From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-FEM: Re: double standard
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 21:58:24 -0500 (CDT)


David,

    I don't think you should be too quick to shout, "idealism." For
starters let me begin with the following quote, which I posted a
few months ago on m-i asking if anyone could identify it, since
I had forgotten its source. Anyhow, I think it's useful here:

    What distinguishes abstractions from ideals is that abstractions
    are epistemological consequences of the attempt to order and
    predict real phenomena, while ideals are regarded as ontologically
    prior to their manifestations in objects.

I was the one (I think) that proposed we explore the hypothesis that
that the subordination of women was not in principle incompatible with
capitalism. The importance of this is that to the extent it is the
case it can affect how the demand for sexual equality is incorporated
into the program of a revolutionary movement. Note, for contrast, the
demand that the U.S. cease to act as an imperialist power. This is
patently absurd: imperialism is not a "policy" which a ruling class
*chooses*; it is the very mode of existence of capitalism in the
20th century. That was what all the fuss was about 100 years ago: the
revisionist argument was, precisely, that imperialism was a *policy*,
and hence changeable within capitalism. And it is important to recog-
nize that the debate was (and is) *not* over whether it was *practical*
to eliminate imperialism within the capitalist system but whether
it even made sense *in principle* to speak of such a event; to demand
the cessation of the "policy of imperialism" is like demanding that
someone stop breathing but continue to eat and play cards. To speak
in such terms is not just wrong, it is incoherent.

    Now is it incoherent for us (for a movement) to demand that
sexist practices and institutions be eliminated? I do *not* mean
can we in practical terms expect to actually gain such a "reform."
I mean is the demand for such a form speakable, or, like the
demand that someone stop breathing but continue to play cards,
literally unspeakable, incoherent?

    Now all that I asked for--all that I ask for--is that we
seriously discuss this *possibility*, and explore what conse-
quences it might have for the strategy and tactics of socialist
revolution.

    Whatever that is, it is not idealism.

Carrol

David Stevens wrote:
 > We can postulate, as experiment, a capitalism that would
> still work exploitatively, capitalism with some sort of
> super-ERA, and, yes, it would work as a thought experiment.

 > But it's idealism, not materialism, that guides such
> experimentations. I agree that the pendulum will swing
> now and again. So what? We could point to the history
> of (say) ancient Greece and find the double standard
> relaxed in some ways. We will never see it absent.
> We will never see it disappear in all of history,
> except for the part we are still working on.