"The Big One"

[Gary MacLennan]

At 04:52 PM 5/17/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I'm in the grip of a moderate to severe depressive seige, and I may be
>letting my grumpiness show through here, as well as the sense of glue in
>the synapses, but I have to make one point, clumsily or not, in response
>to one sentence in Lou's post:
>
>What's
>> refreshing about "Roger and Me" is that looks at the working-class without
>> rose-colored spectacles.
>
>If you actually do this, look at the working class without rose-colored
>glasses, there are three issues one must focus on, probably nearly to the
>exclusion of all other issues-- and I would say this holds whether on is
>operating from a marxist perspective or 'merely' an active pro-working
>class bias. Those issues are:
>
>	1. The failure of white workers to support black (and
>other no-white) workers
>
>	2. The failure of male workers (and all too many female workers)
>to support female workers.
>
>	3. The failure of more skilled workers (especially those with
>"professional" pretensions) to support less skilled workers.
>
>I don't know enough about Michael Moore and his films to know whether he
>does or does not recognize this necessity.... If he does, then he is
>worthy of Lou's praise. If he doesn't, then he is a lightweight and a
>trifler.
>

Carrol

The discussion around Lou's post on Michael Moore has been very good.  It
really goes to the heart of cultural politics.  I have only seen Roger and
Me and on the evidence of this Moore is no light weight.  Far from it.  

I put a piece on this list on Moore's film and Kopple's American Dream and
the labor films of the Australian documentary filmmaker Tom Zubrycki but it
sunk without a trace.  

I tend to think that there is a danger in leftist inspired criticism that
we will assume the role of the Socratic philistine.   Well the history of
the hostitliy between intellectuals and artists goes very deep roots. You
would all be familiar with the story of the Poets' exclusion from Plato's
Republic on the grounds that they did not tell the truth.

We Marxists have produced tons of very bad aesthetic criticism.  Mainly how
we don't like the film, book etc because it does not have the right line.
Often I think lefties  despise Art and really want people to read the
internal bulletin and chant a few slogans and that is all.

regards

Gary