The Friendly Facism of Disney Re: [lbo-talk] AmeriLand (was Classless Society)

[Jerry Monaco]

Yes, there was irony, but also the usual dismissal of anything that might
lead to a hopeful alternative to class dominance and participatory
democracy.  Reading Woj's communications and one sees a deep cynicism, the
conflation of right-wing utopias with ideas that people might actually get
together and change their lives. Thus he conflates such notions as social
dominance, cultural hierarchy,  class division and oppression, cognitive
modules and categorical thinking processes, taxonomic divisions, and logical
levels, in a farrago of category mistakes.   He says he believes that
because our minds make patterns in certain ways that can be defined as
hierarchical therefore class oppression are inevitable.  He doesn't even
stop and think that the word hierarchy has one meaning in logic and another
meaning when we are talking about culture and society.  He doesn't stop to
think that a hierarchy, for example among students in eighth grade or a band
of bonobos, is not the same as oppression or the same as class division. It
is not clear thinking.  It is simply sniping. These kind of category
mistakes proliferate in Woj's writing even when used with ironic purpose.
It seems to me that it is a tribute to the success of the dominant ideology
that  people actually do conflate the "socialism for a day" of corporate
controlled Disneyworld, with an idea that was meant to signify people taking
control of their lives by bringing the form and substance of democracy into
the workplace and business institutions.  Whether this can be done or not is
a difficult question that only can be answered through actual practice.

On 4/21/06, Colin Brace <cb at lim.nl> wrote:
>
> On 4/21/06, Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If your idea of socialism is fascist modernism consciously planned and
> > controlled by corporations to take control of your daily life then
> > Disneyworld is "socialist".
>
> [...]
>
> Although Wojtek didn't lace his comment with smilies, I thought I
> detected a faint whiff of irony...
>
> --
>   Colin Brace
>   Amsterdam
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

--
Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is
Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture
http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/

His fiction, poetry, weblog is
Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/

Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing
http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/
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