> "In order to provide those benefits, any successful movement will
> need to provide its members considerably more pleasure than pain.
> One of the main reasons that the left is so dull is its emphasis on
> self-sacrifice to the exclusion of pleasure, and its use of guilt as a
> means of manipulation; many leftist groups are outright puritanical,
> and even the most enlightened usually treat pleasure as something
> frivolous, as something unworthy of attention. As a result,
> participation in most political groups is about as enjoyable as a visit
> to the dentist. The results of this are a high dropout rate and the
> continued participation of only the most self-sacrificing members -
> who, of course, feel justfiied in demanding (or at least expecting)
> similar self-sacrifice from everyone else, which contributes to the
> high dropout rate, and so on."
>
> - from A Future Worth Living: Thoughts on Getting There (See Sharp
> Press, Tucson, AZ)
To paraphrase Tori Amos, you gotta have your suffering so you can have your cross.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> When you make jokes that editors of leftish publications delete, or
> make observations at a meeting that fellow attendees find sacrilegous,
> you don't feel a "reflexivity problem" so much as a sense of dispirited
> alienation.
Cliff Staples suggested:
> Doug, I carry a few dozen photocopies of Rorty's essay "Private Irony
> and Liberal Hope" (Chapter four in Contingency, Irony and Solidarity)
> around with me and pass them out whenever that happens. It leaves
> me slightly less dispirited and alienated.
Instead of carrying around copies of Richard Rorty's work, you should carry a sack of gelatin stigmatas.
-- Shane
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