Self Interest as Politically Radical

On February 11th a discussion was held on Carnegie Mellon’s campus regarding Hosni Mubarak’s resignation from the Egyptian presidency. The discussion was facilitated by Professor Nico Slate who addressed the significant youth presence amongst the protests leading up to Mubarak’s resignation, “It’s not just that young people are more inclined to go out and protest, which they are . . . It’s also that young people need jobs, and they want good jobs.” He went on to recall one of the regimes attempt to thwart the revolution: paying protestors in Cairo to side with the state. “Well you have to put yourself in that person’s shoes. This calculation’s going through their head. How likely is my participation going to make a difference? How much money is being offered to me and what is that money going to do for my life?”
In many ways, I found Thompson’s humanist history of the English working class to be plagued by the contradictions that inevitably arise when politics and political action are rooted foremost in self interest, as seen in Egypt. Thomspon seems determined to convince us, while carefully citing exceptions to the rule, that the values of the English working-class came to be political radicalism, unity, and egalitarianism amidst the wave of industrialization. Implicitly, acting out one’s self-interest (if one is a sober craftsman or, at the very least, a non-‘scab’ member of the working class) and political radicalism become interchangeable in Thompson’s discourse.
He writes that the small-ware and check-weavers had strongly organized trade societies that resisted the influx of unapprenticed labor – “the men who “would be content to work upon any Terms, or submit to do any Kind of servile Work, rather than starve over the winter” – by advocating laws that would enforce apprenticeships. They were sadly defeated and their industry continued to be subsumed by immigrants, drunks, and rootless men. But not all weavers were forced beyond the edge of starvation and depravity during this time. The Leeds stuff weavers were successful in keeping up wages in the 1830s “by a combination of picketing, intimidation of “masters” and “illegal” men, municipal politics, and violent opposition to machinery.” Both these instances of what Thomspon identifies as political radicalism, are not fundamental efforts to achieve human dignity, an ethos of mutuality, but an attempt to serve the relatively narrow interests of a working class sect (at the obvious cost of others).
In the early 1800s, “With no hope of legal protection the weavers turned more directly to the channels of political Radicalism.” Here, Thomspon clearly equates political Radicalism with a method of bringing about change that might as well be “violence” and “intimidation” (as ironically seen in Leeds). He concludes the book with a curious last breath that speaks to the chasm between working class philosophy/consciousness and their activism, “Hence these years appear at times to display, not a revolutionary challenge, but a resistance movement, in which both the Romantic and the Radical craftsmen opposed the annunciation of the Acquisitive Man. In the failure of the two traditions to come to a point of junction, something was lost”(832). This is a critical point which he does not explore. As we know, the Romantics, as all literary schools, operated under a theoretical framework. Their writing was driven by revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and against the scientific rationalization of nature that was manifested in their style, method, subject matter, and so forth. The Romantics operated under a revolutionary literary philosophy/consciousness that was expressed via their material art. I believe that the failure of the two traditions to come to a point of junction, as Thompson laments, lies within the absence of a fundamental philosophy fueling the actions of the working class this time. While many working class members were simply not capable of this kind of truly radical activism – whether they were too drunk, too greedy, too poor to care, too illiterate and uneduated to understand the fundamental structure of the Romantic movement, etc. – other were unsuccessful in creating an form of activism that spoke to the allegedly radical change they desired.
Thompson criticizes economic historians, specifically “futurists,” who justify the suffering of the hand-loomer as symptomatic of a transitional period. “But this argument which discounts the suffering of one generation against the gains of the future. For those who suffered, this retrospective comfort is cold” (313). Good thing Martin Luther King did not defer to this logic once he had accumulated some celebrity, respect and financial stability. The success of the Civil Rights movement is inextricable from its commitment to nonviolent activism, action that conveyed their philosophy and interests. nbvhjbajv
Carnegie Mellon Preofessor Nico Slate reluctantly shared his pessimism regarding Egypt’s future, “My concern is that even if these protests lead to some form of democracy, that whatever form that takes will be structures in a fashion that it won’t change fundamentally the realities that led so many people to protest in the first place.”

Resistance and Class Consciousness

Brit

The working class faced many struggles, but as they asserted their rights they were able to overcome many obstacles. “This was, perhaps, the most distinguished popular culture England has known.  From this culture of craftsman and the self-taught there came scores of inventers, organizers, journalists and political theorists of impressive quality” (831).  The workers became more disciplined, worked hard to learn what was going on in the world around them through the periodicals and coffee shops, and took part in trying to improve their quality of life.  Class consciousness became even more apparent during this time as there were so many different types of workers who were being influenced in different ways, whether through various religions, friendly societies, or political consciousness. 

The effects of the Industrial Revolution changed English society as a whole.  Since there was such awareness of class, and of the different groups within each class, it is significant that “one direction of the great agitations of the artisans and outworkers, continued over fifty years, was to resist being turned into a proletariat.  When they knew that this cause was lost, yet they reached out again, in the Thirties and Forties, and sought to achieve new and only imagined forms of social control” (831).  These men were very aware of their class and very aware that their status was changing, but I think it is significant that they resisted being turned into a proletariat.  “They were told that they had no rights, but they knew that they were born free” (831).  These men continued to work hard and fight for themselves and their families despite constantly being put down or walked all over.  

I cannot help but think of all of the novels and adaptations that have been made that center around these issues of the working class man struggling to overcome, or struggling to just make it for them and their families.  Novels, and later adaptations, such as Hard Times by Charles Dickens or North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell show the working class hardships.  There are many other examples, but it shows the awareness and the reality of the Industrial Revolution as it happened.  

Remaking Common Knowledge

I was doubly surprised when reading E. P. Thompson’s history of “unstamped” periodicals during the 1820’s: first because of the events and actors, and second because I’ve never heard this history before. It is not common knowledge (at least for me) that “the liberty of the press” had to be fought for: “Perhaps 500 people were prosecuted for the production and sale of the ‘unstamped’. From 1816 (indeed, from 1792) until 1836 the contest involved, not only the editors, booksellers, and printers, but also many hundreds of newsvendors, hawkers, and voluntary agents” (Thompson 729). I am also surprised by the progressive insight and energy of Richard Carlile, who realized that, “the repression of 1819 made the rights of the press the fulcrum of the Radical movement” (Thompson 720).

All this makes me question: why isn’t this history common knowledge? Why is this fight for freedom so far removed from common notions of a free press? I hope Thompson is being critical and ironic when he states: “In the 20^th-century rhetoric of democracy most of these men and women have been forgotten, because they were impudent, vulgar, over-earnest, or ‘fanatical’” (Thompson 732). Following this history of press wars might lead to an answer of why this “radical” fight for a free press appears rare and shocking, instead of a constant battle. At first glance it seems like these radicals who were watching the watchdog, don’t exist today.

What would currently serve as an example of the way Carlile, “sailed straight into the middle of the combined fleets of the State and Church” (720)? I think this press battle is alive and well with Frontline, Wikileaks, and groups like Anonymous. But who benefits from perpetuating a view of the press as a conventional unimposing public service, rather then a constant battleground for truth? Could popularizing a history of press liberators help to normalize instead of alienate this project of press integrity, consolidate seemingly divided radical groups, and help copy and reproduce results that were successful?

Even more than these radical press liberators of today, there needs to be an attempt to make this history common knowledge: there have been many instances where people have successfully been able to get their message out. I think a history of successes would unite and inspire those of us who feel grossly misrepresented by mass media. These formulas should be copied and mass-produced, using the very tools for marginalization in order to prevent marginalization, and open up the very closed discourse of public opinion.

The Radical Press

In the chapter on "Class Consciousness", E. P. Thompson underlines the importance of print media and literacy to the spread of working class consciousness in the early 17th century England. According to Thompson, newspapers and pamphlets became tools of propaganda and a means of forging an oppositional consciousness. Thompson notes that "from 1830 onwards a more clearly defined class consciousness, in the customary Marxist sense, was maturing, in which working people were aware of continuing both old and new battles on their own" (p.712). It is with their hard won erratic education and their own experiences that the working class formed an idea of the organization of the society, leading to the development of a political consciousness.

I found this relationship between the spread of literacy, print media, and the rise of class consciousness interesting in the light of Benedict Anderson's argument in Imagined Communities : Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Anderson attributes a more "conservative character" to the spread of literary and print capitalism in the 18th century Europe by aligning it exclusively with the emergence of 'national consciousness.' Anderson notes that 'print capitalism' or the "convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language created the possibility of a new form of imagined community..." (p.46).

According to Thompson, the availability of print media (which paradoxically was facilitated by the rise of capitalism as Benedict Anderson notes) enabled the development of the Radical press and the dissemination of an oppositional consciousness. The awareness that "Knowledge is Power" made the artisans " profoundly suspicious of an established culture which had excluded them from power and knowledge and which had answered their protests with homilies and tracts" (p.727). The working class thus was able to form their own "imagined community" as an exploited and marginalized group to fight their own battles via print capitalism. (However, this does not necessarily exclude them from having a "national consciousness").

In today's a 'hyperreal, media saturated world," print media plays a complex and an ambiguous role. The proliferation of media channels, Internet, and satellite TV can lead to unification and the forming of a particular identity/consciousness or can create fragmentation, isolation, and disharmony.

conflict in the land of the fried cheese curds

Agatha

one thing that struck me is the idealization of labor. now, don't get me wrong–in some ways, any labor that we enjoy can definitely be seen as 'ideal,' but what is most interesting is the tendency to take idealize historic methods of labor that were truly not that ideal. Thompson cites the weaving industry as an example, reminding us that while pre-capitalist weavers may have retained a little more autonomy, or perhaps gained somewhat better compensation for their work, they were nonetheless often under similar stresses of oppression that are often solely linked to capitalism (271-2).

for some odd reason, the immediate comparison i thought of was that of the chimney sweeps in the Disney film Mary Poppins. do you remember them? they were these cheerful, cheeky lads with a bit of soot on their brows and a spring in their step, who mostly seemed to spend their time dancing on rooftops. in fact, as a child, i desperately wanted to be a chimney sweep because it just seemed like so much fun! only in high school, when i learned about Charles Dickens' critique of the chimney sweep, did i learn how horrifying a job it was, and how brutalizing to children (hope those two sailor suit-wearing kids in the disney film didn't get tuberculosis). now, maybe the original novel version of Mary Poppins is one of those texts that, like The Wizard of Oz, had some deep political message that was erased in the transition to film. Hollywood obviously has its own deep level of guilt when it comes to idealizing labor so that it fits better into a musical number. but why do we feel the need to idealize what is so far from ideal?

reading this my mind also couldn't help drifting to think about the conflict raging in wisconsin over workers' collective bargaining rights. it was a bit chilling to read that the "prosperity of the weavers aroused feelings of active alarm in the minds of some masters and magistrates" (277) and think of the connection to wisconsin. Chris W. posted a transmission of a conversation between governor Walker and a prank caller, revealing Walker's plans to privately withhold automatic paychecks from the democratic senators who refused to return to wisconsin, instructing staff to lock them in their desks in the state senate. the idea was to force the dems back to the state senate, where the reps would immediately be able to declare a recess and then a quorum, allowing the republican senators to vote without the democrats. what? what?

according to CNN, one representative remarked that essentially Walker has already "'got what he wants' in concessions on pension and health insurance contributions and [should] relent on curbing collective-bargaining rights." so…if this conflict isn't even about the money being spent, it's really just about a fear of too much worker power.

Morality and Control-Edwin

In chapter seven of this week’s reading, Thompson discusses the interesting relationship of morality and working class life. The beginning of the chapter focused on what would appear to the reader and to Thompson as benign pleasures which were the result of custom more than willful decadence. It is argued in this chapter that the condemnation of various forms of vice derived from a sense of “factory discipline” or an “extension of the factory bell or clock from working to leisure hours” (407, 403). Everything from the annual fair to more personal vices such as adultery and alcoholism are mentioned as being under attack from both industrial and religious organizations.

It is interesting to note how, under the guise of moral uprightness, there was a noticeable activity of reduction towards working class peoples residing in areas of substantial economic production. The condemnation of tradition is one of the few ways in which an authority can not only subvert but demoralize a group larger than itself. In dismissing the annual fair as debauched and persecuting individuals for personal faults there was a definite creation of “an image of rural isolation and ‘idiocy’” (405). This type of reduction serves a ruling class directly by disrupting the cohesive factors which can serve to bind a social group. Meeting places are eliminated and commonalities are labeled as backwards or antiquated. As Thompson notes: “Working people discovered in the industrial revolution a moral rhetoric which was authentic and deeply expressive of their collective grievances and aspirations, but which seems stilted and inadequate when applied to personal relations” (414).

Big Book- Luke

It is undeniable that The Making of the English Working Class is a really big book. At over 800 pages of thin pages and single spaced tiny type, Thompson covers a huge range of topics with sensitive attention to every possible source and counterargument. What really comes through the text for me, though, is the sheer amount of information that has to be covered in order to provide an accurate picture of a society or a class. In many ways, I feel that anyone can agree that Thompson has given us the clearest sense of a way of life for a class compared to the other writers we have read this semester. And I think that's due to his painstaking reconstruction of the social situation. One cannot be reductive when talking about social relations; society is a complex, undivided body of ideas and practices. Rather than giving the reader a simplified image of weavers as uniformly oppressed, he shows how different weavers had totally different experiences based on location and situation. By providing us with a glimpse into the lives of other classes as well as the political and economic changes in England.

Despite his broad view of history, though, I am impressed that he still manages to covey a strong argument. He revises the standard view of the Industrial Revolution as something that "just happened," pointing out that real decisions made by real people shaped the course of history. Thompson points out that history often seems logical and obvious, but actually was shaped by contentious decisions. Additionally, there were clear cultural reasons for movements divorced from the pure economic relations of traditional marxism. He points out the ways in which status influenced artisans' consciousness during the shift to capitalism in the 18th and 19th century. The rapid shift of status of weavers led to their opinionated dissent against laissez faire economic policy. By revealing the cultural shifts of the Industrial Revolution, Thompson underscores the complexity of historical movements and the creation of class.

Thompson, Class, and Tone

In The Making of the English Working Class, Thompson writes, "I do not see class as a 'structure', nor even as a category', but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships" (9). One way, he claims, that experience potentially links up to human relationships is through a mediating tone, in the sense of "the rhythms of speech" appropriated into "prose" (748). This, he continues, is part of what made William Cobbett a popular political theorist of his time, putting theory "in terms [and perhaps tone?] that a labourer or artisan could well understand" (751). This seems to be especially relevant now as politicians, political commentators, and political advertising attempt to appropriate the tone and language of the working and middle class. But watching the Academy Awards I'm reminded of the tone offered film to relate experience for possible class identification. In particular I'm thinking of the documentary Gasland, which adopts an almost hard-boiled tone to address its subject: the harmful effects cause by natural gas drilling. I wonder why the filmmaker adopts this particular tone for a film that's so important to himself--since natural gas companies wanting to buy his land prompted him to make the film--and his audience. And is this tone effective in relating the dangers of natural gas drilling to a predominantly working class audience deciding whether or not to sell their land to natural gas companies? In their advertisements on radio and television, the natural gas companies take a different tone, addressing the luck of having your home on the Marcellus Shale as a godsend allowing the homeowner to retire and live a life of leisure. But perhaps this latter tone might backfire in its attempt to downplay its potential harm on the environment and to peoples' health, especially when compared to the more serious tone offered by Gasland.

The Stories Make The History-Jennifer

"The Weavers" chapter of Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class is just simply horrifying to read. I'm sure everyone has read of the atrocities for the working class during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries during the hight of the Industrial Revolution both in Europe and in America, but the stories never seem to make the events less shocking to me. I feel that Thompson is one of the few authors thus far that we have read that have included some of these stories to support their more economic and theoretical evidence. I have always been a part of the group that thinks the stories are what makes us remember history, that although the dates and chronology are important, what will make the Civil War memorable is to remember the stories that accompanied these dates for example.

In this case The Making of the English Working Class is not a history book in the sense of one that tells one more confined story as many more recent history books do such as Meet You in Hell that tells the story of Carnegie and Frick and their feud. Thompson gives us more facts and figures than I would like to see recounted in a book classified as "history" but he does give us the real life examples that I think are crucial to a history text. For example he recounts a tale of a woolcomber and his family that showcases the atrocities of their everyday lives (283). He puts many of these types of accounts into this chapter to intermingle the facts of the political and economic factors of the time with the actual people these choices affected. This is a crucial addition to such facts and can make anyone recount past experiences reading and learning about these horrific conditions because although I may not have remembered the exact date of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City (it's March 25, 1911) I certainly remember the events of such a tragedy, and it's that really the point?

She Stoops to Emulate

Rachael

Thompson points to the burgeoning relationships between the upper and middle classes. He states that the “Evangelicals exhorted the upper classes to reform their own manners as an example to the poor.” (403) These class distinctions blend into the “country vs. town” binary. He continues, “the Industrial Revolution, which drained the countryside of some of its industries and destroyed the balance between rural and urban life, created also in our own minds an image of rural isolation and ‘idiocy.’” (405)

The Irish playwright, Oliver Goldsmith, picked up on this dichotomy and put it front and center in his popular 1773 play, She Stoops to Conquer. The sentimental comedy revolves around the Hardcastle’s, a landed gentry family and the bumbling city rake, Marlowe. On his way to woo Miss Hardcastle, Marlowe mistakes their home for an inn and, thus, hilarity ensues. Marlowe changes his outward appearance and behavior depending on his location. He acts austere ad dignified when in “good company,” but becomes brash and haughty when among the lower orders. In addition, Mrs. Hardcastle, the family matriarch, is an example of the idiocy associated with country manners. Though a woman of class as she is a member of the landed gentry, she still strives to become one of the fashionable London elite. She attempts to dress and decorate her home in the latest fashions, but everything turns out overdone and gaudy. She is a symbolic configuration of Veblen’s theory of emulation – “the stimulus of an invidious comparison which prompts us to outdo those with whom we are in the habit of classing ourselves.” She is trying to “keep up with the Jones’” and in doing so, articulates the divisions even further.

Rethinking the Left

Brit

As I was reading the last chapter, I found myself thinking back to Stewart Hall’s essay when he discussed the left’s position.  For him, in order for change to occur, the left would have to accept a new strategy.  He said, “It is not because it is impossible, or utopian, but because the left is not convinced that it cannot continue in the old way” (11).  I found this pertinent to Laclau and Mouffe in the section “Radical Democracy: Alternative for a New Left” when they discussed how the left would have to reassess itself.  They said,

“It is not in the abandonment of the democratic terrain but, on the contrary, in the extension of the field of democratic struggles to the whole of civil society and the state, that the possibility resides for a hegemonic strategy of the Left.  It is nevertheless important to understand the radical extent of the changes which are necessary in the political imaginary of the Left, if it wishes to succeed in founding a political practice fully located in the field of the democratic revolution and conscious of the depth and variety of the hegemonic articulations which the present conjuncture requires” (177). 

I like how they find a solution that doesn’t scrap everything and demands a new order, but rather they think change can be possible if the “whole civil society and the state” are included.  They also acknowledge that despite not completely changing the way the Left thinks, their ideas for change are still radical.  I just wonder, as Hall did, if these ideas will ever be put into practice.  Laclau and Mouffe go onto discuss what limits the left, and I think they did a good job of discussing the obstacles of classism, statism, and economism, which helped lead into the overall issue of revolution.  At the end, they bring hegemony back and basically say everything in some way or another (if I read that correctly) comes back to hegemony.  It is the “name of the game,” which again makes me think of Hall when he said, “The only way of genuinely contesting a hegemonic form of politics is to develop a counter-hegemonic strategy” (11).

Big Picture

I find Laclau and Mouffe most interesting when they offer an important clarification in the conversation about capitalism’s ability to divide a work force, and the question of the work force’s ability to organize and rise against its oppressors: “the tensions inherent in the concept of hegemony are also inherent in every political practice and strictly speaking, every social practice” (88). I find this conclusion a bit more realistic for our current situation in America, than others offered by say Braverman. In a certain place in time it might have been possible to identify ridged class distinctions but right now I find it difficult, especially since I myself could be seen as belonging to an oppressive class (I would not wear my Carnegie Mellon swag at a bar in Wilkinsburg). Therefore when reading all this theory, I feel like it is often addressing situations that are much more fundamental and unchangeable than they are given credit for.

Aside from class identity confusion in America, I feel like there are currently many other divisions that prevent hegemony within the lower and working classes themselves, such as race, sexuality, and religion. Taking a spin on the demographic roulette wheel: Would a homosexual, male, Republican, Baptist, white, preacher from the rural South, and a black, straight, female, Democrat, atheist, elementary school teacher, from Seattle, that make the same amount of money, and maybe even identify with the same level of class, find a common cause in fighting against capitalist oppression? It’s always possible, but the question I am trying to raise is that, at what point does blaming capitalism’s ability to divide a work force start turning into a dumping ground that covers up larger problems that we are unable to solve, and in a way, prevent us from addressing the problems we originally set out to solve? In what ways does dwelling on a failure to organize into one voice against capitalism, hide all the progress and small victories that should be learned from and copied?

I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that maybe one of the main reasons for these divisions along political and social lines, is that they are inherently attractive to all of us on some level, or as Friedmen points out, “The divisions within the working class are therefore more deeply rooted than many wish to allow; and they are to a certain extent, the result of the workers’ own practices” (82). So the question becomes, how are we able to enjoy our identities without oppressing others? How can we tactfully recognize similarities among ourselves, while still enjoy the differentiations that make us, and those like us, who we are?

capitalism: producing happiness?

Agatha

Laclau and Mouffe's observation of the commodification of human labor and experience really struck me. they say: "today it is not only as a seller of labour-power that the individual is subordinated to capital, but also through his or her incorporation into a multitude of other social relations: culture, free time, illness, education, sex and even death. there is practically no domain of individual or collective life which escapes capitalist relations" (161).

today i sit at home with my Trader Joe's earl grey tea, a dose of Dayquil liquicaps (because, significantly, i don't trust the ingredients of the generic version), and am looking longingly at my Makala ukulele, which i would so much rather play than be a) sick, and b) doing homework. i never really thought of myself as a "slave to the capitalist machine" but here i am, surrounded by products and services courtesy of capitalism. i shop at walmart, and try not to hate myself.

on a side tangent, i had always thought that musical instruments were one of the few fields that were still totally handmade, and therefore had escaped the capitalist factory. not so. my uke was actually made in a factory, and perhaps finished by a human being. many cheaper instruments are, it turns out. what a disappointment! of course, real musicians will pay thousands of dollars for quality instruments, which are, by contrast, almost always totally handmade.

but it brings up the question that Kathy raised last class about what we must pay for labor today for services and production we take for granted–the ornamentation on the buildings of CMU, for example. should we lament that such labor costs so much today, or should we see this as a positive beam in the darkness of capitalism, that the laborer who perhaps was underpaid an hundred years ago for his or her craftsmanship, is now paid more fairly today? of course the problem lies in that we don't know if the exorbitant amount we pay for the moulding or for the cherry wood violin actually goes back to the maker directly, or to some capitalist intermediary. and the other problem lies in that the factory can produce my cheap little uke at a quarter of the cost ($60 people! instead of $500!) and still produce reasonable quality. where's the justice? i just don't know. playing my little factory-made uke may not make a grand political statement, but it makes me happy, and sometimes i get so tired of questioning where happiness comes from.

"The Phenomenon of the Young" -Jenn

What I found to be particularly interesting in Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemony and Socialist Strategy was there discussion of young people in the "Hegemony and Radical Democracy" chapter. They note the financial situation of many young people as well as their family dynamics and the hierarchy surrounding them. While they do go on to cite more materialistic and superficial things that unite the young (clothes and music) they do make reference to the two elements that make up democratic imaginary, equality and liberty and the predomination of equality that I think is still very prominent in young people.

Laclau and Mouffe make quick references to the Civil Rights movement in the US and I think it was many young people of the time who supported such a movement. With this being Black History Month it is easy to find references to the struggles of the Civil Rights movement with one common instance being the sit-ins throughout the south. These sit-ins usually talk about not only the black presence but also the young white population of fellow college students that helped support the sit-ins. Even today I believe you find a lot more young people in support of gay rights and gay marriage then you do of say the baby boomer generation. Even as we look at the ongoing news out of Egypt we learned many of the protests that started this movement were from young people and helped spread to and by other young people via very twenty-something mediums like Facebook.

My question then is when does this unity of the young population stop? Or is it that we are only allowed to support one major social or political movement together before our time expires? The young of the 1960s could support equal rights for whites and blacks and pass that equality onto future generations. We as the young can now support sexuality equality and pass that acceptance onto future generations, but I hope that we can be the generation to not lose our "young" acceptance and remain open as we outgrow our young-ness.

The Democratic Project of Culture

Over the past two semesters, I've been trying to think out ways that cultural objects can perform the kind of radical democratic work Laclau and Mouffe argue the Left should take up. This involves both the articulation and re-articulation of the common sense of the national popular determined by what Thomas Kuhn would call paradigm shifts in the history of social and economic organization--I'm thinking of the example that Laclau and Mouffe provide, the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, as one such instance of this. In other words, I've trying to determine how authors of cultural works, acting as Gramscian organic intellectuals, can both articulate national popular democratic impulses and transform them into new forms that extend equality--by equality I mean equal access to means of self-realization that do not impede upon the self-realization of others--and challenge our understanding of what democracy, equality, and/or liberty mean. This is a project I see many European and American modernists pursuing though in very different and sometimes reactionary ways. But James Joyce is perhaps an example of a modernist attempting to perform this function from a radical democratic--though not socialist--position, especially in a novel like Ulysses which attempts to incorporate a cacophony of voices without attempting to reduce each voice or group of voices into a static type. The result is a seemingly messy novel with no privileged narrative voice to provide it with a definitive sense of closure. In other words, it perhaps fulfills the function of what Lyotard calls the postmodern sublime: to destroy the fixed rules created and implemented by what he would call a hasty consensus by showing the limits of that consensus's totalizing social vision.

But in what ways might such an aesthetic cultural project be applied to popular culture? In other words, in what ways are (or could) creators of popular culture (be) engaged in creating radical works that extend our understanding of the democratic process and push it towards more egalitarian heights?

The Revolution Will Be Hyperlinked

I'm not quite finished reading Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, but I have a couple of ideas about their notion of plural democratic movements I wanted to jot down. To begin with, I have a lot of problems with Laclau and Mouffe, and feel that their text lacks a real sense of concrete praxis. They offer a lot of theory and description, but very little action. I also totally agree with Chris' post about the valorization of consumer difference as a false start for social change. Getting your coffee at Espresso A Mano instead of Starbucks doesn't pose a real threat for consumer capitalism (even if it does get you some great coffee).

That being said, I think there are some great jumping off points in Laclau and Mouffe's text that can lead to innovative ways of thinking about social change. I'm at once attracted and repulsed by their notion that the left is increasingly fragmented and further from class-based struggle in the West. But it remains a fact that most activism and policy change since the 60s has been driven by independent social movements. Instead of a unified front, we see a diversity of small culturally based groups struggling for rights and recognition before the state. This has been a constant thorn in the side of left traditionalists trying to regain the fervor and clout that a unified front can gain.

But then I started thinking about the internet and new ways of doing things that have arrived. Of course, L&M were writing before the widespread availability of the internet, but they seem to prefigure some important movements in society. For one thing, I think that we can re-read the fragmentation of the left into identity politics as a hyperlinked movement. It is not that feminist groups do not care about poverty or racial equality at all; there's a long history of crossover between these movements and mutual support. And even if the Human Rights Campaign doesn't have a lot to say about the rights of students with disabilities, there is an underlying connection and cohesion between the two struggles, and few (if any) contradictions. If we conceive of the fragmented social movements current today on the "left" (if we can simplify it to that anymore) we can see potential for real support between and among groups. By dividing the struggle into small campaigns, there is a chance to focus on specific changes and struggles. The real challenge is connecting disparate groups into a cohesive collection of hyperlinks, groups co-sponsoring policy changes and moving towards a contingent, changing definition of justice.

If you look at the case of the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago, there were not just labor agitators standing in solidarity with the workers. When the workers went on strike, a vast network of activists connected and showed up in support, bringing food and bodies to help the efforts. I knew queer activists, anarchists, feminists and immigrant rights activists who showed their support in a variety of ways. The success of the striking workers did not depend only on the efforts of labor power (though the workers deserve a HUGE amount of credit), but on a diffused network of concerns that recognized their common ground.

This model is scary, though. Without a clear plan or strong leaders, it's easy to see the whole damn thing going down in flames pretty fast. But that's one of the dangers inherent in democracy: you never know what the people are going to do. That being said, we live on the verge of new technologies and new ways of looking at the world. And despite predictions to the contrary, I don't think that a fragmented left is all that bad. It escapes the essentializing and bureaucratizing tendencies of a unified "party" and remains open to modification and change. Is there a change we can believe in? Probably not, but there might be a lot of little changes that we can support, and that starts to add up.

Political and Economic Struggle Distinctions

I found a very interesting passage in the first chapter of the book, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. On page 15, Laclau and Mouffe discuss the intertwined political and economical struggles. Quoting Kautsky, they write: “Occasionally someone has attempted to oppose the political struggle to the economic, and declared that the proletariat should give its exclusive attention to one or the other. The fact is that the cannot be separated. The economic struggle demands political rights and these will not fall from heaven. To secure and maintain them, the most vigorous political struggle is necessary. The political struggle is, in the last analysis, the economic struggle.”

The quotation noted above is striking, to me, because it seems both subtle and apparent at the same time. On first glance, can we join the necessity for fiscal survival from political rights? This argument seemed to fit well with my final project on Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. While the main storyline is one of the love between poor, Southern lady Margaret Hale and powerful, Northern manufacturer, John Thornton, this courtship revolves around the labor disputes concerning the cotton manufacturers. Though better than some other industries, the working conditions at the cotton mills are sub-par and the workers desire higher wages for the damage done to their bodies in the process. Margaret becomes friends with one of the labor leaders and watches as the mills fall prey to strike. In order to keep his mill working, Mr. Thornton secretly brings in Irish replacement workers. Those striking are enraged and a riot ultimately leads to an injured Margaret.

This labor dispute seems to encompass this question of political and economic struggle. Are the workers striking solely for monetary gain? They believe that they should have certain rights, as workers, since they have put their medical well-beings at stake in their industry. In addition, they are enraged to find that replacement workers have been brought, endangering their job security if and when the strike ever ends. All of these events revolve around the fictionalized stirrings of a union movement among the cotton mill workers. I don’t know if it is possible, in this instance, to separate the economic from the political, as economic gains seem tied to their arguments for greater political rights.

Decency

Dr. Gonzo: We won't make the nut unless we have unlimited credit.
Raoul Duke: Jesus Christ, we will, man. You Samoans are all the same. You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man's culture.

We all desperately want to be “honorific” or at the very least “decent.” In fact, our desire for decency is often inseparable from our desire for life and health. And so, we emulate and consume and, occasionally, gamble.
Veblen manifests his understanding of human nature in his theoretical configuration of the “leisure class.” Long ago, man’s psychological and physiological dispositions took hold – fueled by the development of technical knowledge like tools and weapons and an existence no longer based on subsistence – and civilization made the transition from peaceable to predatory society. This transition, this largely material outgrowth was not “mechanical” (Veblen does not provide a history of pre-barbarism warring nor is the actuality of war during this time significant) -- it was “spiritual.” Veblen terms it “spiritual” because the “habit of judging facts and events from the point of view of the fight” became paramount for the first time. The “fight” became foremost in man’s thoughts. In other words, man’s consciousness had radically shifted. Worth and honor became synonymous with exploit and – utterly inebriated by war-think – unworthy drudgery became synonymous with everyday employments devoid of any real exploit, like menial and intensive-labor jobs.
Alongside the distinction of worthy and unworthy employment born of the predatory culture, the emergence of ownership galvanized the leisure class, aka the ruling class as we know it. The leisure class can be defined in opposition to the working class. Essentially, it is made up of those individuals who have been afforded “decency” through their non-labor employment and exercise their leisure status by way of conspicuous consumption and the attainment of both literal and symbolic trophies, among other things. “[T]he characteristic feature of leisure-class life is a conspicuous exemption from all useful employment . . . Abstention from labour is conventional evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing”(41). And while wealth, rather than say war prowess, has become the contemporary standard of worth, so exists capitalism today, a culturally colored version of primitive barbarism!
What I find most interesting about Veblem’s argument is not how this not-so-random system came into being, but his almost self-evident explanation for why it has prevailed. “The habit of distinguishing and classifying the various purposes and directions of activity prevails of necessity . . . for it is indispensible in reaching a working theory or scheme of life.” The [wealthy] leisure class provides an implicitly codified system of conventional decency that people can follow, which is “indispensible” to life. It is natural to envy and emulate the class above, but, more fundamentally, the leisure class reacts to material stimuli, as a nature of habit, to determine a community scheme of decent and honorific and a standard of living. Veblen, though certainly condemning this social structure, seems to suggest that man cannot escape his need to have his needs defined. In the same breath, he deems the all-powerful “leisure” class unable to radically change.
If man cannot live without definitions, standards, cues . . . And Veblem’s leisure class are the sole articulators of this “working theory or scheme of life” . . . What are we to do if this leisure class cannot live and define “decency” in a way that rejects inherent exploitation?

Wives as Servants and the Transfer of Wealth

Brit

As I was doing research for my final project, I found an article on Mansfield Park that uses many of Veblen’s arguments to describe the leisure class found in the novel.  One of the most profound was that the housewife of a man from the leisure class was basically a servant.  In fact, on page 60, Veblen easily transitions from using the term servant to the term wife.  “The servant or wife should not only perform certain offices and show a servile disposition, but it is quite as imperative that they should show an acquired facility in the tactics of subservience – a trained conformity to the canons of effectual and conspicuous subservience.  [I]t is this aptitude and acquired skill in the formal manifestation of the servile relation that constitutes…one of the chief ornaments of the well-bred housewife” (60).  What makes this so striking is that in Mansfield Park, Fanny Price is in fact a servant in the service of her aunts.  When Henry Crawford is vying for her hand in marriage, he knows that she is trained to be in the service of others.  He knows that having her as a wife will not harm his status in the leisure class, but more likely solidify it since she is already accustomed to subservience and using her time for others.  She would be the perfect leisure class wife because she would certainly know her place in the household due to the way she grew up, and she would understand her position.

            Also, Mansfield Park as well as many of Austen’s other novels display the possession of wealth as an important factor in the leisure class.  “Wealth is not itself intrinsically honourable and confers honour on its possessor.  By a further refinement, wealth acquired passively by transmission from ancestors or other antecedents presently becomes even more honorific than wealth acquired by the possessor’s own effort” (29).  Sir Thomas is able to pass his estate and his holdings onto his son, and that is a key feature of the leisure class.  His son Tom is in possession of a wealth he did not have to work for or toil over, which in this case has serious backlash, but overall the wealth was transferred from father to son, showing the honor of their family and their status.  The passing of wealth is more honorable in Pride and Prejudice since Darcy inherited his land and status from his father.  Darcy’s acquisition is more honorable because of the way he takes care of the estate and his holdings, ensuring that it will pass onto his own son, and ensuring his and his family’s status. 

Trophies

In Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class, which has been “drawn from everyday life, by direct observation or through common notoriety, rather than from more recondite sources at a farther remove,” he provides a clever way of revealing the construction and perpetuation of problematic social norms (Veblen VI). It is therefore no surprise that Veblen doesn’t find the need to adhere to certain conventions, because “the particular point of view, or the particular characteristic that is pitched upon as definitive in the classification of the facts of life depends upon the interest from which a discrimination of the facts is sought” (Veblen 9). In short: truth (for the most part) is fashionable, and fashion is determined by whoever is in charge. This might explain his lack of respect for conventional citations or the need to back up his findings with research. I say “for the most part” because even Veblen himself doesn’t see social norms as merely capricious, “But the change of standards and points of view is gradual only, and it seldom results in the subversion or entire suppression of a standpoint once accepted” (Veblen 9).

In one of these gradual processes is the transition of “peaceable savagery” (which is not exactly peaceable due to the violence in sexual competition that is present in all stages) to a “predatory phase of life,” the “incentive to emulate” increases and becomes “more habitual” because of “individual ownership,” and perhaps simultaneously the desire to show others “tangible evidences of prowess” is created (Veblen 16-7). It seems like instead of dissolving once we’ve moved out of our predatory phase and overtly rewarding aggression, the need to prove “successful contest” has taken on different, more subversive forms (Veblen 17). Veblen describes this process: “Gradually, as industrial activity further displaced predatory activity in the community’s everyday life and in men’s habits of thought, accumulated property more and more replaces trophies of predatory exploit as the conventional exponent of prepotence and success” (Veblen 28).

As we move away from (perhaps hardly) a predatory phase I believe that this aggression, exploitation, and the need for proof of dominance becomes more mediated, and perhaps more latent, but the purposes remain the same, even as such customs and traditions cannot be overtly seen to celebrate their own foundations and functions. For example in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing the tradition of European oil painting which is, “roughly set as between 1500 and 1900” is where he finds painting turn into a commodity (Berger 84). In this tradition: “oil painting did to appearances what capital did to social relations. It reduced everything to the equality of objects. Everything became exchangeable because everything became a commodity” (Berger 87). Although Berger does qualify this statement with artists who opposed this tradition, on the whole he finds that European oil painting during this time period, “served the interests of the successive ruling classes, all of whom depended in different ways on the new power of capital” (Berger 86). As a luxury item, the woman can be seen to represent one of the many subjects in this tradition of oil painting, “They show him [the art lover] sights: sights of what he may possess” (Berger 85). So here, although mediated and refined, the structure of domination is still present, and Veblen’s assertion that the “appropriation of women seems to have been their usefulness as trophies” continues to remain true (Veblen 22). Only now, the problem has been complicated: women are still trophies, women are represented as trophies (through art), and the art object representing the trophy woman is a trophy itself.

Useful Beyond Class

Veblen’s explanation on the genesis of the leisure class offers various other theories concerning culturally constructed elements of society. His explanation on the origins of ownership in the “barbarian stages of culture” highlights the idea of the leisure class as an exposition of a definitive hierarchy quite well, but also has other implications. For Veblen the origins of ownership arose in the barbarian stages not at all in the form of subsistence or luxury goods. Veblen states that the obtaining of women, in the form of captives, marriage, or otherwise was the first true form of ownership. From women, Veblen states “the concept of ownership [extended] itself to include the products of their industry, and so there [arose] the ownership of things as well as of persons.” In speaking with Luke on the inherent patriarchal structure integral to Veblen’s theory, I found it interesting how Veblen included the obvious social construct of gender inequality in his theory.

He touches on this idea further in his chapter “Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture.” He states how women’s clothing, even more so than men’s illustrated “the wearer’s abstinence from productive employment.” He uses as examples high heeled footwear, bonnets, and corsets for how clothing literally make it impossible for women of certain classes to do any type of work considered utilitarian. Although Veblen seemed to limit his evaluation of this fact to how this clothing presents the wealth and status of a household, one could also tie this to various issues concerning gender inequality. The lack of mobility and usefulness of women’s fashion has frequently been tied to to this idea. It is interesting that, although not expressly noted, this type of cultural analysis is useful in contemporary sociological studies; as Luke noted in his post.

'Conspicuous Consumption' and Buddhist Ethic

Thorstein Veblen, In The Theory of the Leisure Class, argues that "the possession of goods, whether acquired aggressively by one's own exertion or passively by transmission through inheritance from others, becomes a conventional basis of reputability... Wealth is now itself intrinsically honourable and confers honour on its possessor."

Although What he claims may be largely applicable to Western industrialist societies, I agree with Luke that Verblen makes too many generalizations and universalist assumptions about distinct cultures and societies without paying attention to specific contexts and competing ideologies that may shape our views about ownership and consumption. Coming from a culture that he would term 'barbaric', I'm informed by very different notions regarding 'conspicuous consumption' and accumulation of wealth. It is true that in our society also the possession of wealth functions as a marker of repute, esteem, and power and the nobility/ruling class is regarded as those who own wealth as Veblen contends. However, a culture conditioned by Buddhist ethics and values has taught us very early in life that giving and sharing of wealth (although this implies relations of power between those who have and have not) is an even more important merit that has consequences beyond the present life. This is equivalent to the notion of "christian charity." (We were basically taught that we can't take any material possessions with us when we die, but only those merits that we have accumulated through charitable deeds.) According to this worldview, 'conspicuous consumption' is negated as a sign of shallowness and lack of spiritual and intellectual depth. (Another contradiction that family history has taught me is that conspicuous consumption, leisure, and waste that are emblematic of status in Veblen's view, can create the very conditions for the gradual deterioration or the loss of status and wealth)

Although these ethics are in tension with the capitalist values that we espouse today, a considerable part of our society still uphold these values and the very ability to perform charitable deeds is considered as a sign of social esteem, power, and spiritual worth. Further, if the whole society is engulfed by the relentless desire to accumulate wealth and consume, how can we account for the existence of charitable institutions or the desire for distributive justice?