> Greg,
>
> I've been gradually wading through the flood of Kosovo postings and have
> jsut read your long post. Lots of thoughtful points there, so I'm sorry I'm
> just focussing on what I most take issue with.
>
> >But in a clan system there is,
> >basically, equality for those in the clan (which is
> >what was attractive to Engels). The down side is that
> >everyone outside of the clan is shit, and hence, our
> >Chechens have little compunction about keeping a
> >Dhagestani as a slave. Or vice versa. When we apply
> >our late 20th c Marxist, state-based notions of
> >citizenship and justice to the activities of clans, we
> >are proposing a system of moral judgment which has
> >little to do with the operating values of that system.
>
> This characterization seems to carry a lot of weight in your analysis.
> (And not just yours--its been the subtext of several other postings I've
> skimmed through.) So for what it's worth, and primordialist images
> notwithstanding: descent groups aren't so egalitarian on the inside nor so
> Hobbesian on the outside.
>
> In fact given that they've taken thousands of diverse and dynamic forms,
> it's impossible to say much at all about descent groups. Only the social
> science that grew up in conjunction with the nation-state's own myths could
> have beat down all of that diversity into one "type." Some were (past tense
> because I'm talking here about autonomous ones) relatively egalitarian,
> some hierarchical, some collectivist, some more individualist. One trait
> they all had in common is that by comparison to the modern nation-state,
> their boundaries tended to be quite flexible and fluid.
>
> As for your "everyone outside of the clan is total shit," that's just worse
> than bizzare. It gets mighty close to those congratulatory
> inevitability-of-capitalism arguments that someone cited earlier this week.
> (The old "it's not possible to have a socialist society except in
> hunter/gatherer societies, so unless you want to go BACK TO THE STONE AGE,
> you'd better become bourgeois.") In point of fact, descent groups and
> their members were almost always involved in wider alliances, and all sorts
> of non-state networks that cross-cut political and linguistic boundaries.
> A lot of these networks were very complex and heterogenous. No
> self-enclosed clans or villages anywhere.
In *The Argument Culture*, a rather ambitious mess published last year, Deborah Tannen made somewhat inconsistent references to practices she lumped together as ritual(ized) combat (or conflict). One point she made that does seem relevant is that such conflict often has a very important socially integrative function.
I'm wondering, Maureen, what you might have to say about:
(1) The legitimacy of Tannen's generalization in even using such terms.
(2) The degree to which you'd agree about the integrative functions of ritual conflict.
(3) What kind of relevance this might have to understanding paths not taken which could be argued for by progressive activists (perhaps even peace and human rights activists as well as Marxists, as in the good old days of the Vietnam War).
(P.S. Re: Buffy. The point of that little scene wasn't Gile's cuteness, but Cordellia slapping him. Of course he's adorable. He's Christopher Walken's non-evil twin. But can you slap him around like that? ["What? I can't have layers?" -- Cordellia's most famous line ever.] THAT is the question.)
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
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