I usually disagree with Woj, but you have him wrong. He isn't saying there are lefties who say being poor is awesome. He's saying there are lefties who exempt the underlying population from historical materialist truth-telling.
Personally speaking, I believe in human agency. I think it's the only miracle, in fact. So, all people have it, despite the heavier weight of legitimate institutional excuses for underlying folks.
People like, for instance, Ward Churchill think in crude knee-jerk categories and refuse to preserve a full humanist view of those they claim to be working for. American Indians are not saints. They slaughtered each other and wrecked their environments just like every other human group up to now, with some important exceptions. But listening to Churchill (whom I still would bet is a 100% white guy), you would think that Euros imported something unknown with their coercion and violence.
American workers bear some responsibility, albeit small. But small is much different than zero.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of snitsnat
> Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 3:43 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] pomo cultural lefties who valorize the poor
>
>
>
> The point is the idealization of the actually existing working class
> on the left,
>
> idealization? Wojtek's saying that there's an identifiable cultural left
> TODAY that sits around and tells everyone how great it is to be working
> class, poor, redneck, whatever. he's saying that people TODAY do this.
>
> This isn't an example of people doing it today. So, if this is your only
> example of a tendency on the left, then I'm not buying it. I have no doubt
> that there are some people who do what you say, I've just never heard of
> any left writer who says what Wojtek says they say.
>
> Well, actually I can think of one: Spivak, when she criticized some folks
> in Post Colonial studies when she wrote about the sub-altern.
>
> So, which left writers, today, can I go read about. I'm heading to the
> library and I'd like to place them on interlibrary loan. I can sit here
> and
> OCR or transcribe one book after another that directly undermines Wojtek's
> claims. Why is it that, as you asked Wojtek, you can't name one writer on
> the left who valorizes the lives of the poor, rednecks, american indians,
> whoever Woj gets on about? If it's such a widewpread trend, then surely
> it's there.
>
>
> which Prof Cox thought unquantifiable or something, is
> actually something with a rich and controversial history. The essay
> specifically mentions American & Russian examples, and its
> pervasiveness in both Communist and populist ideologies, and its
> great potential appeal today. The author takes strong exception to
> this, and I mostly agree with the piece.
>
> If that's talking past, it's not me who's missing the target.
>
> Doug
>
> So when the reviewer wrote this, he was really saying that art like
> Conroy's was widewpread and advanced by Stanlinists:
>
> "Conroy wrote a second and considerably inferior novel, A World to Win,
> published in 1935. With the Communist Party's turn in 1934-35 towards the
> popular front, in which friendly relations with well-known liberal authors
> and critics sympathetic to the USSR such as Ernest Hemingway and Malcolm
> Cowley became paramount, the Stalinists junked their proletarian
> literature
> orientation. To a certain extent, figures like Conroy and others were
> shunted aside. "
>
> How is "junking" a "proletarian literature orientation" an example of
> widespread it is? To me, it read as if the guy was talking about minority
> views that never got off the ground.
>
>
>
>
> Kelley
>
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