Founding Fathers & Lefty Men
posted September 20, 2006 (October 9, 2006 issue — The Nation Magazine)
Father Knows Best
Nicholas Guyatt
Have you attacked the Founding Fathers recently? Do you know anyone who has? Gordon Wood is convinced that you’re out there, and that many of you (especially those who teach history) have embarked on a campaign to ignore or even to “dehumanize” Washington, Jefferson and their peers.
In doing this, you’ve betrayed the majority of Americans who feel a special attachment to the Revolutionary generation and who want to know “what Thomas Jefferson would think of affirmative action, or George Washington of the invasion of Iraq.” This kind of sniping has been going on for 100 years, Wood concedes, but things have gotten particularly bad of late. Professors are steering students and readers toward alternative histories that disparage the Founders or simply overlook them. It’s all very well to write about “a midwife in Maine or a former slave in Connecticut,” but we’re losing sight of the white elite who should be at the center of America’s creation story.
Wood can be quite a curmudgeon. He’s also perhaps the most celebrated American historian alive, the author of one book–The Creation of the American Republic–that transformed the field in 1969 and another that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. His latest volume, Revolutionary Characters, has been packaged as an argument about “what made the Founders different.” In fact, it’s a collection of eight discrete essays, some of them rather creaky. (The chapter on John Adams is adapted from Creation; the original version of the epilogue was published in 1974.) But given the recent upsurge of popular interest in the Founders, you can see the appeal of this collection. All of your Founding Favorites are here: Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Adams and Paine. The coup de grâce is an essay on Aaron Burr, the bad boy of the early Republic, whose moral divergence from the rest allows Wood to present him as “the exception that proves the rule” of Revolutionary genius.
CONTINUED BELOW
The Founderphilia of recent years, as Daniel Lazare has observed in these pages, is in part a response to 9/11. David Hackett Fischer, who won the Pulitzer Prize last year for Washington’s Crossing, concluded that book by linking the challenges of Revolutionary America to the destruction of the World Trade Center. (In an even more vertiginous analogy, Fischer likened George Washington to Norman Schwarzkopf and Tommy Franks.) The other inspiration behind the upsurge in Founding Father studies was Monicagate and the perception that Bill Clinton’s gropes and fumbles represented a lapse of character. The Founders had their own problems with sexual continence, but recent historians have tended to close the bedroom door and to define character as an “outer life” (in Wood’s phrase) rather than an “inner personality.” Washington and the rest were committed to the maintenance of gentility and the performance of an exemplary public persona. By this standard, Clinton’s private antics with Monica leached into the public life of the nation, proving him to be a man of limited character in both senses. The Founding Fathers, according to their recent panegyrists, offer a window onto an age when people behaved much better–or at least kept up appearances more effectively than the most recent Democratic occupant of the White House.
The current bout of Founderphilia had seized some prominent historians even before 9/11. Joseph Ellis’s sympathetic portrait of the Revolutionary generation, Founding Brothers, was a bestseller in 2000. David McCullough’s John Adams raced up the bestseller lists the following spring. But the terrorist attacks encouraged this shift toward simpler, more flattering portraits of the Founding period. McCullough’s John Adams–in which a principled but unpopular President struggles to do the right thing in a time of war–had sold more than 1.5 million copies in hardcover by the end of 2001. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the most colorful of the Founders, has been treated to four major biographies in the past three years–one of them by Gordon Wood. McCullough, who has written books on Harry S. Truman and a host of other subjects in American history, followed up John Adams with 1776, another chronicle of the Revolutionary generation. Even George Washington, whose glacial detachment had previously deterred the peppiest biographers, has recently received the sympathetic attention of Ellis and Fischer. Some of these books have come from writers who don’t hold academic posts (like McCullough), but the Founderphile charge has been led by academics who hold some of the top jobs in the profession: Edmund Morgan of Yale; Joseph Ellis of Mount Holyoke; David Hackett Fischer of Brandeis; Gordon Wood of Brown. With these heavy hitters batting for the team, how can Wood believe that the Founders are in trouble?
This may be a generational thing. Readers under 40 (60?) will be amused by Wood’s rueful attack on J.D. Salinger for corrupting the young via Holden Caulfield and “his condemnation of adult phoniness.” Although Wood also enlists Dave Eggers to make his point–that we’re too ready to embrace cynicism and that we’ve taken a principled stand against any kind of principle–you get the impression that he’s been out of touch with the zeitgeist for some time. (If Salinger gives him the willies, what must he think of The Simple Life or G-Unit?) But his anxiety has more to do with those who write American history than with its readership. His tart references to Maine midwives and Connecticut free blacks are a warning about a politically correct American history: As professors and graduate students choose to focus on people who were left out of the traditional narrative, the historical profession runs the risk of forgetting that narrative altogether.
In fact, there’s very little evidence of the Founders disappearing from the teaching or writing of American history. In addition to the enormous popularity of John Adams and the like, the actions of the Revolutionary leaders are exhaustively debated in academic journals, textbooks and scholarly studies. In the past four decades, American history has been invigorated by a new awareness of women, nonwhite people, culture and other neglected topics. But you’ll find little evidence from college textbooks or academic journals that the American past has been hijacked by black midwives. Professional historians work hard to incorporate social and cultural history, but they hardly neglect the more familiar political questions and actors. Wood’s fear that Washington or Adams will drop out of the frame seems misplaced.
But the pages of Revolutionary Characters FULL REVIEW
Sam Carpenter:
Actually, Michael Rozeff at lewrockwell.com has done an interesting series on the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, from a “market anarchist” point of view.
Regarding sex and war, here is a long quote from an Amazon review of Robert Nisbet’s “The Present: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America.”
————————————-
It seems to be a fairly well-kept secret, especially from the self-insulated intelligentsia, but some of the most cogent 20th century critics of political chicanery, martial foolishness and cultural excess have been traditional ( as opposed to “neo” ) conservatives like T.S. Eliot, Richard Weaver and Russell Kirk, whose work is both considered in its reflective power and fiercely independent of what many assume (falsely) are virtual cognate “identifiers” (conservatism = big business + GOP ). The late and widely esteemed social theorist Robert Nisbet (1915-96) was a member of a small but august group, writing many well-received books: one of his last, “THE PRESENT AGE” (1988) is particularly apposite, offering as it does a critique of (in the words of his subtitle) “progress and anarchy in modern America”.
Nisbet’s analysis begins with that period of America’s history that amounted to a sea change in governmental policy: President Woodrow Wilson’s administration and America’s entry into the hostilities of The Great War ( WW I ). As Nisbet writes in the first chapter:
“…the [ American ] people participated widely in a revolutionary upsurge of patriotism and of consecration to the improvement of the world in the very process of making `the world safe for democracy’, as the moralistic President Wilson put it …”
In the same chapter Nisbet makes a number of provocative comments on what he terms “the prevalence of war”:
“…War is a tried and true specific when a people’s moral values become stale and flat. It can be a productive crucible for the remaking of key moral meanings and the strengthening of the sinews of society …”
***
“…All wars of any appreciable length have a secularizing effect upon engaged societies, a diminution of the authority of old religious and moral values and a parallel elevation of new utilitarian, hedonistic, or pragmatic values. Wars, to be successfully fought, demand a reduction in the taboos regarding life, dignity, property, family, and religion … there must be nothing of merely moral nature left standing between the fighting forces and victory; not even, or especially, taboos on sexual encounters … military, or at least war-born, relationships among individuals tend to supercede relationships of family, parish, and ordinary walks of life. Ideas of chastity, modesty, decorum, respectability change quickly in wartime …”
***
“…in sum, in culture, as in politics, economics, social behavior, and the psychological recesses of America, the Great War was the occasion of the birth of modernity in the United States …”
***
Nisbet goes on to describe ( and excoriate ) what he calls “The Great Myth” of American exceptionalism: the “Can Do”, `Know How” and “No Fault” canards which accompanied such follies as Korea, Vietnam and (one can safely add ), Iraq. Consider the following:
“…The single most powerful cause of the present size and the worldwide deployment of the military establishment is the moralization of foreign policy and military ventures that has been deeply ingrained, especially in the minds of presidents, for a long time … the staying power of the Puritan image of America as a `city on a hill’ was considerable throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. American the Redeemer Nation was very much a presence in the minds of a great many Americans. American `exceptionalism’ began in the conviction that God had created one truly free and democratic nation on earth and that it was to the best interests of all other nations to study America and learn from her …”
What may surprise those on the Left with slight knowledge of history (a deficiency certainly endemic in modern America ) is how these debacles were set into motion as a direct consequence of policies carried out by “progressives”, figures that are commonly claimed as part of the left-liberal heritage. Nisbet comments:
” .. thus the birth of 20th century moralism in foreign policy and war. From Wilson’s day to ours the embedded purpose- sometimes articulated in words, more often not- of American foreign policy, under Democrats and Republicans alike oftentimes, has boiled down to America-on-a-permanent-Mission: a mission to make the rest of the world a little more like America the Beautiful. Plant a little `democracy’ here and tomorrow a little `liberalism’ there, not hesitating once in a while to add a pinch of American-style social democracy …”
As Nisbet demonstrates, the *Great Myth* is a form of collective delirium, goading us in both our personal lives and our roles as citizens, to fall prey to hubristic delusions of grandeur, all the while overlooking the ugly and all too real elements of pride and conceit of which this myth is almost wholly comprised. Whether through the uniformly heretical forms of Christian belief ( “Religious Right” ), the nihilistic forms of self-deification and narcissism ( “Revolutionary Left” ) or the cynical strategies employed by amoral Machiavellians manipulating *all* groups, one theme holds as predominant: a sense of self-righteousness allied to political power is a very certain recipe for calamity. No, we are certainly not free from the “present age” Nisbet has so cogently ( if lamentably ) analyzed.
22 September 2006, 1:45 pmlapetrov:
Feminism IS the revolution, Stan! And it will lead to others, not vice versa. Hegemonic masculinity and its values are the keystone that holds everything else in place (the tyranny of [male] property, the race to use everything up as fast as possible, the impulse to self-destruct us all into oblivion). If Alpha-Male Dominance goes, we may yet have a chance at an existence that values life over death. But you’re right. There is extreme fear, primal almost, of the loss of male privilege, even among those who aren’t alpha males. It’s like poor people identifying with Republican tax policy –they always hope to one day be rich.
Funny too, masculinity IS all about “keeping up appearances” –but not so much of “decency” in political figures. I mean, who cares? Integrity in contemporary politics is like modesty in a whore, irrelevant. The illusion hegemonic masculinity must maintain at all costs is that of power, whose intangiblity makes it very suseptible to insecurity –thus, for many, the need to repress and enforce submission. Micro or macro, it works the same way. At least that’s how I’ve come to see it.
The question for me now is, what are its feet of clay? And, how to attack them to fall the false giant?
23 September 2006, 10:06 pmRequired:
The fuck? Did you just refer to prostitutes as “whore’s’ while supposedly critiqueing patriachy? The general distain for prostitutes in this comment is wrong. I think you’ve found a clay foot, get cracking.
24 September 2006, 2:46 amspook:
i had an interesting exchange with thom hartmann, “renaissance thinker” and “progressive voice for america” on air america radio who ADORES our founding fathers and the great beacon of democracy that the u.s. is and has been for the world.
i posted a few excerpts from the critique–stan’s on the absence of any recognition of gender in the critique, but also the actual critique, regarding the founding fathers protecting slavery in the constitution until 1808.
hartmann wrote back in the chat room during his show (with 50 or so participants) and said, “That is not true. The constitution banned slavery in 1808.”
so i said, “Thom, that constitutes PROTECTING slavery until 1808.”
to which he responded, “Is the glass half empty, or half full?”
that’s “progressive” thought for you.
24 September 2006, 12:38 pmChuckie K:
Stan, Could you suggest briefly what you might think the appropriate criticism with regard to gender hierarchies and power might be? Abigail Adam’s commnets in her letters to John make it clear that “that’s just the way it was” won’t wash as an historical argument. But the don’t seem to have even had to debate women’s rights the way they had to debate perpetuating slavery. Perhaps their family lives? Not that it means anything, but Aaron Burr, who of course belonged to the younger generation like Hamilton, who officered in the Revolution, seems to have been truly exceptional in liking children, and devoting expense and affection to them. To me, that inclination serves as a proxy to index the degree to which these guys “manliness” alienated them from life.
24 September 2006, 5:57 pmYolanda Carrington:
Yeah Lapetrov…”like modesty in a whore“—you just had a patriarchal slip of the tongue there, sis. If you’re gonna talk about ending the system, you need to start with yourself first. Patriarchy and white supremacy endure because so many of us pass that shit on without thinking about it.
Required…judge not, dude—lest you be judged. And that goes for me and everyone else here too. It’s time we all get cracking on that clay.
24 September 2006, 7:27 pmSlave Revolt:
Stan’s comments are spot-on.
Spook–there seems to be a difference between revolutioary, progressive, and liberal.
25 September 2006, 12:48 amspook:
i agree slave revolt.
but modern “progressives” and “liberals” love to bask in the “revolutionary” spirit of the founding fathers.
i find both the so-called mass-media “progressive” and “liberal” to be loaded with the “Boy Shit” as stan calls it. hartmann has repeatedly challenged the penis size of his conservative guests ON THE AIR.
because, of course, conservatives exist in fear and insecurity and it MUST be about their penises. and his fans cheer him on in bloodlust. it’s all about having balls.
hartmann was astounded by the DODs new non-lethal crowd control devices and said “can you imagine if we’d had these weapons in fallujah?” because of course, we could have subjugated the entire city without killing anybody.
i find what passes for progressive and liberal fundamentally to be trying to preserve u.s. superiority. somehow they seem to think that if make a minute adjustment inside the united states, everything will be okay.
they NEVER discuss the fraction of 4% consuming 25%. they never discuss ecosystem destruction and species extinction in the context of u.s. consumption, only in the context of the evil corporations.
slavery, indigenous slaughter, institutionalized oppression of women and the poor and imperial wars are merely the necessary and legitimate cost of creating this great nation. we’ve just been hijacked by bush and reagan. reagan is as far back as they ever go. the glass half full.
WE are not the problem, only THEM. it’s the same thing the “neocons” do, with a different enemy. the bottom line is that WE are VICTIMS. WE were the world’s cop and morally superior. now WE are VICTIMS.
it makes me ill.
25 September 2006, 1:36 pmhoward:
spook,
25 September 2006, 3:21 pmIn his exchange with you about slavery and the Constitution, Hartman was either really misinformed or purposely trying to carry the argument with false information: The Constitution did not ban slavery in 1808. Instead it said that Congress could not ban the importation of slaves until at least 1808 (Article I section 9 clause 1) and that no constitutional amendments limiting slavery could be made before 1808 (Article IV section 2).
Charles Brown:
Should we support Hilary Clinton for President ?
How more concretely and specifically are these ideas practiced ? In the U.S., it would seem to mean supporting women candidates for office.
However, power questions must consider class. The main power positions are not really elected.
CB
25 September 2006, 5:07 pmpeggy:
Sam Carpenter, you quote Nisbet as saying “All wars of any appreciable length have a secularizing effect upon engaged societies …” Is there not considerable evidence to the contrary? I can’t see how any intelligent educated person of the present era could make such a claim.
Stan Goff, I think if you wrote to The Nation and pointed out that Guyat was leaving out the gender dimension of the Founding Fathers myth, or that he was failing to criticise Wall for leaving out this dimension, Guyat and the editors of The Nation would say something like, “Gender is a whole different level of analysis.” Even if they agreed (which they probably wouldn’t) that oppression of women is the foundation of all oppression among human beings, they might say that this topic is as much outside the domain of political science as biology is. Political science ASSUMES the oppression of women, and their exclusion from power, as given, and although the folks at The Nation would surely admit that oppression of women is a very big problem, they might also say that this is a problem that political science – being what it is, a basically male construction – is not in any way prepared to address, let alone solve. And, you know?, if they said this, they might be right.
25 September 2006, 8:33 pmRequired:
Yolanda, you’re right, too self-righteous, my bad Lapetrov.
25 September 2006, 8:35 pmspook:
howard,
i see I,9,1, but isn’t the prohibition on amendment to I,9,1 in Article V?
“Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article;”
i wouldn’t begin to know why he said what he said. the more i listen the more it sounds like counter-propaganda.
among his tag lines is “the left is dead.”
25 September 2006, 11:02 pmpeggy:
Charles, I’m glad to see you back after the criticism you took a while ago, and I don’t know why I am answering you, because I know you are not really listening to us, but only to your own firmly entrenched preconceptions, but here goes anyway.
You continue to underestimate the intelligence of your debating partners here. You know very well why we won’t vote for Hilary: because she is fully a part of, indeed close to the center of the terrible system of appropriation through dislocation that we all oppose. This system is a male-dominant system, and she has played the game of the system-masters like a pro, and she has reached her present position precisely by buying into and contibuting to the rule of the rich white male elite, just like Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell have done, together with all the disenfranchised men and women who are fighting Bush’s war in Iraq.
There are plenty of women who collude in the oppression of women. There are plenty of poor folks who collude in the oppression of poor folks, and there are plenty of blacks who collude in the oppression of blacks. This doesn’t mean that women, the poor, and blacks are not oppressed. It just means that countless individuals, for the sake of their individual advancement, are willing to grind their brothers and sisters into the dust. You know this.
You say that power questions must consider class. I agree. And I consider that power questions must consider the oppression of women. Can you not agree with this much? Even if you do not agree with the rest, which is:
The fact of women’s oppression is not a side issue. It is not secondary to issues of class. It is THE primary oppression. If you look at the world both close to where you are and far from where you are, if you really look with open eyes, you will see. No amount of sophistry or clever argument will change the fact that in any class, in any race, in any country, women are oppressed. We are the ones lowest paid, hardest worked, least valued, worst punished, most beaten and killed, of any category including men that we belong to.
I did not always think these things. I was one of the many female human beings who deeply believed that the world revolved around men. It was easy for me to believe this, because I wanted the love of my father, my husband, my sons, and conceding their superiority to me, their primacy over me, got me something vaguely approaching that ephemeral dream. Oh if I could have lived as an adoring dependent of some fine man. But something in me always resisted, protested against the role of inferior dependent. So here I am, older but wiser.
And here you are, too, Charles, older than a young kid, but are you wiser? Perhaps it is not useful for me to suggest this, but I imagine you never got any wiser, because by always playing the superior, you got what you wanted. So you never learned how it felt to be on the other side. Even if white folks put you down every day in so many ways, there would always be more than one woman who adored you for your superior intellect, and if you are basically kind and reasonably good-looking and willing to support a woman and her kids, you would have been and still might be what we used to call “a catch.” In our younger days, if we had met, I might have thought you attractive, but I would have been too shy, and you would have spurned me for someone prettier and more adoring.
So you have no particular reason to change your ways or your thoughts. You have no particular reason to learn from, for instance, the stroppy feminist Yolanda. Whereas both I and Yolanda have had plenty of reason to think about things, and why things aren’t right, and what we can do to change our lives, the world, and people like you.
The only hope I see for you, Charles, is the possibility that maybe you like learning for learning’s sake, as so many intellectuals do. If you could risk your current beliefs for the sake of learning, your world could be so much greater.
Does this letter sound preachy and condescending? Should I beg your forgiveness? If I did, might I get through to you? Maybe. Maybe not.
26 September 2006, 2:47 amMatthew:
Stan, other Feral Scholar readers,
7 years in the military has had the effect of rotting away the better part of my basic sensibilities, and I’m trying to learn how to think again. I don’t know where to start. Is there a Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Patriarchy and White Supremacy out there somewhere? Some kind of introductory material I might sink my teeth into? Can anyone out there offer some suggestions, a reading list?
Thanks.
26 September 2006, 5:37 amYolanda Carrington:
Hey Matthew…don’t know if you’ve been here before, but if not, welcome! I’m glad you’re here.
If those folks at Complete Idiot’s and the like would pay me, I’d write that guide myself. But since it don’t exist yet, I’d recommend Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks, which is a good Gender/Race 101, I think.
Peggy, thanks for your words to CB. I sure hope he was paying attention. By the way, who are you calling “stroppy?”
26 September 2006, 3:35 pmStan:
New Zealand and the United States. Two peoples separated by a common language. (-:
26 September 2006, 5:58 pmDeAnander:
My buddy JB is having some trouble with FS and his browser, so I offer this from his well-read fingertips:
[emphases mine --de]
26 September 2006, 9:27 pmspook:
i didn’t mean for my comment to be a hartmann bashing in particular. i consider him to be somewhat indicative of some mainstream “progressive”/”liberal” ideology pumped by AAR in particular that blames all of our state of affairs on the bushies, has a fixation with balls and dicks, and fundamentally believes in american “greatness.”
i asked in hartmann’s chat during his show today if he was sticking by his statement that the constitution banned slavery and got no response. i presented the exchange we had the day before and asked if that was really what he meant and there was no response. so i posted the text he referred to (not the 13th A.), but Article I, Section 9. and pointed out that it does not BAN slavery and that of course we had a civil war. no response. he’s busy during the show, so who knows.
it’s a tough crowd. his fans adore him like he’s leading them to the promised land. i regularly contest his “framing,” which is inevitably couched in what i consider be a highly favorable historical interpretation to white males and business in particular and the u.s. as the greatest nation on earth in general.
i’ve been called a nazi, a commie, a traitor and a troll in the same discussion (not by thom), among other more colorful things. there is little diversity of any kind on the show or in the chatroom. questioning hartmann’s generally favorable interpretations of u.s. history does not ingratiate me to the group. you’re either with them or you’re against them.
i tried to get him to interview stan, prior to vetgulfmarch, and they said they were going to and then backed out. i think stan presents a more formidable perspective than could be easily dismissed if it veered into anything critical of thom’s favorite “memes.” i just don’t see “the left is dead” working very well.
26 September 2006, 11:27 pmCharles Brown:
Charles, I’m glad to see you back after the criticism you took a while ago, and I don’t know why I am answering you, because I know you are not really listening to us, but only to your own firmly entrenched preconceptions, but here goes anyway.
^^^^
CB: Thanks for trying Peggy. Why do you say I’m not listening to you ?
^^^^^^
You continue to underestimate the intelligence of your debating partners here. You know very well why we won’t vote for Hilary: because she is fully a part of, indeed close to the center of the terrible system of appropriation through dislocation that we all oppose. This system is a male-dominant system, and she has played the game of the system-masters like a pro, and she has reached her present position precisely by buying into and contibuting to the rule of the rich white male elite, just like Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell have done, together with all the disenfranchised men and women who are fighting Bush’s war in Iraq.
^^^^
CB: I don’t really get much into to the “intelligence” of discussants type of thing. I assume everybody is very smart. I try to deal with the substance of what is said. I don’t think you will find me talking about anybody’s intelligence.
I’m serious about supporting Hillary Clinton BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN. One of my “firmly entrenched preconceptions” for a while now has been to support women political candidates BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN. Like Sharon McPhail for Mayor of Detroit in ’93 and ’05, et al. I take that to be an expression of what Stan is getting at in his lead. Maybe not. I’m not sure how a practice of what he suggests would look like otherwise.
^^^^^
There are plenty of women who collude in the oppression of women. There are plenty of poor folks who collude in the oppression of poor folks, and there are plenty of blacks who collude in the oppression of blacks. This doesn’t mean that women, the poor, and blacks are not oppressed. It just means that countless individuals, for the sake of their individual advancement, are willing to grind their brothers and sisters into the dust. You know this.
^^^^
CB: Yes, but despite that, I think we have to say support women candidates because they are women. Certainly, there are times when we support Black candidates because they are Black, despite all you say above.
When you say ” you know this” , you seem to mean I’m joking in my question. However , I’m not. So…..
^^^^^^
You say that power questions must consider class. I agree. And I consider that power questions must consider the oppression of women. Can you not agree with this much?
^^^^^
CB: You seem to think that I don’t agree with what you say before you say it. I thought that “power questions must consider the oppression of women” before I ever “met” you or came to this list.
Evidently, you don’t take seriously that one of my “firmly entrenched preconceptions” is to be a really genuine feminist. I’m here because I have been a feminist for 25 years. Funny how I’ve said this ten times on this list but you continue to address me as if I don’t hold feminist opinions.
I have some different feminist opinions than you perhaps, but I know other feminists who hold different feminist opinions than those expressed on this list.
My first writing on this list was a feminist _critique_ of Marxism. My conclusion was that women’s liberation should be put on an equal level with workers’ revolution in the Marxist project. Perhaps you might want to consider this when you tell me “women’s oppression is not a side issue”, since the first thing I said coming here is that “women’s oppression shouldn’t be treated as a side issue.”
^^^^^^
Even if you do not agree with the rest, which is:
The fact of women’s oppression is not a side issue. It is not secondary to issues of class. It is THE primary oppression. If you look at the world both close to where you are and far from where you are, if you really look with open eyes, you will see. No amount of sophistry or clever argument will change the fact that in any class, in any race, in any country, women are oppressed. We are the ones lowest paid, hardest worked, least valued, worst punished, most beaten and killed, of any category including men that we belong to.
^^^^^
CB; I get the feeling you haven’t listened to much of what I have said since I came on this list, since I have never said that women’s oppression is a secondary contradiction or side issue; since I said the complete opposite of that. The above doesn’t much address me since I never said any of it.
I will say though, that you are mistaken if you think that workers’ oppression or racism are secondary contradictions. There is a trinity of equal oppressions. If you move class and race to secondary contradictions, you will end up a reactionary.
^^^^^^^^
I did not always think these things. I was one of the many female human beings who deeply believed that the world revolved around men. It was easy for me to believe this, because I wanted the love of my father, my husband, my sons, and conceding their superiority to me, their primacy over me, got me something vaguely approaching that ephemeral dream. Oh if I could have lived as an adoring dependent of some fine man. But something in me always resisted, protested against the role of inferior dependent. So here I am, older but wiser.
And here you are, too, Charles, older than a young kid, but are you wiser? Perhaps it is not useful for me to suggest this, but I imagine you never got any wiser, because by always playing the superior, you got what you wanted. So you never learned how it felt to be on the other side. Even if white folks put you down every day in so many ways, there would always be more than one woman who adored you for your superior intellect, and if you are basically kind and reasonably good-looking and willing to support a woman and her kids, you would have been and still might be what we used to call “a catch.†In our younger days, if we had met, I might have thought you attractive, but I would have been too shy, and you would have spurned me for someone prettier and more adoring.
^^^^^
CB: Well thanks for the compliments, but , no, women have not adored me. My love life has been a struggle. I’m not going to say I have a superior intellect, but to the extent I’m a bit more “bookish” than average, this tended to be a turnoff to women.
I’ll tell you what has vastly improved my relations with women: BEING A FEMINIST ! Women around me can tell that I am a genuine champion of women’s liberation. And they appreciate it.
^^^^^
So you have no particular reason to change your ways or your thoughts. You have no particular reason to learn from, for instance, the stroppy feminist Yolanda. Whereas both I and Yolanda have had plenty of reason to think about things, and why things aren’t right, and what we can do to change our lives, the world, and people like you.
^^^^^
CB: When it comes to me, you all tend to be a bit deaf. How many times do I have to shout that I am a feminist. Why would I change my ways from being a feminist ?
I’ll tell you. If you all can’t hear when a man tells you he is a feminist already, how on earth are you going to be able to tell when you have changed the mind of some other man who isn’t a feminist ? Here you have a man feminist right in front of you, and you keep talking to me like I’m not a feminist.
As to how I disagree with you, you are aware that there are women feminists with different feminist ideas than you , arent’ you ?
^^^^^^
The only hope I see for you, Charles, is the possibility that maybe you like learning for learning’s sake, as so many intellectuals do. If you could risk your current beliefs for the sake of learning, your world could be so much greater.
^^^^
CB: Actually, no , I’m more of the type who emphasizes the unity of theory and practice, i.e. not learning for learning sake.
Thus, I asked here, what are the practical , more down to earth applications of the theoretical perspective Stan just put up. What do we do to change the world, and not just interpret it for interpreting sake ?
So, seriously, how about supporting women candidates BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN ?
^^^^^^
Does this letter sound preachy and condescending? Should I beg your forgiveness? If I did, might I get through to you? Maybe. Maybe not.
^^^^^
27 September 2006, 6:54 pmCB: It sounds like you haven’t read a word I said since I came to this list months ago. So, you are preaching to someone you imagine is me, but is not me. You will definitely get through to me if you acknowledge that I am a feminist and have written tons of feminist statements here, that I have from the beginning emphasized the need to put women’s liberation on the same level as workers’ liberation. I have a whole essay on it on this blog. You have no need to “get through to me” with that, since it’s the first thing I said when I got here, i.e. it was already in me through and through.
Sam:
Charles, I think Nisbet qualifies as an educated man, to say the least. Perhaps you have in mind the current “religious” fundamentalists in the Near East. But precisely, radical Islam is Islam secularized, politicized, radicalized, and represents, docgtrinally speaking, a syncretism of a selected Islamic doctrine together with importations of Western ideas–hence the objection to it by the vast majority of Muslims who are not radicalized.
28 September 2006, 12:19 amCharles:
Hi Sam. I’m thinking you meant to direct that to someone else, because I don’t think what I said related to your comment, but maybe I’m missing something.
28 September 2006, 1:52 pmpeggy:
Charles – I’m glad if I misunderstood you. It leaves some room for conversation. Your initial query, “Should we support Hilary Clinton for President?” struck me as so off-base, I thought it had to be ironic. But evidently it wasn’t ironic.
The thing is, just as the class struggle is not just about supporting individual members of a given class , so the struggle women are facing is not just about supporting individual woman, least of all those individual women who have bought their way to power by supporting a system where rich white men dominate, oppress, and murder so many who are outside of their elite constituencies.
Race, class, and sex are three very different things, but the oppression of certain races, the oppression of certain classes, and the oppression of certain womenc have all become bound up in the terrible knot which is the current American-dominated political order. Ultimately, if we are looking for solutions, we cannot consider any one of these three parts of the knot by itself. But a central argument of this blog is that the systematic oppression of women has been systematically downplayed or simply ignored by the most prominent political actors, including prominent leftists, including Marxists. Therefore, when you say “Don’t forget class” and in the same breath ask if we should support Hillary Clinton for president, it somehow doesn’t add up.
29 September 2006, 1:27 ampeggy:
Sam, I was the one who made the comment about Nisbet. I know he must be well educated, and that is why I couldn’t believe he said what he said.
And when I made my comment, I wasn’t thinking particularly about the Near East. I was thinking instead about the Christian far-right in America, and its support of the war in Iraq, and Bush’s drawing on that support and flaming the fans of religious hatred among Christians against Muslims in general.
Also, I was thinking about the militant and murderous Hindutva movement in India, specifically directed and against Muslims, and the equally militant and murderous campaign of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists against Tamils in Sri Lanka – just to name a couple of areas with which I have more than passing familiarity.
I guess you can define secularization in many ways, but to me the word secular means specifically not favoring one religion over others. Look it up and see if I’m not right.
Demagogues can fire up populations into murderous moods and acts by appealing to “religious” sensibilities. War is too ofen justified through these means. Such wars do not have a secularizing effect. They don’t quench religious passions and hatreds, they just make them worse.
29 September 2006, 1:42 amSam:
Peggy, I think Nisbet had in mind simply that war tends to “transfer from the ecclesiastical to the civil.” I think this is undeniable. Perhaps another way of putting it is that wars–conflicts–call for ideologically firing-up people. This is what gets them gets them into action in the sphere of politics. Fundamentalism, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, can be viewed as religion getting converted into political ideology. Of course, in societies which are traditional, or based on religion, this process is more transparent than in societies in which religion no longer is the basis of their structure, and which are secular by definition. In a secular society such as ours, however, the process remains the same: to enlist religious sensibilities in a political cause, they must be ideologized. In secular societies, the inverse has to take place of what occurs in traditional or largely traditional ones: the secular idea becomes “religious” as it is converted into ideology capable of arousing the masses: “manifest destiny,” “regime change,” “civilization,” “white man’s burden,” “democracy,” “development,” “progress, ” etc. At this point, religion which exist in the secular society can get hitched to the secular ideology. Hence US soldiers speaking of being in Iraq in order to “fight evil,” “fight the devil,” being “on God’s side,” and the like.
29 September 2006, 12:07 pmSam:
By the way, here’s a good example from Bush’s recent speech (taken from Nicola Nasser’s article “Bush and Islam” in Counterpunch:
“At the start of the 21st century, it is clear that the world is engaged in a great ideological struggle, between extremists who use terror as a weapon to create fear, and moderate people who work for peace,” he said, defining the battle lines of his WWIII.
Four days earlier he identified those extremists as being “Islamic,” who “want to impose” their “ideology throughout the broader Middle East.” Earlier, on August 10, CNN quoted Bush as saying that, “this nation is at war with Islamic fascists.”
He also defined a modern Anglo-Saxon white man’s mission in the 21st century as “our obligation to defend civilization and liberty, to support the forces of freedom and moderation throughout the Middle East.
So you see, each side has its ideology which it would like to impose: the “Islamists” would like to impose their ideology on Islam generally, so as to radicalize it, politicize it, and drive out the current elites (which of course do not represent the Shari’ah or traditional Islam at all, as their peoples are well aware) which are friendly to the West, and to goad the West into bleeding economically and ruin it strategically; and Bush uses his ideology of “freedom” in the cause of his “war on terror and extremism” to sell the West his military drive to appropriate the area’s resources of oil, among other things. His real aim, of course, is to destabilize the Middle East and to encircle Russia and China. This–hypothetically–would allow the US and their Israeli allies to reign over the area.
29 September 2006, 12:24 pmCharles:
Comment by peggy — 9/29/2006 @ 1:27 am
Charles – I’m glad if I misunderstood you. It leaves some room for conversation. Your initial query, “Should we support Hilary Clinton for President?†struck me as so off-base, I thought it had to be ironic. But evidently it wasn’t ironic.
^^^
CB: Yes, I can see why. Actually, I’m not from the “never support Democrats” wing of the left (pace Stan). For example, we have a woman Democratic Governor in Michigan – Jennifer Granholm – and I am supporting her. Not only because she is a woman, but because of the recent history of horrendous racism of our Republican state govnernment against majority Black Detroit.
Also, when I put on my StanGoff hat of superfeminism, emphasizing women’s libertion first, it seems to me supporting a woman like Clinton for pres is not unthinkable. She is not really a “Clarence Thomas” or “Condeleeza Rice”. I don’t think she has a record of being anti-woman the way Thomas is actually a racist , does she ? In other words, she wouldn’t be a male supremacist in woman’s skin, would she ?
^^^^^^
The thing is, just as the class struggle is not just about supporting individual members of a given class , so the struggle women are facing is not just about supporting individual woman, least of all those individual women who have bought their way to power by supporting a system where rich white men dominate, oppress, and murder so many who are outside of their elite constituencies.
^^^
CB; Agree, but I sometimes think that women’s lib and workers’ lib are not entirely analagous in this way. Some of what must happen in women’s lib is actually just getting women into positions that have always been men’s positions. The Detroit City Council is now 7 of 9 women. This is a historic accomplishment, and it is done by the People of Detroit without any explicit feminist campaigning ,no slogans “vote for a woman”. Black people are very politically progressive relatively speaking and in general.
(Bill Clinton actually was working class, ironically)
^^^^^
Race, class, and sex are three very different things, but the oppression of certain races, the oppression of certain classes, and the oppression of certain womenc have all become bound up in the terrible knot which is the current American-dominated political order. Ultimately, if we are looking for solutions, we cannot consider any one of these three parts of the knot by itself. But a central argument of this blog is that the systematic oppression of women has been systematically downplayed or simply ignored by the most prominent political actors, including prominent leftists, including Marxists. Therefore, when you say “Don’t forget class†and in the same breath ask if we should support Hillary Clinton for president, it somehow doesn’t add up.
^^^
CB; Well, yea, that’s me relaxing my “trinity of oppressions” position and going over to the main emphasis on gender oppression. Sort of following the blog theme you mention.
But also, when I say “don’t forget class” there I mean that the President and the Founding Fathers in government are not the main ruling class. The main ruling class is the heads of corporations. So, focussing on government leaders is not focussing on the main seat of power.
The general question is, what are the practical proposals for executing the general theoretical position that Stan is writing about. We can agree that patriarchy is rife, the Founding Fathers and all , but What is to be done ?
29 September 2006, 12:25 pmDeAnander:
How many times do I have to shout that I am a feminist.
maybe if CB were a feminist he wouldn’t spend so much time “shouting” at women?
as my old Mum always said, watch what they do, not what they say. but this wrangle brings up a chain of associated thoughts for me.
ya know, in the old days we radical feminists used to say that the word “feminist” could not really be applied to men; that men could be “pro-feminist” or “gender traitors” or “feminist allies,” but that the words “I am a feminist” spoken by a man came across a bit like “Ich bin ein Berliner” and with a similar semantic disconnect
I’m not sure whether this doctrinaire fussing over vocabulary was sensible. we did a lot of it at the time and I fear it reflected in part the sectarian tendency in all movements — but it reflected also something true about power relationships imho: the person on the winning side of a class/caste divide can never really repudiate their power and become one of the oppressed. they can be in sympathy with the losing side, they can aid and abet it, they can alienate their co-elites by standing up for the underdog and dining with untouchables, they can lose a certain amount of elite status for their disloyalty, they can support the resistance… but they can justabout never actually be the resistance. there is a lifetime of widely differentiated experience in between the brahmin and the sweeper, the male and the female. some experiences can bridge the gap; gay men sometimes know in their gut what it is to fear sexist violence, to be the target of misogyny, and so on. but for the most part there is a gulf between “ally” and “one of us” — a life that the other person cannot truly inhabit or imagine, even with the aid of first-rate novels, of analysis, of empathy. it was this gulf I think that the discussions 30 years ago acknowledged, when we debated whether a man could “be” a feminist.
hmmm I think this wrangle between P and CB relates directly to the curious case of the TG in the showers at Michigan. who gets to say who’s a woman? who gets to say who’s a feminist? do men get to tell women who is a feminist? CB thinks that if feminists don’t accept him as a feminist then they (women) must be “deaf”, must be wrong, can/should be argued into endorsing his claim to the label (talk about identity politics eh).
now me, if I were working in support of say an indigenous people’s resistance movement struggling against the anglo ownership class of which I am (like it or not) one, I don’t think I would start demanding that they call me a zapatista too, and reciting my credentials. or claim that though I work in the executive suites I support the union and demand to be called “a fellowworker”.
I think this turf-claiming behaviour is masculinist, in other words, and it’s a behaviour that men with genuine feminist sympathies could productively question and critique in self and others. just as they could productively question boyshit like “bitchslap”, using testicles as a metaphor for courage, using prostitution as a metaphor for venality and political corruption, etc. phatic utterance of this kind is what we do as well as what we say, and to this feminist it has approximately the same cognitive dissonant freight as some wellmeaning anglo librul talking about the urgent need to fight the Right and get serious about eradicating hate crime and bigotry, then casually mention being “jewed down” on a business transaction, or casually admire those “hot blooded Latinas” in the next breath. Tilt!
the strange fact is that in some ways it takes more courage to face life under patriarchy without balls than with ‘em. the inability to remember this, to go on mindlessly reciting ‘balls=courage’ is imho sufficient grounds for confiscation of the little plastic “Hi, I’m a Feminist” nametag.
29 September 2006, 4:04 pmDeAnander:
btw, my comments above wandered off towards the content of a neighbouring thread, taking the P/CB interchange as a starting point and drifting from there… the misogynist phatic utterances I refer to are those quoted by Stan on the thread next door [as heard ad nauseam by feminists trying to work with lefties and libruls] and are not ascribed to or quoted from CB.
29 September 2006, 6:20 pmStan:
Charles: Yes, I can see why. Actually, I’m not from the “never support Democrats†wing of the left (pace Stan). For example, we have a woman Democratic Governor in Michigan – Jennifer Granholm – and I am supporting her. Not only because she is a woman, but because of the recent history of horrendous racism of our Republican state govnernment against majority Black Detroit.
Also, when I put on my StanGoff hat of superfeminism, emphasizing women’s libertion first, it seems to me supporting a woman like Clinton for pres is not unthinkable. She is not really a “Clarence Thomas†or “Condeleeza Riceâ€. I don’t think she has a record of being anti-woman the way Thomas is actually a racist , does she ? In other words, she wouldn’t be a male supremacist in woman’s skin, would she ?
*****
Stan: Coupla points. One, I have never said that there is never a reason to support Democrats. On the contrary, I have said that making this an absolutist position is not only surrendering tactical flexibility in order to pose as politicall pure; it is generally an exercise (I’m in North Carolina, remember) of white privilege. I don’t believe in ever giving them a pass, however, as the CP (I’m an alum) used to insist. Withhold all criticism in order to defeat “the Right” (which was identified as Republicans). There are alos circumstances where I would support defeating Democrats. Absolutism is generally stupid,and tactical absolutism is … well, not tactical at all.
Other point, I have also never advocated for something called “superfeminism, women’s liberation first.” This is again the superimposition of the (linear) tendency of masculinist heirarchies of priority.
Final point, if the Democats run Hillary for Prez, they are even more clueless than I think. Not only would this galvanize the misogyny of men who can seem to discern the difference between being an individual biological woman and being an advocate women’s self-determination (almost all Dems are pro-choice) (a POV that seems to reside in Charles’ suggestion that Hillary C running for Prez is somehow feminist), but she is among the most opportunistic and pro-war Demcorats in a period where there is a very serious proto-defection going on wihtin that party over precisely the issue of the Iraq War.
From a strictly pragmatic point of view, acting as if I were a Dem, the Hillary for Prez Campaign will effectively snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2008, and ensure that the other war-monger (and faux-”maverick”, ersatz-centrist) John McCain would preside until 2012 (when peak oil begins to bite like a Rottweiller).
30 September 2006, 10:43 amCharles:
Stan: Coupla points. One, I have never said that there is never a reason to support Democrats. On the contrary, I have said that making this an absolutist position is not only surrendering tactical flexibility in order to pose as politicall pure; it is generally an exercise (I’m in North Carolina, remember) of white privilege. I don’t believe in ever giving them a pass, however, as the CP (I’m an alum) used to insist. Withhold all criticism in order to defeat “the Right” (which was identified as Republicans). There are alos circumstances where I would support defeating Democrats. Absolutism is generally stupid,and tactical absolutism is … well, not tactical at all.
CB: Apologies for misrepresenting your position.
^^^^^^
Other point, I have also never advocated for something called “superfeminism, women’s liberation first.” This is again the superimposition of the (linear) tendency of masculinist heirarchies of priority.
^^^^^
CB: Is it really demonstrated that women use hierarchies of priority less than men ?
Linear vs holistic thinking came out in the 70′s. I think it’s a start, but we have to sort of go beyond it to dialectics, which unites the two concepts in contradiction, or something like that.
^^^^^
Final point, if the Democats run Hillary for Prez, they are even more clueless than I think. Not only would this galvanize the misogyny of men who can seem to discern the difference between being an individual biological woman and being an advocate women’s self-determination (almost all Dems are pro-choice) (a POV that seems to reside in Charles’ suggestion that Hillary C running for Prez is somehow feminist), but she is among the most opportunistic and pro-war Demcorats in a period where there is a very serious proto-defection going on wihtin that party over precisely the issue of the Iraq War.
From a strictly pragmatic point of view, acting as if I were a Dem, the Hillary for Prez Campaign will effectively snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2008, and ensure that the other war-monger (and faux-”maverick”, ersatz-centrist) John McCain would preside until 2012 (when peak oil begins to bite like a Rottweiller).
^^^^^^
2 October 2006, 5:50 pmCB: Given Gore’s new focus on global heating, was the CP support for him correct in retrospect ?
Charles:
How many times do I have to shout that I am a feminist.
maybe if CB were a feminist he wouldn’t spend so much time “shouting†at women? as my old Mum always said, watch what they do, not what they say. but this wrangle brings up a chain of associated thoughts for me.
^^^
CB: Ah yes. Can’t really “shout” on email. Substitute “protesting” for “shouting”.
As to do and say, we can’t really tell what anybody is _doing_ from their email posts. It’s all talk here.
^^^^^
ya know, in the old days we radical feminists used to say that the word “feminist†could not really be applied to men; that men could be “pro-feminist†or “gender traitors†or “feminist allies,†but that the words “I am a feminist†spoken by a man came across a bit like “Ich bin ein Berliner†and with a similar semantic disconnect I’m not sure whether this doctrinaire fussing over vocabulary was sensible. we did a lot of it at the time and I fear it reflected in part the sectarian tendency in all movements — but it reflected also something true about power relationships imho: the person on the winning side of a class/caste divide can never really repudiate their power and become one of the oppressed. they can be in sympathy with the losing side, they can aid and abet it, they can alienate their co-elites by standing up for the underdog and dining with untouchables, they can lose a certain amount of elite status for their disloyalty, they can support the resistance… but they can justabout never actually be the resistance. there is a lifetime of widely differentiated experience in between the brahmin and the sweeper, the male and the female. some experiences can bridge the gap; gay men sometimes know in their gut what it is to fear sexist violence, to be the target of misogyny, and so on. but for the most part there is a gulf between “ally†and “one of us†— a life that the other person cannot truly inhabit or imagine, even with the aid of first-rate novels, of analysis, of empathy. it was this gulf I think that the discussions 30 years ago acknowledged, when we debated whether a man could “be†a feminist.
^^^^
CB: Yes, wouldn’t claim that I’m a woman (“be on of the oppressed”).
As to a feminist, it certainly would be easier _not_ to say I’m a feminist, since most regular people think that’s pretty strange. I call myself a male feminist speaking to men, not women. (I mean here I say it because this is a discourse on feminism list, and I’m trying to make clear my theoretical position.). The main role of a male supporter of women’s liberation is to convince other men the same way.
In my experience, I actually get sort of an opposite feeling about calling myself a feminist. It seems a bit cowardly not to. Put it this way, in most contexts that I am in , it is difficult for women to say they are feminists, mainly because it offends men. So, I figure it kind of takes the heat for the women, because the men can’t really as easily label me as a “manhater”, one of the main assaults on women feminists. That’s really it. I think it’s a lot harder for men to attack me as being a man hater, for obvious reasons. This list is obviously the opposite of the normal context, where feminism is almost always unpopular.
But, hey, I’ll be glad to not do it. It’s easier on me, fo sho.
As far as women, as you say, it’s a matter of what do I do, not what do I say I am. It’s extremely rare that I say it to ordinary people. I do say it going on radio talk a few times, because it seems like a way to “speak” to men on the issue.
I really have no problem whatsoever not saying I _am_ a feminist. Point is I take a focussed , _public_ position in support of women’s liberation elsewhere because as a man I’m likely to get less flak for it than a woman, so I do it “for the cause”.
Also, my thinking is that it’s a way to say to men, being a feminist is good for men, not just women. It’s “what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander” feminism.
The main reason I have declared so much more here than in everyday life or elsewhere is that there have been various challenges of what I said as if I were a male supremacist. I consider this a slander, and I protest. Why shouldn’t I protest ?
^^^^^
^^^^^^
hmmm I think this wrangle between P and CB relates directly to the curious case of the TG in the showers at Michigan. who gets to say who’s a woman? who gets to say who’s a feminist? do men get to tell women who is a feminist? CB thinks that if feminists don’t accept him as a feminist then they (women) must be “deafâ€, must be wrong, can/should be argued into endorsing his claim to the label (talk about identity politics eh).
^^^^^
CB: You don’t have to accept me as a feminist. I’ve made my case that I am a supporter of women’s liberation. If you want to say what I’ve said ( and all we can do on here is talk) does not articulate a position in support of women’s liberation, how am I going to stop you ? I’m going to look at your reasons, when you say it.
What I’d say is deaf (women and men, both) is if I say on the list that I don’t think women’s oppresssion is a secondary contradiction and then it’s said that I think women’s oppression is secondary contradiction.
^^^^^
now me, if I were working in support of say an indigenous people’s resistance movement struggling against the anglo ownership class of which I am (like it or not) one, I don’t think I would start demanding that they call me a zapatista too, and reciting my credentials. or claim that though I work in the executive suites I support the union and demand to be called “a fellowworkerâ€.
^^^^
CB: As I say, it is not so much an “ontological” question, as to “what _am_ I”. I have been using “I am a feminist” here as shorthand to reply to the claims that I don’t support women’s liberation or that the positions I have articulated are not pro-women’s liberation. Also, as I said, I’m in the habit of saying “I’m a feminist” in the context of where nobody else is one,including the women (smile). It’s sort of like defying the male supremacist establishment by which nobody wants to use the word; and using male privilege on behalf of women’s lib; and saying being a man in support of women’s lib is good for me, not just good for women. I benefit from “being” a “feminist.” I mean I’m saying that to men in general, who are overwhelmingly not feminists. In other words, it’s to recruit _men_ to supporting women’s lib.
I can see here that this is the completely opposite context, and I’m perfectly willing, while here, to hand in my temporary wearing of the “feminist” hat in the other context where it seems the best way to succinctly briefly confront male suprmacism.
SO FOR OFFICIAL PURPOSES ON THIS BLOG:
CHARLES IS _NOT_ A FEMINIST !
However, this does _not_ mean that I’m a male supremacist.
^^^^^^^
I think this turf-claiming behaviour is masculinist, in other words, and it’s a behaviour that men with genuine feminist sympathies could productively question and critique in self and others.
^^^^
CB: Well, here’s your turf. I surrender and yield it to you.
^^^^^
just as they could productively question boyshit like “bitchslapâ€, using testicles as a metaphor for courage, using prostitution as a metaphor for venality and political corruption, etc. phatic utterance of this kind is what we do as well as what we say, and to this feminist it has approximately the same cognitive dissonant freight as some wellmeaning anglo librul talking about the urgent need to fight the Right and get serious about eradicating hate crime and bigotry, then casually mention being “jewed down†on a business transaction, or casually admire those “hot blooded Latinas†in the next breath. Tilt!
^^^^^
CB: This kind of slanderous implication is why I have to protest around here so much.
^^^^^^
the strange fact is that in some ways it takes more courage to face life under patriarchy without balls than with ‘em. the inability to remember this, to go on mindlessly reciting ‘balls=courage’ is imho sufficient grounds for confiscation of the little plastic “Hi, I’m a Feminist†nametag.
^^^^^
CB: Hey take it. It’s not exactly fun to wear. Like I say “Charles is not a feminist , on this list.” That’s mainly for the context in which nobody is calling themselves a feminist, which is not the case here.
Comment by DeAnander — 9/29/2006 @ 4:04 pm
btw, my comments above wandered off towards the content of a neighbouring thread, taking the P/CB interchange as a starting point and drifting from there… the misogynist phatic utterances I refer to are those quoted by Stan on the thread next door [as heard ad nauseam by feminists trying to work with lefties and libruls] and are not ascribed to or quoted from CB.
^^^^^
CB: Oh
Comment by DeAnander — 9/29/2006 @ 6:20 pm
2 October 2006, 6:37 pmDeAnander:
yes there are venues in which the feminist nametag is the yellow star (metaphorically speaking) in which case I say Cheers to the guy who is willing to wear it in face of a room full of hostile males. “I’m Spartacus!”
but really CB, “women’s lib”? that was, in my youthful feminist days (70′s), a dismissive name for feminism used by those who found it risible or threatening, and “women’s libbers” was a pejorative, usually found in the same graf with “hairy legged” and “bra burners.” these terms as far as I remember were not used by feminists ourselves — though maybe this was a generational thing and their devaluation or degeneration into pejoratives was incomplete in the 2nd half of the sixties. at any rate, use of the term “women’s lib” in my generation marked the speaker as hostile to feminism.
2 October 2006, 9:00 pmCharles:
yes there are venues in which the feminist nametag is the yellow star (metaphorically speaking) in which case I say Cheers to the guy who is willing to wear it in face of a room full of hostile males. “I’m Spartacus!â€
but really CB, “women’s lib� that was, in my youthful feminist days (70’s), a dismissive name for feminism used by those who found it risible or threatening, and “women’s libbers†was a pejorative, usually found in the same graf with “hairy legged†and “bra burners.†these terms as far as I remember were not used by feminists ourselves — though maybe this was a generational thing and their devaluation or degeneration into pejoratives was incomplete in the 2nd half of the sixties. at any rate, use of the term “women’s lib†in my generation marked the speaker as hostile to feminism.
^^^^^^
3 October 2006, 10:37 amCB: I don’t intend it as derogatory, sorry.
Charles:
Here’s a sample of “vote for her because she’s a woman” literature.
CB
^^^^^
Give women leaders a chance for a change !
The bashing of the City Council hard bargaining four is part of the overall effort by the bourgeoisie to slander Detroit leadership as an opening to receivership and takeovers. Masses of Detroiters must learn this and take to the streets in protest the power structure attacks on the Fab 4.
For two hundred years or so, men have dominated Detroit city government and City Council. We live in a historic period of women’s leadership on City Council.
What’s more, the Fab Four represent the most progressive political alliance to arise in recent memory of Detroit politics.
The bourgeoisie are aware of this independent tendency in the progressive group on Council. Their monopoly media savage mouths, like Nolan Finley of the Detroit News, are leading the attack on the women leaders.
The People’s and Black Power Movemens have learned from the experience of many years the importance of the unity of the workers’ and women’s emancipation movements. Where are the real men who will pledge to make the fight against male supremcism a priority for our generation ?.
Give progressive women leaders a chance for a change !
John Henry
12 October 2006, 3:42 pmDetroit