{"id":9423,"date":"2017-08-29T09:27:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T14:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=9423"},"modified":"2021-06-10T09:41:49","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T14:41:49","slug":"hysteria-or-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2017\/08\/29\/hysteria-or-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Hysteria, or hope?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Based on its title and on the snippets I saw being quoted, I fully expected to dislike Lee Jones’ article “Charlottesville and the Politics of Left Hysteria<\/a>,” posted a few days ago at\u00a0The Current Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, I’ve found it nuanced, cogent, and well worth reading. I myself have tried to broach this topic of the two lefts — the economic (or economistic) left, and the cultural or identitarian left — before (see here<\/a>). The argument I’ve made there applies to this article as well. I think Jones is more or less correct in arguing that identitarian politics have a down side, which is that they can easily degenerate into a politics of resentment. What he misses is that they can have an up side as well — which is that they\u00a0can generate a politics of meaning, and that is exactly what the economistic left has lacked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jones writes that<\/p>\n

“the analytics of political economy have been replaced with an analytics of identity. Once, the left understood socio-economic and political inequality to stem predominantly from gross inequalities in wealth, maintained by circuits of capital, ideology and state coercion. Today\u2019s identitarian left attributes it to the uneven \u201cprivilege\u201d of different identity groups, which is assumed to flow from continued prejudice (even if it now lurks \u201cimplicitly\u201d in the subconscious). This leads to attacks on \u201cprivileged\u201d groups \u2013 notably \u201ccisgender\u201d white men \u2013 and a politics of \u201ccalling out\u201d prejudicial behaviour. That \u201cwhiteness\u201d masks enormous disparities in wealth and power is disregarded.”<\/p>\n

“The real question,” he continues,<\/p>\n

“is how the left can win over a majority to a programme of radical social, political and economic change that addresses both economic disparities\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>the gross inequalities suffered by minorities. Both are required because they interact, producing vast disparities in household\u00a0income<\/a>,\u00a0poverty<\/a>,\u00a0unemployment<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0incarceration rates<\/a>\u00a0among ethnic groups. But this cannot be tackled by setting identity groups against one another, turning the struggle for equality into a zero-sum game.”<\/p>\n

This is all perfectly lucid: to the extent that identity politics detracts\u00a0from building a politics that would unite people around egalitarian goals, one could argue that it is misguided. But the assumption that all<\/em> identity politics is always and only a politics of resentment<\/em> built on pitting groups against each other\u00a0— and that it cannot be a way of mobilizing for larger ends — is not necessarily accurate.*<\/p>\n

“Identity” is not as expansive a term as “meaning,” which is what I’ve proposed<\/a> in its place (just as “labor” is not as expansive as “livelihood<\/a>“). A politics of identity suggests a fixity according to which you are either this or that —\u00a0a member of an oppressed minority (or more than one) or of a privileged majority (or more than one) — and that that defines you and what you should be doing. Such a politics appeals to those who think they can benefit from it, but not necessarily to those who feel threatened by it. So they develop their own (e.g., white nationalism).<\/p>\n

A politics of meaning, on the other hand, suggests that you start from the acknowledgment that what gives your life meaning will likely not<\/em> be the same as what gives others meaning, but that both will need to be taken into account if we are to build a common world together. The trick is to bring together\u00a0an understanding of the global situation — and of the forces that have made it so unequal for people — with desires that would be powerful enough to overcome and transform it. As I wrote earlier<\/a>, if the left reclaims the terrain of meaning,<\/p>\n

“it can give rise to a cosmopolitics that would connect the economic struggles that continue to\u00a0structure<\/em>\u00a0our world to the cultural struggles that\u00a0define<\/em>\u00a0that world for most people and most communities today. And if it regains the open-ended positivity of that kind of vision \u2014 as opposed to, say, a vision of resentment, animosity, jealousy, and grievance \u2014 then it\u00a0gains the power to win converts via the imagination, which is, after all, the most powerful vehicle for\u00a0political action that there is.”<\/p>\n

So the issue, I think, is that we see what is going on not just for its limitations — its “fascist threats” or<\/em> its leftist “hysterias” — but for its possibilities, which are what make it open-ended and hopeful. Hope, of course, is cheap, and the trick is to make its object — a better world — both conceivable and realizable. If we can do that, we can generate enough “meaning” to spread a sense of agency through a population as dispirited as twenty-first century humanity seems to be.<\/p>\n

I concede that we’re far from making it seem realizable. But conceivable? That may be an adequate task for us now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*This article has been updated to correct a significant typo, where the word “accurate” was originally written as “inaccurate.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on its title and on the snippets I saw being quoted, I fully expected to dislike Lee Jones’ article “Charlottesville and the Politics of Left Hysteria,” posted a few days ago at\u00a0The Current Moment. Instead, I’ve found it nuanced, cogent, and well worth reading. I myself have tried to broach this topic of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[690660,691215],"tags":[455077,109070,281,358,16849,455075,4458,4449,109069,455076],"class_list":["post-9423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural_politics","category-politics_postpolitics","tag-charlottesville","tag-cultural-left","tag-democracy","tag-fascism","tag-hope","tag-hysteria","tag-left","tag-left-politics","tag-political-left","tag-trump-era"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2rZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1198,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/02\/15\/climate-denialism-as-hysteria\/","url_meta":{"origin":9423,"position":0},"title":"climate denialism as hysteria?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Dipping once again into the public debate around climate change science -- today it's in the responses to MIT climatologist Kerry Emanuel's op-ed in the Boston Globe, to which no less than 15 comments were added in the couple of minutes it took me to write these first couple of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ft0p3003d3_00001.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/02\/ft0p3003d3_00001.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1035,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/02\/26\/green-cultural-studies\/","url_meta":{"origin":9423,"position":1},"title":"Green cultural studies","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Cultural studies\" refers to the study of cultural objects, meanings, and processes, and their production and use in contemporary society. It is an interdisciplinary field with a twin commitment to intellectual rigor and social relevance. While the \"rigor\" piece sometimes means \"objectivity,\" often it involves a questioning of the assumption\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Academe"","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13838,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2025\/01\/05\/theory-for-a-hybrid-war-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":9423,"position":2},"title":"Theory for a hybrid [war] world","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm working up a conference idea around the following set of thoughts, which are still very much in the process of being formulated. Comments welcome. The present conjuncture For those who study such things, social and cultural theory \u2014 sometimes simply called \u201cTheory\u201d with a capital T \u2014 has done\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural politics"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cultural_politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2025\/01\/image.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9458,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2017\/10\/05\/on-cultural-civil-conflict\/","url_meta":{"origin":9423,"position":3},"title":"On cultural civil conflict","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"October 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I think it's fair to say that the United States is in a state of\u00a0cultural civil war. It is cultural\u00a0war in the sense that it is a war fought with signs and symbols rather than with guns -- signs and symbols intended to elicit affiliation, allegiance, and identification with one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural politics"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cultural_politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2017\/10\/8A7BE982-A5DD-4A47-866E-0AB3FA6048E9-275x206.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10127,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2019\/04\/22\/earth-day-thoughts-for-a-mediascaped-planet\/","url_meta":{"origin":9423,"position":4},"title":"Earth Day thoughts for a mediascaped planet…","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been posting about the Ukrainian presidential runoff elections over at UKR-TAZ, the blog I established in the wake of the 2014 Maidan revolution. 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The gist of my comments is relevant to the study of social media's impacts on political\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media ecology"","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2019\/04\/640x360.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2019\/04\/640x360.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2019\/04\/640x360.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12329,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/01\/18\/the-feeling-of-the-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":9423,"position":5},"title":"The feeling of the world","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a working thesis on the present global moment: 1. For many people around the world, life has always been precarious. 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