What the left doesn’t get about “social conservatism”: a (long) thread 👇👇👇 
The fall of Labour’s “red wall” and the crushing Tory victory in the recent UK elections has ignited a heated debate about the causes of Labour’s defeat. Apart from the most obvious causes (Brexit, media bias etc.), there is one alleged cause that is causing much controversy:
Labour’s inability to connect to a growing number of working class voters that are left-leaning on economic issues but – unlike the Labour establishment – “conservative” on social/cultural issues. Hence the latter’s drift towards the Tories.
The most vocal proponents of this idea are those associated with @blue_labour, which have been arguing for a long time for “a socialism which is economically radical and culturally conservative”.
Predictably, many on the left have criticised this argument. An example is this article by @kenanmalik: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Malik claims that “the idea that the British working class is socially conservative is nonsense”, noting that on a host of issues – from gender roles to gay marriage, from premarital sex to interracial relationships – the British working class displays rather liberal views.
This is true. But is this enough to claim that notions of “working class social conservatism” are “nonsense”? Or is the question rather what we mean by “social conservatism” today?
Indeed, Malik himself admits that “social conservatism” today is generally framed not in terms of one’s opposition to “non-traditional” relationships etc., but rather in terms of one’s position on issues such as national sovereignty (see Brexit) and immigration.
However, he is quick to claim that even according to this criteria it would be wrong to describe the working class as “conservative”, citing a study (BSA) according to which nearly a third of unskilled workers are “pro-immigrant”.
That’s a pretty poor argument, considering that it means that 2/3 of the working class – the overwhelming majority – are “anti-immigration”. This is supported by a number of studies.
Interestingly, this attitude is not limited to the “white” working class. That same study shows that the majority (60%) of respondents of non-white ethnicity (whether UK-born or not) also want immigration to be reduced.
In classic example of left-Pavlovian response, Malik seems unwilling to confront these uncomfortable truths, preferring to take comfort in the fact that a minority of the working class is pro-immigration – enough to dismiss notions of working class conservatism as “nonsense”.
Malik’s argument gets even more contradictory from here on: to the extent, he says, that immigration is perceived as a problem – a fact he denied until a moment earlier – it is only because immigration has become “symbolic” of the working class’ loss of identity, community etc.
In other words, Malik says, immigration is not the cause but rather the symptom of working class anxieties over not only its growing material precariousness but also over its loss of collective identity and social atomisation.
It’s not clear what caused this “erosion of the more intangible aspects of [workers’] lives” for Malik – probably a vague notion of “neoliberalism”. But his solution is clear: the left must not base its attempts to rebuild community on “notions of national or ethnic identity”.
Rather, they should be based on “struggles to transform society, from battles for decent working conditions to campaigns for equal rights”, which “created organisations […] which drew individuals into new modes of collective life”.
Here we have yet another example of left-Pavlovian response – and they key to understanding the “woke” left’s failure to understand Labour’s failure. Since (a) they equate opposition to immigration – and more in general “conservatism” – with racism and (b) feel an urge…
… to defend the working class from accusations of racism, they are in turn (c) forced to deny – or to decry as fascistic – any notion of national identity. Because acknowledging the latter would mean accepting that concerns about threats to it may be legitimate.
Hence, to the extent that they acknowledge a longing for belonging and identity (not a given), they have to come up with “alternative”, more politically correct, forms of collective identity: unions, “movements”, etc. Anything but the dreaded notion of national identity.
This, however, represents a clear denial of reality. As important as narrower (local, political, religious, etc.) forms of identity may be, many studies show that national identity is not only very real, but it remains the strongest form of collective identity around the world.
Even among the young (less than 25 years old), those with a university education and professionals, national identity trumps local and – even more massively – regional (such as European) or global attachments, except among the globe-trotting cosmopolitan elites.
A country’s national identity (like nations themselves) may be, to a large extent, an “imaginary” construct. It may also be hard to pin down, encompassing customs, culture, history language, institutions, religion, social mores, etc. But it exists and has very “real” effects…
… creating common bonds among members of – and giving rise to – a territorially defined community (demos). To deny the existence of the latter is, in effect, to deny the existence of society itself. All that’s left is a bunch of individuals that happen to share a piece of land.
To consider national identity intrinsically fascistic is absurd. While it is true that it may lead to chauvinism or aggressive nationalism, a body politic (demos) is also the precondition for collective, democratic political action through the vehicle of the nation-state.
Democracy, as the term implies, presupposes the existence of an underlying demos. The nation, in turn, constitutes the basis for the modern democratic state: still the best model of government ever created.
This holds particularly true for well developed welfare states, where the existence of a demos is crucial in generating the affective ties and bonds of solidarity that are needed to legitimise and sustain redistributive policies between classes and/or regions.
The woke left likes to vilify the nation-state, but all the major social, economic and political advancements of the past centuries were achieved through the institutions of the democratic nation-state, not through international, multilateral or supranational institutions.
Furthermore, modern concepts of nat. identity are incredibly “progressive”, based as they are on transcending individual particularities – sex, race, biology, religion, etc. – to create cultural-political identities based on participation, equality, citizenship, representation.
For woke leftists to raise the spectre of “whiteness” whenever the topic of national identity is mentioned is simply a testament to their ignorance. Modern national identities have nothing to do with biology and are indeed extraordinarily inclusive and “open”.
However, there are limits. A demos/society is by definition demarcated by borders (in/out) and a relatively stable membership. While national identity is, of course, constantly evolving, the pace of the change is everything.
When the national community perceives the pace of change to be too fast (for example a too-rapid inflow of immigrants with very different cultural and social norms), it naturally, instinctively reacts against the breakdown of social cohesion. To equate this with racism is absurd.
Indeed, many studies show that concern over immigration is not related to race (or country of origin or whatever) but to cultural-civic factors, primarily unease over the ability (or lack thereof) of immigrants to adapt to a country’s customs, norms, laws etc.
A society, of course, may also react to changes from within, for example against the too-rapid imposition of new social norms by a country’s cultural elites: see, for example, the whole debate over gender self-identification etc.
Thus, when we speak of working class or societal values, we are not talking of a specific set of predefined values. We are simply talking of whatever values, norms etc. happen to characterise a specific national community at any point in time.
This is not an argument against the evolution of national identity. It is an argument for respecting a national community’s right to have a say in the pace and form that such evolution takes. To ignore the latter is, quite simply, political suicide.
We are now in a position to offer a different explanation of “social conservatism”: this is simply society’s self-defence against those factors – internal or external – that are perceived as threatening its members’ need for community, belonging, rootedness and identity.
Labour’s continued survival as a working class party, I would argue, depends on its ability to engage with this need. END OF THREAD
A final note. A demos is not an alternative form of collective identification from class strugge. On the contrary, the former is the precondition for the latter:
As Costas Lapavitsas writes: "National parliamentary elections are occasions for the demos to express its collective will, and in capitalist societies the demos is inseparable from its class and other divisions..."
"... National democratic politics is a contest among social interests vying for electoral supremacy, which may take a conscious class form and thereby acquire a characteristic sharpness, bitterness, and rivalry".
This is why, where there is no demos - such as in the EU - there can be no class struggle. Lapavitsas: "No class or other social divisions in Europe take a homogeneous ‘European’ form, for there are no occupational, organizational, habitual, cultural, and historical norms..."
"... able to create such an overarching social integration. Actual class divisions in Europe always take a national form, as do the party politics that correspond to these divisions. In Marxist terms there is neither a European capitalist class nor a European working class".
REAL END OF THREAD
