[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sat Jul 25 11:40:53 PDT 2009


On Sat, 25 Jul 2009, shag carpet bomb wrote:


> yeah. i don't object to it so much. i mean, i understand all this at the
> philosophical level.
>
> but i object more on the practical political level -- of what it turns
> movements in to when they are based on moralizing politics.
>
> what i see is the degeneration of feminist politics into moralizing mandates
> about how the individual ought to live in order to be a right acting
> feminist.

I think we pretty much agree then even on this intuitive level. I'm also against moralizing, and Doug is famously so. We're proud-to-be-tolerant, and so is almost everyone on our side.

I think the difference between morality and moralizing is the difference between talking about what defines us collectively, and policing whether particular individuals live up to this collective definition. Generally the less of the latter the better; I think you and I agree on that.

In feminism, of course these two things are probably harder to separate than in any other movement/intellectual current ever since the beginning when it was declared that the personal is the political. So since you're probably much more involved on a day to day level in such debates than me, I can fully understand how your instincts might tend even more to the leery side than mine.

But such leeriness is no reason to support the philosophical denial of the important of morality. Because unfortunately, denying that morality matters doesn't stop people from moralizing. I daresay it seems almost to stoke them.

Michael



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