I'm not in his mind, but I think deBoer was mainly referencing the 'intelectually' performative quality of the leftish that has replaced what he (or I) would see as a 'real' left that has a plan of some kind.
An interesting thought for me is that I thought I understood him immediately because I am the kind of disgruntled leftIST (not nu leftish) who is reading him most avidly. Over on our side what he's saying makes sense.
See, I don't know. I haven't been reading deBoer since before he came to Substack, so there might be some background I am missing, but I don't read that as "Stop fussing about irrelevant history and focus on your actual plan to fix things." I agree that he has a laudable distaste regarding performative leftism and recognizes that as a problem in the overall movement, but I think his writing suggests that he honestly believes that we could fix X if we just had the will to crack some skulls together and get it done, and this paragraph is sort of the Freudian slip to that effect. I would compare that to your work where you seem more keen towards "We should figure this out" instead of "solve real problems directly with the application of power." I would repeat my question of "How would you apply power to solve these problems without pursuasion?"
I'm not well versed in American history or the 1619 project but the role/definition of power as we know it has significantly shifted in contemporary political and social life (in my view). It has become impossible to divorce the application of power from its symbolic value as a means towards influencing public perception and initiating real-world change. There isn't a simple through line to "getting things done through the application of power and accountability" because part of the problem involves building legitimacy (both optical and functional) to gain political and public approval.
I find arguments that criticise political ideologies for being overtly performative conveniently shorthanded.
I'm not in his mind, but I think deBoer was mainly referencing the 'intelectually' performative quality of the leftish that has replaced what he (or I) would see as a 'real' left that has a plan of some kind.
An interesting thought for me is that I thought I understood him immediately because I am the kind of disgruntled leftIST (not nu leftish) who is reading him most avidly. Over on our side what he's saying makes sense.
See, I don't know. I haven't been reading deBoer since before he came to Substack, so there might be some background I am missing, but I don't read that as "Stop fussing about irrelevant history and focus on your actual plan to fix things." I agree that he has a laudable distaste regarding performative leftism and recognizes that as a problem in the overall movement, but I think his writing suggests that he honestly believes that we could fix X if we just had the will to crack some skulls together and get it done, and this paragraph is sort of the Freudian slip to that effect. I would compare that to your work where you seem more keen towards "We should figure this out" instead of "solve real problems directly with the application of power." I would repeat my question of "How would you apply power to solve these problems without pursuasion?"
Really enjoyed this.
I'm not well versed in American history or the 1619 project but the role/definition of power as we know it has significantly shifted in contemporary political and social life (in my view). It has become impossible to divorce the application of power from its symbolic value as a means towards influencing public perception and initiating real-world change. There isn't a simple through line to "getting things done through the application of power and accountability" because part of the problem involves building legitimacy (both optical and functional) to gain political and public approval.
I find arguments that criticise political ideologies for being overtly performative conveniently shorthanded.