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.
<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 4/21/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Colin Brace</b> <<a href="mailto:cb@lim.nl">cb@lim.nl</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 4/21/06, Jerry Monaco <<a href="mailto:monacojerry@gmail.com">monacojerry@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>> If your idea of socialism is fascist modernism consciously planned and<br>> controlled by corporations to take control of your daily life then
<br>> Disneyworld is "socialist".<br><br>[...]<br><br>Although Wojtek didn't lace his comment with smilies, I thought I<br>detected a faint whiff of irony...<br><br>--<br> Colin Brace<br> Amsterdam<br><br>___________________________________
<br><a href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is
<br>Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture<br><a href="http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/">http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/</a> <br><br>His fiction, poetry, weblog is<br>Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories
<br><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/">http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/</a> <br><br>Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing<br><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/">
http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/</a>