Charles,
What's your take on this:
parecon.org
Excerpt:
South End Press: What differences do you see in the way the next generation is taking up the mantle?
Michael Albert: My concern with young folks today is not that they are jettisoning things I believed in 30 years ago, and particularly ways we defined ourselves and acted. My concern is that while they feel they are learning from our mistakes and creating something different, too often they are repeating our mistakes.
South End Press: What exactly do you mean?
Michael Albert: We moved left and saw everyone else who was lagging behind as manipulated, or ignorant, or sucked into consumption, and so on. So do today's youth. We became disdainful of many facets of U.S. daily life --sports, TV, movies, the way people dress, what they eat-- so have today's youth. We lost track of why people do the things they do, of the courage and insight that is often involved, and so have today's youth. It is troubling, but certainly not young people's fault. Rather, my generation hasn't done a good job of being self critical about our sectarianism, our arrogance, our isolating ourselves from other folks by denigrating their experiences, all things that are recurring today, I think.
What if I created a movement which said that anyone who reads the New York Times is a manipulated moron, or that anyone who buys books from a big publisher, or anyone who uses a computer, or who wears body art or sculpture, or smokes, is a moron? And suppose I did this with no comprehension that the reasons people have for doing these things that my new movement disparages aren't that they have been tricked into it by sophisticated advertising, or that they support the profit-seeking going on, etc., but that in difficult and constrained settings these choices make sense for various reasons. Then I would be dumb and these folks wouldn't relate well to my movement, rightly.
Okay, so instead we create movements that say that people who consume from KMart, or watch TV sitcoms, or who eat foods we don't advocate much less Burger King, or enjoy professional sports, are manipulated morons. Or our movements imply as much by their manner, tone, and deeds --and we wonder why folks aren't flocking to join these movements. We call people the salt of the earth, and then can't spend even an hour to comprehend their circumstances and choices to see that they are just as sensible as our reading the New York Times, arguably more so. I think class has a lot to do with this asymmetry. If they have to be hostile to something, why are so many young people more hostile to country music than to classical, to enjoying professional sports than to enjoying highbrow movies? It reminds me of Marxist Leninist organizations in the U.S. saying in the 1960s that the working class will lead us and then saying the working class was demented and deluded in its opposition to the Soviet system. If the first part wasn't largely rhetoric, it might have occurred to folks that perhaps working people had good reasons to fear and hate "the Soviet model." But the first part was largely rhetoric. The Marxist movements weren't sincere or insightful about their working class allegiance. Similarly, if the first part of many leftist's contemporary allegiance to "the people" wasn't rhetoric, maybe more leftists would look more closely at "the people's" life choices and respect them.
Is part of the problem the fact that to critique and change the system, one needs to be, to some degree, alienated from it? And rather than exist in an alienated state, most dissidents choose to start and foster countercultures. How can we remain fundamentally outside and oppositional to society while at the same time embracing the people who work within it? Without going crazy, that is.
Well, to critique and change the system one has to be critical of it, and have something else one prefers, I agree with that. But I don't see why one has to be divorced from and dismissive of other folks. For example, I spent years, as have you, working at an institution with completely different values, norms, and structure than typical institutions in society at large, and we are both critical of mainstream workplaces and have something we prefer. But it didn't make me and I bet it hasn't made you critical of people who work at typical jobs, selling their labor power. It doesn't make us hostile to them or paternalistic to them, either. We don't feel like those other people are dumb, or manipulated, or selling out. So we have solidarity and respect and see ourselves as potential allies, even as we argue that a different way of doing work is better than the way they are doing work.
So why is it different regarding consumption values and choices, or food values and choices, or what we like for entertainment, even when there is a warranted critique, systemically? I think there are selections regarding culture and consumption and entertainment and even food that are fit for a good society, and other choices about these that make sense for many now, but aren't the stuff of vision. Okay, does that mean I have to disrespect or denigrate or feel alienated from the people making those constrained choices, often with courage and dignity? I don't see why. If I don't like the commercialism of sports, the hierarchy, or the sexism, say, can I not still recognize that sports plays a positive role as well in many people's lives? That one can watch sports for the artistry and excitement, and also for the community and the opportunity to partake of it which is so hard to find anywhere else? Can I not even do that myself? Why is it okay for a leftist to listen to a symphony or go to the museum and an average person can't watch Ken Griffey Jr. without us looking askance at it? I think class differences and attitudes are powerfully at work in these matters. [...] |
