The issue, as Doug pointed out, is that some people dismiss these approaches out of hand, often because they simply don't understand them or aren't familiar with the scholarship. They assume that people are looking at psychic structures in the absence of an examination of larger social structures -- groups, institution, large-scale social processes. This isn't the case, however, and these authors, as well as philosophers of social science who engage in meta-analyses of their efforts (Roy Bhaskar comes to mind), make a compelling case as to the relationship between individual and society. The entire discipline of sociology, for instance, demands that its practitioner take a stand on that question. There are different answers, and some of them are more in line with a Marxist analysis than not.
Whether you find them compelling or not is another question, but you would need to undermine them, not by dismissing them out of hand because you are unfamiliar with the body of literature, but by pointing to evidence and other forms of rational critique which actually addresses the arguments in their entirety.
Finally, there is the practical problem of a rightwing that doesn't play by these rules. The question then is, should we be purists and refuse to play their game? I'm inclined to that answer, myself. But, then, I think we obviously need education -- like the media analysis Wiki Chuck0 and I once discussed. Which would be a fart in a hurricane, really, but it's still a way of building solidarity and creating the social movement infrastructure we'll need as we make progress.
We'd need educative spaces because most people don't recognize logical fallacy. Partly, that's because they don't know the difference between scholarship on the topic I mention above and the pseudo-scholarship that's popularized by the likes of John "men are from mars, women from venus" Gray. Partly, that's because they don't know what consistutes argument that doesn't rely on logical fallacy. Most people think it's perfectly reasonable to look for hypocrisy in order to dismiss someon's claims.
And, as Michael Pollak pointed out wrt Moore's F911, Moore successfully turned the Busheviks weapons against them. Do we go with what works? If you disagree -- as I do sometimes-- then you kind of have to demonstrate why it doesn't work in the long run or demonstrate how it's damanging to our cause in the long run. Or, simply appeal to some non-consequentialist argument to avoid that ethical quagmire -- which only leads to its own difficulties. But, of course, there's the pragmatists' attempts to obviate the problem.... Or, the pomos. And lord knows, they are anathema.
Kelley
At 12:45 PM 2/20/2005, amadeus amadeus wrote:
>It is important to have as much *objective* knowledge
>of the source of a claim as possible. This, imo, falls
>well within the realm of rational (and reasonable)
>debate. For instance, we can objectively refute the
>validity of Bush's claims about Social Security a) on
>the strict basis of his "facts", and then support that
>argument b) on the basis of his connections to
>industry and interests, which are well-documented. In
>a class society, the capitalist's material interests
>can be empirically determined. The ways capitalists
>behave in the political arena aren't modus operandi,
>they're what capitalists do to ensure the survival of
>their class base. To relegate this sort of activity to
>behavior phenomena or motives, is to confine the
>debate to the realm of individual agency and
>moralistic swagger.
>
>What bugs me, to further the example, is when folks
>begin to make speculative, subjective, often
>pseudo-psychoanalytic claims about Bush to make
>arguments against his policies, e.g., he's a dummy who
>uses words funny, he puts his faith in the Lord, he's
>greedy and doesn't care about people, he's an
>alcoholic and therefore fiscally irresponsible, he
>wants to "avenge" his father in Iraq, etc. Whenever
>mainstream liberals do this they are seized on by
>their conservative counterparts, and responded to with
>even worse demagoguery. The former then shrink back
>into their corner, and we've entirely forgotten about
>what Social Security is.
>
>--adx
>
>
>=====
>"Mary Poppins is alive and well in Argentina, she sends her regards."
>- Rod McKuen, The Mud Kids
>
>
>
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