Specters of the Left (was Re: Lefty despair)

s-t-t at juno.com s-t-t at juno.com
Wed Sep 25 13:44:19 PDT 2002


Kendall,

Hi. You wrote:


> Perhaps I'm just not radical or not marxist (or Leninist?) enough to
> think that all moral discourse is merely a tool in the furtherance
> of class domination, a view which I regret repeating because it must
> surely be a caricature of an actual position I've simply
> misunderstood.

The later, a caricature of a position that's been misunderstood. Stoicism was the wrong word, for which I apologize. Asceticism was what I should have used. It's not morality per se that I'm after here, but the self-denial, the individual purification acts that I was addressing. Heck, I don't think taking the moral stance of denouncing the atrocities of faith based death squads is "merely a tool in the furtherance of class domination".

As far as relevance to the rest of the thread, I think the policing of private pantries is only one of the more obnoxious outgrowths of a certain activist ideology that is not particularly progressive. It's the more cartoonish give away that somethin' ain't right. How does someone persuade folks their part of a movement for the expansion of human freedom when they call for the voluntary restriction of what freedoms, however mundane, that we do have?

Now, to the point about the conservatism of certain types of contemporary activism, I'll have to defer to Joel Schalit. Here is some of what he said in his essay "Seeing Red", in _Jerusalem Calling_:

"Another obvious example of this trend [of conservatism within activist perspectives] is when liberal political activists complain about multinational corporations ruining traditional, indigenous ways of life -- implying that foreigners would be better off if we let them remain close to nature, without toilets, air conditioning, or roads to drive on.

Such activists harp on the introduction of television and decadent western customs, the end of neo-feudal hunter-gather societies, and the decline of ancient wisdom cultures as a way of criticizing American economic imperialism. Though excited by the anti-capitalism demonstrations of the past several years, I have also found myself recoiling at the number of participants acting on neo-tribalist beliefs. By contrast, the New England Puritans of 1600s would have seemed genuinely progressive.

"Many leftists use language and concepts that equate traditional, pre-modern ways of life with wholeness in the same manner as conservatives. Furthermore, anti-capitalism is by no means the sole domain of the left. As addressed earlier, the right is at times equally critical of the effects that modern society has on conventional ways of life. Examining the language Americans employ, then, we get a sense of the overwhelming hegemony of conservative ideology on all sides of the political spectrum. We also attain a greater awareness of the transitional historical moment we're living in, with few remaining distinctions between left and right -- mostly just different gradations of similar conservative sentiments. Some are more extreme than others, but many are unified by a resistance to change."

Maybe there's a bit of hyperbole to the above, but it certainly isn't a hallucination.

-- Shane, not a Leninist

P.S. Remember what Slavoj Zizek said:

"More then ever, one should bear in mind Walter Benjamin's reminder that it is not enough to ask how a certain theory (or art) declares itself to stay with regard to social struggles - one should also ask how it effectively functions IN these very struggles."

________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list