I am very sick right now so I am not going to spend much time responding. However, based on your last two emails I don't actually think there is much space between are positions. If you really do think that agents and structures operate together, rather than the notion that class should be viewed as an identity issue (which is what you have sometimes wrote, the post on the North Carolina school program as an example), then I think we actually agree. I was trying to get you to be more specific as I was reading through you seemed to be contradicting yourself. Also, I believe that I said that class is not merely identity or subjectivity but involved structures. I really don't think there is an actual opposition between identities and structures (I don't think Marx did either). This would also appear to be the position as you elucidated in your last two emails, and perhaps before that. By the way, I have never in my 15 plus years of being involved in left movements heard the term 'manly man politics' and I am still a bit confused by the term. If it means dogmatic reductionist marxism, as you seem to claim below, then why not say that? Anyway, I am probably not making much sense and need to rest more.
Brad
>
>
> I'm not clear on the problem. I guess I'm having trouble understanding why
> you seem to be unfamiliar with what the term "manly man" means in reference
> to some pretty standard discussions in leftist politics and theory. It's a
> reference to a politics that treats class as the primary contradiction,
> where everything else is epiphenomenal to class. In the introduction to
> this list, you should have gotten something like this:
>
> "I hope this list will be a forum for speaking across intellectual and
> social boundaries that have divided the left, such as it is, for too long.
> Among these oppositions I'd like to see worked through are ones like
> class/identity, cultural politics/"real" politics, Marxism/postmodernism,
> universal/particularist, activism/theory, economics/culture, nature/labor;
> nature/culture, and labor/culture."
>
> http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/lbo-talk.html
>
> when I used "manly man" when addressing Eric, I was riffing off something
> Eric sometimes says. I can't recall his exact words, but it's a reference
> to masculinist politics. Here's where I used the term:
>
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20091109/015964.html
>
> > This is why, I think Eric, you might want to flesh out your position. It
> > sounds as if it's wavering toward the manly man real politics stuff. I
> know
> > that's not what you mean, but I can see how it's misinterpreted.
>
> The "real" politics stuff (manly man real politics) is one of the
> oppositions Doug hopes we can work through.
>
> So, maybe start from the beginning, since my questions remain unanswered.
> That might help. How do you understand the oppositions Doug's talking
> about, specifically "class/identity, cultural politics/"real" politics, ...
> economics/culture... labor/culture" since that is, after all, what we're
> talking about and have been for a decade.
>
> shag
>
>
>