From: blunose-AT-interserv.com Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 16:37:06 -0800 Subject: Subject: Popular Culture and the Left (was Re:M-I: Final word...) From: Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu (Yoshie Furuhashi) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:34:41 -0500 <snip> However, I dare say that watching too much TV doesn't make for a revolution either. In one of the earlier threads, where people were discussing the disappearance of working class culture, a sense of community, oppositional consciousness, etc. in the core capitalist countries, I think that some pointed to TV as one of the cultural influences that tend to isolate people, to turn them into atomized individuals, to make them sedentary, and to induce them to internalize the "middle-class"--sorry I know this is an imprecise term, please remember Chris B's contribution a while ago for elaboration--outlook, etc. <snip> My reply: Sorry to be unclear in my initial post. I didn't mean to say TV was great or anything. I just wanted to characterize an elitist behavior-type who wear their non-TV watching like some sort of badge of merit and proof of their divorce from the great unwashed. I rarely encounter this on M-I, but I can't seem to avoid it in my encounters with lefty, progressive, activist organizations. However if pressed, I will say I don't think TV is responsible for all the social ills ascribed to it by both the left and the right. I agree about the *tendencies * to atomise and stuff. But I think this has to do more with the *content* (aggressive advertising, mindless fluff and action, American cultural imperialism) than the intrinsic nature of the medium. On the historical continuum, it's a very recent development. I'm not convinced that any previous revolutionary class consciousness was directly related to the nature of the medium of popular culture--I can be convinced otherwise. (Being a transplanted rural kid -- I see almost all the changes in working class culture that you outline and atomization of individuals could be a result of the urban experience --maybe TV is a part of that, but it's not that way in rural areas/small towns.) TV as it exists now under capitalism has been an awesome tool of cultural imperialism and the pointy end of bourgeois hegemony. But it's an empty sac. Under communism it could be an amazing tool to reach people and share information and images -- a tremendously democratic medium. True, TV is an ugly thing right now, but we get nowhere by labeling it ugly and turning our back on it. We need to wrestle capital in all arenas, not hide in our cocoons and congratulate ourselves on how much smarter we are than the rest of those TV watching dummies. (Now, let me be clear Yoshie, I don't mean you when I say this. I definitely don't find you guilty of this snobbery. But this anti-working class snobbery infuses so much of the left that I feel I have to point it out.) I was also trying to point out the obstacles Marxists throw in the way of revolution by deliberately building a wall between their culture and working class culture. We need to analyse, but we need to engage as well. I am certainly not against academic Marxism. I am a product of it. We need all kinds of Marxism. But (if I can borrow a phrase) "academic Marxism is wasted on the academics". Gay Harley Toronto, Canada --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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