Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 10:31:24 +0000 From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: M-TH: listen, vanguardists! In message <l03102812b1325a766ff1-AT-[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com> writes >From Judith Butler's "Merely Cultural," published in both the current >Social Text and the current New Left Review: > >"To fault new social movements for their vitality, as some have done, is >precisely to refuse to understand that any future for the Left will have to >build on the basis of movements that compel democratic participation, and >that any effort to impose unity upon such movements from the outside will >be rejected once again as a form of vanguardism dedicated to the production >of hierarchy and dissension, producing the very factionalization that it >asserts is coming from outside itself." What is so irritating about Butler and the post-modernism she espouses is the conflation of genuine grievances with a pernicious anti- rationalism. In this sleight of hand anti-racism becomes inextricably tied up with the rejection of 'Western' rationalism, women's liberation with a rejection of phallocentric science, and so on. I really wish that this was a caricature, but having read in the region of two hundred books on postmodernism in the last ten years, I'm sorry to say that if anything I am understating the case. Years ago racists used to say that black people were too stupid to read books and that women were too emotional to master technical tasks. The radical intervention was to insist that human culture was the property of everyone, not just white men. But nowadays that outlook has been turned on its head. Instead of right-wingers insisting that science and reason are the preserve of white men, it is the radicals who are saying it. Instead of challenging the vicious caricature of emotional women and irrational black people, the post modernists have turned these insults into a badge of pride. It really is grotesque that the left should willingly take on the role of the enemy of reason. With that kind of strategy we deserve everything we get. Judith Butler is a very good writer. But her message is wholly pernicious. NSMs: A DUBIOUS CLAIM TO DEMOCRACY The new social movements (insofar as we can bracket them together) have come to the fore as a consequence of the decline of mass organisations like mass parties and trade unions. Doubtless these declining organisations were pretty flawed. Nonetheless, it is indisputable that they involved a far greater proportion of the population than the nsms ever have. To take Britain as an example. The high point of party membership was in the decade after the war. At that time the Communist party numbered a quarter of a million, the Labour Party one million and the Conservative Party two and three quarter million. Labour's lower figure is belied by the fact that it encouraged affiliate membership in trade unions, whose total membership peaked in 1979 at around 17 million. That means that the old mass organisations that the new social movements are displacing could involve perhaps some twenty million people (Communist Party members would be counted twice as they affiliated to Labour through union membership), which is to say about a third of the UK population. The point is often made that these mass organisations were exclusive, and they were. Trade unions in the post-war period actively fought to exclude migrant workers from their rolls, and in maintaining 'last in, first out' were a barrier to women and blacks joining the workforce and hence their organisations. Tory and Labour parties joined in anti- immigrant campaigns, and promoted backward-looking views on women. Given the degree of exclusivity at work in the old mass organisations, it is a breath-taking achievement that the so-called new social movements manage to be more exclusive than the organisations that they have replaced. A tiny fraction of the numbers involved in the old mass organisations are involved in environmental, anti-racist and women's campaigns and groups. Furthermore, the social composition of these is far more exclusively middle class than even the old Labour Party was, and certainly the representation of working class people in any kind of organisations at all has dropped to a minimium. Furthermore, the membership of these newer organisations, where there is a membership, is largely passive, and enjoys fewer rights than even members ofthe Labour and Tory parties. Greenpeace is a campaign with millions of pounds in its accounts, drawn from subscribers, who are canvassed for funds on a regular basis. But these subscribers have no rights whatsoever. In fact Greepeace doesn't have a membership: its decisions are made by a small executive, without reference to any wider body. At the last election 30 voluntary and campaigning organisation joined up to launch a manifesto: the Politics of the Real World. In their publicity, the Real World Coalition claimed that their constituent membership organisations represented mroe people than the main parties put together. However, this claim was belied by the fact that the manifesto was entirely the work of a small clique of organisers of these campaigns, none of whom saw fit to consult their 'members' on any points in the manifesto. In general, of course, new social movements do not even have a defined membership, an informality that is supposed to make them more accessible. The truth is that that kind of informality makes such groups accessible to the small numbers of people who are already comfortable with each other, but serves as a positive disincentive to any wider involvement. That kind of freemason-style networking is appropriate for elite or middle class politics, but a turn-off for working class people. The outlook of the new social movements all too often reflects the anti- mass sentiments of their narrowly drawn participants. Campaigns abound against every aspect of mass society: mass transport in the roads protests, mass consumption in the farming protests, mass housing in the no-build protests, even the existence of the masses themselves in 'Population Concern'. Time and time again the new protests have actively counterposed themselves to democratic decision-making. In Newbury the local council was elected and re-elected on a programme of building a by-pass, so that the townsfolk there could be spared dangerous, noisy and polluting through traffic. But the protestors laid claim to a higher authority than the people of Newbury: they represented the Earth itself, and nobody had the right to vote against nature. Their occupation of the land was directed against the people of Newbury, as much as it was against the government. In Manchester, the local council had pursued a popular policy of regeneration for many years. Protestors against the Manchester Airport extension got good press when they announced on April 1st last year that they would stand in the elections against Manchester MP Graham Stringer, who led the scheme. But the press men were disappointed to here that they had been April Fooled. Protest leader Daniel Hooper (Swampy) explained that of course the protestors would never stand for parliament because that was a sham. This phony radicalism only served to cover up the fact that, as evryone knew, Manchester would vote for an airport. The rhetorical flourishes of the nsms reflect this anti-mass sentiment. Democracy is derided as 'majoritarian', meaning that it is too susceptible to popular influence (see Lani Guineir Tyrrany of the Majority). Mass movements are derided as 'totalitarian' (see Cohen and Arato, POlitical theory and civil society). The mass of people are derided as 'apathetic' for failing to respond to the unlovely appeal of the nsm activist. Vanguardism was often derided for its supposed 'we know best' attitude. But no such qualms trouble the nsm activist. The moral fervour of the environmental campaigner is precisely an attitude of 'I know best', as in 'I know better than all you ignorant car-drivers, meat eaters' and so on. The difference is that the politics of vanguardism at least believed that its programme had to be win the support of the mass of people. The nsms by and large believe that their politics must be imposed upon the masses, whether they like it or not. -- James Heartfield --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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