I think that over the last few years, the view has quite frequently been expressed in comments on CT and other blogs that it is rather a shame that Christopher Hitchens has suffered something of a decline in his talents as a writer even as the general direction of his politics has coarsened and moved rightwards. How we wish, a significant proportion of the readership lament, that there was somebody around writing exhilarating and scabrous left-wing polemics with a contrarian twist!
Check out “Savage Mules” by Dennis Perrin, guys, you’ll like it.
Savage Mules is a cracking read – I’m only half way through it, but for reasons I’ll get onto in a minute, I thought it made sense to post the review early. As the title suggests, it’s a book about the Democratic Party of the USA, and about their long history of violence, imperialism, authoritarianism and craven surrender to the worst excesses of American right-capitalism. As such, in the current media environment (which seems to be dominated by a suffocating mix of unquestioning idolatry from the left and half-baked smears from the right), it’s a tonic. Yes indeed, there do exist people in America who are prepared to criticise the Democrats from the Left!
And what a criticism. Reading “Savage Mules”, you realise what a sorry job Jonah Goldberg made of “Liberal Fascism”. From the Trail of Tears to the internment of Japanese-Americans to , if you actually want to stitch the Democratic Party up as a gang of authoritarians, nuts and genocidaires, there’s more than enough material available in the historic record for you to do so. The only thing is, that if you’re going to stitch the Democrats this way, it makes no sense to pretend that they’re socialists too.
In fact, (and this is pretty much a commonplace to everyone who doesn’t live in America), the Democratic Party are a right-wing capitalist party which is broadly favourable to the military-industrial state, and as a result, when they act like one. As Adolph Reed notes (via Dennis’ blog, and in an article that looks like it’s one to print out and reread every time Obama gives a stirring set-piece speech, to re-establish bearings), there’s something a bit dumb about being repeatedly “shocked” by Democratic moves to the right (most recently, that wiretapping thing); they happen so frequently and systematically that they can’t be explained away as “pragmatism” or “compromise”; the Dem leadership does these things because they want to.
Why is this? I think at base, Dennis’ real explanation is a structural one; in the rare “but seriously folks” moments in Savage Mules (which mainly concentrates on Democratic adventurism in foreign policy rather than domestic politics), he always seems to be moving in the direction of something not far off Marx’s analysis of imperialism and the view that the Democrats are simply, like the Republicans, an arm of the American ruling class. However, this isn’t really set out in detail (or at least, not in the first half of the book), and other chapters also deal with the “not wanting to look like a wimp” theory, the “scared of being redbaited” theory and the currently still fashionable “arrogant and unrealistic assessment of humanitarian benefits” theory – he’s particularly caustic, as is Reed, on the tendency of grad-school humanitarians like to play “let’s you and him fight” on a global scale and on the serried ranks of old farts who are always hanging round explaining that while the war that they opposed in their youth was a hideous exercise in imperial brutality, the current war being pursued now that they’ve passed draft age is a high-minded humanitarian crusade. He’s also caustic about nearly everything else.
It’s not a perfect book, it has to be said – the key strength of it is that it’s wildly, hilariously unfair to its targets and at times (particularly when Dennis deals with the way in which FDR boondoggled the US into World War 2), this slips into glibness; he also, in order to shoehorn JFK into an overall narrative of bloodthirsty Dems, takes a pretty slanted view of the historical evidence on the direction which Vietnam policy was going in 1963. And the habit of, a la Nick Cohen, always assuming the very worst motives indeed on the part of his opponents, and tarring whole groups of well-meaning people with the motives of the nastiest tendencies that can be tangentially associated with them, is the sort of thing that would get irksome in a longer book.
On the other hand, I find it a lot easier to forgive this meanspiritedness in “Savage Mules” than in the literary output of the Decent Left. Why? Well for one thing, and it’s pointless to deny it, I am like everyone else in finding it a lot funnier when someone’s having a go at my enemies than at me and my friends. But for another, there’s an underlying honesty there that has to be respected. There’s no hidden agenda behind his excoriation of the Democratic Party; he just hates them and wishes that they didn’t peel off so much strength from the only marginally existent American left (compare this to a book like “What’s Left?”, where the author spends hundreds of pages pretending, ludicrously, that his phillipics are only tangentially related to the Iraq War). The point of view expressed is also such a marginal and unpopular one (as opposed to the official policy of a major government) that it ought to be cut more slack in the tactics used. And finally, there’s not a hint of careerism here.
My God, there certainly isn’t a hint of careerism here. A funny and eloquent writer capable of doing good foreign policy analysis from the left of the Democratic Party might certainly realistically aspire to carving out a decently if not terrifically remunerated niche somewhere around the third floor of the “netroots” movement. So Dennis devotes an entire extended chapter to burning all his bridges there with a Hunter S Thompsonesque rant about YearlyKos (I sneaked a peek at this one; the general theme is that the Kossacks are still full of it because they haven’t given up on the Democrats). So no consulting gig there.
Which brings me to the reason for posting this review ahead of finishing the book. It’s published by Verso, a publishing house which has many virtues, but which (shall we say) doesn’t have much of a track record of making rich men out of its authors. More to the point, books published by Verso have an irritating tendency toward short print runs and quick deletions and given that it is to a great extent an election-year book, “Savage Mules” is likely to be even more vulnerable to this Jack Kevorkian deletion policy than, say, Wall Street. So buy a copy now. In fact, it might make sense to buy two copies, as I rather suspect that this book would make a perfect present for any stroppy or rebellious teenagers of your acquaintance, given that it’s full of the sort of fascinating and embarrassing facts about the political history of the USA over the last hundred years that would be more or less guaranteed to light a firework in any high school civics class.
Full disclosure: Dennis and I used to be members of a popular mailing list about five years ago and I think it’s fair to say that we didn’t get on (this exchange is pretty typical). But a lot of water’s gone under the bridge since then and I like his blog. That’s it basically.
{ 154 comments }
Perrin can definitely be funny, and it is probably worth my while to find a copy of the book and read it, but I can’t help but wonder if another LBO-Talk alum’s description of Dennis is accurate. There really isn’t any “Left” in America to speak of, so we’re kind of stuck with the Democratic Party with all its faults and short-comings.
From the Trail of Tears to the internment of Japanese-Americans to , if you actually want to stitch the Democratic Party up as a gang of authoritarians, nuts and genocidaires, there’s more than enough material available in the historic record for you to do so. The only thing is, that if you’re going to stitch the Democrats this way, it makes no sense to pretend that they’re socialists too.
Do you understand the expression “stitch-up”?
he also, in order to shoehorn JFK into an overall narrative of bloodthirsty Dems, takes a pretty slanted view of the historical evidence on the direction which Vietnam policy was going in 1963
Interesting point. Other interesting points: the missile “gap” and Crisis, JFK’s wartime diaries enthusing over Hitler’s rapport with his people.
The point of view expressed is also such a marginal and unpopular one (as opposed to the official policy of a major government) that it ought to be cut more slack in the tactics used.
It’s good to know the American left has the City’s support.
What I’d like to know is, what would Perrin have us hapless Dems do? There are plenty of folks in this country (myself included) who would love a leftist electoral alternative, but have chosen to sign up with the next best thing rather than be shut out of power completely. If anyone else has a better idea, I’d love to hear it.
in order to shoehorn JFK into an overall narrative of bloodthirsty Dems
Ah, well, there was the Bay of Pigs, and he did run against Nixon from the Right in foreign policy terms.
I used to work – for thirteen awful weeks, and I’d taken the job as a permanent one – for the company that distributes Verso (or at least it did then, and may well do so). As it happens it was controlled by a well-known Oxford publishing family with a penchant for far-right politics. One can take links (or their significance) too far.
Also, the populace has been so brainwashed into cherishing its delusions of imperial grandeur (i.e. American “strength” and “leadership”, not to mention “making gas cheap again so we can afford to drive our SUVs” and “keeping us safe from scary brown people with bombs”) that a non-aggressive foreign policy is genuinely highly unpopular. There’s a strong positive feedback loop between the pseudo-(small d) democratic political system and the general culture, strongly reinforced by the corporate-monopoly media, that keeps it that way. I just don’t don’t see how you could even make a dent in that cycle. I seriously don’t think anything will ever do so short of total defeat and humiliation a la Germany and Japan in 1945.
For the record I plan on reading Dennis’ book. I like him and I hope the book does well. We need more like it.
Oh and I’m not an LBO alumnus. I’m still there, virtually.
Sounds like a good book. Myself, I’m currently working on a thesis that the Democratic party (post-LBJ anyway) is not a real party at all. It’s a moulage (like, say, those fake ducks hunters use, or punching bags used by boxers) designed to create the impression that there are two players in the game. I’m not sure: is this thesis stronger (i.e. more radical) or weaker than Dennis’?
a) what would Perrin have us hapless Dems do?
Build The Party, if I recall the WRP line correctly.
b) in order to shoehorn JFK into an overall narrative of bloodthirsty Dems
No need for that shoehorn – the shoe fits. The VietNam direction in 1963 was inwards and upwards.
c) the populace has been so brainwashed into cherishing its delusions of imperial grandeur … that a non-aggressive foreign policy is genuinely highly unpopular
Unpopular is not the same as wrong, of course. See a) above
the populace has been so brainwashed
It’s probably time to give up on the “false consciousness” meme. “They’d see things our way if only they really UNDERSTOOD how the world worked” is both patronizing and inaccurate. The reality is that the populace likes quite a lot of things that we progressives find atavistic and appalling. And that’s the root of the problem with books like Perrin’s. It’s a lovely and daring thing to slag off the Democrats and, at the end of the day, one can go home and have a pint with Ralph Nader and Bob Barr.
It’s probably time to give up on the “false consciousness” meme
Personally I’d be grateful if people stopped using the term “meme”.
I think that while it’s clearly naive to attribute everything to “false consciousness” it’s equally naive to deny that elite manipulation has a strong impact on popular attitudes.
And I’m sorry, but it’s a demonstrable fact that, for example, the “war on terror” is an inept and totally unrealistic response to what is actually an international law-enforcement problem, and that people who are genuinely well-informed DO see this quite clearly. (And I have no doubt that this group includes the brighter politicians, like Obama- which therefore makes his WOT rhetoric consciously disingenuous and hence doubly infuriating.) The fact that average Joe really and truly believes something does nothing to establish the correctness of that belief- and I hope you were not trying to aver the contrary. Nor does it render useless attempts to discover WHY he believes that, attempts which will certainly need to take seriously- I don’t say assume, merely take seriously- the possibility that Joe has been duped by people with ulterior motives.
“in the current media environment (which seems to be dominated by a suffocating mix of unquestioning idolatry from the left and half-baked smears from the right)”
I haven’t read the book, but the opinion above seems to be Daniel’s, so is fair game. What “unquestioning idolatry from the left”? I have to say that as far as observation goes, that’s nonsense. Remember FISA? Who is supposed to be idolizing whom? I don’t know, but let’s say it’s Obama—the rest of the Democratic party is an unconvincing target for idolatry. I wasn’t disappointed in Obama about FISA, but that was because I was already pre-cynicized. The attitude of the netroots about him is, basically, that he’s going to win, and that he’s better than the alternative. That’s not idolatry.
This notion that supporters of the Democratic party are unquestioning idolators has always been what a few fringe leftists like to tell themselves in order to justify their own ineffectuality. I heard it over and over at each stage of growth of the netroots. “Oh, they’re a tiny group of middle class people who like to hear themselves talk, and who do nothing but raise money, and will never affect the Democratic Party.” “Oh, they’ll never participate in primaries to try to drive the party to the left, they’ll just ratify whatever the party does, and keep quiet.” There’s nothing difficult about contrarianism if you don’t bother to ever check it against reality, after all.
I think the brainwashing is quite obvious on the conceptual level, like calling the corrupt corporate-government symbiosis “free market” and believing that “free market” is the correct name for this phenomenon. “War on terror”, sure; garden variety Orwellian stuff. “Are you for winning or for capitulation?”
However, if you ask questions in common, practical, non-conceptual terms, there is no problem, I don’t think it’s possible to brainwash on this level.
Would you like to close military bases in 150 countries around the world and use the money to finance free medical care for everybody? Would you like to tax multi-millionaires and use the money to provide free higher education for everyone?
I don’t think anyone would answer ‘no’, but they are never given this choice. Their choice is between “free market” and “government bureaucracy”.
the rest of the Democratic party is an unconvincing target for idolatry.
Well, not all of it by any manner of means. Though of course you’re right to say that idolatry is far from being as widespread (let alone all-encompassing) as some people suggest.
It seems the WRP hasn’t quite cornered the market on that particular slogan.
I think there’s something to the “false consciousness” thesis, but it proves too much. Since it’s hard to reliably distinguish between when someone agrees with you because of false consciousness, and when they just disagree with you, you can basically season your theory to taste. If you’re feeling pretty cynical about human nature, you can assume people really mean it; if you’re felling optimistic, you can attribute it to false consciousness.
I’m a little unclear as to why anyone thinks that the fact that many Americans have preferences for things that are ‘atavistic and appalling’ should refute any ‘false consciousness meme’…
It’s possible to note that the Netroots are not very critical of the DP without the hyperbole of “idolators.” The fuss over FISA, which I respect and share, is pretty exceptional so far.
Dennis notwithstanding, it’s still possible to be optimistic. With strong majorities on the Hill and a Dem in the WH, we could look forward to more initiative. But if you never ask (complain) you never get.
Personally I’d be grateful if people stopped using the term “meme”.
mememememememememememememe. Nyah.
The fact that average Joe really and truly believes something does nothing to establish the correctness of that belief-
I didn’t say that it did. I said that assuming that ordinary people don’t have some understanding of what’s going on and—right or wrong—make decisions based on that is patronizing. It’s akin to one of the Bush administration’s most annoying habits: “if only you had the top-secret information I had, you wouldn’t disagree.”
I’m a little unclear as to why anyone thinks that the fact that many Americans have preferences for things that are ‘atavistic and appalling’ should refute any ‘false consciousness meme’…
Love the irony of your nickname.
But in any case do we really want to argue that if it wasn’t for elite manipulation that lots of folks wouldn’t be racist/sexist/homophobic? “They made me do it” is a child’s excuse. Why are we so quick to apply it to those who hold positions we don’t like (excepting the evil brainwashers, of course)?
I’m not trying to relieve them of responsibility for their views, if that’s where you’re going. But where I live and work I’m surrounded by typical conservatives, so I’m pretty familiar with their mentality- this is not just theoretical for me. And I can tell you for a fact from talking to them that if it were not for the right-wing noise machine echoing in their heads, a significant number of them could be moved a considerable distance. Sometimes one can even make headway regardless, but it quickly becomes apparent that the years of crapola they’ve been fed by the likes of Limbaugh and O’Reilly has a very real effect and significantly increases their resistance to re-thinking their positions.
The Democratic Party kind of sucks, but I’m pretty sympathetic to their plight. The bizarre factional space in the U.S. (which nowadays includes liberal evangelists, leftist xenophobes, subjectively militarist Ron Paul supporters who watch Michael Savage, and many other such unlikely creatures.) creates formidable curve fitting problems for anyone who actually, you know, wants to get elected. In light of this, casting Democrats as “an arm of corporate interests” is way, way too easy.
Nonetheless, I’d encourage anyone who thinks they could do better than those awful establishment Democrats to put their money where their mouth is. Maybe we can use you. (Probably not, though.)
And I can tell you for a fact from talking to them that if it were not for the right-wing noise machine echoing in their heads, a significant number of them could be moved a considerable distance. Sometimes one can even make headway regardless, but it quickly becomes apparent that the years of crapola they’ve been fed by the likes of Limbaugh and O’Reilly has a very real effect and significantly increases their resistance to re-thinking their positions.
Maybe, though speculating on what someone would do in the absence of some other factor doesn’t strike me as the strongest evidence, but in any case people can choose whether or not to listen/participate, etc. I note that the right-wing noise machine’s message about Iraq has been pretty consistent over the last few years, but a substantial proportion of the American public had changed their mind about it.
Er, the “An American” pseudonym was a nonce-name for another comment. This is my actual made-up name.
I think calling their loyalty “idolatry” is rather unfair to partisans everywhere, but the Netroots are essentially defined by their loyalty to the Democratic Party. That loyalty, plus a certain set of strategic and tactical commitments, is what unites them, rather than any particular ideological or policy views. The Netroots often criticize the Democrats (the latest FISA spat is far from unique). But they never seriously consider voting for or supporting anyone but the Democrats, and tend to be very suspicious of any political action that does not take place within the Democratic Party (see their frequent ire aimed at single-issue groups, especially when such groups endorse anyone who isn’t a Democrat).
Netroots are essentially defined by their loyalty to the Democratic Party
But how can the Democratic Party generate any loyalty? That seems incredible. It’s a typical centrist party, a party of compromise, how can it induce any? feeling, other than boredom? I dunno…
But they never seriously consider voting for or supporting anyone but the Democrats
Because it’s useless at best, but more likely counterproductive. Nader brought us Bush. The real problem, as far as I can see, is that the Netroots have no real bargaining power, as opposed to e.g. the unions.
The problem with Dennis’ view of Kos is that if the people who are sympathetic to that view stopped being Democratic loyalist, we’d just end up being more screwed because we’d be electing more Republicans.
So yeah, the crazy Democratic party loyalists, who I think act like a bunch of idiots sometimes, are still critical to preventing further movement towards the Right in this country. It’s fine to write a book that skewers them for it, but, seriously, I value their commitment. I’ll send $$ to candidates now and then, but I don’t have the spirit or willingness to commit significant amounts of my time to helping to elect Democrats. These people do. It probably requires a lot of cognitive dissonance or kool-aid drinking. So be it. We need these poeple.
“I think calling their loyalty “idolatry” is rather unfair to partisans everywhere, but the Netroots are essentially defined by their loyalty to the Democratic Party.”
Loyalty and idolatry are two very different things, especially in the context of the “current media environment”, which was what the original sentence was about. But even “loyalty” isn’t quite the right word. It’s like talking about someone’s loyalty to mathematics. If you’re in a system that, mathematically, is set up so that only one of two large parties can win elections, then of course you have to be “loyal” to one of them if you want to participate in electoral politics.
if you actually want to stitch the Democratic Party up as a gang of authoritarians, nuts and genocidaires, there’s more than enough material available in the historic record for you to do so. The only thing is, that if you’re going to stitch the Democrats this way, it makes no sense to pretend that they’re socialists too.
This suggests that it wouldn’t be possible for a political party to be authoritarian, nuts, genocidal and socialist. The combination may not be factually correct as a description of the Democratic Party, but I don’t think it would be difficult to make a sensible argument that a single group could comprise all those attributes. (And given the long history and broad sweep of the Democratic party, I t hink it’s probably factually correct that various elements have been, variously, authoritarian, nuts, genocidal and socialist.
Interesting. All these sweeping assertions of the ‘false consciousness’ of non-Leftist Americans and not a hint of insight into the possibility of a Leftist false consciousness. That’s doubtlessly one of those things that’s impossible-by-definition, like the idea that the non-Left might have some reasons for believing as it does and the right, as responsible adults, to come to those conclusions.
Hey, any time you feel like it, go right ahead and show us how John McCain’s foreign and economic policies really will benefit (and Bush’s have benefited) ordinary non-rich folks. Have at it.
are still critical to preventing further movement towards the Right
But that’s not obvious at all. I’ll say: Democratic party loyalists, all they do is allowing the Democratic party to move further to the right, and that, in turn, forces the Republicans to move to the right yet again. It’s the Naderists and such who slow down the sliding. That’s because liberalism has no cornerstone, it can only exist as a compromise between radical doctrines. If there’s vacuum on the left, they’ll move to the right.
But that’s not obvious at all. I’ll say: Democratic party loyalists, all they do is allowing the Democratic party to move further to the right, and that, in turn, forces the Republicans to move to the right yet again. It’s the Naderists and such who slow down the sliding. That’s because liberalism has no cornerstone, it can only exist as a compromise between radical doctrines. If there’s vacuum on the left, they’ll move to the right.
It’s not at all clear to me that Nader didn’t move the country to the right. Our politics over the last 8 years have definitely been more conservative as a result of Nader. And I think the Overton window shifts with the party in power. Maybe the backlash we are about to experience will more than make up for it, maybe not. But then you’re debating political strategy. To me, it’s idiotic to assume that the natural drift is always rightward. I think if the Democratic party were strong, in power and more confident in themselves, they very well could lead the country leftward from where we are currently at. In fact, I’m betting on it by voting Democratic.
I thought Christopher Hitchens was an irresponsible loose cannon back when he was a lefty as well. I remember an article of his called “The Chorus and Cassandra,” a blanket defense of Noam Chomsky for a number of things that in my view fully deserved criticism: e.g. the disgraceful petition on behalf of Faurisson. I’m not sure Hitchens has really changed all that much.
Total says: “Why are we so quick to apply it [the ‘false consciousness’ label] to those who hold positions we don’t like (excepting the evil brainwashers, of course)?”
Because they hold positions-we-don’t-like that are demonstrably opposed to their own interests? Because they vote for policies-we-don’t-like that have demonstrably caused them and theirs harm? Those are fairly important qualifiers.
Seems to me that if you want to explain the electoral behavior of the American public during, say, the last (Reagan) generation or so, “false consciousness” gets you straight down the Occam highway. I don’t much care whether the terms might sound patronizing of people whose consciousness you deem false; the alternative is to insist that the broad middle of the populace collectively decided some time ago that the richest 0.1% just weren’t rich enough, and have been working diligently and in full knowledge since then to rectify matters.
In fact, the alternative is to insist that it’s the evil brainwashers who are blind to their own interests—since they’re spending shitloads of money on an elaborate (and, if false consciousness isn’t real, supererogatory) media/PR infrastructure designed to achieve and maintain the results so eloquently painted on the income ineqality charts. That’s a lot of yachts they could otherwise be buying.
Again, it may be patronizing of me, but if you ask me who has a better and more politically effective understanding of their own interests, I’ll go with the ownership classes—since it’s tough to attribute it to chance that their interests always seem to be the ones to come out on top.
Interesting. All these sweeping assertions of the ‘false consciousness’ of non-Leftist Americans and not a hint of insight into the possibility of a Leftist false consciousness. That’s doubtlessly one of those things that’s impossible-by-definition, like the idea that the non-Left might have some reasons for believing as it does and the right, as responsible adults, to come to those
Somebody just hasn’t been following the discussion very closely…
“I’m not sure Hitchens has really changed all that much.”
I agree with that. What did he ever write that was actually insightful? I think that people who used to like him liked to be able to say “Wow, I just read a guy who attacked Mother Theresa, that’s so cool. You think that you’re a rebel? I’m a stone cold rebel, dude.” It’s a perfectly fitting template for the Decent Left later. “You think that you care about people? Well, you don’t, because you’re not willing to, like, take military action. You have to be a stone cold hard guy, dude.”
Now I’m just waiting to laugh when the people who liked “God Is Not Great” hear that Hitchens has become a Muslim.
“Democrats are simply, like the Republicans, an arm of the American ruling class.”
As are “liberal” academics including most of the authors of this blog. Perrin apparently discusses the assaults on Lebanon and Gaza. Little discussion of the former that I know of here, and none on the latter.
On iraq, no discussion of the nationalist insurgency as such. No discussion of the similarities between Maliki and Abbas, as puppets of an occupying force. No discussion of Iran as a people; as a culture. No mention on blogs as to why the American embassy in Tehran was overrun. “Embassies are sacrosanct!” quoth Josh Marshall. The founding of Israel was “a necessary crime…” “The world owed the Jews” again Marshall. Yes, quotes. No discussion of the Dayton Plan for a force of Palestinian “Contras.” No sandniggers in on the debate at all. Joshua Marshall and Matthew Yglesias get respect, but no As’ad AbuKhalil and no Sinan Antoon. Am I supposed to take Kevin Drum seriously on Iraq? Brad DeLong seriously as an intellectual? Tyler Cowen… on morality!!?? Is Henry Farrell “on the left” just because he says so? Rationalism and self-reporting: sorry but it’s not enough.
The question of the day is still why Tony Judt is to the left of Robert Reich.
If you want to know why there’s no left wing in the country [meaning in this context any real argument for social democracy (best you can do)] then look at who your friends are.
Look in the god damn mirror.
Oh, Hitchen’s has an absolutely brilliant essay about Paul Johnson. What he’s always been best at is attacking other people, often with insight and biting humour, as in Johnson’s case. (And Clinton’s, for that matter). I sometimes wonder if he ever re-reads the Johnson essay and, if so, what it makes him think.
PersonFromPorlock discovers this incredible conundrum: People think that their own opinions are right, and contrary opinions are wrong. And yet, if someone can be wrong in their opinions, the very people who think that they are right could be the ones who are wrong! Puzzling, but true.
I read Savage Mules, and Daniel’s review nails it. The party history in Dennis Perrin’s book is easy enough to come by, but the crock is how rarely it is applied to partisan rhetoric.
And Perrin scrambles the image of dour scolds on the American “far left.” Savage Mules is an indictment of the Democrats as a war party by a raucous Pan.
I don’t much care whether the terms might sound patronizing of people whose consciousness you deem false
Agreed. It’s hard to see how it’s patronizing to admit that, human nature being what it is, people on the whole are susceptible to being misled a calculated, organized, and well-financed campaign to deceive them.
Correction: …being misled by a calculated…
I suppose I have a problem with all the assumptions underlying the idea that the “left” can automatically attack the war state generated by Democrats and Republicans cause war is icky. The war state also generated the social democratic state in the U.S. – and, given the fact that about 40 percent of the GDP is spent by the Fed. government and the states, one can only deny that that is there by being utterly blind. Hell, the American government spends twice the EU average on higher education. Our Social democracy is a thing of patches – but what created it was war. And war created the civil rights movement in the South, an underdeveloped area of the country that was shoveled into modernity via being spoonfed by the Pentagon after WWII - there’s a reason for all those bases in the South – which of course meant that it became a place to invest in by the late fifties, save for the inconvenient apartheid.
Of course, the U.S. isn’t alone in this. Swedish social democracy rests on Sweden’s long history of being a super-duper weapons exporter. And the colonial wealth that allowed the British Labour party to grow, basing itself on what Engels called the “aristocratic” labour sector, did not come when Indians decided to reach into their pockets and help their liverpool brethren. The war state and social democracy have been joined at the hip since, well, since the French revolution saved itself by militarizing in the mid 1790s.
This isn’t to defend the war state – it is a plea for less dumb analysis. The very idea that the Dems are rightist capitalist imperialists, while, say, the SPD has a history full of sweetness and light (going back to those patriotic demonstrations by its socialist predecessor when the Kaiser declared war in 1914) is a pretty silly comparison. There have been a few Jaures types, but mostly, not, in any western society. The tooth fairy did not rain down all that European wealth.
I must admit: when Hitchens is good, he’s very, very good. Here he is, on Paul “Spanker” Johnson:
THE RIGHT-WING HISTORIAN’S LONGTIME MISTRESS DEALS HIM THE UNKINDEST WHACK OF ALL.
– - – - – - – - – -BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
There is almost no English surname, however ancient and dignified, that cannot be instantly improved by the prefix “Spanker.” So deeply is the habit and culture of corporal punishment imbricated with the national psyche that whole shelves of specialist literature, to say nothing of entire racks of newspapers and magazines, are regularly devoted to the subject. A decade or so ago, I outed the barking Tory pamphleteer Paul Johnson as an enthusiast or votary of this cult. For evidence, I had no more to go upon than certain suggestive and repetitive elements in his “work.”
So it was decidedly invigorating to learn, in the dog days of mid-May, that he had been exposed by his mistress of 11 years, the writer Gloria Stewart, as a spankee:
“Paul loved to be spanked and it was a big part of our relationship. I had to tell him he was a very naughty boy.”
A pretty easy task (the second bit, I mean). Johnson has made a career as an especially bilious and persecuting moralizer. His disgraceful book “Intellectuals,” a foul-minded assault on the Enlightenment, laid a feverish stress on the private lives of secular and rationalist intellectuals. Rousseau was not only “vain, egotistical and quarrelsome,” but he “enjoyed being spanked on his bare bottom.” Ibsen “would not expose his sexual organ even for the purpose of medical examination. Was there something wrong with it—or did he think there was?” I don’t need to draw you a picture: With sermonizers like this it’s just a matter of setting one’s watch. Give it just a little time and—presto! We open the tabloids to see their withered haunches bared to the slipper, and the haggard remnants of their Johnsons exposed to the cruel light of day. (Oxford English Dictionary: Johnson. A common surname, used in low slang to designate: a)The penis. b) A man who is kept by a prostitute or prostitutes; a ponce.)
Stewart unmasked Spanker Johnson to the tabloids because she could not bear to read another word of his “family values” tripe in the press. As recently as March, interviewed by Jacob Weisberg for the New York Times Magazine, he had claimed to be an advisor to the late Princess Diana. “Don’t commit adultery,” he said, was his “chief advice” to the divine one. When various Tory MPs were found in a trouser-free condition not long ago, Johnson predicted the ruin of the state and said that adultery, especially when committed by those who opposed it in public, should be severely punished.
But here’s the bizarre thing. Johnson is not just a cult figure wherever two or three spankers are gathered together. He is an adored object of the American Right. Norman Podhoretz loved “Intellectuals.” Nixon used to send out Johnson volumes for Christmas. Oliver North was once overcome with admiration at seeing William Casey read a whole Johnson on a plane flight. Dan Quayle kept a copy of Johnson’s awful “Modern Times” by him, and employed it as a prop against those who accused him of being no great reader. (When pressed for an exegesis of its content, he announced contentedly that it was “a very good historical book about history.”) To be fair to Quayle, “Modern Times” is almost technically unreadable. And so is Johnson’s most recent extrusion, “A History of the American People.” Of this pseudo-scholarly atrocity—slavery a mere blip, the New Deal a monstrous tyranny, Watergate a liberal conspiracy, Reagan the summa of statesmanship—Newt Gingrich has stepped forward in the Weekly Standard to announce it as “perhaps (sic) the most important history of the American people in our generation.” And Steve Forbes, in the Wall Street Journal, terms it “a magnificent achievement.” And neither of them, I feel confident, agrees with Johnson’s grand, risk-taking, entrepreneurial claim that Thomas Edison invented the telephone.
Perhaps there is an element of anti-American self-hatred involved: a surreptitious contempt for American freedom and democracy and a slavish need for approval from a Brit Spanker? (On meeting James Baldwin, Johnson once famously said: “I’m not unaware of prejudice. If you’re born like me, red-haired and left-handed and Catholic, you know exactly what prejudice is.” Baldwin’s impassivity on that occasion did him credit.) But perhaps, also, there is a bodice-ripping Right that hides behind the mild visage of Steve Forbes. So, since Johnson’s “novels” are now remaindered beyond recall, I consider it my stern duty to give you a flavor of his magnificent and sweeping style. Here’s an extract from “Merrie England,” where the blurb promises “cabinet ministers and ponces”:
Felix Appleby, dressed for the office, sat on the edge of Lady Titty Ross’s rumpled four-poster bed, his eyes anchored firmly on the ample cleavage displayed by her negligee… “There, you don’t see a pair like that every day, do you darling?”
And here’s another, from “Left of Center”:
Henry found his gaze straying to her round and rosy bottom, which rose and fell gently to the rhythm of her breathing. What to do? Henry pondered in the doorway. … “There’s nothing more calculated, old man, to excite a woman than a good hard slap on her behind. None of your playful taps, mind. A real stinger. They come up foaming at the mouth.”
Dora’s bottom invited him. Here was his chance, at one blow, to reassume his masculine, paramount role in their relationship. Draining his glass and setting it down decisively on the dressing table, he advanced purposefully over Dora’s sleeping form and brought his hand down with tremendous force.
It’s both satisfying and unsatisfying that Spanker Johnson is now, conclusively and forever, a figure of ridicule and contempt. He ought also to be remembered for his bigotry and spite and bullying. (And maybe for an accidental tincture of literary prescience: One light smack and he “comes up foaming at the mouth.”) But not all the perfumes of Araby can sweeten that spanking hand; nay, not all the genius of the Pfizer Corporation can make this Johnson rise again.
SALON | May 28, 1998
Because they hold positions-we-don’t-like that are demonstrably opposed to their own interests?
Demonstrably to whom? You? That’s all part of the patronizing bit: “You’re not smart enough to understand what’s best for you.” Please.
I don’t much care whether the terms might sound patronizing of people whose consciousness you deem false
Such a statement is one of the reasons why the American left (and the Democrats as part of that) have never met a victory we couldn’t turn into a defeat.
the alternative is to insist that the broad middle of the populace collectively decided some time ago that the richest 0.1% just weren’t rich enough, and have been working diligently and in full knowledge since then to rectify matters.
See and this is exactly it: your definition of the best interests of the broad middle of the populace is entirely economic. They may believe that their best interests include things non-economic. Wouldn’t it be nice to find out, instead of just broad-brushing them with the tar of “false consciousness”?
See and this is exactly it: your definition of the best interests of the broad middle of the populace is entirely economic. They may believe that their best interests include things non-economic. Wouldn’t it be nice to find out, instead of just broad-brushing them with the tar of “false consciousness”?
No, this is just not right. It’s not as if ample time and space here and elsewhere is not committed to trying to answer this kind of question of what motivates people to vote for Republicans. I’m sure that the same commenters here have even participated in that debate. But based on that investigation, which has been substantial, false consciousness is one answer that bubbles up as a big part of the story. This isn’t an argument anyone would offer against a conservative as to the legitimacy of left/liberal views- that would be a waste of time and irrelevant (so all these, ‘what if it’s your false-consciousness?’ worriers can just knock it off). But it is an important issue in trying to figure out how to get to a more liberal society as a political strategy.
The Faurisson affair was a long time ago and anyone in the opinion business would bet that the details are forgotten now; hence the opportunists, pedlars of the New York Times line, … old wives of both sexes, stuffed shirts, hollow men with headpieces stuffed with straw, bird-wits, lookers-under-beds, trained seals, creeping Jesuses, … policemen, leaders of white mouse factions and noted connoisseurs of bread and butter (how I honour Hugh MacDiarmid) think it’s safe to add a bit of turps to the dried-out old smear and give it another go. So, for the sake of the robust assertion of an honest point of view: this is the stuff.
false consciousness is one answer that bubbles up as a big part of the story.
A link would be nice.
In any case, I’m not arguing that misperception doesn’t play a role. What I’m suggesting is that the attitudes in this thread, in which false consciousness is the only reason given are offensive and patronizing.
Ignore Seth Edenbaum long enough and he might go away, but the questions he’s asking won’t.
But since the answers to them are fairly obvious, maybe we should just assume them as already answered, then extrapolate that on out to larger venues like the Democratic Party and American society as a whole, and be done.
The answer to the broad vague question of why there is no real functioning American left is its membership was exterminated, and the remnants of its membership after that consistently denied voice and access to democratic power.
Three different modes were employed, one during the Great Depression, another during WW2, and the third during the 1950’s. By the 60’s the left was starved skeletal and consisted mostly of naive thrill-seeking college kids. Who then got the shit beat out of them and either became radicals and went underground, or gave up and went home. Or graduated.
The astonishing thing to me is the people who accept readily that the obscenely repressive techniques that were delivered, with hands-on instruction for their use to Latin American fascists by covert American governmental agencies, and who accept that uncounted thousands of leftists in those countries were violently exterminated, that the same people who believe all that did take place somehow manage to believe it never happened here.
That nothing like that ever happened here. That the same American shadow agencies, that engineered and enabled the nightmares of El Salvador and Guatemala and Chile and Argentina and more, turned out to believe so strongly and firmly in democracy they never did anything more repressive in the US than a few National Guard policing actions, like at Kent State and Berkeley. And maybe a couple things like dropping Fred Hampton.
One wonders if the absence of a radical left in America may be due to native temperament, that we’re just too nice as a people to get all that upset about politics.
Pretending that process of extermination never happened here, couldn’t happen here, isn’t happening here, makes lengthy discussion of what to do about things almost realistic, and lot more comfortable, doesn’t it?
Are you seriously expecting a link to various blog posts discussing the voting preferences of the American public and whether or not the middle class gets screwed economically by Republicans? No list of links would do that one justice. If you think the ‘attitudes’ in this thread are meant to persuade Republicans, you’re looking in the wrong thread. But I don’t think they’re all that patronizing. The American public is willing to tolerate things like torture and unsolicited war to a disturbing degree. And there’s not much evidence that Republican voters are consciously holding their noses to vote against their economic interests in order to make abortion illegal or keep the mexicans in their place.
I don’t think it makes sense to construe what anyone has said here to be that false consciousness is the only reason for current political alignments. It’s more that they are lamenting the power of propaganda we currently see. Maybe you find this patronizing, but that’s hardly an argument that the case is otherwise.
If I understand correctly the “false-consciousness” thing, any kind of ideology that distracts you from the class struggle is false-consciousness. Since “class struggle” is never discussed, subject of one of the strongest taboos in American society, one could argue that pretty much all consciousness out there is false-consciousness.
Who gentrifies working class neighborhoods full of socially conservative church goers (of all races)?
Educated liberals.
Regardless of cultural capital, which doesn’t always help, at least Perrin and I have spent years of our adult lives as members of the economic working class, digging in the dirt that you won’t touch. Being lectured on false consciousness by those who think it impossible that such a term might be applied to them… my god how americans are so fucking unaware.
“Those people are so… irrational! Why aren’t they like us”
Neoliberalism means never having to say you’re sorry.
It’s individualism vs community. Liberals are liberal individualists. Poor conservatives buy into the lie that conservative defenders of capitalism are like defenders of the monarchy: of stability and order. Liberals are seen to oppose that. They’re seen as the instrument of change. They show no respect. I’m seen enough in 20 years. They’re the velvet glove on the iron fist of capitalism. But all they feel is softness of the the glove and the glove is all the poor see.
Liberals feel pity and pity in close quarters is contempt.
And thank you Roy Belmont for finding more examples of others to blame.
It’s always “them.” “They’re the problem.”
No asshole, it’s us. Figure that out and then begin to hope, and work a little bit.
I don’t know. Looking at the history of the Democratic Party before, say, 1960, doesn’t give you much insight at all into the current state of the party. It is obviously true that the historical party was involved in some very bad stuff, but that has little to do with the current party.
What you need to know is that the the Vietnam War made the Democrats the de facto dove party (relative to the hawks); the Civil Rights movement made the Democrats the de facto civil rights party; and second wave feminism made the Democrats the de facto feminist party. All of these developments had the effect of splintering the former New Deal coalition.
Then the 12 long years of Reagan-Bush pushed the national Democrats further to the center on economic issues.
The combined effects of Vietnam, McGovern, Carter & the hostage crisis, the first Gulf War, and 9-11 pushed many democrats further to the right on foreign policy issues.
What you have today is a not entirely coherent party that is made up various constuencies that often do not see eye to eye on important issues.
And because the U.S. has a first past the post system, Diverger’s Law suggests that the Democrats will be the only game in town for those who are left of center.
Seth, you spent years of your life as a member of the “economic working class”? I never knew! You could have told me!
Total: See and this is exactly it: your definition of the best interests of the broad middle of the populace is entirely economic.
Corrected: See and this is exactly it: your definition of the best interests of the broad middle of the populace as presented in a single blog comment is entirely economic.
I’m getting the impression you don’t really understand the limits of the medium here, Total.
And Perrin wrote a book and TV shows before he ended up scrubbing office bathrooms to pay the rent.
Education marks you. You can lose the shirt off your back, but not that.
Is it just me, or is it not really, really naive to accept on its own terms the charge that only liberals and radicals use the concept of “false consciousness” to criticize their political opponents? Conservatives do this all the goddamn time. They just don’t use terms like “false consciousness” or “ideologiekritik.” Consider, for example, a pair of columns by George Will (trust me, this will only take a few seconds; it won’t hurt too badly):
In his 4-15-08 Post column, commenting on Obama’s “bitter” comment, Will trots out all the familiar charges against liberals as being “condescending.” He even brings up the “false consciousness” meme in order to cast it in liberals’ teeth as snobbery.
Now, just two days earlier, in a column about the housing crisis (inaccurately so-called, according to Will), he had had this to say about the nation’s whiners (sound familiar?):
“The idea that protracted golden years of idleness are a universal right is a delusion of recent vintage. Deranged by the entitlement mentality fostered by a metastasizing welfare state, Americans now have such low pain thresholds that suffering is defined as a slight delay in beginning a subsidized retirement often lasting one-third of the retiree’s adult lifetime.”
If this isn’t just another way of saying Americans are victims of “false consciousness” (albeit with the result that they exhibit behavior Will doesn’t happen to like), grits ain’t groceries.
For a less sophisticated (ha!) version, see the title of Michael Savage’s book: Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.
The last thing I’m trying to say is that one side is just as bad as the other. I’ll leave that up to the eminently “reasonable” Cass Sunstein. Rather, I’m saying that it’s hypocrisy for conservatives to say that at least some rather prominent members of their ranks don’t regularly ascribe social conditioning and/or brainwashing to liberal voting patterns. Indeed, such techniques have comprised a healthy part of their campaign strategy for at least 40 years, with Nixon as proud parent of this development: liberals cannot be trusted because they have been co-opted, either willingly or unwillingly, by sinister “un-American” forces—radicals, foreigners, the UN, homosexuals—and so don’t understand the glorious naturalness of rapacious capitalism. (The fact that most contemporary Democrats are much more rapacious economically than Nixon ever was is not lost on me.)
So can we at least cut the crap?
God, my use of html sucks. Just ignore the various italicization and boldfacing.
Whatever one thinks of “false consciousness”, Dennis isn’t one to let ordinary Americans off the hook, as anyone who reads his blog regularly would know. I don’t think he believes the Chomskyan notion that if only ordinary Americans knew what was done in their name, they’d all be shocked and appalled. Well, some might, but others wouldn’t.
Problems with the false consciousness meme:
It’s obviously patronizing and “we know what’s best for you” rightfully enrages people, as it is totally against any enlightenment conception of man and has been used to mislead people time after time.
It only addresses the economic interests of people and thus is indicative of a very limited vision – people care about tons of other stuff.
What about all those middle to upper-middle class people who vote for parties with policies that don’t necessarily coincide with their economic interests – are they too victims of false consciousness, shouldn’t they rather vote their interests?
It’s built on an ancient and largely anachronistic theory of class struggle that isn’t very relevant to our socio-economic structure anymore.
But, hey, if you want to dig your own grave – do go on.
I’m a little confused about the “false consciousness” debate here. For those of us who accept that the US government has murdered or helped to murder a lot of people, it is kind of important to understand why most people aren’t more outraged about it. There are several possibilities—
1. They are outraged and, like me, don’t do much about it except write an occasional letter to some congressperson or newspaper or worse, a blog comment post.
2. They don’t know what’s done in their name.
3. They do know, or at least they know enough, and they support it because
A) They rationalize it as the least bad choice
B) They enjoy the vicarious pleasures of kicking foreign butt.
C) They believe that crime pays and we benefit from this
D) Some other reason.
Which one of these would be “false consciousness”?
@blah: Duverger’s Law gets broken an awful lot—see the rise of the American and Republican parties in the US, the NDP and later the Reform Party/Alliance in Canada (which, remarkably, happened in a single election cycle), the rise of Labour in the Great Britain, the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales, everything about Northern Ireland politics for the last 40 years, etc. I think we need to look for another explanation for the two-party stranglehold.
“It’s built on an ancient and largely anachronistic theory of class struggle that isn’t very relevant to our socio-economic structure anymore.”
Bullshit. Just because the working class is too ashamed to call itself by that name doesn’t mean that’s not precisely what they are.
And self-serving forms of argument will always be in vogue. People love to point out others’ glass houses, but nobody wants to admit they live in one. False consciousness exists. “True” consciousness doesn’t. And the best laid plans won’t make it so. They’ll always be room for delusion.
“@blah: Duverger’s Law gets broken an awful lot”
It’s held up pretty consistently in the U.S. for 200+ years. The Republican Party arose because the Whigs disintegrated and most of their voter based moved to the Republicans.
I’m not writing very well on this one. Too many stupid mistakes.
I’m just not having any fun I guess.
I’m out.
I don’t think “false consciousness” is a very useful concept because it assumes that people should have certain views based solely on their socio-economic position. Humans are more complicated than that.
Concepts like “media bias,” “manufactured consent,” or “propaganda” are more useful because they point out information problems or attempts to mislead people and it’s reasonable to think that some people would change their views if they had access to different information.
As an Australian reader of US feminist blogs – Feministe, Pandagon, Shakesville, Problem chylde and others – I have to say that the attitude of the left as demonstrated there is completely non-idolatrous. US feminists seem completely au fait with the fact that Democrats and their supporters often see “wimminz issues” as side issues that must be downplayed and postponed indefinitely for the greater good of not frightening away the more impressionable voters (and in favour of issues affecting, you know, people, rather than women).
@64: We may be talking past each other to some extent, but: Duverger’s Law states that a polity with first-past-the-post elections will develop exactly two electable parties. In Duverger’s world, British politics is still a contest between the Conservative and Liberal parties, with probably no other parties holding seats in Great Britain; Northern Ireland is divided between a single Unionist party and some mushy party that unites Nationalists with liberals who don’t really care; and Canadian socialists consistently vote Liberal out of a despair of other options. Since this is not our world, the electoral system alone can’t possibly be the deciding factor in the utter domination of American politics by two parties.
Also, even if we accept that the Republicans completely co-opted the Whigs’ voter base (something that certainly didn’t happen in the South), Duverger’s Law says nothing about why the Republican Party emerged with a different platform than the Whigs. Or what the hell the deal was with the American Party or the Constitutional Union Party (itself a group mostly of rump Whigs who refused outright to have anything to do with the Republicans).
Sorry, Deliasmith,
The response you cite from Chomsky, like everything else he’s written on the subject since he signed the petition in question, evades one very important question: why was he foolish enough to let his name be attached to a document full of denialist rhetoric? For a particularly choice example, try this: “Since 1974 he [Faurisson] has been conducting extensive historical research into the ‘Holocaust’ question.” In other essays on the subject, Chomsky has wrapped himself in the Bill of Rights, as if all he (Chomsky) had done was to defend Faurisson’s right to speak his mind. Sorry, but if you sign your name to something, you render yourself accountable for what it says.
Some may think it is patronising for middle classes to bring up “false consciousness”. I disagree. It’s not just the workers who suffer from the syndrome; the middle classes are targets – not victims, targets – of it too. And the attempt of the American media to downplay the existence of class is just one example.
Here’s the thing: nobody needs me or Bernie Sanders to tell them that it sucks out there and that times are tougher economically in this country than perhaps they’ve been for quite a long time. We’ve all seen the stats—median income has declined by almost $2,500 over the past seven years, we have a zero personal savings rate in America for the first time since the Great Depression, and 5 million people have slipped below the poverty level since the beginning of the decade. And stats aside, most everyone out there knows what the deal is. If you’re reading this and you had to drive to work today or pay a credit card bill in the last few weeks you know better than I do for sure how fucked up things have gotten. I hear talk from people out on the campaign trail about mortgages and bankruptcies and bill collectors that are enough to make your ass clench with 100 percent pure panic.
None of this is a secret. Here, however, is something that is a secret: that this is a class issue that is being intentionally downplayed by a political/media consensus bent on selling the public a version of reality where class resentments, or class distinctions even, do not exist. Our “national debate” is always a thing where we do not talk about things like haves and have-nots, rich and poor, employers versus employees. But we increasingly live in a society where all the political action is happening on one side of the line separating all those groups, to the detriment of the people on the other side.
Matt Taibbi: Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics.
Last two paragraphs were meant to be block-quoted as well.
69: Sorry, but if you sign your name to something, you render yourself accountable for what it says.
What Chomsky signed his name to was a thousand-word statement about the affair that Faurisson’s publisher, without Chomsky’s knowledge (as I understand it), attached to Faurisson’s book. In any case, to say that Faurisson’s civil rights were violated—which is all that Chomsky said, and which is beyond dispute—is obviously not to endorse Faurisson’s beliefs. It really is dispiriting to consider all the illogic and/or bad faith that has gone into ignoring this.
I’m not sure what Aaron Baker is implying—if he’s only saying that Chomsky behaved foolishly in trusting people he shouldn’t have trusted, or something along those lines, then maybe he’s got a point, though not a very interesting one. It’s only interesting if he’s accusing Chomsky of being a Holocaust denier, but that’s false.
No, please, not another Faurisson-go-round. Please give me hope that if I live for another two decades, we won’t still be discussing, I don’t know, Ward Churchill.
Huis Clos, The Next Generation: Hell is other people’s blog obsessions.
It only addresses the economic interests of people and thus is indicative of a very limited vision – people care about tons of other stuff.
You don’t understand, guys. The ‘economic interests’ is more like a basis of classical liberalism, milton-friedmanism.
In marxism you have ‘class-consciousness’ and ‘false-consciousness’, because what you are, everything that happens to you is fully determined by the socio-economic system, you are a product of that system. It’s the difference between one single accurate world-view and all the bullshit world-views out there.
Imagine, for simplicity’s sake, that you’re a slave in chains. All your family are slaves, all your friends are slaves, pretty much all the people you know are slaves. What is the single factor that defines your consciousness? Is it the size of your ration (your ‘economic interests’)? Is it that the new Mexican slaves are lazy and you have to do more work because of that? Is it that your slave-master is an asshole who tortures you for fun? Is it the yucky homosexual slaves? Atheist slaves, muslim slaves? Or is it the institution of slavery?
So, if they give a vote, should you be voting for doubling your ration or for the elimination of the institution of slavery?
Now, if you, people, think that you are not a product of the socio-economic system, that what’s in your head – your consciousness – is pretty much independent and autonomous (implanted directly by God, for example) – that’s fine, otherwise, I think, you’ll have to admit that it makes at least some sense.
Yah, dude, if only it were that simple [and if only slaves had votes, eh, wouldn’t THAT be neat?]. But if we prolong the analogy slaves/capitalist property/exploitation/general unpleasantness, it behoves us to point out that today many slaves own slaves, many slaves are quite well off [or certainly well enough off to fear the consequences of upheaval], indeed the political system is run by people who are, in point of fact, almost as much ‘slaves’ as anyone else, just richer ones. And that those who would unambiguously benefit, even setting aside the horrific chaos of transition, from the abolition of this ‘slavery’ are [within the borders of any given ‘advanced’ state] almost certainly in a minority. So, on a cost-benefit analysis, what is it best for people to believe about their ‘slavery’, that it should end, or continue?
It doesn’t matter, Dave, you don’t need to yearn for a revolution. The idea is that as long as you understand that the socio-economic system is the foundation, the underlying cause of everything else – then you’re OK, you are not a dupe, you are well equipped to analyze everything that floats above, any given political phenomenon.
I know, it may sound a bit arrogant, but consider the ‘evolution vs creationism’ debate – are the Darwinists too arrogant to insist that their world-view is the correct one, the only correct one? Well, it’s exactly the same kinda thing here; only apropos of society instead of biology.
OK, but then you must also acknowledge that it is quite possible to see anything – up to and including an effort of religious propaganda – from the perspective of one who wishes the present socio-economic setup to endure, and therefore is quite justified in presenting people with imaginary reasons why it should. Only if you introduce some arbitrary dimension of morality can you go on to claim that it is wrong to make up stories about sky-pixies to get people to stay happy little consumers… And how idealist would that be?
I don’t think there is any right and wrong here, just like there is nothing right or wrong/justified or unjustified in prehistoric fish growing legs or something. It may be wrong for an individuals to make up stories to fool people, but as far as societal evolution goes – given enough time religious beliefs and various bullshit ideologies will certainly emerge. There’s no right and wrong, it’s a deterministic process described by the law of large numbers.
Ah, I see you’re taking the large view. If only other followers of Marx had been so wise, a lot of trouble would have been avoided.
Revolutionary movements and various unsuccessful evolutionary developments, dead-end branches are also predetermined and inevitable.
And that those who would unambiguously benefit, even setting aside the horrific chaos of transition, from the abolition of this ‘slavery’ are [within the borders of any given ‘advanced’ state] almost certainly in a minority.
Umm, this is begging the question somewhat, n’est-ce pas?
Also Dave it’s hard to see how most of what you have written has any bearing specifically on the question of ‘false consciousness’, rather than just giving expression, for the millionth time, to your all-consuming loathing of revolutionary politics…
Rich at 79—
Good point. I felt a little guilty typing 78 for precisely that reason—maybe someone should propose a new internet principle involving this topic to stop further outbreaks of the madness.
everything that happens to you is fully determined by the socio-economic system
abb1, this sort of vulgo-marxist reductionist and deterministic basis-überbau nonsense has been decisively refuted by none other than Engels himself (e.g. Letter to J. Bloch, 1890):
I qualify your first major proposition as follows: According to the materialistic conception of history, the production and reproduction of real life constitutes in the last instance [Engels’ emphasis] the determining factor of history. Neither Marx nor I ever maintained more. Now when someone comes along and distorts this to mean that the economic factor is the sole determining factor, he is converting the former proposition into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis but the various factors of the superstructure – the political forms of the class struggles and its results – constitutions, etc., established by victorious classes after hard-won battles – legal forms, and even the reflexes of all these real struggles in the brain of the participants, political, jural, philosophical theories, religious conceptions and their further development into systematic dogmas – all these exercise an influence upon the course of historical struggles, and in many cases determine for the most part their form. There is a reciprocity between all these factors in which, finally, through the endless array of contingencies (i.e., of things and events whose inner connection with one another is so remote, or so incapable of proof, that we may neglect it, regarding it as nonexistent) the economic movement asserts itself as necessary.
history is so made that the end-result always arises out of the conflict of many individual wills, in which every will is itself the product of a host of special conditions of life. Consequently there exist innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite group of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant product – the historical event.
This again may itself be viewed as the product of a force acting as a whole without consciousness or volition. (…) But from the fact that the wills of individuals – who desire what the constitution of their body as well as external circumstances, in the last instance economic (either personal or social) impel them to desire – do not get what they wish, but fuse into an average or common resultant, from all that one has no right to conclude that they equal zero. On the contrary, every will contributes to the resultant and is in so far included within it.
Marx and I are partly responsible for the fact that at times our disciples have laid more weight upon the economic factor than belongs to it. We were compelled to emphasize this main principle in opposition; to our opponents who denied it, and there wasn’t always time, place and occasion to do justice to the other factors in the reciprocal interaction. But just as soon as it was a matter of the presentation of an historical chapter, that is to say, of practical application, things became quite different; there, no error was possible. Unfortunately it is only too frequent that a person believes he has completely understood a new theory and is capable of applying it when he has taken over its fundamental ideas – but it isn’t always true. And from this reproach I cannot spare many of the recent “Marxists”.
How is it different from what I said? The socio-economic system is the foundation, is it not?
engels, darling, sweetie, to quote you on me: “giving expression, for the millionth time, to your all-consuming loathing of revolutionary politics…”
if only you knew what I knew, you would find that as amusing as I do. But as for the present, there are no “revolutionary politics”, there are only deluded idiots, small numbers thereof, who still think that, at some miraculous point in the future, everyone will suddenly start agreeing with them.
Unless, that is, you are one of the sad, sick bastards who thinks that the majority who don’t agree with you will just have to be liquidated?
ciao, mmwah!
BTW, re. your comment #88:
a] technically, no, it isn’t;
b] on the historical evidence, the number of people who can be said to have unambiguously benefitted from any documented example of revolutionary upheaval, particularly one which sets out to overturn the entire socio-economic foundation of a functional society, is low, to put it mildly. And when I say ‘low’, I mean if you include all the people who died somewhat earlier than they were planning to, even the ones you may not like, along with all the ones who found themselves living in societies that were, oddly enough, not as free and equal as the ones they’d thought they’d been promised in the rosy dawn of a new age.
But what the hey, eh? If you’ve got an idea, and you think it’s good, and you want to run with it, who am I to stop you? Call me when the Supreme Soviet is due to convene, I’ll vote for you [would be dangerous not to, wouldn’t it?]
Dave, argument isn’t really your forte, is it?
Yeah, seriously, Novakant – you’re being grossly unfair. You ignore the totality of my oeuvre in this thread, pick out one phrase and based on the most uncharitable interpretation of it call the whole thing “vulgo-marxist reductionist and deterministic basis-überbau nonsense”. That is uncalled for and regrettable, I must say.
Note also that I was compelled to emphasize this main principle in opposition to my opponents who denied it, and there wasn’t always time, place and occasion to do justice to the other factors in the reciprocal interaction.
How is it different from what I said? The socio-economic system is the foundation, is it not?
That’s not what you said and I hate to repeat your own words to you, but I guess I have to:
everything that happens to you is fully determined by the socio-economic system
This is wrong according to Engels, in fact such a view is exactly what he criticizes in this letter:
Now when someone comes along and distorts this to mean that the economic factor is the sole determining factor, he is converting the former proposition into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase.
What abb1 said, for the most part (I do think, abb1, you put it too strongly in 87). The point here is that false consciousness isn’t simply the act of believing something that is wrong, and it can’t be eliminated by “telling people the truth”.
It is a product of the alienation produced by the exploitation within the socio-economic system. All forms of false consciousness will be finally overcome only in a communist (in the sense of Marx, say, not in the sense of ‘socialism plus electrification’) society.
To achieve social progress in the meantime, it is necessary to develop the class consciousness of the oppressed sufficiently to overcome the various forms of false consciousness – not get rid of them, since that’s impossible, but overcome their reactionary force.
As an example, take liberation theology. Or take joint struggles by workers divided by racism. It can happen, through struggle.
A good read regarding, in particular, religion is this piece by J. Molyneux in International Socialism (it is also one of the better put-downs of Dawkins and Hitchens one can find).
(Note to Dave: we are not sitting around waiting for the revolution magically to appear. But neither are we sitting around telling us that we can’t do anything, and have to live with whatever the Democrats/New Labour/whoever decide to throw us as a bone. If that makes us dead-ender and dreamers, so be it. I’d rather be a dreamer than a cynic.)
Novakant, I preempted your explanation. Yes, this one particular phrase of mine could be interpreted as “to mean that the economic factor is the sole determining factor”, but please rest assured that it meant ‘in the last instance it is the determining factor of history’. Obviously. I am vulgar, but not that vulgar.
abb1, the words I quoted were written by you to directly refute a claim of mine, so it is not unfair of me if I offer a counter-refutation quoting these words.
As regards your “oeuvre” in this thread, it pretty much runs counter to everything Engels says, in fact it is a good example of the dumbed down version of Marxism that Engels (and others) criticizes.
In responses to my post, geo & Donald Johnson seem to have missed an important fact: Chomsky quite knowingly signed his name in 1979 to the following petition:
“Dr. Robert Faurisson has served as a respected professor of twentieth-century French literature and document criticism for over four years at the University of Lyon-2 in France. Since 1974 he has been conducting extensive historical research into the “Holocaust” question.
Since he began making his findings public, Professor Faurisson has been subject to a vicious campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander and physical violence in a crude attempt to silence him. Fearful officials have even tried to stop him from further research by denying him access to public libraries and archives.
We strongly protest these efforts to deprive Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and expression, and we condemn the shameful campaign to silence him.
We strongly support Professor Faurisson’s just right of academic freedom and we demand that university and government officials do everything possible to ensure his safety and the free exercise of his legal rights. ”
This, and nothing else, is the document I was referring to. And there’s no bad faith here in saying that Chomsky was a bonehead for putting his name on such a document. It is clearly more than a defense of Faurisson’s free speech rights. It contains all-too typical denialist rhetoric, such as putting “Holocaust” in quotation marks, as well as suggesting there’s something called “the ‘Holocaust’ question.” The question-begging characterization of Faurisson’s ravings as “findings” is also typical of the same dishonest rhetoric.
Note, by the way, that I am NOT accusing Chomsky himself of being a denialist. I’m saying only that it was atrocious judgment to put his name on a piece of denialist propaganda. And the offense, I think, was only compounded in Chomsky’s later writings on the subject, in which he seems completely incapable of grasping why signing this thing was so stupid.
My point, that Chomsky exercised poor judgment, may not be the most interesting in the world; but the only bad faith I see is in the continued efforts to defend that poor judgment with irrelevant appeals to free speech.
A further matter, which I won’t emphasize here because I can’t independently confirm the allegation: the late Pierre Vidal-Naquet, who criticized Chomsky’s signing of the petition without accusing Chomsky himself of being a denialist, asserted that an important claim in the petition was false: namely that Faurisson had been barred from public libraries and archives. According to Vidal-Naquet, Faurisson had been barred from the CENTRE POUR DOCUMENTATION JUIVE, a private archive, because its directors (entirely understandably) were tired of the uses to which he was putting their hospitality. I don’t know whether Vidal-Naquet was right here or not. If he was right, Chomsky’s judgment would of course look even worse than it already does.
engels: Argument? Who argues any more, when you can abuse? Besides, it’s not like you offered anything a neutral observer would call “evidence” is it?
christian – I’d rather be a dreamer than a cynic, too. Unfortunately there comes a point when experience of enough “dreamers” turns one into a cynic. Or at least, someone who realises that the “dreamers” of this world aren’t actually achieving anything, and may, in fact, with their endless persistence in reciting hackneyed formulae, be actively preventing any form of genuinely imaginative solutions to social, political and ecological problems from emerging. Or whatever.
Question for the attentive masses: what proportion of people who post here actually give a damn, vs what proportion are just taking the piss?</