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Today, the class question is no longer associated with left-wing, but rather with right-wing protest. While the membership base of parties such as the Alternative for Germany or the Front National, and of movements such as Pegida or “Manif pour tous” (opponents of homosexual marriage in France), consists largely of groups from the economically secure middle classes or the petty bourgeoisie – and mainly of men –, these parties and movements are now able to attract a relevant number of workers and unemployed persons as well. Didier Eribon (2013) calls this electoral decision in favor of the radical right an “act of political self-defence” – a measure taken in order to feature within political discourse at all, if only in the form of “negative self-affirmation”. Eribon's autobiographical self-experiment, his Returning to Reims, was no doubt the surprise bestseller among last year's political books. A book on his return to his parental home, which he had left as a “class refugee”, in order to be able to live out his homosexual orientation and become a professor of sociology – and not to return for decades. The many-faceted book, which narrates tales of shame, of the life and nightmare of the working class, and especially of women, attempts to furnish elements of an explanation why a working class that once voted left – at least to a significant degree – is now voting right. Sold out by social democracy, disappointed by the ineffectiveness of the Communist Party, many turn to a powerful new narrative: that of defending hard-working people, the nation and culture against others, “Islam”, “immigrants”, globalization, gay and LGBT persons, the “moralizing members of the 1968 generation”, who are now in power, etc. Eribon strikes a nerve.
full: http://www.transform-network.net/blog/article/a-question-of-class-a-new-class-politics-a-connective-antagonism/
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