This seems to be the model Wojtek and Kelley have in mind in their a priori condemnation of anyone's attempting to speak for the workers. ===========================================
if you'd take a look at the book i cited and wojtek referenced approvingly you might realize that this is NOT what we had in mind. Tourraine worked with Solidarity. he wrote two books _Solidarity_ and _Anti Nuclear Protest_
i have worked in several different struggles: labor organizing in three diff union struggles and the fight for plant closing legislation, antiwar, anti-nuke dump citing, and abortion rts activism. in turn, i have worked as a researcher trying to apply and develop, to some extent, tourraine's work outside of labor organizing. my argument has been that we can draw on social research and we can draw on our experiences and those we know to sort through these issues. my argument is that we need to build these truths in collaboration with working people in our roles as intellectuals and activists
i have said over and over again that we need to do precisely what marx suggested in his letter to arnold ruge: start where people are, where ever they seem to think something matters, as wrong as they might be, and then work with them to explore, press, and push the contradictions as i noted to you off list. i've typed this same thing to this list three times, directly to you, in lower case and using upper case in all the right places, and you still have never addressed it, so here it is again.
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 19:32:25 -0400 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: kelley <oudies at flash.net> Subject: Re: culture & poverty/ culture $ wealth
to tie this into a thread of a couple of weeks ago about how 'we' are supposed to get workers to become more class conscious: studies like this are helpful in revealing this critical fractures, fissures, and gaps in the ideological superstructure that reveal themselves in the practices that people engage in everyday of their lives. these fractures are what need to be exploited. this is why i quoted, a couple of month's ago, marx's letter to arnold ruge in which he argues that critical theory and practices should engage in "the self-clarification [critical philosophy (theory)] of the struggles and wishes of the age". it seems to me that here, were people are already engaged or, at least, where they are already demonstrating some sort of critical consciousness--whether of the media, workplace practices, politics as usual, etc, where we ought to begin. in other words, maybe we can't expect to get folks to start knocking on doors getting signatures for petitions and the like. but we can start from where folks already do other kinds of critical work, as unimportant as that might seem to 'us'.
so, i'll quote marx to ruge again:
For even though the question "where from" presents no problems, the question "where to?" is a rich source of confusion....If we have no business with the construction of the future or with organizing it...there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order...
[W]e wish to influence our contemporaries [earlier he notes the importance of recognizing particular historical exigencies within each country that critical theory must attend to and take seriously]...The problem is how best to achieve this. In this context there are two incontestable facts. Both religion and politics are matters of the first importance in contemporary Germany. Our task must be to latch onto these as they are and not to oppose them with any ready-made system such as the _Voyage en Icarie_. [...] Just as religion [by which marx means theory, philosophy] is the table of contents of the theoretical struggles of mankind, so the political state enumerates its practical struggles. Thus the particular form and nature of the political state contains all social struggles, needs and truths within itself. It is therefore anything but beneath its dignity to make even the most specialized political problem--such as the distinction between the representative system and the Estates system--into an object of its criticism. For this problem only expresses at the political level the distinction between the rule of man and the rule of private property. Hence the critic must concern himself with these political questions [which the crude socialists find beneath their dignity]. By demonstrating the superiority of the representative system over the Estates system he will interest a great party in practice. By raising the representative system from its political form to a general one...he will force this party to transcend itself--for its victory is also its defeat.
Nothing prevents us...from taking sides in politics, i.e. from entering into real struggles and identifying ourselves with them. This does not mean that we shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: Here is the truth, on your knees before it...We shall not say: Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you with the true campaign-slogans. Instead we shall show the world why it is struggling.... [...] Our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form. It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality. It will then become plain that our task is not to draw a sharp mental line between past and future but to complete the thought of the past. Lastly, it will become plain that mankind will not begin any new work, but will consciously bring about the completion of its old work.
from Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks--a reply to Ruge's claims about the futility of engaging in actually existing political struggles.