File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0102, message 3


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


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