Re: [Marxism] (fwd from Steve) On language

[kersplebedeb <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Examining how we use the word "whore" probably will have no direct
impact on cleaning the sidewalk or changing the energy industry,
granted. But at the moment across Canada (and around the world!) there
are many workers who on top of the alienation and exploitation of their
jobs routinely face the risk of violence (at times so extreme in could
be described as torture, at times ending in actual not metaphorical
murder) and harassment not only from their clients and bosses but also
from the police and even local neighbourhood associations.

Their occupation? Whore.

For this reason alone, even if it were not a so called pink-ghetto
occupation, and even if historically non-prostituted women were not
marginalized and attacked by being accused of being whores, examining
why this of all occupations serves as a metaphor for any insincere,
money-grubbing, amoral individual would be worth our while.

Not that i do not also feel some (at times a lot!) irritation when the
kind of language and level of abstraction shoot through the roof and
people i've never read are being quoted and terms i never use are being
bandied about, but whores (real ones, not metaphoric ones) are members
of the working class and the ways in which they are stigmatized
constitute ideological props to their exploitation. So it is worth
looking at.

(On the topic of whores, and some deplorable left attitudes towards
them, some people on this list may also be interested in a discussion on
my blog of a report that Communist Part of Nepal (Maoist) cadres have
been implicated in violence against prostitutes:
http://sketchythoughts.blogspot.com/2006/05/communist-party-of-nepal-maoist-cadres.html)

Les Schaffer wrote:

> Help me understand how the sidewalk gets shoveled, the war is stopped
> and the  energy industry is modified then i'll give credence to the
> philospohical rigamarole.
>
> steve from cape cod.
>
>
>
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