[lbo-talk] Re: postmodern prince

[kelley at pulpculture.org]

At 08:10 AM 12/2/03 -0800, joanna bujes wrote:
>Kelley writes:
>
>"The problem is that they also wanted this ideal form of political 
>dialogue to be more like sitting around "chatting" on someone's porch 
>while the fireflies light up the neighborhood. They described the ideal as 
>"chatting" so frequently that it was striking to listen to the interview 
>tapes and read the transcripts. And this, I think, is a remnant of a 
>society where, as I said, the goody-goody, I'm-Okay, You're-Okay, it's 
>just my opinion approach to dialogue is dominant. We're fighting that 
>every step of the way and it simply isn't something that individuals can 
>do much about. That doesn't mean we need to sit idly by and wait for the 
>revo, of course."
>
>I agree with everything in your post except this last para. Yes, didactic 
>writing, nothing wrong with that. Yes, poetic forms; nothing wrong with 
>that. Yes, writing is very hard -- that's ok.
>
>But as for the "chatting" -- I don't see it as a remnant of (I'm OK ...); 
>it's my ideal form of any dialog. I don't see chat as necessarily 
>superficial -- It can be impassioned, eloquent, intelligent...it's most of 
>what I do on this list, for better or for worse. It's a working through to 
>some kind of consensus or acknowledged truth; it's the refusal to cast 
>anything in stone.

yes, this is laudable. but it's not either/or. it's both. it has the 
potential to be a non-obvious ground of solidarity, what weberians will 
call value-rationality, as opposed to goal-oriented rationality. there's no 
goal toward which the chatting must move, but that chatting is valuable, in 
and of itself. that's the same idea behind what i called "talking back". no 
one believed that talking back, as citizens, was really going to change a 
politicians opinion, though they dared keep hoping. what they realized was 
that it was a social practice through which they built solidarity, felt 
powerful as a collective group of people on the move.

what I'm thinking of is the use of "it's just my opinion" not just to 
protect oneself from being enmeshed in a heated debate, it's an attempt to 
foreclose debate entirely. it's actually a tactic used to close down the 
debate and the person using it is trumping their interlocutor, or so they 
think. by claiming it's just my opinion, it is an attempt to claim privacy 
for something you're not really keeping private. instead, you keep whipping 
it out in public and stroking like mad and then getting upset when someone 
dares reach out and touch it. as soon as anyone touches it, Ooop! pull it 
back in and don the raincoat emblazoned with, "it's just my opinion."  it's 
the _just_ that is disingenuous.

it's used as a way of holding fast to your opinions without ever providing 
someone with reasons and subjecting those reasons to discussion -- or a chat :)

i think you're right that i should try to rescue a more positive meaning 
from the people i spoke with by revisiting my field notes, though.