and
>If the critique of imperialism comes from a class that just wants to set
>up its own despoterie, then it's not a red herring at all. It matters a
>lot, especially to the masses that are taken in by the fraud.
>Doug
marx's thesis on class revolutions (class warfare as the motor of history).
Ehrenreich's supposed lack of historical insight seems a bit misplaced. she set forth what she described as explanations for the hatred of women. ("On the analytical front"). here, she signalled that she was considering (three, iirc) theoretical explanations implicit in left academic discourse. one of these explanations is the Marxish class warfare model.
here, the argument goes, the bourgeois Enlightenment revolution drew on a universal discourse in order to advance the cause of a minority class by addressing "all people" "humanity" "man" and so forth. (this discourse is a priori about taking the masses in "by the fraud". but that's necessary, thinks Marx).
it seems to me that there was a variant of this thesis in the claim that anti-imperialist revolutions were necessarily progressive simply by virtue of a (vulgar) essentialist standpoint theory. from that perspective, Ehrenreich said, the Taliban are a departure if you are looking at social revolutions/movements from a leftish, marxish lens. within the framework of that model, the Taliban need to be explained, not so much because she is clueless about history, but precisely because she's speaking to and within a certain academic discourse. (but, she also makes clear that she's not siding with this thesis at all, anyway.)
the question for us is the question posed by Marx in his letter to Arnold Ruge: we should take a side on these practical, political matters. We should not be above them--the vulgar socialists thought they should be. If we think that the unversalizing discourse of enlightenment humanism is a Good Thing, despite it's failures in practice (and despite whatever cachet we give to some aspects of the poststructrualist critique of humanism), then why ignore the fact that the Taliban are reactionary? on this analysis, this has nothing to do with delegitimating the class origins of their social movement because they aren't authentic. they certainly are, if you accept the premises of this model of class revolution. rather, it has to do with seeing this social movement as reactionary for reason, actually, other than their "authenticity". on this model, a revolution against imperialism is always led by a small bourgeois class--and it can tend toward reactionary or progressive impulses. this, rather than assuming that they are necessarily progressive, as some marxist standpoint theories have too often assumed.
kelley