[lbo-talk] "Theory's Empire," an anti-"Theory" anthology

[shag]

i guess i didn't explain myself. i know how orientalism is normally used. i 
have never heard it applied to maoist influences in feminism -- which, from 
my reading, came from the fact that a certain strand of the women's 
movement evolved out of leftist groups influenced by maoism. consciousness 
raising is typically thought to derive from the civil rights movement, 
specifically blacks' use of "rap sessions".

as to carrol's concern with whether or not consciousness raising was 
effective -- i'm not sure what he means but, if by effective we mean 
something like a powerful way to bring people into the movement, by all 
accounts it was extraordinarily effective -- from the subjective point of 
view of the women who've written about the experience. my own mother was 
influenced by it as the concept moved out into the wider world, she and her 
friends certainly had their views shaped in powerful ways that moved them 
to act -- e.g., my mom got involved in a battered women's shelter. sitting 
at her feet as a youngster, i overheard their CR discussions and it 
certainly influenced me in small ways that would come to matter later.

perhaps not effective in the way carrol means, consciousness raising was 
influential. it became a powerful force for the development of feminist 
theories, for instance -- which MacKinnon tried to articulate as a kind of 
method for feminist theoretical development. her work, and others, would so 
powerfully shape people involved in understanding how societies changed 
that it changed the face of  sociological and political theory -- of both 
what we call the metatheory sort (conventionally understood as ontology, 
epistemology, metaphysics) and the empirical theory sort (the kind of 
theory that uses the results of empirical studies (both postivist and 
interpretive) to generate theory.

the feminist movement, then, was seen for awhile as *the* example of the 
productive interrelationship between theory and political practice -- where 
the two mutually inform one another.

shag

At 07:16 PM 5/29/2008, Chris Doss wrote:


>Nothing specific. Just that Mao was Chinese (an Other,
>for most Westerners), and acquired a certain mystique
>because of that. It's Ancient Chinese Wisdom, you
>know. :)
>
>--- shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
>
> > question:
> >
> > I'm not sure how orientalism is being used here?
>
>Mataiotes mataioteton, eipen ho Ekklasiastes,
>mataiotes mataioteton, ta panta mataiotes.
>
>
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

http://cleandraws.com
Wear Clean Draws
('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)