I'm new to the list and so am jumping into what I assume is an on-going thread in midstream. So forgive me I repeat an argument someone else has already made....
Like Carroll, I think this thread and the questions it raises are important. But one thing that's troubled me in the conversation today is what seem like broad generalization about "anti-individualist" and recalcitrant behaviors in (male) blue collar workers, as if these behaviors weren't just as common in other workplaces as well. Two examples:
1) It seems quite correct to assume, as did Wojtek earler today, that the resistance of b-c working men to changes in behavior bound up with a strong sense of identity is a way of "maintaining a certain form of social solidarity...essential for certain modes of production," but this dynamic is hardly unique to blue-collar workers (I'm assuming some of the folks making these generalizations are in fact blue-collar workers?). My workplace is the decidedly white linen-collar workplace called "the university English Department." Here, we don't produce cars or turbine generators, but knowledge, accreditation, and what has been termed "cultural capital". Our behavior is decidedly homogeneous (just go to an MLA convention sometime and see how people with tenure seem to be clones); we certainly maintain certain social behaviors expected of English professors (certain "standards' for using language, the cultivation of a talent for making witty but oh so subtle critical remarks, and perhaps most importantly, the illusion that what we do isn't actually labor, but something else, something .... special). We, too, "maintain a certain form of solidarity that is essential for certain modes of production" (both specific to our larger role in the "big picture" of capitalism and class demarcation), NOT by being openly anti-individualist, but precisely by constantly foregrounding and rewarding ourselves for appearing to be unique.
2) To characterize certain patterns of male bonding as specific to blue-collar working men is again to overlook the extent to which this pattern is just as evident, if not more so, among academic faculty (still mostly male), law offices (ditto), brokerage houses (ditto, oh ditto), etc. Not to mention many leftist organizations....
'Night, all.
Jamie
On Tue, 5 May 1998, Carrol Cox wrote:
> I think the exchange between Yoshie and Wojtek raises, but only in a
> preliminary fashion, some serious issues for exploration. I have trouble
> with on-line exchanges after a while as >s become >>s become >>>s etc. I'm
> simply editing this exchange to date to make it easier to return to it.
>
> Yoshie: Wojtek's framing of the 'real question' comes very close to
> saying that sexism, homophobia, etc. might be 'functional' to
> 'working-class solidarity.' His framing casts the working-class in
> implicitely straight male terms as well.
>
> Wojtek: Well, solidarity has its dark sides too (cf. male bonding). There
> is a tradeoff between what you can do as an individual and what power you
> have as a group.
>
> Yoshie: Besides, whatever 'anti-individualist' or 'collectivist' norms may
> have prevailed among peasants, enforcement of sex/gender norms in
> factories isn't a matter of peasant 'attitudes' carried over to the
> urban/industrial environment.
>
> Wojtek: It might be a ritualistic behavior that long lost its utility,
> like for example, hunting or fishing. Hence I posed it as a question to
> what degree it is ritualistic and to what degree it still maintains
> solidarity.
>
> What interests me is an empirical explanation of the phenomenon at hand,
> rather than casting it in normative terms.
> -
> Carrol: I would imagine a good deal of spontaneous workers' culture (and
> not just blue-collar workers) (a) Is mostly a way to "get through the day"
> (Doug has discussed this recently) and (b) has its dark side, as any
> culture developed in direct subordination to capital would, no doubt. Part
> of the task of marxists, etc. is to help sort out the usable from the
> destructive.
>
> I won't try to go further, because my brain is currently mostly glue, but
> I think the thread is important.
>
> Carrol
>