-----Original Message----- From: Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com>
this isn't about preparing for finals -- this is about
>building political platforms. What matters isn't proving your point.
>What matters is inspiring people and getting them to follow you.
this is really funny, Carl. you get all your lines from Amway conventions?
if I was reading this debate many lives ago, thinking about whether or not I should throw my lot in with the ratbag provocateurs and spend my time doing mail-outs, putting up posters, organising meetings, all the stuff that day after day can become a real drag if you actually don't know why it is you're doing these things, then I'd be tempted to think that these characters were just another cult of come obscurantist sort, and all they wanted me for was my body. I'd also say: well, fuck this, I'm off to the pub.
now, many lives later, I'm thinking that those who keep going on about activism must have seriously forgotten what activism is. it isn't enforced stupidity, unless you want mindless activists who wouldn't know how to convince anyone else of why such-and-such might be important, and couldn't sit down and think up a slogan or a chant - all of which are informed by theory and analysis and don't get handed down from the gods. and, more importantly, activism does not stop or is threatened because someone asks 'why'. I'd say, those people who never ask why are always the first to drop out, or at least the most useless activists I've ever known. if someone does not spend time grappling with their uncertainties, leaving aside the question of where you do this, where you ask those questions (if this is a left list, then what is the damage?), then they can hardly be called committed. if they don't spend time grappling with any of this stuff, then I can only think the stakes for them are other than the manifest issues involved.
no wonder the right is doing so well on abortion stuff. Alex asks a question, and only Doug, Kelley, Charles (from memory, there may have been others) seem to hear the question for what it was. (ken and Yoshie pronounce on the need for giving Alex a good thrashing, or at least insisting that he shut up, because the question itself constitutes sexism. personally, I'm more paranoid of the guys who never ask. I want their commitment, not their pain avoidance. like Zizek said, the problem with the Slovenian govt. was not that they believed in marx or communism, but that cynical belief was actually a condition of being regarded as on-side. here too, the danger is perceived as someone who asks for reasons, who wants a reason to believe and not to simply perform his belief cynically, as he is being asked to do. sing the red flag (or recite the magna carta!) a few times Alex, and we'll all think you're on the team. see how easy it is to avoid all this trouble and humiliation. this is your lesson for today.
angela