[lbo-talk] Todd Gitlin: the most pompous ass ever?

[// ravi]

On Jun 9, 2011, at 3:17 PM, Dissenting Wren wrote:
> I was once a pretty down-the-line Gandhian.  My training as a political organizer came from the War Resisters' League, I spent time in jail for civil disobedience, etc.  But during that time, I knew nothing at all about India, and the Gandhi I thought I knew something about was little more complicated than Attenborough's Gandhi.  It wasn't until I went to grad school and actually started to learn something not tied to my own moral projections that I discovered (a) that Gandhi was a much more complicated figure - for better and worse - than I had imagined, and (b) that India's independence movement was far more than the Salt March writ large.

I agree with most of what you wrote, so I am not sure either what in my post (which you responded to) you are disagreeing with. Perhaps you are unhappy that I agree with R. Naiman  that the obvious course for Palestinians to pursue is non-violence (on which Gitlin happens to be right). So be it. At this moment, I find it not needing debate and so obvious a point that even stating it invites the question of motive (and hence such questioning of Gitlin). However, I will read with good attention contrary writings here on the list. They might well change my mind on this point.

I would like to add that those of us who are still down-the-line Gandhians don’t fall into neatly divided camps of Attenborough idealists or 90-volume educated Westerners (no disrespect to Finkelstein; or you). When we talk about Gandhian non-violence we are not speaking either of Gandhi as sainted by Attenborough, or the single entity as embodied in his writings.

	—ravi