MY LEFT FANNY
[UPDATE: More here, if you can stand it.] [Second UPDATE: Responses to commenters appended to this post.]
All generalizations about "the 1960s left" are false, except for this one.
Matt Stoller is well-situated to talk about the intersection of contemporary internet-based protest and the Democratic Party. He does not seem very current on the boots-on-the-ground left that is responsible for the huge anti-war demonstrations we have seen since 2002, as well as for local organizing against Wal-Mart and for the "living wage." About the 60s left, he is all wet. Why does this matter? It speaks to the limits of the netroots when it comes to policy, program, ideology, and intellectual world-view.
The "Internet Left" is a mostly brainless vacuum cleaner of donations for the Democratic Party.
Let's go chronologically. Two preeminent organs of the 1960s left were the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SNCC had at least two distinct vintages which I would characterize as before and after Stokely. Before was integrationist, social-democratic, and reformist. After was black nationalist and radical.
SDS was never a centralized organization with a unified ideology. The politics of its presidents (and later a collective leadership) changed significantly over the years. At the beginning there were social-democratic and laborist roots. Soon there was a decentralist community organizing focus, alienated from the Democratic Party. Later still there was serious, non-dogmatic interest in Marx (my favorite period, typified by people like Carl Oglesby and Carl Davidson). Later still we had the deranged "Weather-people," multiple Maoist and Trotskyist formations, the Stalinist Enver Hoxha-lovin' Progressive Labor Party, etc. etc.
How in the world could you generalize about this Tower of Babel? Matt tries to, invoking the term "post-scarcity," which applies to hardly any of the worthies above. He suggests that economics was ignored. This is rubbish. Even those most alienated from the U.S. working class did not hold the starving Third World masses to be under the yoke of a post-scarcity economy.
Think of how today's media characterizes "angry bloggers" and the netroots, and consider whether TIME Magazine-type descriptions of SDS or SNCC would have been accurate. In TIME Magazine, then and now, you do not read about class politics. You learn about Stokely Carmichael and Al Sharpton, not about Bill Fletcher or Adolph Reed. You hear about protectionism from the Buchanan right, never from the global justice left.
In TIME Magazineland, the latter 90s and "welfare reform" were triumphs of Clintonomics, not the targets of withering critiques.
The contemporary "Internet left" is not very left. It is vociferous, partisan, and alert to opportunities to nail Republicans and Joe Lieberman. And there's nothing wrong with that. But left? Please.
* The netroots criticized the Iraqi effort a) for not gaining the support of the U.N.; b) for not armoring the troops sufficiently; c) for not proving the existence of WMDs; d) for not proving connections to Al Queda; e) for not using enough troops. Can we presume that if George H.W. Bush had been there to get the support of the U.N. and prove Saddam had WMDs, an invasion would have been justified?
* The netroots have no political economy, except to join the blather about the unbalanced budget and the national debt. It did a fine job opposing Bush's Social Security privatization, but will it support Democratic efforts to fix a program that is not broke? By contrast, the direct action forces have been mobilizing against the emergent neo-liberal/free trade economic dogma for a decade.
* The 60s left read Marx, Trotsky, Luxembourg, Lukacs, Chomsky, Franz Fanon, Malcolm X, C.L.R. James, Ernest Mandel, Joan Robinson, Herbert Marcuse, Michael Harrington, Saul Alinsky. What does the netroots read? Don't Think of an Elephant?
Stoller is correct that in terms of third-party political formations, the 60s left fizzled away. We know that the rules of the game in the U.S., among other circumstances, are not conducive to such efforts. But he omits the 70s transition that Nathan describes, and he forgets that the 60s left went into the academy and has flourished in many fields (not including economics, where heterodoxy is verboten). Moreover, the netroots have yet to take anything over or create any enduring political structures. The netroots is a source of funds and some pressure to get out of Iraq and diselect Republicans. The big decisions on governance are made elsewhere.
Annoying is Stoller's invocation of the "where were they" canard? This is a staple of talk radio. "Where was the 60s Left when the evil of kitten-juggling in Nebraska was uncovered?" Any particular person of "the Left" might have been more profitably occupied, for all anyone knows. They may have been all over the kitten-juggling. But nobody is around to answer the question, since Matt is the one writing the article.
The fact is that left organizations and publications were active throughout the periods that Stoller sees as a vacuum. One only has to delve to find out who was doing what. The public sector expansion from 1970 to 1980 powered by social movements survived the Reagan era, as did the regulatory institutions from the 1970s. Reagan had hated Social Security for thirty years, but he raised taxes to maintain it. The U.S. welfare state is as big as it ever was.
The "Internet left" is substantially a captive of the Internet bubble. It's a nice bubble, full of fun. It is awash in hypertext and flash graphics, but it doesn't demonstrate much depth in history, political-economy, or ideology, which is another way of saying it is fairly stuck in mainstream ideology and narrow tactics. It needs to step away from the LCD monitor and crack some difficult books, go to some boring meetings, wear out some shoe leather.
The real Internet left is the Internet of leftists who use the Internet.
Responses -- Contra sphealey, I have a pretty good record here and on my own site of engaging critics.
I'd like to acknowledge the support from Dan K, Ellen, Dale, hoppy, sTiVo, seth, Kache, vlazlo, and William Blake.
sphealey -- Here's a timeless truth for you: When you're young you disregard the counsel of those with more experience. I did. When you get older, you realize you were not as smart as you thought you were. Re: my assumptions about the age of Kossacks, my view is affected by the leaders, not the rank-and-file.
brooks -- the anti-globalization movement began in earnest under Clinton, or maybe Bush I. Stiglitz didn't become a (moderate) critic until he was well clear of the White House and the World Bank. The movement people are not I think much moved by Stiglitz as much as Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Medea Benjamin, Michael Moore, and others.I applaud the activist success of the netroots, such as it is. I would like to see more in the vein of basic principle, less obsession with tactics and polls. Is that so wrong?
theora -- Let us all chill. I never said "bankrupt." Howard Dean is a good person, but he is not much left, as any good Vermont leftist will tell you.
Emma -- no doubt SDS had many a-holes. My least favorite type were what we called "Third World sucks" for whom minorities could do no wrong and white workers (Southerners esp.) could do no right. One tendency among others.
Reece -- you've totally discredited yourself w/the music comment. Beware the one-eyed midget.
PhilPalmer -- Wrongo. The dominant economic model on the left resembles the Swedish welfare state -- lots of social insurance and what are called active labor market measures. You may not like it, but it's there.
fashionista -- it's true my own generalizations are vulnerable to the charge of cherry-picking. I never said Digby, Atrios, or anyone else were uninformed. I said much netroots activist discourse betrays little that is very left or very deep, and I wish this would change. Judith Butler represents a line of thinking that way post-dates the New Left and at best reflects only a limited purely academic constituency (who else can read that stuff?) these days. I don't blame the netroots for not wielding power. I don't have any power either. I criticize them for thinking they have power, while decisions (such as the platforms put forward by Dems, in or out of power) are made elsewhere.
JayAck -- try rereading for greater comprehension. FYI, the Weathermen changed their name to -people at a later stage of insanity. Charles Manson? LOL.
Sounds as if an aging 1960s dude just realized he is becoming irrelevant.
"Crack some difficult books"? As Gil Thorpe would say, sheesh.
sPh
January 15, 2007 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Way too harsh sPh.
But then, so is Max.
But what you both aren't seeing is that that's just the way it is for the Left in the United States. Just as the sixties generation thought their elders had SO screwed things up that they had to start all over again, so today's cohort is doing the same kind of bitching about our generation.
STOP IT! Both of you.
There are some pearls of wisdom in what Max is saying. "Crack some difficult books" may not be one of them. But Max does have a point about the Social Security debate. Now that some Democrats are proposing a Wall Street fix, will the Netroots be as strong in opposing it as when it came from Bush? A very legitimate question and some room for doubt. And yes, by the way, I DO have a sense of deja vu when I read the Mainstream Media's trashing of the progressive blogs. Bloggers who are aghast at their treatment by the MSM might show a bit more skepticism about accepting the MSM's historical judgments.
Sure the younguns misunderstand what has gone before. How could they not? But I do get the sense that Matt Stoller is making an effort to bridge the gap. He ought to be applauded for that and his mistakes of history should be pointed out,but he doesn't deserve to be trashed for making the effort.
January 15, 2007 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the yippies were right - all conflict is generational, not ideological.
Every generation thinks itself more savvy, more tuned in and better able to organise itself to promote its own political agenda. And they are.
January 15, 2007 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
.> Sure the younguns misunderstand what
> has gone before
Have you seen the age profile of active DailyKos users? It is of course self-selected, and there is no way to know if it is accurate (I can't think of any way to do a reliable randomized survey of web site members). But given those limitations, IIRC the mean age was 42 with a significant tail into the 60 range and not an insignificant number of 70s. The assumption of the aging 1960s dudes that the netroots is made of of 19 y.o. in their mother's basement is not only arrogant, it is incorrect.
sPh
January 15, 2007 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Max, if the Internet left doesn't embrace "heterodox" economics or share a "serious, non-dogmatic interest in Marx", you have to admit that much of the explanation lies in several events which took place between 1989 and 1991. As for "mobilizing against the emergent free-trade/neoliberal economic dogma", that dogma is currently de-emergent, but largely due to the work of people like Joseph Stieglitz, not to that of people carrying large puppets. Your post exhibits a troubling rhetorical habit characteristic of the tendencies that ultimately destroyed SDS: you bash the Net Left because its politics tend to stick within the generally established political discourse of the day, rather than leaping out of it to oppose the dominant paradigm entirely. This sort of more-alienated-than-thou, up-against-the-wall dialectical one-upsmanship belongs in an avant-garde artistic movement, not in electoral politics.
In the mid-1990s, many sweeping pronouncements were made about the potential of the Internet to affect the way that politics transpires in the US. For years, few such changes materialized, and there was significant doubt about whether the Net really would have significant effects. Over the past 5 years, however, the results have begun to pour in. To deny at this point that the Net is among the most significant arenas for the organization of new political voices and for setting the political agenda of the moment is a rather odd move. I see no point in bashing the '60 New Left, but little point in slamming the Net Left, either.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
January 15, 2007 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
The 60s left read Marx, Trotsky, Luxembourg, Lukacs . . . [&c]. Max Sawicky
It, also, read Report From Iron Mountain, Soul on Ice, and The Greening of America.
January 15, 2007 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's what you say.
As I recall the Port Huron Statement called for an alliance of Socialists and Liberals in conjunction with organized labor to effect a change in society, particularly in civil rights and the economics of exclusion tolerated by the complacency of the middle class. Now where did all those liberated people go? Oh yeah, the middle class.
As you have noted the SNiCC and SDS went through organizational and ideological transformations that occurred over many years. Perhaps a more proper frame would be to compare the two movements year by year. That would leave the SDS about three years along, and a long way from Chicago 68 and even further still from its reintegration into the mainstream.
The netroots is still doing a lot of teaching work, just as you are doing rather poorly with your post, without robbing the joy of life from the movement. The only historical context not mentioned was how dull the sixties left became.
Your sweeping generalizations serves as both a reminder and a warning to the netroots.
Biting the hand it feeds.
January 15, 2007 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was never hard for me to understand that each new generation believes it invented sex.
Nevertheless, it has been amusing to discover the number of successive generations that think they invented distributed resource-sharing networks, or that the ARPANET/Internet is equivalent to the Web.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
January 15, 2007 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh c'mon Stoller's at his best when he's fighting. Let them roll around in the mud and we can pick up the good parts from both of them.
Takes all kinds.
January 15, 2007 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Point taken, and truth be told, me and my views are in many ways different from those of my generational cohorts. I thought it was obvious I was being somewhat facetious however in my use of "younguns" but maybe not.
In any case, buying heavily into generational stereotypes is pretty much always a bad move. Stoller has done a little bit of that but not so much. (I was actually very happy to participate in his several threads on the subject on myDD ) Max has taken the bait.
There's history of bad blood here though. Daily Kos delinked Max about a year ago for reasons that have never been explained to my satisfaction.
What I'd really like to see here is a sustained exchange between Max and Matt.
January 15, 2007 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to second Max's concerns about the high levels of anti-intellectualism in the left or liberal blogosphere, and about its cripplingly obsessive concerns with building a consensus, communicating marching orders and talking points and framing the things one already believes, rather than open inquiry and debate aimed at finding out what is true in the first place. Large parts of the blogosphere are a sophist's paradise, and unrelentingly shallow and repetitive. While the blogs are full of criticisms of the politial operatives who run official Washington, the bloggers' own mode of operation is not much better - at least in the popular "activist" portion of the blogosphere.
However, this isn't just a netroots phenomenon. Almost an entire culture of the left seems to have collapsed in the past few decades, and profound, intellectually and scientifically disciplined theoretical inquiry into the structure of our society and economy has given way to seat-of-the-pants pop culture observation, and lazy, whimsical and decadent intellectual movements and nonsense.
When I was younger, I used to take it for granted that people on the left were smarter than people on the right. It sure seemed like we had most of the smart people. But I don't think we can say that is true anymore. I frequently find these days that opponents on the right are better educated, more historically informed, and more skilled and logically coherent arguers than friends on the left.
My own academic field is philosophy, and I used to think people in the general culture didn't read enough western philosophy - and they almost certainly don't. But in my local Borders, the western philosophy section has to be at least ten times larger than the economics section. The economics section occupies just a single shelf, and is hidden in among a vast array of offerings in the business section. I would estimate that about 95% the offerings on that shelf range from neoliberal to conservative. I often go to the store with the idea that I want to read some provocative new (or old) work on political economy. But there is almost nothing there. When I see this, I feel like the time traveler in Wells's The Time Machine, contemplating the illiteracy of the Eloi.
With this massive retreat from social and economic analysis, now we have this weird phenomenon of a "left" without the leftism. I can't say what is responsible for this. But one thing in my lifetime that seems to have had a pronounced effect was the end of the Cold War. Even though the American left had given up on the Soviet Union many decades previously, many Americans still seemed to respond to the end of the Cold War as though it were a cosmic historical judgment on all forms of leftism, rather than just the collapse of one particular tyrannical experiment. It is as though the entire culture proclaimed: the end of history is here! Capitalism has won! We are all Friedmanians now. Long live capitalism!
I do think there was a much broader range of antwar opinion expressed in the blogs than Max allows. Some of it was pacifist; some was leftist and anti-imperialist; and some consisted of Cassandra-like warnings about the dishonesty and fanaticism of the war party. The critiques about not sending enogh troops, etc. while very popular in the Democratic party were not at all the dominant themes on the antiwar side.
January 15, 2007 7:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
As for cracking good- if not difficult- books,
I recommend Duncan Foley's Adam's Fallacy for a serious and critical primer on economics. Sheri Berman's The Primacy of Politics for a fascinating look at early 20th centruy European reactions to the crises of capitialism. Both relevant to our current political situation and both rewarding and helpful in developing and clarifying a reasonable progressive Democratic program.
I recomend folks check out Max's blog regularly. Along with Brad Delong's, and Dean Baker's. You'll get a good share of both orthodox liberal economics and some heterodox and idiosyncratic economic and political analysis. And you will become more aware of Max's unique sense of humor.
January 15, 2007 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
After a quick gloss,
The internet left is not left, to say otherwise is bullshit.
However: the new politics internet and otherwise has a larger percentage of the country behind it than the 60's "left" ever had. Nixon won by a landslide in '72. How many times do I have to remind people of that simple fact?
There's nothing avant garde politically or socially this time, and that's a strength as well as a weakness.
Still the roots of the thing are much more interesting than the supposed leadership. That's a big reversal. Small town America is more diverse than it was 30 years ago; unintellectual America is more open and aware. Intellectual America has a big bloated ego. It's largely a waste of time.
So I can disagree with Max, but I got nothing to say to Matt Stoller. It's not worth it.
January 15, 2007 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought I was both the '60s generation and the netroots. I went to lots of marches in the '60s, but it's a bit harder on me now, and a much longer commute.
Some people did read Fanon. And most people just got into conversations where someone who had read Fanon talked about Fanon. (A lot of people just read Ferlingetti and Corso.)
But whatever we did, we seem to have blown it.
We are here now because we didn't recognize the threat then.
I would recommend that people read the Port Huron Statement, but I'm not sure all that other stuff is really necessary.
Let the kiddies try it their ways, because we screwed up, my brother.
AC
January 15, 2007 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
For some reason, I'm moved to say "YOU MUST CHILL! I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS!"
Listen, I get how frustrating it would be to hear people talk and be wrong about an era and a movement you lived through. Point taken, and I for one would be THRILLED if nobody ever mentioned the damn 60's again.
To address some of these points, it's not intellectually bankrupt. I've learned more about left-leaning economics since I started reading the blogs than before. They're called links, and they're good.
And it's a little ludicrous to declare the netroots bankrupt when it hasn't completely shaken out itself or its influence yet--the internet is only 10 years old, and using it for political organizing is only a few years old. But frankly, it's managed to move an unknown Vermont Governor to the head of the Democratic party, which isn't exactly insignificant.
So, "YOU MUST CHILL! I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS! YOU MUST CHILL!"
January 15, 2007 8:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
The tone of your post and specifically your reference to the SDS gave me a flashback to a small Southern community college auditorium in 1969.
The faculty brought in speakers to talk about Vietnam, the anti-war and counterculture movements. The auditorium was full. I would guess that most of the student audience was there because their teachers intended follow-up discussions in their next classes. The rest of us were genuinely interested in the subjects.
First speaker up was from the SDS. She began by haranguing us for our Southern sins then told us how ignorant we were and how awful the United States was. Needless to say, her remarks were not well received.
The audience was quickly on its feet and screaming back at her. Despite our (undeserved) reputation for violence, the worst that happened was that a few drinks and some food were thrown at her. The sponsors prudently canceled the event and the crowd dispersed. There were no follow-up discussions but no doubt a lot of stereotypes were reinforced on both sides.
I don't know how representative of the SDS this speaker was. I do know that contempt and condescension are not very effective ways to win hearts and minds. Maybe she should have taken a break from some of those difficult books and read an easy one.
January 15, 2007 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We screwed up"
Huh? Because you didn't change human nature?
The idiot who wrote the ad copy for alka seltzer ad credited woodstock and acid for freeing up his imagination enough to come up with the line "I can't believe I ate the whole thing."
"You screwed up?" Because most of the idiots turned into self absorbed yuppies but you didn't?
Everybody screws up. But don't take it so hard, you're not the center of the universe. You generations mistake is thinking you are.
But don't worry too much about that either. it's the American mistake.
to this day.
January 15, 2007 9:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
The left has a different meaning than it used to. Back when I was in school, the left largely meant socialists and communists. The right meant the Ayn Rand types and the middle ruled over all. Today, after the Reagan era especially, the definitions of what is left and right shifted dramatically. Reagan's adoring worshippers moved the middle far out to the right, and what used to be the middle became the left. That hasn't changed.
The fall of the Soviet Union pretty well wiped out communism as a leftist concern, leaving only socialism, but most people didn't even know there was a difference, so socialism is largely wiped out too as a leftist concern.
What I am getting to is that by and large, the internet "left" bears no resemblance to the left of the 60's and before. My hope is that a President with the charisma to push us back to pre-Reagan days will be found, and the good old days will return! But, that has to be soon to affect me - I'm 70 now!
Hoppy in Sacramento
January 15, 2007 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
We hate you guys.
No one cares about the damn 1960s. Most of the "movement" that happened in the '60s was ineffectual, inauthentic bullshit. The hippies were co-opted even before they got moving. The actual remarkable aspects of the decade were left overs from the 50s--that is the decade where the civil rights movement began and where it was grounded.
So, I don't want to hear anymore about the '60s. It's generally irrelevant. You all didn't accomplish anything. In fact, a lot of the liberal policies of the '60s were created by the older generation, not you doped up morons. But even some of those policies were poorly thought out.
Here's the real deal though: You all think you lived the life. It is not jokingly that you are referred to as the "Me Generation." You are a bunch of selfish, self-centered, and short-sighted dicks. Your assumption is that if it didn't happen in your life; if it didn't happen to you; if it didn't happen in the holy '60s, then it isn't important. More than that--you think that it isn't real. Your glorification of that one decade, and the deification of prominent individuals from that decade, serves only to denigrate, to cheapen, and ultimately to destroy the experiences of everyone else.
And your music sucked too.
January 15, 2007 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I recently got into it on my own blog page here at TPM with a couple of the Boomer bloggers regarding the draft. I have no intention of hijacking this thread for my own soapbox, so suffice it to say I argued that the Boomer (a.k.a. "60s generation") may have harnessed the energy of young America, but in completely removing the personal consequences of military action for the average young person, they've only managed to generate wave after wave of increasingly disaffected and disconnected youth.
The next time you attend a "massive" peace rally, take a good look around you, then think back. Which generation is really providing the energy for demonstrations? You may consider it a testament to a generation adhering to its ideals to see so many 50 and up at these things, but it is more a testament to the failure to imbue your own offspring with the combination of idealism and activist energy. The "netroots" aren't much better, and that youth bracket doesn't have the personal equity to be major contributors--let alone the personal investment in the causes.
I'm not trying to scream "Soylent Green," but it is long since time that the post Boomers wrested some of the agenda from the lefties of that generation and restored some broader perspective--before we find ourselves locked into an endless cycle of geriatric social medicine, weighted to provide care for the last generation to think smoking was cool.
January 15, 2007 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reece Is that the royal "we" ?
January 15, 2007 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ive always felt that if something didn't happen in my life it wasn't important, in fact, if it didn't happen to me it isn't real! Thats just how I feel and since I lived on Haight Street, it 's the only thing that matters.And Dylan is God.
January 15, 2007 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The nub of it all is that today the left does not have an alternative economic model. Some of that is perception, the Soviet Union was capable of some rapid advances, first into space and all that, but the Marxist-Leninist economy proved that it was acutely vulnerable to being gamed by the agile surpluses produced by capitalism. As well as being non-transparent and prone to corruption and tyranny and all those other failings, of course. Really, the Future of Mankind should be above that kind of thing.
January 15, 2007 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have much respect for you, Dan, derived from your other comments here at tpmcafe, but I have to take issue with some aspects of this post.
You say that we need more "open inquiry and debate aimed at finding out what is true in the first place," and that "intellectually and scientifically disciplined theoretical inquiry into the structure of our society and economy has given way to seat-of-the-pants pop culture observation."
I think social science is ill-suited to help us in some ways. It takes time to perform, and it takes more time to build scientific consensus. In most cases, social science is reactive, because it is most capable of studying existing states of affairs. One of the recognized problems with social science is that it is not predictive, at least not predictive in the way that the physical sciences are. In so far as it is reactive and not predictive, it might be difficult to use any such inquiry to actually affect the world. Nonetheless, its what we have, though it bothers me that a lack of consensus can be used to attack science.
Beyond that, I would argue that there is not much truth in the world. Having studied a little philosophy too, and I must quote William James: "Grant an idea or belief to be true, . . . what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?"
There is a lot I want to say about that. First, there are a lot of areas where, pragmatically speaking, two different truths can occupy the same ground without making a difference. James might tell us that these truths in that case would have the same content--they would mean the same thing. But I think he might also say that in those cases it doesn't matter what one believes. Put another way, if two conflicting truths don't make a difference, then there is likely no way to verify either. In short, that there is nothing in the world to which the truthful proposition corresponds. We have more truthful propositions and beliefs than there are states of affairs in the world--a single state of affairs may correspond to two distinct truthful beliefs. The point is that even in those cases, the beliefs still contradict each other and can be politically significant. I suppose that all I mean to say is that in many cases "what is true in the first place" cannot be found through normal verification processes of science. Call this a poverty of the world.
Second, politics specifically is an area of belief where these sorts of things become very difficult. A lot of the time in politics, we are asking individuals to evaluate the truth of a statement or proposition of which they may have no experience and for which they may never have any experience. Take, for example, the proposition that "The minimum wage should be increased." To many people this is a crucial proposition and whether it is true or not is vitally important. But if you are a salaried middle manager with strong job security, it does not make any difference to you whether it is true or not. This occurs on so many issues.
Third, I don't believe in theory. There is no system of belief which is right. There are individual propositions which are true, but there is no true theory. I would have to do a little more work to explain why in pragmatic terms--James himself was an extreme empiricist, and empiricism should reject untestable hypotheses. In part I reject theories because whether one begins with a Marxist position or a Liberal position serves only to add a layer of belief that is unverifiable as I discussed above.
But more directly, every theory of the world fails at some point. It is said that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy. It may be said of broad theories that none survive contact with the world. The world is bigger and more complex than any theory we can have and it will invalidate any theory we advance. Call this a poverty of theory.
For me, that is why "leftism" is dead. I am against ideology. I am for solutions. The best we can do to find solutions is to rely on social science and common sense. Despite the problems, it's the best we have. In the end, this means that (forgive my equivocation) contemporary leftism isn't teleological. I'm ok with that.
January 15, 2007 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure. It's a quasi-reference to a post from salon.com. I didn't feel like putting the link (in part because I can never seem to make that work correctly.)
Here you go:
http://archive.salon.com/sex/feature/2002/09/16/youth/index3.html
January 15, 2007 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Socialism and communism are largely interchangeable. I've yet to see anyone make a convincing distinction. The Soviets certainly didn't make one.
January 15, 2007 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dylan sucks. I love that montage in "The Hurricane" where Dylan's song plays over the protests of a bunch of hippies. Against the background of the rest of the movie--a story where the man is freed by humble and hard-working Canadians--the montage tells the story of your entire generation.
Bob Dylan has to be the single most overrated musician--no, person--of all time.
January 15, 2007 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it is true that all generalizations about the 1960s left are false, it also seems that all Max's generalizations about the netroots are false.
This seems like an indiscriminate attack with that the "Netroots" unfortunately happened to be in the way of. On one hand, Max seems to be calling out the New Left for focusing on identity politics at the expense of class politics. If so, fine, let's talk about that. On the other hand, he seems to be calling out bloggers for not making economics-based critiques of contemporary society--while inappropriately using the Netroots as a stand-in for the New Left. Now, there are some ways in which bloggers strike me as inheritors to SDS gripes, specifically media critique (60s leftists saw media serving bourgeois class interests; netroots bloggers see them as serving conservative political interests, which in turn serve economic interests). So just because Digby doesn't mindlessly quote slogans from the Communist Manifesto or Eros and Civilization or anything from that totally incoherent list from Trotsky to Fanon doesn't mean he's uninformed. And Atrios, we might as well note, has a PhD in economics.
Interestingly, Judith Butler, an academic representative of the New Left, has recently allied herself with folks on "the internet" -- so Kos is getting props from the intellectuals, even if he isn't wrangling with Lukacs (Lukacs?) on a daily basis.
It further needs to be said that most of the netroots people have plainly disavowed affiliations with the 60s left. I mean, I agree that the well trafficked blogs aren't radicals, but they never pretended they were, and, as has been noted above, within the spectrum of current mainstream political discourse, they're as far left as is imaginable!
Which leaves your final complaint: "The big decisions on governance are made elsewhere." Indeed: in the five years that there has been a liberal netroots, the big decisions on governance have been made by the Republicans who had actual power. I don't see how you can fault liberals on the internet for not wielding influence when liberals on capitol hill were equally ineffectual.
January 15, 2007 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
The leftright speak is irrelevent. In free societies the pendulem swings back and forth in mechanical ways.
The hippies did change the world, and America, and anyone pretending to deny that fact, or hating that period or those who fought those battles is either pathologically partisan or simply not informed.
These were real battles, (civil rights, womens rights, labor rights, youth rights, ending the Viet Nam war et al.), fought in real streets, with the shedding of real blood, and the loss of real lives, and the changing of real laws and policies, - quite unlike the somnabulance and catastrophic apathy of the current and most recent generationa who are obdurately insulated and removed, detached from, and ignorant of any real issue or concern or crisis confronting all human beings in this wild and violent moment, that it is much easier to simply TALK, and WATCH the world disintegrate around us, and pretend things will somehow get better, or that there is nothing anyone can do, and other such nihilistic defeatist gibberish and pathetic apathy. The hippies and the 60's generation stood up!!
They took it to the street, they shut down campuses, they organized movements that bled into, and were beautifully expressed in music, art, theater, and literature, and they had the courage, and the will, and the conviction, and the tenacity to face the brutality of the state, and the clubs and bullets of the police state, and the viscious sliming of the socalled intelligencia in the socalled media, - and they fought, and they struggled, and they won these battles.
The tragedy, and the failure of the old left is that pendulumn swang back again, and the young grew old, and America prospered, ended Viet Nam, avoided war or major combat operations, and basically got fat and rich and somnabulant.
Just as Rome and all the great empires eventually decayed and rotted from within and the sons daughters of hero's and champions wore the tattered masks of hero's and preached the gospels of forgotten religions, - the same decay and rot infects our society, of realworld reality series, infotainment, videogame dangerously detached youth.
The world is on fire and crumbling around us, and today's generation is focued on the empty shallow numbnoneness of surreality as reality, and realworld FAKERY, APATHY, SOMNABULANCE, and NARCICISM.
Our government pervets, betrays, and dismembers the core principle that formally defined America, - and the current generation is focused on the OC, MTV, MY SPACE, or MY FACE, and tragically apathetic. Worse, this generation has no real courage. Courage, honor, honesty, integrity, are lost and forgotten notions to this generation who is rabidly focused on getting some, and looking cool doing it.
Slime the hippies all you want, but the sad and tragic reality is the somnabulants and apathetic realworld posers of this moment are pathetic spectators, and woefully lacking the courage to step up and fight for what is right.
And to preempt any wingnutsia sliming of theleft for not supporting our troops, - the relatively miniscule primarily minority and lower class volunteers that are sent to ill gotten misadventures and senseless wars for the profits of the superrich, and fascist cabals in the Bush government - are the best of us, and the only Americans taking any real stand.
Shame on all Americans. We are as a society week, apathetic, somnabulant, narcissitic, supremist, and ignorant, and our young people, (outside the military) are somnabulant posers, and losers pretending things will somehow improve, but lacking the courage to face reality, and right the wrongs of a government run amock, perverting and betraying all that America stands for and once defended, and hurling all of us into a future of neverendingwar.
Peace is courageous.
War is the work of weeklings.
The newleft if it exists will fight these battles on the net, in the political arena and in the streets, or nothing will change, and America will be doomed.
To all those who "hate" or deny magnificent triumph, and gains of the "old left" - go back to sleep or watching the real world bitches - none of this concerns you.
January 15, 2007 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Max, here's the point on which I part company with you:
I think we can't get rid of the post-scarcity charge that easily. Seems to me a lot of it is true, even if there were some, perhaps many, in the New Left generation, like you and me, who knew it was bullshit. Not everyone did.
There was the book entitled "Post-Scarcity Anarchism" that had some small following. Clearly the Yippies thought they were in a post-scarcity phase. The post-scarcity theme was also big in the early SDS (remember that famous line of the Port Huron Statement as they attempt to describe themselves: "housed now in universities".
This is the key difference between the Old and New Left, no matter how many exceptions there were. Post-scarcity thinking infused the entire New Left, even among those who understood what was up.
And your point about "those most alienated from the U.S. working class" is irrelevant here: NOBODY thought the WORLD was post-scarcity, but they believed it of the US. That was why the Weathermen and friends gave up on the "bought-off" American workers.
And it's not necessarily an indictment to have been partially under that spell. There's no mystery why feminism took stronger root in the sixties than in the thirties. That scarcity thing explains much of it. In the thirties and forties Pete Seeger could get away with singing
That verse, of course, could not be sung in the sixties and seventies, although the song was, by some - after revisions were made.
One thing that constantly bugged me about main line feminist politics in the eighties and nineties was that they had succeeded in making abortion a litmus test in the Democratic party, while seemingly ignoring the fact that the "post-scarcity" status of the American working class was under constant attack. No similar litmus test was applied to the "New Democrats" as they betrayed the working class voter again and again. You, of all people, know this very well, Max, as your posts about populism prove.
And even the least post-scarcity of the New Left generation did not foresee the deindustrialization of America. I was among them, and I plead guilty to that. But who did foresee it?
The growing respect for populism in the Netroots (admittedly, this has a long way to go) is a good thing, not a bad thing, and results, in part, from the shedding of post-scarcity assumptions.
And so, Matt Stoller and his friends should be engaged with, disagreed with on occasion, but not trashed. He's made an effort, imperfect to be sure, to reach out to the earlier generations, and the discussion should be continued, not cut off at the knees.
January 16, 2007 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. William Blake
January 16, 2007 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bob Dylan? The Doors? Charlie Parker and John Coltrane Rule!
January 16, 2007 4:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
The "Internet Left" is a mostly brainless vacuum cleaner...
Um, since you, Max, are "left' and you're posting on the "Internet," I wonder where you see yourself standing in all this?
The exception to the brainless vacuum cleaner, I presume...
Dissent Protects Democracy.
January 16, 2007