Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics

[blake 3:17]

From an interview with Stephen Duncombe, (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sherman230207.html)author of Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy


You don't simply advocate that progressives learn from popular culture; you focus on aspects of it that progressives are likely to find appalling -- Las Vegas, the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, celebrity gossip, a commercial for McDonald's. What can we learn from them? What would you say to progressives who would claim that they demonstrate little more than that capitalism unleashes a drive toward the lowest common denominators of sex, violence, addiction, instant gratification?

I purposely picked examples of commercial culture that most progressives (including myself) find appalling. But I also used these examples because they are very popular. And if progressive politics are ever to be popular, then we have to learn how to speak to -- some of -- the popular desires and fantasies now given expression in things like Las Vegas and video games. Some desires can not and should not be addressed -- the violence and misogyny of many video games for instance, but some should: the joy in mastery and the freedom to explore that video games offer players.

A century ago William James gave a speech on the "Moral Equivalent of War." James, who was a pacifist, argued that unless pacifists recognized that war spoke to legitimate, and even admirable, desires like honor, community, and sacrifice, and then fashioned some sort of anti-war outlet for these desires, pacifism would have no popular appeal. That essay, which I read with a War Resisters League reading group nearly twenty years ago, stuck with me. What I'm arguing for is much the same thing as James: a progressive equivalent to commercial culture.

Because we live in a democracy and because progressives (should) believe in a system that speaks for and to the people, we need to pay a lot of attention to popular culture. This doesn't mean we should embrace a faux populism and throw on our NASCAR hats, but it does means respecting and learning from popular culture . . . and then fashioning progressive political equivalents.

[CNT-FAI]

Sounds good - as with so many other good ideas, how can we put it into practice? This always seems to be the stumbling block & why the US left remains marginal decade after decade. Planning for concrete action would seem to be what is needed, to balance the overemphasis on theoretical issues & foreign news.

The question is whether an online forum is conducive to this process, or whether we need to hold conferences. How much can be done aboveground,; do we need an underground organization like the Spanish FAI? Can local groups tackle these initiatives or do we need to build a coherant state & national structure?

How do we solve the problem of sectarianism & divisiveness? How do we solve the problem of lack of leadership? Do we have a serious committment or are we armchair radicals? I believe these matters need to be faced head on if we hope to make any real progress.

My perspective is one of having been a radical since 1965, so i'm acutely aware of our relative lack of forward movement, which may be less apparent to younger radicals. I still believe we can solve these problems, but we need to analyze our past & present mistakes & determine what prevents what is supposedly our constituency - the working classes - from flocking to us.

As we look around us, we might ask what we have to offer to the working classes, not so much how to organize them, since that comes second & is dangerous unless we maintain at the same time the attitude that we are as much learning from them as they may be from us.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." --Gandhi

"Serve the people." --Mao (I'm not a Maoist but the concept is spot on).

[blake 3:17]

As we look around us, we might ask what we have to offer to the working classes, not so much how to organize them, since that comes second & is dangerous unless we maintain at the same time the attitude that we are as much learning from them as they may be from us.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." --Gandhi

"Serve the people." --Mao (I'm not a Maoist but the concept is spot on).

I've been thinking about this a lot. I have no idea what the proper or best to organize people is -- I tend to think meetings are of limited value -- but offering effective forms of solidarity are the way to go.

[SPK]

Originally posted by blake 3:[email protected] 01, 2007 04:10 pm
From an interview with Stephen Duncombe, (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sherman230207.html)author of Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy
This new work -- Dream -- has gotten some buzz recently among leftists in the usa. To read the MRZine interview, as well as this one (Village Voice Interview (http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0709,weinstein,75886,10.html)), that doesn’t seem to be a good thing (I haven’t picked up the book yet). Its author, Stephen Duncombe, has anarchist-oriented politics and was an organizer for Reclaim the Streets here in the late nineties. In these interviews, it is clear that Duncombe bought into the whole notion that oppositional politics should be prefigurative and transformative, and encompass the kind of joy that we want to see in a revolutionary society. It should be fun and entertaining, with lots of puppets, dancing (‘cause, you know, Emma Goldmann said you have to be able to dance in a revolution), street theater, and other artistic / aesthetic strategies that became tired and clichéd a long time ago. In fact, in the Village Voice interview, he notes that the fun and entertainment of the movement against capitalist globalization (Seattle, etc.) disappeared after 911: “politics became something deadly serious” he complains. How dreadful! How inconvenient! I guess that when the amerikan military is butchering hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would tend to have that effect.

Anarchist practice in the usa from roughly 1999 to 2003 had many positive facets, but also very serious problems. This has been clearly demonstrated by the almost total absence of any nationwide anarchist tendency from the antiwar movements here: basically, once the invasion of Iraq became imminent (in 2003), those anarchist groupings which had been predominant in the preceding anti-globalization struggles made the conscious, fully aware, thought-out decision to sit out any resistance to intensifying amerikan aggression. They took their ball and went home, which was a horrendous strategic mistake. This by itself should be enough to make one question the current legitimacy of this political perspective and practice.

It doesn’t deter Duncombe. He points out – correctly – that “waiting around for the truth to set you free is just lazy politics”. One must always have an orientation towards the exercise of power (versus simple knowledge or consciousness), an idea which is lost on most of the left in the usa. But his proposed solution – “ethical spectacles” – is completely misguided. An “ethical spectacle” is still a spectacle, and there’s no amount of progressive gussying-up that can make it anything else. Spectacles are a product of a highly atomized and alienated capitalist society, one in which people do not control or create the conditions of their everyday lives: they function to either deflect the attention of workers and the oppressed from the grinding, inhuman nature of capitalism, or to ideologically cohere limited strata of people around the reactionary program of the ruling elites. Spectacles have an inherently authoritarian and hierarchical character: one party is creating these diversions, and another party is consuming them, and that is not going to change just because some nominally radical or revolutionary content has been injected into them -- a la Duncombe. The form itself is problematic.

Part of the anarchist ideal is an immediate application of direct democracy and popular control in radical movements today: that should occur in the here-and-now and not be deferred until some undetermined point in the future. In actuality, this has not been consistently applied by anarchist struggles (I’ve certainly seen this): security culture and the paranoia it engenders tend to discourage open debate, even around the most innocuous questions; consensus-based decision-making processes tend to chase out folx who don’t agree with the majority, and lead to political homogeneity and group-think; the strong commitment to communitarianism encourages parochial, narrow, insular subcultures that turn off most people or reject them outright; and so forth. I believe that the real contradictions lie in how anarchists have structured their organizations and collectives, and in the decision-making processes that have been used – that would be key in understanding why the anarchist moment here essentially has come to an end.

Duncombe apparently doesn’t agree. Rather than resolve the contradictions in these movements, which would facilitate their organic growth and dynamism and encourage larger numbers of people to participate, he wants to basically push folx into them, those problems be damned. And the fake entertainment and engagement of the “ethical spectacle” – show, theater, performance, etc. -- is supposed to do this. That is not going to work in the long-term (any more than it did for the struggles against capitalist globalization), and it is antithetical to many of the fundamental beliefs of anarchists and most other revolutionaries hold. Any socialist or communist society must be founded on the empowerment of workers and the oppressed, i.e. their ability to directly and immediately control, in a democratic way, the conditions of their everyday life. We must apply these principles in our current work, and any approach which negates these principles or relegates them to a secondary status should be rejected.

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by SPK
Part of the anarchist ideal is an immediate application of direct democracy and popular control in radical movements today: that should occur in the here-and-now and not be deferred until some undetermined point in the future. In actuality, this has not been consistently applied by anarchist struggles (I’ve certainly seen this): security culture and the paranoia it engenders tend to discourage open debate, even around the most innocuous questions; consensus-based decision-making processes tend to chase out folx who don’t agree with the majority, and lead to political homogeneity and group-think; the strong commitment to communitarianism encourages parochial, narrow, insular subcultures that turn off most people or reject them outright; and so forth. I believe that the real contradictions lie in how anarchists have structured their organizations and collectives, and in the decision-making processes that have been used – that would be key in understanding why the anarchist moment here essentially has come to an end.

So what should anarchists be doing then? It appears that you're arguing that in essence anarchist organisation itself/direct democracy/affinity group organising is fatally flawed (inevitably so?) - i disagree - but how should anarchists be organising then? Democratic centralism? If not, then what?

[Raúl Duke]

consensus-based decision-making processes tend to chase out folx who don’t agree with the majority, and lead to political homogeneity and group-think

There was an anarchist thinker (American I think, not Chomsky; maybe Bookchin...) who was against consensus because of this same idea; so he was in favor of majority rule. This would mean that not every anarchist practice consensus.

I myself don't agree on consensus, unless its done with people you are more intimate with; like your best friends. (reason being is that you are use to one another and not afraid to discuss or debate with one another. In a group of strangers or mere acquanitences group think becomes much more prelevant)

other reasons is that the people realize that for anything to get done they all need to agree, so group think stems form inactivity.
In a majoritarian direct democracy, there will be debate and discussion, yet in the end the majority will win. However, these decisions and go under review and be recalled (another feature of direct democracy). This wouldn't cause group think because minority view members aren't aways a minority and because things are getting done.

[blake 3:17]

As somebody who was really not into the Reclaim the Streets and puppets stuff, and into more straight ahead class struggle and anti-imperialist politics, I've leart to appreciate that wing of the movement. While goofing around won't lead to transformation, it can beat the hell out of endless meetings and over earnest pamplets.

We don't need to necessarily embrace Duncombe's politics, but he raises some pretty crucial issues around pop culture and the weakness of the Left.

[SPK]

Originally posted by black [email protected] 13, 2007 01:03 am
So what should anarchists be doing then? It appears that you're arguing that in essence anarchist organisation itself/direct democracy/affinity group organising is fatally flawed (inevitably so?) - i disagree - but how should anarchists be organising then? Democratic centralism? If not, then what?
Contemporary anarchists uphold direct democracy and popular control – in radical and revolutionary movements, organizations, collectives, etc. -- as an ideal. Certainly that is what I get from different anarchist writings and polemics, such as the critique of democratic centralism and representation. I’ve also seen this practiced, rather incompletely and too infrequently, in things like small political collectives and the one-off spokescouncil meetings which occur around major events and actions.

I agree with at least the general idea, if not some of the ways it was specifically implemented by anarchists during the height of the movement against capitalist globalization from roughly 1999-2003 (there has been considerably less activity in the usa over the past three years or so). Although direct democracy can seem messy at times, this is only method I’ve seen (in earlier movements) that is effective over the long term, in terms of mobilizing large numbers of people, empowering those folx, distributing organizing tasks and responsibilities in a sort-of equal way, developing people politically, and so on.

A key contradiction arises, though, with other elements of anarchist ideology that hinder the broad acceptance and application of that “ultrademocratic” principle (I use that term in a positive, affirmative sense, although other people obviously wouldn’t :lol:). These other problematic aspects revolve around the strong communitarian tendencies within anarchism.

Communitarianism can create a very narrowing, parochial, limiting politics: an effective, practical, day-to-day focus, literally, only on the group(s) of which you are a part, whether that be your affinity group of choice or the communities that anarchists have created whole-cloth. I am not suggesting here that anarchists have a limited moral or ethical worldview or that they desire to liberate only part of the people -- contemporary anarchism is, at least in the abstract, a universalizing ideology which aspires for as many people as possible to take it up, change the entire world, and free the oppressed, everyone. My point, though, is that real anarchists are, in my experience, almost singularly indifferent to actually going out and trying to win over any substantial number of people and integrating them into a structured movement. They are perfectly content to remain within the safe, comfortable confines of their hermetic and insular “communities”, taking the position that others will have to organize themselves. This is a cop-out and has basically, I think, minimized whatever political significance or valence anarchism could have had here, particularly after 2003 (see the note in my last post on anarchist groupings after the invasion of Iraq).

Other core, anarchist ideals manifest this kind of communitarianism, and they tend to work at cross-purposes to genuine direct democracy and popular control and to growing mass movements:

- The idea that we should build community - When anarchists want to build community, that almost by definition means small, face-to-face, hands-on groups where folx know each other personally and deal with one another on a day-to-day basis (collectives usually have a few dozen people tops). That is very different from the large-scale organizations, with millions of people, that are going to be required to overthrow the capitalist state. The first goal is more social in nature and desires to eliminate the atomization and alienation common under capitalism. The second goal is political, which – however you dice it – runs counter to certain communitarian impulses (although I have seen dynamic groups, whose purpose was explicitly political, that ended up creating strong communitarian-type bonds through their successes and growth – even if that wasn’t their avowed goal).

My criticism on this point isn’t anything new. The complaint against anarchist subcultures, such as punk, is quite common now.

- The centrality of small affinity groups to movement building – This is an extension of the first principle. Anarchists take the position that large movements can be built with a multitude of small affinity groups, but that certainly isn’t what happened here, in the final analysis. Under pressing conditions, which describes the situation in the usa right now, I think activists are far more emboldened and better able to maintain morale in larger organizations, with more people. I’ve worked with many political microgroupings over the years (of all ideological stripes), and sitting in a room month after month with the same dozen folx can feel very isolating.

- The use of consensus-based decision-making processes.The smaller organizational forms that anarchists prefer are obviously more conducive to consensus. It wouldn’t work out so well in a movement of millions of people, since there would be much more ideological heterogeneity. In any case, from what I’ve seen of consensus, it doesn’t really serve to build political agreement, in the sense of struggling over ideas and changing people’s minds – what happens instead is that folx outside of the mainstream or majority thinking around key questions (in the collective) basically get up and leave. Which is likely the real purpose of such an exercise in the first place and arrests the expansion of movements.

I have a basic philosophical aversion to consensus. If I walk into a meeting and find that everyone is agreement on some point, then as far as I’m concerned, that is not good. Something is wrong. A movement must sustain itself through wide-ranging political debates and struggle – there has to be sustained friction and conflict at some level, and consensus is philosophically opposed to this. Creating and nurturing new, different ideas is also needed, and that means that people must have a lot of terrain, and a lot of time as well, for developing those – consensus tends to want to resolve, or synthesize, these differences too quickly.

Traditional democratic votes – whether by majority, two-thirds, or whatever -- better avoid these difficulties and are, I think, on balance a better approach (JD discussed some of the thinking around this question). Though I’m familiar with critiques of this decision-making process.

- Security-culture.A horrible idea that induces further paranoia, fear, alienation and atomization into a society already inundated with it. This may be exactly the point – what better way to secure the borders and boundaries of a community than by instilling a fear of other people from outside of it? I don’t need to detail how this would hinder the growth of a struggle.

So, I think that the commitment to direct democracy and popular control on the part of anarchists is good: it can and should be applied in building mass movements. The other principles I find quite troubling.