Max Sawicky wrote,
> [mbs] My understanding is that 'compliance' is not what community
> action was about. To the contrary, the notion of participation
> created some freedom of action within the program that proved
> to be its possibly inevitable undoing.
You have to keep in mind that the original rationale for OEO was to combat
juvenile deliquency, using "uplift" instead of punishment. Compliance
would be to stop shooting each other with zip guns and stealing
hubcaps and go into a job training program (to become a soda jerk?). Like
you pointed out, there were multiple agendas at play.
> Moynihan's point is the
> failure to clarify what participation should mean allowed the
> program to sufficiently offend Dem politicians and pave the way
> for its dissolution.
I don't know about that. Doesn't he also suggest at times that the failure
to clarify was perhaps intentional to avoid setting off red flags? Also,
there was considerable contention before the phrase was
adopted. Clarifying it would have just re-opened that can of worms. The
ambiguity of the concept opens up at least the potential of using it as a
wedge to push for more fundamental change. I personally think that wedge
is very tiny compared to its allure.
> In the book, you can see the beginnings of DM's sociological
> critique of the War on Poverty, in the form of his fixation on
> pathological explanations of poverty. But this view does not
> appear to dominate his account of the WoP.
Of course, Moynihan's fixation was on the pathology of a sub-culture not
on the pathology of the dominant institutions that marginalized those
people and stigmatized the sub-culture.
> I would say the great coopt-er in the fashion you suggest
> these days is not any government or foundation program but
> the Culture. Culture adulterates to the point of destruction
> every profound idea or gripping image. Everything is
> domesticated.
That's what I was trying to say.
> I may move into Ted K.'s cabin.
Just don't adopt his prose style.
Tom Walker
