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Dr. Shaw: I certainly don't believe working people are inherently racist or fascist. That was not my point. Rather, I was trying to counter the argument that everybody is responsible for racism and fascism except racists and fascists. Adopting such attitudes is a moral choice, one that many working people do not make. For my part, I see no hard correlation between education and liberative social vision. Here in the U.S., there is no shortage of well-educated fascists and white nationalists whose appeal is derived in no small part from their ability to reappropriate the postures and language of the academic left (see Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, etc.). I feel that I often run up against a pernicious dualism wherein politics is either all identity or all economic class struggle. Certainly in the U.S., these are not mutually exclusive but are rather all related struggles for equity and justice. I confess my knowledge of history across the Atlantic is embarrassingly meager, but what I do know leads me to believe things are the same in this regard there. We can certainly debate the character of working class immiseration in America and U.K. But wherever that debate might land, to my mind, it does not absolve people of any class of responsibility for moral choices. To give working class white people a pass for adopting an exclusionary and authoritarian politics is a bit paternalistic, I think, and does a disservice to the many working people who instead seek solidarity and real liberty. What I find alarming is the degree to which a certain kind of rhetorical move remains effective against critical perspectives. It on the one hand says, "I am also in a struggle, and I share your values" while punching down with the other. It's the logic of "White Lives Matter" and the "Men's Rights" movements, both of which coopt the language of liberative struggles to defend an unjust status quo or advocate for an even more unjust future. Like the "free speech" rallies in the States, these are deployed to provide a disorienting cover for reactionary projects, by which the values of liberals and leftists are weaponized against them. The enemies of open societies cry "free speech". Apologists for racial oppression shout "racism". Defenders of patriarchy holler "sexism". The words don't matter. It's about intent. And I think academics, of all people, ought to be able to get out in front of these tactics at eliding those intentions. This is not at all to say that I've not seen many admirable efforts at just this here on the list and in the literature, but rather that these rhetorical moves' continued efficacy in derailing or steering discourses is worth being worried about. Best, R. On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 12:28:30PM -0400, Hillary Shaw wrote: > > Hope I'm not missing / misinterpreting Reed's point but....I don't think the 'White-Blue-Grey' working class are inherntly racist or fascist. What I would say they are is 'rationally-proportionately protectionist'. To clarify that, they, when threatened by the negative effects of globalisation (and there are some, e.g. lower wages in their locality/industry, higher unemployment there too, and less benefit from the cheaper goods that globalisation brings, because they can afford less of these goods) - they start to desire an economically protective (that is, yes, Brexitist, non globalised, tariff-protected) national economic policy. That's merely economic rationalism, self-interest. Misinformed, misjudged, yes, if you are fortunate enough to have a tertiary economics education. > > > > Maybe it's elitist to condemn the White-Grey-Blues as racist, fascist, when we step into their shoes and consider their more deprived economic position compared to us fortunate academics, of any race/colour, who have recieved the benefits of the university system. > > > > As Macchiavelli said, 'if you want to rule a country, go and live there'. We should actually visit the South Wales Valleys, the (ex) mining towns of S Yorkshire, and that is a million miles from the universities just down the road, in Leeds, Cardiff, etc etc. > > > > Dr Hillary J. Shaw > Director and Senior Research Consultant > Shaw Food Solutions > Newport > Shropshire > TF10 8QE > www.fooddeserts.org > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Reed <[log in to unmask]> > To: CRIT-GEOG-FORUM <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Thu, Oct 12, 2017 4:39 pm > Subject: Re: The case for colonialism: whither academia? > > Alex/Thom/Willis, > > The "micropolitics" of colonial violence? Is the implication here that colonialism is only immoral on the spot where the blood falls? > > Also, thanks for the heads-up that the left, people of color, sexual and religious minorities are responsible for fascists being fascists. It's everybody's fault but the fascists, of course.* If only these other people would shut the hell up about the things they don't get or that are taken from them, well, then we'd have a better, non-identity politics, the kind where white men, hey presto, just seem to do so darn well -- and it's for everybody else's good, don't you see? > > This whole message reads as if it were workshopped on Reddit. White male innocence. White male fragility. Concern trolling. Victim blaming. Superfecta. > > -R. > > * Along similar lines, Rebecca Solnit has a killer take on the Weinstein fallout and the tendency to blame women (including victims) for men's crimes: > > http://lithub.com/things-that-are-hillary-clintons-fault-starting-with-harvey-weinstein/ > > On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 03:27:52PM +0100, Alex Macleod wrote: > > Serene, > > > > Criticising is good, yes. I criticise the paragraph in Gilley's work where he justifies the reasons why outsiders travelled to colonial areas - for me, that was disturbing and would have been removed if properly peer reviewed. I also dislike the idea of encouraging states to become colonial. > > > > I wouldn't say he is uncritical, he is perhaps immoral in ignoring the micropolitics of colonial violence. But other papers have covered that issue, I think his perspective is more focused around a critique of anticolonial theory and the macro-scales of statehood, institutions and infrastructure. > > > > I think his point about 'colonialism for hire' is particularly interesting, reflecting IMF bailouts when central banks go into debt. > > > > The last section, arguably most controversial, the way I see it, basically just says that neoimperialism is colonialism and we should embrace, not discriminate against, this term to help certain countries to develop after their immediate anticolonial period eg through western funding/economic assistance. > > > > Controversial yes, clickbait, no - the man is a scholar of international relations and colonial governance. His arguments act as a critique of anticolonial theory and are valid in their own right, if slightly immoral. Why should peers dismiss it just because they disagree? It's naive to believe that it was mere 'academic' factors responsible for how this piece of work eventually got treated, given the way that academia and academic funding are all centred on the value of left-wing approaches. And to reduce this work to a blog piece suggests that academia should treat with a wide berth all contrarian, non-left-leaning, even controversial arguments. It is accurately cited after all. > > > > I have to say, reading it again, his critique of anticolonialism is valuable, despite his angle for doing so (and very critical, as someone who has their own problems with the 'holy trinity' of Said, Spivak and Bhabha). The last section, arguably most controversial, the way I see it, basically just says that neoimperialism is colonialism and we should embrace, not discriminate against, this concept in order to help certain countries to develop after their immediate anticolonial period e.g. through western funding/economic assistance. > > > > My point about 'othering' is not completely separate/irrelevant, it explains why even in our attempts to value and highlight subaltern voices, we should not do this at the expense of overbalance i.e. discrimination against those whose views veer even slightly 'right' of centre, or even 'centre' of 'left', or those who are white, male and feel they are forced to apologise for this. Identity politics is on a slippery path in my opinion, responsible for the rise of Trump and the 'pepe'-supporting alt-right army. It feels increasingly distanced from reality, hence my warning. > > > > Peace, > > > > AM x > >