http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/world/digdocs/084030.htm IRA Q BOUGHT LETHAL GERMS IN U.S. BY JUDITH MILLER, STEPHEN ENGELBERG AND WILLIAM BROAD
Ian asked me to foward this: [Kel, from The Guardian] < http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,604964,00.html >
At 05:51 PM 12/2/01 -0500, Seth Ackerman wrote:
>Why is it a problem? This is my question.
as i pointed out initially, third world feminists critique the way that white westerners talk about "rescuing brown women from brown men". we were talking about that in our discussion of US "feminisms", the burka, etc. i referred you to that discussion. the argument is that westerners use their concern with "rescuing brown women from brown men" instrumentally, cynically in order to advance an ideological position. that's what political football means.
i assumed you were familiar with the discussion or would make yourself familiar with it. I also assumed that since you *appeared* sensitive to the issue of rape and gender oppression in third world countries, then you were already familiar with the topic and that i could bring up how sexist ideologies frame ordinary language, and how the assumptions implicit within language represent women's desire, and how those encourage the phenomenon of date rape.
Yoshie was asked a similar question: "I have to wonder why you would want to seek out more accurate pictures of Afghan women now as opposed to before, especially those that cast a light on the Taliban in such a way as to show that repression or restriction isn't what the opposition makes it out to be.
i think this discussion is open to the same criticism, particularly since you were using the Taliban only six short weeks ago to legitimate intervention:
"So far the bombing has been hitting mostly military targets, but if the U.S. keeps going with no results to show, we are likely to see some vindictive and reckless attacks on civilians. In the end, if the U.S. wants to replace the government of Afghanistan, it has to risk its own soldiers. If it's unwilling to do that, it has no right to risk the lives of the Afghan population. But as for the goal of toppling the Taliban, can we really be against it?" (Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0110/0896.html )
the discussion is cynical. it is especially cynical, as spivak notes, if, otherwise, those who are using their concern for rescuing brown women when they have little concern for gender issues otherwise, the discourse doesn't examine the west's role in creating the conditions under which brown women supposedly need to be rescued, when the voices of those brown women are erased (not listened to), and when the discourse obscures the west's own gender oppressive practices.
on the last, this is where the concern with relativism/lack of relativism comes in:
1. On the one hand, you want to make relativist claims about terrorism, you want to remind your interlocutor that the al-Q is no worse than the US. [1]
2. OTOH, you do not relativize with regard to gender oppression and rape in the US. the nature of your discourse means you cannot. were you to make a relativist claim about gender oppression that was similar to your relativist claim about terrorism, then you couldn't not judge the NA worse than the Taliban.
As third world feminists point out, the discourse makes barbarism and gender oppression the problem of those other "backward" countries, not a problem in our backyard.
none of this means you should not address the issue, as was stated. none of this means that you cannot make a judgement about other cultures or that their practices are immune from criticism. it does mean that more than a superficial gesture ought to be made to concerns for gender oppression. i happen to think it means that left men should distinguish themselves from right men by being much more concerned about gender oppression in general.
kelley
[1] perhaps you want to say that the US is a worse terrorist than the al-Q. this would be fine. but, your position on "what is to be done", the one you posted about six wks ago, suggests to me that you believe that something must be done about terrorism. perhaps you've changed your position that something must be done about the Taliban with more information about the NA. but that information was available then, with a quick glance at RAWA's web site. ------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Schaap wrote:
> From the vantage point of discourse ethics, I don't think you have
> redeemed a central validity claim <...>
ahh, so you haven't read habermas on feminist consciousness raising groups? well, there's the problem.
>And 'tis the better argument Habermas wishes to issue from discourse, not
>the more pointed personal attack. So I'll stick by my rubbish on that one.
western feminists have an argument, "the personal is political". the way we treat one another and talk about one another matters, it is political. chris's person wasn't under attack. his discourse was since he could have used different language to say what he meant, if what he meant was what you say it might have been. see more below.
>There is of course no such objective gauge.
in the first place, the lament under consideration is hardly rare in or society. i dare say it is ubiquitous. this past week alone, i saw three films where the girl's slowness was a problem (not the boy's fastness). that means, also, that comments about women being "slow" are not isolated events.
> The object of your castigation might actually have meant *too slow for
> his liking*
alt: "i'm dating a girl who finds me too fast for _her_ liking."
>or *slow compared to others in his experience*. Neither of which would
>necessarily indicate an appropriate or normalised anything.
alt: "i and the women i've dated so far must be faster than the girl i'm currently dating. i have to adjust."
excellent alternatives that went unsaid if that's what he meant. unsaid for a reason: because it is not normal to speak of it in those ways. it is not normal because of a system of gender oppression.
i know: yawn. i'd suggest that you start filtering anything with my email address and the word "feminist" in the body of the message.
kelley ------------------------------------------------------------------
At 06:50 PM 12/2/01 +1100, Rob Schaap wrote:
> >but i happen to think the attackers are nothing more than another group
> >that >wants to share the imperialist stage.
>
>I happen to think this, too.
>
> >i cannot support anything that encourages them to think that their action
> >was >appropriate and that their action got them what they want.
>
>If they're the pragmatic bastards we think they are, then the ends may
>well justify the means for them. As I can't believe they didn't expect
>Washington to react massively, killing lots of innocents and opening
>itself to opportunistic charges of anti-Islamismin the process, I am
>obliged to suspect they may well have achieved their ends (as it were).
from what i've read, the reasons for these kinds of attacks are much more complicated. it's probably a mistake to overlay Western assumptions and interpretations on their actions. and besides, it's all just silly, as you say, because we don't know who they are.
> >i cannot support policies that will help bring them to power.
>
>We don't know who they are, we don't know where they are, we don't know
>what their strategy is. Hard to know which policies will culminate in
>what, then.
then ALL your speculations above are silly aren't they, carrol? what's the point if your attitude to one of my comments is to dismiss the conclusion i reach because i don't know who they are? and yet you want to have your position (based on who you think they are) taken seriously.
honestly.
> >sheesh. i've expl'd this so many frickin times. i HAVE considered the
> >arguments you presented above. that's why i gave the answer above when i
> >gave it, twice on this damn list already! :)
>
>Funny, that's how I feel!
has anyone misrepresented you? have they accused of thinking something else? have they even asked you what your position was? i didn't address you in my post. my post was not addressing your positionl it was addressing those who refuse to make their position clear. furthermore, when i initially criticized the vanguardist position, it was not about their theory, but about their claim that their position was somehow better than doug's or the admin's because it somehow entails less violence, death and destruction. it does not. if one wants to believe that the end is near for empire, that this is just the beginning, fine. but one shouldn't claim that one's theoretical position is superior to that of others because it's less violent. it's not.
>So I'll stick by my rubbish on that one.
habermas's discussion of FCR has little to do with validity claims. IRRC, that would be because he wrote about CR before he advanced a theory of validity claims.
habermas talks about feminist consciousness raising as a parallel to the process of psychoanalysis for an individual. he's sees them as offering an exemplary method of _enlightenment_. he doesn't use it to discuss validity claims. there's so much more to habermas that that aspect of his theory.
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chris kromm: on posting: i'd suggest that we take advantage of majordomo's features to cut people off at three posts a day. this would put an end to overposting and it would eliminate the arbitrary dispensation of justice. there's no reason not to use technology to put an end to it; after all, technology was once used to put a lid on it. no reason not to take full advantage of it now. ------------------------------------------------------------------ At 12:02 PM 12/1/01 -0500, ravi wrote:
>>additionally i think these labels of "anti-americanism" etc that are
>>flying about on the list, to characterize certain positions that have
>>been identified as "pacifist" or "american leftist", are misdirected.
>>the reasons for focusing on the errors in govt action (or american
>>action) etc are,
who has called a pacifist anti-american?
as i understand it, the use of anti-americanism refers to what was called the "anti-imperialism of fools" it's not about pacifism. max's comments were directed specifically at the cynical _use_ of pacifist arguments in order to attack doug's and others' support for a limited police action. i think he made a mistake calling it selective pacifism, as i pointed out. and i think he's clarified to say that his main beef is with the use of pacifist arguments as a cover for a theoretical position that carrol, yoshie, lou, and, to some extent, rob have advanced.
i think everyone here respects those who take the pacifist position since those who do generally have such solid arguments (from a left perspective), that you can quarrel with them.
i've been meaning to write this for awhile, i think what you're seeing is an ancient, recurrent debate among _marxists_. not everyone here is a marxist; it's a leftist list. so, perhaps it's just too arcane if you're not acclimated to the typical disputes that animate that tradition of political thought. the article doug forwarded captured it: the anti-imperialism of fools.
as offensive as you and others found doug's question (i admit that i gasped when i read it), "why did you come to the US?", i suspect that it had a theoretical basis. it is rooted in an old debate as to whether capitalism has any progressive elements at all. it isn't about america, really, it's about your view of capitalism and social change.
I'm not familiar enough with Leninism to know for sure, but i think Lenin wanted to argue that capitalism could be "skipped", so feudal societies could go directly to socialism.
there was a great deal of debate about this around the time that Russia was experiencing uprising against the czar. some Marxists wanted to seize the moment and bring about socialism. others argued that Marx would reject such a vision. i happen to think that's a plausible argument.
Marx argued that there were "good" aspects of capitalism: it broke down tradition, for instance (the idiocy of rural life that Marx and Engels remark on in the Manifesto--i translate idiocy in the Greek sense; not as "town idiot"). like Adam Smith, he agreed that capitalist rationalization (the advanced, specialized division of labor) brought about the production of goods that could not be achieved under other economic conditions. [aside: if you attended to the discussion of class society that Brett initiated, then you'll recall that some were arguing that class societies always involve scarcity: they manufacture scarcity. so, there's another view that class society and private property is a net loss for human society]
others do not. if you read the Manifesto, you can see how Marx made claims about the "benefits" of capitalism. You can also see this in Critique of the Gotha programme.
but, as I said, iirc, leninists took issue with this position since it would have meant that the uprisings in russia would have to go through the capitalist stage first, rather than directly to socialism. That's why lenin developed a theory about the need for vanguard intellectuals.
so, lbo and other left lists i've been on have often been embroiled in this debate: does capitalism have any progressive elements at all, any good aspects.
it's really about capitalism, not american. but one can hardly call it the anti capitalism, since we're all for that. doug is suggesting, i think, that some people aren't being as objective as they could be. that is, instead of seeing that it's not about america, but about capitalism, they tend to equate america with so many "bad" things, that they can't imagine an american interest might be the theoretically right thing to do.
for instance, yoshie once said that it was our job to fight fascism. i asked her, what if these guys are fascists. she argued that they weren't a fascist _state_ yet. we only fight fascist _states_. my objection was this: what if not fighting them, and indeed, conceding and getting out of the ME means that these fascist groups take over in SA, AFg, and other ME states. It seems quite likely that this will happen, especially if their strategy was responsible for bringing about their desires: terrorism worked to get the US out of the ME. the people who accomplished this will be heroes. so, it's not clear to me that there is a clear line between fascist movement and fascist state. it is an arbitrary one that has no theoretical justificaiton that i can see. that is why max is finding the arguments of the vanguardists opportunistic. see also my post to rob, above. those who argue that this is just the beginning of the end of empire try to claim that their position entails less violence. i contend that it will not and that they should behonest about that.
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>Kelley said:
>
>>i learned it in fem. theory classes where we'd read the above and
>>white women would come to class and say, "well, you don't want us to >speak
>>for you, then WTF do you want?" and boy did we get an earful from the >women
>>of color in that classroom. at least, it felt like that.
>
>What did the women of colour say they wanted?
>
>Todd
i'd encourage you to read women of color on the topic themselves: hooks, anzaldua, luguones, spivak, suleri, mohanty, alcoff, all spring to mind really quickly. widely available, of ten on the web, but easily in a library.
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>Me at one point in my everchanging moods:
> >>Perhaps had something real been >>exchanged a long time ago, it would
> >>never have come to this.
>
>Kelley:
> >lacks the incisive analysis required of >leftist structural analyses of
>class.no >requirement that you address the issues >in those terms, of
>course.
>
>Given up on systematic, principled (two terms that send me to the door)
i didn't use those words. i talked about structural analyses of class which has nothing to do with whether you are systematic or principled.
>structural analyses of the social realm a long time ago. So thanks for not
>requiring it. Charles Jannuzi
then why are you on a left list and why are you advancing functionalism which explains social life in terms of a naturalized organicism which erases individual action?
kelley
------------------------------------------------------------------ luke:
>On the contrary: I'm open to the possibility that you may be a better
>judge than I of what's best for me. Whether that happens to be the case
>or not poses a rather uninteresting empirical question.
><...>
>
>The "uninteresting empirical question" is not in reference to the abstract
>matter of whether one agent can be a better judge of what's good for
>another person than the person herself (which I take to be obviously true,
>and I think most every parent on this list would agree),
horse hockey. even an 11 year old will be brought into a judge chambers in a custody case.
>but the application of the principle to my alleged sexism.
it is not uninteresting.
if you have the ability to speak up and argue about the issue, however, this makes you quite different from the afghan people in your discourse. they don't get a voice as to whether they get a "shot" gratuitous or not. they don't get to voice their opinion as to whether they are in need of enlightenment as to the need to be rescued so white ppl can make their lives better--not in your discussion.
they aren't children. nor are you.
kelley