>> I disagree. A lot of periods may have lacked much objective resistance,
>> but the current period is unusual for how weak even subjective
>> opposition is. There's an unusual level of active identification with
>> the system.
>>
>
> Let's assume that last statement: "There's an unusual level of active
> identification with the system."
>
> "Active identification," when you roll it over in your mind, is sort of
> a curious state of affairs.
I've owed you a response to this. Yes, I think I didn't specify this thought very well. Rather than trying to improve my post, I'll just give a couple examples of what I had in mind. If you read, say, Gramsci, it seems like the unspoken assumption in all his discussion of strategy is that, yes, of course, naturally the workers are against the bosses and find capitalism distasteful; the question is, why won't they seize a revolutionary situation? Now it seems it can no longer be taken for granted that they even hate the bosses or dislike capitalism.
At a more mundane level, I was recently reading a dissertation about an Ohio governor you may remember, James Rhodes. (Yes, I do this voluntarily.) He rose through the Ohio Republican Party in the 30's-50's and there were lengthy quotes from a national GOP governors' seminar around the late 50's on "how do you win the union vote?" And a predominant sentiment in the room seemed to be: "It's hopeless. The workers look to the union leaders for guidance, and they hate us and think we're in bed with evil bosses against the working man. We can never win their vote."
Now obviously there's nothing particularly radical about union workers looking to AFL leaders for political guidance. But at least you had the basic idea that "their" interests conflict with "ours." Now it seems you're as likely to find workers adoring Walmart or something. Again, I'm very aware of how reactionary the political atmosphere was in, say, 1947-63. But there was this tiny kernel that seems to have gone missing. On the other hand, a lot of other aspects of consciousness have improved, so who knows.
SA