But. Regarding the rift between the working class and the left. Yep. It's there for sure. I just disagree with how the rift happened. To me, it's that the intellectual left is just a residual development from the American cultural front of the 30's. And that movement was totally working class (with a funding boost from the USSR, of course). The welfare state saved capitalism, and so american intellectuals turned from Herbert Spenser to John Maynard Keynes to offer up apologias to the new social structure. Now that the Welfare State is dying its last gasps, I expect the residual left-wing intellegentsia to die too, in time. But to me it's all a bunch of residue. And once this pseudo-elite of college professors retire and give way to Koch foundation endowed chairs, we'll be back to Herbert Spenser before you know it.
What you point out that is especially interesting to me is the way the Fox News and right are able to leverage the intellectual left as a wedge against the working class. Such that it is these intellectuals who are called 'the elite'. Not the actual elite: the people with economic power like the bezozes and the musks. They say: "The intellectuals think they're better than you. They put sweaters on their dogs. Let's show them by getting rid of food stamps."
Your intellectual history of the left is flawed because it is liberal. You give us a 'great man' theory of history. The idea that marx came up with marxism or that bakunin came up with anachism is bullshit. That shit was in the air. Those dudes wrote down some stuff, sure. But the basic ideas were part of the zeitgeist. Which is a part of history. Which comes from the working class. The majority of people. How they live their lives. Their hopes and dreams. The whole idea of marxism is that ideas come from material changes in the world. Disturbances in the force, young Luke. Nowhere is this problem worse than in your characterization of the Frankfurt school as a bunch of rich foreign professors. The frankfurt school involved intelligencia, sure But this was Jewish-German intelligencia in the late 20's. The working class in germany was split between the real socialists and the national socialists. The national socialists sounded just like the socialists. Plus Racism. A recipe guarantee to win an election (just ask trump--racism by itself will frequently win an election). Anywho--these young jewish intellectuals no longer had a jobs in Nazi Germany where they could be part of a viable communist party hoping to gain power. They had to run for their lives. They became leaders without a movement. Professors without a university. Without a country even. The working class had betrayed the left in 20's germany. Now the question became: what happens when the left-wing superstructure, created by a left-wing proletarian movement, becomes abandoned by the movement that created this superstructure? The professors and leaders of the movement are left. But where do they go? What do they do? It's not that the frankfurt school was invented by a bunch of foreign rich white dudes. They were who they were because of a movement that had now abandoned them for Hitler. They were leftist exiles who had to struggle with the idea of how to live an ethical life in an unethical world. How to produce counterhegemonic superstructural/cultural work in the absense of a workers movement. Hence Beckett and Alban Berg and all that stuff. And Adorno's famous categorical imperative: To live in such a way that prevents another holocaust. To be a splinter in your eye.
But. Regarding the rift between the working class and the left. Yep. It's there for sure. I just disagree with how the rift happened. To me, it's that the intellectual left is just a residual development from the American cultural front of the 30's. And that movement was totally working class (with a funding boost from the USSR, of course). The welfare state saved capitalism, and so american intellectuals turned from Herbert Spenser to John Maynard Keynes to offer up apologias to the new social structure. Now that the Welfare State is dying its last gasps, I expect the residual left-wing intellegentsia to die too, in time. But to me it's all a bunch of residue. And once this pseudo-elite of college professors retire and give way to Koch foundation endowed chairs, we'll be back to Herbert Spenser before you know it.
What you point out that is especially interesting to me is the way the Fox News and right are able to leverage the intellectual left as a wedge against the working class. Such that it is these intellectuals who are called 'the elite'. Not the actual elite: the people with economic power like the bezozes and the musks. They say: "The intellectuals think they're better than you. They put sweaters on their dogs. Let's show them by getting rid of food stamps."
Your intellectual history of the left is flawed because it is liberal. You give us a 'great man' theory of history. The idea that marx came up with marxism or that bakunin came up with anachism is bullshit. That shit was in the air. Those dudes wrote down some stuff, sure. But the basic ideas were part of the zeitgeist. Which is a part of history. Which comes from the working class. The majority of people. How they live their lives. Their hopes and dreams. The whole idea of marxism is that ideas come from material changes in the world. Disturbances in the force, young Luke. Nowhere is this problem worse than in your characterization of the Frankfurt school as a bunch of rich foreign professors. The frankfurt school involved intelligencia, sure But this was Jewish-German intelligencia in the late 20's. The working class in germany was split between the real socialists and the national socialists. The national socialists sounded just like the socialists. Plus Racism. A recipe guarantee to win an election (just ask trump--racism by itself will frequently win an election). Anywho--these young jewish intellectuals no longer had a jobs in Nazi Germany where they could be part of a viable communist party hoping to gain power. They had to run for their lives. They became leaders without a movement. Professors without a university. Without a country even. The working class had betrayed the left in 20's germany. Now the question became: what happens when the left-wing superstructure, created by a left-wing proletarian movement, becomes abandoned by the movement that created this superstructure? The professors and leaders of the movement are left. But where do they go? What do they do? It's not that the frankfurt school was invented by a bunch of foreign rich white dudes. They were who they were because of a movement that had now abandoned them for Hitler. They were leftist exiles who had to struggle with the idea of how to live an ethical life in an unethical world. How to produce counterhegemonic superstructural/cultural work in the absense of a workers movement. Hence Beckett and Alban Berg and all that stuff. And Adorno's famous categorical imperative: To live in such a way that prevents another holocaust. To be a splinter in your eye.