[lbo-talk] Frankfurt on the Hudson

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] What I had in mind was mainly Eastern European Jews.  Their somewhat
estranged status, culturally and economically, forced them to rely on their
own solidarity ties to protect themselves from outside threats or in class
struggle (cf the Bund
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Jewish_Labour_Union).  Of course that
does not mean that Jews did not grow their own capitalist class, nor that
solidarity ties did not exist in other Eastern European ethnic groups. So
while Jews were probably not much more collectivistic than certain other
ethnic groups in Europe,  my point was somewhat different - namely that some
ethnic groups in Europe (including Jews) were more collectivistic than other
groups (e.g. the English.)

As to your point that Zionism, esp. creation of the state of Israel was the
death knell of Jewish universal humanism - I agree.  Having an institutional
apparatus of coercion to protect is not very conducive for cultural
universalism, socialism and internationalism.

RE:
> Reading Adorno on modern music, or Benjamin on literature, it is
> momentarily possible to believe that criticism is a weapon of liberation,
> rather than simply a hermetic exercise for intellectuals.

[WS:] The culture of critical thought and negation of the status quo needs
to be taken in the proper historical context.  It made perfect sense as a
political strategy in the 19th century Europe with well entrenched
institutional vestiges of the "old order" and the bourogeoisie eager to fit
into the shoes of that order.

But today, it is a very different context, especially in the US.  It is the
progressives that want to build something positive (e.g. national health
care) and the reactionaries who oppose it.  Therefore, the culture of
negation and brick throwing is more appropriate for the right, while our is
the culture of cooperation and brick laying.

Wojtek

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 9:52 PM, Matthias Wasser
<matthias.wasser at gmail.com>wrote:


> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski
> <swsokolowski at yahoo.com>wrote:
> >
> > [WS:]  It is interesting to note how much socialism, an essentially
> > universalist and internationalist project, was nonetheless embedded in
> > national and ethnic cultures, especially those with collectivist bend -
> such
> > as Jewish, Eastern European, Ibero-American or French.  This embeddedness
> in
> > national and ethnic cultures already favorably predisposed to
> collectivist
> > approaches to social issues may explain why socialism has never been
> popular
> > in individualistic societies, such as the US or Anglo-Saxon countries in
> > general.
> >
> > Wojtek
>
>
> Was European Jewry particularly "collectivist?" The diaspora in Europe
> produced a lot of successful businessmen and capitalist (but, tellingly,
> not
> organic conservative) intellectuals (not to mention artists et cetera) too.
> If I had to guess I'd say that their unwilling estrangement from national
> culture allowed them to stand outside of it, identify *as* Universal
> Humanity rather than the particularistic irrational category of nation.
> N.B.
> that Israel, with similar genes and traditions, has produced rather less
> cultural/intellectual achievements than the diaspora, and that its
> founders'
> very enthusiastic embrace of socialism finds much less purchase in the
> current generation, even compared to other First World countries.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>