On Behalf Of Peter K.
it is sad to have a disagreement with a good
> >activist who has put in a lot of work, but the issue calls for a clear
> >political choice, and my choice is No to "humanitarian" imperialism).
>
> I'd guess that Carrol would agree with me that "sad" might not be the
> appropriate word here, but it's possible that Yoshie is correct on her
> position and that the activist is wrong which would mean that Carrol's and
> Nathan's rhetorical, um, maneuver of browbeating opponents of their
> positions by resorting to the line that activists know best needs to be
> taken with a grain of salt.
It is worth pondering this supposed shared rhetoric by Carrol and I, since we agree on almost nothing on these lists (except on the desirability of the elimination of capitalist power, the end of white supremacy, the promotion of gender equality and the expansion of fundamental justice, but those are minor agreements in the context of the issues normally calling for excommunication on these lists.)
Speaking for myself at least (Carrol can speak for himself), I have always said that activists can be as wrong as wrong can be, an obvious truth since activists often end up on opposing sides of various issues.
However, I have argued that those not involved in direct activism should watch themselves before accusing such activists of acting in bad faith or for venal reasons. Their are problems of strategy and tactics that those activists face that folks on this list have neither enough sympathy for nor real knowledge about. I am always astonished that folks on this list that see infinite complexities in cultural analysis or economic extrapolations treat tactics as this simplistic area of knowledge, where the most rah-rah militant position is always the correct position. Just the downgrading of such tactical knowledge -- the bread-and-butter of such activists -- is a sign of intellectual disrepect.
In theory, I am not even against "lines" (don't scab is an obvious one in unions), but they are only valid when empirically tested through real activist struggle. A political line developed in the abstract of theory may be poison when applied in real political situations. Aside from its truth value (always open to debate), even when correct, it may fracture alliances, alienate friends and be counter-productive. Almost by definition, imposing a line on an organization where there is serious disagreement among members (as in this Solidarity case) is always approached with caution. The empirical question is always if the loss in membership or alienation will be compensated for in cohesive action and projection of organizational power. Many left organizations have so prized agreement that they have shrunk their organizations down to irrelevancy. Or maintained a certain degree of strength but alienated allies who would have continued to work with them with a more inclusive respect for differing opinions.
Then again (not to slant the discussion totally to inclusion), many single-issue groups have done tremendously well with empirically hard lines where no compromise on their key points have been acceptable. They lose allies but gain clarity.
The point is that folks on this list are so impressed with theoretical truth that they often have little respect for the tactical use of those truths, which are not always so obviously applied. Solidarity is hardly the most flexible organization theoretically, but the flexibility on principles they maintain is based on hard empirical experience in seeing the losses from hard sectarian lines that fractured left organizations in the 1970s.
It is that empirical knowledge of how to tactically deal with conflicting beliefs, not a greater degree of theoretical correctness, where I argue activists usually outshine most non-activist left intellectuals.
-- Nathan Newman