...And the last period which could be called revolutionary in the U.S. (and I'd argue a cultural revolution did occur) coincided with a peak in wages, with people's 'most dire material needs' being met as they haven't been before or since. I won't argue one caused the other, but one certainly didn't block the other.'' Jenny Brown
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I agree most radicalized views are developed socially...precisely because the grip of material conditions is not bad enough and therefore not sufficient to motivate people to change. In other words people are radicalized by being socialized into a particular ideological view of themselves and the world, in effect friendly persuasion.
By the way the `coercion' I had in mind wasn't violence and brutality, although those are exercised out of view, but various carrot-stick channeling and incentive methods that usually depend on money and law---the socially acceptable forms of violence and brutality.
In any event, I also agree that the 60s-70s was a period of relatively better economic distribution, and yet the period did see much more effective movements for reform. However, notice that very few of those reform movements went directly after the economic system itself. On the other hand, economics isn't the only form that self-interest can take. So for example the civil rights movements were motivated by all the primarily political and social effects of segregation and discrimination, even if these were understood as resulting in mass economic depredations. Remember too, the War on Poverty programs were very carefully tailored to avoid outright attacks on the corporate system itself and instead focused primarily on public institutions like schools and public accommodations like transportation and housing, etc. Even the early employment discrimination legislation was primarily focused on public sector jobs in publicly funded institutions. The old line lefties (and some of the more radical newbies) were adamant about these dodges of economic issues and tried to convince many involved in these movement they were being co-opted and duped. In retrospect, I think they were right.
The anti-war movements were another example of self-interest that wasn't of an economic type. Getting out of the draft might have been easier for the economically privileged, but the draft itself was a relentless equal opportunity employer.
Although it probably sounds like I am arguing against my previous position, I don't think so. The underlying point is you still have to appropriate or appraise or become responsible for the conditions of your life in order to change them. Responsible here doesn't mean you created the conditions. The concept is from Sartre. It means you have to embrace the conditions of your life, see them, understand that they have defined you, good, bad, and ugly---they have objectified you. I think it's the first step. So the radical psycho-social function of oppressive conditions economic or otherwise is the focusing agent, an ever present reminder, in effect the objectifying agency. So, in that sense you have to become responsible for the socio-economic conditions you inhabit in order to change them.
Returning to the function of the illusions of the matrix, or the mythological envelop, or the socio-cultural ideological operations of capital and empire, whatever you want to call this totality---its function is to mediate the psycho-social focusing power of material conditions and subvert their awareness giving properties. This mediation takes all kinds of forms that deform, deflect and channel or substitute, swindle and beguile. And I think this subversion is sufficiently compelling to thwart almost all but the most severe and egregious oppressions---and even these are transformed in the eyes of most onlookers into something other than what they in fact are.
Chuck Grimes