I agree it's healthy and I've heard it argued before AC brought it up. It's thinking dialectically and riding the libertarian wave of "inchoate working class energies." However, as Adolph Reed, Jr. among others have pointed out, it can become a waste of time and energy to try to change the minds of some of these folks, just as it can be a waste of time and energy to try to change the minds of some of Farrakahn's followers or anti-feminist men. Much of the dispute seems to be over how much effort people should put towards convincing those in the working class *with set views* to see things our way.
The same argument can be had over convincing certain elements of the ruling class to accept and back reforms inimical to their interests.
>in other words, i think the distrust of
>opportunism round here is synonymous with a
>distrust and distaste for the white working
>class at large--those (mostly urban) few who
>are still members of organized labor perhaps excepted. where exactly is the
>left to go,
>what is it to do, as long as this prejudice
>obtains? say a few more words about judith
>butler et al., i suppose.
What's ironic is that you are ascribing psychological reasons (distrust and distaste of the white working class) to group phenomena (the behaviour of certain leftists on the list and elsewhere), something Zizek and Butler focus on, for which they are bashed. Maybe if you read their work you could more easily and succinctly point out why it is that certain leftists distrust opportunism and then more easily convince them otherwise or else conclude it's a waste of time to even try and focus your energies on the rural working class.
Peter K.