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That Ginger, Anna

That Ginger, Anna

Tag Archives: leftist

European and U.S. Populisms: Gender, Economy, and Society.

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Commentary

≈ 1 Comment

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Academia, american, anthropology, college, commentary, conference, constituents, europe, european, FN, France, French, french national front, french studies, history, le pen, left wing, leftist, New York City, new york university, NYC, NYU, peron, political, political science, political sociology, politics, populism, right wing, sociology, trump, United States, voters, voting

Let’s talk about European and U.S. populisms, shall we? Maybe you read my previous post about how one could equate Fascism and Communism as they relate to populism. Well, on Friday I went to a conference at NYU titled, “The French National Front and Beyond: A Global Populist Movement?” It was SO interesting. I was able to confirm several things I understand about populism, come up with some new questions, and widen my understanding of Right-wing political movements in both the United States and Europe. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay for the keynote speech because I arrived when the conference started and couldn’t stay until the evening, but the two panels I listened to,“Sexual Politics” and “Populism from Below: Ethnographers at Work”, were both amazing.

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DISCLAIMER: I have complex opinions (some lengthy and mature in their development, others new and ever changing) regarding topics each panelist spoke about. I am not prepared to write each of them out in this post. When I write about my disagreement with a panelist it does not mean that I agree with the alternative viewpoint, it only means that I don’t agree with their specific interpretation in the context of their presentation. If I write something that offends or confuses you, ask me to clarify what I mean and I will gladly do so!

The first panel was about Sexual Politics and three presenters spoke about their work: Kathleen M. Blee, Anika Keinz, and Cornelia Moser. Kathleen spoke about Right-wing movements in the United States as they relate to gender. Kathleen touched on something that I agreed with: the Right isn’t necessarily ignorant, but they use a different strategy of ideological bundling than the Left. Ethno-nationalism, masculinity, hierarchy, and anti-globalism are each ways the Right in the United States is able to appeal to different ideological bundles people hold. This directly confirmed my idea that one’s hierarchy of social identities determines if they will vote Left or Right. I did disagree with one assertion she seemed to make which was that politicians who develop or articulate their stances issue by issue rather than as a complete ideology are opportunistic. I am of the opinion that anyone (politician or not) can hold opposing views on different things without being a hypocrite or an opportunist so I would have liked to have heard more about her ideas on that.

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Cornelia spoke mainly about gender and the Right in France. I liked all of the presenters, but two points in Cornelia’s presentation struck me. She identified the Right as “familialist”. That is, promoting ideologies that emphasize families in tandem with oppressive sexual and gender norms. Had this been used solely as an adjective to describe the way the Right wishes to organize society, I may have agreed, but it wasn’t. I understand that it refers to the way in which a group hopes society organizes itself-that is in a familial structure-but the definition of a family has expanded considerably over the years. With the progressive changes in domestic partnership and adoption law (especially in France), the traditional husband and wife with two children is no longer the only form families take. What I mean to say is that familial organization of society is not as narrow as it once was and doesn’t not have to denote “oppressive sexual and gender norms”. Even historically, a familial organization of society has not always meant organizing around a nuclear family. I also do not know what one who is against familialist parties or societal organization would propose as an alternative. Cornelia mentioned that the Right is also anti-individualistic in some ways, so I am again curious what the alternative is, if anti-individualism and familial organization of society are both negative. Cornelia also spoke about something that was my biggest objection of the 6 presenters: “dediabolization” or the idea that “making stances discussable” makes them less negative. She specifically mentioned this regarding neo-nazi stances. I wish I could have asked her to explain what she meant more clearly but I vehemently disagree that talking about an idea or stance makes it less evil or negative.

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Anika spoke about the politicization of gender/sexuality in Germany. Her presentation was very interesting and she spoke about a topic that was the focus of many of my classes at NYU: othering. She specifically talked about German politicians bringing lesbian and gay citizens (all presenters were clear that politicians do not recognize TQIA* in Europe) into their constituencies in order to make Muslims the new, more other, other. She and Anika both explained homo-nationalism and gay-imperialism as ways in which the West is reinforcing the Orient-Occident colonial (and pre-colonial) divide in a neo-racist way. I’ve often thought about this topic, so I was glad that these two presenters discussed it and provided examples. That being said, I would love to hear more about gay-imperialism because it seems to be a poor way of describing the permeations of Western sexual culture outside of the West. I don’t agree with cultural imperialism (hence my firm belief in regionalism), but where is the line to be drawn? Speaking of gay-imperialism between the Occident and Orient seems to imply that there is a singular cultural idea about sexuality in the Occident, which is being forced onto the Orient . When, in fact, as each of these presenters showed, cultural ideas about sexuality and gender in the West are very different. It was also mentioned that many decolonial governments preserved sexist and homophobic legal systems, which in itself seems to contradict the idea of a contemporary gay-imperialism in many ways. Who constitutes a cultural group? Should all cultures be preserved and protected from ideological imperialism? Which cultures are to be made to embrace contemporary, progressive ideas of gender and sexuality? When is ideological imperialism “liberation” and when is it imperialism? Why? Anika also presented the Right on a spectrum, which I also thought was quite accurate and fitting (right conservative-right populist-right extremist). This panel was the most eye-opening and definitely sparked my curiosity and need for more research. If you have thoughts on these topics or want to recommend literature, feel free to drop a comment below and we will discuss!

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The second panel and my personal favorite featured Don Kalb, Christele Marchand-Lagier, and Rachel Meade. Don spoke about the Right as it relates to workers in Poland and race in Hungary. Rachel spoke about populisms on the Left and Right in Michigan, and Christele explained the intricacies of the social positions and views held by voters for the French National Front-the leading Right-wing party in France. Rachel’s presentation was an explanation of her field work in Traverse City, Michigan. She spent 4 months with an Occupy group, a group of Bernie Sanders supporters, and a 912 group. She explained that both the Left and Right populist groups situated themselves against the party establishment, felt their values were being undervalued, and distrusted the media. Her research also echoed something similar to Christele’s: there was a clear disconnect between people’s day-to-day life, their online persona, and their voting identity, especially among those on the Right. She explained the similarities and differences between populism on the Left and Right in each of these cases and also relayed her personal experiences as a researcher. She also focuses on Argentina and I was quite sad that she didn’t talk more about her work there because I have done some research about clientelism in Latin America as well as Italian Fascism in Argentina so I would have loved to have known more about populism there (she did explain that Argentina presents a perfect example of historical populism on the Left with Peronistas, while contemporary Leftists in Argentina reject the populist label).

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Don spoke in-depth about class and labor-share as it relates to voter turnout and the way people vote. He focused on the working poor and how the Right was able to capture their vote. His was the most historical of the 6 and he also explained the evolution of Left-wing Catholic, Trotskyist voters in post 1989-Poland. I was intrigued by this aspect of Polish labor history and will definitely be looking into it more. He also introduced an amazing idea that I felt was a great way of distinguishing populisms on the Left and Right. He characterizes populism on the Left as binary: “the people” against the elite with equality as their main goal and populism on the Right as tripartite: “the people” against the elite and against the undeserving classes in the promotion of a new elite made of the “deserving classes”. While I don’t necessarily agree completely, I do think this is a productive and helpful way to distinguish populisms. He also threw out an alarming statistic about the working poor and Roma in Hungary: many families in each group survive on 200 Euros ($212) a month, which I think is absolutely insane. He mentioned several other things including geography, nationalized welfare and public schooling (would love to see how it relates to the formation of French nationalism and public education—see The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789-1820s by Isser Woloch) as they relate to the Magyar–Roma relationship in Hungary.

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Christele interviewed people in two southern French departments over many years and asked why they voted why they voted. She has also done extensive exit polling. She explained that the French National Front attracts a diversity of voters that often do not know or may not even agree with the party platform, but that feel they are choosing the best candidate out of many bad candidates…She explained that one’s interpersonal, social, and economic relationships to society and how they change over time (Dan also made a point to explain how one’s class identity changes over time and therefore often causes a change in voting) are the biggest factors in determining how a person votes. She also made a point to dispel the notion that any party speaks for the “silent” citizens or those that “don’t have a voice” because as she said, silent citizens or citizens who aren’t represented do not vote. I thought that was a great point. Another point that I agreed with and was glad to see her research support is that people’s votes do not necessarily translate to agreement. I thought this also played into one thing that Kathleen brought up which was the erasure of gender as a factor for the 53% of Caucasian women who voted for the Right in our most recent election. Christele also spoke about geographic differences in voting, as did Don, which I am also very much interested in.

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I liked that each panel had a presenter who showed how populism in the United States both aligns with and differs from European populism. I would have liked for any of them to relate their work to regionalism and Euroscepticism (one of the audience members asked about this but they ran out of time). It delighted me that most presenters agreed that populism was not a manifestation of only the Right or only the Left and that it can emerge from any political ideology. I was also happy to see presenters from different fields presenting their research (historians were under-represented though) and it was especially good that there were people who had done fieldwork on their topic. Historians don’t have the luxury of being able to prove things that aren’t available in primary or secondary documents (except oral historians), so it was great to see research that was based on living people. Christele focused on something I am most interested in: what makes people vote the way they do. She is a political sociologist; she said that it is an underrepresented field of Political Science and that there is only 1 other Ph.D. in France working on anything remotely similar to what she focuses on. I wonder if there are any political sociologists in Italy studying Lega Nord voters or secessionists in the south? What about the political sociology of members of organized crime syndicates? The political sociology of voters in the Southern U.S. or Hawaii? I could do it! Anyway, this was an amazing conference and I hope that I am able to attend other similar events in the future. I think next up will be another lecture at Columbia about Italian Renaissance drawing so come back soon!

 

Settis Lecture

If you’re near Columbia on the 20th, you should check it out!

 

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Connecting Past and Present: Fascism, Marxism, and Corporatism.

21 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Commentary

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

contemporary politics, democratic, economics, fascism, fascismo, foreign affairs, futurist, identity, leftist, linguistic turn, linguistics, marx, marxism, mussolini, philosophy, political history, political identity, political philosophy, politics, populism, republican, stalin

Recently, I posted this article on Facebook (don’t have a subscription so I only read the preview) and several of my past colleagues from graduate school commented. In essence, I feel like there is a linguistic divide in connecting the historical “right” to the contemporary “right” and the historical “left” to the contemporary “left”. I believe the contemporary “left” and “right” are very similar, only one promotes a different hierarchy of social identities than the other. Your party allegiance is dictated by which party more closely relates to your personal hierarchy of identities.  Anyway, if you want to read more of my nonsense, please go on:

I am deeply uncomfortable with the equivalency of populism=Fascism=the “right”. Perhaps it’s a philosophical/linguistic (lowercase ‘f’ versus capital ‘F’ and ‘-ist’ versus ‘-ic’) issue that I have. Why must we divorce the “left” from certain adjectives like totalitarian, populist, nationalist, authoritarian, etc.? I completely agree that Stalin’s Russia was very much like Mussolini’s Italy, but I don’t understand why their brutality is described as “right-wing”? In reading many defenses of Stalin and the like, I hear: “When <insert leftist leader here> murdered people en masse, set up systems of repression, and otherwise acted like a dictator he was being a right-wing nut and not being leftist enough, but when he was carrying out his economic policy he was being a good leftist.” If we divorce economics and social/political policy, then that must be done for regimes on both the “left” and the “right”, not one or the other. Would one be as willing to separate the economic policies of Franco or Mussolini from their brutal social/political policies?

When someone calls a politician a Fascist, I expect them to be describing a man or woman who believes in the pursuit of a Corporatist economy above all else.

When someone calls a politician a Communist, I expect them to be describing a man or woman who believes in the pursuit of a Marxist economic plan above all else.

I think one could equate Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Franco, Mussolini et al. using the same adjectives. Each leader promoted different homogeneities (whether race+religion or class+education) in their societies, but the cause and result were the same: the pursuit of a Utopian economic goal using mass murder and repression. I think using “Fascist” to describe one who promotes a Corporatist economy is absolutely useful. Describing a politician/political party and his/her/its campaign tactics, personality, and hierarchy of identities by using Fascist as a synonym for “right-wing”, nationalist, authoritarian, totalitarian, or populist is not. One may be correct in saying Trump and Le Pen’s economic goals are Fascist/Corporatist (I honestly haven’t examined either one close enough to say), but calling them Fascist because they promote homogeneity, are nationalist, appeal to popular fears, and are authoritarian overlooks those on the “left” that use(d) the same tactics to gain+maintain power.

If fasci(sm/st/stic) is to only be used as an adjective to connect the contemporary “right” to the historical “right”, fine and dandy, but then what is the equivalent term to connect the contemporary “left” to the historical “left”? Just as I know of no Fascist economy that can be analyzed apart from the repression that helped put it into and keep it in place, I know of no Marxist economy that can be analyzed apart from the repression that helped put it into and keep it in place. I would argue that using “fascist” and “marxist” to describe historical political tactics should be synonymous. Or, alternatively, “fascist” and “marxist” should be exclusively used to describe historical homogeneities promoted by the “right” and “left” in pursuit of Fascist and Marxist economic policy. The two words denote vastly different economic goals but dictators on both the “left” and “right” used many of the same tactics and tools in their pursuits. I believe it would be most productive to say: regimes on the “right” and “left” use(d) fascistic/marxist tactics/philosophies (militarism, futurism, nationalism, populism, genocide, repression, etc.) to gain and maintain political power over those people in sectors of society deemed to be barriers to the fulfilment of their economic goals and in order to change citizens’ hierarchy of identities.

Leaving the historical context behind and moving to contemporary politics, both sides absolutely use popular fears to gain support:

Candidate A/B: “Candidate B/A is going to take away <insert civil/constitutional right here> if you don’t vote for me.”

Candidate A/B: “You will be personally victimized by the economic goals of Candidate B/A if you don’t vote for me.”

Candidate A/B: “You and the group you most closely identify with will be personally victimized by the social policies of Candidate B/A if you don’t vote for me.”

Candidate A/B: “Candidate B/A is only looking out for  <insert economic class/labor sector/religious group/race/corporate interest> and if you aren’t part of it then I am your only hope.”

Also, just for fun, here is the definition of Corporatism/Corporativism: the sociopolitical organization of a society by major interest groups, or corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common interests.

It’s very likely I’ve misunderstood a lot about a lot and I know that in the end none of this matters. Despite how we describe it in discourse, the execution of political philosophy-no matter the flavor-has killed innumerable people and will continue to do so.

If after reading this you think: this woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about, has oversimplified over 100 years of political divisions in the Western hemisphere, doesn’t fully understand Marxism/Fascism, or any other number of complaints about the content of this blog, then guess what? It’s your lucky day because I agree with you!

Drop a comment below if I’ve made an egregious error or if you want to talk to me about my thoughts on any of this.

Until next time!

Addendum:

I put quotes around “left” and “right” because I feel that beyond economic policy and hierarchy of social identities-and within the context of this conversation-it is a false dichotomy.

A fear of Fascism is a perfectly valid one to have, just as a fear of Communism and Capitalism and Socialism are perfectly valid. The pursuit of Fascist, Communist, Capitalist, and Socialist economic policy has killed millions, if not billions, of people. People are justified in fearing each system. That being said, the “right” shouldn’t connect the “left” to its brutal history if it is unwilling to allow the “left” to connect the “right” to its brutal history and vice versa. Of course, millions of people who identify with the contemporary “right” hurl “Commie” and “Socialist” around as haphazardly as the contemporary “left” throws out “Fascist”! There is no denying it.

The difference seems to come when the “right” calls someone on the “left” a Socialist/Communist. The “right” is subsequently deemed ignorant, red-neck, fear mongering, neo-con, populist, Fascist, etc. While when the “left” calls someone on the “right” a Fascist it’s met with encouragement: “Oh, man, maybe you’re right. Maybe this guy really is the next Hitler/Mussolini/Franco!” The fear of Fascism coming from the “left” is a healthy and productive fear to have. Beyond the fringe on both sides, I don’t think anyone really wants to live in a Fascist or Communist country. I don’t know of anyone who would say, “Woo hoo, I hope our next president turns the United States into a Fascist dictatorship!” But on that same note, we must realize that fear of Communism coming from the “right” is a healthy and productive fear to have as well. I don’t think many of us would be happy to live under a Communist dictatorship either.

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