File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-14.105, message 20


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



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