FALSE TARGETS

Some argue that there are pseudo-issues in politics that only, or for the most part, serve to splinter the left.   From an adequately global perspective, a different set issues would seem more important.   The types of issues usually enumerated deal with the local, with cultural heritage,  or with the exquisite distinctions of gender normativity.   These are represented as not just a distraction but as a symptom of the dissipation, weakness, decadence of the left.

 

This view should be rejected, even though there is a certain truth to it.   The issues dealt with by "identity politics" are extremely important - but it would be good for them to be coordinated.    

 

What do I mean by that?   This is a really difficult topic - and I don't have clear ideas worked out.   Consider Deleuze + Guattari's famous "second positive task of schizoanalysis":  to separate class interest from libidinal investment.   

 

Why did schizoanalysis fail?  Did it?  One could make the case that subject-groups and affirmation of mutant becoming and so forth amount to precisely the dissipation of the left's ability to organize.

 

At the end of the day, there is something to be said for discipline, ascesis and a chain of command.  The business world and world of religious orthodoxy knows all about it.

 

So the question is, how to implement ascesis and discipline without steamrolling identity politics by techno-prometheanism