Un fenomeno con nomi diversi. La cancel culture, tra intersezionalità e marxismo

Abstract

In the public debate, on the one hand, the so-called cancel culture (CC) is stigmatised as an attack against the Western tradition and the rationality of dialogue, on the other, it is associated with the oblivion of material issues, substituted by identity claims. These two readings can be opposed by a third that frames the events subsumed under CC in a positive way as ‘intersectionality’, and a fourth that, while appreciating its purpose, challenges its liberal grammar of rights. CC, identity politics and intersectionality – although they identify both broader and more specific sets of problems – can thus be read as the names that different scholars give to the same dynamics. After briefly reviewing some of the literature on the topic, the paper will focus on the conflict between economic instances and identity, first by recalling some reflections from the Marxist tradition on the subject of ‘race’ and gender, and then by looking at two contemporary Marxist texts, by Asad Haider and Ashley Bohrer. With a different stance on intersectionality, but criticising economicist determinism, the two authors reason about ways of composing social heterogeneity in a political project. This allows for an original reading of some of the issues involved in the discussion about CC.