Calling the Other Out

kelley oudies at flash.net
Sun Feb 13 05:00:12 PST 2000



>> Do you really think the
>> world is a schoolroom? You might have done better on that
>> strike (even persuaded more people in the long run) had you spent
>> less time persuading people who disagreed with you and more
>> time mobilizing the sympathetic.
>
>In other words, find the vanishingly few people who think exactly like you
>do, tell them exactly what they already want to hear, and ignore everyone
>else. I had no idea organizing a revolution was so simple!

oh fuck it all to hell! what is with everyone?! carrol actually said something reasonably decent without calling ken some variation on 'you ignorant slut' and then this bullshit. i don't think that this is what carrol was saying. and you bet your sweet bippy that in any organizing i've ever done, the last people i worry about are the opposition. you go for the people in the middle who don't have much of an opinion or who aren't sure or who are sympathetic but who, say with regard to union organzing, think that unions have a bad rep. etc.

this is why i really detest the crap about enjoyment in denoucing the other argument. firstly, we all do it and every single response in this argument --from ken to doug to dennis to michael pollack to mine--is based on a fundamental enjoyment derived in mischaracterizing, misunderstanding, humiliating, shaming, comparing, calling out the Other, etc. so, if we all do it and if, indeed, as these theorists argue, it's *how* we come to have subjectivity and consciousness at all, then it's not saying much is it?

enjoyment: bitch and piss and moan about the people that drive you nuts on this list but keep coming back for more, drooling with delight when they say something you can have at. you have fun, right?

that's enjoyment, folks

kelley



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