Class consciousness Quote by Kim R. Holmes

““As existentialists as Jean-Paul Sarte learned, radical individualism can be a dead end for social justice. It is not easy to establish a coherent ideology of social justice based solely on the radical freedom of the individual. Unlike Sarte, who eventually escaped into Marxism, postmodernist philosophers reject communism. But they do find refuge in the New Left, in which Marx's old economic class warfare has been replaced with identity-cultural warfare. This transformation gives them a way out of the individualist-relativist trap in which they found themselves. Instead of the proletariat, it is now cultural identity groups that are being oppressed. It is not workers but races, women, and ethnic and sexual minorities who are the new revolutionaries. Unlike classic Marxists, for whom class consciousness is a social phenomenon economically determined, identity theorists define it as a psychological phenomenon manifested in the culture. Identity solidarity is the equivalent of class consciousness, only it has no objective foundation, economic or otherwise, other than the perception of mutual grievance based on identity.””

— Kim R. Holmes