Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 13:32:16 -0500 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
After sending my commentary on Peter's post I realized that the earlier post I referred to at the end had been on Pen-l rather than lbo. Because
I consider this perspective absolutely crucial to political thought I am
forwarding it to lbo.
I have been arguing on various lists for several years that the question
"how do we reach people" (and the assumption that this reaching will be in terms of the form and content of our message) is a false question.
Wojtek's post on social mobilization theory gives more body to that argument.
Carrol
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> I use the terms "consciousness" and "structure" in a somewhat technical
> sense - as they are used in social movement mobilization theory. . . .
> <snip>
>
> Later on, the theory got a bit more sophisticated and said that
> consciousness changes as a result of movement participation. That is, a
> person joined a movement without sharing its goals - simply because his
> girlfriend, a neighbor, or a friend was already involved in the movement
> and 'recruited' him (e.g. asked him to come to a meeting, etc.). As that
> person started to attend meetings, and then perhaps getting involved in
> various activities (tabling, demos, etc.) his consciousness started to
> change as a result of that, becoming more and more aligned with the
> movement's ideology. So after a while, the movement participants basically
> espoused that movement's ideology, but that congruence was a _result_ of
> their participation, and NOT the _cause_ of it.
>
> However, most idealistic philosophies put the "cart before the horse" and
> screw up the causal links, so ideas and consciousness become "causes" of
> material events.
This by itself goes far to justify the entire history of sociology. I have been arguing on several lists for around two years now that the question "How can the left reach people?" is a false question insofar as it refers to the content of left propaganda or the form of left rhetoric. We reach people by making our activity interesting. This can be sloganized as "We talk only to the converted" -- i.e. to those who have been drawn to us through the kind of connections Wojtek describes. What Marx says of commodity owners applies generally:
In their difficulties our commodity-owners think like Faust: "Im
Anfang war die That." They therefore acted and transacted before
they thought. Instinctively they conform to the laws imposed by
the nature of commodities.
*Cap. I* (Progress), p. 90
During periods of relative inactivity such as the last quarter of a century (since, roughly, the defeat of ERA) leftists begin to act like college professors (whether or not they are in fact college professors): that is, they assume that they have an audience or readership and they just need to find the right things to say or the right way to say it (Moore's idiocies about humor for example), and they begin to make slighting references to preaching to the choir -- failing to notice that there is never anyone else to preach to. In other words, no one who has not already joined us will even know that we are preaching.
(Incidentally, there is one and only one element of college teaching which relates directly to political practice: conferences in the professor's office initiated by the student for other than academic purposes. The lecture won't influence anybody whose practice and (non-academic) social activity does not predispose to respond, and what it will influence them to do in that case is seek further.)
This could be developed further by invoking the old distinction between agitation and propaganda. Written materials can only be propaganda: intended for those predisposed to agree but desiring deeper understanding. Reaching beyond that circle is strictly a matter of orality: talking to people with whom one is associated in daily activities of some sort. Agitation is always one or two relating to two or three or four -- never a matter of mass appeal.
I have of course, but deliberately, left one huge gap here: the of transition from a period of inactivity, such as the present, to a period of activity, when what we write suddenly makes a difference. How does such a transition occur? Answer: No one knows, ever has known, or ever will know. The classic illustration of this is the Peasant Movement in Hunan -- Mao's report on that was a report on a burst of activity which had occurred without any input from marxists at all. His thrust was that it was a more or less spontaneous movement to which communists had to attend.
Apropos here: Lenin's attack on spontaneism referred *only* to the development of *revolutionary* consciousness -- and in fact all of his writings assume that the contexts within which revolutionary consciousness is on the agenda occur in some more or less spontaneous fashion. We can't predict them, and theory cannot help us particularly to generate them.
Doug, if your request for a scenario is a request for a description of how such periods of activity can be brought about, there is no such thing. But neither is there any such thing as a scenario for the initiation of the process you describe. (Antiquarians of the future looking back on us may be able to answer such a question.)
Carrol