"The American left is void of compassion" - Why Class Matters PART 4

[Political Heretic]

Note: this letter is not copyrighted, and the author authorizes dissemination of content.

Here's a letter one reader wrote to Joe Bageant. The specific topic is smoking and anti-smoking movements, but the exchange serves as an example of classism in action, and how an attitude of upper class privilege alienates people from people, and drains compassion and empathy until ordinary people become "other."

First, excerpts from the letter of the reader:

...

But, beyond the "ME" in all this, we smokers are being "Denormalized." That's the official term. Unofficially, it means that we're characterized as being, in many ways, subhuman -- unworthy of any consideration whatsoever, under any circumstances, like a disease or a repeatedly offending child molester. And, of course, they're taking more and more of our money, and sending it on up the line to the well-to-do professionals who promise to protect society from us drooling psychopaths down here at the bottom. And, in the employment section of the want ads, more and more businesses and government agencies declare that "users" of tobacco, in any form, need not apply: "Urine and blood samples will be taken when we accept your application."

Generally, this war is described as a battle against big tobacco, but, of course, it's actually a war on working people, their habits, their little idiot joys, their little mechanisms of coping.

In any case, the point of this letter is that, throughout the last few years, I've been expecting ("Oh, any day now!," I'd tell myself) some of the big guns on the Left to write some essay condemning all this shit -- but, of course, it has never come. Alexander Cockburn, George Monbiot, and a host of hotshots have even written in favor of what's happening, and Amy Goodman spoke out about what a good idea it is to support a Republican Senator's plan to force smokers -- primarily working and poor folks -- to pay for health insurance for the country's neediest kids. Presumably, the Left would rather not foot the bill itself, so it's handed the burden off to the poor.

I don't understand how this is a Left issue. I don't understand how they're letting all this go on, unchallenged, without even a critical comment.

Then, this morning, I awoke to read a piece by Alexander Cockburn on Counterpunch which literally spends a couple dozen paragraphs attacking fat folks (never had that problem, but the wife is pretty chubby, and I know some very bright, very Left, very serious, very, very fine fat folks).

He actually calls them names, and trashes and demeans them from a number of perspectives. It's a savage, creepy piece.

And, I don't understand how being fat is a Left issue, either. What the fuck is all this shit?

I've always thought of myself as a Lefty -- a "Left Anarchist," that is -- to differentiate myself from Libertarians, with whom, I'll admit, I have some things in common, but their belief in "The Free Market," and the joys of big business, just makes me puke. I thought of myself as a Lefty because I just couldn't stop hearing all the calls for help, from all round me -- all the poverty, all the misery, all the injustice, all the racism, all the sexism, all the violence, all the loneliness, all the situations and people you've so excellently described in your book. I wanted to help, in whatever small ways I could, those folks who were suffering and consistently ignored. And, of course, I wanted to understand what was happening -- how something this terrible could have come to be and could continue to be.

I don't see how punishing smokers, many of whom have been dedicated and effective "members" of the Left, throughout their lives, is responding to cries of help from those who most desperately need it. I don't see how punishing fat people fits into this framework, either.

...

Joe

Here are excerpts of http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2009/11/-shoot-the-fat-guys.html#more">Joe Bageant's response:

Dear Other Joe,

I scarcely know where to begin on this topic. As a smoker for 40 years, I think I've experienced every emotion and held just about every opinion possible on the subject. I've enjoyed the hell out of smoking most of the time (before it helped ruin my health), hated myself for being addicted, loathed the fact that despite having both kinds of COPD, I cannot seem to quit. I've quit for up to a year at a time, only to go back. Right now I am taking Welbutrin, which helps more than anything I've ever seen, but I still lapse in and out of the addiction.

As you can see, I'm not prone to defend smoking at this late age when I suffer from so many of its long term effects. Long term suddenly got short on me.

However, I do observe the same things as you regarding the anti-smoking movement. It is extremely classist.

Our society never asks why most of America's underclass people smoke. America is a society at the edge of a cliff. Many people fall over the cliff but instead of building a fence, America sends middle class professionals down in a basket to pick the pockets of the dead and dying victims, either through the "recovery industry" or expensive end of life care and funerary services. In the case of smoking, however, middle class Americans, left or right, seem intent on beating up the victims for sheer enjoyment or, as you point out, to fulfill some unfathomable political agenda. The prevailing philosophy seems to be "Why exercise an ounce of mercy when you can expend a pound of cruelty?"

Smoking and drinking are indeed among the few miserable pleasures available to working class and working underclass folks. They were and are always there for me when little else is, so long as I am willing to pass my money up the class ladder. They make money for the middle and upper classes two ways, first through corporate sales profits, then later through medical treatment for the diseases incurred (or in the case of insured middle class people hooked on nicotine, patches and pharmaceuticals).

Smoking unarguably costs America billions upon billions in medical expenses. But you gotta ask just who the billions are paid out to. They are paid out to the "healthcare industry," which is just that -- an industry -- to support the millions of doctors and others in the professional classes. Which means cigarettes will always be with us. Somebody's gotta pay for their hot tubs and vacations in Provence.

...

I found myself in the smoking cessation program with the kind of people I've known all my life, hard looking people by the commercially indoctrinated middle class standard. There was a tough Lynndie England type who was an Iraq War vet, a black diabetic guy with no feet, a retired construction foreman who was trying for something like the tenth time.

As I looked around and listened to each of these rough looking brothers and sisters speak, I realized that not a goddamned one of them was going to be able to quit smoking. Not because they are weak (hell, half of them have been shot at and shot back) but because of the very real fact of addiction, plus the nerve wracking insecurity of daily American life. No employment security at all, no health insurance for their spouses, no viable future for their kids, not enough real education to comprehend the greater world and the larger forces that govern our lives (which in this country means working against us to make a buck). Eventually any one of these or other hazards will slow-walk them down and fuck up their nerves -– again -– and they're gonna be right back on the fags. Ultimately, some will go down to emphysema or a heart attack.

I also thought about how so many of the people who read my books and essays, so many of my friends on the left, would view these people if they encountered them on the street. There would be the instant assessment of their coarse manners, poor diction and working man's bluntness that is so often mistaken for surliness, and their obvious lack of education. "Trashy and dumb," would be the verdict.

There are a million ways to be smug and the American left holds the copyright on three quarters of them. Down inside most lefties feel superior to the majority of Americans for the simple reason that they are indeed superior. Morally superior (at least in the justice sense), intellectually and politically superior too, if you exclude every member of the Democratic Party. However, the American left is void of compassion, the thing that is at the very heart of the true left the world round. And by true left I mean the people dying for the cause in places we never heard of and never will.

Given the afore named virtues and qualities possessed by most lefties, they are convinced they know everything about the people around them and what is best for everyone else. People should not own guns, or eat meat, wear fur or shop at WalMart. They should be able to obtain abortion on demand and pot should be legal. Maybe so, but those who do not agree will never be convinced of that by people they will never meet, but who insist upon calling them "sheeple" and "'Merkins" on the Internet and in other public venues.

...

In a nation that proclaims every citizen to be an individual, precious and special in his or her own right, merely for being born, well, a lot of folks are bound to take such bullshit a mite too seriously. As in, "I'm special, and you might be too, but the rest of them are just sheeple."

Has the "American left" become the game of the privileged and "upwardly mobile?" Is it merely another clique of privileged mostly white people who can get together and look down their noses as all those "others?" The "sheeple?" The "ignorant and lazy?" Is it just about patting each other on the back about how superior those within the clique are? Is the talk of helping others just code for doing some sort of charity work for people dumber than you and less deserving than you and...... of a different class than you?

Think about it.

PS - if you decide to make the thread specifically about smoking, you've (deliberately?) missed the point.

[anonymous171]

1. The "progressive" wing of the American Left has always been rather elitst.

Historically, they have supported anti-democratic institutions (like the Fed) in order to insulate the "men of best quality" from the idiotic whims of the uneducated mob. The only reason they care about the poor is because they are paternalistic, an emotion which stems from their perceived sense of innate superiority.

Note: Progressives are and have always been moderates. I am not insulting the left wing or blaming them for all of our problems. Also Progressives did do a lot of good back in the day (Women's right to vote, environmentalism, child labor laws, etc.)

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Point your guns at humanity in general

Neither the Left nor the Right have a monopoly on snobbery.

However, the snobs on the Left are willing to see people that are less fortunate as people that deserve dignity and a good quality of life. The snobs and working sops on the Right see less fortunate people as being categorically unworthy of either. Further they cultivate a distrust and even a hatred of "intellectuals", questioning authority, ethics (as opposed to "morals"), minorities, etc.

Pick your poison.

[Taverner]

12. I was gonna say...

I would have to say the flight to the suburbs has done more to promote indifference to poverty than anything else.

Oh, and guilty as charged...(I live in the burbs)

[Political Heretic]

15. I don't have to pick a poison, and I don't have to talk about "the right."

By the way, people on the "left" that are "snobs" don't see people that are less fortunate as people that deserve dignity and a good quality of life. The "snob" trend, better described as the trend of classist prejudice, is characterized by people who view poverty as something "other," and who take every opportunity they can find to judge poor people as undeserving and less than.

They are too ignorant. They are too lazy. They should have tried harder. They don't really have it "that bad." They shouldn't be allowed to do this or that. And on and on and on.

Either poison will kill you.

[Indenturedebtor]

18. Pfeh the left is characterized by wanting to give so that others can have

I don't think that your arguments reflect reality, and I certainly don't think that wanting to prevent people from eating plastic or smoking themselves to death negates that fact.

And I'm a smoker. So :P

[hfojvt]

3. you used smoking as your primary example

and then complain that people are gonna make the thread about smoking?

Then you need to use a better example of how the left demonstrates arrogance against the working class and poor people. Because lots of working class and poor people don't smoke.

try the second half of this

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh090209.shtml

"Each morning, we liberals get into line on the sidewalk outside RNC headquarters. We take a number, awaiting our chance to drive that second conservative message. When our number is finally called, we bellow and wail about our own greatness—and about the stupidity, craziness, bigotry and evil of the average (white) tea-bagger. As the tea-baggers watch us act out, they see this message confirmed.

The RNC needn’t lift a finger. In our pseudo-liberal stupidity, we sell this message for them."

[Demit]

9. Bageant & Somerby are making the same point, each with their own examples.

It's about the loftiness that all people can have toward those they see as their moral inferiors. Bageant is saying that, socially, liberals too often succumb to judgmentalism, and abandon the thing that liberals are famous for having, and famous for promoting—compassion. Somerby is more focused on the political ramifications of that smugness & superiority, that it works against us politically.

[truedelphi]

4. One of the things that is scientifically sad about the brouhaha about

Smoking is that while second hand smoke now kills les people, so many other things have replaced it.

Benzene and formaldehyde in the air fresheners and the Lysol spray disinfectants. (If you want your child to be healthy enough to avoid coming down with the flu - here's a hint - DO NOT spray any of this crap anywhere in your household.!)

I think there are snobs among certain portions of the Republican voting side, and snobs in the Democratic party. Hell, who isn't a "snob?" at one time or other in their life.

But it is most unfair that smokers bear so much weight of judgement. And fat people too. I have had several friends who while their malicious cancers were eating away at them became bird thin, and they were congratulated by people who hadn't seen them for a while for FINALLY beating their battle of the bulge. Meanwhile, other friends ended up fat from side effects of the cancer therapies, and they would experience the disdain that being fat entails.

[pa28]

5. Bageant must visit DU from time to time.

We've certainly seen biases here spelled out in pornographic fashion about people who weigh too much, drive SUV's, have three children, smoke (bud excluded), get lost in the woods and need rescue, go to church, lose their house in a wildfire, eat meat, destroy their health with cheap vodka and processed foods, shop at the wrong stores . . . and the list goes on.

These things are really just a kind of lazy shorthand. It's easier to classify people based on these things, identify them as the enemy and then attack them. Hey, these people are easy, weak and clueless targets right?

What's hard is to go after the people who have actually been fighting and have actually won the class war. They're richer than you, better educated than you and of course better bred than you. They won't let you into the club but I'm sure they love the deference they have been shown over and over again.

[Jamastiene]

8. Why exclude bud?

I can't remember exactly where those older threads are now, but there are anti-bud people here too, unfortunately. :(

[struggle4progress]

6. This article is typical of the American approach to politics, which emphasizes opinion over analysis

and action. As a group, we believe "What I believe" defines politics -- but it doesn't: in fact, almost nobody really gives a rat's ass what I believe, and what I believe has almost no impact on anything

Politics is actually defined by organized activity: what doors, we knock, what phones we jingle, where we spend our time and money

The endless discussion of "what I believe" always tends more and more to personal naval-gazing and interpersonal charges of hypocritical self-righteousness. It's pointless: what is needed to to examine the world carefully, choose some issues that require work, try to understand the actual situation in detail, and set out to make an actual difference

[Political Heretic]

14. Your comments have no connection to the OP.

The OP is not an article, its two letters between two people. It's not a discussion of "what I believe" - its criticism of classism within american leftism / liberalism.

Oh and by the way, you can't examine the world carefully without going through "what I believe." And you can't choose some issues that require work without examining the world carefully.

"Try(ing) to understand the actual situation in detail" why, that requires analysis of things like CLASS. And the only way to make an actual difference is to first identify the obstacles in the way of change.

I feel that you've missed the point in a rush to make your own, different point, coming from whatever experiences you've had lately that prompted your particular direction in thinking. Seems detached from the matters at hand.

Final thought - the world is not either/or. We can (and probably should) both "act" and "think" (or take time to state what we believe or refine our understanding of the world around us) at the same time. There's no need to try to shut the door on one in order to advocate another.

[struggle4progress]

19. The OP is largely concerned with beliefs and attitudes, as if beliefs and attitudes were primary.

Conversations about beliefs and attitudes, couched abstractly and involving sweeping generalizations, are common and well-established in the US -- but such conversations produce an illusion of analysis without producing real analysis

Consider, for example, Bageant's claim most lefties feel superior to the majority of Americans for the simple reason that they are indeed superior. This is grammatically a sentence, but may have no real meaning whatsoever: it is entirely unclear who exactly is a "lefty," equally unclear what "most lefties" signifies, unclear again how the "feelings" of "most lefties" towards "the majority of Americans" have been assessed, and finally unclear how Bageant concludes "most lefties ..are indeed superior" to "the majority of Americans." Pieces of the sentence play seductively to certain various cultural themes: since the Nixon era, for example, themes like most lefties feel superior to the majority of Americans have been deliberately pushed as part of a strategy of cultivating a politics of resentment, and no doubt in a nation of 300 some million folk one can find some people who react by say "We lefties feel superior because we are" -- but Bageant's claim (lefties feel superior .. for the .. reason that they are .. superior) cannot lead to a useful analysis, because it is essentially devoid of material content. The sentence is loaded with emotional hooks, inviting those who read it to argue emotionally (and pointlessly) about whether or not they believe it -- and it goes nowhere

[Political Heretic]

20. I don't agree.

[struggle4progress]

21. LOL

:rofl:

[Political Heretic]

22. look its late and I'm tired, I don't have the energy for some big thing. But I'll say this:

Basically it boils down to this - you think discussing opinion is a waste of time. I don't. It's basically that simple.

There are lots of things that come down to opinion and perception, and think a great deal of good can come from discussing them. And if if you don't, that's the beauty of a discussion board - its a place to discuss opinions.

The opinion of a real trend of smug superiority is something I run into all the time on the left. Right here at DU a favorite past time is snobbery towards fat people, poor people, rural people, southern people, gun owners, meat eaters, and on and on and on.

You disagree fine. But then I disagee with you, and you can "LOL" all you like. I'm interested in opinion about attitudes and motives - saying "attitudes" don't matter means that racism, prejudice or bigotry don't matter. Those are attitudes too. I think attitudes do matter, and even though discussing trends in attitudes does mean giving opinion and is more difficult to quantify, doesn't mean no good can come from trying. In actuality, no good can come from ignoring elements like classism or bigoted attitudes within our community or on the broader "left."

Now I'm going to bed.

[Atticus]

23. Good post. nt

[struggle4progress]

26. You have to admit there's some irony in your simple "I disagree" response to a post in which

I carefully dissect the vacuity of a representative sentence from Bageant, as representative of a tendency towards discussions based only upon opinion

[Atticus]

25. And, when you knock on doors and jingle phones, do you speak to the people

who answer?

What about, if you don't talk about what you believe?

The OP wasn't encouraging "naval(sp.)-gazing". He was encouraging introspection,integrity and true compassion in our judgment of others.

I could say that your pedantry and sophistry tend to prove Bageant's point, but I think it more appropriate to say that your "my shit don't stink" attitude and your dissing of the OP at 2:00 a.m. doesn't sit well with those of us who DO "give a rat's ass" what people believe.

[struggle4progress]

27. Organizing for specific political issues means getting people to DO something for a RESULT

that they want. Vague abstract conversations about stereotyped beliefs don't have that effect

The OP is entitled: "The American left is void of compassion"

The title is a reasonably good indication about the nature of the article. I suspect nobody here can give a very clear account of what is meant by "the American left" -- and so a claim like "The American left is void of compassion" is neither provable nor disprovable, "the American left" being too ill-defined to be a useful label. What, then, can one do with this claim about "the American left"?

One could ask, What are uses of the claim "The American left is void of compassion"?: the answer seems to be, One can agree with it or disagree with it -- but whether one agrees or disagrees, there is no useful content there. After agreeing or disagreeing, one might be left with the satisfied feeling that one has somehow taken a stand -- but, beyond that, there is no result

[Political Heretic]

28. You're unnecessarily mudding the waters of something very simple.

You're arguing that there's no place for opinion (namely opinion that you don't like). I don't agree.

Not all issues fall neatly into quantifiable categories. Saying that racism is still a serious problem in our country is a similar statement of opinion, neither technically "provable" or "disprovable" and certainly talking about "attitudes." People who were guilty of racist attitudes and seeking to deny it would easily counter that its all "just opinion" and that since the categories are so broad (i.e. racist attitudes in America" they were meaningless and it served no value to discuss it.

But people living in American can and should give their qualitative accounts of their experiences with racism, attitudes that they encounter, and their opinion about the state of racism in America.

In this case, you're wrong on several counts. First the "American Left" is easy to define, as it is meant to be broad. It anyone who self-ascribes a label of liberal and not conservative. That's the American left, and yes of course its a broad category, because this is talk about attitudes personally encountered from a broad range of people who self-identify as not-conservative.

What's the point of talking about it? Because my experiences with people self-identifying as not-conservative have frequently been experiences with classism and snobbery. Can I say that every single person who self-identifies as non conservative is a classist snob? Of course not. But has it been a pervasive experience of mine? Yes it has. It's apparently been a pervasive experience of the person who wrote in with the first letter. And its apparently been a pervasive experience of Joe's.

You're left with no substantive place to deny someone's right to talk about their own perseptions of experiences in their encounters with other self-identifying non-conservatives in the United States, i.e. the "American Left." You may disagree and say "that's not been my experience," but that's about it.

Your claim that nothing good comes from sharing one's opinion is categorically false, and sounds much more like someone just wanted people he (or she) disagrees with to shutup rather than some sincere defense of reason. If my opinion is that there is something very flawed in the attitudes of many who claim to be "of the left" (i.e. non-conservative) in the United States, and I talk about them, and I start giving examples (which I've been doing over multiple theads, and I've now started TAGing specific DU threads that serve as example for future reference) - the potential is that awareness will be raised about the issue.

Awareness raising is a big element of change. Combating classism and talking about is important.

As far as what we "do" - that has zero connection to an internet discussion board. You're right, its important to take action in our real lives - but what we do or don't do and how we do it is not known on anonymous internet discussion boards and is irrelevant to the purpose of such boards. There is where we talk about ideas, and give our opinions on many things, including trends and "attitudes" we encounter.

You already know this though, I'm pretty sure.

[QC]

30. +1

[Go2Peace]

7. The fight against smoking is not a progressive cause.. It is as much a Judeo/Christian

one and American Cancer Society and AMA.

Where the hell do you get that it is a crusade by the left? I know plenty of progressives that smoke and drink, Now I know a hell of a lot of right wing Christians who want to iradicate smoking....

What are you watching, fox news?

[Political Heretic]

29. Spend a little more time reading DU.

That's all it takes. :)

[blindpig]

10. Yep

It is evident here every day. "Why don't those people boycott Walmart?" It is all the same.

k&r

[Political Heretic]

13. It's completely evident . Would seem to support the suggestion that white, upper class

privileged mindset is quite pervasive.

[mike_c]

11. kicked and rec'd-- PH, this series of posts has been excellent....

Thank you. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts on class.

[chill_wind]

16. Walmart shoppers. Target and JC Penny shoppers. Toothless rednecks

and trailer trash. We've seen the class indictments and the equations painfully often enough.

Just google up some of those on DU's search button, or for some of DU's and left blogosphere's greatest classic hits all in one illuminating place, try "Bristol and Levi's Wedding Registry".

I've learned a lot about class inferences and socio-economic status at DU in some of the most banal threads.
Too bad the champagne liberals don't read more Joe Bageant. Most of what he had to say and cautioned about the (then) culturally conservative red states in 04 went right over urban elite liberals' heads. Seems like a lot of it still is. Good series of OP's, PH.

K & R.

[Texasgal]

17. You always make me think

PH...always.

Plus, I dig you because you are a Boston Terrier lover. :)

K&R

[yurbud]

24. kick

[redqueen]

31. Someone posted his piece earlier this week and it was mostly ignored.

I agree with him... and I wonder what you think about those who call those they disagree with on this site "cheerleaders," "mindless," "idiots," "morons," etc. and how it relates to what he's said here. Specifically in light of this comment:

"but those who do not agree will never be convinced of that by people they will never meet, but who insist upon calling them "sheeple" and "'Merkins" on the Internet and in other public venues."