Hacker News Reader

Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

> masse flame war around gender, race, sexuality etc.

I don't think its a flame war as much as a reckoning. Its like saying the Civil Rights movement was a flame war; that is how deep changes happen in a society and culture.

Specifically w.r.t the #MeToo movement, I think women demanding more compensation and better workplace environment ends up benefiting everyone (even if the movement's primary concern is with other things).

If there is one thing this horrible Presidency has accomplished, it is more political participation among Americans; a recognition of the importance of politics and of voting. That perhaps is the greatest opportunity in this generation.

View on HN

Totally agree that this is how deep, necessary changes happen on the cultural level. I think the political task of our generation is to integrate these issues into the wider economic ones, because they are by no means mutually exclusive (whatever mass media would have us believe).

I'm always a little baffled when the struggle for economic equality gets pitted against anti-racist or feminist movements.

It is quite clear from history that racism has been employed as a tool to keep the affluent classes in power. Slavery is the most extreme example of the rich extracting wealth from their workers, but in modern times and it is also a useful wedge split the working class.

Similarly, it seems relatively easy to recognize that unequal pay and mistreatment of women suppresses the labor cost of half of the workforce.

There are obviously complex dynamics at play on both fronts, but power and wealth are being inextricable, it seems necessary to build a political movement that addresses exploitation across a range of inequalities, including economic, racial, gender, sexuality, etc.

The turnout in Democratic primaries (where one would assume a reaction to the Presidency would have the most effect) has been pretty disappointing so far. For example Texas has traditionally had a low turnout no matter what - young people could not be bothered to vote. https://www.texastribune.org/2018/05/18/analysis-millennial-...

The primary in Alabama between a pedophile and a normal person for US Senate was ridiculously close, and it was only super high turnout by African Americans that turned the tide, not young people.

But those things were happening before the occupy stuff.

I'm not saying there was never any problem with racism or anything, or that it's been invented just to create a diversion. I'm saying that the movements that existed before occupy around racism, sexism etc. instead of being about working for womens/minority rights suddenly became imbued with "fuck white male patriarchy".

During/after occupy they suddenly took this populist left turn into stoking resentment and ingroup/outgroup identification along race and gender lines. Obviously that stuff was always there but it suddenly blew up into the mainstream narrative and pushed everyone into taking a side.

There was a point in the occupy thing where "the one percent" morphed into "white males" and the narrative flipped from criticising the financial/political system, which was totally indefensible, into this flame war where working class white guys who thought they were the ones getting a raw deal are suddenly being portrayed as the bad guys by people who are basically spokespeople for the elite class- celebrities, university professors, politicians etc.. and those working class guys are all so surprised and pissed off by that they go and vote for Trump as a big fuck you to the source of the perceived betrayal, that's my take on it anyway.

That is the part of it that smells like a diversion, and now everyone is so heavily invested on either side of the culture war that there's almost no hope of them meeting again, at least for a good while and it's pretty much business as usual for the elites who are completely out of the spotlight again.

The problem is that these issues are so emotional they completely sideline any discussion of economic well being or economic issues in general. As long as they dominate attention other issues just don't come up.

"issues" like disproportionate incarceration for minorities, sexual harassment for women, you mean? They may not be directly economic at first but building a society that is more just and equal is certainly the easiest path to increasing prosperity and well being.

I wish we could address both at once but recent history seems to suggest that we can't. I think the problem is with how these issues interact with other issues when projected down onto the demographics of the voting population.

The problem is that these issue cross-cut each other in almost exactly an X pattern. The majority of the working class is socially conservative, traditional, and religious, so any culture war issue tends to be a fault line that neatly divides the voting bloc that would otherwise care about economic equality.

I would like us to have racial and gender equality but unfortunately it might mean we get to all be equal and poor.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com