Hipster/Chardonnay Socialists

[Wokko]

Something I've never understood is the phenomenon of university educated socialists in inner cities. Both the unemployed arty hipster types and urban professionals don't seem to understand that if they get their wish for Socialist Revolution then they'll be the first up against the wall. I saw a post today that perfectly summed this up...

[npalm]

Can't say I've ever met anyone in recent times that genuinely wants a socialist revolution. Are you sure you're not jumping at shadows?
There may well be a handful skulking around Brunswick street, I suppose. But there are delusional extremists of all types out there.
Whether they are socialists, religious nuts, libertarians etc etc their extremist delusions are not rational.

[thesoretoothsayer]

I went from being a builder's labourer to going to uni. I never understood the university socialist's belief that the working class would rise up, overthrow the capitalists and then hand power over to a bunch of students they had absolutely nothing in common with.

[Mugwump]

I think it is more narcissistic than self-hating.

Firstly, they suspect that if they overthrow the old order, they�ll be running the new. It flatters their vanity and their resentment at not having the power they think is their due. They are wrong, as radicals found out in 1789, let alone 1917. They don�t inherit the earth, only the execution block.

Secondly, and this is the key thing I think, the posture of supposed �dissent� is associated with intellectual and moral superiority. Intellectual superiority is encoded in the enlightenment value of not accepting reality or belief as it is, but seeing it as the clue to something hidden behind. Moral superiority is substantiated by holding views which are mildly dissenting from the supposed mass of their fellows. Since most of these people are jarred by the dissonance between their educated sense of entitlement and specialness, and their lack of any real power or worldly esteem, they are drawn to this attitude as a way of resolving their inner tension.

Finding a claque of like-minded people who approve of these values, they can enjoy a synthetic dissent while basking in comforting conformism. Because our society (thankfully) does not punish their kind of dissent, and their coercive socialist utopia is unlikely to really happen anyway, all of this can be done with no consequences. Once the 1960s radicals realized that they could indulge their desires and admire themselves more without having to give up anything, their kind of dissent became ubiquitous. It�s a killer product. It scarcely needs marketing.

Like all real ideologues, they easily hate and ridicule those who conceive of reality differently, because the disagreement is not merely ideological or intellectual. At some level, it is personal, as it threatens their sense of self.

Finally, lest all that sound rather ad hominem, no doubt similar, but different, subterranean psychological needs are at work among conservatives. Most people hold social beliefs in good faith, even if they hold them for psychological reasons.

[David]

It�s kind of hard to know where to start with this. First of all, as npalm says, the vast majority of inner-city leftists (and certainly hipsters, many of whom are more interested in the latest designer wear than anything resembling politics) are not revolutionary socialists. For instance, I�m something like a stereotype of the former (though not a hipster, *shudder*), but I don�t think a revolution is either plausible or desirable in a country like ours � I�m more like a social democrat. If you want to know how a revolutionary socialist views the world, you�d be better off approaching someone at a Socialist Alternative stall and asking them about the post-revolution society they envision.

Secondly, educated urban leftists from my experience are motivated primarily by trying to rectify the many forms of injustice in the world � many of which, they would readily agree, currently favour people like them. So the idea that they�re going to be suddenly shocked when they have to share their apartment post-revolution with the proletariat sounds like a libertarian caricature of a naive, spoiled leftist. Chances are your average inner-city leftist would be far more disposed to such an arrangement than the average yuppie or conservative.

Thirdly, while I don�t disagree that there are noticeable (and, from an anthropological perspective, interesting) class divides between the middle-class educated urban left and the (often more socially conservative) working class they advocate for, it�s pretty funny to suggest that �rednecks� and �hoodlums� (no racial implications there, I�m sure) don�t have iphones. Otherwise, whether those divisions would actually lead to class warfare in a post-revolution state seems debatable. Something like this happened in the killing fields in Cambodia, whereas in the Soviet Union, from my understanding, a general sense of solidarity between workers and students was promoted. Of course, a key reason for that was that higher education was free and accessible for everyone, so the divisions were probably a fair bit less apparent.

And here�s the kicker in all this: the very concept of class war is a capitalistic one to begin with. It�s our very system of capitalism that maintains class differences, makes higher education a privilege, leads to resentments over wealth inequality, turns society into a footrace in which the weak get left behind. I�m not saying that any socialist system would or could wholly fix that, but it�s important to look at the presumptions in that post and what it reflects about the things we take for granted.

With that out of the way, let me try to address the central question in this thread: why do young inner-city university-educated types gravitate towards socialism when there�s no obvious benefit to them? As a crude approximation, I suspect it�s something to do with personality (a belief in fairness and less of a selfish �what�s in it for me?� attitude) combined with a level of privilege (in the sense that caring about others� well-being is a lot easier when you�re not wrapped up in your own daily struggle to survive). Revolutionary leftists are just the ones who�ve lost the faith in the ability of our current system to change anything; while I don�t know exactly what alternative they propose, I�m guessing it�s a bit more sophisticated than the dystopia offered above.

[stui magpie]

Interesting discussion.

Let's keep in mind that the quote in the OP was clearly from a US perspective. Their society is different to ours in Aus despite the similarities,

[Mugwump]

^ polemics aside, I disagree with you, .david, that capitalism uniquely, or especially, causes class differences. I think they are endemic to the social ape. Every variety of socialist society that has been attempted - China,
Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, Cambodia, GDR and North Korea to name the most overt - has had significant social class differences. The upper class, almost all of whom are party apparatchiks of some kind, live in segregated apartments, send their children to better schools, intermarry, etc. The only difference is that there is a larger, poorer, middle and working class below the controlling class.

What evidence persuades you that Capitalism is unique in causing a class structure ?

[Wokko]

[pietillidie]

People promulgating nonsense which makes themselves feel righteous and superior, but which they don't believe or follow literally, is the furthest thing from a mystery imaginable.

[David]

[Mugwump]

^ the terminology of the USSR is a little like mediaeval scholasticism. There is an interesting question, perhaps, as to what characterizes all of the societies that have proclaimed themselves socialist, Marxian, or Communist. The key characteristics seem to be :

1. A purported abolition of class
2. Suppression of a free press
3. A one party state
4. An active suppression of religion
5. A self-proclaimed belief in equality (regardless of the reality) and a Marxist philosophy which justifies the above.
6. A large weight of state-owned enterprises where there is no necessity for such (ie no natural monopoly) .... which is directed by the party, and used as an instrument of government policy.

These seem to characterize the various countries I referenced above,while excluding things like German National Socialism. I would have said the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, but for China, which clearly violates that rule today.

[Wokko]

China is pretty much National Socialist at this point. Nobody really wants to talk about it though

[David]

That's an intriguing argument, Wokko ��what similarities/differences would you say China has with a national socialist system?

They're certainly not communist any more, at any rate!

[watt price tully]

[Mugwump]