From: Bautiste <Bautiste-AT-aol.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 12:03:41 EST
Subject: Re: M-TH: risk, schmisk


In a message dated 98-01-02 07:25:42 EST, James wrote:

<< I
 would prefer to add the socio-historical dimension of the disaggregation
 of class-based and popular institutions through which people organise
 their experiences. >>


James, 

I agree that this objective view captures some of the basis for what is
happening in modern society. As my earlier posts indicate, waves of mass
hysteria can be shown to have an origin in fears over unemployment and job
security. I think there is also something to Habermas' notion that the ruling
elite exploit and distort intersubjective communication. It seems obvious that
playing on people's fears and anxieties makes money, as any third rate film
director making a seventh generation sequel to slasher films can tell you.
Exploiting people's innate anxieties makes big bucks. 

Modern technological societies amass huge communication resources in
exploiting these fears. The evening news is an example. Packaging death and
mayhem makes the rule of people easier and more lucrative. 

What seeing these phenomena through the persepective of an existential
hermeneutic allows you to do is to realize that the freedom of the individual
begins with the individual. We can certainly talk about the disintegration of
classes as an historical phenomenon, but in motivating individuals to confront
this phenomenon means educating them about the origin of their fears and their
alienation, which has its nexus in a broad spectrum of dimensions, not the
least of which is consciousness and one's anxiety over taking responsibility
for one's actions.

Countering and subverting the mass propaganda machines is a matter of
consciousness raising person by person, not a restructuring of society and
then working its way down. As the velvet revolution shows, the appeal of mass
action has to begin with an appeal to the individual's self-worth, a set of
transpersonal values, and personal integrity. 

What I find interesting about the LM programme is its awareness of these
subjective phenomena at work in the modern socio-political sphere. What I have
a hard time understanding is what kind of programme of action LM can come up
with after it has diagnosed the problem. For me, appeals to idealism or a
harangue about the loss of guts and the fear of risk come across as almost
impotent cries over the obvious. One might even characterize it as a Marxist
Prufrock wailing in the digital Wasteland.

Still, you are open to dialog and you and your organization exhibit a non-
doctrinaire attitude. From Marxists that is a revolution in consciousness in
and of itself!

peace,

chuck miller
 


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