Liberal agony - how to have my cake and eat it too. Re: [lbo-talk] IsThere Still a Jewish Question? by Ellen Willis

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Nov 12 05:47:46 PST 2006


On Nov 12, 2006, at 1:35 AM, utopia1 at attglobal.net wrote:


> This is a very pomo list. You post something of substance, and Doug
> and
> others reply to their own personal narrative, at many removes from the
> posting that they claim to be replying to.

You just love that epithet, "pomo," don't you? Last July, when you circulated your Weather Underground piece, you may remember we had an exchange on your use of the word to describe the revived organization. When I asked you what you meant by it, you complained I was demanding you undertake a "research project." As far as I can tell, you use it when something annoys you.


> In this case, what I offered seems kind of obvious and somewhat
> comical;
> here's an ardent leftist, Palmer, who is attacking Ellen Willis,
> saying she
> needs to see a shrink and to stop "laying her trip on the Left,"
> and he is
> clearly unaware that she is dead.

I don't know Steve Palmer, and you're leaping to a lot of conclusions about the central tendencies of a group of people based on his post. Is it pomo to object to generalizing grandly when n = 1?


> All this is suggestive of a larger point that I have been making
> -- the
> distance from feminist reality of people like Palmer and many
> others on this
> list. I mean, who would have to die for Palmer to notice it? We
> could have
> an experiment: suppose, I hope not, Gloria Steinem died: how long
> would
> it take for Palmer to get the news? And how would this compare with
> the
> rapidity that he learned of the death of some minor Marxist?
>
> So, Doug, instead of addressing your own personal narrative -- parking
> charges for high horses etc. , "discourse," etc. -- do you have
> anything to
> say about the above substance? I thought you were into social science.

This is really bizarre. "Many others on this list"? Steve Palmer can account for himself, but several feminists, some of them even female, have taken exception to your rants. I consider myself a feminist, and think you're delusional. We've paid Ellen Willis the compliment of taking her seriously, and arguing with her where we disagreed, which is how she would have wanted it, I think. You've been unable to produce all those reams of outside feminist disapproval you promised the other day. I suspect they don't exist.

And the high horse remark was substantial. Several times you've gone into high dudgeon mode, finding all manner of offense against decency and principle when people say things you don't like. It's self- righteous, preachy, and completely unproductive.

Doug



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