Tuesday, March 5, 2019

On The Shelf-Life Of Labels

I used to know what "neo-liberal" meant and I was opposed to it.  It meant someone who was allegedly for anti-discrimination laws and other such things but who were, essentially, someone who favored some flavor of neo-classical economic bullshit as taught at the U. of Chicago and other universities and as pushed on PBS starting in the late 1970s.  That was what I understood it as being and I rejected it.  I still do.

Hearing and how the word "neo-liberal" is used on the left, today, it seems to mean pretty much whatever the person using it doesn't like.  I've been accused of being a neo-liberal even as I reject neo-classical economics over my realistic rejection of Bernie Sanders' insane candidacy for the nomination of a party he is not a real member of and . . . well, name it.

I wonder if there is some phenomenon in which those ignorant of the meaning of a neologism will, eventually, reduce it to a meaningless term of invective or approval.  I think the word "meme" has certainly undergone that in a mild sense.  Something like that happened to the word "socialist" which is why I think it is the unfortunate label for what is a series of great ideas.   As I recently pointed out it has been destroyed though its appropriation of gangster government systems, Marxism, Nazism, the Brit upper class atrocity of Fabianism, various impotent and/or violent political cults and the anti-socialist-fascist use of all of those to discredit the word "socialist". 

It's a fools struggle to regain the reputability of a brand name once it has undergone such a thorough, century long discrediting.  I don't care how it sells in Europe, it won't sell in the United States.  In its use I sense a kind of, I don't know, macho bravado, an attitude which doesn't work for what "socialism" is supposed to be about.  It's supposed to be about decency and equality, not some sociological alpha-beta manhood bullshit thing. "Socialism," the word is not worth losing the most modest election, it is certainly not worth it to defer the adoption of single-payer, universal healthcare and all of the other things which are the real substance of an egalitarian society. 

No comments:

Post a Comment