>
>The OED failed me on "Line." There are nine full columns, and I don't
>have the patience to wade through them for illumination. The earliest
>use of "line" with which I am acquainted is Lenin's in WITBD, where it
>is an explicit image of the _bricklayer's line_: if people are
>cooperating on a task they need to coordinate their work. I guess the
>original geniuses on this list would only have contempt for the banal
>conformity of bricklayers.
>
>Anyhow, I'd rather be right than be bright.
>
>Carrol
solidarity and working together isn't conformity. presumably, if someone had a better way of doing the job and made a suggestion or complained because the way they'd been doing the work had been a hardship for her, then this would be appropriate i would think. but others might think that it's inappropriate, and i've certainly heard that from my colleagues at work. whenever i'd bitch about workplace practices that we should fight, people would say, "mine is not to wonder why; mine is but to do or die". now, that's a warped kind of cooperation to get the work done!
you have frequently said that there is no left in the sense of a coherent left.
i would argue that proclamations such as yoshie made--that we should not be ashamed to follow the party line--are incoherent insofar as there IS NO party line to follow. furthermore, i'd say it's the height of platonic idealism to think that you can CREATE a party line or a coherent left simply by getting everyone to toe the party line!
kelley