The common appeal to "direct experience" that one hears in leftist activist circles acts as if the "direct experiences" themselves are free from theoretical assumptions that shape how one interprets those experiences. What is immediate is supposed to be superior to what is mediated or reflected on. "Lived-experience" is somehow pure because it has supposedly escaped the sin of theoretical reflection (whatever the content of that reflection is), and thus it gets treated as an unquestionable fact. In reality, those who shit on theory in order to theoretically privilege "lived-experience" simply take over the theoretical categories they use without reflection from "common sense". So, despite the reassurance, they are no less in bondage to theory, but rather to the worst, most-vulgar moral theories that pass themselves off as explanations of today's well-known social ills: everywhere bad people with their unconscious bad thoughts, corruption of all that's true and beautiful, a lack of unity, solidarity, and communal feeling, et al.
Amusingly: the privileging of "lived-experience" over theory is itself a highly theoretical way to discount "abstract theory" without having to bother engaging with any particular claims from that theory. It's an anti-intellectual way of enforcing unspoken rules about who has a right to speak or be listened to, in total abstraction from what it is they have to say. The assumption is that if someone has an experience then they must know better than anyone the reasons for that experience.
Not quite! Experiencing a plane-flight doesn't magically give one an insight into the laws of aerodynamics. Getting called a slur doesn't make you an expert on the logic of racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, etc. anymore than calling someone a slur would. Getting arrested doesn't mean you magically have an insight into the state and the logic of punishment underpinning its justice system. Casting a vote doesn't mean you understand anything about the essence of democracy or what elections are really about. Simply having something shitty happen to you doesn't magically mean you're an expert or that your explanation is correct. Likewise, having a piece of luck doesn't make you an expert (so much for the right-wing canard that successful business owners must be right, and critics are just resentful losers.) All of these things can only be determined by doing what is precisely prohibited: going into the theory -- the conceptual determinations -- explaining the logic of these things! To quote an old dead "whyte cishet male", "All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided."
But that's the catch: the deference to lived-experience doesn't want to know anything. It starts with the assumption that there really aren't socially "valid" (in the sense of existing and being enforced) reasons why certain groups just seem to have the same experiences over and over as a systematic necessity. Otherwise, they wouldn't make assurances that these experiences are "personal". The message is: "shut up and stay in your lane!" By relativizing their theory to what is "individual", "personal" or particular, they deny that anything universal is at play, that there could be any such law or reason that lends necessity to the bad social-relations.
Explanation of the real reasons for one's experience is ruled out from the start-- I already know everything I need to know from my own personal experience-- theory is superfluous. And besides, it's alienating! I don't get an immediate good feeling. Not the actual cause of one's plight, not the shitty experience, but the attempt to explain and overcome precisely that oppressive experience! It's not the bad experiences that are harmful, but the fact that someone uses theory to explain that experience. THAT is what's "alienating" for modern radical liberals: a "micro aggression", i.e. the vague hint that you don't immediately jump behind whatever non-sense they spout without question. For rad-libs, the only acceptable response is edification: one must simply assure "the oppressed" that their bad feelings about their "personal" painful experiences are "valid"-- again regardless of what they have to say about those experiences, how they explain them, and regardless of the fact that these experiences are far from being "personal". One must not question the idea that the bad experiences could only come about because of a lack of respect or rights on the part of the aggrieved.
This calculating and performative display of phony empathy contains a condescending attitude: "you can't handle knowing, and certainly can't handle criticism, let me pat your head and kiss your boo boo."
Radical liberals will often claim that "theoretical language" is harmful and "classist". This, again, is more an inadvertent admission of the attitudes they themselves hold about the poor and oppressed people they claim to honor and respect so much: they are too stupid or incapable of thinking about theory. Only "the upper strata" have the "privilege" of thinking about theory. (God forbid they actually looked at the upper strata who are just as irritated by abstract theory as the proletarian ladies and gentlemen they rule over). Or theory should only be talked about in private book clubs away from the sensitive masses who might feel insulted by hearing an explanation about the world. It's all the same: "them there big words piss me off".
"Lived-experience" just becomes a way for rad-libs to profess their moral sensitivity in regards to matters of honor and respect, which should never be scrutinized, but only accepted without a second thought. It's no wonder that these beloved tropes of various radical liberal movements have quickly been transformed into training procedures and corporate conduct guides by various capitalist firms, universities, and government bureaucrats. It has become a part of bourgeois politeness and respectability: one must listen to sob stories
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