The #fashionista left problem isn’t simply “bad messaging”, but the loss of relationships, class politics and ordinary participation. This left path is #blocking, leading to a serious problem, that there is a growing gap between the people who talk about changing society and the people who actually have to live with the consequences of the society we have.
A lot of contemporary so-called left politics has become a culture of credentials, language, status and moral performance. Political activity becomes a test of whether you know the correct vocabulary, have read the correct theory and can demonstrate the correct politics. Meanwhile, people are dealing with rent, wages, insecure work, debt, housing, transport, healthcare and the basic struggle to get through the week.
This isn’t an argument that cultural or identity issues don’t matter, they do. But when cultural politics displaces material politics, something fundamental has gone wrong. And the answer isn’t to assume that working-class people are stupid, ignorant or simply “brainwashed” by the right. That attitude is itself a form of class contempt.
People have reasons for being angry, they have experiences, relationships, communities. They have knowledge that doesn’t come with a university certificate. The right has become good at recognising that anger and offering people belonging, even while offering economic policies that ultimately benefit only the #nastyfew billionaires and capital.
The mess in the left too often does the opposite, it offers people a lecture about why their existing culture, language or opinions are wrong before it offers them any meaningful collective power. That is backwards, politics begins with people working together around things that materially improve their lives. Better wages, housing, shorter working weeks, strong unions, public services to grow more time and power for ordinary people.
The left is supposed to be about, build solidarity through doing things together. You don’t need everyone to agree about everything before they can work together. In fact, demanding ideological agreement before allowing participation is one of the fastest ways to destroy a mass movement.
This is where I think the #OMN approach matters as a practical way to step away from this current blocking of left paths. #KISS we need less political performance and more participation, less gatekeeping and more open infrastructure, less obsession with who has the correct politics and more ability for different people to contribute, argue, cooperate and build something together.
The goal isn’t to make everyone think the same, it is to build enough trust and shared power that ordinary people can actually change the conditions they live in. That’s the old left and in today’s mess, a much more difficult politics, but it is also a much more democratic one.
#OMN #4opens #openweb #commons #workingclass #solidarity #democracy #politics #class
