In his essay Voluntarism and Social Masses, Antonio Gramsci argues that "the actions and organizations of 'volunteers' must be distinguished from the actions and organisations of homogeneous social blocs, and judged by different criteria." He defines these "volunteers" as "those who have detached themselves from the mass by arbitrary individual initiative..."
His language of volunteers vs. organized social blocs aligns with a similar distinction often made between activism and organizing. Anyone can become an activist overnight, if he or she so desires. All you need to do is to start taking action as an individual on an issue you care about. I'm not about to be as dismissive as Gramsci seems to be in this essay about the value of such an act. However, he makes a good point: organizing is about finding other people to take action with you. But there's more - and here's where I find Gramsci's framework so helpful - organizing is not just about finding anyone to take action with you; it's about working to activate an already constituted social bloc and turn the bloc itself into the historical actor.
...we must not neglect to engage already existing cultural spaces. Sometimes we become disinterested in or even hostile toward such spaces because they house the values of the dominant culture. But these spaces also house the people. We cannot expect people to meet us where we want them to be. We have to meet them where they are, with the language they use, in the spaces they frequent.
Entering existing networks and institutions allows the people within them to consider taking action to end the war without feeling that they would have to lose their identity to do so. They can take action as teachers, or union members, or students, or members of a religious community. They do not have to become an "activist"-a distinct identity that many people are uncomfortable claiming-in order to take action. Instead they can begin to imagine working to end the war as an expression of who they already are, alongside people they already know.
This is one of the biggest lessons from US social movements in the 1960s and 1970s: movements usually grow (in size and capacity) quickly not by building their own separate infrastructure from scratch, but by organizing within existing social networks and institutions until they identify strongly enough with the movement that their already existing infrastructure and resources go to work for movement ends. The Civil Rights Movement spread like wildfire and dramatically increased its capacity when black churches and traditionally black schools came to identify themselves as part of a movement. People didn't have to leave their social networks to become part of the movement. Rather, membership in these institutions came to imply movement participation. These institutions and networks then used their resources-most significantly people power-to further movement goals.
I've been thinking a lot about the concept of hegemony, and reading Antonio Gramsci. I'll be posting a few reflections here as I go. Cross-posted at BeyondtheChoir.org
Years ago, I remember growing wary of tendencies (within activist groups I was part of) to exaggerate and glorify supposedly "spontaneous" elements of activism and protest. Some group members often recounted protests and direct actions as if what transpired had been spontaneous, even when the same individuals had themselves participated in elaborate planning meetings and preparations for the actions. What bothered me more was when this fiction of spontaneity mutated until it held a central place in some group members' theory of change. The "theory" seemed to hold that if a few committed activists were willing to be "militant" enough, their actions might somehow inspire more people to do likewise; change would ultimately occur as a result of a spontaneous mass uprising of this sort.
Septima Clark and Rosa Parks at Highlander Folk School just before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955.
The myth of spontaneity also seemed present in how the broader society viewed protest and collective action-when it wasn't ignored entirely-and this bothered me too. The story of Rosa Parks' refusal, for example, was popularly told and retold as the story of a woman who was tired, who had had enough, and who spontaneously refused to unfairly give up her seat to a white rider on the bus. I had learned what really happened: that Rosa Parks was a seasoned community leader; that she had had many strategic discussions with other leaders about this very action beforehand; that she had been part of strategic trainings at the Highlander Folk School, a center that had trained many Civil Rights and labor leaders (including Martin Luther King Jr.). The story of, "I was tired," annoyed me because it felt to me that it took political agency out of the equation. The implied lesson seemed to be, "If you, as an individual, muster the courage to stand up and do what's right, you may just kick off a whole movement (spontaneously)." The more accurate and instructive lesson, in my opinion, would have been, "If you plan with others, prepare yourself and others, build strong relationships in your community, develop a strategy for action, and build community buy-in, then you may be able to effectively intervene in the historical process."
I was surprised then to learn later that Rosa Parks and other Civil Rights leaders had intentionally created and spread this myth of spontaneity. Sociologist Francesca Polletta discusses this in her book It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics:
For American activists during much of the last century, one of the thorniest challenges was to avoid charges of communist influence. Representing protest as homegrown and spur-of-the-moment was a way to deflect claims that it was controlled by "outsiders," which meant Communists. In the Tallahassee, Florida, sit-in campaign, adult leaders who helped plan the sit-ins denied their own involvement for that very reason. Rosa Park's activism before the Montgomery bus boycott included a stint at the Highlander Folk School, a radical education center in Tennessee that was branded a "communist training school" soon after Parks's visit. This was reason enough for Montgomery activists to cast her as a political neophyte. Betty Friedan had also spent time at the Highlander Center. In addition to fearing redbaiting, she presumably wanted to appeal to women who had not been exposed to radical ideas and settings. Movement stories, in this view, are strategic bids for public support.
While some "liberal" commentators--including Glenn Greenwald--are pooh-poohing the idea that the Supreme Courts' Citizens United decision is exceptionally and disastrously bad, they are seriously mistaken-although significant countermeasures may be possible. This diary lays out a perspective of hegemonic constitutional struggle as a prelude to a critique Greenwald's analysis as the most consequential of opposing views, which will be presented in followup diary. It gets a bit abstract in places, but stretching your mind is good for you.
In my book, the Supreme Courts' Citizens United decision was a perfect example of Constitutional Beanball. What do I mean by "Constitutional Beanball"? It's a heightened variation on a term introduced by in 2003 by constitutional law professor Mark Tushnet, then of Georgetown, now of Harvard, in a law review article simply titled, "Constitutional Hardball", which he explained thus in the paper's abstract:
This Essay develops the idea that there is a practice called constitutional hardball. The practice has three characteristics: it involves arguments and behavior by political actors (including judges, although their role is less interesting than that of other political actors) that are defensible - though sometimes only barely so - by standard constitutional doctrine; it is inconsistent with settled pre-constitutional understandings; and it involves extremely high stakes (control over the national government as a whole). I argue that constitutional hardball occurs when political actors see the chance for a permanent transformation of the constitutional order.
Tushnet's account is clearly related to the process of hegemonic struggle or "culture war" as defined by Gramsci, which I've written about repeated here at Open Left over the years.
Note: While searching for a link from another past diary, I came across this, and was startled at how well it speaks to the growing sense of disappointment with Obama that many progressives are starting to feel. It was written in December, 2006, apparently just before Obama made his decision to run for President
Chris Bowers posted a very important frontpage story here at MyDD last night, "The Two Obamas and Me, Part One". In it, he drew a distinction between the Obama who first attracted widespread, enthusiastic netroots and grassroots progressive support, and post-Senate election Obama who has often reiterated rightwing stereotypes of the left, in order to position himself more favorably.
In the course of the comments, some counter-arguments were raise, many knee-jerk and fatuous, but some serious, and deserving of serious replies. Chris himself has said he will have more to say, and so I make no attempt to speak for him, or answer all the serious objections raised. Instead, what I want to do is add a perspective to reinforce where Chris is coming from, as I understand him, which is the same place I'm coming from on this. That perspective is the subject of an ongoing series I'm doing on hegemony, a complex concept that is nontheless deftly summarized as "a dominant ideology in drag as common sense."
In my view, the concept of hegemony is most useful in clarifying where Obama stands, and what he stands for. He is, in my view, a hegemonic figure in drag as a counter-hegemonic figure. Jump to the flip if you're interested in why.
For some time now, I've been writing about the Gramscian concept of "hegemony" and a "war of position"/"culture war" to control the cultural institutions that in turn shape our "common sense" understanding of things. It's my contention that for the 30-40 years, extreme cultural conservatives have been waging a one-sided culture war of precisely this sort-a culture war to control cultural institutions. And in response, moderates, liberals, even progrerssives have basically been asleep at the switch. I've also argued that while all the extreme conservatives' plans have produced impressive institutional successes, the realworld results have been utterly disasterous, which puts us on the cusp of a potentially historic realigning election.
A large part of my disappointment with Barack Obama stems from his unwillingness to confront the conservative establishment. But it's more than that: Obama is genuinely hostile to the notion of others engaging in such confrontation. He insists that the problem is partisanship per se-on both sides. This simply is not so. Logically, of course, it could be so, if the left had been fighting the same sort of well-coordinated culture war that the right is figthing. But historically, this simply did not happen.
Comes now the British newspaper, The Telegraph to provide dramatic truth that the culture war has been one-sided-and to remind us of why Obama dares not tell the truth about this. The Telegraph has produced a list of "the 50 most influential political pundits" who "help drive the national conversation and shape public opinion."
It is not a perfect list, by any means. Any number of influential people have been left off the list, while some who are on it seem rather over-rated, even from the perspective of simply having influence for whatever reason. Still, it seems generally accurate in terms of the distribution of influence across the political spectrum, and in that regard, it is quite telling. Here is the list, without the accompanying explanations:
1. Karl Rove
2. Chris Matthews
3. Sean Hannity
4. Rush Limbaugh
5. John Harris And Jim Vandehei
6. Matt Drudge
7. Tim Russert
8. Jon Stewart
9. David Brooks
10. Mark Halperin
11. Stephen Colbert
12. Bill O'Reilly
13. Keith Olbermann
14. Chuck Todd
15. Bill Maher
16. Glenn Beck
17. Andrew Sullivan
18. Frank Luntz
19. Donna Brazile
20. Joe Klein
21. David Gergen
22. Dick Morris
23. Mike Allen
24. Laura Ingraham
25. Michael Savage
26. Arianna Huffington
27. Pat Buchanan
28. James Carville
29. Ron Fournier
30. Peggy Noonan
31. Juan Williams
32. William Kristol
33. Roland Martin
34. Howard Kurtz
35. Joe Trippi
36. Newt Gingrich
37. Eugene Robinson
38. Michael Barone
39. Dee Dee Myers
40. Tony Snow
41. Mark Shields
42. Bill Bennett
43. Paul Begala
44. Jeffrey Toobin
45. Fred Barnes
46. Mark Levin
47. JC Watts
48. Paul Krugman
49. Mary Matalin
50. Rachel Maddow
It's worth noting that three of the top four voices from the left side of the spectrum are comedians. The fourth is a career sports commentator, whose show includes a fair amount of what can only be called "cultural fluff." Then again, perhaps that's all to the good, since the only other entries from the Democratic side of things in the top 20 are Donna Brazile and Joe Klein, taking up the last two slots. This is indicative of how thoroughly liberal and progressive voices are excluded from positions of media influence.
The proper perspective for viewing the NYT McCain story, the unfolding food fight, and the continuing fallout, is Gramsci's twin concepts of the war of position and the war of movement. I've written about this several times before, but here's a quick refresher.
(A) Gramsci's motivation was that the predicted worker's revolution did not occur in the mot advanced capitalist countries, as Marxist theory predicted. He therefore sought to explain why this was so, and what to do about it. The answers he came up with, described briefly below, have been adapted by people whose viewpoints are far removed from his--Rush Limbaugh, for one--so there is no need to accept his initial premises, if--like I do--one finds his descriptions of processes compelling.
(B) Grmsci attributed the failure to make an anti-capitalist revolution to the capture of worker's ideology, and organizations by the hegemonic (ruling or dominant) culture, transmitted by institutions such as the church, compulsory education, popular culture, etc. as well as appeals to bourgoise ideologies, such as nationalism, consumerism, careerism, etc. which also enjoy their own forms of instutional support.
Such institutions and ideologies have both their own independent rationale and function in their own spheres, as well as their function in the largr social system. Gramsci's conception allows us to view both institutions and narratives at varying different levels of abstraction operating according the same over-all logic, without denying or distorting the fact that they also follow their own particular logic as well.
(C) To overcome the power of hegemony, and create a workers revolution, Gramsci argued for a two-fold strategy, First, a "war of position" to build working-class counter-institutions, and take over bourgoise ones while promulgating working-class ideology. Second, once this stage was successful, then a "war of movement" to the actual insurrection against capitalism, with mass support that Marxist theory originally predicted.
Consciously or not, the American right has adopted Gramsci's fundamental insight, but adapted it to their somewhat different position in society. On the one hand, as Gramsci advised, they have dilligently built up their own institutional infrastructure, and attacked existing instriutional structures that they do not control, seeking either to take over or cripple or destroy them. On the other hand, they have combined the war of position and war of movement into a more integrated whole, frequently taking advantage of a constellation of positions to launch a "war of movement" attack on an insitution they wish to cripple, destroy or take over, or an idea, principle, value, or narrative they wish to discredit, or subvert.
With this in mind, the NYT McCain story can be viewed as particularly involving:
(1) The expression of conservative identity politics, a binary worldview that involves the valorization of all things "conservative" and the demonization of "liberals" specifically, and anything generally that stands opposed to, or outside of self-defined "conservatism." I've written about this previously, back in 2006 in diaries at MyDD here, here, here, here and here.
(2) The narrative of "personal virtue" as the foundational concern of politics, which is a core conservative belief dating back at least to Hesiod's Works and Days, and heavily inscribed into the DNA of the Western Worlds in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. This narrative is strongly connected to cognitive developmental levels two and three in Robert Kegan's schema, which I've previously described here and here, for example.
(3) The rightwing war on fact-based (i.e. "liberal) journalism as a specific facet of their overall attack on modernity, empiricism, reason and critical thought. The NY Times, as the nation's leading daily newspaper has long been a prime target in this war, and has long been significantly compromised by their successes.
For a more detailed description of how this perspective affects our understanding of the NYT-McCain story and its repurcussions, join me on the flip....
Note: This is not a candidate diary. It is a critical article--one that engages in critical analysis. It uses a key narrative of the Obama campaign as a jumping-off point, but that is merely a point of departure for illuminating what none of the campaigns are really facing up to. I have not endorsed anyone. None seem to grasp what is really going on here. Obama simply provides the most promising opening to begin the discussion. He misunderstands it--or at least appears to--in the most deep and fundamental way.
It's the grand premise of the Obama campaign that he can bring us together, slay the dragon of partisan divisiveness and end the culture wars which he lays at the feet of the Baby Boom generation. It's a nice, appealing narrative, in a way, it all turns on the question of what you mean by "culture war." The commonsense meaning of "culture war" over the past few decades is a war over social mores between hierarchical "traditional values" and the post-1950s emergence of egalitarian values, especially with respect to race and gender, more closely aligned with the traditional values at the core of our Constitution.
But there's a deeper meaning, which is clearly understood by rightwing culture warriors, and virtually unknown to everyone else. This meaning comes, ironically, from a leading Marxist theorist, the highly independent Italian leader, Antonio Gramsci, who described culture war as a struggle for ideological control of the broad range of institutions in society. And in this deeper sense, Obama's analysis is completely upside-down--the problem is not that both sides are equally to blame, but that only the right is actually fighting a coordinated culture war as Gramsci defined it. It's not a case of bringing a knife to a gunfight, it's a case of brining a plastic yogurt spoon to a nuclear war.
Gramsci was grappling with the question of why Marxist predictions had not come to pass, why the rise of working class power had not lead to a communist revolution, or even the dominance of socialist political parties. The reason, he believed, was that workers aspired to become their class enemy--they wanted to join the bourgeoisie, not destroy it, and the reason for that was the hegemony of bourgeois ideology, expressed through a whole range of political institutions.
Gramsci's argument is based on an analysis that can clearly be transposed onto other forms of ideological struggle, such as the one that grips America today. Whether or not Gramsci was entirely right in his specific analysis (not being a communist, I obviously think he wasn't), he clearly was onto something, and America's post-1960s New Right has followed his prescription quite faithfully, even if they did not cite him specifically until Rush Limbaugh did so in the 1990s. By engaging in a Gramscian culture war, the right has positioned itself to define the terms of the "culture war" as commonly understood. While there may be hopes of diminishing, if not ending the "culture war" in the latter sense it is not clear how this is possible, except temporarily, without countering the rightwing's Gramscian culture war. And countering that culture war is not possible without first grasping the full nature and extent of it.
This diary represents a small beginning, a thumbnail sketch overview of what that would entail. I intend to follow it up with some diaries that look at how the right has moved in on various different cultural institutions-possible examples include think tanks, the media, K-12 and higher education, churches, state governments, the courts and civil society institutions such as the Boy Scouts. I have one about the intrusion of "homeland security" on academia that's ready to go. I plan to do one or two others this weekend or next. Two other forms of follow-up are planned-first, more scrutiny of Barack Obama in light of this analysis and his failure to grasp what's going on, and second, a step back to discuss what the two sides are all about. Broadly conceived, I will characterize them as hierarchy, authority and coercion on the right, versus equality, autonomy, and voluntary cooperation on the left. These encompass a wide range of specific forms and culture expressions on both sides that have their differences with one another, but that all express similar fundamentals.
Somehow or another a growing number of readers and commentators here at Open Left have gotten it into their heads that I'm in the game of supporting/endorsing candidates. Let me assure you unequivocally that this is not true.
After having seen Lyndon Johnson crush Barry Goldwater when I was a teenager, on the heels of passing the Civil Rights Act, then go on to pass the Voting Rights, and Medicare, but then pursue the Vietnam War like a man possessed-well, let me just say that it pretty much cured me of any latent tendencies I might have had to regard potential presidential figures as saviors.
What I am about is issues, values, ideology, strategic critical analysis, and trying to save our country, and our species from destruction. (The planet will do just fine, even if it does take 10-20,000 years to recover. That's an eye-blink in planetary time.)
I feel sort of silly having to say this. But I feel even sillier realizing I should have said it much sooner. I thought it was perfectly obvious that when I said "X," I meant "X." But, of course, I was the one who would go on and on about content and context and framing, but when people would misunderstand me, I treated like it was their problem. Well, of course, in one sense I was certainly right.
But I also say that "when one person fucks up, it can arguably be their fault, when a million people fuck up, it's definitely the system's fault." The "system" here is the presidential primary process, and although the Obama supporters have been the most obnoxious exemplars, long preceding my drift toward writing more about him, they are hardly unique. So I'm going to say this once, and hope (naively, blindly, stupidly, whatever) that it's enough, and link back to it when it's not:
I am not supporting any candidate!
But I am writing critically about Obama, far more than any other candidate, and I explain why on the flip.
Last weekend, I did a couple of diaries about how Democrats could challenge the customary rules of the game without becoming "just like them." This was part of the longer series constrasting the policy ineptitude and political prowess of conservatives with the policy prowess and political ineptitude of liberals. I did this under the rubris of "'Breaking The Rules' To Fix The System." The first one used the example of Thoreau's civil disobedience (going to jail rather than helping to finance the Mexican-American War) as a touchstone, and considered how it might have been applied in response to the lawlessness of Bush v. Gore. The second one, looked at how impeachment could have been used to delegitimize Bush-and conservatism more generally-if removing Bush from office had been set aside from the beginning.
This weekend, I'm taking a doubly-related tack-talking about conventional wisdom. First, this is directly related to what I was suggesting should have been the primary purpose of impeachment proceeding, to delegitimate Bush and conservative rule. Second, I want to discuss how conventional wisdom functions as part of the Level 3 infrastructure that liberals and Democrats allow themselves to be trapped and defined by. The irony here is particularly deep, since the term "conventional wisdom" was originally coined by John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the great liberal public intellectuals of the last half of the 20th Century. He first recognized and articulated the concept, but over time it increasingly became a tool of conservative power. So we'll start with a brief look at some of Galbraith's ideas, and how they've been messed with, then we'll take a look at what it means today.
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