Catherine Liu: Trauma, Virtue and Liberal Elites | Doomscroll

She's highly intelligent but she deviates in her discussion too much, like Trump. Scramble brained by diving into the details and minutia that no one asked for, nor needs to know, rather than just getting to the point or directly answering the question.

It's quite difficult to listen to because she doesn't isolate the thought. She should only expound when asked to do so.

Not only do I appreciate Liu's articulateness and mental dexterity, I also love her forays into voice mimicry of these PMC twits -- hilarious!

I like Liu and her stance on asking for more adult and reasonable discourse. And, it's telling that the current leftist universe she operates in is largely obnoxious, petty, and insufferable. Are most modern leftists obsessed with discourse and utterly averse to charm? It's like one angry, smug nerd jerk-off after another.

I mean, these are some really unrelatable people. Passive aggressive, suspicious, intellectually stingy, ready for a good call-out or a feisty telling off. And always on alert. Not generous, not open hearted, not interested in accepting difference. They are never going to win anything politically for two reason: 1) they produce mostly uncharismatic candidates who exude irritation and frustration with others. 2) they need to be right about everything.

This was absolutely mind blowing! thank you for this so very much!

I’m glad she mentioned the panic that arose from the McMartin witch-hunt. It’s was early 1980s and it turns out the investigators had suggested the trauma to the kids and being little kids, they went along with it and even embellished upon it. It was a negative feedback loop. Only when the trial, many years later, proved it was a hoax, did the public calm down. But the damage was done. Not only to the McMartins, but to countless other mom and pop daycare centers who were unfortunately caught up in the hysteria. Sad thing was that a very significant portion of the public never believed in the innocence of the McMartin family. It was crazy.

I LOVE HER

What was the guys name she says in the beginning…Paul D- something

Thanks mucho, J..C., this conversation is already having and affect on the rest of my life - I have been waiting for decades to hear Professor Liu, but of course didn't know it, until just now, I am standing up straighter, the ache in my left knee is better, hell bell--

wow i could listen to her talk all day! amazing

Oh wow more antisemitic roots of the left

She speaks exactly why many have left liberalism, including myself.

I think the continued insistence on highlighting the suppressed needs of the working poor is all too necessary.

I am also deeply skeptical of the sympathetic class-exclusive understandings of working class and poor men, and worry that it does them a long-term, structural disservice. People do not exist within an academic vacuum and thinking that their fixation with fascist politics is purely a result of elite disregard removes them of agency.

I say this as someone who grew up in a rural town on the border of Ohio and Indiana. I know anecdote is insufficient alone, but to say that the proclivity for deeply antagonistic, antisocial, and ultimately violent behaviors amongst men in these spaces is purely a response to their plight gives them way too much room to avoid culpability for their own lives and the people within their lives who create permission structures for these behaviors.

It is more than acceptable, and I'd argue necessary, to point out deeper cultural issues at play as concurrent explanations for far-right extremism amongst working class men: religious fundamentalism, lack of ethnic, racial, and national diversity within their communities, the absence of LGBT presence in public life, misogyny as a foundational underpinning of the performance of masculine gendered self-possession, abusive family dynamics and maladaptive parent behavioral modeling, and more. In this sense, liberal wariness of the performance of masculinity in the working class is warranted, not as a pathway for prejudice, but as a first step towards addressing the root causes that exist alongside and dovetail with class considerations.

de skill revolutionary lol

I’ve never heard an argument about the appropriation of vulgarity. Great interview, she is amazing!

Her over all analysis is very good and speaks exactly to what is happening in this election. I don't love her gross generalizations and mocking but the underlying argument is powerful.

Remember to Vote Trump + Vance to support the “working class.” 👍🇺🇸💪

They did not correctly describe EMDR

Wtf is this podcast and why didn’t I heard about it sooner? This was fascinating. Felt like I was in class again.

Another Trump apologist and pseudo marxist misrepresenting the giant hodgepodge we call "the Left" as if it's a cohesive group at all. The "professional-managerial class" is a bogeyman but that's all Liu seems to see.

How about Jewish Elites?

amazing interview.

Lui's assertion that JDVance's experience of working in a supermarket is not valid (for political discourse) to gain insight into working class experience because it was his, individually? Lui is glibly wrong on that. Also, she is wonky on the massification of the State employee sector being inherently a good. Sure, front of house service by public sector vs private is debatable on quality vs cost, but unfortunateky most public sector staff are back of house, and that's the real problem, they're in a near zero value add setting.

This interview was more insightful and engaging than anything I've ever seen on television

Is she a Chinese native? She sounded like a Chinese. I suspect she went through the Cultural Revolution.

Everything Catherine said resonates so much. Am gonna read her book.

The fact that there are people who exist as part of the PMC and enjoy its material perks yet are still critical of the system and contribute to the anti-capitalist cause is way more damning to capitalism than it is to those people.

Man...finally, some level of civi/educational dialog. Thanks. BTW They will never invite her in CNN/MSNBC....

She makes a lot of salient points here, although some of it is a bit extreme. Does anyone really use a family as a status symbol?

somehow the algo knew i'd read her book and i'd click on this random video in a heartbeat!

This is an interesting and gross tactic, just parroting tired right wing talking points and dog whistles wrapped in "leftist" language.

The comments are fascinating because everyone seems to believe that Liu agrees with them, whether on the left or right. The listeners are interpreting her garbage how they want to hear it.

But it's just that - garbage. This woman is either deeply baked performance art, a psy op, or just a self-important narcissist. "Just like every other leftist/right winger/Trump supporter/Kamala voter!" the comments all said in unison. The only thing this woman believes is that she's better than you and wants you to hate the "other" people.

This is true intellectual dystopia shit. All of this fawning over a vat of authentic, aromatic, politcal stew with such complex flavors and smells - it's just a bucket of insincere but spicy diarrhea.

Hearing her say that she loves to say the “r word” in close circles was so funny haha. She’s amazing

Precarity as responsible for wokeness among the PMC. I don't know. Wouldn't precarity cause people to be even more conservative and unwilling to rock the boat?

"Intense veneer of moral superiority...what would happen if that was pierced?"

IDK I think supporting a globally witnessed genocide is pretty piercing.

I would like to add to Catherine’s point on ‘wage compression’. In 1971 the U.S.also abandoned the gold standard for a wholly fiat currency which further shifted upward mobility towards those of the asset class as inflation eroded the wage purchasing power of labor.

Is it worth it to apply to UC Irvine just because I want to attend her class😭

The problem is "the left" has never been a unified ideology or set of beliefs in the USA and hence various "leftists" in and outside of academia have had a great many differing opinions on a lot of issues. Outside a few notable examples such as the Haymarket riot and some other notable events, much of the social upheaval in the USA has been more "liberal" than "leftist". And ironically academia has been a bastion for leftism since the early 20th century with the rise of industrialization in the country and it had some traction among the working class because of the abuses and conditions at the time (hence haymarket). The rise of unions kind of took on some of the issues promoted by the left and then the New Deal followed by WW II and then the schisms of the Stalinist era, followed by McCarthyism kind of ended much of their overall social influence.

Love Catherine Liu raging against the PMC!

Catherine Liu needs to join forces with JT Chapman. That's where something good could start.

Catherine Liu seems to me so brilliant, it's refreshing to hear an academic language expressing an honest, working class perspective.

Bernie sanders was one

no data

What a fascinating guest. I could listen to Catherine for hours.

Omg, girl. Thanks for pulling all that shtuff together. Things I know and just didn’t have the time to formulate into clear articulation.
I get it— THATs why we have higher ed; so that people have the time and resources to formulate the narrative of egalitarian revival 😏

Just because the low wage workers that support your capitalist lifestyle is invisibilized, doesn't mean they don't exist. Also did the guy really just claim leftists think everything was good before neoliberalism????? It's kinda wild people think someone is smart just because they describes their reactionary ideas using leftist terminologies.

love a lot of these critiques and her sense of humor!! one thing i don’t agree with though is the harshness towards the individual de-radicalized (like judith butler); that that reveals a kind of surreptitious reality lurking inside of butler — no,it’s more likely butler became more comfortable because the environment they occupy is comforting and that brings out those human inclinations to take the path of least resistance. i believe that If the “oppressed” are in the position they’re in largely because of environmental factors then so are the “oppressors”

please straighten your rug next time lol

moral hoarders