It's a critique of the progressive liberal left from the traditional far left. Central to Fisher's thesis is that by emphasizing race and sex, class identity (which he feels is crucial) is ignored: "I’ve noticed a fascinating magical inversion projection-disavowal mechanism whereby the sheer mention of class is now automatically treated as if that means one is trying to downgrade the importance of race and gender. In fact, the exact opposite is the case, as the Vampires’ Castle uses an ultimately liberal understanding of race and gender to obfuscate class."
What I find particularly interesting is how similar this critique is to the alt-right's criticism of neo-liberalism. I think it's a fine example of the "horseshoe theory" of politics, where the far-left and far-right share certain commonalities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory.
The critiques are similar insofar as they are both critiques, but differ vastly in their content.
Mark Fisher, and the 'traditional left's' critique of neoliberal identity politics calls for a centering of class -- that is the power relations inherent in capital modes of production. This, many would argue is not an identity, but a _material position_: a specific stance or relationship to the productive forces in society.
The Alt-Right tends to believe societal conflicts arise from 'culture wars' between ethnicities, nationalities, religions, etcetera. In this way, they share an 'identitarian' analysis of political force with the liberals they aim to critique!
In total agreement, and I would add that Fisher's position is only acceptable in the left because it is founded in 'class reductionism' - which is sometimes used derogatorily - the idea that capital is the root struggle, because it is in part or in whole the cause of all other struggles.
It is also possible to try to position yourself on the traditional far left while also simply being racist or sexist, but that would be Third-Positionism, which is seeming more and more common in the alt-right. A Third-Positionist would find nothing that they could agree with in EtVC, because they would assert that "comradeship" across a 'cultural boundary' is a communist ideal.
If you look at the history of Stalinism, the Khmer Rouge, and Maoism, the horseshoe theory begins to look appealing again, unless you consider Stalin to be Fascist.
Really? I've never heard that before and I've spent a not insignificant portion of my life in hard left circles.
People will often say that Stalin's USSR was not communist, but was rather in a pre-communist phase. In the USSR this stage was known as the dictatorship of the proletariat, which according to Lenin, would eventually fade allowing a state-less, class-less society to flourish. Obviously they never got to that stage, but honestly even arguing this is semantics. Communism vs precommunism is a real time waster of a political debate, but I've never heard anyone describe any stage of the USSR as "capitalist".
Perhaps state capitalism, if you really want to stretch that definition, but that's still a very different thing.
Generally lefties will distance themselves from Stalinism and Maoism by describing those forms as "authoritarian socialism", as opposed to "libertarian socialist" ideologies like what they had in socialist Catalonia, or Anarcho Communism as it's described in The Conquest of Bread.
It wasn't until I read this that I realized how miserable being a liberal has felt over the past few years. Compared to the days of "Earth Day is every day" and "We are the world", being liberal today seems to be this never-ending race to see who can self-flagellate most intensely on social media.
I have to wonder how many people have been driven to the right simply because Trump and co. tell you that you are great and should feel great.
The left sure as hell use a little bit of that positivity.
It's a critique of the progressive liberal left from the traditional far left. Central to Fisher's thesis is that by emphasizing race and sex, class identity (which he feels is crucial) is ignored: "I’ve noticed a fascinating magical inversion projection-disavowal mechanism whereby the sheer mention of class is now automatically treated as if that means one is trying to downgrade the importance of race and gender. In fact, the exact opposite is the case, as the Vampires’ Castle uses an ultimately liberal understanding of race and gender to obfuscate class."
What I find particularly interesting is how similar this critique is to the alt-right's criticism of neo-liberalism. I think it's a fine example of the "horseshoe theory" of politics, where the far-left and far-right share certain commonalities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory.