The Discourse of Lived Experience

Whilst on a jaunt to Camden last Saturday, a mate started talking to a Venezuelan chap at a food stall. Soon enough, the Venezuelan chap bought up how much he hates Karl Marx and socialism. I didn't bother to interject because, well, the guy was working and it wasn't really appropriate to do so. I mean, who wants to be accosted by a hairy Marxist when they're trying to work?!

Afterwards, my mate said to me "Did you hear that? How much he hates Karl Marx?"

"Yeah", I said, "But Marx or Marxism doesn't really have anything to do with Venezuela. The revolution was based on the values and theories of Simon Bolivar, it's a form of socialism unique to South America". I could've gone on about US imperialism but, frankly, I was more in the mood for going to the pub for a pre-gig drink.

The retort was, of course, "That's his lived experience though! How can you dispute it?"

It got me thinking about the value of such discourse centered around "lived experience". 

So what is lived experience? It's the sum of experiences gained through living within a particular set of material circumstances. It could be better defined as personal knowledge about the world gained through direct, first-hand involvement in everyday events rather than through representations constructed by other people. 

This definition makes lived experience and appeals to it rugged and irrefutable, which of course they are. You can't tell someone they haven't experienced something they have and vice versa. But no lived experience is the same, these experiences are always interpreted by the individual in a different manner and no single lived experience can trump any other. 

But, not everyone understands the material or historical circumstances of their own oppression and it goes without saying that not all experiences are equal or even similar. Many aren't politically astute and simply repeat, without examination, propaganda that they already agree with.

Which lived experience are we then supposed to listen to? The liberal one? The racist one? The socialist one? The one that baselessly repeats propaganda? The wealthy one? Even as socialists and Marxists, we cannot simply listen to experiences that we would already agree with. We have to look at objective data that is derived from collective, subjective lived experience.

Our analysis should be firmly rooted in a scientific, Marxist examination of history, class and contradictions, no matter where our anecdotes of lived experience are drawn from. 

Establishing the primary contradiction is the key to understanding oppression and unlocking the secrets of lived experience. 

As the article linked below states: 

"Lived experience, however, is flawed because non-materialist attitudes have formed opinions based on first hand accounts around issues, like patriarchy and racism, but not from the point of view of global movement. 

Moreover, a rejection of scientific approaches, rigorous analytic tools, and abandonment of returning to the source (i.e. traditional methods) has bore outright anti-materialist sentiment. At best, lived experiences can serve as anecdotal impressions of what it’s like to be a member of an oppressed group..."

Going back to our Venezuelan chap, who said that Venezuela is shit because of socialism, what do we now make of that? Well, because so many different lived experiences exist, we can only make a coherent analysis of the situation when we derive objective data from a collective lived experience. His opinion isn't invalid, nor is his singular lived experience. But it is merely anecdotal.

The trick is in separating the objective fact from the subjective opinion. Only then can we add to the larger data set and ruggedly and critically examine it in a scientific fashion. 

To listen and agree without qualification or examination to the experience of any single Venezuelan experience purely on part of the fact that the speaker is Venezuelan is to engage in identity politics. To dismiss any analysis of Venezuela apart from that of Venezuelan "lived experience" is identity reductionism.

It is here in the realms of identity politics that we see how the device of "lived experience" is abused so frequently.  

We as Marxists need to commit to historical, dialectical, materialist and objective analysis. Lived experience is no more than a rhetorical tool.

These limits of "lived experience" discourse are discussed extensively here:

https://hoodcommunist.org/2021/09/09/the-limits-of-lived-experience/