[lbo-talk] pomo cultural lefties who valorize the poor

[snitsnat]

At 01:11 PM 4/28/2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>Michael Dawson wrote:
>
>>My only point is that working class people are full citizens of a democracy
>>that is working very, very poorly.  They should stand up and fix it, and
>>those of us who believe that should avoid calling them names for their
>>"instrumentality" but also not give them a pass from honest analysis.
>
>Rather than "blaming" the masses, I think the uncomfortable truth some of 
>us are dancing around is that the masses are more or less content with 
>things as they are, and neither as dissatisfied nor as rebellious as we'd 
>like. Or if not content, resigned to. We can make a long list of things 
>that are wrong with our democracy, but though lots of us imagine there are 
>great wellsprings of populist sentiment brewing under the surface that 
>just the right political appeal could unleash, that just may not be the case.
>
>Doug

The question is: you have this pessimistic view, what do you do? Lenin took 
one path. The Frankfurt School proposed a couple of others. Etc.

You are fond of Catherine's, "I'm not done with a paper until I have the 
questions to ask my answers."  IT appears that you are asking questions 
without making manifest your answers. Perhaps if you started with the 
answer you yourself must have (however tentative you might be about that) 
and then asked your own questions of your own answers and had a 
conversation about these things that way.

Kelley