Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 15:28:33 -0400
From: "Fragano S.J. Ledgister" <f.ledgis-AT-morehead-st.edu>
Subject: Class unconsciousness


leslie anne lopez wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 13 Apr 1998, Zona Sur wrote:
> 
> that more and more people who go on for advanced degrees are solidly part of
> the ruling class.  It doesn't mean they want to be or are even aware of it or
> in agreement with that class, but there they are.  Having done nothing.
> Having hurt no one.  Simply being able to afford latté while the working class
> isn't working and people like you describe are having a hard time, shall we
> say, "making ends meet."

This confuses affluence (relative or absolute) with dominance. It may be
a reason for guilt or shame, it is not the same as membership in the
ruling class.


> > It makes the language that goes with it a little difficult to swallow, though
> I understand your strategy.  Language is a funny thing, though; after a while,
> it has a strange influence on how one defines or talks about something.
> 
> I agree that academic production often does not alleviate suffering, and
> that our participation in the global coffee economy merits more
> inspection.  (Though I swear I only drink "regular"...).  I also think we
> need to look more closely at the privileges and responsibilities that go
> along with academic careers, intersected by class, race, gender... but
> maybe it's not too helpful to retain the whole "ruling/working" class
> split?  Besides the fact that more of us than ever before come from
> working/middle class backgrounds, and currently find ourselves somewhere
> in the uncertain, uninsured, trying-to-make-ends-meet" category, and the
> fact that "the middle class" is being eroded all over the world, and that
> really poor people are "underemployed" but work themselves down to nubbins
> everyday, maybe we need some new frameworks?  Inclusive frameworks which
> don't lose sight of inequity and domination?

All of which goes to Marx's original argument that the middle class
would be squeezed out by the ruling class. You seem rather muddled
(perhaps by the fact that class is intersected and overlapped by other
di- or tri- or multichotomous categories such as 'gender' [whatever that
is], 'race' [whatever that is] and soccer club membership). Class is the
social expression of an economic structure, and corresponds to the fact
that real social, economic, and political power belongs to those who
own, as opposed to those who work.

The existence of an intermediate class, functioning as the agent of the
ruling class though having the potential to provide intellectual
leaderhip to the lower class(es), certainly does not mean that the
ruling/lower class split is meaningless?

Of course, the call for inclusive frameworks which take into account
inequity and domination is not  a new one. It is, in fact, the argument
of classic Italian fascism which sought to end class struggle through
the creation of 'corporations'.

Work and employment are not equivalents, btw.  And the really poor
aren't underemployed
(engaged in jobs which are not sufficient to reproduce individual labour
power), they're out of work altogether and survive by beggary or petty
crime.
> 
> Just to bring back the "no subject" thread into its original context, I
> was responding to the question of whether there had been any new thinking
> on "strategic essentialism."  Here's another possible way to consider how
> discourses of "strategic multiplicity" (which I argue are inclusive,
> collaborative and integrationist)  differ from "strategic essentialism"
> (which I argue is a competitive and potentially separatist discursive
> move):  we can ask what makes each move strategic; why do people do/say
> what they do; who benefits?

This is, ultimately a word game, and has nothing at all to do with
reality. People will use inclusive language ('strategic multiplicity')
if they are trying to gain broad support for a particular group or
cause, and exclusive language ('strategic essentialism') if they are
trying to build solidarity within the group. Who benefits? Those who
gain or retain power; those who can influence power holders.



> 
> If the strategy is decolonization through separatist nationalism, the
> movement/group runs the risk of excluding all people who don't
> "essentially" fit the description, and thus making the "real" group
> smaller and smaller (but "pure").  (Ironically, often leaders of
> nationalist identity-based movements have often in some ways "hybrid"
> themselves, but that's a whole nuther can of worms.)  There's much more to
> be said about "getting the white man off your eyeball" (A. Walker), as
> demonstrated by a flowering poco lit industry, but I'm trying to
> synthesize here.



Might we have some examples which illustrate these assertions?  What
proportion of leaders of 'nationalist identity-based movements are
'hybrid'? Are there nationalist movements anywhere not based on
identity?

> 
> If the strategy is to gather the largest possible group containing
> representatives from the most diverse sectors/identities/groups
> possible, in order to demonstrate "majority will" around an issue or set
> of issues towards decolonization, you run the risk of losing claims to
> difference, to alternative traditions, and to administrative control.

Why does this matter? Why should this strategy be preferred to others?

> 
> Grassroots movements in Latin America are increasingly choosing to risk
> the latter, and I guess it won't come as a surprise when I say I consider
> myself part of that trend.

You do? What movements? What interests do they have? What reasons would
they have for creating particular coalitions?

> 
> In this light, perhaps it's useful to ask ourselves who benefits from
> decisions to exclude some regions/nations of the world from the "real"
> postcolonial category, and whether the risks are worth it.

All categories are inherently arbitrary.  What are the risks?

Who benefits? Academics who can add 'postcoloniality' to the subject
they are studying in some cases, and leave it out in others. Literary
scholars who can talk about subjects they really know nothing about and
cover that ignorance in with a veneer of technical
jargon, or who think that by creating a new concept, such as
'postcoloniality', they can make statements about objective or
intersubjective public, lived reality which will have more authority
than mere criticism of a literary text could.

Sorry to dump this on you, Ms Lopez, but I am a political scientist
interested in decolonisation as a historic process which has produced
particular political conjunctures in the present, and I had hoped that
reading this list would provide, at least, useful and stimulating
ideas.  What I've found has been mostly argument about meanings. As a
guide to study and research this isn't particularly helpful, as a guide
to action ('the task, however, is to change it') it is worse than
useless.

Fragano Ledgister



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