Ted Winslow wrote:
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > Are the most oppressed and marginalized groups going to be a great
> > source of political activism, really? Isn't part of being oppressed
> > and marginalized being disengaged?
>
> Zizek's answer to the first question is yes isn't it?
Zizek is altogether too glib, and I am puzzled over his appeal to Dennis C and Duane -- both of whom have more to say of itnerest that Zizek does.
But both Doug and Zizek have a point IF one puts this argument in a wider context.
Among the "most oppressed and marginalized groups there are gradations; many within such groups are able to 'rise above' the state of the group as a whole. And among those who do, _some_ give their loyalty to those more oppressed. (That, incidentally, is why the struggle against oppression of Blacks rmains so central to any future U.S. movement: white workers who do not give their _primary_ solidarity to the undocumentd, the marginallzied, etc will never make a decen fight in their own interests either! Middle peasants were the cutting edge of the Chinese REvolution, and they were so only as they valued the interests and conditions of poor peasants.
Incidentally "Workers" is a label that oftent (I personally think always) leads to a confusion of image in theminds of the users. The image of "workers" in the U.S. refers to a status group, not a class, because in fact many/most middle-level managment are working class, since class refers in the first instance NOT to people, to individuals, but to a relationship. Rleationshps must be thought, Marxc pointed out, rather than observed as are the things related. You can't observe the working class, you can only think it as an abstraction. "Middle class," as commonly used, refers not to a class but to a status group, and those in this group are workers in respect to class. As far as I can tell, though my reading is so slow that I havenot digested the whole of this group of threads yet, Brad is talking about a status group within the working class in his psots, which is why they so strngly evoke the old joke abut the British Labour Party, that it wil fight the class battle forever but will never try to win it. Those who want to _win_ the class war in the U.S. will put primary emphasis on smashing the racial, gender, etc. fissures in the working class a sa ahole. They will not do that by turning ephemeral campus politics into a major issue.
Carrol