To put it simply, one can never put it simply. Wojtek's explanation of the
difference between elective affinity and conspiracy is well taken, I
cheerfully withdraw the conspiracy theory label. But Wojtek's elective
affinity leaves me unconvinced. Elective affinity is still a top-down model,
even if it's only the selection that's top-down and even if the collusion of
suits is charitably seen as strategic rather than conspiratorial.
Ideology is after all a labour process and -- as with any other labour
processes -- most of the work is done by the non-owners of the means of
production. The product is by no means neutral and serves to reproduce the
relations of production under which it is produced. But it seems to me that
ideology is so pervasive that it doesn't need any exogenous boost from
Madison Avenue or the Christian Coalition (not to say that it doesn't get
such boosts). The edge that conservative and advertising narratives have
over leftist treatises is not just that they are narratives. It is that they
agree with the narratives that "Joe and Jo Sixpack" spontaneously produce
out of their alienated experiences, what Kenneth Burke referred to as
identification.
The 'ineptitude of the left' consists in the left's starting from almost
untenable disadvantage and then compounding that disadvantage through an
arrogant refusal to identify with the alienated forms in which ordinary
people experience their oppression. Instead, the left would rather elevate
an "objective analysis" of that oppression to a privileged place and
idealize marginal forms of struggle. The elevator is broken.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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