Why the left should stop defending Diane Abbott
Today has seen a flurry of half-baked articles from the left regarding Diane Abbott’s tweet yesterday: “White people love playing ‘divide and rule’ We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism”. The left, for whatever reason, think that it is important to produce lots of material in defence of the tweet, and against a few spurious arguments that Abbott was being racist. Well ok, of course she wasn’t being racist, but this little episode illuminates with some clarity one of the major problems of left-wing discourse in the UK today: everything is about conclusions.
That might sound like a strange critique, the critique of conclusions, but it is an important one for those of us who attempt to offer negative and critical accounts of the society in which we live, and furthermore, it has consequences for notions of intervention (political or otherwise), and the nature of critique itself. For much of the left, it seems, politics is a bizarre tombola, in which slogans scrawled on scraps of paper are pulled out of a hat, and the political subject chooses whether or not they agree/like/approve/disapprove/hate/cry. But when this is the case, there can be no possibility of a critique of the hat (or society) whence these slogans came. As soon asa serious critique of society as such is demanded, it is quickly discovered that all of the conclusions drawn from it, whether yours or someone else’s are flawed and awful. And the worst thing that you can do is to draw attention away from this critique of society by playing the game, and finding the bits you like.
Actually no, that’s not the worst thing, far worse is if you take all the bits you like, regardless of how and why they are produced, and draw lines between them and call it a coherent politics. This can only further obscure any thoroughgoing critique of society. And the fact that one person’s conclusions based on one thing can sound like another person’s based on totally different grounds is to do nothing but to point to the humdrum homogeneity of all political discourse today. It is to say nothing but to point to the fact that the left has failed to escape the suffocating immersion of everything critical in the swamp of ideology. But don’t forget, you can still skim our conclusions-cum-scum from the surface. Beware of this apeiron, comrades.
So this is really a question about what we’re doing in left-wing politics. If we believe we have the answers, and that society as we know it can produce them out of the mouths of morons like Diane Abbott, then we should probably continue as we are. Transformational politics, critiques of society’s total forms, the necessity of accounts of racism that go above and beyond abstract moralism, the necessity of a critical account of history beyond a passing reference to colonialism need something different: a belief that conclusions, if we are to see any, are not likely to be discursive, they aren’t going to look like slogans, or tweets, or any other shit, but will be practical and theoretical engagements with actuality of society and history. The conclusion, in its current state, is capitalism’s greatest form of delusion, it is both the last word and the principle, it is the discursive logic of stasis, or rather the discursive logic of the obliteration of the consciousness of dynamism, of the possibility of actually changing society.
So if you want to waste your time defending the conclusions of politicians, please go back to reading your copy of the Guardian, with all the other dolts and liberals.
Reader Comments
So your slogan is: NO TO DEFENDING DIANE ABBOTT ?
I would deconstruct your position further, but I’m more interested in practical and theoretical engagements with actuality of society and history. And I haven’t read any of the Guardian today.
I’m not sure I understand this post. Is the point you’re making that “we” – the “left” – shouldn’t seek to challenge right-wing censorship, which seeks to deny the reality of racist power structures, unless we endorse every single premise that lead to the view being censored?
Diane Abbott may be a “moron” but within the context of a discussion of institutional racism and police incompetence over the Lawrence case she was expressing – however crudely – the fact that there is a ruling class who practice divide and rule. I thought it was a refreshing example of some kind of structural critique – critique of the “hat” or whatever – from within the Westminster village.
If people are writing and tweeting about this it’s because it’s about what’s permissible within official debate not applauding Abbott for her astounding insight.
I’m very happy to say that, even with two degrees, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Thank god I didn’t leave academia spouting this kind of guff.
Pete – I’ve got three, and I was pretty confused too
I think she was – a little bit racist? (Though not a moron).
I’m trying to think of a polite way of saying this but can’t, apologies in advance.
You’re argument appears to be a little incoherent. Not too high level. Incoherent. And then you call Abbott a moron – which is neither true, helpful nor worth saying.
It’s an intriguing style to write in such a way that the only way your reader can work out where you stand is the pointless name calling at the end.
We’ve just had the most important race murder trial I can remember and the media and ‘the people’ are discussing inequality, racism, and police incompetence/corruption. Some Tories have asked to take this as an opportunity to attack a prominent black MP because she tweeted something. Which you’ve done.
I could be wrong but I don’t think this article has moved us forwards much.
Im not quite sure why people – especially those with two or three degrees – can’t understand this post ( I’m tempted to ask wtf you’re doing with three degrees…are they all bachelors? Can’t you make up your mind? And isn’t it about time you went for your doctorate? Or maybe got a job).
It seems to me a fair point…while Abbott may not be a moron (although judging by her TV appearances she is certainly no intellectual however hard she tries to appear so) but her tweet was moronic. It was either moronic because she actually meant to say that all whites are guilty of this…which certainly could be construed as racist, or it was moronic to try to make a complex point using twitter. She is of course joined by many, many others in this every day. I’m guessing it was the latter and she is in no way a racist.
But whatever the truth, the left/liberal defence of her has been overblown to say the least and as much a knee jerk reaction as the right’s shouts of “racist”.
I’ve just read a tweet calling Milliband a “spaz” for phoning her during a tv interview. (I’ll leave it to you to consider the use of that term – especially in this debate). Frankly if he was really ringing her to tell her to apologise – not for being a racist but for plain stupidity – then he was one of the few on the left who has made a decent judgement of the incident.
It saddens me that much of the left have joined the right in one thing at least – we would now rather shout insults and slogans rather than debating the issues…
You may not agree – but don’t try to pretend you don’t understand.
Technically it was a racist remark, what with her making a facile generalisation and relating it to skin colour, and we shouldn’t be coy about calling it what it is. That said, me being the benefit-of-the-doubt type that I am, I reckon she’s just conflated European colonialism with the (massively diverse but visually similar) “ethnic group” who were responsible for kicking it off and who benefitted most from it. Using “European colonialism” and “white people” interchangeably is indicative of stupidity and/or ignorance, in the same way using “Islamic fundamentalist” and “Muslim” interchangeably is, but it doesn’t necessarily flag her as some kind of Black Panther sleeper agent as people like Tory MP Nadhim Zawahi might like us to believe. He being one of several ethnic MPs the establishment trotted out to speak out against Diane Abbott’s nonsense, thereby hoping to demonstrate that even people who AREN’T white can be offended by stupid slips of the tongue. I dunno who should feel more patronised, us pinkies or the ethnics.
Also the comment wasn’t made in the context of a “discussion of institutional racism and police incompetence over the Lawrence case” – some freelance journo (quite rightfully) took umbrage at the media’s use of “black community” as an umbrella term, posted her objection on Twitter, which prompted an acute incidence of intracranial flatulence in the otherwise sensible-if-a-bit-outspoken-and-slightly-annoying Diane Abbott. It was in no way relevant to the issue. Even if it HAD been in the context of a “discussion of institutional racism and police incompetence over the Lawrence case” it would still be just as stupid, irrelevant and indefensible. Although we’d still get people trying to characterise it as some incisive critique of the lingering racism in Britain’s post-colonial establishment; and it’d still be as glib attempt at apologism which does no justice to something that is a REAL issue in need of REAL commentary.
wow that second from last paragraph is mental
It’s taken a few re-readings, but I think I’ve figured out roughly what the argument of the article is…
1) The task of ‘the left’ (whoever that might include) should be to offer ‘negative, critical accounts’ of a society with a capital-driven economy.
2) Those accounts shouldn’t draw any conclusions, because conclusions will end up being just slogans which can be linked together to give the *appearance* of an ideology without actually being one. And this doesn’t challenge capital.
3) What Diane Abbott did was to attempt to draw a conclusion.
Therefore – well, we shouldn’t draw a conclusion. Because only ‘morons, dolts and liberals’ do that. But we can still somehow conclude that Diane Abbott is indefensible for doing it.
…The trouble is that not only is this not really an argument, but there’s no reason given for why we should accept any of its premises. And in any case, the article reads like a bunch of slogans which imply a conclusion. So…I’ve done my best, but I can’t see what the point of it is.
If a criticism of society has to be total, why bother criticising it? (Why not, for instance, just kill everyone in the society?) And if ‘the purpose of the left’ is to ‘criticise negatively’, haven’t you already drawn a COLOSSAL CONCLUSION?
Abbott is a MASSIVE RACIST and also fat. Remember she complained about Finnish nurses in her local hospital because they’d be blonde and blue eyed? And one of them was black.
“Transformational politics, critiques of society’s total forms, the necessity of accounts of racism that go above and beyond abstract moralism”
a) Can we transform without the moral or otherwise force which depends on producing and using motivating slogans, or at the very least conclusions which can persuade people to take action?
b) Is it possible to criticise society’s *total* forms? I presume that ‘total’ is opposed to particular or local. But wouldn’t ‘total forms’ include all our mechanisms of criticism – right down to the bottom, including speaking with words, for example? I’m not being facetious – how do we draw the line between the total that stands in need of criticism and the particular, criticism of which only involves us more deeply in the total?
c) Are these accounts of racism the sort that involve detailed historical, economic and sociological study? In which case it seems to me that we do plenty of that in the academy. If the issue is that it isn’t happening in newspapers (or Twitter or whatever), is that because of the physical and practical constraints of the media and the practical constraints on those who work in them, rather than a lack of willingness to do so? If so, what is the practical solution, presuming that many left-wing critics actually do share your ambitions, but if they are columnists have to turn out 800 words in a week?
This is an interesting problem – one of my concerns is that the need for the kind of rigorous, question-asking critique you ask for implies an academic elitism in transformational politics. I think I feel less and less of a problem with this idea, but there are practical problems that follow from that, particularly if any conclusions drawn from this critique must be subject to a disciplina arcani of only those sharing in the process of the rigorous critique (for otherwise they become slogans, stripped of the critique). A level of Straussian ‘noble lying’ might be required in order to use the critique to bring about transformation without sloganising the critique and halting the transformation. But wouldn’t the exoteric forms of the critique take the literary form of…comment articles and slogans?
Well meaning leftists try to explain away the failures of the black community by pointing to socioeconomic causes. It’s still considered respectable to use this argument in the context of US race relations. Slavery actually existed there.
AFAIK black people in the UK are here as a result of voluntary migration. Benefits are given out universally-health, unemployment, housing etc. The British welfare state is/has been both generous and widely applied. The upperclasses have tended to bend over backwards to give black people a leg up(mixed metaphor). Indeed, an average black
person in the UK can expect free medical care, free education through 18 and a standard of living much higher than anywhere in the Carribean or Africa.
WTF are black community leaders bitching about?
The real problem is that the black community fails to police its own miscreants, fails to expect high educational attainment from their teens–and instead projects those failures onto the hated host nation. Even though laws have been rewritten to take account of racism that community still attempts to lay blame for it’s failings on everyone else. We may as well hurry up in Hackney and do what the oh so discriminated locals did to Detroit.
Same process happened there as is happening in East London now.
Abbott is a race hustler.
Terra mutata non mutat mores.
All things considered, Diane Abbott IS a smug, brain-dead moron. Ever seen her on This Week? Patronising and painfully slow-witted.
An excellent foil for Portillo, I suppose, since he has all the charisma and intellectual insight of a .. well, a Tory.