We are dealing here with a kind of slave consciousness, running all the way up to the slaves who work in glass office towers -- a consciousness made up of fear and conformity and distracted by material goods and entertainment.
I know many people in that 26% who want the war in Iraq to end, and almost all of them want it to end because they don't want their way of life to change.
Very few of them see the system that produced the war as a system that oppresses them. That is the bleak fact that faces activism -- not some defeatist trait in the personality of the left.
BobW --- "Mr. WD" <mister.wd at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/13/07, bitch at pulpculture.org
> <bitch at pulpculture.org> wrote:
>
> > The reason why building the movement in the way
> Carrol says matters is that
> > people will become creative and noble, not that
> they aren't already, when
> > their circumstances and the social milieu within
> which they work together
> > with others on a common goal demands it of them.
> When they feel they can no
> > longer situation as it is. It's happened to me a
> couple of times. I've
> > watched it happen. People step up to the plate
> when it matters and trying
> > to force the situation -- and berating people for
> not being noble and
> > risk-taking enough now -- seems pointless. It
> requires a level of
> > judgmental bullying that I find problematic,
> because the people attracted
> > to such moralizing, humilation inducing language
> too often do so because
> > they're attracted in a narcissistic way. Because
> they want a leader to tell
> > them who they are and what they ought to do.
> Because they too willing give
> > up themselves in order to become something someone
> or group exhorted them
> > into being. It seems to me a very weak and tenuous
> relationship to a social
> > movement and, thus, a recipe for failure.
> >
> > I'm re-reading Hirschorn's The Workplace Within
> and a lot of the stuff he
> > talks about in there can be applied -- hence the
> psychoanalytic language.....
> >
> > The examples Doug provided in response to WD are
> examples I think are good
> > ones: the type of movement building, community
> education, and solidarity
> > building activities that can sustain and slowly
> grow a movement.
>
> I don't think we disagree about all that much. I
> agree that movement
> building takes time, and that a strong movement
> needs a strong social,
> cultural and intellectual infrastructure to survive
> and thrive. I
> also agree that it's unproductive to berate folks
> about their
> unwillingness to take risks, engage in noble bad
> assery, and so forth.
>
> The thing is, if you only focus on growth and
> movement building, you
> lose sight of the entire purpose of the movement,
> which is action
> (informed by theory). You say -- without any
> qualification -- we
> don't have the numbers. But the latest WSJ poll
> says 26% of Americans
> are in favor of immediate withdrawal and a lot more
> are in favor of
> withdrawal relatively soon. Of course it would be
> better to have
> higher numbers, but don't you find those at all
> encouraging? Can't
> you do something huge and bad ass with a quarter of
> the population on
> your side? And if these numbers aren't good enough
> to get you to
> agitate for a major escalation of tactics, what
> numbers will be?
>
> There's something deeply disempowering and
> spirit-crushing about late
> capitalist society, as evidenced by the popularity
> of things that
> promise people control over their lives: weight loss
> products, Oprah's
> The Secret, evangelical Christianity (you can't
> change the world, but
> you can change yourself by abstaining from _____)
> and so on.
>
> My hypothesis is that people are eager for a way to
> wield genuine
> power, and that civil disobedience is one of those
> ways: Civil
> disobedience, by its nature involves a disruption in
> the ordinary
> course of life -- and isn't that what people really
> want? (why are
> disaster movies are so popular?) If we can pull off
> something really
> big (simultaneous take-overs at 50 recruiting
> offices in one day,
> having a sit-in on the floor of the state
> legislature building in
> ____, stopping a few shifts of production at X
> weapon manufacturing
> plant...) that has the potential to light a fire
> under people's asses
> (hell, smaller actions like Rosa Parks' or the
> Woolworth's lunch
> counter sit-in in Greensboro accomplished a lot).
> And I would argue
> that even brainstorming about potential actions can
> be empowering --
> it reveals the gaps in social control mechanisms.
>
> And let's not forget that the need for action is
> urgent _today_. My
> opinion is that, for the American left to become a
> really formidable
> force, we ultimately need a movement that bears a
> structural
> resemblance to the Evangelical movement: we need day
> care centers,
> summer camps, neighborhood places where people can
> meet, social
> gatherings, concerts, etc. But at best, it will
> take a generation to
> build this. But we cannot afford to wait a
> generation. What're we
> going to do in the next six months?
>
> -WD
> __________________________
> thevanitywebsite.blogspot.com
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