Originally posted by
[email protected] 10, 2007 08:15 pm
With positive discrimination, I do not mean affirmative action, but I mean discrimination which rather than being intended to exclude people from the society, is trying to forcefully integrate them in society (like Roma people in the 19th century, or in the eastern bloc-nations).
Groups which stand “outside” of society or have been marginalized are generally in that position because of a history of oppression by another group or institution – by the state, through capitalism’s structural effects, by dominant social forces, and so on. If you want to create the conditions whereby these excluded groups can be reintegrated, make sure that the underlying causes of these oppressions have been addressed – which, needless to say, I think can only truly be done after the overthrow of capitalism. Once that’s done, individuals can then make a freer and more unfettered choice (relatively speaking) to integrate if they wish – or not.
Posing this question of social cohesion in a very abstract, general way – i.e., without explicitly linking it to actually-existing oppressions and the necessity of revolution, which at this point applies to almost all countries around the globe – is problematic. We should not be interested in strengthening the hand of the capitalist state, or the prevailing social forces which buttress it, by eliminating – forcibly or otherwise – those social spaces or terrain which could be used for resistance against the system. Requiring the integration of different oppressed peoples, in the way that is suggested by your original question, would have this objective effect.
The left has a long and soiled history on this issue. It has been consistently proposed that differences or variations in how people live their lives must be eliminated or suppressed to build “unity”, a “unity” which will putatively help to build a revolutionary process or sustain a future communist society. The mostly-unspoken corollary to this position is that such differences or variations divide people and render them unable to come together in opposing the current system and constructing a new world. These lines are toxic and – clearly, given the weakness of the left today, in the usa at least – ineffective: visions of a new world in which cultural differences important to people today (currently organized around the axes of, say, race, gender, sexuality, or nationality) have been eviscerated -- whether by violence or state / social sanction, it doesn’t matter -- aren’t exactly appealing. Revolutionaries have to be able to organize across line of difference and not attempt to impose some artificial homogeneity: currently, the left isn’t very good at doing this.