Identity politics

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Sat May 23 21:09:34 PDT 1998


Re:


>Eric Alterman's banal reflections (May 25) on divisions in the left are
>confused as well[....]
>
and
>
>The Alterman piece is just one more example of how the Right-wing view of
>history has come to shape the 'left' thinking: it is blacks, women,
>homosexuals, etc. and their critiques and activism that have divided the
>allegedly once unified Left. It's a politics of white ressentiment that
>seeks to pass itself off as the true voice of the working class
>

Hmmm...

You all seemed to read a different Alterman piece than I did...

I read denunciations of the cultural left:

"a 'spectorial, disgusted, mocking left' that believes

the higher is its level of abstraction, the more subversive

it is.... [T]his left lacks even the most rudimentary

strategy for translating theory into practice..."

coupled with denunciations of the reformist left as:

"extremely eloquent in elite debates... entirely without

troops when the lecture is over. Its class-based analysis

appeals neither to the racism/sexism/homophobia crowd

nor to the self-images of most Americans."

But what stayed with me were the last three paragraphs:

"But here's the twist. [Reformist Social-Democratic

Leftist Nelson] Lichtenstein is part of a perfectly

Rortyite reformist Campaign for a Living Wage at

the University of Virginia. This campaign is not

about ending sexism, racism, or homophobia, but

about getting janitorial staff a few extra bucks

an hour. Who are its volunteers? Primarily, says

Lichtenstein, faculty and graduate students from

the pomo literature and theory crowd.

"The fledgling labor/scholar alliance is designed

to replicate just such cooperation. The most powerful

speech at the labor/academic conference was given by

Betty Dumas, a Trinidadian immigrant who was jailed

and fired for her attempts to unionize the Avondale

shipyards in New Orleans. Dumas siad the hardest part

of her struggle was trying to explain to her children

why their mother was going to jail, when she had spent

their whole lives drilling them about the importance of

obeying the law.

"A left that cannot find a way to unite behind the

Betty Dumases of this world is no left at all."

Perhaps other people stopped reading at the bottom of the first column?

Brad DeLong



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