From: "Rowan Wilson" <wilson_rowan-AT-hotmail.com> Subject: Re: AUT: Linebaugh and Rediker, _The Many-Headed Hydra_ Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 13:50:15 -0000 Hi Jon and all Thanks for the great review. I loved Linebaugh and Rediker's book. The Hydra metaphor is powerful, with an obvious resonance with current ultra-left/Seattle thinking as to organisation. My problem with this book is the romanticism you allude to. The differences between all the heads of the hydra seem to be wished away. In favour of an emphasis on a grand narrative of struggle against oppression, slavery and capital, we don't hear how the different groups differed. For instance, both the Diggers and the Ranters are invoked, but the Diggers wrote a pamphlet attacking the Ranter's libertinism. We don't hear the conversations of the taverns and the docks, only some of their outcomes, when unified revolt has been decided upon. I would have liked to hear the disagreements and have gained an insight in to how these were overcome (or not). Linebaugh and Rediker seem to assert that racial differences only develop towards the end of the 18th century/beginning of the 19th century, as a discourse of race and nation is constructed (he points to the London Corresponding Society moving from talking about the rights of humanity to the rights of Englishmen). Was this really the case? Because the book is quite polemical the contary evidence (assuming there is any, i don't know) isn't weighed up. I would also have been interested to know more about first meetings between sailors and afro-caribbeans, and, again, how the racisms that were generated by the ruling class were negotiated, overcome (or not) by the sailors, dock workers, etc. As Jon says, the multitude has evaded representation, but (to slightly twist your phrase) the crucial factor is how they avoided generating those representations and those representatives themselves? i.e if they didn't repress their differences with a representation, how did they deal with them? And what went wrong when they did follow a leader or an excluding doctrine? I think this issue is crucial, because the book suggests a revolutionary fervour during the 17th century and the 18th century. But if there was such a fervour, why didn't the struggles develop into a more substantial attack on capitalism? If we don't accept the trot argument that 'the material conditions weren't right' then what was limiting it? I don't think we can accept the argument that the ruling class were well organised/had lots of guns/strong ideology (although these are important factors) because they usually will have. The question that needs to be addressed is, perhaps, why didn't the proletarians, sailors, slaves, women, etc expand their struggles, develop their links? What of their own practice inhibited such development? Anyway, I've rambled enough. But I'd love to know others answers to the question that Jon posed at the end of his piece. Rowan _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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