the Wiscon framework for discussing difference is to look at representation, and the clear articulation (often through artistic means) of how a particular -ism looks and feels like to the people in the margins. I don't want to deny that that's important and potent stuff. But there is something weird about using that starting position for the discussion of class given the size of material that looks at the structural apparatus and root causes of classism. To start with "what books represent class well?" seems kinda weird to me
YES. This, exactly this. It's what I was trying to get at in criticizing "classism" as a term last WisCon. I have huge respect and admiration for the people working to bring class discussion into WisCon, and I also think that books and representations can represent and analyze the structural apparatus of class oppression, but I think it too often ends up being a situation where you can't see the forest of structural oppression for the trees of individual experience.
But then I also get annoyed by Marxist/revolutionary types because they often pay so little attention to the affective pleasures and pains and needs of individuals and communities within oppressive structures. We need both!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-22 05:44 pm (UTC)YES. This, exactly this. It's what I was trying to get at in criticizing "classism" as a term last WisCon. I have huge respect and admiration for the people working to bring class discussion into WisCon, and I also think that books and representations can represent and analyze the structural apparatus of class oppression, but I think it too often ends up being a situation where you can't see the forest of structural oppression for the trees of individual experience.
But then I also get annoyed by Marxist/revolutionary types because they often pay so little attention to the affective pleasures and pains and needs of individuals and communities within oppressive structures. We need both!