contradictio.de

Ruthless Criticism (Fall 2019):

 

1.

Legally equal, morally respected, badly treated: Women in capitalism

[Translation of a lecture in Germany by an editor of GegenStandpunkt]

 

Even long after having achieved legal equality with men, even after the majority of college students in many courses of study are today made up of women who get better grades, after they have conquered some occupational fields previously known as male domains, there is still plenty of discrimination and sexual oppression of the female sex.

Women struggle against this by accusing the man’s world of still refusing respect for women’s self-determination and an empowered role for women, of sticking to outdated ways of thinking and yesterday’s gender stereotypes. With the demand for respect, the protagonists of gender justice run through open doors everywhere – in politics, in the public sphere, and even in academia. If one disregards quite conservative circles that don’t want to let go of the traditional family image and the cult figures of gangsta rap, there is nobody who wouldn’t take off his hat to women as full-fledged, professionally and generally emancipated members of society. There are equal opportunities officers, chairs for the advancement of women, and women’s studies everywhere; in universities, in the left-wing milieu, and in some government agencies, “gender” is in vogue: by modifying words and grammar, one insists that, in every sentence mentioning human subjects, women are again specifically kept in mind and paid homage to. [1]

 

Why is it, then, that this universally affirmed good will changes so little about the social disadvantages, insults, harrassments, and assaults experienced by women? Why is it that official morality is so disconnected from the one lived in practice? In other words: aren’t there more substantial reasons for the prejudices that women are exposed to in practice and the social roles that prescibe them than the misogynistic hang-ups of a lot of men – reasons that can’t be dealt with by demanding and turning in testimonies of respect?

I. Continuing disadvantages in careers and at work

– The “gender pay gap” – and its social reasons

– “Women’s work” – typical: for what?

– Discrimination and anti-discrimination law

 

II. The culture of harrassment – and its basis in the family

– Family: coping with reproductive necessities together

– … and its higher meaning: compensation for the hardships of working life

– Love for marriage – the compensatory counterworld to competition

– A right and duty to sex

 

III. Customs – a social objectivity

 

IV. The demand for respect

 

http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/women_capitalism

 

 

 

2.

The Bourgeois State

 

1. The monopoly on force

 

2. Private property and competition

 

3. The law

 

4. The economy

 

5. The social state

 

6. The treasury

 

7. Democracy

 

http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/bourgeois_state

 

 

 

3.

What a surprise – The President of the world power praises the proletariat!

 

[Translated from GegenStandpunkt 3-19]

 

And yet it doesn’t really exist anymore. The industrial worker is a dying species: isn’t that one of the achievements specific to modern capitalism, that it long ago, starting in America, converted the world of work into squeaky clean services as its real cash cow, and that Silicon Valley reinvented with this in mind? Ironically, the President of the USA has a completely different view. He ran a long barnstormer of a campaign attesting that the country he wants to rule is in an unbearable economic decline and linking its poverty rate to the disappearance of jobs for America’s incomparably rugged workers in such great industries as coal mining and steel production; recklessly or maliciously squandered to rival countries by unpatriotic bureaucrats and technocrats. And conversely, in the third year of his presidency, he is already presenting a national record of success that offers up, above all else, the winning back of jobs for America’s proletarian heroes of production, who no Chinese or Mexican worker can hold a candle to. [1] (…)

 

http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/Trump_proletariat

 

 

Was für eine Überraschung – Der Präsident der Weltmacht schwört aufs Proletariat! (GS 3-19)

Dabei gibt es das doch eigentlich gar nicht mehr. Der Industriearbeiter ist eine aussterbende Gattung: Gehört das nicht zu den Errungenschaften genau des modernen Kapitalismus, der schon längst, von Amerika ausgehend, die Arbeitswelt auf saubere Dienstleistungen als eigentliche Geldbringer umgestellt und den das Silicon Valley in diesem Sinne überhaupt neu erfunden hat?

Ausgerechnet der Präsident der USA sieht das ganz anders. Einen fulminanten Wahlkampf lang bescheinigt er dem Land, das er regieren will, einen nicht auszuhaltenden ökonomischen Niedergang und macht seine Elendsbilanz am Dahinschwinden von Jobs für Amerikas unvergleichlich tüchtige Arbeiter in so großartigen Branchen wie Kohleförderung und Stahlherstellung fest; leichtsinnig oder böswillig ans konkurrierende Ausland verschleudert von unpatriotischen Büro- und Technokraten. Und umgekehrt präsentiert er schon im dritten Jahr seiner Präsidentschaft eine nationale Erfolgsbilanz, die vor allem mit der Wiedergewinnung von Jobs für Amerikas proletarische Helden der Produktion aufwartet, denen kein Chinese oder Indio das Wasser reichen kann.[1] (…)

 

https://de.gegenstandpunkt.com/artikel/praesident-weltmacht-schwoert-aufs-proletariat

 

 

 

4.

Open Letter to the Fridays for the Future movement

 

[Translated from GegenStandpunkt 2-19]

 

http://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/fridays-for-future

 

 

Offener Brief an die „Fridays for Future“-Bewegung (GS 2-19)

Dass die Zustimmung, die euch in der deutschen Öffentlichkeit und aus der Politik entgegenschlägt, nichts wert ist, werdet ihr selber schon gemerkt haben. Ihr werdet beachtet – und eingemeindet. Von Leuten und Instanzen, die mit dem Gebrauch ihrer Macht für genau die Zustände sorgen, gegen die ihr protestiert. Eingemeindet in eine öffentliche Debatte, deren Irrelevanz für den praktischen Gang der Dinge ihr zur Genüge erfahrt. Bemerkens- und bedenkenswert an den vielen heuchlerischen Grußadressen an euren Protest sind die Titel, die Gesichtspunkte, die großen Werte, unter denen ihr mit euren Demonstrationen gut gefunden werdet.

 

https://de.gegenstandpunkt.com/artikel/an-fridays-for-future