I have to repeat this a lot right now, but this is what embracing CHUD culture war politics does to your brain. Claiming to be "communist" then hating on the blue-hairs (or w/e) until you bend yourself in half and become anti-communist.
The most successful trick for the right is turning working class from a material, class condition into a culture and an aesthetic. No longer defined by labor, but instead by what you consume, what skill you have, what dialect you speak, how you do your hair, etc etc.
For some reason this comment just made me feel hopeless, like we are at this point where the culture is so far removed from materialism, and have been for so long that most of us only shed that layer of stupidity through continuous self deprogramming over the course of years.
certain jobs are just inherently 'woke' and therefore not prole? and this is based on like, a large company occasionally covering their ass with pride statements and putting 'dont harrass queer people' in HR guidance?
or am i off base... do the liberals who shop at starbucks make the service people not prole
I mean maybe it's because coffee companies love woke messaging, but the whole "people who are baristas are wannabe creative writers and liberal arts college students with no prospects" is a very old stereotype at this point
but what does a person's educational backround have todo with the nature of work? and its not like people with good Bootstraps backrounds cant work there?
sorry im going all over its just wild to encounter genuinely confusing political currents, i try to understand & parse as best i can
They have a CHUD hatred of stereotypical "woke college student baristas" "playing the victim" and are using it as an excuse to dismiss a real unionization drive, by cloaking it with "sympathy" for Third World agricultural workers
Their culture war-driven hatreds have trumped the principle of solidarity and reveals their true politics
American culture wars make no sense and these broscialist weirdos are just amplifying it. There's a stereotype that Starbucks baristas are highly educated, yet unwilling to do "real work" like construction, manufacturing, or agriculture. The average chud will believe a pool supply company owner who drives an expensive Ford truck is more working class than a Starbucks barista with blue hair who lives in a large city.
It makes no sense at all and is some kind of aesthetics battle. The easiest way for me to frame it is just white patriarchal heteronormativity. Some jobs are manly, some jobs are gay. If you work around dirt and lift things, then you're manly and straight and cool. If you have a gay liberal arts degree and do gay things like make coffee, then you're gay and you don't have a real job. That's honestly as far as it goes for the average American.
American culture wars make no sense and these broscialist weirdos are just amplifying it. There’s a stereotype that Starbucks baristas are highly educated, yet unwilling to do “real work” like construction, manufacturing, or agriculture. The average chud will believe a pool supply company owner who drives an expensive Ford truck is more working class than a Starbucks barista with blue hair who lives in a large city.
Yeah, people are lining up for a job where you stand 10+ hours a day getting yelled at by boomers because you spelled their name wrong.
Claiming to be “communist” then hating on the blue-hairs (or w/e) until you bend yourself in half and become anti-communist.
ugh, i was guilty of this a couple of days ago and I regret it. Also, as a former dishwasher I might or might not have half-jokingly called for the gulag of all waiters and front house staff at certain points in my life.
What can I say, reactionary sentiments are convenient, easy to grasp, and alluring if you don't keep mind of them.
From what I understand (I've never actually worked in food service) grudges between kitchen staff and front of house workers are very common and seems like easy prey for the boss to stoke divisions. Little different from the age-old divisions between "skilled" and "unskilled" workers - the nature of division of labor in capitalist enterprise often means some workers have more privileges in the workplaces than others. It's only natural - not something to be ashamed of but more something to be recognized and overcome.
Yeah its like that everywhere ive worked where there is a division of foh and boh. A lot of the time its not too serious and everyone gets their shift drink and bitches about the managers and owners together
These divides are also functional. If workers are at each other's throats then that means we aren't organizing with each other to advance our shared interests.
But class interests have very little relation to the type of work you do. The proletariat is the part of society who owns no meaningful amount of capital of their own, who owns no land, no economically relevant tools/equipment, and no raw material/inputs to production that would allow them to participate in economic activity independently in a way that would allow them to sustain a decent living. The only thing they have for sale that is of economic relevance is their time, their body, and their labor, and therefore they are the part of society who is forced to sell themselves piece by piece and hour by hour in order to secure a living.
That is the shared circumstance that we find ourselves in as workers. The type of work we do isn't particularly relevant to class interests, because for the most part the type of work that is offered to us is outside of our control. The part of society who owns capital and who purchases our labor to operate that capital is who is deciding what work is being done, who is deciding how our labor is organized and which priorities our labor is being used to pursue, and who ultimately has the final say in what the conditions of our labor will be and how it will be compensated. So even if you could identify a job that is bullshit, or workplace dynamics that make your life more difficult in the case of BOH FOH feuds, it still isn't helpful to direct your ire at the workers in those positions because what jobs are offered for them to make a living and how the workplace is structured are out of their hands.
I doubt I'm saying anything here that is a revelation to you, I just wanted to take your comment as an opportunity to present these ideas in one place. Our critique/opposition to capitalism comes from the fact that those who own capital have a nearly unchallenged and unaccountable control over our lives and how our society and our labor is organized. Our plan of action for changing this situation must involve mass action and mass organization with the people who share the same circumstances we each find ourselves in. Capital only has power over us as individuals, but capital is completely worthless without our collective labor bringing production to life. Without our labor, the capitalist only has a dragon's hoard of depreciating assets and economic liabilities. Our leverage to wrest control of our lives and our labor away from unelected and unaccountable capitalists would be indomitable if only we manage to put up a united front. Which is why it is so important to do what you have done and put aside petty feuds between your fellow workers and choose solidarity instead.
i legitimately don't understand this. like 'producerism' is certainly a thing (an incorrect thing) and many jobs don't in fact produce a product...
but baristas literally do. chefs do. take food ingredients and make a food. thats production.
I have to repeat this a lot right now, but this is what embracing CHUD culture war politics does to your brain. Claiming to be "communist" then hating on the blue-hairs (or w/e) until you bend yourself in half and become anti-communist.
:this:
The most successful trick for the right is turning working class from a material, class condition into a culture and an aesthetic. No longer defined by labor, but instead by what you consume, what skill you have, what dialect you speak, how you do your hair, etc etc.
it's the logic that gets the BBC to interview landlords as working class based on them having regional accents
For some reason this comment just made me feel hopeless, like we are at this point where the culture is so far removed from materialism, and have been for so long that most of us only shed that layer of stupidity through continuous self deprogramming over the course of years.
What is the antidote?
certain jobs are just inherently 'woke' and therefore not prole? and this is based on like, a large company occasionally covering their ass with pride statements and putting 'dont harrass queer people' in HR guidance?
or am i off base... do the liberals who shop at starbucks make the service people not prole
I mean maybe it's because coffee companies love woke messaging, but the whole "people who are baristas are wannabe creative writers and liberal arts college students with no prospects" is a very old stereotype at this point
but what does a person's educational backround have todo with the nature of work? and its not like people with good Bootstraps backrounds cant work there?
sorry im going all over its just wild to encounter genuinely confusing political currents, i try to understand & parse as best i can
They have a CHUD hatred of stereotypical "woke college student baristas" "playing the victim" and are using it as an excuse to dismiss a real unionization drive, by cloaking it with "sympathy" for Third World agricultural workers
Their culture war-driven hatreds have trumped the principle of solidarity and reveals their true politics
American culture wars make no sense and these broscialist weirdos are just amplifying it. There's a stereotype that Starbucks baristas are highly educated, yet unwilling to do "real work" like construction, manufacturing, or agriculture. The average chud will believe a pool supply company owner who drives an expensive Ford truck is more working class than a Starbucks barista with blue hair who lives in a large city.
It makes no sense at all and is some kind of aesthetics battle. The easiest way for me to frame it is just white patriarchal heteronormativity. Some jobs are manly, some jobs are gay. If you work around dirt and lift things, then you're manly and straight and cool. If you have a gay liberal arts degree and do gay things like make coffee, then you're gay and you don't have a real job. That's honestly as far as it goes for the average American.
Yeah, people are lining up for a job where you stand 10+ hours a day getting yelled at by boomers because you spelled their name wrong.
Here's one of the best breakdowns of right wing faux-populism if you're interested.
Citations Needed Episode 147: The GOP’s ‘Rightwing Populism’ Rebrand (Part I) — How Billionaire-Backed Charlatans Pick Off Disillusioned Lefties
Oooh ima have to listen to this
ugh, i was guilty of this a couple of days ago and I regret it. Also, as a former dishwasher I might or might not have half-jokingly called for the gulag of all waiters and front house staff at certain points in my life.
What can I say, reactionary sentiments are convenient, easy to grasp, and alluring if you don't keep mind of them.
From what I understand (I've never actually worked in food service) grudges between kitchen staff and front of house workers are very common and seems like easy prey for the boss to stoke divisions. Little different from the age-old divisions between "skilled" and "unskilled" workers - the nature of division of labor in capitalist enterprise often means some workers have more privileges in the workplaces than others. It's only natural - not something to be ashamed of but more something to be recognized and overcome.
Yeah its like that everywhere ive worked where there is a division of foh and boh. A lot of the time its not too serious and everyone gets their shift drink and bitches about the managers and owners together
Reactionary sentiments are extremely convenient because they don’t ask you to re-examine any internalized bias you might have.
The important thing to remember is we all have varying degrees of these prejudices. The work is in dismantling them and killing the pig in your head.
So yeah, props for identifying you were doing that shit and then owning it.
These divides are also functional. If workers are at each other's throats then that means we aren't organizing with each other to advance our shared interests.
But class interests have very little relation to the type of work you do. The proletariat is the part of society who owns no meaningful amount of capital of their own, who owns no land, no economically relevant tools/equipment, and no raw material/inputs to production that would allow them to participate in economic activity independently in a way that would allow them to sustain a decent living. The only thing they have for sale that is of economic relevance is their time, their body, and their labor, and therefore they are the part of society who is forced to sell themselves piece by piece and hour by hour in order to secure a living.
That is the shared circumstance that we find ourselves in as workers. The type of work we do isn't particularly relevant to class interests, because for the most part the type of work that is offered to us is outside of our control. The part of society who owns capital and who purchases our labor to operate that capital is who is deciding what work is being done, who is deciding how our labor is organized and which priorities our labor is being used to pursue, and who ultimately has the final say in what the conditions of our labor will be and how it will be compensated. So even if you could identify a job that is bullshit, or workplace dynamics that make your life more difficult in the case of BOH FOH feuds, it still isn't helpful to direct your ire at the workers in those positions because what jobs are offered for them to make a living and how the workplace is structured are out of their hands.
I doubt I'm saying anything here that is a revelation to you, I just wanted to take your comment as an opportunity to present these ideas in one place. Our critique/opposition to capitalism comes from the fact that those who own capital have a nearly unchallenged and unaccountable control over our lives and how our society and our labor is organized. Our plan of action for changing this situation must involve mass action and mass organization with the people who share the same circumstances we each find ourselves in. Capital only has power over us as individuals, but capital is completely worthless without our collective labor bringing production to life. Without our labor, the capitalist only has a dragon's hoard of depreciating assets and economic liabilities. Our leverage to wrest control of our lives and our labor away from unelected and unaccountable capitalists would be indomitable if only we manage to put up a united front. Which is why it is so important to do what you have done and put aside petty feuds between your fellow workers and choose solidarity instead.
Literally "raw" materials. It's more of a "productive" job than a forklift driver.