'I once knew a monster who said she could not read Proust because there were no figures in Proust with whom she could identify.'
Library worker, Marxist
The insane fallout from the Jacobin article against Chris Smalls should make the author and the defenders pause to think why this happened. Dismissing everyone as having an axe to grind or some trolls online isn’t really facing this objectively. The defense that ‘Most of the arguments were substantial and not about AOC’ misses the mark how it was presented. There are thousands of people upset.
The article’s tone and its swipes at his left-sectarianism (especially without engaging the substance of his critiques of AOC and folding them in as symptoms of his larger narcissism) make it feel more like a takedown than a balanced assessment. A truly critical piece would have spent equal time on the impossible situation Smalls was in, not just his personal failings. More on the structural problems and the agency of a persona like Smalls.
Most people can’t verify many of those claims, we can’t verify whether Smalls actually neglected committee meetings or broke promises to Jane McAlevey years ago. The ‘angry’ threads and tweets we can verify, and most of us don’t think Smalls was sectarian, petty, self-aggrandizing or whatever the charges are in those cases. That alone significantly weakens any other criticisms the author makes because her credibility and the intention of the piece is called into question.
A white woman criticizing him and writing about his hip hop aesthetics, also feels very cringe. It’s not that a white writer can never discuss Black working-class aesthetics, but the framing matters if you’re trying to highlight the departure of this particular brand of union organizing.
No one understands, including me, what was the purpose of this piece anyway. If you wanted to bring Smalls down a notch, it worked against it. Smalls is now even more popular, more people will buy his book. Furthermore, more people are alienated from Jacobin. And it’s giving ammunition to people who want to discredit the ALU’s legacy. Finally, it looks like the author is defending even more powerful elected politicians (and I’d add more narcissistic) AOC and company against a less powerful individual.
The article’s arguments may be common sense in little NYC leftist cliques but what those cliques consider common sense doesn’t stand up to the scrutiny of the larger public who know Smalls through a different lens.
Right winger who didn’t want to bomb Iran until he read Persepolis and learnt there was a sexually frustrated and socially awkward leftist teenager living there 30 years ago
I think a not-insignificant part of this neurosis is that he basically selected his IVF children to be male, and the idea of one actually being a daughter he takes as a personal insult
I don't know a soul who gleefully babykilled, joined a notorious PMC and even got actual nazi ink while doing these to demonstrate his ideological commitment. And if I did know them, they wouldn't be in my circle of friends or groupchats - let alone get my vote for Senator.
While in Paris, Walter Benjamin was very excited to meet and hang out w/ an inspiration for Proust's gay characters at a gay bathhouse. Benjamin was struck by the "amazingly beautiful" young men, whose playfulness reminded him of his school years & "things that have passed away"
It actually is kinda crazy that I just spent 3/4 of my shift reading literary whump yaoi at the circulation desk. Thank you library job. Thank you libby app. And thank you hanya yanagihara. No matter what my final verdict on your book is I respect you for writing it
We need to dispel this notion that the US military is largely composed of low-income mercenaries who join out of desperation. The army is mostly composed of middle-class white ppl who are looking to climb the socioeconomic ladder; they were not “forced” into these circumstances