Rawthentic
19th February 2007, 02:11
This is an article from the Communist League, in discussing the need for a new culture of liberation for the workers. I'm not sure this is the place to post it, move it if it need be. Discuss please.
When we talk about the historic importance of building a proletarian communist movement — a movement for the liberation of the proletariat carried out by the proletariat — it can rightly be said that this phrase, “historic importance,” cannot do the task justice.
This is because for us to say that what we do is of “importance” understates the overall impact we will have. We seek to not only influence history, but to make it — to change the course of society and, thus, history itself.
To do this work successfully requires us to be more than a political or economic movement. Politics is the nexus of class society and the ground on which the battle for working people’s liberation is to be fought.
Economics is at the root of class society and where the class struggle often assumes its sharpest character. However, for communists to be just a political movement, or just an economic movement, or even both, is not enough.
The modern communist movement has to have a presence, and become a pole of attraction, in all aspects of society. We need to be present not only in the political and economic arenas, but in the cultural and social arenas as well.
However, to be involved in all of these aspects of society requires building a movement that goes beyond anything that has been built before. The old models are not adequate for the tasks.
More to the point, they never were adequate, and that is one of the reasons why previous movements failed.
Precedent
This is not to say, however, that attempts to build a movement that encompasses all aspects of society has not been tried. On the contrary, throughout the history of the working people’s movement, there have been attempts to organize in arenas other than politics and economics.
Throughout the 19th century, the early communist and socialist movements attempted to organize auxiliary organizations that were interventions into cultural and social affairs.
Socialist and communist sports organizations were the most successful, but cultural and artists’ societies existed for decades too.
The mass Social Democratic movement of the early 20th century saw such institutions grow and become genuine formations in their own right.
In the U.S., for example, organizations like the Socialist Writers’ Guild and the Workers’ Art Exchange existed alongside branches of the Socialist Party of America and Socialist Labor Party.
Socialist cultural magazines like The Masses had subscriptions in the tens of thousands. Socialist daily and weekly newspapers had regular arts sections that featured prose and poetry, along with reviews of art shows, plays and, eventually, movies.
The Appeal to Reason, the largest of the socialist newspapers of its day, serialized the articles written by Upton Sinclair that eventually became the famous book, The Jungle.
The early communist movement, too, attempted to organize social and cultural arms. Communist sports leagues and artists’ collectives were common throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
Magazines like The New Masses and, later, Freedomways featured poems and prose from leftwing writers. The early Communist movement even attempted to create its own alternative to the Boy Scouts, the Young Pioneers, based on the Soviet original.
(This last comment, “based on the Soviet original,” was something that could be said of all of the attempts by the early Communist movement, in the U.S. and internationally, to establish social and cultural organizations.
The Communist parties crudely duplicated what the Communists in Russia were able to do from a position of state power with the relatively meager resources at their disposal.)
Whatever remained of these socialist and communist cultural organizations in the U.S. were destroyed in the face of the McCarthyite reaction of the 1940s and 1950s.
The rise of the New Left in the 1960s saw miniscule attempts, here and there, by self-described socialist and communist organizations to establish social and cultural organizations.
For the most part, though, these were little more than “organizations” composed of members of the political organizations that occasionally published a “cultural and literary magazine” full of — well, let’s be blunt — really bad poetry.
(In all fairness, though, these were often attempts to mirror the bad poetry that came out of China and Albania in the 1960s.)
The only organization of that period that was successful with its efforts to build social and cultural movements was the Black Panther Party.
They took a very different approach to these questions, one that reflected the fundamentally different class character of the Panthers — i.e., proletarian, not petty bourgeois.
The Panthers understood that you cannot build a cultural or social organization if the people you wish to organize are too busy trying to eke out an existence.
They not only sought to develop a new cultural or social movement, they also worked to raise the level of social and cultural development within the community.
Perhaps without recognizing its general application, the Panthers understood that you cannot begin to build a new society without first raising the level of development of the old society.
In effect, the Panthers understood that the first step toward building a communist culture is the creation of a “culture of liberation” within current society.
“Culture of Liberation”
So, what is the “culture of liberation?” In short, a culture of liberation is a mindset and consciousness that frees the working person to understand and master the skills necessary to organize themselves and become the ruling class through revolutionary change.
However, understanding what a “culture of liberation” means is one thing; building a “culture of liberation” today is something else. For some, the thought of building a “culture of liberation” seems to be little more than “charity work.”
Indeed, one of the chief criticisms that many of the self-described socialist and communist organizations had of the Panthers was that their community programs were little more than “charity work.”
Are they right? No. In fact, it can rightly be said that one of the reasons why so many of those leftwing organizations dried up and were blown away by the winds of history is because either they had no roots in the working class or they had the roots of a tumbleweed.
One of the chief reasons why this was the case was because they tried to organize among working people while not being concerned about the conditions under which working people had to survive.
When Marx and Engels helped to set up the International Working Men’s Association in 1864, one of the concrete proposals they put forward was what they eventually called a “workers’ inquiry.”
The “workers’ inquiry” was a questionnaire that sections of the IWMA would give out to workers in each country, asking questions about wages, working and living conditions, scale and scope of democratic rights, ability to organize economically and politically, literacy level and schooling, etc.
The point to this questionnaire was to gauge where working people were at and what it would take to organize politically, economically, socially and culturally.
In many ways, this was a continuation of what Engels did in the 1840s when he wrote his book, Conditions of the Working Class in England. Engels’ book became a primer on understanding early industrial workers in Britain and was indispensable for those organizing the early trade union movement.
The advantage that the Panthers had over the IWMA when they began to look at this question was that they were not coming to it “from the outside,” so to speak.
That is, the members of the Black Panther Party did not need to develop a questionnaire to find out what African-American workers needed. They lived in those communities and saw on a daily basis what was needed.
This allowed them to go on to the next step: preliminary organizing and development of programs designed to address the immediate problems facing working people. That is, they began to build a culture of liberation.
Movement
Certainly, there will be those from the left who become indignant at the implication that such programs were what Marx had in mind when he proposed the “workers’ inquiry” project to the IWMA. Of course, the inevitable question in response to such posturing is: For what purpose was the “inquiry,” then?
It can be argued that it was for solely the purposes of formulating slogans and demands. However, that answer cheapens the meaning of the work proposed and carried out by Marx and Engels. Using the information obtained in the “workers’ inquiry” certainly helped with developing slogans and campaigns, but there was more use for the information.
This goes back to the whole issue of the early socialist and communist movements organizing social and cultural societies.
It goes without saying that those societies also saw the information in the “workers’ inquiries.” They saw information in those questionnaires that they could do something about.
Take the example of the Socialist Correspondence School. This was an organization formed in the early 20th century to help workers and other poor people who were illiterate or had a low literacy level to read and write.
The SCS had a 20-level course that began with teaching the ABCs and ended with prose and high literature.
Similarly, the practice of potluck dinners, picnics and other similar social events was originally organized with poor and working people in mind. It was common, for example, for branches of the Socialist Party to meet weekly.
Each meeting would begin or end with a communal meal. This meant that, at least once a week, poor and working people, and their families, had a good meal.
This is the kind of “charity work” that socialist and communist organizations organized a century ago. Moreover, these programs were often open to non-members of these organizations as well.
One of the reasons that the Socialist Party of America, at its height, had over 100,000 members was because they had social and cultural organizations they worked with that brought working people into contact with the party: workers’ libraries, funeral societies, life insurance, welfare and relief cooperatives, communal kitchens and childcare, communal laundries, etc.
Whatever problem a working person had to face, usually a socialist-oriented organization could help.
It should be made clear, however, that one of the key aspects of these organizations was that they were not direct “arms” of the political or economic organizations.
They were autonomous allies and/or affiliates of the socialist movement, standing on an equal level with the political party of economic organization.
The Black Panthers learned this lesson to a certain degree. While their breakfast and sickle cell anemia programs were obviously oriented in the direction of the party, they were not seen as “arms” of the Black Panther Party and were allowed to develop organically. This was also true of their latter community program, the Intercommunal Schools.
“Culture War”
Since the Panthers left the main political stage, however, nothing has been done by the self-described socialist and communist organizations to build a culture of liberation. In fact, the very concept has become a target of ridicule and attack by those organizations.
Nevertheless, the urgent need to undertake this organizing work — the building of a culture of liberation — cannot be more apparent. This is especially true in the context of the “culture war” waged by the capitalists and their media mouthpieces.
How many times has it been said that people in the U.S. are being “dumbed down?” This is a direct product of the “culture war.”
An uneducated population, cut off from knowledge of their history, force-fed “official” information and “truths,” can be coerced into acting in complete opposition to their basic interests and think it is a voluntary act.
In a nutshell, this is “what’s the matter with Kansas,” as that one sociologist asked a few years ago in his book of the same name.
Depriving a people of their history, of scientific and technological knowledge, of political, economic and social literacy, and then mystifying what they see happening in the world, makes them more accepting of the propaganda put forward by the capitalist class.
This could perhaps explain why most leftwing organizations are opposed to building a culture of liberation among working people. Most of the leaders of these organizations come out of the exploiting and oppressing classes, the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
Like their class counterparts who do not fly a false flag, these elements are inherently threatened by workers who are educated, who know their history, who can organize and theorize, who can challenge them politically.
An educated worker, self-acting and critically thinking, will not blindly accept propaganda from the enemy class, whether it’s dressed up in “democratic” or “communist” garb.
They will not be accepting of the existing division of labor within “their own” ranks. Most importantly, they won’t accept being “special” and “unique.”
Working people are willing to fight for each other when they realize that they are all in the same boat. It doesn’t take much to bring about that realization. The hard part is figuring out what to do after becoming conscious of this fact.
Building
For us, as a small communist organization, this work necessarily begins on a small and narrow scale. In the beginning, this will mean concentrating on our own members and, if necessary, their immediate circle of friends and family members.
As we grow, as the numbers of people who have been involved in the concrete projects grow, we can look more at formalizing and establishing these as autonomous efforts, oriented toward communism and our organization, but operating independently.
We can identify four main areas where we can begin building the culture of liberation within our own corner of the movement. The first of these areas can be described as literacy development.
Literacy is defined as “knowing the words;” however, the term is not limited to just learning to read or write. We are familiar with such terms today as “computer literacy” (knowing how to use a computer), “fiscal literacy” (knowing how to manage money), etc.
When we speak of literacy development, it is with this understanding of the term’s multiple uses.
Of course, we begin with the most basic of these: learning to read and write. In the U.S., part of the “dumbing down” process associated with the “culture war” has been the production of an entire generation of young people who are functionally illiterate.
College instructors are increasingly seeing high school graduates with the reading and literacy levels of an elementary school student. (In fact, many high school graduates today would have difficulty reading this article.)
Thus, when a working person comes to us, we should gauge their literacy skills and see where work is needed. If a new member is in need of literacy development in any area, we as an organization should develop a program that progressively works to raise that literacy level and aid their skills.
Concretely, this would include a series of lessons for each area of literacy (basic reading and writing, computer skills, personal economics, etc.). These lessons can integrate elements of communist literature or activity into them, which would assist with other areas of development.
The second area involves winning the battle of survival. The battle of survival is waged by working people on a daily basis to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads and clothes on their back.
Winning the battle of survival — or, at the very least, advancing in the battle far enough to have a breathing space — is often a necessary prerequisite to engaging in the battle of democracy — the battle for the liberation of working people from exploitation and oppression.
There are several aspects to winning the battle of survival. The most basic of these is making sure the necessities of life in a modern society — food, shelter, clothing, utilities (lights, heat, telephone), etc. — are either gained or maintained.
Over the last decade, many of the basic utilities that everyone needs have been deregulated, leading to spikes in prices and, thus, mass shutoffs. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, have lost their access to electricity, gas heat, water and telephone service due to shutoffs.
Communists see these utilities as part of the necessities of life, and we should do what we can to help our members keep or restore these services — including finding creative ways to do so, some of which the bourgeoisie would see as illegal.
(There is historical precedent for this; during the Great Depression, the Communist Party organized “anti-eviction” groups that would be on-call. If someone was evicted from their house, the Communists would break the lock off the door and move the person back into their place.)
Another key part of this work toward winning the battle of survival is organizing food and clothing aid for working people. This can take many forms, from organizing communal meals and clothing giveaways on a regular basis to passing out packages or bags of food and clothing.
Perhaps one of the more valuable aspects of this area is in helping working people to improve their job skills. This is especially important for younger workers, who often spend their early working years in the fast-food industry or working at a grocery store.
An unofficial apprenticeship program, where a member with certain key qualifications pairs up with someone who needs to learn those skills, would allow young workers to look at jobs where they would be able to earn a living wage.
It is not just the seemingly “big things” associated with the battle of survival that we need to be concerned about, but also what might be seen as the “small things.” For example, for working people with children, finding childcare is central to winning the battle of survival and participating in political life.
Childcare programs staffed by single and male comrades who are politically experienced and “veterans” of the communist movement would make it possible for working people, single or married, with children to get involved in the struggle.
Development
This last program also helps with the third area of building a culture of liberation: political development. In many ways, the first two areas are required in order for the third to be effective.
For most self-described socialist and communist organizations, political development means little more than reading a few recommended texts and knowing what passages correspond to that particular group’s doctrine (and then regurgitating them on command).
No real thought about the organization’s viewpoint is required or wanted; no real attempt to understand the method of analysis that led those communist leaders of the past to write what they wrote and do what they did is required or wanted.
Contrary to this, communists want their comrades to be able to think these issues through, to understand how a certain position was arrived at and what should be considered when looking at the question again.
When communists participate in political discussions with working people on any issue, it should be done from the standpoint of someone looking to see that everyone is able to understand and analyze the questions and come up with answers on their own.
Participating in such a discussion as the “person with all the answers” does nothing to contribute to political development. In fact, it can often have the opposite of the intended effect, pushing working people away from being involved.
A communist can be most effective by offering “things to consider” and facilitating the other participants’ understanding and use of the communist method of analysis — materialist dialectics — in a discussion.
Overall, any “guidance” a communist should offer is that which allows working people to discover for themselves not only the answers to problems, but also how to arrive at that answer.
Similarly, when these discussions take place, communists should allow them to develop as “free-ranging” talks that move from subject to subject.
There is often a hidden value in this kind of rambling discussion: it allows working people to “connect the dots” and see how seemingly different issues are related.
Allowing a discussion to move from politics to economics to something they saw on television last night helps to break down that element of bourgeois ideology that enforces a phony separation between the different aspects of society.
This kind of free-ranging discussion also aids our own members in learning how to think and act spontaneously and extemporaneously, which helps when having to deal with developing situations, such as a political crisis or a catastrophe.
The fourth area where we need to build a culture of liberation is in deepening consciousness. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the catechism of the New Left was either raising or expanding consciousness (the latter sometimes done with drugs).
The problem with both of these concepts was that they did more to confuse and mystify than clarify and explain the questions of identity and consciousness. As a result, little development was made beyond the enrichment of a few charlatans.
When we talk about deepening consciousness, we are talking about imbuing working people with a class consciousness that goes beyond merely recognizing their role in the production relations.
We try to undo years of cultural and social stereotypes, often manifested as a feeling of “inferiority” and as subordination to all expressions of “authority,” by instilling a “pride” in their place in society — in their being a worker.
There is no shame in working for a living, and yet, it is common for working people to feel ashamed because they are not rich, because they cannot always provide for themselves or their family everything they want.
Deepening class consciousness means combating this self-loathing, which is a byproduct of bourgeois ideology, by helping working people understand why they are in the position they are in, how the capitalists trick working people into being ashamed of their social being and what it will take to once and for all end that system of ideological poisoning.
Empowerment
In the final analysis, the building of a culture of liberation — in our organizations and in the working people’s movement in general — is the building of real empowerment among the exploited and oppressed.
The overthrow of capitalism, its state and system, is the ultimate act of empowerment by working people. It represents the highest expression by the proletariat that it can act for itself, for its own interests.
Our understanding of empowerment is different from that of the capitalists, and their petty-bourgeois managers, professionals and independent producers.
For them, the exploiters and oppressors of society, “empowerment” means having the power to exploit and oppress. For us, for working people, empowerment means having the power to put an end to exploitation and oppression.
Building a culture of liberation is the process by which we can build our own empowerment. It is how we can shake off the propaganda that we need the exploiters and oppressors, that they are our friends and natural allies.
It is how we can learn the skills we need to govern ourselves, to run the economy ourselves and build a society ourselves. It is how we begin to separate ourselves from the bourgeois order so we can overthrow it.
This logically develops into a discussion about whether or not there is such a thing as “proletarian culture.”
During the early years of the Soviet republic, there was a debate among Communists over whether there was such a thing as “proletarian culture,” and there is little doubt that certain elements of the left will attempt to rehash that debate when attempting to argue against the building of a culture of liberation.
The problem is that the conditions in which this question — whether or not we are attempting to build a “proletarian culture” — are not the same as those faced by those communists in the late 1910s and early 1920s.
If we are building something like a “proletarian culture,” it would be more accurate to call it a proletarian counterculture. That is, what we are building is consciously against the existing bourgeois culture in every fundamental way.
It is not a hedonistic or nihilistic version of bourgeois or petty bourgeois ideology, which is what generally passes as “counterculture” in this society.
Our culture is based on the principles that bind working people of all countries: unity and solidarity, brother/sisterhood, common historic interests, real freedom and democracy, and the desire for a better world for all.
Engaging the 'Culture War'
The following article was prepared as a discussion piece on the “culture war,” in the context of building a “culture of liberation” in the League.
The development of the communist movement is an all-encompassing process, drawing into it forces from the most diverse of backgrounds that can develop in capitalist class society.
To be sure, the most common origins of these forces are economic and political. The forces of society that push us together and tear us apart, the centripetal and centrifugal forces, often find their sharpest expression in these arenas.
It is in the economic arena, for example, where the exploitation of working people by capitalists takes place, acquires form and becomes apparent.
The direct appropriation of surplus labor by the owners of the means of production in the form of profit and capital (“private property”) makes this arena a fertile field for assembling the forces of social change.
Similarly, the political arena is where working people receive their overall education in how the capitalist system works.
“Politics” offers working people the opportunity to learn about how the appropriation of their labor is a form of state-imposed coercion, by a political structure that is composed of and led by core elements of the ruling class.
However, there is another area that also demands our attention: the cultural arena.
Culture is an important aspect to a society. It binds people together in ways that common territory, language or ethnicity cannot. In fact, it is often the case that culture is the aspect that is what fundamentally separates one group of people from another.
What separates Americans from English Canadians, for example? Politically, there are differences in form, but not in content.
Economically, there is actually a great deal of cross-border overlap between the Canadian and U.S. economies. They speak the same language, share the same religions and have similar ethnic diversity. What makes them different?
Culture plays a key role in distinguishing the differences between the two societies.
Whether we are talking about the large things, like a strong social-democratic tradition that has led to economic and political reforms, or the small things, like looking at other people with less cynicism and paranoia, we see that the cultures matter.
Class and Culture
Cultural conflicts have always been a part of the class struggle. Debates over aesthetics and art, and their relationship to social classes and the development of a movement for working people’s liberation were common in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the time when most self-described socialists and communists were united into one worldwide organization, the Socialist International, and its national affiliates, cultural magazines from a socialist and class-struggle perspective were common.
In the U.S., socialist magazines like The Masses were oriented toward reporting on cultural affairs —art exhibitions, plays, new books and even the emerging cinema.
Even news-oriented publications published by socialists, including the Appeal to Reason and International Socialist Review (no relation to the existing publication), included a regular section on culture.
Now, it is true that you can find “culture” articles in many of today’s publications. Indeed, the more “cutting edge” of these publications, such as the World Socialist Web Site, even publish such articles on a regular basis.
However, there is more to the communist intervention into the cultural arena than movie reviews and articles about film festivals. Culture, because it is something that is shaped by common experience, touches every aspect of society and leaves its mark on it.
The reactionary bourgeoisie learned that lesson after the Second World War, when they realized that culture can be commodified on a mass scale by ending the practice of individual patronage, which was a vestige of feudal culture, and moved to the system of corporate patronage.
Almost overnight, radical artists, including many cultural icons, found themselves without any way to earn a living. From this point on, artists were to be treated like wage-laborers as much as possible, while offering them the “freedom” to produce on their own and take their chances.
In the 1960s, this layer of cultural outcasts helped to shape what became known as the “counter-culture,” the “official” culture of the radicalizing petty bourgeoisie.
Because many of these cultural figures were also part of that wave of outcasts, and remembered the time when radical unionism, socialism and communism were still seen as a legitimate contender in capitalism’s cultural arena, you saw bits and pieces of these class-based doctrines be translated into the language of both the happy hippie and angst-ridden yippie (both to become, in the 1980s, the yuppies).
Moreover, this insurgent culture was able to encapsulate concepts that motivated most of the mass social movements of the period — antiwar, Black Power, women’s liberation, etc. — and provide easily digestible arguments that society as a whole could accept.
For the reactionary bourgeoisie, and their petty-bourgeois appendages, this was a dire emergency. For close to a generation, they had been able to keep control of the culture of society in order to shape it for an “American Century.”
Now, that vision was being buried — politically, in the Watergate scandal and rise of a social-democratic “liberalism”, as well as in the military defeat in Vietnam; economically, in the stagnation of the economy, the failure of the Breton Woods agreements and the demands of resource partners in the imperialist cartels; and now culturally, in the mass acceptance of elements of social progress that interfered with unfettered capitalist exploitation.
Something had to be done.
“Culture War”
It would reflect a narrow vision of the history of society to say that the “Culture War” began only recently. As implied above, there has been a class struggle in culture — a real “cultural war” — as long as there have been classes.
However, what we know today as the “Culture War” began in the 1980s, with the rise of the Ronald Reagan administration. For most of that time, it did not have this formal title, but the concepts were the same.
The “Culture War” was begun as an effort by those sections of the ruling bourgeoisie and managing petty-bourgeoisie to undo those socially-progressive elements that became a part of mass culture in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.
The two most effective methods of the reactionary bourgeoisie in this period were the creation of specific stereotypes and individual embodiments.
For example, when Reagan wanted to go after the welfare programs established in the 1970s to help the poor, he used the specific stereotype of the “welfare queen:” a single African American mother with more than two children who is able to work but chooses not to, instead opting to have more children to collect more “taxpayer’s dollars.”
The fact that most women on welfare at that time were white, had only one or two children, and many times were working but made so little as to qualify or were disabled to one degree or another, was drowned out in the din of the ensuing “battle.”
As well, when then-vice president George H.W. Bush wanted to attack Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis as “soft on crime,” he chose the individual embodiment of Willie Horton. Horton, a felon who was given a furlough during Dukakis’ time as governor of Massachusetts, ended up assaulting and raping a woman while out.
The facts that this furlough plan was, in fact, ended under Dukakis’ administration, even though he initially supported it as a means of rehabilitation, was lost in the racist landslide.
Even the little details, like the fact that “Willie” was never a name used by Horton (he called himself “William”), contributed to making Horton a bogeyman for society.
These initial skirmishes in the 1980s laid the groundwork for what was to come in the 1990s: the all-out assault and “Culture War.”
The declaration of that war was in 1992, when Pat Buchanan took to the podium at that year’s Republican National Convention and uttered the phrase that would echo for years to come.
Draped in militaristic language, from his talk about the “Buchanan Brigades” to his hailing of Reagan for “winning the Cold War,” the speech defined the contours of the new “Culture War” to be waged by the reactionary bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
The contours outlined by Buchanan in his 1992 speech more or less remain the core of the “Culture War” today: abortion, gun rights, the separation of church and state, sexuality, personal privacy, censorship, “political correctness,” affirmative action, etc.
Language
Each of these points, of course, has a political and/or economic manifestation that communists have traditionally engaged.
However, these interventions, though sometimes lengthy or complex, have never been very deep. That is, the focus has been political or economic, while the cultural aspects have been more or less ignored.
The most glaring example of this is the question of how language is used in the “Culture War.”
Early on, the reactionary “culture warriors” seized on the question of language as a means of defining the “battlefield” and seizing its high ground. Working closely with media consultants like Roger Ailes, they were able to craft a series of buzzwords and catchphrases that gave them this advantageous position.
Take the term “pro-life” as an example. People who are politically conscious know this is a term for those opposed to a woman’s right to choose. But culture works on more than the conscious level; for the politically or socially unconscious, it can have deeper meaning.
How many people see themselves as being both “pro-life” and also supportive of a woman’s right to choose?
On the other side, take the term “politically correct.” Originally, to be politically correct was to reject the use of terms that were derogatory toward women, the racially or nationally oppressed, sexual minorities, etc.
That is, it meant that you did not contribute to the cultural and institutional racism, sexism and heterosexism of class society.
However, knowing that this term was a cultural obstacle to their agenda, the reactionary “culture warriors” proceeded to start a process that would lead to it being rejected on a mass level.
This began by provoking groups of people that felt discriminated by turning formerly acceptable terms into slurs. For example, terms like “handicapped” and “retarded” were transformed from descriptions into derogations. In response, the groups affected by these campaigns demanded new terms of description.
After a time, these campaigns were able to have the desired effect; so many groups feeling that terms describing them, or applying to them, were insulting and had to be changed — even if the term was relatively recent.
Now, of course, certain terms come and go over time, as consciousness changes and self-definition begins to take shape — from “Negro” to “Black” to “Afro-American” to “African American.”
As well, changing some terms that were traditionally gender-specific — e.g., “Chairman” to “Chairperson” — is a natural development toward an equal society.
However, the goal of the reactionary bourgeois and petty bourgeois in this campaign was to lampoon and, ultimately, belittle the entire process, making it a cultural joke for Americans. In this, they succeeded.
They did such a great job at this, in fact, that even self-described communists, who a generation ago would have been the champions of political correctness, declared themselves against what became derisively referred to as “PC.”
The concrete effect of this campaign is beginning to be seen again. Racist and sexist terminology is once again become acceptable in public discourse — albeit with a new twist: an attempt to make it seem “neutral” and not related to either the racial or gender groups to which it has been traditionally applied.
Image
Along with language, image has become a powerful weapon in the hands of the reactionary “culture warriors.”
The use of image and media consultants by the reactionary bourgeoisie has made it possible to paint their agenda of social reaction and all-out destruction of the rights and livelihoods of the exploited and oppressed as nothing short of the Second Coming of Christ.
This crafting of image, like language, has been an integral part of the new phase of the “Culture War” from its inception. The use of stereotypes and individual embodiment is a part of this craft, but only a part of it.
The “Willie Horton” we talked about, for example, was a crafted image. When the “Willie Horton” television ad by Americans for Bush was aired, it included a mug shot of Horton that made him look crazed, psychotic and generally menacing.
Larry McCarthy, a media consultant who had worked with Ailes and other behind-the-scenes people in the “Culture War,” called the image he picked out “every suburban mother’s greatest fear.” He did his job well.
A similar image crafting was done at the beginning of the O.J. Simpson debacle. Most media outlets ran the mug shot of Simpson taken after he was arrested by the Los Angeles police.
However, some of these outlets chose to darken the image, making Simpson look more menacing and “Blacker” — i.e., more threatening — than he actually is.
But it is not only in these more well-known examples that we see image craft used as a weapon in the “Culture War.” On the contrary, it is used by virtually every media outlet in a various ways.
For example, it is common for the media, when covering an antiwar or other similar event, to depict protestors as looking like “freaks” or generally something outside of the “mainstream.”
Gay rights events often give the media an opportunity to present gays and lesbians in a similar light. Often times, it does not matter how few of such differently-looking elements are at these events.
When these avenues of image craft are not immediately available, the media chooses to depict such events as small, marginal and isolated. There could be 3,000 people demonstrating for a certain cause, but the media will frame the image to make it look like 30, or even three.
We saw image craft at work with the immigrant rights demonstrations in Los Angeles and other cities last March. Even though there were over 1 million people in the streets, the media chose to focus in on the relatively few participants carrying Mexican flags or having tattoos associated in the media with gang affiliation.
It is not just in news programs, however, that image craft is hard at work. In television shows and on commercials, we also see how image is used to convey nothing short of subliminal cultural messages about what should be seen as “normal” or “mainstream.”
When you step back and look beyond the obvious stereotypes on television and in movies, we see what can only be described as “cultural landmarks” that are meant to outline the more omnipresent, and thus consciously invisible, contours.
Commercials provide compact vignettes of cultural norms as the capitalist class sees them.
Commercials for “men’s” products, for example, outline a modern man who is narcissistic, self-absorbed and only caring about his spouse/partner/love interest insofar as it means s/he will leave him alone.
Similarly, commercials for “women’s” products outline a modern woman who is obsessed with achieving domestic tranquility through keeping the house and kids in order, and challenging the male dominance only when it will do more harm to that arrangement in the long term.
Agenda
Language and image reinforce the agenda behind the agenda of the “Culture War.” Whereas each alone may be confusing or even misleading, when combined they clarify what kind of world the reactionary “culture warriors” want ... and don’t want.
Central to this is the restoration of the “good old days,” when those oppressed and exploited in society were “in their place” and did not demand either to be seen or heard — when issues of racism, sexism, heterosexism, national chauvinism, etc., did not clutter up or obstruct the path to their own prosperity.
The “good old days” they have in mind, however, is not some simple restoration of the past, as some mistakenly think. Rather, it is a restoration of the material conditions that allowed for the dominance of the “American Century” in the 1940s and 1950s.
Here, of course, we can draw a direct connection between “culture warriors” like Pat Buchanan and the conception of the “New American Century” formulated by the likes of Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams.
Here, we can also see the fallacy of the so-called division between “paleoconservatives” and “neoconservatives.”
The division between these two “camps” is purely tactical, with the “paleos” and “neos” clashing over little more than how the order in which things are done. The “paleos” want accounts settled internally before going for empire; the “neos” have chosen the converse.
In the end, though, both of them are aiming at the same goal: unchallenged hegemony and control of the world market by American capitalism.
The “Culture War” fits into this thesis because a key part of maintaining unchallenged control of the world is through obtaining unchallenged control of people’s personal lives. Every aspect of the “Culture War” is geared to this end: what you can and cannot do; what you can and cannot own; what you can and cannot believe.
But our modern “culture warriors” have learned from the past attempts at such social control. No longer is it a case of attempting to impose this order from the outside; rather, it is a case of winning people over to voluntarily giving up control of their personal lives.
It is similar to how today’s generation of police-state reactionaries have learned you don’t need a cop on every corner or informants on every block when you can put a surveillance camera in every public space.
Engaging
The first step for communists in fighting the “Culture War” is to understand its methods and goals. Those we have outlined above. It is now necessary to see where we can begin to engage and intervene in that war so that we may begin to work toward achieving our goals.
For this, it is necessary to review what we want to achieve: a fighting unity of all working people, regardless of race or nationality, gender, sexuality, age, etc.; an organized opposition to exploitation and oppression, no matter where it rears its head; a society where personal freedom can be fully realized through political, economic, cultural and social freedom.
These three pillars of the communist side of the “Culture War” help us to outline the contours of our tasks.
First, we must begin to redefine the language in our favor, much like the “culture warriors” did a generation ago. We should begin to develop our own buzzwords and catchphrases that can be taken up on a mass level and used as an alternative to those put forward by the reactionary bourgeoisie.
For example, when reactionaries use the buzzwords they have for issues like women’s rights, personal privacy, etc., we should have our own to use in response.
More importantly, we should put ourselves in the habit of using them in normal discourse with other, even when we’re not necessarily presenting ourselves as communists — just as the reactionaries did when they began their campaigns.
Second, we need to re-craft the image of communism, while at the same fully maintaining our principles and political viewpoint.
Culturally speaking, we should look for ways to “mainstream” communist theory and communist practice to reinforce the fact that it is a “natural” part of human development and struggle.
At public events, in meetings and in general social settings, we should show that communists are not the “freaks” the media wants to make us out to be.
This does not mean adapting to “the crowd,” but rather showing that we were always a part of it — that “crowd” being the working class.
Let the petty-bourgeois leftists, the anarchist “crusties” and other such elements corner the market on looking completely separate from society. It suits them well.
Third, we should begin to look for ways to intervene in local and even national “Culture War” debates from a communist perspective. The occasional article in WPA or WR cannot be enough.
At the same time, we do not have the space in either one to devote to consistent coverage of this issue. Instead, we should look for established avenues of public discussion where we can present our views and spark a real discussion.
The Internet can assist with this work greatly. Websites that concentrate on cultural issues are relatively numerous, and some of them offer spaces for comments and feedback.
Members are encouraged to look into the websites and making a habit of submitting contributions to these sections. Another useful tactic may be the establishment of blogs that are oriented specifically to commentary and critique on one or another website of a prominent “culture warrior.”
In sum, we communists have to pay much more attention to the “Culture War” than we have before, and more attention than other self-described communists do.
The “Culture War” is part and parcel of the class struggle, and we should not shy away from engaging that struggle where it is, on our own basis and with our own methods.
SOURCE (http://www.communistleague.org/page.php?58/#01)
When we talk about the historic importance of building a proletarian communist movement — a movement for the liberation of the proletariat carried out by the proletariat — it can rightly be said that this phrase, “historic importance,” cannot do the task justice.
This is because for us to say that what we do is of “importance” understates the overall impact we will have. We seek to not only influence history, but to make it — to change the course of society and, thus, history itself.
To do this work successfully requires us to be more than a political or economic movement. Politics is the nexus of class society and the ground on which the battle for working people’s liberation is to be fought.
Economics is at the root of class society and where the class struggle often assumes its sharpest character. However, for communists to be just a political movement, or just an economic movement, or even both, is not enough.
The modern communist movement has to have a presence, and become a pole of attraction, in all aspects of society. We need to be present not only in the political and economic arenas, but in the cultural and social arenas as well.
However, to be involved in all of these aspects of society requires building a movement that goes beyond anything that has been built before. The old models are not adequate for the tasks.
More to the point, they never were adequate, and that is one of the reasons why previous movements failed.
Precedent
This is not to say, however, that attempts to build a movement that encompasses all aspects of society has not been tried. On the contrary, throughout the history of the working people’s movement, there have been attempts to organize in arenas other than politics and economics.
Throughout the 19th century, the early communist and socialist movements attempted to organize auxiliary organizations that were interventions into cultural and social affairs.
Socialist and communist sports organizations were the most successful, but cultural and artists’ societies existed for decades too.
The mass Social Democratic movement of the early 20th century saw such institutions grow and become genuine formations in their own right.
In the U.S., for example, organizations like the Socialist Writers’ Guild and the Workers’ Art Exchange existed alongside branches of the Socialist Party of America and Socialist Labor Party.
Socialist cultural magazines like The Masses had subscriptions in the tens of thousands. Socialist daily and weekly newspapers had regular arts sections that featured prose and poetry, along with reviews of art shows, plays and, eventually, movies.
The Appeal to Reason, the largest of the socialist newspapers of its day, serialized the articles written by Upton Sinclair that eventually became the famous book, The Jungle.
The early communist movement, too, attempted to organize social and cultural arms. Communist sports leagues and artists’ collectives were common throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
Magazines like The New Masses and, later, Freedomways featured poems and prose from leftwing writers. The early Communist movement even attempted to create its own alternative to the Boy Scouts, the Young Pioneers, based on the Soviet original.
(This last comment, “based on the Soviet original,” was something that could be said of all of the attempts by the early Communist movement, in the U.S. and internationally, to establish social and cultural organizations.
The Communist parties crudely duplicated what the Communists in Russia were able to do from a position of state power with the relatively meager resources at their disposal.)
Whatever remained of these socialist and communist cultural organizations in the U.S. were destroyed in the face of the McCarthyite reaction of the 1940s and 1950s.
The rise of the New Left in the 1960s saw miniscule attempts, here and there, by self-described socialist and communist organizations to establish social and cultural organizations.
For the most part, though, these were little more than “organizations” composed of members of the political organizations that occasionally published a “cultural and literary magazine” full of — well, let’s be blunt — really bad poetry.
(In all fairness, though, these were often attempts to mirror the bad poetry that came out of China and Albania in the 1960s.)
The only organization of that period that was successful with its efforts to build social and cultural movements was the Black Panther Party.
They took a very different approach to these questions, one that reflected the fundamentally different class character of the Panthers — i.e., proletarian, not petty bourgeois.
The Panthers understood that you cannot build a cultural or social organization if the people you wish to organize are too busy trying to eke out an existence.
They not only sought to develop a new cultural or social movement, they also worked to raise the level of social and cultural development within the community.
Perhaps without recognizing its general application, the Panthers understood that you cannot begin to build a new society without first raising the level of development of the old society.
In effect, the Panthers understood that the first step toward building a communist culture is the creation of a “culture of liberation” within current society.
“Culture of Liberation”
So, what is the “culture of liberation?” In short, a culture of liberation is a mindset and consciousness that frees the working person to understand and master the skills necessary to organize themselves and become the ruling class through revolutionary change.
However, understanding what a “culture of liberation” means is one thing; building a “culture of liberation” today is something else. For some, the thought of building a “culture of liberation” seems to be little more than “charity work.”
Indeed, one of the chief criticisms that many of the self-described socialist and communist organizations had of the Panthers was that their community programs were little more than “charity work.”
Are they right? No. In fact, it can rightly be said that one of the reasons why so many of those leftwing organizations dried up and were blown away by the winds of history is because either they had no roots in the working class or they had the roots of a tumbleweed.
One of the chief reasons why this was the case was because they tried to organize among working people while not being concerned about the conditions under which working people had to survive.
When Marx and Engels helped to set up the International Working Men’s Association in 1864, one of the concrete proposals they put forward was what they eventually called a “workers’ inquiry.”
The “workers’ inquiry” was a questionnaire that sections of the IWMA would give out to workers in each country, asking questions about wages, working and living conditions, scale and scope of democratic rights, ability to organize economically and politically, literacy level and schooling, etc.
The point to this questionnaire was to gauge where working people were at and what it would take to organize politically, economically, socially and culturally.
In many ways, this was a continuation of what Engels did in the 1840s when he wrote his book, Conditions of the Working Class in England. Engels’ book became a primer on understanding early industrial workers in Britain and was indispensable for those organizing the early trade union movement.
The advantage that the Panthers had over the IWMA when they began to look at this question was that they were not coming to it “from the outside,” so to speak.
That is, the members of the Black Panther Party did not need to develop a questionnaire to find out what African-American workers needed. They lived in those communities and saw on a daily basis what was needed.
This allowed them to go on to the next step: preliminary organizing and development of programs designed to address the immediate problems facing working people. That is, they began to build a culture of liberation.
Movement
Certainly, there will be those from the left who become indignant at the implication that such programs were what Marx had in mind when he proposed the “workers’ inquiry” project to the IWMA. Of course, the inevitable question in response to such posturing is: For what purpose was the “inquiry,” then?
It can be argued that it was for solely the purposes of formulating slogans and demands. However, that answer cheapens the meaning of the work proposed and carried out by Marx and Engels. Using the information obtained in the “workers’ inquiry” certainly helped with developing slogans and campaigns, but there was more use for the information.
This goes back to the whole issue of the early socialist and communist movements organizing social and cultural societies.
It goes without saying that those societies also saw the information in the “workers’ inquiries.” They saw information in those questionnaires that they could do something about.
Take the example of the Socialist Correspondence School. This was an organization formed in the early 20th century to help workers and other poor people who were illiterate or had a low literacy level to read and write.
The SCS had a 20-level course that began with teaching the ABCs and ended with prose and high literature.
Similarly, the practice of potluck dinners, picnics and other similar social events was originally organized with poor and working people in mind. It was common, for example, for branches of the Socialist Party to meet weekly.
Each meeting would begin or end with a communal meal. This meant that, at least once a week, poor and working people, and their families, had a good meal.
This is the kind of “charity work” that socialist and communist organizations organized a century ago. Moreover, these programs were often open to non-members of these organizations as well.
One of the reasons that the Socialist Party of America, at its height, had over 100,000 members was because they had social and cultural organizations they worked with that brought working people into contact with the party: workers’ libraries, funeral societies, life insurance, welfare and relief cooperatives, communal kitchens and childcare, communal laundries, etc.
Whatever problem a working person had to face, usually a socialist-oriented organization could help.
It should be made clear, however, that one of the key aspects of these organizations was that they were not direct “arms” of the political or economic organizations.
They were autonomous allies and/or affiliates of the socialist movement, standing on an equal level with the political party of economic organization.
The Black Panthers learned this lesson to a certain degree. While their breakfast and sickle cell anemia programs were obviously oriented in the direction of the party, they were not seen as “arms” of the Black Panther Party and were allowed to develop organically. This was also true of their latter community program, the Intercommunal Schools.
“Culture War”
Since the Panthers left the main political stage, however, nothing has been done by the self-described socialist and communist organizations to build a culture of liberation. In fact, the very concept has become a target of ridicule and attack by those organizations.
Nevertheless, the urgent need to undertake this organizing work — the building of a culture of liberation — cannot be more apparent. This is especially true in the context of the “culture war” waged by the capitalists and their media mouthpieces.
How many times has it been said that people in the U.S. are being “dumbed down?” This is a direct product of the “culture war.”
An uneducated population, cut off from knowledge of their history, force-fed “official” information and “truths,” can be coerced into acting in complete opposition to their basic interests and think it is a voluntary act.
In a nutshell, this is “what’s the matter with Kansas,” as that one sociologist asked a few years ago in his book of the same name.
Depriving a people of their history, of scientific and technological knowledge, of political, economic and social literacy, and then mystifying what they see happening in the world, makes them more accepting of the propaganda put forward by the capitalist class.
This could perhaps explain why most leftwing organizations are opposed to building a culture of liberation among working people. Most of the leaders of these organizations come out of the exploiting and oppressing classes, the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
Like their class counterparts who do not fly a false flag, these elements are inherently threatened by workers who are educated, who know their history, who can organize and theorize, who can challenge them politically.
An educated worker, self-acting and critically thinking, will not blindly accept propaganda from the enemy class, whether it’s dressed up in “democratic” or “communist” garb.
They will not be accepting of the existing division of labor within “their own” ranks. Most importantly, they won’t accept being “special” and “unique.”
Working people are willing to fight for each other when they realize that they are all in the same boat. It doesn’t take much to bring about that realization. The hard part is figuring out what to do after becoming conscious of this fact.
Building
For us, as a small communist organization, this work necessarily begins on a small and narrow scale. In the beginning, this will mean concentrating on our own members and, if necessary, their immediate circle of friends and family members.
As we grow, as the numbers of people who have been involved in the concrete projects grow, we can look more at formalizing and establishing these as autonomous efforts, oriented toward communism and our organization, but operating independently.
We can identify four main areas where we can begin building the culture of liberation within our own corner of the movement. The first of these areas can be described as literacy development.
Literacy is defined as “knowing the words;” however, the term is not limited to just learning to read or write. We are familiar with such terms today as “computer literacy” (knowing how to use a computer), “fiscal literacy” (knowing how to manage money), etc.
When we speak of literacy development, it is with this understanding of the term’s multiple uses.
Of course, we begin with the most basic of these: learning to read and write. In the U.S., part of the “dumbing down” process associated with the “culture war” has been the production of an entire generation of young people who are functionally illiterate.
College instructors are increasingly seeing high school graduates with the reading and literacy levels of an elementary school student. (In fact, many high school graduates today would have difficulty reading this article.)
Thus, when a working person comes to us, we should gauge their literacy skills and see where work is needed. If a new member is in need of literacy development in any area, we as an organization should develop a program that progressively works to raise that literacy level and aid their skills.
Concretely, this would include a series of lessons for each area of literacy (basic reading and writing, computer skills, personal economics, etc.). These lessons can integrate elements of communist literature or activity into them, which would assist with other areas of development.
The second area involves winning the battle of survival. The battle of survival is waged by working people on a daily basis to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads and clothes on their back.
Winning the battle of survival — or, at the very least, advancing in the battle far enough to have a breathing space — is often a necessary prerequisite to engaging in the battle of democracy — the battle for the liberation of working people from exploitation and oppression.
There are several aspects to winning the battle of survival. The most basic of these is making sure the necessities of life in a modern society — food, shelter, clothing, utilities (lights, heat, telephone), etc. — are either gained or maintained.
Over the last decade, many of the basic utilities that everyone needs have been deregulated, leading to spikes in prices and, thus, mass shutoffs. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, have lost their access to electricity, gas heat, water and telephone service due to shutoffs.
Communists see these utilities as part of the necessities of life, and we should do what we can to help our members keep or restore these services — including finding creative ways to do so, some of which the bourgeoisie would see as illegal.
(There is historical precedent for this; during the Great Depression, the Communist Party organized “anti-eviction” groups that would be on-call. If someone was evicted from their house, the Communists would break the lock off the door and move the person back into their place.)
Another key part of this work toward winning the battle of survival is organizing food and clothing aid for working people. This can take many forms, from organizing communal meals and clothing giveaways on a regular basis to passing out packages or bags of food and clothing.
Perhaps one of the more valuable aspects of this area is in helping working people to improve their job skills. This is especially important for younger workers, who often spend their early working years in the fast-food industry or working at a grocery store.
An unofficial apprenticeship program, where a member with certain key qualifications pairs up with someone who needs to learn those skills, would allow young workers to look at jobs where they would be able to earn a living wage.
It is not just the seemingly “big things” associated with the battle of survival that we need to be concerned about, but also what might be seen as the “small things.” For example, for working people with children, finding childcare is central to winning the battle of survival and participating in political life.
Childcare programs staffed by single and male comrades who are politically experienced and “veterans” of the communist movement would make it possible for working people, single or married, with children to get involved in the struggle.
Development
This last program also helps with the third area of building a culture of liberation: political development. In many ways, the first two areas are required in order for the third to be effective.
For most self-described socialist and communist organizations, political development means little more than reading a few recommended texts and knowing what passages correspond to that particular group’s doctrine (and then regurgitating them on command).
No real thought about the organization’s viewpoint is required or wanted; no real attempt to understand the method of analysis that led those communist leaders of the past to write what they wrote and do what they did is required or wanted.
Contrary to this, communists want their comrades to be able to think these issues through, to understand how a certain position was arrived at and what should be considered when looking at the question again.
When communists participate in political discussions with working people on any issue, it should be done from the standpoint of someone looking to see that everyone is able to understand and analyze the questions and come up with answers on their own.
Participating in such a discussion as the “person with all the answers” does nothing to contribute to political development. In fact, it can often have the opposite of the intended effect, pushing working people away from being involved.
A communist can be most effective by offering “things to consider” and facilitating the other participants’ understanding and use of the communist method of analysis — materialist dialectics — in a discussion.
Overall, any “guidance” a communist should offer is that which allows working people to discover for themselves not only the answers to problems, but also how to arrive at that answer.
Similarly, when these discussions take place, communists should allow them to develop as “free-ranging” talks that move from subject to subject.
There is often a hidden value in this kind of rambling discussion: it allows working people to “connect the dots” and see how seemingly different issues are related.
Allowing a discussion to move from politics to economics to something they saw on television last night helps to break down that element of bourgeois ideology that enforces a phony separation between the different aspects of society.
This kind of free-ranging discussion also aids our own members in learning how to think and act spontaneously and extemporaneously, which helps when having to deal with developing situations, such as a political crisis or a catastrophe.
The fourth area where we need to build a culture of liberation is in deepening consciousness. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the catechism of the New Left was either raising or expanding consciousness (the latter sometimes done with drugs).
The problem with both of these concepts was that they did more to confuse and mystify than clarify and explain the questions of identity and consciousness. As a result, little development was made beyond the enrichment of a few charlatans.
When we talk about deepening consciousness, we are talking about imbuing working people with a class consciousness that goes beyond merely recognizing their role in the production relations.
We try to undo years of cultural and social stereotypes, often manifested as a feeling of “inferiority” and as subordination to all expressions of “authority,” by instilling a “pride” in their place in society — in their being a worker.
There is no shame in working for a living, and yet, it is common for working people to feel ashamed because they are not rich, because they cannot always provide for themselves or their family everything they want.
Deepening class consciousness means combating this self-loathing, which is a byproduct of bourgeois ideology, by helping working people understand why they are in the position they are in, how the capitalists trick working people into being ashamed of their social being and what it will take to once and for all end that system of ideological poisoning.
Empowerment
In the final analysis, the building of a culture of liberation — in our organizations and in the working people’s movement in general — is the building of real empowerment among the exploited and oppressed.
The overthrow of capitalism, its state and system, is the ultimate act of empowerment by working people. It represents the highest expression by the proletariat that it can act for itself, for its own interests.
Our understanding of empowerment is different from that of the capitalists, and their petty-bourgeois managers, professionals and independent producers.
For them, the exploiters and oppressors of society, “empowerment” means having the power to exploit and oppress. For us, for working people, empowerment means having the power to put an end to exploitation and oppression.
Building a culture of liberation is the process by which we can build our own empowerment. It is how we can shake off the propaganda that we need the exploiters and oppressors, that they are our friends and natural allies.
It is how we can learn the skills we need to govern ourselves, to run the economy ourselves and build a society ourselves. It is how we begin to separate ourselves from the bourgeois order so we can overthrow it.
This logically develops into a discussion about whether or not there is such a thing as “proletarian culture.”
During the early years of the Soviet republic, there was a debate among Communists over whether there was such a thing as “proletarian culture,” and there is little doubt that certain elements of the left will attempt to rehash that debate when attempting to argue against the building of a culture of liberation.
The problem is that the conditions in which this question — whether or not we are attempting to build a “proletarian culture” — are not the same as those faced by those communists in the late 1910s and early 1920s.
If we are building something like a “proletarian culture,” it would be more accurate to call it a proletarian counterculture. That is, what we are building is consciously against the existing bourgeois culture in every fundamental way.
It is not a hedonistic or nihilistic version of bourgeois or petty bourgeois ideology, which is what generally passes as “counterculture” in this society.
Our culture is based on the principles that bind working people of all countries: unity and solidarity, brother/sisterhood, common historic interests, real freedom and democracy, and the desire for a better world for all.
Engaging the 'Culture War'
The following article was prepared as a discussion piece on the “culture war,” in the context of building a “culture of liberation” in the League.
The development of the communist movement is an all-encompassing process, drawing into it forces from the most diverse of backgrounds that can develop in capitalist class society.
To be sure, the most common origins of these forces are economic and political. The forces of society that push us together and tear us apart, the centripetal and centrifugal forces, often find their sharpest expression in these arenas.
It is in the economic arena, for example, where the exploitation of working people by capitalists takes place, acquires form and becomes apparent.
The direct appropriation of surplus labor by the owners of the means of production in the form of profit and capital (“private property”) makes this arena a fertile field for assembling the forces of social change.
Similarly, the political arena is where working people receive their overall education in how the capitalist system works.
“Politics” offers working people the opportunity to learn about how the appropriation of their labor is a form of state-imposed coercion, by a political structure that is composed of and led by core elements of the ruling class.
However, there is another area that also demands our attention: the cultural arena.
Culture is an important aspect to a society. It binds people together in ways that common territory, language or ethnicity cannot. In fact, it is often the case that culture is the aspect that is what fundamentally separates one group of people from another.
What separates Americans from English Canadians, for example? Politically, there are differences in form, but not in content.
Economically, there is actually a great deal of cross-border overlap between the Canadian and U.S. economies. They speak the same language, share the same religions and have similar ethnic diversity. What makes them different?
Culture plays a key role in distinguishing the differences between the two societies.
Whether we are talking about the large things, like a strong social-democratic tradition that has led to economic and political reforms, or the small things, like looking at other people with less cynicism and paranoia, we see that the cultures matter.
Class and Culture
Cultural conflicts have always been a part of the class struggle. Debates over aesthetics and art, and their relationship to social classes and the development of a movement for working people’s liberation were common in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the time when most self-described socialists and communists were united into one worldwide organization, the Socialist International, and its national affiliates, cultural magazines from a socialist and class-struggle perspective were common.
In the U.S., socialist magazines like The Masses were oriented toward reporting on cultural affairs —art exhibitions, plays, new books and even the emerging cinema.
Even news-oriented publications published by socialists, including the Appeal to Reason and International Socialist Review (no relation to the existing publication), included a regular section on culture.
Now, it is true that you can find “culture” articles in many of today’s publications. Indeed, the more “cutting edge” of these publications, such as the World Socialist Web Site, even publish such articles on a regular basis.
However, there is more to the communist intervention into the cultural arena than movie reviews and articles about film festivals. Culture, because it is something that is shaped by common experience, touches every aspect of society and leaves its mark on it.
The reactionary bourgeoisie learned that lesson after the Second World War, when they realized that culture can be commodified on a mass scale by ending the practice of individual patronage, which was a vestige of feudal culture, and moved to the system of corporate patronage.
Almost overnight, radical artists, including many cultural icons, found themselves without any way to earn a living. From this point on, artists were to be treated like wage-laborers as much as possible, while offering them the “freedom” to produce on their own and take their chances.
In the 1960s, this layer of cultural outcasts helped to shape what became known as the “counter-culture,” the “official” culture of the radicalizing petty bourgeoisie.
Because many of these cultural figures were also part of that wave of outcasts, and remembered the time when radical unionism, socialism and communism were still seen as a legitimate contender in capitalism’s cultural arena, you saw bits and pieces of these class-based doctrines be translated into the language of both the happy hippie and angst-ridden yippie (both to become, in the 1980s, the yuppies).
Moreover, this insurgent culture was able to encapsulate concepts that motivated most of the mass social movements of the period — antiwar, Black Power, women’s liberation, etc. — and provide easily digestible arguments that society as a whole could accept.
For the reactionary bourgeoisie, and their petty-bourgeois appendages, this was a dire emergency. For close to a generation, they had been able to keep control of the culture of society in order to shape it for an “American Century.”
Now, that vision was being buried — politically, in the Watergate scandal and rise of a social-democratic “liberalism”, as well as in the military defeat in Vietnam; economically, in the stagnation of the economy, the failure of the Breton Woods agreements and the demands of resource partners in the imperialist cartels; and now culturally, in the mass acceptance of elements of social progress that interfered with unfettered capitalist exploitation.
Something had to be done.
“Culture War”
It would reflect a narrow vision of the history of society to say that the “Culture War” began only recently. As implied above, there has been a class struggle in culture — a real “cultural war” — as long as there have been classes.
However, what we know today as the “Culture War” began in the 1980s, with the rise of the Ronald Reagan administration. For most of that time, it did not have this formal title, but the concepts were the same.
The “Culture War” was begun as an effort by those sections of the ruling bourgeoisie and managing petty-bourgeoisie to undo those socially-progressive elements that became a part of mass culture in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s.
The two most effective methods of the reactionary bourgeoisie in this period were the creation of specific stereotypes and individual embodiments.
For example, when Reagan wanted to go after the welfare programs established in the 1970s to help the poor, he used the specific stereotype of the “welfare queen:” a single African American mother with more than two children who is able to work but chooses not to, instead opting to have more children to collect more “taxpayer’s dollars.”
The fact that most women on welfare at that time were white, had only one or two children, and many times were working but made so little as to qualify or were disabled to one degree or another, was drowned out in the din of the ensuing “battle.”
As well, when then-vice president George H.W. Bush wanted to attack Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis as “soft on crime,” he chose the individual embodiment of Willie Horton. Horton, a felon who was given a furlough during Dukakis’ time as governor of Massachusetts, ended up assaulting and raping a woman while out.
The facts that this furlough plan was, in fact, ended under Dukakis’ administration, even though he initially supported it as a means of rehabilitation, was lost in the racist landslide.
Even the little details, like the fact that “Willie” was never a name used by Horton (he called himself “William”), contributed to making Horton a bogeyman for society.
These initial skirmishes in the 1980s laid the groundwork for what was to come in the 1990s: the all-out assault and “Culture War.”
The declaration of that war was in 1992, when Pat Buchanan took to the podium at that year’s Republican National Convention and uttered the phrase that would echo for years to come.
Draped in militaristic language, from his talk about the “Buchanan Brigades” to his hailing of Reagan for “winning the Cold War,” the speech defined the contours of the new “Culture War” to be waged by the reactionary bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
The contours outlined by Buchanan in his 1992 speech more or less remain the core of the “Culture War” today: abortion, gun rights, the separation of church and state, sexuality, personal privacy, censorship, “political correctness,” affirmative action, etc.
Language
Each of these points, of course, has a political and/or economic manifestation that communists have traditionally engaged.
However, these interventions, though sometimes lengthy or complex, have never been very deep. That is, the focus has been political or economic, while the cultural aspects have been more or less ignored.
The most glaring example of this is the question of how language is used in the “Culture War.”
Early on, the reactionary “culture warriors” seized on the question of language as a means of defining the “battlefield” and seizing its high ground. Working closely with media consultants like Roger Ailes, they were able to craft a series of buzzwords and catchphrases that gave them this advantageous position.
Take the term “pro-life” as an example. People who are politically conscious know this is a term for those opposed to a woman’s right to choose. But culture works on more than the conscious level; for the politically or socially unconscious, it can have deeper meaning.
How many people see themselves as being both “pro-life” and also supportive of a woman’s right to choose?
On the other side, take the term “politically correct.” Originally, to be politically correct was to reject the use of terms that were derogatory toward women, the racially or nationally oppressed, sexual minorities, etc.
That is, it meant that you did not contribute to the cultural and institutional racism, sexism and heterosexism of class society.
However, knowing that this term was a cultural obstacle to their agenda, the reactionary “culture warriors” proceeded to start a process that would lead to it being rejected on a mass level.
This began by provoking groups of people that felt discriminated by turning formerly acceptable terms into slurs. For example, terms like “handicapped” and “retarded” were transformed from descriptions into derogations. In response, the groups affected by these campaigns demanded new terms of description.
After a time, these campaigns were able to have the desired effect; so many groups feeling that terms describing them, or applying to them, were insulting and had to be changed — even if the term was relatively recent.
Now, of course, certain terms come and go over time, as consciousness changes and self-definition begins to take shape — from “Negro” to “Black” to “Afro-American” to “African American.”
As well, changing some terms that were traditionally gender-specific — e.g., “Chairman” to “Chairperson” — is a natural development toward an equal society.
However, the goal of the reactionary bourgeois and petty bourgeois in this campaign was to lampoon and, ultimately, belittle the entire process, making it a cultural joke for Americans. In this, they succeeded.
They did such a great job at this, in fact, that even self-described communists, who a generation ago would have been the champions of political correctness, declared themselves against what became derisively referred to as “PC.”
The concrete effect of this campaign is beginning to be seen again. Racist and sexist terminology is once again become acceptable in public discourse — albeit with a new twist: an attempt to make it seem “neutral” and not related to either the racial or gender groups to which it has been traditionally applied.
Image
Along with language, image has become a powerful weapon in the hands of the reactionary “culture warriors.”
The use of image and media consultants by the reactionary bourgeoisie has made it possible to paint their agenda of social reaction and all-out destruction of the rights and livelihoods of the exploited and oppressed as nothing short of the Second Coming of Christ.
This crafting of image, like language, has been an integral part of the new phase of the “Culture War” from its inception. The use of stereotypes and individual embodiment is a part of this craft, but only a part of it.
The “Willie Horton” we talked about, for example, was a crafted image. When the “Willie Horton” television ad by Americans for Bush was aired, it included a mug shot of Horton that made him look crazed, psychotic and generally menacing.
Larry McCarthy, a media consultant who had worked with Ailes and other behind-the-scenes people in the “Culture War,” called the image he picked out “every suburban mother’s greatest fear.” He did his job well.
A similar image crafting was done at the beginning of the O.J. Simpson debacle. Most media outlets ran the mug shot of Simpson taken after he was arrested by the Los Angeles police.
However, some of these outlets chose to darken the image, making Simpson look more menacing and “Blacker” — i.e., more threatening — than he actually is.
But it is not only in these more well-known examples that we see image craft used as a weapon in the “Culture War.” On the contrary, it is used by virtually every media outlet in a various ways.
For example, it is common for the media, when covering an antiwar or other similar event, to depict protestors as looking like “freaks” or generally something outside of the “mainstream.”
Gay rights events often give the media an opportunity to present gays and lesbians in a similar light. Often times, it does not matter how few of such differently-looking elements are at these events.
When these avenues of image craft are not immediately available, the media chooses to depict such events as small, marginal and isolated. There could be 3,000 people demonstrating for a certain cause, but the media will frame the image to make it look like 30, or even three.
We saw image craft at work with the immigrant rights demonstrations in Los Angeles and other cities last March. Even though there were over 1 million people in the streets, the media chose to focus in on the relatively few participants carrying Mexican flags or having tattoos associated in the media with gang affiliation.
It is not just in news programs, however, that image craft is hard at work. In television shows and on commercials, we also see how image is used to convey nothing short of subliminal cultural messages about what should be seen as “normal” or “mainstream.”
When you step back and look beyond the obvious stereotypes on television and in movies, we see what can only be described as “cultural landmarks” that are meant to outline the more omnipresent, and thus consciously invisible, contours.
Commercials provide compact vignettes of cultural norms as the capitalist class sees them.
Commercials for “men’s” products, for example, outline a modern man who is narcissistic, self-absorbed and only caring about his spouse/partner/love interest insofar as it means s/he will leave him alone.
Similarly, commercials for “women’s” products outline a modern woman who is obsessed with achieving domestic tranquility through keeping the house and kids in order, and challenging the male dominance only when it will do more harm to that arrangement in the long term.
Agenda
Language and image reinforce the agenda behind the agenda of the “Culture War.” Whereas each alone may be confusing or even misleading, when combined they clarify what kind of world the reactionary “culture warriors” want ... and don’t want.
Central to this is the restoration of the “good old days,” when those oppressed and exploited in society were “in their place” and did not demand either to be seen or heard — when issues of racism, sexism, heterosexism, national chauvinism, etc., did not clutter up or obstruct the path to their own prosperity.
The “good old days” they have in mind, however, is not some simple restoration of the past, as some mistakenly think. Rather, it is a restoration of the material conditions that allowed for the dominance of the “American Century” in the 1940s and 1950s.
Here, of course, we can draw a direct connection between “culture warriors” like Pat Buchanan and the conception of the “New American Century” formulated by the likes of Dick Cheney and Elliot Abrams.
Here, we can also see the fallacy of the so-called division between “paleoconservatives” and “neoconservatives.”
The division between these two “camps” is purely tactical, with the “paleos” and “neos” clashing over little more than how the order in which things are done. The “paleos” want accounts settled internally before going for empire; the “neos” have chosen the converse.
In the end, though, both of them are aiming at the same goal: unchallenged hegemony and control of the world market by American capitalism.
The “Culture War” fits into this thesis because a key part of maintaining unchallenged control of the world is through obtaining unchallenged control of people’s personal lives. Every aspect of the “Culture War” is geared to this end: what you can and cannot do; what you can and cannot own; what you can and cannot believe.
But our modern “culture warriors” have learned from the past attempts at such social control. No longer is it a case of attempting to impose this order from the outside; rather, it is a case of winning people over to voluntarily giving up control of their personal lives.
It is similar to how today’s generation of police-state reactionaries have learned you don’t need a cop on every corner or informants on every block when you can put a surveillance camera in every public space.
Engaging
The first step for communists in fighting the “Culture War” is to understand its methods and goals. Those we have outlined above. It is now necessary to see where we can begin to engage and intervene in that war so that we may begin to work toward achieving our goals.
For this, it is necessary to review what we want to achieve: a fighting unity of all working people, regardless of race or nationality, gender, sexuality, age, etc.; an organized opposition to exploitation and oppression, no matter where it rears its head; a society where personal freedom can be fully realized through political, economic, cultural and social freedom.
These three pillars of the communist side of the “Culture War” help us to outline the contours of our tasks.
First, we must begin to redefine the language in our favor, much like the “culture warriors” did a generation ago. We should begin to develop our own buzzwords and catchphrases that can be taken up on a mass level and used as an alternative to those put forward by the reactionary bourgeoisie.
For example, when reactionaries use the buzzwords they have for issues like women’s rights, personal privacy, etc., we should have our own to use in response.
More importantly, we should put ourselves in the habit of using them in normal discourse with other, even when we’re not necessarily presenting ourselves as communists — just as the reactionaries did when they began their campaigns.
Second, we need to re-craft the image of communism, while at the same fully maintaining our principles and political viewpoint.
Culturally speaking, we should look for ways to “mainstream” communist theory and communist practice to reinforce the fact that it is a “natural” part of human development and struggle.
At public events, in meetings and in general social settings, we should show that communists are not the “freaks” the media wants to make us out to be.
This does not mean adapting to “the crowd,” but rather showing that we were always a part of it — that “crowd” being the working class.
Let the petty-bourgeois leftists, the anarchist “crusties” and other such elements corner the market on looking completely separate from society. It suits them well.
Third, we should begin to look for ways to intervene in local and even national “Culture War” debates from a communist perspective. The occasional article in WPA or WR cannot be enough.
At the same time, we do not have the space in either one to devote to consistent coverage of this issue. Instead, we should look for established avenues of public discussion where we can present our views and spark a real discussion.
The Internet can assist with this work greatly. Websites that concentrate on cultural issues are relatively numerous, and some of them offer spaces for comments and feedback.
Members are encouraged to look into the websites and making a habit of submitting contributions to these sections. Another useful tactic may be the establishment of blogs that are oriented specifically to commentary and critique on one or another website of a prominent “culture warrior.”
In sum, we communists have to pay much more attention to the “Culture War” than we have before, and more attention than other self-described communists do.
The “Culture War” is part and parcel of the class struggle, and we should not shy away from engaging that struggle where it is, on our own basis and with our own methods.
SOURCE (http://www.communistleague.org/page.php?58/#01)