From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox) Subject: M-I: Some issues raised by the Pomo Wars Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 12:33:21 -0600 (CST) I haven't had time the last few weeks to contribute to this list, but I would like to refer now to one posting I did make: I predicted that m-i was off to a bad start because of the failure of list members to respond to caruso's (mostly accidental) sexist vocabulary-- that only a woman had responded, and she had received no support >from other list members. (I don't know whether she is still on the list or not, but we have heard no more from her.) Now I assume that, eventually, only a socialist struggle grounded in marxism will be an effective struggle against sexism and racism-- I really can't think of any other set of principles that can effectively organize that struggle. Class is first and last central both analytically and in struggle. But the socialist movement has, empirically, had a very bad record on issues of women and race, and the nearly all-male compo- sition of this list is probably one minor manifestation of that 200 year old record. Pseudo-progressive foes of marxism can and repeatedly do make effective use of that "unfortunate" record--and when marxists get careless in their language or (in meetings and conversations, even tone of voice or volume of foot shuffling), those tiny (?) failings are vicious because they evoke a long history of real racism and sexism inside the socialist and workers movements. Such slips are nearly the equivalent of putting limburger cheese in the ventilation system at a conference: they drown everything else out. During the pomo wars the defenders of even the worse aspects of postmodern and related theoretical/political tendencies were too easily able to wrap their horseshit in cries of sexism, homo- phobia; one result was that some of the most serious issues raised were never really discussed at all. At the purely pragmatic level the battle went to the pomos; think of that huge list of addresses that Paul Amar sent his stupid posting to; most of the names on that list were probably hardened academic pomos--but some of them might be people (grad students? others) whose direction is up for grabs--and we may have given them the excuse they needed to forget about Marxism and socialism and the workers' struggle. On another sub-point. If one encounters Aronwitz in many contexts (forums on subjects that don't directly confront the core of his politics with marxist politics), and if one has not read his work on identity politics or the jobless future, his ideas can be attractive. (He has been at several of the annual conferences of Midwest activists and radical scholars in Chicago.) This, in fact, is true of most ex-marxists for at least awhile after they leave marxism--a little marxism can go a long way within restricted contexts. And finally, Aronwitz is not the only fat person in the United States (or UK, Australia, etc)--my younger daughter is extremely overweight, and after she lost her first longtime job as a computer analyst because the effects of undiagnosed depression had snuck up on her, she was unemployed for nearly four years, mostly I suspect because of employer's more or less conscious prejudice against fat people. So in the future let's try to lay off the merely physical (or personal, as in depression or anxiety disorder) "defects" of our enemies. Carrol --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005