This seems to me not only true, but obviously true. Is it really paranoid to assume that capitalism and male dominance and so on do shape not only our external circumstances, but our assumptions and the way we think and feel?
>In fact, no one really does
Again, seems obvious.
> except a few people who, for inexplicable reasons, come to see the light.
I would stick with the previous - no one really escapes. To keep the conversation simple, I'm going stick with capitalism, with I hope, the understanding that what I say can apply to male dominance, ablism , hetrosexism, racism and so forth. One is that ideas shaped by capitalism are not always pro-capitalist. Capitalism itself produces the critique of capitalism. We also have institutions that are shaped from by precapitalist and institutions rooted in alternate discourses. Any defense of a majority position to some extent assumes we know something the majority doesn't. Why for instance oppose a war even when the majority of people support if in some sense we don't think we know something the majority doesn't? But I agree with you it is important to distinguish this from "seeing the light". Anti-capitalists and feminists and opponents of empire (or imperialism or whatever you prefer to call it) are defending something that deserves defense, even when it is a minority opinion. But of course we are shaped our society, and that minority opinion is as much a product of capitalism as the position held by the most rightwing gliberarian. We have to believe that the description of reality from which are positions rise are in some sense truer that those of opposing movement, and those holding opposing analysis. I
>It is then their job to whip other people in to shape using polemic,
> moralizing, scolding, etc. and so forth. Everyone is duped by society and
> the only way to fight it is to cajole, persuade, moralize, scold, finger
> way, and so on, insisting that the only way to change things is for
> *everyone* to do x, y, z, etc.
And that is why we want to make the distinction between "seeing the light" and holding (and hopefully acting upon) a viewpoint t hat is slightly more reflective of reality than the dominant viewpoint. And yet part of this is trying to persuade people to act differently than they do. At the very least we want to persuade people who agree with us (in whole or in part) to move from agreement to action. We also probably do want to persuade people who disagree with to agree with us, because we don't want to stay a fringe movement. I can't help think that standing on corner with like minded people on Friday's urging and end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, and talking to people who disagree but want to know why we hold the positions we do and answering their questions, and even arguing with them if they seem interested in arguing is different from moralizing or hectoring or scolding. But at the same time there is no question we are trying to change people's viewpoint.
> Under this approach to moralizing identity politics, a major portion of
> people's energy is geared toward rooting out those people even within the
> social movement who do not uphold the correct lifestyle and behaviors.
Yeah, the interesting thing is that it is easy I think to distinguish what I'm doing from them in practice. Not so easy to distinguish in theory. Maybe when I pick up that sign I'm being a scold and don't know it?