> I don't think workers are as dumb as people make them out to be. Nor
> did I think either Yoshie or Trotsky were planning the next step in
> the control of production. The point of the Trotsky quote, which
> seems 100% right to me, is that the U.S. working class has neither
> the institutions nor the analysis to fit their own situation into a
> larger picture. Americans tend to blame themselves for their plight,
> or a very specific situation. So it's "write a better resume" or
> "keep this plant open!" rather than analyzing the big picture of a
> capitalist economy.
No argument here -- though I don't hear Trotsky's name being bandied about the timeclock very often.
> I don't have any doubt that one could make such a radical analysis
> comprehensible and even moving to a working class audience. There's a
> certain kind of left thinking that holds that to be authentically
> working class you have to be kind of crude and stupid; that seems to
> be the Michael Moore line. Yeah, the ruling class thinks of the w.c.
> that way - and does its best to make the w.c. conform to the dumb,
> passive ideal - but I don't see why we should play along.
One's argument doesn't have to conform to the "dumb, passive ideal." What's wrong with clear sentences and plainly-expressed concepts? Yoshie seems astonished that I used the term "jargon," because, in her world, many of the things she writes or quotes from are perfectly understood. She's speaks that language. The majority of us do not. Didn't Malcolm X, before he spoke, say that he wanted to express himself in a language that everyone could easily understand? That to me is radical.
When I first began speaking for FAIR, I was awash in Chomsky- and Schiller-speak. I tried to intellectualize every idea I presented, and I remember Jeff Cohen telling me to simplify it. I ignored him. I went on John McLaughlin's CNBC show and debated Jude Wanniski. I took apart one of his attacks ("conspiracy theorist" he called me), but did so through jargon so removed from the average person that I wince whenever I watch that video now. Jeff was right.
Be intelligent, be forceful, but above all, be clear.
DP