[lbo-talk] Iran's Youth Movements

ravi ravi at platosbeard.org
Tue Jun 26 12:48:20 PDT 2007


On 26 Jun, 2007, at 11:37 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Ravi:
>
> Count me in the group with the time, patience and interest to read
> Yoshie's posts. After all, they are some of the most content-rich and
> invective free, and anything but one-way: I just did a count of my
>
> [WS:] I concur, except perhaps the one way part. Yoshie seems to
> be very
> stubborn insisting on her own point of view and reluctant to give
> any ground
> to her intellectuals opponents. In that respect she reminds me of
> my ex #2
> who had good politics, but she would dig in her heels to the point
> of being
> ridiculous even to the people who were generally on her side. And
> of course
> her self-loathing and prostrating herself before the "global South"
> undermines her credibility quite substantially and looks pretty much
> infantile - ...
>

Speaking of your ex (and not Yoshie, who is more articulate in defending herself), well perhaps it is a woman thing i.e., something that a woman is more (correctly) sensitive to: you perhaps don't see it but the above has more than a hint of condescension (also visible in your metaphors and terms -- "infantile"): 'I am on your side, so appreciate that and stop doing things I find ridiculous'. Digging our heels in is what we all do: on PEN-L Doug joked, at my comment that Yoshie prescribes the proper attitude towards Iran, that I had not made him aware sufficiently of the "Correct Line". But that's the thing, isn't it? The "Correct Line" is to say "The USG has historically abused the people of Iran and elsewhere, but the Iranian 'regime' is regressive, despicable, etc". Anything that doesn't tow this line is an act of stubborn digging in or "prostration" before the "global South". (What is it? The spectre of Stalin?!).

You are wrong, analytically speaking, Woj, in your references to "self-loathing", etc. These are sleights of argument employed by the right: "self-hating Jew". There is actual content to the argument (the injuries to the global South inflicted by the North) which deserves the respect of disagreement or refutation. You do not intend it at all (in my judgement), but other forms of response are no different than the old hand-waving about hysteria, etc.

--ravi



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