My working class bud, Alec, joined in my request for a free flow of free talk. I like that term free talk. The Soviet Union used to condemn the "decadent" west. I want to look at marginalization, for instance what is really going on with Temp workers, why they end up in such slots with a "dead" end. The charge of decadence was and is aimed at homosexuality, at physical weakness, at women, etc., and this is fundamentally what marginalization is aimed at.
Here is what I think are signs of decadence in the U.S.; The Baptist church demands that women "obey" their husbands. That is a decay of the social liberation won in the last fifty years for women. The same goes for the Taliban in Afghanistan who burn tv's, ban women from public, etc. That decadence is the decay of social institutions backwards from a level of rights won.
Here is my contribution to liberation for those whom the right labels decadent. I again raise the list I started, homosexuals, women, the "weak", etc. I am going to name names on this list to raise consciousness, not to single out someone for unncessary attack. A person has to be aware that they unconcsciously participate in the marginalization of people through the ideology of "decadence".
Max Sawicky:
"That's why I'm here. I get daily reassurance that there are other people crazier than me."
Doyle Max labelling people as crazy is anti-disabled. A form of social bigotry. If you are crazy, what are your symptoms, come forward and stand up proudly for the disabled. If the person or persons you say are crazier than you, are they schizophrenic, or depressed, or OCD, or other symptoms. Decadence as a political charge using social marginalization requires that the common every day sort of bigotry and predjudice never get challenged. I like you Max. I really like your contribution to the list. Want to debate the merits of calling people crazy?
Doyle One of the things that Alec raises is that socially for this culture, for various reasons, it is much more acceptable to see two lesbians, than to see two gay men. This is certainly one of the core issues of the ideology of decadence. Why is this so? This is a question of great implications for the working class, because of the nature of marginalization, of things like death squads, and death camps. It isn't at all invisible, except as that the right have to the power to define such things.
Doyle I liked Chris Burford's statements today. I want to quote Chris because I approve of his general sentiments;
Chris Burford, Aug 21,98 Friday: That surely is a typo. Of course I understand the overall point, on what we ultimately want. But Mark presumably would not say the following comment is a distortion of Leninism: "With revolutionary tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are naturally transformed into an instrument for disintegrating that rule, into an instrument for stengthening the revolution, and a strong point for the futher development of the revolutionary movement."
I am not sure I agree myself though, with the assumption about "naturally". I think it takes a lot of hard work building coalitions. There is no point in organising mass demonstrations against the IMF or even applauding the masses seizing arms, as they did in Albania, unless progressive intellectual allies can build up the critique of neo-liberalism to demonstrate the stupidity and the class interests behind neo-liberalism.
The working class will never be pure and homogenous. Building coalitions of interest groups however, may provide the space in which real working class interests can get expressed for structural change. I do not think this starts after the revolution, and we cannot predict whether there will be a revolution as capitalism is damnably adaptable, but a clear-sighted building of tactics with the strategic goal is mind, what is wrong with that? "
Doyle Alec says something also that I think I agree with, how do we talk to someone who is afraid?
Alec Ramsdell Thursday Aug 20,98: A first tease. Along the line you've cast, I would say that the one group's prejudice is projected on the other's sexual proclivities thus judged decadent. It seems to me that today the idea of two men having sex causes a bit more distress than two women. Old news, ours is a heterosexual male fantasy dominated culture. I mean, isn't it? So, the prejudice is bound up with certain masks (the moral judge, the character estimater, the health designator) behind which is intolerance rooted in fear (which is ignorance). Unfortunately, one cannot think straight if one is afraid. So the fear and ignorance feed off each other, and are self-propagating. The question we might ask is how to address someone who is afraid (say a straight white fundamentalist Republican male named Trent Lott), and, as came up in a recent Foucault, thread, the "war model" won't always do, it being bound up with a certain economy of fear."
Doyle I want to be able to talk to someone who is afraid. I want to raise to Max something about being anti-disabled. How do we proceed to build our movement, to make social liberation happen? How do we begin to talk to each other as a mass movement to free ourselves from the chains that bind us? regards, Doyle Saylor