maybe this is just me coming from a place of class privilege but I find it incredibly disturbing and bizarre, that a lot of leftists in an effort to condemn inequality and conspicuous consumption will glamorize poverty. maybe this partially comes from a place of class guilt and another part from a place of attempted solidarity with the poor, but either way its wrong. I have class privilege, I’m not poor, I’ve never been poor but I’ve personally seen what it’s done to so many people and it’s horrific. There is nothing good or moral about being poor, it’s heartbreaking.
I literally have no idea what you’re talking about about “glamorizing” poverty. Would you mind giving some examples?
some examples that I think of off the top of my head
– the self hating upper middle class/wealthy leftists deliberately living well below their means as praxis and holding themselves on a moral high ground as a result (squatting, dumpster diving for example). as much as that is a stereotype, I’ve seen that there is some truth to it.
– a lot of poverty porn especially related to the third world. this kind of sentiment that the peasant class is more “noble” because they live a so called simple life. not recognizing that the very poor are not living simply because poverty is never simple, they are being deliberately denied access to basic social services as a result of capitalism. as a person from the third world I’ve seen this kind of mentality across the political spectrum from the most die hard capitalists to anarchists
– coming from a person studying for a fashion degree I can’t help but notice the general aesthetic of many anti capitalist movements being worn down and dingy to the point of being on the borderline of poverty cosplay
have you considered some people may be poor? and any outliers are like idk just enacting their own class guilt or are skilling up for their upcoming class transition? animal behavior usually makes sense.
To be honest, while middle class left wingers glamourizing poverty is definitely a thing, I see it far more in the gentrified neighbourhood where furniture gets sold for 3 times the factory price because the paint has worn off and you can buy empty jam jars with a straw. That’s poverty cosplay.
But dumpster diving and wearing clothes until they fall apart? Has very little to do with wanting to seem poor and as far as I can see tends to be motivated by anti-consumerism based on the fact that our overcosuming capitalist spectacle is ruining lives and it makes sense to want as little to do with that as possible.
And these anti-consumerists are not ruining the free shops or dumpster-dive kitchens, they’re the volunteers there. And the spaces where it’s okay to wear glasses fixed with tape or a shirt with a hole at the elbow are more accessible than spaces where those things are perceived as abnormal. Yes, it’s a subculture, but it’s a subculture of anti-consumerism, not of ‘being like the poors’. Sure, glorifying poverty exists in those spaces but it would be a mistake to call anti-consumerism that by default.
People buy less shit for the same reason they go vegan and fix their own phone: because they want less suffering in the world and they certainly do not want people or animals suffering for their luxury products.
QueerAnarchism 