Where to begin?
How about the beginning: It all began with Charles Brown writing
> Don't you think that
> cops as heroes/oppressors is Judy's subjection of us ?
> Television, which I call Big Brother that we watch instead
> of BB watching us, is a main site of subjection. Think of
> how many cop shows there are, where they make cops such
> lovable people ?
and me questioning this lumping together of all TV cop shows.
My point here is that it’s quite wrong to make generalizations about ALL cop shows which are only true about the major thrust of MOST of them. It misses all the interesting complexity and contradictions, as well as distracting attention from what really IS true about all of them. This seems elementary to me.
In the middle of his long response to me today, Charles says:
> Paul
> I'm not talking about "the television shows", I'm talking
> about SPECIFIC shows: "Homicide" and "Law & Order." Your
> statement is objectively false when applied to these two
> shows. BOTH of them have dealt with police violence &
> corruption, as well as with the repressive nature of
> the law itself.
>
> Charles: Those shows, if they are as you say, are exceptions.
> Most television shows are not subtle critiques of the police
> and the legal system.
In other words, Charles provisionally AGREES with me--they ARE exceptions, which was, after all, my point all along: “cop shows” are not a unitary thing.
Now, why and how can he go on and on attacking me with no idea in hell what I’m talking about, since he hasn’t seen the shows???
What I’m all het up about is the contempt for empirical evidence that this betrays, and which I think permeates a hell of a lot of left thought, much to our detriment.
Doug, of course, is a shining example to the contrary, and since we’re all here under his auspices, it seems like as good a place as any to make a stand on the side of evidence.
Now, Charles and I have both had our fun saying nasty little things about each others cognitive abilities and such, and it’s mighty tempting to continue a bit longer in that vein. But, as Dylan Thomas famously asked, “Is Your Ernie Really Necessary?” Alas, no.
Charles egreggiously misrepresents me numerous times and I could have my jollies having back at him, but for many of this list all this would amount to would be some kind of male identity performance. Yawn.
The deeper question is why does this happen?
Charles and I undoubtedly have lots of other points on which we agree, and we could have disagreed about this in a much more productive way, so why did this happen? Why does it (not ALWAYS, but SEEMINGLY) ALWAYS happen?
Part of it, I’m sure, is learned helplessness, and part of it is Freud’s “narcissism of small differences.” We can probably build quite a catalog of explanations. How do we understand their relative importance, and more importantly, how do we actually DO something about it? This seems to me part of what motivated Doug to start this list in the first place.
I do think that part of the problem HAS to trace back to the kinds of ideas we cultivate and how well they relate to material conditions.
Dipping back into the realm of content, I think that the kind of cultural studies developed in England--Stuart Hall & such--was much more respectful of the empirical, and that this had a number of beneficial effects, not just ideologically, but also in a day-to-day sense. Arguing over facts of necessity brings you together in a way, while arguing over theories CAN allow you--and in the wrong circumstances wildly over-reward you--to diverge.
I believe that this has been part of the influence of French Theory in America over the past 20 years or so, and I think it is pretty much of a Bad Thing. But I hardly think that that explains everything. It doesn’t even begin to explain “Why Theory?” In the long run, I think that Theory is just one manifestation of more fundamental underlying problems, and so I don’t want to reify and demonize it excessively. I’d like to cultivate a measured critique of it, even if it is much more fun to just satirize the hell out of it.
One thing’s for sure--there’s something very alluring about Theory. It’s mind candy for grad students. But that does not a balanced diet make. If old-fashioned Marxism seems dull as meat-and-potatoes, who can be surprised at the rise of Theory. But there are other options. Mike Davis shows that, and the recent attacks on him should tell us something. He’s seen as a threat. This should catch our attention. Lani Guinier is another figure under attack who should have caught our attention more. George Lakoff is another who hasn’t been attacked, but whose ideas about understanding and confronting rightwing moral discourse deserve our attention in the face of such attacks.
There are ways of thinking closely connected to the real world that can excite, can reach everyday people, and can challenge the smartest of us to get smarter in response, ways that, unlike Theory in general, are not so ignorant of history that they labor mightily to reinvent the wheel. (Someone smart recently pointed out that Butler just seems to be saying that people make history, but not under conditions of their own choosing.)
I don’t think that Theory is the goblin here. I think the tendency to undervalue history, undervalue stubborn, specific facts is far broader than that. I’m not talking about dull fact-mongering. I love the struggle to make facts stand forth in shining significance so that they may inspire the larger struggle.
So I talk about “Buffy, The Vampire Slayer” and “Law & Order” a whole lot more than I talk about television.
Blake spoke about “minute particulars” and he was onto something, believe you me.
Context is everything. It gives specific meaning. It allows us to know what we’re talking about. That grain of sand contains the universe in just this way...
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net -- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"