Change of Discourse

[Sewer Socialist]

( unsure if this should be in Politics instead )

In another post in another topic (I can not find it), someone mentioned the necessity of the Left to change the discourse; that this was the task of revolutionary electoral parties, rather than accepting the management of the bourgeois state. The poster pointed out that this was a major reason for the success of the right; that they control this and even keep the discourse of politics with the bourgeois realm.

I've been thinking about that, and how that applies, and how that is a necessity even beyond the realm of the electoral world. I was reading something else, which was mentioning the tendency for capitalism to integrate economistic struggles within and eliminate revolt. Specifically, I am thinking about this necessity in union struggles, and/or in the IWW.

But I cannot really come up with a real praxis for this. Does anyone have any examples of how discourse might be changed from reformist to revolutionary? I can think of how bourgeois strategists like Lee Atwater can do this, but how might leftists do likewise?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I think the focus on discourse is one of the major failings of the modern "left". In fact, historical experience shows that the various kinds of discourse used in "mainstream" politics are completely immaterial.

Take France. The political discourse in France - the sort of thing you will find in party material, newspapers etc. - is overwhelmingly "left". A few decades ago it was even more so. It is a rare French party that doesn't call itself at least popular, socialist, radical something.

Discourse in Russia after the abdication of the Emperor was even more "left". The only functioning political party that did not call itself socialist was the KaDet party, considered far right. Most parties were avowedly Marxist, including most that later made up the White Movement.

In Ethiopia under Mengistu, the discourse was even more "left". Here every pro-government (COPWE, WPE, MEISON) and rebel group (EPRP, MLLT, EPLF) proclaimed itself to be Marxist-Leninist.

None of this meant anything to the workers in those states.

If "changing the discourse" has ever managed to do anything but bore people to death (as with those tedious TV shows sponsored by Kirchner), history doesn't seem to have recorded it.

[Blake's Baby]

Yeah. It's not 'changing discourse' that's the problem but adopting revolutionary (or at least, 'pro-revolutionary') praxis.

What is the role of 'revolutionaries' (ie, those of us who see the necessity of socialism) in the current period? I'd say anything that contributes to the self-activity and self-realisation of the working class. We have to realise that for much of the world the very notion of a working class existing and being able to fight for its own interests is a dream. We need to be part of the process of the worldwide working class re-discovering its history and traditions while at the same time pointing to the (potential) future that the working class can open up.

Practically this means being involved with both political and economic struggles but always working towards the maximum extension to those struggles. Workers in different industries or different countries do not have opposed interests, they have the same interest - the overthrow of global capitalism. So we need to promote unity across sectional (and national and racial and religious or any other form of 'communitarian') divides. We need to work towards the working class seeing itself not in specific but in universal terms, and we need to be part of the process of the working class unifying its struggles.

[Hatshepsut]

Linguistic politics exists outside politics in news, literature, and other non-political material as well, where it may have more potential influence than it does in the politics itself which many people don't pay much attention to.

In the USA we consider that "African-American" and "person of color" are the acceptable terms for describing black Americans, previous ones having either been banned or, in the case of the N word, reserved by black culture for its own internal use while forbidden to others. We have political correctness now. I won't say this is completely meaningless; just imagine how foreboding the sight of a restroom door marked "colored only" was to its targets—a sign some of us can remember seeing in childhood.

Yet the new official speech courtesies haven't forced cops to keep their automatics holstered in black neighborhoods, a thing public exposure of shootings and legal action has been more effective at redressing. Nor have they closed the income and life expectancy gaps separating black males from their white counterparts.

I think discourse is important to the Left. After all, people must be able to talk about what the Left stands for if they are to be persuaded to our causes and move on them. But the alphabet soup of political acronyms turns people off, as does the use of 150-year old Marxist technical vocabulary like "bourgeoisie." The main weapon in discourse is facts. We should expose the activities of global capitalism and their resulting harms, relentlessly: foreshortening of human lives next door to plutocratic mansions, damage to environments, arrogance in international relations, risk of nuclear holocaust. We have to convince the world we can offer a better program.

[Guardia Rossa]

I agree on the technical vocabulary, I, as a social-democrat, was not very interested on marxism due too the complex, somewhat elitist-looking vocabulary and what looked like deterministic view of the world...

We can surely discuss inside the group in Marxistish, but let's speak English (Or whathever language you speak) outside our little groups.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

"Buržuj" is a pretty common word here. It depends on the language.

And I imagine I would be much more behind attempts to reform Marxist terminology if (1) they didn't tend to obscure important points (i.e. replacing an analysis of class society with talk about "elites"), which means we're not saying the same thing in a more accessible language, we're saying something else entirely; and if (2) most of them weren't god-awful and worse than the terminology they're supposed to replace.

That's not what people seem to mean when they talk about discourse. What they mean is something similar to what Chomsky or Laclau do - pin certain facts about society on the way media and the government talk. That might sound less than charitable as far as reconstructions go, but there you have it, that's the only sense I can make of it. It's in its own way a descendant of Gramsci's hand-waving after WWII (Gramsci being one of those people who is insanely popular on the left but if you look at his actual record all he did was gut the Italian party then make cute excuses for them not being able to do anything worthwhile).

[PhoenixAsh]

Leftists can not change the discourse outside the realm of capitalism. For one language reflects (and develops in) the epoch...but more importantly our politics develop within the superstructure itself and develop in respect to (capitalist) class society. What we can change is how we define and understand or mean words...but that definition is almost always used against us (a simplistic example; "dictatorship").

We also do not control public discourse simply because we do not have the resources to reach the masses as completely and continuously through media sources....as such our efforts are largely grass root, localized, topical and incidental....and almost exclusively retroactive (reactional).

I agree with Xhar Xhar that when "we" are talking the language is changed to...mostly ...liberal-speak. "the people" / "economically vulnerable" / "freedom" etc. We don't need this. Concepts should be explained in more accessible language without changing the meaning....it should also be brought in a form of a dialogue rather than a wall of words, terminology etc.

[Sewer Socialist]

Yeah. It's not 'changing discourse' that's the problem but adopting revolutionary (or at least, 'pro-revolutionary') praxis.

...

Practically this means being involved with both political and economic struggles but always working towards the maximum extension to those struggles. Workers in different industries or different countries do not have opposed interests, they have the same interest - the overthrow of global capitalism. So we need to promote unity across sectional (and national and racial and religious or any other form of 'communitarian') divides. We need to work towards the working class seeing itself not in specific but in universal terms, and we need to be part of the process of the working class unifying its struggles.

Well, I guess that might not be a part of "discourse", but this is what I was thinking of. But how might one specifically steer struggles toward the maximum extension, unify struggles, help the working class see itself?

The utility of discourse across society might well be meaningless, as Xhar-Xhar pointed out, but that is hard to see in such a right-wing country as mine. But nonetheless, leftists are such a minority, and that I have to work with people and groups who, consciously or not, fail to see the unity of struggle and work accordingly. How, then, might a minority of people who see this act towards those ends?

[Ele'ill]

Unions are like hr departments and discourse is viewed as disruptive to the organization's vision which is rooted in the organization's continued dependence on civil order.

[John Nada]

Well, I guess that might not be a part of "discourse", but this is what I was thinking of. But how might one specifically steer struggles toward the maximum extension, unify struggles, help the working class see itself?There's two parts, objective and subjective. The objective conditions are not as controllable. It's the stability of the state and the ruling class, nature of their rule, foreign relations, the state of the economy, ect. The subjective conditions are the ability of a class to act. This is the organization, ideology, discourse, mobilization, ect.

The bourgeoisie and the state could be on the brink of collapse and hanging on by a thread, yet if no one knocks that house of cards down, it's not going to fall on its own. Conversely, if the bourgeoisie's in a strong positions, doesn't matter how much one throws at them, a revolution can't just be simply willed into existence. If there's neither favorable objective or subjective conditions, it's just pure fantasy.
The utility of discourse across society might well be meaningless, as Xhar-Xhar pointed out, but that is hard to see in such a right-wing country as mine. But nonetheless, leftists are such a minority, and that I have to work with people and groups who, consciously or not, fail to see the unity of struggle and work accordingly. How, then, might a minority of people who see this act towards those ends?Look at Russia and China. Neither were bastions of progress. Worse in fact, the forces of reaction were actively tracking down and imprisoning or murdering anyone suspected of being a leftist. The proletariat was a tiny minority, with the majority engaged in some form of petty production. There was actually very bloody civil wars between the leftists and rightists. I'm certain much of discourse was very reactionary(possibly more so, to the point of damn near fascism), though with those right-wingers, being on the losing side, it might not be obvious. Yet revolutions still happened.

The US is rightist as fuck, probably among the most reactionary first-world countries, hell countries altogether. Besides being the country to usher in the imperialist age, till relatively recently it did have a large petit-bourgeoisie(up to the 50's 30% of people in the US were farmers, 25% small-businesspeople, likely a sizable labor aristocracy and a small but not insignificant bourgeoisie). This is over 55% of the population in petit-bourgeoisie classes. Now the vast majority of their descendants are likely in the proletariat(I'd guess about 65-85%), and many immigrants in between then and now were proletarians in the old country, but this may have an effect on the values and outlook this once petit-bourgeoisie strata raised their kids with. They're "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" because that's exactly what the petit-bourgeoisie aspires to be, whereas becoming a worker is failing in life. But throwing the middle-classes into the proletariat is just what capitalism does. This is a big shift that AFAIK, doesn't get mentioned much in relation to class consciousness.

Fact is, the ideas of the ruling class are the default. There's likely been several instances where there could've been objective conditions for a revolution, but the subjective forces are AWOL, today especially. It'll take time to build up the subjective conditions, possibly decades(which the right in the mean time, with more resources, is building its equivalent of subjective forces for similar objective conditions that the left thrives in too).

Right now, one can only work on a person-to-person level. I just try to break it down, without

[Rafiq]

The problem goes much deeper than discourse - it is the present ideological character of self-proclaimed Communists. Because Marxists recognize ideology is far more profound than how it is conventionally used as a word, one cannot arrive at the conclusion that the self-proclaimed positions, beliefs and so on of a group constitute the ends-all of its ideological character.

One must conceive specifically the language, rhetoric, or self-identification - whatever you want - in its specific relation to its designation. What is the point? The point is that today, the "Left" possesses a different relationship to society than did the Left decades ago - a different place in the totality of capitalism, if you will.

If you want to know where the various sects, pseudo-activist organizations and glorified book-clubs belong in capitalist society, look no further than any other "extreme" lifestyle-fetish from Furry's to your backwoods cult. How many individuals are actually prepared to not only face the consequences of a revolution, but even slight reforms? How many of these "Leftists" place full, and unequivocal faith in the ideas of Communism - rather than identify with them as a kind of side-dish, a personal idiosyncrasy that is compatible with your "real life"? Despite what many will try and sell you - that we merely live in a circumstance of low class struggle, the difference is that no matter the state of class struggle, the politics of Communism have always been amply controversial and have polarized society. For exampe, even after the defeat of the 1905 revolution, which Bolsheviks conceived as signifying a long-term defeat of the movement, within the public framework - Socialism was on the table. This is no longer true - not because Communism is dead, but because - since Communism derives from the present conditions of life and production, intellectuals have failed to locate within the intricacies of present day society, from political discourse to actual material production - the historic force of Communism.

Do you think that the positions users here ascribe to could start a bar fight? Of course, individuals, so dignified, righteous in their abstinence, will always inevitably conceive such arguments as demands that they descend from the heavens and privilege the world with their ideas. But this is not what is being argued: On the contrary, the point is - the eye that which I see god is the same eye that which god sees me. In other words, the Left, who has enshrouded itself in a fortress of intellectual safety has not done so in spite of recent developments, but because of them. Whether they like it or not, they have in no way made themselves outside the totality of capitalism, and have no way made themselves trans-historically immune to its ideological effects. Nothing is more hilarious than organizations who confer upon themselves the special status of being able to withstand such aggrandous historic transformations as neoliberalism and globalization - as though there is something about the previous movement they can "preserve" in their small cliques. And I'm not only talking about the Diadochi of the Transitional program. It is precisely the logic of preservation which leads to decadence and capitulation - because society is always moving. The only way to preserve our tradition is to regularly re-approximate it to a world constantly in motion - to deploy a concrete analysis of concrete situations. Case in point:


In fact, historical experience shows that the various kinds of discourse used in "mainstream" politics are completely immaterial.

There is seemingly no short supply of nonsense on your part. According to Xhar-Xhar, because discourse is "immaterial" (as in, not INTERCHANGEABLE with the material foundations of life and production), it is unimportant - or more specifically, tells us nothing about the material foundations of life and production. In fact, no discourse is "immaterial" - all discourse reflects the social field. A real Marxist would be capable of differentiating seemingly identical "rhetoric" on class lines, for example - merely by evaluating context. A real Marxist would have, SIMPLY from discourse, been able to distinguish the Bolsheviks from everyone else. The inability to do so is a product of philistinism, narrow-mindedness and - yes - idealism. To confer anything the special status of being "immaterial" is to ideologically designate it, to set it aside for the dogs - it encapsulates perfectly the idealism of the phrase-mongerers. The fact of the matter is that discourse is not simply what it is presented as. Discourse is not the language with its APPEARANCE as an ends-in-itself, but precisely what it does not present itself as - precisely what it designates tacitly or implicitly. The axiom of discourse criticism - What does one mean when they say this or that. To the Xhar-Xhar's of the world, one can only mean precisely what is being said at face value. An anti-Marxist logic.


Most parties were avowedly Marxist, including most that later made up the White Movement.

Why do you lie? If this is true, than the white-movement as a whole was composed of very few, irrelevant political parties who were a small portion of a party-less movement. Even if you do not mean to say that the white movement was mostly "avowdly Marxist", this is what you insinuate. It is disgustingly misleading. The white movement was avowedly anti-Communist, openly anti-Marxist, and that is the end of the story. Those "socialists" who composed a part of it were completely anomalous.

I mean, it is rather stupid when one evaluates that every single example you mention confers a specific and entirely different context to evaluate. To take Ethiopia, everyone called themselves Marxist-Leninists, but the difference is that each faction had a different relationship to Marxism-Leninism that was apparent in its words, actions and constitution. Of course, during any revolutionary epoch even the most rabidly counter-revolutionary forces will have to call themselves socialists - it is the basic opportunism of any reactionary force. "National Socialism", "Libertarianism", "Men's Rights" - this has nothing to do with discourse being "immaterial" but precisely to the fact that the discourse signifies the necessity for the reactionary opportunists to prostrate - at least formally - before the powerful new standards that are set in place by genuine revolutionary forces.

I cannot stress this enough - there is no equivalency between Left and Right. The Right can only ever react - it is not capable of anything authentic or genuine insofar as it addresses the non-capitalist classes. This is why, for example, every university will have a "Left bias" - it is purely out of necessity, because without the rich tradition born out of the same impassioned "extremist" struggles they so amply condemn today, they have no means of vitalizing themselves and bourgeois ideology. Lenin spoke about this white-washing very sharply - history alone is testament to the power of revolution, because over time - sooner or later - the revolutionaries will be shown to have been correct all along, even in the eyes of their newly manifested enemies.

[Hatshepsut]

A dialogue sounds good. This evening’s lesson will be on the reserve army of the unemployed:

Lenny (on stoop in front of overpriced Compton apartment house where hot water is always out)

The kerosene fumes from your outdoor furnace when you have Christmas parties up there makes me sick. I already have to smell that shit all day when up there trimming the cycads in your rock garden. Why do you need to have parties all night outdoors in the winter anyway? You’ve got a ballroom and an indoor swimming pool.

Maxim (in kitchen alcove of tony $27 million Brentwood home, on phone with Lenny)

Mmm...Well, did I forget to tell ‘ya ‘bout that sweet gal from Puebla? Does such a nice job with Gindie’s kids; has Cara’s bow on straight an’ off to the bus stop 7:30 sharp. Dropped where there’s a good lawn crew on Craigslist; mmm...You know Cara’s off to Choate next year? Jah. Connecticut! We want her in an East Coast school, maybe Brown, when she hits college and Choate is the place to start. They’re so good with children of color like Cara is; they've taken equal opportunity to a new level. I found a cigarette butt under the cycad after you left. Who was up there jawing with ‘ya last time anyway? (Doorbell sounds.) Oh! that’s Bob; say Len pal, in a minute? Gotta run.

Lenny (now acutely threatened by “staffing solutions alternatives”)

I’ll be right up there. At six.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, I guess that might not be a part of "discourse", but this is what I was thinking of. But how might one specifically steer struggles toward the maximum extension, unify struggles, help the working class see itself?

The utility of discourse across society might well be meaningless, as Xhar-Xhar pointed out, but that is hard to see in such a right-wing country as mine. But nonetheless, leftists are such a minority, and that I have to work with people and groups who, consciously or not, fail to see the unity of struggle and work accordingly. How, then, might a minority of people who see this act towards those ends?

By arguing for it. If something is happening in your workplace and people are angry about something, suggest holding a meeting of the workers to discuss what action you can take. If people are suggesting that it's an issue that only affects a small number of workers try to see if other workers outside that department or whatever are also affected. If people want to hand over the process to the union (a set of sectional interests) insist that all workers inside and outside the unions be involved. If you know of other things going on in you town or area, argue that the mass meeting (not the union) should send a delegation to that workplace too. Explain that workers have the same ultimate interests whenever you have the opportunity.

Replace 'workplace' with 'neighbourhood' and 'department' with 'street', replicate and repeat.

??

Revolution.

Something like that anyway.

It seems to me that our biggest problem is that we are part of a working class that barely recognises itself as such - obviously, this is from a British 'post-industrial' context, in other places in the world, the working class doesn't necessarily have the same problems in identifying itself as such. But in the old heartlands of industrial capitalism, in western Europe and the USA, the working class is not struggling en masse partly because it doesn't see itself as a single class with the same interests any more. We (as revolutionaries or pro-revolutionaries or whatever) have to insist both on the necessity of unity, and the unitary nature, of the class.