Cancel culture is all the rage just now, particularly on, of all things, college campuses.\u00a0 The idea seems to be that open debate and tolerance for opposing ideas is simply another “construct” of bourgeois culture, and thus is itself an instrument of oppression, no matter how much it pretends to be something else.<\/p>\n
Here at Crime and Consequences, we’re not big fans of cancel culture.\u00a0 Thus I want to introduce readers to an idea to which I have not given a great deal of subscription.<\/p>\n
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The name of the book promoting this idea is, “In Defense of Looting”<\/strong> by a lady named Vicky Osterweil.\u00a0 Here is one short passage:<\/p>\n When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. That’s the thing I’m defending. I’m not defending any situation in which property is stolen by force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh, OK.\u00a0 So when the mob incinerates the cars parked outside, smashes through the windows, and knocks over the security guard (or any guard who has not yet run for his life), that’s not “force.”<\/p>\n Look, it does help to have your own vocabulary.<\/p>\n Still, as one astute observer noted:<\/p>\n The book brilliantly disposes of the myth that protests are about police brutality. They are about the indignity of having to work in order to obtain things. Small businesses, large businesses, doesn\u2019t matter – they all have something people want without the woeful burden of employment, and that\u2019s oppressive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n UPDATE:\u00a0 I just now saw these excerpts from the NPR interview with Ms. Osterweil.\u00a0 I set them forth below without comment\u00a0 —\u00a0 not because I have no reaction, but because I’m speechless.<\/p>\n For people who haven\u2019t read your book, how do you define looting?<\/strong><\/p>\n When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. That\u2019s the thing I\u2019m defending. . .<\/p>\n Can you talk about rioting as a tactic? What are the reasons people deploy it as a strategy?<\/strong><\/p>\n It does a number of important things. It gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage\u2014which, during COVID times, is widely unreliable or, particularly in these communities is often not available, or it comes at great risk. That\u2019s looting\u2019s most basic tactical power as a political mode of action.<\/p>\n It also attacks the very way in which food and things are distributed. It attacks the idea of property, and it attacks the idea that in order for someone to have a roof over their head or have a meal ticket, they have to work for a boss, in order to buy things that people just like them somewhere else in the world had to make under the same conditions. It points to the way in which that\u2019s unjust. And the reason that the world is organized that way, obviously, is for the profit of the people who own the stores and the factories. So you get to the heart of that property relation, and demonstrate that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free. . .<\/p>\n Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. And I think that\u2019s a part of it that doesn\u2019t really get talked about\u2014that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory.<\/p>\n What are some of the most common myths and tropes that you hear about looting?<\/strong><\/p>\n . . . one is that looters are just acting as consumers:\u00a0Why are they taking flat screen TVs instead of rice and beans?<\/em>\u00a0Like, if they were just surviving, it\u2019d be one thing, but they\u2019re taking liquor. All these tropes come down to claiming that the rioters and the looters don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing. They\u2019re acting, you know, in a disorganized way, maybe an \u201canimalistic\u201d way. But the history of the movement for liberation in America is full of looters and rioters. They\u2019ve always been a part of our movement.<\/p>\n What would you say to people who are concerned about essential places like grocery stores or pharmacies being attacked in those communities?<\/strong><\/p>\n When it comes to small business, family owned business or locally owned business, they are no more likely to provide worker protections. They are no more likely to have to provide good stuff for the community than big businesses.\u00a0It\u2019s actually a Republican myth<\/a>\u00a0that has, over the last 20 years, really crawled into even leftist discourse: that the small business owner must be respected, that the small business owner creates jobs and is part of the community.\u00a0But that\u2019s actually a right-wing myth<\/a>.<\/p>\n A business being attacked in the community is ultimately about attacking like modes of oppression that exist in the community.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cancel culture is all the rage just now, particularly on, of all things, college campuses.\u00a0 The idea seems to be that open debate and tolerance for opposing ideas is simply another “construct” of bourgeois culture, and thus is itself an instrument of oppression, no matter how much it pretends to be something else. Here at Crime and Consequences, we’re not big fans of cancel culture.\u00a0 Thus I want to introduce readers to an idea to which I have not given a great deal of subscription.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-factors"],"yoast_head":"\n