I agree with most of Doug's message, reproduced in full below. However, I
disagree with the direction of causation. Doug correctly (imho) points out
that while the right is becoming more and more organized, the left is
floundering, splintered into dozens of small pieces. If I read the message
correctly, this floundering or splinterism is blamed on post-modernist
thought, to some extent. I think that the view should be the other way
around, that post-modernist thought is a result of the splinterism of the
left. Also, I wholeheartedly agree that this is a crucial discussion, so,
unlike my usual cavalier email postings, I will try and make myself clear:
LIMITS
1. My points here are U.S. centric -- I know little of international
struggles, and, while I think they are crucial, my limited knowledge makes it
impossible for me to include them in this analysis.
2. The post modernist writings I am familiar with tend to be those of U.S.
feminists as they relate to marxism, gender, race, labor, and history -- so
my conclusions are bounded by the geographic nature of those readings.
POSITIVES OF POMO
I think the history of the left in the USA has pre-determined
post-modernist thought. No matter which section of history you examine, the
left and the movements led by the left in this country, have been based on
exclusionary policies of some type. Taking labor as an example. The
American Federation of Labor (conservative) split away from the Knights of
Labor (radical) over the issue of extending full voting rights to women
members. Since the Knights died after the AFL split off, the tactic of
excluding women from labor organizations, when they were at least half of the
waged labor force, worked. It allowed the men in the AFL to create a labor
aristocracy for white men with skills who did not work in factories.
Along comes the CIO. It is more inclusionary that the AFL, and
contains a large percentage of communist leaders. However, while the CIO was
more inclusionary in that it organized unskilled laborers on factory lines,
it by no means was inclusive of all of labor. By now, more and more African
Americans were moving north to industrial cities. Yet, the CIO did not have
a great track record with universal recruitment of black labor. Also, the
CIO was no more inclusive of women members than the AFL had been, and were
co-authors with factory owners of the back lash against women factory workers
following world war one. Ruth Milkman points out that the Trade Union
Education League (TUEL), (for those who don't know what that was, they were
women trade union organizers in their own group), organized more labor into
unions while the AFL/CIO was kicking out the communists than all other labor
groups combined. The TUEL, unlike the afl, cio, or wobblies, organized black
women tobacco workers down south, women in the garment trades, and men and
women in a number of other trades as well. In fact, the fight to kick out
the communists stopped both the conservatives and the communists from
organzing labor for a number of years.
The non-inclusionary practices of many unions in the 50s and 60s is
well documented. However, this history of non-inclusion (generally of women
and minorities, but of other groups as well) was not limited to labor.
Moving from labor to other history, let's take a look at the from
the late 50s Civil Rights movements, on up through the Vietnam war. In fact,
the left was a continuum of splinter groups and there never has been one
group which can be said to represent anything like a consensus amongst left
groups. The victories of the 50s, 60s, and early 70s all came from temporary
coalitions of groups who agreed to set aside sectarian disputes and work on
issues: women's issues, civil rights issues, anti-war issues, education
issues, jobs issues, etc. Anti-war groups were anti-working class, women's
groups were anti-men, party building organizations excluded women's issues
and some included issues of minorities (some didn't), ..... .
The one thing almost all these groups had in common, along with the
CPUSA, was espousing ideologies which were distinctly non-American.
Leninism, Maoism, Marxism, Islam, all of these things are imports. Now,
don't get me wrong, all these theories of revolution are crucially important,
but by applying them to the usa without a systematic analysis of u.s. culture
as it exists makes them less than useful. I see pomo thought as taking these
foreign theories away from dogmatism and towards creating a new tool box of
theories which potentially will be very useful -- at some point down the
road.
The left never has done a systematic study of what would actually
create the grounds for revolution in the united states. I think post
modernism, in the usa, is the very shaky beginnings of actually doing this.
Prior to the Chinese REvolution, for a number of years, Mao did a
sociological study of China. At the finish, he was able to address, in a
manner no revolutionary leader outside the country had ever done, the
specifics of creating the ground for revolution in China. I see post
modernism as addressing the problems inherent in the exclusionary practices
listed above. In the process, by applying the deconstruction message of pomo
theory, I think there is a very healthy examination of the
class/gender/caste/race/ethnic differences which have stymied leaders trying
to create mass movements in the united states. When one begins to wade
through the mountains of published material, there are a number of truly
unique new thoughts available on the organizing of many segments of the
u.s.a. (Welfare, labor, minorities, women)
This is all the positive, now for the negatives of pomo theory:
To some extent, I think the deconstructionist move has given
academics permission to take the easy road out. It's a hell of alot easier
to pretend that the masses are just too stupid to understand the flights of
fantasy which academics trot out in the name of theory, rather than to try
and bring academic work into the real world and see if real life experiments
verify high flown theories. I have always had a problem with the whole
'language' thing. In fact, I think many lefties, pomo or not, blame the lack
of mass acceptance of theories on the language barrier which seems ever
present between the working class and the intelligentsia. This is a hell of
a lot easier than admitting that much of academic work is pure bull shit and
has no real value in a basic world where most people are just trying to get
by. In fact, as soon a language is blamed for lack of success in mass
organizing, what I see is academics who have othered themselves, or, who have
nominated and elected themselves as carriers of some unique truth. Or,
academics who are trying to peddle the same ideas dressed in different
clothes.
Just one example, the lack of real acceptance by most men on the
left of feminist theory. When one walks into gender classes, there are only
women. In fact, gender is still something men see women as having and not
applying to themselves -- when men discuss gender, it always applies to the
'others' -- women. Gender is still added as an after thought, and is a catch
phrase for women, not men and women. In fact, gender applies very much to
men because the categories men and women can not be defined except in
relation to each other. This is a very pomo concept, and is by no means
universally accepted. So, with language, the common acceptance by men that
gender is just another term for bourgeois feminism, men can dismiss anything
written about gender, because it does not apply to them. Further, they do
not have to take these issues seriously as long as they accept the plusses
accorded to maleness by society as 'natural'. What could be more natural
than women in a subservient position? (sarcasm intended)
maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------
Forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood)
Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 96-11-04 11:54:47 EST
At 6:41 AM 11/4/96, Olson, Gary L wrote:
>I went away for the weekend with the hope that this pomo disc would have
>concluded before my return. Apparently not... I guess I'll check back in a
>few more days.
Sorry this bores you, but these are extremely important issues. And I think
there's something of a historical turn going on, with the pomo forces on
the defensive for the first time since their rise 20 years ago.
This discussion inspired me to pull off the shelf a copy of Materialist
Feminisms, a book by my old grad school friends Donna Landry and Gerald
"Mac" MacLean. Here, I think, is the nub of the political problem with the
entire pomo/deconstructive mode. Here's a quote from their discussion of
decon & politics (pp. 79-80):
"Deconstruction can help us remain vigilant against the freezing into
orthodoxy of the strategic, self-reflexive politics desirable, and even
necessary, for a materialist feminist practice. As [Gayatri] Spivak has so
often insisted, 'Deconstruction cannot found a political proram of any
kind.' Deconstruction is rather a tool to be used within practical
politics, a critical movement that prevents the settling and fixing of
foundations and totalities. In order to conduct an argument, we rely on
certain premises, and these premises 'obliterate or finesse certain
possbilities' [Spivak] that question the very grounds of these premises,
their availability and vailidity. This might be undertood as the necessary
theoretical conditions and limitation of all practice. Above all,
deconstruction teaches us to pay attention to those moments when the limits
and constructedness of our arguments and positions may otherwise seem to
disappear...."
Yes, we should always question our premises, and avoid freezing into rigid
orthodoxies, but to quote the fellow whom a lot of this is directed, it
makes it virtually impossible to answer the "What is to be done?" question.
While it may have been appropriate 20 or 30 years ago to foreground
difference and premise-questioning, and to focus on the aspects of culture
as material practice (and as Mr Orthodoxy himself said, when an ideology
grips the minds of the masses it becomes a material force), I think quite
the opposite move is crucial now: to devise strategies for linking culture
and what we used to call the "base"; to see once again, in Volosinov's
famous formulation, the sign as an arena of class struggle; and to figure
out how to forge some unity among all the disparate actors that make up the
"working class." As Kim Moody has said, we have the opportunity to do class
right this time - now that we are full conscious of all the "articulations"
of race, sex, and nation.
There's a temptation among some practical types to dismiss this all as
intellectual wanking. But I'm old-fashioned enough to think that what
intellectuals do matters a lot. The deconstructive turn - with its
attention to difference and reflexive self-questioning - has left a
tremendous vaccuum in political life. As the ruling class has been
consolidating itself on a global level - across the lines of cleavage like
nation, race, and gender - intellectuals who profess an attachment to the
egalitarian project of "the left" have contributed little to the formation
of an institutional or intellectual opposition.
Michele Barrett has written: "[P]ost-modernism is not something that you
can be for or against: the reiteration of old knowledges will not make it
vanish. For it is a cultural climate as well as an intellectual position, a
political reality as well as an academic fashion." That reads to me like
surrender. Underneath it, I read a despair that any radical change is
possible. From that position, the temptation of playing games with signs
instead of playing politics seems fairly irresistible. Me, I'll reiterate
an old knowledge - the ruthless criticism of all that exists.
Doug
--
Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217
USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice
+1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>
