of room for interesting debate, but for god’s sake, take a position. Respond to just a little bit of the literature. Mealy-mouthed generalizations and disingenouous requests for cites that no one will ever read are fun and all, but don’t help that much if you really want to engage the goddamn issue.
I read a lot of blogs, boards, and comments, and I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that the internet is not the place. No one here really wants to engage the goddamn issue. Any issue.
The inarticulate are there to blow off rage and start fights. The articulate are there to soapbox and one-up each other.
My position is to provide a handful of actual class constructs that people might find interesting. Here are some examples of class more or less successfully used as an analytical construct; this is probably true whether or not one agrees with the results. I don’t agree with a lot of Weber but certainly think it’s successful sociology.
You are quite right that class’ existence as an analytical category is not self-evidently true and that BrainGlutton, or perhaps more accurately PunishmentGlutton, needs to be a lot more precise if he wants to have any kind of meaningful discussion. But at the same time, he doesn’t have to start from fucking scratch. Class as a category has been used to tremendous effect in both theoretical and empirical literature. Everything doesn’t have to be an ontological battle. If you aren’t happy with BrainGlutton’s lack of definition, then surely you can scratch the surface of the literature and provide your own.
Sure, it’s not your job or your burden. We get that. But we also get that BrainGlutton is a buttplug. If your goal is just to ride the merry-go-round with him riding up your ass, then the current approach is working great. I don’t even mean to single you out, per se. You are just BrainGlutton’s most persistent vituperator here and, more importantly, you asked.
As for my position on class in general, to be honest, I don’t know. It depends on the question, and even then, I don’t know. I can definitely tell you that I am not a Marxist, but in the world of sociology, that is not saying very much. I’m not a sociologist, and my own work has been criticized for showing a certain indifference to class issues.
Yes, I spent four years at a fairly left-of-center liberal arts university getting my undergrad degree. I’m used to Marxist critiques, post-colonial critiques, feminist critiques, etc…
There are, indeed, times when class (however its particular author is defining it) and struggle (however its particular author is defining it) can be useful lenses to describe an issue. But the categories aren’t objective and don’t generally hold true across different analytical schools’ frameworks. And even when class is a useful lens, that doesn’t make it the most useful lens let alone the only useful lens; sometimes analyzing a conflict in terms of ethnic identity, religious identity, etc… make more sense, even when you can legitimately use a class gloss.
And a lot is, ironically, bound up in an Hegelian pattern. Marx said class and class struggle are thus and such, Weber said that actually they’re thus and such. Some folks who came later said that Marx was right about a bit and Weber was right about a bit and… It’s hard to completely step away from the terminology, because that’s the jargon that sociology has grown up with.
The attitude is often “the terms/categories/relationship that Author A uses are totally wrong and muddled, but the ones I use are better. What’s that you say, Mr Author C? No you shut up!”
That’s been my point from the word go. It’s not that concepts like “class” and/or “class struggle/warfare/monkeyshines” can’t have definitions, simply that we should treat those, depending on the quality of their definitions and logical consistency, as 2nd order affairs and not as primal reality itself. Class struggle exists precisely depending on how we define it and how it can be applied to a specific conflict we’re analyzing.
I think you may be misunderstanding the context of the discussion. It began as Olentzero claimed that 100% of progress and social change was due to class struggle. I offered examples, such as the Agrarian Revolution, that could not be ascribed to class struggle. Glutton then took issue and argued with me in a few posts before Pitting me in GD. At that point, I was content to simply point out that Glutton was being retarded.
As for providing a definition, I really do feel that “group conflict” is as tight a category, for general discussion, as I’m willing to put my name to. Yes, for some specific situations it’s useful to group people into classes instead of ideological camps or ethnic groups, or what have you. But that’s often a case-by-case basis and one that specific authors can argue for. I don’t often find that class is a lens that I would prefer to use to analyze group conflict, and I’m much more likely to rely on, for example, ideological groupings than class groupings.
This is somewhat similar to what I’ve been getting at. Class and class struggle can be valid lenses if the person using them does so with logical consistency and intellectual rigor. But it depends on the individual argument, the individual context, the use that the lens is being put to versus the utility of alternate glosses, and so on.
That’s been my point all along. Not that there’s never any such thing as class or class conflict, but they exist and apply depending on how we’re going to define and use them.
Some class distinctions and privilege are relatively innocuous, we don’t need to regard displays of wealth as being anything more important than any other vulgarity. A rich man can buy a fancy car to show off his status, but a car is still just a car, the greater majority of us can buy a car that is adequate transportation.
But if we are truly devoted to an egalitarian democratic ideal, then we must be equally devoted to political equality of all our citizens. Just as we refuse to permit racism an effective role in political power, so we must oppose any injustice based on wealth and/or “class”. (Quotation marks added to permit the semantically obsessed to breath more easily.)
To take a minor but succinct example: our polling places. Polling places, like schools, tend to be funded and maintained at a local level, and funded by property taxes. The result is a pervasive inequality in voting, whereby someone from the inner city may need to spend hours standing on line to vote while his suburban counterpart has a much easier time of it. The result is to make it less likely that the poorer citizen will exercise said right, which effectively increases the political power of the conservative wing.
So, yes, class struggle is real, its just not necessarily dramatic.
You’ve described inequality based on wealth. Complaining about “semantic obsession” doesn’t make class a more valid issue than economics, especially since lower class individuals living in rich districts aren’t segregated by class and told to go vote elsewhere.
Which was of course the whole point, “class struggle” has a valid definition and use depending on how tightly it’s defined and used. You can whine about it all you like, and complain that those you disagree with you need to go away, or what have you. But you need to do a far better job than pointing to economic disparities that perfectly explain an issue and then claiming that shows it’s a class issue that proves class struggle.
Indeed. But more specificly, I have described a political inequality, and that’s the crucial point, here. The principles of agalitarian democracy that many of us revere and many more claim to, those principles demand that we refuse to permit any grouip of citrizens have more political power than any other. A disparity in political power is no more legitimate based on wealth than it would be based on race.
I don’t get this. Is “class” a “valid issue”, or no? Is it just less “valid” than economics, or not valid at all, but economics is?
It has a number of perfectly valid but slightly different applications, and so long as you and I both know what we are talking about, definition is a trivial exercise.
I have no idea what you are struggling to say here. Except that you are quite sure I’m wrong. About something.
If the actual division is economic, and class does not actually come into it as lower class individuals in wealthy neighborhoods are not told to leave and go vote with their class, analyzing it based on economic grounds is a much more secure framework than class grounds.
Economic disparities on local levels, and not class issues, explain the issue you brought up. Therefore pointing to that economic issue as something that evinces “class struggle” is simply wrong. it’s quite clear and uncomplicated.
But I can understand if, while struggling to understand, you feel the need to lash out a bit and blame me.
the BBQ pit is not the place for discussions of the nature or existence of class struggle that are likely to lead anywhere
If you want to examine class struggle anywhere on the Dope and ask any question other than whether or not it exists, you have to write an OP that clearly rules out debate over its existence or you will get bogged down in this very debate, albeit more politely conducted outside the Pit. That’s a victory for those who do not acknowledge analyzing politics in terms of class struggle, smothering the intellectual child in its crib, so to speak.
Ok, I pretty much entirely share your perspective here, FinnAgain.
I agree. The debate itself is reified, even if the actual results are neither interesting nor helpful. I’ve also had to read a lot more historical sociology this past semester than was healthy for me, so I am feeling a bit burned out from it at the moment.
Ok, I think I must have been not fully aware of the context. No surprise, since Olentzero still lives in the 19th century and BG was being kind of retarded.
I hate to keep agreeing, but I do. My reading of the empirical literature and my own interpretation of history suggests that social change is motivated by social class, unless defined so broadly as to be useless. If anyone is still playing along at home, here are some various conflict theories.
Of all the theories of class I linked above, I think Bourdieu’s is by far the most interesting, fwiw.
You mean the lower economic class persons who can afford to own property in high-income neighborhoods? A vanishingly small demographic, no? Puny to the point of irrelevence. And since such persons are so rare, why should I be surprised there is no enforcement mechanism to deal with them? Does your local police force have a unicorn squad to deal with unicorn issues? I have no idea why you brought that up, save for purposes of obfuscation.
Semantics. You are playing three card monty with definitions instead of cards. When the class issue is based exclusively or at least predominantly on economic status, changing the words from “class issues” to “economic disparities” means precisely nothing. Further, there is no requirement that class issues cannot have effect on “local levels”. I don’t know from whence you pulled that, but you can put it back, it is meaningless.
This is not a huge issue, I am not calling to mount the barricades over this, it is simply a clear example of the impact of economic status (or “class”) on political power, in that it fosters inequality of political power, by making it more likely for a member of one class to vote and more difficult for the member of another. The effort to correct this injustice is a “struggle”. We may well hope that the struggle is resolved along peaceable and civil lines, but it remains a struggle, nonetheless.
Semantics aside, the simple fact that voting is easier and more convenient for the economically advantaged can be described in a single, simple word: it is unjust, and we should not permit it.
And this is the general problem, your definitions are sloppy and revised on the fly to fit your views and your logic s looser than a five dollar whore.
To start at the beginning, owning property is not required to vote in a district, you made that up. To continue, you’d like to claim that something that isn’t common can be handwaved away as if it’s a “unicorn”. But the fact that voting is done by districts, with lower, middle and upper class citizens welcome to vote along side each other, shows that the issue is not one of class. Which doesn’t even get at the absurdity of your claim that if there were sufficient lower class people in a district, that then the cops might be tasked with turning them away. Or what have you.
Just like, in your haste to rearrange facts to support your preconceived gloss, you’ve neglected to understand the impact of the word ‘local’. If one district decides to spend X% of its operating budget on setting up voting machines and another spends Y%, that may be because one is lower class and can’t afford it, or middle class but doesn’t mind inconveniencing its voters in order to devote more money to the snow plow squad during the winter, or… well, how then do you determine which is acting out of ‘class’ issues and which is local funding choices and economic realities and which effects what socioeconomic status levels and…
Do you even have any statistics to back up your claim, at all?
And then you leap to the conclusion that if certain locations have more or fewer voting machines, in an easier or more difficult to access location, based on economics and local government and not class distinctions, that it must a class “injustice”. It’s a dramatically simplistic gloss, ignoring any number of factors from gerrymandering to voter trends to the relative agendas of the candidates. If Lowclassville would have all turned out and voted for a candidate who already had an election sewed up without their votes anyways, that’s hardly a “injustice”.
To say nothing of the fact that your whole gloss is based on fiction and fallacy. You started with a factually incorrect position equating lower class people with liberal voters (or at least non-conservative voters), but in quite a few places, like, say, Texas? Class is not at all an indicator that someone will vote against or disagree with conservatives.
And so on. The situation can legitimately be described as “Based on local funding, population density, the leeway granted by someone’s employers, etc… the act of voting may be easier or harder for individuals, regardless of the social class that they are in but based on the economic situation and funding priorities of their local district. Further, their vote may or may not have had en effect, for a candidate who may or may not have supported what someone may view as their economic interests.” Instead, you’ve decided that it’s a class struggle over justice, and any examples to the contrary can be handwaved away as unicorns.
Then, of course, there’s the fact that voting by mail is often allowed depending on the state and the circumstances. Rendering access to physical machines simply one other factor that would have to be considered.
Bollocks. Generally speaking, residence in a district is required to register in that same district. Whether than implies ownership or rental is of no consequence, as someone who cannot afford to purchase property in an economically advantaged neighborhood is not likely to be able to afford the rent, either. You have siezed upon that like a starving dog on a pork chop, but its not significant. But this gem is special, its classic Finn, to witless…
Never said any such thing. The first person to mention such as “telling them to go vote somewhere else” was not me. Point of fact, it was you. You are attacking me for a position I never expressed, but one you have assigned to me from your limitless imagination. In fact, never said anything about property ownership, thats two flagrant dishonesties in about fifty words, you’re on a roll…
So what? Weather impacts such things as well, I make no claims about weather. Indeed, its entirely possible that funds devoted to snow plows may hinder funding of polling places. Do you imagine that such fall equally upon all citizens? Well, lets just say that they do, and again, so what? I’m not concerned with the things no one can do anything about, I’m concerned with the ones we can do something about, and therefore should. I’m ugly, you’re stupid and belligerant, we’re both stuck with it. But I will not stand idly by and allow the civil rights of the stupid to be hindered, and I expect you to stand to defend the civil rights of the ugly. Failing that, what good are you?
Have you?
Class distinctions are based on economics. What did you think they were based on, nasal hair?
If access to voting rights is based on economic status, it is unjust. Period. Full stop. And the extent of the injustice is directly commensurate with the extent of its reflecting economic status.
What in the world are you talking about now? You have flung yourself off the edge of relevance and are in free fall.
Oh, yeah? Tell you what, start an organization devoted to registering lower class voters, see which party tries to shut you down.
Class may not be a definitive indicator of voter preferences, but your suggestion that it is “not at all” an indicator is patently ridiculous. But you’re rather an excitable fellow, I’ll mark that down to exaggeration rather than ignorance. You’re welcome.
Youi forgot the kitchen sink. Threw everything else in that you could think of, but left that out. I’m not concerned with the candidates agenda, or how it fits within the views of the average voter of a given district. That is totally irrelevent. I am concerned with equal access to the right to vote.
That is indeed true. It is simply one factor. But it is the one factor, or one of several, that are directly related to economic status. That factor could fairly be considered an issue of class, and should be addressed and corrected.
Being handicapped, for instance, is not a class issue. Nontheless, we should ensure that our handicapped citizens have equal access to our polling places. Economic disadvantage is a class issue, and deserves attention and correction. You appear determined to make this issue appear bewilderingly complex. but it simple, straightforward, and direct.
Stick to clowning Lucy. Play to your strengths.
It’s rather obvious who’s being both stupid and belligerent, obfuscatory and dishonest. Time to get out your clown shoes, good buddy.
Anyways…
It is quite relevant that, depending on how districts are drawn and what housing is available in them, lower class individuals may have full access to the exact same facilities that upper class individuals have. That’s why it’s an issue that varies by location, and is due primarily to the economic nature of the districts and their budgeting priorities. A middle class neighborhood that doesn’t devote adequate money for purchasing voting machines is not a “middle class issue of class struggle”, either. The fact that, depending on how districts are drawn, all classes have equal access to voting machines shows that this is not an issue of class.
You have also not identified that there is a ‘civil rights’ violation. Just like you haven’t provided any specific facts on demographics, voting trends, redistricting, etc… Communities not being able to afford X voting machines per Y citizens is a “civil rights” issue if you make up your own definition of civil rights.
And I understand that reality has a well known anti-bullshit bias, and I do sympathize with your anger and frustration here, but basic ignorance is not a substitute for justified annoyance. I understand, your cherished assumptions are being challenged, and grrr that makes you mad. I grok. But income is not an indicator of how one will vote. Millions of the poorest of the poor vote Republican. In many elections, once we get to upper-lower (or lower-middle) class, the results are a virtual dead heat. Now, ideology? Ideology is a pretty damn good indicator of voting preferences. And ideology cuts across economic lines.
Meanwhile, amidst your claims of civil rights violations and what not, it might make sense for you to actually look at the impact of certain policies rather than handwaving them away and gnashing your teeth. Whether or not a particular vote would have had an effect on someone’s voice in government is, although perhaps not to you, obviously relevant as to whether or not their voice in government has been effected. Especially since you are deliberately ignoring that physical access to voting machines is only one factor in whether or not people are able to vote, and one that’s rendered largely moot by the fact that depending on the state you find yourself in, chances are that you can order one, for free, and vote for the price of a single postage stamp. Some states may waive the postage, for that matter. I’d be interested to find out.
You’re also, bizarrely, ignoring the fact that redistricting and budgetary allocations can be based, and often are based, on political divisions, not class divisions. That’s the whole point behind gerrymandering. And if a district can be gerrymandered such that it doesn’t have enough funding to properly provide support for an alternate political class, then the issue is one of politics and not class. This is the whole point, that there are any number of issues which can come into play and class is only one of them, and as per the issue you’ve chosen to discuss, not the most important or relevant one, by far.
Just in case I’m to be treated to a dose of Shecky Funnybones, since Lucy McSerious seems to not be doing so well, I’ll note that instead of “you can order one” I probably should have said “You can order a legally binding ballot”.
Just wanted that out there, before we got the Shecky treatment about how of course you can’t order your own voting machine for free (or the Lucy McSerious treatment about how I’m dishonest and you haven’t said what you’ve said and so on).
To be fair to him, even though he did bring up property ownership, he meant to say that poor people tended not to live in affluent areas because the cost of living there (either the cost of home ownership or the cost of rents) was too high. He was using “own property” as synedoche to refer to having a home. And I think in general, it’s true that there are more voting problems in poor neighborhoods than in rich ones. When you hear about a polling place suffering from an inadequate number of voting machines, or people having to wait in long lines to vote, these tend to be poorer areas (not to mention that it can be more of a financial sacrifice for hourly workers, who tend to be blue collar and lower income, to take time off and vote than salaried workers, who tend to be white collar and higher income).