Ashcroft & Race

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:06 PM 1/4/01 -0500, Gordon wrote:
>And speaking of high culture: if culture can be low or high,
>then it is being ordered by power and can never belong to the
>working class except where they are obedient, deferential
>recipients.  But if, instead of imparting the higher things,
>one could figure out how to get the peasants however crude
>to revolt -- leftishly, of course -- you'd have a revolution,
>nekulturnaya, perhaps, but a real revolution nevertheless.
>Want it?  Maybe Virgil is nicer.

I prefer Virgil to Pol Pot or Mao - populist revolutionary credentials of
the latter notwithstanding.

But the broader point is that by objective standards, bourgeoisie did
create a better society, a better culture, a better economy, and a better
life than any other social class.  The only problem is that it kept these
goodies for the members of its own class, instead of letting the workers
take advantage of them.  These goodies enjoyed only by the bourgeoisie was
the grand prize in the class struggle.  

My problem with the culturalist Left is that it lost its sight from that
prize, and then redefined the goals of the struggle in terms of populist
symbols and cultural identities.  It is like someone fighting a war, in the
middle of it decided to drop his/her weapon and play a game of chess
instead.  It is essentially the same as soliving one's life problems by
"finding Jesus," or for that matter, by getting high.

wojtek