ok like I agree with you and I've made this mistake personally in the past but - and this is crucial - men are not a class. classes are economic not social + classes reproduce, which men on their own clearly cannot do. trying to analyze men as a class leads you down a reductive rabbithole towards class collaborationism. ultimately, because of patriarchy, men must relent in order for class unity and the overthrow of capital to be possible. but it is, without exception, always a mistake to characterize all men as one with the capitalist class.
I’m not an academic. Maybe it has been ordained that the term “class” can only be used in the economic sense, doesn’t matter if the overall structure in which the term is being used is capitalism or not.
I used it in the same sense as a group, and, crucially, I did not claim that men are a class under capitalism.
To me, saying men are a social class under patriarchy seems like a perfectly valid and non-objectionable stance. You can even go a step further and claim this social class has an economic angle to it, given men are higher paid, occupy more positions of power etc etc.
Either way, it seems like an unnecessary point to be arguing over.
this is literally the core of Marx's argument and why sociology sans Marx is so tepid. yes, there are strata within classes. yes, these social "classes" appear to be rather different. but ultimately it still comes down to who owns and who works. I'm saying don't take a line that has you proposing that men need to be opposed as a class because it means non-men must unite as a class against them, crossing lines of ownership, in solidarity. meanwhile, the ruling class still owns the means of production and the global working class is still immiserated and enslaved.
class opposition isn't even a helpful framework here. when we talk about class opposition to the bourgeoisie we're explicitly saying "we'll use violence against them to rectify the problem" - that is, politics is the question of who it is acceptable to do violence to. we explicitly cannot apply this framework to men. kill all men is not a real political framework, however amusing it is as a meme.
Ok. If we go by these assumptions and definitions, then yeah men are not a class. That was never my argument so I don’t really care if I give up that position. I’m not saying we all need to stand up and overthrow all men in a violent revolution.
Let’s just say, for the moment just say, that under patriarchy, men are a social group distinct from non-men, and that under this system, men have power over non-men.
So, men, under the system called patriarchy, can be called trash (as a group) because they, under patriarchy, have power over non-men that they use and abuse. They benefit from this way of organising society, even if they don’t (think) they actively participate in it.
I’m not saying men will always be trash, that there is something fundamental about being a man that makes you trash that cannot be changed, all that is just believed by some people at the very fringes of “feminism” (I hesitate to even use that term to describe them because imo they aren’t even feminists at that point - they just hate men.)
There are many ways of looking at and analysing society. It’s a complex world. Sometimes, using one lens can answer questions another lens can’t. But it might raise confusions and questions of its own. None of this makes one system right or better. It all depends on what you use it for.
To the best of our knowledge, we live under capitalism. But it isn’t just capitalism. It is patriarchal, white supremacist, heteronormative and many other things too. They all intersect with one another and mutually reinforce one another, and it is by this point so intertwined that fighting one system of oppression requires fighting all of them, else you’ll end up still oppressed. But that still doesn’t make them one and the same, no, the differences still matter. Any one of them can survive without another.
Like, patriarchy has existed across societies around the world throughout the ages. Today it is dependent on capitalism, but that’s because capitalism is the most powerful and all-encompassing and adaptive of all such systems that has ever existed. Patriarchy, itself, has no qualms about a return to feudalism.
So, you know, men are trash. They have been trash historically, and they are trash today. But they might not be trash tomorrow.
I'm not arguing with you about this - I agree that men are trash. however, this is a leftist forum, not a liberal one. class is an important concept - we want the public to become conscious of class. we can't be effective if we continuously shoot ourselves in the foot by using liberalized terms. the whole reason that people misunderstand class to mean "social group" is because the Marxists were intentionally and methodically driven out of academia. Marx's social theory became quietly discouraged until a new sociology was developed that did not mention its own founding principles.
liberals have spent plural centuries reinterpreting classes as merely social groups, pretending sociology can be separated from political economy. this process is called recuperation, in which the radical potency of ideas, movements, and historical figures are drained away, until things which once threatened capitalism become celebrated by its staunchest adherents. recognize recuperation when it's happening and resist it. the alternative is to just embrace liberalism.
ok like I agree with you and I've made this mistake personally in the past but - and this is crucial - men are not a class. classes are economic not social + classes reproduce, which men on their own clearly cannot do. trying to analyze men as a class leads you down a reductive rabbithole towards class collaborationism. ultimately, because of patriarchy, men must relent in order for class unity and the overthrow of capital to be possible. but it is, without exception, always a mistake to characterize all men as one with the capitalist class.
I’m not an academic. Maybe it has been ordained that the term “class” can only be used in the economic sense, doesn’t matter if the overall structure in which the term is being used is capitalism or not.
I used it in the same sense as a group, and, crucially, I did not claim that men are a class under capitalism.
To me, saying men are a social class under patriarchy seems like a perfectly valid and non-objectionable stance. You can even go a step further and claim this social class has an economic angle to it, given men are higher paid, occupy more positions of power etc etc.
Either way, it seems like an unnecessary point to be arguing over.
this is literally the core of Marx's argument and why sociology sans Marx is so tepid. yes, there are strata within classes. yes, these social "classes" appear to be rather different. but ultimately it still comes down to who owns and who works. I'm saying don't take a line that has you proposing that men need to be opposed as a class because it means non-men must unite as a class against them, crossing lines of ownership, in solidarity. meanwhile, the ruling class still owns the means of production and the global working class is still immiserated and enslaved.
class opposition isn't even a helpful framework here. when we talk about class opposition to the bourgeoisie we're explicitly saying "we'll use violence against them to rectify the problem" - that is, politics is the question of who it is acceptable to do violence to. we explicitly cannot apply this framework to men. kill all men is not a real political framework, however amusing it is as a meme.
Ok. If we go by these assumptions and definitions, then yeah men are not a class. That was never my argument so I don’t really care if I give up that position. I’m not saying we all need to stand up and overthrow all men in a violent revolution.
Let’s just say, for the moment just say, that under patriarchy, men are a social group distinct from non-men, and that under this system, men have power over non-men.
So, men, under the system called patriarchy, can be called trash (as a group) because they, under patriarchy, have power over non-men that they use and abuse. They benefit from this way of organising society, even if they don’t (think) they actively participate in it.
I’m not saying men will always be trash, that there is something fundamental about being a man that makes you trash that cannot be changed, all that is just believed by some people at the very fringes of “feminism” (I hesitate to even use that term to describe them because imo they aren’t even feminists at that point - they just hate men.)
There are many ways of looking at and analysing society. It’s a complex world. Sometimes, using one lens can answer questions another lens can’t. But it might raise confusions and questions of its own. None of this makes one system right or better. It all depends on what you use it for.
To the best of our knowledge, we live under capitalism. But it isn’t just capitalism. It is patriarchal, white supremacist, heteronormative and many other things too. They all intersect with one another and mutually reinforce one another, and it is by this point so intertwined that fighting one system of oppression requires fighting all of them, else you’ll end up still oppressed. But that still doesn’t make them one and the same, no, the differences still matter. Any one of them can survive without another.
Like, patriarchy has existed across societies around the world throughout the ages. Today it is dependent on capitalism, but that’s because capitalism is the most powerful and all-encompassing and adaptive of all such systems that has ever existed. Patriarchy, itself, has no qualms about a return to feudalism.
So, you know, men are trash. They have been trash historically, and they are trash today. But they might not be trash tomorrow.
I'm not arguing with you about this - I agree that men are trash. however, this is a leftist forum, not a liberal one. class is an important concept - we want the public to become conscious of class. we can't be effective if we continuously shoot ourselves in the foot by using liberalized terms. the whole reason that people misunderstand class to mean "social group" is because the Marxists were intentionally and methodically driven out of academia. Marx's social theory became quietly discouraged until a new sociology was developed that did not mention its own founding principles.
liberals have spent plural centuries reinterpreting classes as merely social groups, pretending sociology can be separated from political economy. this process is called recuperation, in which the radical potency of ideas, movements, and historical figures are drained away, until things which once threatened capitalism become celebrated by its staunchest adherents. recognize recuperation when it's happening and resist it. the alternative is to just embrace liberalism.