People Before Profit blog

The Power of Words: A New View of Political Correctness

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 11:15:00 +0000

According to the right wing, the liberal and progressive movements in the US are afraid to tell it like it is. They communicate in a humorless, effeminate doublespeak, and seem more concerned with maintaining a touchy-feely etiquette than with engaging the bread and butter issues that drive real-life politics. At its worst, we are told, this preoccupation with avoiding offense becomes a fascistic policing of speech and thought, and an excuse to evade unpleasant or difficult realities. In the end, the dominance of political correctness on the Left demonstrates its unsuitability for political leadership. It betrays a utopian desire to live in a world where one can call things what one wants, rather than what they are, and a cautious sensitivity that has no place in the canon of classical political virtues. But most of all, and the right suspects that the more levelheaded of lefties know this, political correctness is just plain annoying.

It is beyond doubt that the right has already gained a good deal of ideological mileage out of this characterization. In fact, it is tempting to say that the phrase “political correctness” primarily refers to an ideological invention of the right, a brilliant trap designed to ensnare any progressive politics that bears upon language or symbols and associate it with a vast left-wing conspiracy to trample the First Amendment, sanitize intellectual and cultural life and, generally speaking, spoil everyone’s fun. But if “political correctness” is not the right way to talk about this “progressive politics of language,” then what is? It is true that, in recent years, progressives (and particularly progressive youth) have placed an increasing importance upon an individual’s or group’s power to define who they are by using their own words, and have drawn ever greater attention to “inappropriate” or “offensive” symbols or cultural products. Of course, such concerns have long been a part of social movements. But it is fair to say that recently these matters have been asserted as ends in themselves as they seldom have before, and have become affiliated with a general effort to place a reform of language and representation on the progressive agenda, and, even more, to live out this reform in practice. If we balk at the right’s attempt to ridicule this effort, then how do we ourselves evaluate it? How can we establish its relative justification? What are its limits or pitfalls? And, finally, is there really something annoying about it that cannot be chalked up to right-wing reaction, but which depends on more fundamental issues concerning the relationship of language to politics?

These are tough questions that demand serious discussion. Although the controversy over “political correctness” seems to have come and gone, it has announced new theoretical problems with which revolutionary thought has to contend. Many of these problems concern the political importance of language and the symbolic world, and the relation of this world to the formation of one’s identity, or sense of self. Marxism has admittedly been sparing in its treatment of such questions, and it would be irresponsible to dismiss them as “bourgeois” simply because they do not directly concern relations of production or even the super structural arenas of law and representational democracy. Language is important, in and of itself, especially when it speaks about who I am. To live in a world in which one is constantly called “nigger” or “faggot,” or in which one’s ethnic identity is constantly caricatured or misrepresented, is at the heart of the experience of oppression. We cannot treat it as an afterthought to supposedly more “material” concerns.

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Book Review - The Bubble of American Supremacy, By George Soros

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 11:11:00 +0000

George Soros is the well-known, fabulously wealthy speculator who has written prolifically on matters political and global. Readers may recall – as he recalls ruefully here – that in 1997 he made an “unconditional prediction” about the “imminent collapse of the global capitalist system.” (Perhaps he was simply premature.) He has been in the news recently because of his pledge to devote a chunk of his considerable fortune to the electoral defeat of the present occupant of the White House. Here he goes further and argues that “it is not enough to defeat President Bush at the polls. America has to reexamine its role in the world and adopt a more constructive vision.” He is livid about how Washington has used “terror as a pretext for waging war,” in an obvious reference to the present quagmire-cum-fiasco in Iraq. “Communism used to serve as the enemy; now terrorism can fill the bill,” he concludes. This billionaire is upset that in the run-up to this conflict the “possibility that the United States was motivated by considerations such as ensuring the flow of oil supplies could not even be mentioned, because it would have been regarded as unpatriotic or worse.” Soros, on the other hand, sees petrol as very much at issue in the decision to go to war. At the same time he sees Saudi Arabia, a major source of this valuable resource, as a “treacherous ally” – a rapidly developing consensus amongst the US ruling class (except, conspicuously, the Bush White House).

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No Hollywood Ending: Cold War Film Noir

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 11:06:00 +0000

Film noir is a movie genre with roots going back to Weimar Germany and the Freudian nightmare. Classic noir revolved around the theme of an ordinary man trapped by fate, a false step or a femme fatale. Yet there was another aspect to film noir that shined a light, for those who cared to look, on the underside of the post-war “American Dream.” These were films that film historian Thom Anderson labeled film gris.

Containing all the ingredients of classic noir, they avoided a sexist view of women and used the genre as a way of addressing many social issues facing post-war America. They were filmed and released mainly between 1947 and 1951, midway between the two rounds of HUAC hearings, which represented the right’s assault on left-liberal Hollywood. Ostensibly an investigation into Communist activity in Hollywood, the real aim was to ensure the removal of progressive ideas and social content from studio productions. Part of this right-wing attack focused on film gris movies, a sampling of which is provided here.

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Who is Ross Golan and Molehead?

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 11:03:00 +0000

Ross Golan and Molehead’s recent CD release Reagan Baby leads the sonic assault on the corrupt, hate-filled politics of the far right. The hypocrisy and lies used to justify war, corporate corruption, apathy, war and commerce, the economic crisis, gun violence, domestic violence and abuses of civil liberties and rights are among the subjects of the debut album of this multifaceted three-piece band. This album has a mix of sounds: a mellow hip-hop groove, acoustic arrangements, reggae beats, grunge rock guitar reminiscent of the early 1990s, some speedy punk, and the metal rap of big bands like System of a Down and now defunct Rage Against the Machine. Also, a sensitive listener will detect Sublime’s influences.

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United We Stand: Marxism and Coalitions

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 10:59:00 +0000

“There is very little class consciousness in this country,” said a labor union leader I recently had the good fortune to work with. “So, if the labor movement is going to grow, build strength, win victories and win more political power, we need to build coalitions with the community,” he concluded. If this viewpoint weren’t widely held by many trade unionists, I might suspect him of being a Marxist-Leninist. Another union and community activist told me: “People on the left say all the time that we need one big Party. Well that’s not going to happen soon. So we need to build coalitions if we have any chance of advancing democratic struggles.” Another profoundly insightful remark. So what does Marxism have to say about the importance of coalitions?

The first Marxist remarks on coalition building might have been by Marx himself. In some of his works that describe the mid-19th century European revolutions, Marx makes some important points. At the time the industrial working class was not very well organized. The trade-union movement was still emerging, industrial workers represented a minority of the working class as a whole and held little or no political power. So Marx tended to highlight moments when the workers sought alliances with non-proletarian class strata and movements. Sometimes these alliances crossed class boundaries to include sections of the bourgeoisie. While he remained skeptical of these kinds of coalitions (he always assumed that non-workers would abandon workers), he pointed to their practical necessity.

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May 2004

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 10:30:00 +0000

Inside... Rockin' Against Bush Stage Left: An Interview with Paula Vogel Marxism Reloaded: The Revolution Revived Book Review - Culture and resistance: Conversations with Edward Said Poetic License: An Interview with Sam Hamill

In the print edition...

The Power of Words: A New View of Political Correctness by Ken Knies

United We Stand: Marxism and Coalitions by Joel Wendland

No Hollywood Ending: Cold War Film Noir by Michael Shepler

Who is Ross Golan and Molehead? by Clara West

Book Review - The Bubble of American Supremacy, by George Soros reviewed by Gerald Horne

Plus more book reviews, more commentary, a marxist quiz, letters, poetry, art and so much more...

Subscribe Today

Poetic License: An Interview with Sam Hamill

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 10:18:00 +0000

Editor’s Note: In January of 2003, Laura Bush invited a number of poets to the White House for a symposium to celebrate “Poetry and the American Voice.” Peace activist, publisher and poet, Sam Hamill, declined. Hamill said that he “could not in good faith visit the White House following the news of George W. Bush’s plan for a unilateral ‘shock and awe’ attack on Iraq.” As an alternative, he asked about 50 poets to “reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to speak out against the war in Vietnam...to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend your names to our petition against this war.”
Poets would send him their works of protest that he would send along to the White House. When 1,500 poets responded within four days, the Poets Against the War website was created to aid with organizing the enormous, unexpected response. By March 1, 2003 more than 13,000 poems had been reviewed and posted by 25 volunteer editors. All of the poems on this website have been presented in person and by invitation to several representatives of Congress; many of them have since been introduced into the Congressional Record. Dozens of the poems were recently anthologized in a book, Poets Against the War, published by Nation Books.

The Poets Against the War website states that “although the attack wasn’t prevented, poets continue to speak out for a world in which non-violence and international cooperation will ultimately prevail over a single administration’s philosophy that the most horrendous crimes are justified in the service of foreign policy. Today it is more important than ever to lift our voices in support of respectful explorations of alternatives to war. Please join us. Organize a reading. Keep joining protests. Teach compassion. Participate…In all of America’s history, poets have never made such a difference.”

PA: One of the goals of PAW has been to solicit poetry. Is this strictly anti-war poetry? What was the response you received?

SH: We provided a place for poets to speak out; we helped organize hundreds of poetry readings around the world. We delivered to Congress 13,000 poems by nearly 12,000 poets against the war. There are now Poets Against the War organizations all around the world. The thousands of notes of gratitude were utterly astounding. [We solicit] strictly anti-war poetry for our web site – some good, some bad. There is also a poets for the war website, notable particularly for its doggerel.

PA: Some people, usually on the right politically, believe that poets, artists, writers, etc. just shouldn’t be involved in politics. Obviously you disagree. Why?

SH: Because the assertions from the right wing are the rantings of highly educated illiterates. From Sappho and Homer, from the ancient Chinese Poetry Classics to contemporaries like W. S. Merwin and Adrienne Rich and Hayden Carruth today, poetry has always had a socio-political element. Every poet is political, whether overtly or subtly.

PA: Some people regard poetry as a cultural arena that has the potential to make a big impact socially and politically. Is poetry still as capable of this as it was say in the time of Neruda or a Langston Hughes? Or does it too have to fight for social space and visibility?

SH: The US pays less attention to its poets than probably any other country in the world, and yet, all over the world poets are going to school on American (including all the Americas, but especially the USA) poetry, from Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda to Ginsberg and Rich, et alia.

Poetry speaks to those who learn to listen closely. Those who listen closely tend to listen before they speak. Poetry subverts cliches and political claptrap by naming things and actions clearly. Mass media pays almost no attention to poetry, and yet there are more poetry readers in the USA than ever before, and more poetry being published.

PA: What do you feel are the most important things to come out of the PAW website? Has the anthology been a success? Are there plans for a second anthology? SH: We made poetry the focal point of a serious public discussion, and we made our country and the world aware of our concerns regarding the growing fascism of the Bush regime, and we established a network of poets around the world. The major anthology on the website is the largest single-theme anthology ever compiled, and it was done in a month.

But our work is not complete, and won’t be until we resolve the very issues that made the invasion of Iraq (and Afghanistan and all the other countries we’ve bombed since World War II – 39 at last count) possible.

Bush must go. The “Patriot Act” must be repealed. We face a constitutional crisis with a dishonest, unelected president: we can struggle to protect our democratic republic or we can slide into the bilge of fascism. We can return to the economics of the 19th century and obliterate the middle class or we can meet this challenge as nonviolent poets and teachers and ordinary citizens and demand revolutionary change.

PA: Your bio refers to your work teaching in prison. What was that experience like?

SH: I taught in western prisons for 14 years. It was a hard look at the underbelly of our justice system. I should write a book, but I haven’t time. But in prisons especially, poetry offers light in a vast darkness. Reading is the best road to freedom, whether behind bars or in the streets. Poetry can be a path to enlightenment.

PA: Copper Canyon Press, which has a sort of national “underground” reputation as a publisher only of poetry. How did you decide on such a risky venture? What was the motivation for it?

SH: I am a poet/editor/translator/printer, and I made a vow 35 years ago to spend my life in the service of poetry. The story of Copper Canyon Press can be found in The Gift of Tongues, a 25th anniversary anthology I edited. It’s a long story.

PA: Who are some of the poets Copper Canyon has published – well-known or more recent up-and-coming poets of our contemporary period?

SH: Well known: W. S. Merwin, Hayden Carruth, Carolyn Kizer, Jim Harrison, C. D. Wright, Ruth Stone, Greg Orr, Olga Broumas, Marvin Bell, Pablo Neruda, Cesare Pavese, Odysseus Elytis, Rabindranath Tagore. Comers: Joseph Stroud, Rebecca Seiferle, Arthur Sze, Eleanor Wilner.

PA: You have edited volumes of poetry by Kenneth Rexroth and Thomas McGrath – poets whose work was often consciously progressively political. Why did you choose those authors?

SH: Because they were terrific poets whose poetry continued a great tradition of revolutionary poets begun with Sappho and the Greeks, the ancient Chinese, the traditions of the world. They were also good friends... mentors even.

PA: Who do you regard as among the strongest, most original poets of our times?

SH: All of the aforementioned. Philip Levine, Denise Levertov, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Martin Espada and many others.

PA: What are the most incisive or charged themes poets are putting out there these days?

SH: Poets don’t really write by themes. Themes emerge mysteriously. The best political poems are NOT the result of wanting to make political statements or having an agenda. Great political poems surprise their authors. Agendas produce doggerel. The poetry is discovered in the making of the poem.

--Michael Shepler helped organize this interview.

Book Review - Culture and Resistance: Conversations with Edward Said

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 10:03:00 +0000

The late Edward W. Said was one of the world's greatest literary and cultural critics. This book of interviews is one of his last works. In it Said puts forth his ideas for building a secular democratic Middle East and discusses the role of culture in the struggle of oppressed peoples to attain justice and equality.

Said points out that most Americans don’t understand the role that the US plays in the Middle East (or elsewhere). Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and other extremists were praised as “freedom fighters” by the US government – when they fought the Soviet Union. Now they are “terrorists” because they have turned on their masters. Said agrees they are “terrorists” – they always were. He does not approve of any terrorist program. He rejects the attitude that if you try to explain the origins of terrorism you support it or sympathize with it.

Terrorism is inexcusable. But Americans should be aware of the fact that “some of the things that powers like Britain, the United States, and France have done against lesser people, like bombing them from the air, where the bomber cannot be reached by essentially defenseless people, are also inexcusable. This is what the Israelis are doing in the West Bank and Gaza, using F-16s ... that too has the structure of terror.”

Terrorism on both sides is the resulting “binary opposition,” where no one grants any legitimacy or humanity to the other side. Complicated social and cultural situations are simplified into a good versus evil scenario, which makes real understanding and real solutions impossible. Said thinks this is ridiculous and based on pseudo-religious principles. There is no military answer to terrorism. Said quotes the Italian playwright (and Communist) Dario Fo (1997 Nobel Prize): “The great speculators wallow in an economy that every year kills tens of millions of people with poverty.... Regardless of who carried out the massacre [of 9/11] this violence is the legitimate daughter of the culture of violence, hunger and inhumane exploitation.”

Said also discusses the role of culture in resistance. “In the case of a political identity that’s being threatened, culture is a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration. Culture is a form of memory against effacement.... But there is another dimension – the power to analyze, to get past cliché and straight out-and-out lies from authority, the questioning of authority, the search for alternatives.”

Ignorance of a people’s culture, thinking arms alone can solve all problems, brings nothing but tragedy to the victims of a resurgent imperialism as well as to the aggressors. This is true both in Palestine where the Palestinians are victims of Zionist imperialism (directed ultimately from Washington), and in Iraq where the US leadership has entangled itself without any consideration for the fact that Iraq is the “cultural center of the entire Arab world and indeed of Muslim civilization.” Treating Iraq as only a backward dictatorship is par for the course of the arrogant cabal now running the US.

It is the role of progressive intellectuals to awaken the people. Said says: “I think one of the roles of the intellectual at this point is to provide a counterpoint, by storytelling, by reminders of the graphic nature of suffering, and by reminding everyone that we’re talking about people. We’re not talking about abstractions.”

There is as yet no real organized force in the US, according to Said, that can counter the rule of the imperialists. Said has no faith in the Democratic Party as an alternative to the ruling “junta.” He thinks the true power of opposition is to be found “in the university, in the church, in the labor movement, and so on. I don’t think by any means it’s something to be done by star intellectuals or people from the top. Quite the contrary.” We should note however that at the present time only the Democratic Party offers any hope of unseating the reactionary anti-democratic ultra-right Republican junta that seized power in this country in 2000. As a long range perspective Said’s view is undoubtedly correct but it cannot be used as a justification to weaken the immediate short term struggles of the people to regain their democratic rights.

The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem is, Said maintains, one state because “Israeli Jews and Palestinians are irrevocably intertwined demographically.” Israel has no intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state in any case. The appended map shows this demographic reality. This map, virtually suppressed in all the major US media, shows the reality on the ground and that the US and its Zionist junior partner will only allow a non-viable, splintered, Palestinian state leaving everything under the control of Israel. This is a sham peace and just as bogus as the Israelis claiming “self-defense” when they massacre civilians. Whatever the merits of this argument may be, for the present both the international community and the majority of the progressive socialist and Communist parties (as well as the Palestinian leadership) favor a two state solution to this conflict.

Said said his opponents wanted him silenced. He remarks, “Unless I die its not going to happen.”Unfortunately for the progressive movement, Said did die – but he is not silenced. His many books, articles and interviews will educate us for years to come.

Rockin' Against Bush

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 09:32:00 +0000

Rock and roll means rebellion. For some rockers, it isn’t rebellion only for the sake of it; it’s political. Political rebellion against conformity or conservative religious values set to music is, for many, the definition of rock and roll. From Woody Guthrie to Nina Simone progressive rockers have given voice and substance to this discontent, have raised the difficult questions about the system and the establishment and even have offered personal and systemic alternative visions. The dangerous Bush regime has spurred the revival of an old and the emergence of a new, diverse and progressive musical movement that values social and political commentary and the agony and beauty of artistic production.

Mature headliners like Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Sonic Youth, REM, the Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, John Cougar Mellencamp, U2, Public Enemy, Mud Honey, Don Henley, the Beastie Boys, even Hootie and the Blowfish have been among the mainstays of rock’s politics. But these acts have large and loyal fan bases and saying something important isn’t always such a big risk. Sure, a handful of conservatives staged a walk out at a Pearl Jam concert last year when Eddie Vedder opened up on the band’s anti-Bush song “Bush Leaguer,” but for the most part fans have been loyal.

For new or less well-known bands, commitment to political values and artistic ideals means more and earns fewer rewards. Often it means the difference between being able to make a living as an artist and being able to find only spare time from the day job to put music out. Certainly the Internet has dramatically transformed the landscape of popular music. Artists such as Fugazi, Michael Franti, Paris and numerous others have built local and regional followings with intensive Internet organizing, constant touring and word of mouth. This has allowed some underground stars to keep their independence from corporate-dominated recording contracts, carefully managed public images and sleazy promotional activities.

While the Internet has opened up space for more musicians to have access to larger audiences, it has achieved only an illusory ideal of “democratizing” the music industry. Most bands continue to struggle to be heard and to give voice to millions of youth discontented with and alienated from the status quo and the system, or who just want to hear good music.

Some politically righteous bands have taken different steps to gain their audience. One national and international organization, Bands Against Bush – an organization designed to express dissent, distaste, opposition and distrust toward the policies of the Bush administration, has linked together literally hundreds of bands in every section of the country. Much of the organizing has been done through the Internet and chapters have been set up in New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, London, Paris, and even tiny Olympia, Washington, one of the major centers of alternative and punk rock in the country.

According to spokesperson Conan Neutron, the idea took off immediately. Bands Against Bush was so wildly popular that an international October 11, 2003 launch and celebration was thought up and organized in the space of two months with events in over a dozen cities across the country. Though primarily indie rock and punk, Bands Against Bush is also lining with hip-hop artists. Concertgoers hear good music, but also have the chance to get organized as voters, to learn about local, national and international issues and help build the movement to defeat Bush.

The idea for Bands Against Bush was inspired by punk rocker/riot grrl Tobi Vail formerly of Bikini Kill. (Riot grrl is a militant feminist-informed style of hard driving rock.) In an essay describing the origins of the idea, Vail recalls her mother taking her to a Rock Against Reagan show on the state capitol steps in her native Olympia, Washington in 1983. “We were a family of rockers who didn’t support our president,” Vail writes. The youth she hung out with “rebelled against Reagan’s messed up administration and foreign policy. We didn’t want to invade Grenada. We didn’t want anything to do with Reaganomics. We didn’t support the nuclear arms race and knew that Russia and Cuba were full of kids just like us.” And, she says, the times seem to be like that again and worse.

The bands that have been drawn to this movement are often part-time musicians. Conan Neutron is such a person. By day he punches his time card at the behest of corporate America; by night he takes it on as a vocalist and guitarist with Replicator. He describes the Oakland, California-based band’s style as “noisy rock” and “allegorical” in its lyrics. Their debut album Winterval or their more recent You Are Under Surveillance can be purchased through their website or sampled with MP3 downloads. Their song “Epoch” reminds me of Soundgarden (when they sounded good) with some electronic, industrial sonic tactics to spice up the sound. Other bands of note include the Radical Thought Resistance, Mission to Mars, Famous in Vegas and Kimone. This list is by no means exhaustive and readers interested in new punk, indie, hard rock and similar style bands should check out the organizations and find their way to a Bands Against Bush event.

“Rock music,” says Conan, “has a very anti-authoritarian bent.” That’s why so many rockers are attracted to the movement to oust Bush. Even if musicians aren’t explicitly political, the music is “about raising questions,” he concludes. For socially and artistically committed rockers, notoriety, perhaps even future success, will originate in movement activism, not in the remote implausibility of short-lived individual success followed by the proverbial ignominious fall into ridiculous obscurity.

--Roberta Jones writes on the music scene for Political Affairs.

Marxism Reloaded: The Revolution Revived

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 09:10:00 +0000

The socialist and communist idea has long inspired the search for a better way of life. Many things that are today taken for granted from Social Security to unemployment insurance come out of this quest. Indeed, it would be difficult to overstate its impact. This applies not only to day-to-day working-class struggles but also to the realm of ideas. Socialist thought has reconfigured the ideological landscape, altering ways of thinking and doing while reshaping culture and science. Dialectics revolutionized the social sciences, Marx’s political economy upended the study of wealth and work, as his science of class struggle politics redrew the world’s borders. Many commonly accepted concepts like the responsibility of government to care for its citizens, social equality and special compensatory measures to overcome past discrimination, arise directly out of the socialist tradition.

Even in the aftermath of the implosion of a decade ago and the ensuing ideological collapse and confusion, the communist ideal endures. Rather than abandoning its prospect – one deeply rooted in capitalism’s ongoing crises – people continue to seek alternatives: millions believe another world is still possible.

Yet the very ambiguity of this hope is suggestive. It would be naive to ignore doubts about the viability of the socialist alternative. How to answer these doubts is a central question. This involves not only socialism as practiced but also as imagined: questions abound about the doctrine that gave rise to the social revolutions of the 20th century. This is doubly so because Marxism-Leninism sets a very high internal standard: the criteria of truth are in practice.

Does the practice suggest the theories of Marx and Lenin were misapplied or was something inherently wrong with them? How these questions are placed is important. Some, for example, have suggested that the theory of scientific socialism was “correct” but for mistakes in implementation. However, “correct” ideas do not exist outside history in a realm unto themselves waiting to be applied or misapplied by fallible and frail men and women. To postulate the existence of a correct theory that lies only in wait of implementation without evaluating the world-view itself in light of the rigorous tests of the historical experience itself would betray more than a hint of idealism: the concept that ideas precede human activity or have an independent existence. Again, theory must be confirmed by practice.

Yet, the relationship between theory and practice must not be construed mechanically as a simple scientific formula: the application of a thesis, its test and corresponding result. A more useful way to pose this issue is as a problem of history. It is not simply a question of truth or falseness, success or failure, but how true or how false, how successful or unsuccessful at a given moment in history. Truth travels relatively through time. Viewed from this prism, Marxism’s “truth” was born out by its early successes, its “untruth” by the more recent defeats. Both represent an aspect or moment in socialism’s real history, a history that continues to unfold.

What is forgotten in considering this real history is that as a newly emerging science, Marxism is still evolving. Each historical moment represents a stage in its development. All too often, each moment was thought of as complete. Still more, it may not have been realized the extent to which each moment shaped the problems the new science was forced to deal with, which in turn, shaped how the doctrine came to be defined, with each definition seen as comprising the essential truth.

With each generation believing themselves to be in possession of this truth there appeared over the years a certain one-sidedness in interpretation and presentation of the new world-view. By one-sidedness is meant an unbalanced, mechanical, narrow juxtaposition of one aspect of Marxism over another or seeing one side of the doctrine as comprising the doctrine in its entirety. One-sidedness is a tendency to view things statically separate and opposed instead of seeing them in their interrelation as dimensions or aspects of one another.

This one-sidedness has been a persistent problem throughout socialism’s history. Initially it arose as a problem of growth. In the heady days of its youth, after settling accounts with other left trends scientific socialism quickly became a dominant ideological force. Early successes were so sweeping that Lenin, charting Marxism’s growth, boasted of “complete victory” as the main philosophical expression of labor at the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

At the same time however, weaknesses began to be felt. The “strength” of scientific socialism’s wide reach was also accompanied by a “weakness” represented by a lowering of the theoretical level. As the doctrine rapidly spread, Marxism was interpreted in what Lenin described as “extremely one-sided and mutilated form.”
What began as a growing pain may have become more pronounced through the years culminating in a full-blown ideological trend with the consequence that socialist partisans couldn’t see the whole forest for the trees inhabiting the great ideological continent uncovered by Marx.

When considering the issue of one-sidedness it is crucial to bear in mind that Marxism is a living science. As a living doctrine, Marxism grows and declines, shifts and changes in response to the class battles of which it is part. In other words, it has different aspects, or sides that come to the fore or retreat according to the conditions of life. A period of upsurge and growth will lay stress on the side of Marxism that focuses on politics, strategy and tactics, united front work. A period of repression or a serious defeat may cause despair and disarray, triggering a serious internal crisis of Marxism such as was experienced in the early 1990s in wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In such a period, another dimension of Marxism that lays stress on class fundamentals, fighting liquidationism, etc., becomes more pronounced. In the mid-to-late 1990s as the labor movement adopted a greater class-struggle orientation, the balance shifted again. The anti-globalization, peace and democratic movements took greater initiative, reopening space for left ideas and thinking. Precisely, because it is a living science, one or another “side” will advance or retreat. What is appropriate for one period may not be for another.

It is crucial to respond to these ebbs and flows. Mistakes resulting in stagnation, inactivity and isolation are the result of an inability to shift from one or another. These mistakes may assume a “left” or “right” form. One pits the class struggle against the fight for democracy, a second evolution over revolution, a third elevates one form of struggle over all others. Each seems to raise now this element of the philosophy, now that tactic to the level of principle.

An outline of Marxism’s internal history would be useful in establishing the various phases of its self-conceptualization and in what ways one-sidedness has appeared. As is well known because of Marx’s economic work, aspects of the science – especially philosophy – take the form of aphorisms as in the Thesis on Feuerbach. Tracing the emergence of different concepts and additions – for example it was G. Plekhanov who coined the phrase dialectical materialism – would help illuminate how it was rounded and developed: or revised.

Each attempt is important and has political implications. We are familiar with attempts to separate different parts of the philosophy as well as its developers: Marx from Engels, Lenin from both. Similarly well known are the various schools of Marxism that have emerged. One accepts historical materialism while denying political economy; another accepts political economy but refuses dialectics, a third adores dialectics but will have nothing of Marx’s theory of surplus value. Interestingly, few accept the theory of scientific socialism.

Lenin made a studied efforts to overcome this one-sidedness. In his The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, is presented perhaps the first balanced summary. He posits the philosophy as an “integral world conception” adding its three sources, German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism, which are also its component parts. He describes Marxist philosophy as “matured philosophical materialism,” attaching equal weight to dialectical and historical materialism as well the concept of socialism premised on worker’s class struggle.

Lenin’s balanced formulation stands in sharp contrast to earlier and later Marxists’ stress on one or another side of the world-view while leaving out important parts. G. Plekhanov for example in his important book The Fundamental Problems of Marxism defines the world-view as consisting of philosophical materialism and political economy, and neglects to include the category of scientific socialism. Plekhanov’s concept seems one-sided in so far as it neglects one of the principal legs upon which Marxism stands. Lenin corrects this omission. At the same time however, it might be said he too does not succinctly conceptualize in summary form just what the doctrine is. A rendering of component elements, even placing them together, does not necessarily complete the picture or say what the picture is of. Viewed as a whole, is the new world-view simply the sum of its parts or is the whole greater than the sum? This question becomes particularly interesting in light of Lenin’s own notes on dialectics from the Philosophical Notebooks: “The cognition of a whole and the division of its various parts is the chief question of dialectics.” Thus, it appears Lenin’s own cognition of the Marxist “whole” appears a little shy. As Antonio Gramsci pointed out in place of the various approximations a more balanced restatement that comes from the heart of the world-view might be in order. The point is not what is “correct” but what is truer, more balanced and closer to life.

Consideration should be given to whether this one-sidedness has contributed to a series of alterations of Marxism. First, from the side of “orthodoxy” (Plekhanov) and then from others we are more familiar with (Bernstein); and secondly, from the side of the Stalin leadership up to an including other leading Party collectives ending with the collapse of the USSR. Lenin could be seen as a correction of the double revision, marking a return to original paths.

The ideology that emerged out of the CPSU as well as what became known as Euro-Communism, then, might be understood as contiguous “left and right” currents born of the same one-sided ideological impulse. Keeping in mind that old thinking habits die hard, a review of what the CPSU called Marxism-Leninism is in order. To a great measure, much of the communist movement relied on its stilted and wooden texts and while largely indigestible its influence should not be underestimated. At the same time, it must be recognized that Marxism-Leninism is a worldwide movement extending far beyond the CPSU with a rich and varied experience. In this regard, Lenin’s contribution must be considered as original and lasting, marking not only a return to authenticity but also a development along new lines. Still socialism’s experience in the 20th century became quite diverse and others have made significant contributions as well. Some countries have in fact begun the practice of adding the designation of the “Thought” of their national leader to account for these contributions. One wonders how far this naming process can go and what its future impact will be.

Another issue arises: scientific socialism was born into a world filled with superstition, religion and other forms of pre-scientific thought. As it traverses the long and difficult climb, from unreason to reason and superstition to science, the need for a more objective categorization is making itself felt. Naming a science after its discoverers may not contribute to its development. To avoid one-sidedness care should be given to embracing, critically reviewing and assimilating the Marxist legacy in its entirety. Needless to say, this includes China.

Finally, it is worth considering how one-sidedness impacted the Communist movement in the US. The history of Communist Party shows an ongoing tension in balancing class and all-class democratic struggles like those involving racial and national minorities, women’s equality or LGBT rights.

Variously, one issue is placed over and against another. On the one hand, owing to the influence of Lenin’s general theory of democracy and its stress on championing the racially and nationally oppressed, stellar contributions were made in theorizing the national question and advancing the struggle for equality. Similarly, Communists have without doubt played significant roles in fighting for women’s equality. On the other hand, from the ill-advised Black Belt thesis, to a reluctance to support the Equal Rights Amendment, to the glacier-like slowness in warming to gay rights, the Communist movement has had difficulty in responding with agility and deftness to democratic struggles. Why?

The problem is complex. It is difficult to establish a causal link between ideology and the practical political choices made in the course of daily life. Indeed, even in the presence of a more balanced view, political life does not occur in a vacuum. Ongoing pressure from the right tends to push away from maintaining consistent working-class positions. Added to this are the pernicious influences of racism, sexism and homophobia, all of which combine in different ways.

Notwithstanding these realities, there has been a tendency to not see class and democratic struggles in their mutual relation. There has been a persistent under-appreciation and suspicion of the struggle for democracy: to see it as detracting from the class struggle, a trend Lenin himself battled. At the same time there has been misapplication of race and nationality as was the case with the self-determination and African American centrality thesis. In fact one form of one-sidedness (seeing only class) breeds another (elevating race over class). A patent sectarianism that only sees class is cause in the first case; a movement away from consistent class positions and drift toward left nationalism is consequence in the second.

Yet another dimension of one-sidedness may be seen in the approach to ideology itself or the lack thereof. Because on inadequate attention to ideological work, policy runs the risk of substituting for theory. Again the problem is complicated. Because of the relationship between theory and practice, Party policy does assume theoretical form. At the same time, policy is shaped by the art of the possible: what is politically feasible, unfortunately is not always what is right, nor is it necessarily what is “correct.” What emerges as policy due to the demands of inner unity is often a series of compromises.

Additionally, the problem appears from another side: for new theory to be created areas lying outside the realm of the agreed must be engaged. It is in the clash between agreed on practice (policy) and ideas outside its realm that new theory is created. This applies to thinking both within and without the Communist Party.

Important contributions are being made from writers and activists not organized in political parties. In fact in the US a majority of those within the socialist and communist tradition do not belong to the organized left.

These issues raise important questions about the very approach to the creation of ideology and its role in the class struggle. The main forms of the battle of ideas today do not occur in the realm of high theory between isolated groups of intellectuals, but rather in the arena of broad popular culture: film, literature, music, television, the Internet, etc. It is precisely here that the left must be engaged.

This becomes important when considering where the main emphasis should be directed: at intellectuals or others engaged in ideological production? Or should it rather center on the broad working-class left? The answer to this question goes to the very heart of our discussion. Because it is so important, the question might be sharpened as follows: who should lead?

It should be recalled that implicit in the founding of Marxist-Leninist parties was concept of working-class leadership and developing a new sources for ideological production. Not only must the “educators to be educated,” but new educators themselves must arise from the ranks of working class. How to achieve this remains largely unsolved. Owing to the manner and time in which socialism was introduced into the world this concept of working-class political and ideological leadership has faced a troubled history. As is well known, before the introduction of the public school in the late 19th century workers rarely had the opportunity to obtain a higher education. As a result, intellectuals were largely formed from the ranks of the middle and upper classes. It is no mystery, then, why they were first to articulate the socialist vision. However, from the time of Marx to this day, they tend to dominate the working-class movement ideologically and politically. What are the roots of this problem?

Part of an answer can be traced to Lenin’s idea that socialist ideology had to be introduced to the working-class movement from the outside: that left to itself the working-class movement would only spontaneously develop trade union consciousness. An aspect then of the role of the party was to interject socialist ideas. It is not difficult to imagine how this formula could lend itself to a paternalistic relationship between workers and leaders, particularly if those leaders come from other class strata.

When viewed as a problem of history growing out of that particular country at that particular moment “bringing socialism in from outside” may well have been the only approach possible. Considered as a general principle applicable across the board, however, it is at best highly problematic and at worse deeply mistaken.

Given the general educational and cultural level of working-class people in the US, there is absolutely no reason for this to continue. For these reasons a central task of the Communist movement today is to renew the fight for working-class leadership at all levels, including ideologically.

Significantly, notwithstanding certain problems this fight for working-class ideological leadership has been one of the hallmarks of the US communist movement. So much so that it has contributed to the growth of anti-intellectualism in its ranks. It would be extremely shortsighted not to make a correction. Fighting for working-class leadership should in no way preclude deep relations with academic workers and building unity between workers and intellectuals.

A final note: these issues must be approached forthrightly as skeptical listeners will not be convinced by knee-jerk defensiveness and religious-like appeals to Marxism’s eternal truth. One cannot ignore the problem of dogmatism. It has ossified thought and turned what was once a living doctrine into a stale and lifeless thing and remains perhaps the biggest obstacle to reviving the communist idea and rekindling its rigorous creative spirit. While doing so it must be borne in mind that as a theory of class struggle, Marxism can only be conceived of polemically, in perpetual struggle with its ideological adversaries. One cannot ignore the problem of revisionism. At the same time, there is a need for boldness: As a theory of dialectical materialism, Marxism can only be understood critically, as an unceasing quest for truth through practice, driven now forward, now backward by the struggle between opposites, their mutual negation, their quantitative transformation and qualitative change.

It is hoped these critical notes will play a modest role in moving the discussion forward.

Stage Left: An Interview with Paula Vogel

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 08:46:00 +0000

Editor’s Note: Paula Vogel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. She has written The Baltimore Waltz, How I Learned to Drive, Hot N Throbbing, Desdemona, The Mineola Twins, The Long Christmas Ride Home, And Baby Makes Seven and The Oldest Profession. Elena Mora conducted this interview.

PA: One article referred to you as a working-class girl from Washington, DC. How has that been a part of your life as an adult woman?

PV: It’s been huge. It switches when I start to think about the components of identity that I feel. If I’m doing, for example, a ladies’ high tea in Providence, Rhode Island, I feel like there’s a big old “L” on my forehead. If I am in a room with Protestants, I feel Jewish. If I’m in a room of Jewish people, I feel like a goyim.

It’s interesting in terms of the theater as well. That little chip on my shoulder becomes a huge log that I wish I could put down but never can. Even now I feel at times that entertainers are a servant class for the rich. I have been rebuked for the way that I dress. I am aware of the way I dress, and I choose not to “dress,” even on special occasions. I’m not going to dress up; I’m not going to pass.

It’s very significant. One of the stories that I should write up for the Brown alumni magazine is about the first year that I was at Brown. I was in a relationship with a woman who had MS, and we had no healthcare. I took the job because we were living in New York, doing five jobs, both of us artists, and I knew we had to get out of New York. So I took the job, and I was the lowest paid professor here. We lived in a very urban, poor neighborhood. So I’m paying for her MRIs out of my pocket. I did not have any credit cards, and I still had Salvation Army clothing, and a cold winter was coming. I got my first credit card on the basis of my job. I went to a nice department store, called Cherry Webb and Turner, and I bought my first store-bought, new coat. It was a warm coat; I loved it. I was doing a new play festival, and I’d brought the coat, left it somewhere and out of the pocket fell the sales slip. I came back into the room, and students had found the sales slip and were saying, “who the hell buys from Cherry Webb and Turner?” They were just whooping it up. In that moment of shame I should have confronted them and I didn’t. I thought, it was my first year there, and I had to act the part of the professor. I didn’t come in and say “excuse me, I think I dropped that.” I still beat myself up 20 years later for not going in there and saying, “Do you know what this means to be able to walk into a store and buy clothing?”

For me, and this is where my little chip becomes a log, theater should be accessible to everybody, and this is my own personal fight to make it accessible.

PA: But isn’t it accessible?

PV: It is and it’s not. It’s deceptive. We have never figured out how to produce art in this country. The culture has successfully made sure that we are going to be entertainers of the ruling class, the rich. Now thanks to the Reagan administration, the first Bush administration and the current Bush administration there has been an all-out fight in the NEA to make sure that happens.

PA: How? Funding cuts?

PV: Funding, yes, but also making artistic directors extremely sensitive and paranoid in terms of what they direct. Making sure that theater companies can only survive according to single-sale ticket sales rather than subscriptions. They have pushed back the foundations of not-for-profits, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Pells and the Chafees and the Kennedys. So that war has been lost. We are now nothing more than a backdrop for cocktail parties for the ruling class.

I have to say that’s in New York. One of the reasons I no longer live there is that it’s too depressing for me to think that that’s what theater is, a marketplace. I don’t know how to exist in the marketplace; I don’t do well there. Outside New York it’s not like that. It’s still struggling, but there are places that survive with young artists who believe that – and this is the way I feel – we are public servants of the community. We should not be elitist; we shouldn’t be thinking “oh, art for art’s sake.” It doesn’t exist in this country. It doesn’t exist period.

PA: In theater especially?

PV: That’s right, theater is a social-political form. It’s a collective art form that is always about a dialogue. It doesn’t mean that one can’t be experimental as well as social realist. This is where I diverge from a Brechtian view. But there’s still a political-social dialogue. There’s no way the theater can be anything but that.

So I say that it’s not that we don’t need more new plays. We do. I think everybody should write. I think everyone is a writer, an artist, a musician, a dancer. The arts are innate; they are human. We are censored out of becoming artists. Chekhov was a doctor; Wallace Stevens worked in an insurance company. Art has to be a daily bread, an individual daily bread, a spiritual daily bread, a collective daily bread. And the way that you eradicate that is to censor it out from elementary schools, you cut the arts programs. It is collective arts that make us citizen participants in a collective forum. This is another reason I think the arts are being attacked. They don’t want us in collective forums, where we disagree, get emotionally moved and upset, and getting at what’s true, being in a room together and watching each other.

I wish we all had the Iowa caucus model. I wish we all had to stand up and spend three hours in a room debating each other. To me that’s a function of theater. What we need are new producers, new ways of producing, new theater companies. It’s not enough to be a playwright – you have to be someone who knows how to write subscription copy and do advertising, the whole nine yards.

The people who are really subsidizing the arts are the artists by taking extra jobs. The truth of the matter right now is that people like Jimmy Smits, Mary Louise Parker, Laura Linney or fill in the blank, turn down six figures in the movies to do an off-Broadway or a Broadway production for $1,000 a night.

PA: Is that a new thing – big stars doing theater?

PV: It’s happened in the last 10 years but now it’s crucial because government and foundation support has been undercut, and the only way we can subsidize theater is with single, box office ticket sales. And people go to see a Jimmy Smits.

I always had hoped that theater would be something one did the way one was an accountant or worked in a bank: a form of work. Nothing special about it. I never realized that we were heading to what I call gladiatorial entertainment era where everything is about celebrity, about gossip, everything is about the event. This is not art. Art, and the conversation about art, has disappeared. We are simply providing entertainment for the emperor – that’s what art is right now. I never in a million years thought we’d get to this point.

But then I go to Providence, or particularly, this little theater company in Alaska, which made me an artist. The people in that company are loggers and fishermen, an attorney for the state of Alaska, they work for the Park Service. They do Chekhov and they do Paula Vogel. And they are brilliant artists. When I go there, I teach adult education; I teach high school students. I do outreach; I do whatever community work needs to be done. That’s plus what one does in the theater. There isn’t a division, where I am a specialized, isolated artist. Alaska can’t afford that; everyone has to work. And part of your work is doing the theater. It’s crucial work because the nights are long and cold and dark, and we need to do things other than drink our brains out. The happiest years I’ve spent were working one play a year in Alaska for ten weeks doing an adult community play writing workshop.

So this is my idea of theater. My idea of theater is saying to the artist, “You have to produce in your own theater, start your own theater, find umbrella organizations, like senior citizen communities, after school programs, juvenile offender programs, working in theater as a kind of psychological therapy, whatever it is, some kind of community work and particularly with children.” If you look at sports, it has replaced theater. What happens with sports is that every child participates in baseball, football or whatever. Therefore as adults they feel that they are citizen participants in sporting events. Of course sporting events never critique society. It’s a way that we are all put together en masse and diverted through the Super Bowl rather than the upcoming elections.

PA: What about theater as therapy? I ask because I think it’s similar to how the left and the Party in particular have seen the gay rights issue i.e., there’s always been something of a negative attitude about things that are seen as personal or emotional.

PV: We do not mention names in theater, but it’s phenomenally wonderful at this moment in time that there’s Tony Kushner. Because quite frankly I also don’t think that the Party has done the work in terms of homophobia and sexuality. Gays and lesbians have been scapegoated by very progressive groups. I have been hazed in very well intentioned ways by fellow travelers.

PA: I wanted to get into more discussion about the issue of gay rights. When we leap and say the issue is suddenly important, it’s too mechanical, it’s made too political. Yes, Bush and the ultra right are horrible on all these issues, but it’s not just about them and how they persecute and exclude.

PV: The difficulty with any single issue is if you support that issue, it’s your priority. It’s not working with a complex of issues that you get into some murky areas. For me, femaleness is probably my first primary identity. Does the issue of birth control impact me as a 52-year-old? No it doesn’t. But I consider it to be one of the issues that will determine who I vote for. The right to choose is a primary issue because that determines everything about the possibility of everything. I’ve had arguments where somebody says, “Really? You’re not going to vote for this Democrat, because they’re pro-life?” I say, “Yeah, I’m not going to vote for that Democrat.”

The fact is that there are extremely reactionary conservative homosexual men who are beyond Log Cabin. What do I have in common with them? I’ll bond with straight women rather than the Log Cabin Republican men who have expendable funds so it doesn’t matter what happens. It does not make me feel any better about the Bush administration that Dick Cheney has a daughter who is a lesbian and a representative of Coors beer. This does not make me feel there’s tolerance here; it’s window dressing.

PA: He does the same with everyone else, with women, Black people, Latinos.

PV: And we’re smart enough to know what window dressing is and to know how this is a cynical political machine.

PA: I was excited about doing this interview, but I thought yesterday, why did I agree to do this? I don’t know anything about theater!

PV: But of course you do! Everybody is an expert on theater. Why shouldn’t you be an expert on theater? You have no idea the kind of interviews that playwrights go through with people who really know nothing, on Good Morning America, where you get in front of a TV anchor who asks, “So what are you writing, a film?”

PA: What are you working on right now — that’s the kind of thing you’d be asked.

PV: I have a season of my work being done at the Signature Theater in New York, which is great. It starts in September. I’m the third woman they’ve done in 14 years. It’s the only company that I know of in the US that does seasons of one playwright. So it’s a magnificent opportunity, and it’s a little overwhelming. So we’re figuring out what the season is going to be, and I want to return to a play that I feel has been censored. Censorship is denied in America, but it’s there.

Here I am at age 52 about to rewrite a play about the oldest profession: aging prostitutes in New York City and Reaganomics. I’ve done a lot of research about prostitution. But no theater company would ever produce this play in 1980 when I wrote it. Since then, it has been optioned for film six times. We’re possibly going to do a film version that’s completely different from the original cast, but it’s hard to raise $3 million dollars with an all-female cast of aging women.

I actually did research back in the 1980s with a group of working women. I worked with a woman who ran a project to legalize prostitution out of Judson Memorial Church. She had the women read the play and then meet with me to tell me what was accurate and what was not. It was mind blowing. I said at the time, “If this opens, I’d love you to come to opening night.” They said, “Yeah, if you have opening night at five in the morning we’ll do it.”

So I am aware as I work in theater of how writers of color, women writers and particularly lesbians, if you transgress in certain ways, you are not going to be produced. It’s not true that the best plays get produced. The best plays get written, put in a drawer and then people think, “Gee, I’d better become, say, a lawyer, and do something with this passion I feel, become a public advocate, or become a social worker.” People who have brilliance and talent just know that they’re not going to make it in theater.

For the end of the season, I am looking at a play about battering that cost me a lot to write and no one else would touch. But if it’s not done with this company, no one will ever produce it. Nobody wants to talk about domestic violence. It is the scariest play I’ve ever written, the hardest play I’ve ever written.

PA: Do you think that’s taboo — domestic violence?

PV: A lot of men feel guilty, therefore they don’t want to watch it. They think I’m male bashing, because they know I’m a lesbian writer. The difficulty is that I don’t believe in bashing. Secondly, a lot of women are scared about how close they are to this. They are currently in that relationship, or they have friends who are in that relationship. Of course when you confront the situation by calling it domestic violence we have put it in a category where we don’t look at it. We have found ways to function, labeling it rather than really looking at it.

So how to look at this in such a way? In the same way that when I wrote Baltimore Waltz, which touched me personally, and I had to realize from the get go that there were people every night in the theater who were dying of AIDS. So every night in the audience there are going to be men who watched their fathers batter their mothers.

PA: On another important subject a question is how do you think people change, how does change happen with people – that’s a very important question for activists. You must think about that.

PV: This goes back to the empathy-alienation effect and to feeling and thought. Theater has to make us feel about thought, and it has to make us think about feeling. So that means we have to be permitted to feel. I don’t think catharsis is anti-change, as long as there’s distance on the catharsis. We must feel, grieve, mourn, laugh, we must have emotional responses. The play has to be framed in a way that it is clear that it is a play world, it is not life. It is a visualization, a projection. In essence, I think audience members have to write the play themselves, we should be arguing as we go into the lobby after the play. One of the essential things, and it’s a subjective thing, is that I have to feel that when I’m watching a play that I’m seeing truth telling. And truth telling makes me uncomfortable. That’s the other thing, the reason there’s such an attack on theater is that we’re now uncomfortable with truth telling. Instead of enjoying being uncomfortable - theater could make us enjoy being uncomfortable, that’s why it’s dangerous.