Odio gli indifferenti. Credo che vivere voglia dire essere partigiani. Chi vive veramente non può non essere cittadino e partigiano. L’indifferenza è abulia, è parassitismo, è vigliaccheria, non è vita. Perciò odio gli indifferenti.

L’indifferenza è il peso morto della storia. L’indifferenza opera potentemente nella storia. Opera passivamente, ma opera. È la fatalità; è ciò su cui non si può contare; è ciò che sconvolge i programmi, che rovescia i piani meglio costruiti; è la materia bruta che strozza l’intelligenza. Ciò che succede, il male che si abbatte su tutti, avviene perché la massa degli uomini abdica alla sua volontà, lascia promulgare le leggi che solo la rivolta potrà abrogare, lascia salire al potere uomini che poi solo un ammutinamento potrà rovesciare. Tra l’assenteismo e l’indifferenza poche mani, non sorvegliate da alcun controllo, tessono la tela della vita collettiva, e la massa ignora, perché non se ne preoccupa; e allora sembra sia la fatalità a travolgere tutto e tutti, sembra che la storia non sia altro che un enorme fenomeno naturale, un’eruzione, un terremoto del quale rimangono vittime tutti, chi ha voluto e chi non ha voluto, chi sapeva e chi non sapeva, chi era stato attivo e chi indifferente. Alcuni piagnucolano pietosamente, altri bestemmiano oscenamente, ma nessuno o pochi si domandano: se avessi fatto anch’io il mio dovere, se avessi cercato di far valere la mia volontà, sarebbe successo ciò che è successo?

Odio gli indifferenti anche per questo: perché mi dà fastidio il loro piagnisteo da eterni innocenti. Chiedo conto a ognuno di loro del come ha svolto il compito che la vita gli ha posto e gli pone quotidianamente, di ciò che ha fatto e specialmente di ciò che non ha fatto. E sento di poter essere inesorabile, di non dover sprecare la mia pietà, di non dover spartire con loro le mie lacrime.

Sono partigiano, vivo, sento nelle coscienze della mia parte già pulsare l’attività della città futura che la mia parte sta costruendo. E in essa la catena sociale non pesa su pochi, in essa ogni cosa che succede non è dovuta al caso, alla fatalità, ma è intelligente opera dei cittadini. Non c’è in essa nessuno che stia alla finestra a guardare mentre i pochi si sacrificano, si svenano. Vivo, sono partigiano. Perciò odio chi non parteggia, odio gli indifferenti”.

11 febbraio 1917

Ever since I was a child and used to attend a double feature with Randolph Scott and Alan Ladd at the Midway Theater on Queen Boulevard, in Forest Hills, I have loved going to the movies.  Films are bigger than life yet they reflect so much of what we are, strive to be and sometimes what others want us to become.  Their visual lessons dramatize the truths of life, appeal to our romantic sentiments and sometimes even inflame our passions.  Sometimes they even teach us something.

I recently saw a new film, An Education that was ostensibly about the loss of innocence of a sixteen year old girl. Now in most parts of this country, except where there is a Planned Parenthood Clinic, that would send off alarms about sexual abuse and the exploitation of our children.

The previews and the opening segments thoroughly romantized their budding relationship.   But half way through the movie, it became apparent as Jenny’s parents’ initial resistance to their mutual affection began to melt away under the intense animal heat of the charmingly slick suitor, David Goldman that Jenny was as good as “ruined.”

During the second half of their story the onion layers peeled away as Goldman is characterized for what he really was, a conniving flim-flam man who used black immigrants to break real estate blocks, stoled art work from elderly women and deflowered virgins—all in a day’s work.

Despite its veiled attempt at anti-Semitic depiction, this movie is not about that.   Its main focus is on the seduction of a culture by materialism, greed and self-advancement.  It was no accident that this movie was set in the 1960s because this is when the fruits of modernism first started to reel their ugly head.  An Education is rich in metaphorical content.  Jenny’s parents are the guardians of their daughter’s virtue because that where the future of any culture resides.  Morally strong and virtuous women make for a strong society.  (For a thoroughly insightful review of this film with all of its cultural implication, go to HenryMakow.com.)

It was Antonio Gramsci, the Sardinian Communist (Yes Virginia there really are things called “communists” and they truly want to destroy the way you life.) and later the Frankfurt School of Social Research that started the long march through our culture that has given us unrestricted abortions, unbridled pornography, a litany of sexually transmitted diseases and a culture a few meters this side of self-immolation. (I guess I have finally gone metric.)

It is also no odd coincidence that Betty Friedan, “the Mother of all Feminists” was a Cultural Marxist who was mentored by Herbert Marcuse.  He was the radical college professor of the 1960s and a refugee from the Frankfurt School who told our young people to make love, not war during the Vietnam era.  (It has always been my view that they should get married and do both.)  It was Mrs. Friedan who wrote the Feminine Mystique, the book that launched a thousand ships of marital discord and unhappiness.  I understand that thousands of divorce lawyers say novenas in her honor.

All this is important for the Catholic and Christian Churches…and anyone else who liked the culture essentially the way it was BM—before Marx.  Catholics had suffered persecution and discrimination for generations.  Signs, such as NINA—no Irish need apply—dotted the commercial landscape along the east coast.  Catholics so desperately wanted to be part of mainstream America but their allegiance to a “foreign power” and their “strange” rituals prevented them from securing a seat at the banquet table of culture.

Then along came the Kennedy family—rich, powerful, unscrupulous and hell-bent to make the starting team.  It was the patriarch, Joseph Kennedy who thrust his children into the political limelight.  When his second son John was elected president, Catholics celebrated in joyous anticipation that the culture would finally listen to them.  (My good Catholic mother voted for Nixon.)  Buffered by his “Irish mafia,” Kennedy’s presidency heralded the fact that Catholics were now part of the official power structure.

Just what affect has this Catholic arrival had on American culture? Look around!  Does our culture look like the Church has had much impact?  Who is winning the Culture Ware—Karl or Jesus?  Could it have something to do with the fact that Kennedy did his very best to dance away from his religious beliefs?  So is it any wonder that his sectarian successors have done the same?

Is it not possible that our Catholic leaders have been seduced by a modernist culture, not unlike Jenny’s parents in “An Education?”   Is that why most of our Catholic politicians in DC are pro-abortion? Has not the secular establishment with its feminist and homosexual lobbyists taken our college presidents to the woodshop of humanistic learning where “a plasma TV in every den” has replaced the “pie in the sky” of faith?

Modernism was a heresy that the Church condemned 150 years ago. I don’t think it was any different then from what it is today. Whether they call it health care reform or social justice, it is a raging inferno and its residue smoke is wafting through Catholic teaching, pastoral work and even the pulpit.  Perhaps what we seriously need is a new Church militant with its true Christian weapons of prayer, penance, self-sacrifice, and relentless charitable protest.  The alternative is that future generations will curse us amid their cultural ruins.

Most formal, organized political activity is carried out by the middle classes and intelligentsia. Genuine peasant rebellions (let alone revolutions) are rare, and are usually “crushed unceremoniously”. When the peasants do help a revolutionary group to power (France, Russia, China), the result is often even greater extraction of resources from the countryside and and even more effective state dominance over the rural population. (p. xvi)

However, Scott identifies another form of peasant resistance that may be even more effective in the long run—”the prosaic but constant struggle between the peasantry and those who seek to extract labour, food, taxes, rents, and interest from them.” Some of the “weapons” the peasant might use are “foot dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering. feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage.” These techniques are suited to the scattered nature of the peasantry and the difficulty in organizing any collective political action. (pp. xvi-xvii)

Scott is a political scientist by training, but the book is based on anthropological fieldwork. He spent two years (1978-1980) in a Malaysian village (“Sedaka”) on the Muda Plain, a rice farming area in Kedah. He looked at the impact of the “green revolution” (in particular the introduction of double cropping and combine harvesters) on the village. As with most other places, the rich were the main beneficiaries. (p. xvii)

The opening chapter introduces the village, and the stories of two individuals at extreme ends of the social spectrum, the poor Razak and the rich Haji Broom. He introduces the idea of a “symbolic balance of power”. The rich in the village evoke Razak as an example of the feckless, dishonest poor, while the poor portray Haji Broom as penny-pinching and greedy. This symbolism is a form of ideological conflict between the rich and poor, which carries on despite the fact that, materially speaking, relations are one-sided. (pp. 22-24) The material power of the rich is reflected in their social power, and it is they who control the public stage. On this stage the poor must at least appear deferential. But “offstage”, Scott identifies another script beyond the control of the rich. (pp. 25-26)

Chapter two looks at the motivations for the book. Scott feels that too much attention has been placed
on peasant rebellion and revolution. Scott’s concern is with the more prosaic everyday forms of resistance. Gramsci argued that elites control the “ideological sectors” of society (culture, religion, education, and media) and thereby create consent for their rule—the masses in their “false conciousness” are enslaved at the level of ideas. (p. 39) This Gramscian hegemony is strongly critiqued by Scott.

Chapter three begins by identifying three contours that form the context of village class relations. In the background is the post-colonial state and the wider Malaysian economy. This is essentially taken for granted by the villagers in Sedaka—”[o]ne cannot …expect the fish to talk about the water; it is simply the medium in which they live and breathe.” The middle ground contains recent social and economic changes (over the past ten years or so), included in this is the enormous impact that double-cropping has had on social and economic relations across the entire region. In the foreground are these changes as they have been manifested in Sedaka. (pp. 48-49) The background and middle ground contours are the subject of chapter three. Chapter four looks at the foreground.

Chapter three and four viewed the changes on the Muda Plain as a sociological and economic history. Chapter five moves into ethnographic territory, describing the changes from the perspective of two sets of villagers—the poor (losers) and the rich (winners). (p. 140) Complaints of the poor include loss of work to the combine harvester, difficulty in renting land, loss of favourable terms for land that is rented, a decline in traditional religious charity and feast giving. It is significant that they blame their rich neighbours for the changes rather than absentee Chinese landlords or the businessmen who supply the combines. The wider context of the green revolution and the commodification of agricultural production, like the water fish swim in, is simply accepted as a given. What is also interesting is that the rich, while becoming proto-capitalists, are at the same time unable to completely renounce the old ideology—rather they justify the worsening condition of the poor and the reduction in charitable giving by suggesting that the “undeserving” poor themselves are to blame for their own misfortune.

Chapter six and seven probe deeper into the ideological struggle in the village. The rich are exploiting new opportunities for capitalist accumulation, but in doing so they are operating in an “ideological vacuum”. The practice of capitalism emerged before its supporting ideology. (p. 184) The struggle against these new patterns of accumulation mostly takes the form of words, yet on occasion it is more direct—Scott noted instances of (undeclared) strikes and even vandalism of machinery by unidentified villagers. The ability of the poor and marginalized to prevent or even slow down changes that worked against their interests is of course circumscribed. Poor villagers remained dependent on the rich for work and land. And yet they still found ways to resist.

Resistance here is understood to include “any act(s) by member(s) of a subordinate class that is or are intended either to mitigate or deny claims …made on that class by superordinate classes … or to advance its own claims … vis-à-vis those superordinate classes.” (p. 290) This broader concept captures the daily reality of what resistance by the subordinate classes entails, and what the material base of this resistance is. It rejects the notion that real resistance must be somehow organized and principled, or that it must have revolutionary consequences that negate the basis of domination itself. (p. 292)

The final chapter turns back to the critique of Gramsci. He finds that the superstructure is actually politically determined. The rich attempt to create ideologies that suit their own ends—the economic power of the rich is “euphemized” (give double meaning). But this euphemization of power is not simply “mystification” in the Gramscian sense, it is in fact an outcome of class struggle. Therefore, the charity of the rich is neither a disguise for appropriation or a selfless act of giving. It can perhaps be seen as “a reciprocal manipulation of the symbols of euphemization”. (pp. 308-309) In short, the superstructure (ideological level) is not merely an expression of the material relations at the structural level.

Scott develops five main criticisms of the notion of hegemony and its related ideas of false-conciousness, mystification, and ideological state apparatuses.
(1) Ignores the extent to which most subordinate classes are able (on the basis of daily material experience) to penetrate and demystify the dominant ideology.
(2) Confound what is inevitable with what is just. Subordinate classes often do not accept the inevitable as just, as the “hidden transcript” of the poor in Sedaka makes clear. Apparent submission is often out of necessity.
(3) A hegemonic ideology represents an idealization that can be challenged on its own terms. The ideological source of mass radicalism is often found within the hegemonic ideology.
(4) Most revolutionary mass movements actually pursued limited and even reformist goals. Scott argues that “trade union conciousness” is not an obstacle to revolution, it is in fact the only plausible basis for revolution.
(5) The norms and values of a dominant ideology are typically eroded by the bearers of new modes of production and not subordinate classes. In Sedaka it was the capitalism that brought new ideologies, the poor were defending themselves on the basis of their own version of the old ideology. (pp. 317-318)

However, Scott’s book is not only a antidote to Gramsci. Looking at the resistance of the poor on an everyday level is an important corrective to the grand sweeps of historical sociology; it also offers an alternative to the quantitative epistemology of rational choice approaches currently fashionable in political science. The daily struggles of the poor may not create a new world order, but they can mitigate the worst effects of economic marginalization and perhaps in time promise something better.

Gramsci

THE GRAMSCIAN MOMENT

 

The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism

Peter D. Thomas

http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=29354

Publication year: 2009
Series: Historical Materialism Book Series, 24
ISBN-13 (i): 978 90 04 16771 1
ISBN-10: 90 04 16771 4
Cover: Hardback
Number of pages: xxv, 477 pp.
List price: € 115.00 / US$ 170.00

Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks are today acknowledged as a classic of the human and social sciences in the twentieth century. The influence of his thought in numerous fields of scholarship is only exceeded by the diverse interpretations and readings to which it has been subjected, resulting in often contradictory ‘images of Gramsci’.

This book draws on the rich recent season of Gramscian philological studies in order to argue that the true significance of Gramsci’s thought consists in its distinctive position in the development of the Marxist tradition. Providing a detailed reconsideration of Gramsci’s theory of the state and concept of philosophy, The Gramscian Moment argues for the urgent necessity of taking up the challenge of developing a ‘philosophy of praxis’ as a vital element in the contemporary revitalisation of Marxism.

Peter D. Thomas (Ph.D, 2008) studied at the University of Queensland, Freie Universität Berlin, L’Università “Federico II”, Naples, and the Universiteit van Amsterdam. He has published widely on Marxist political theory and philosophy. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism: research in critical Marxist theory.

REVIEWS

Peter Thomas’ book should become the standard text in English on Gramsci’s thought. Acquainted as he is with the latest wrinkle in the Italian debate on Gramsci, Thomas combines an unmatched philological research into the sources and a mastery of the ongoing debates about the sense we should make of key ideas like hegemony. He deftly overturns the received orthodoxy and the various abuses of the ideas of the Marxist militant by theorists of cultural studies, both restoring Gramsci’s work to its true status and opening up fruitful possibilities for understanding his contribution to political theory more generally. The best book on Gramsci’s political theory for three decades — Alastair Davidson, Author of Antonio Gramsci: the Man, his Ideas, and Antonio Gramsci: Towards an Intellectual Biography

Peter Thomas’s Gramsci is the one we need in an era of economic and geopolitical crises that bears some resemblances to Gramsci’s own time. This Gramsci is no embarrassed culturalist, confused strategist, or incipient post-Marxist. Thomas’s Gramsci, developed from rigorous critical study of the Prison Notebooks and of the now extensive scholarly literature, is a deeply consequent thinker intent on reconstructing revolutionary Marxism in opposition to the most advanced bourgeois thought of his day. This is also a Gramsci for whom political economy is of central methodological and substantive significance.  Not content with scholarly interpretation, Thomas draws his Gramsci into dialogue with contemporary radical thought, illuminating both sides of the conversation. This is a book that will recast the understanding of Gramsci, especially but not exclusively in the Anglophone world — Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies, Social Theory and International Political Economy, King’s College, London

What superlatives can I use to describe this book? Terms like ‘outstanding,’ ‘superb’ and ‘tour-de-force’ suggest themselves, but even these do not fully capture the extraordinary power of The Gramscian Moment. Peter Thomas’s erudite, wide-ranging, and staggeringly sophisticated reading of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks completely overturns the dominant interpretations including those of Louis Althusser and Perry Anderson. Never again will we be able to read Gramsci solely through their lenses. Henceforth, Thomas’s magisterial exploration of Gramsci’s thought will become the critical point of reference for all serious work in the field. But Thomas does more than meticulous exegesis. He also insists on the actuality of Gramsci’s work, urging that we approach it in the spirit of “both continuation and transformation, fidelity and renewal.” He succeeds brilliantly on all counts — David McNally, Professor of Political Science, York University, Toronto

Peter Thomas’s The Gramscian Moment demonstrates the extent to which Gramsci’s thought represents a singular synthesis of virtually the entire tradition of Western political thought. The richness of his interpretative frameworks allows him both to integrate partial approaches and contributions and to throw new light on the central questions inherited by this tradition. This work succeeds in presenting Gramsci as a “living classic”, an author absolutely central to our understanding of modernity. Given its scope, richness and originality, I have no doubt that this work will represent a milestone in Gramscian scholarship and an important contribution to contemporary debates in political theory and philosophy — Stathis Kouvelakis, Author of Philosophy and Revolution and Co-editor of a Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism

The Gramscian Moment is the most thorough and illuminating philosophical study of Gramsci yet to appear in English. It sets a new standard for work not only on Gramsci himself but on the whole complex of issues associated with his legacy – on the mechanics and dimensions of hegemony, on the role and nature of the subject of political action, on the relation between theory and practice, and between civil society and the state. Thomas does more than any previous reader of Gramsci to demonstrate how his philosophy can fairly claim to meet Marx’s famous prescription – not merely “to interpret the world but to change it” — Peter Hallward, Professor of Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex University, London

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Il 9 novembre, 20 anni fa, cadeva il muro di Berlino. In quell’elemento simbolico è racchiusa la fine di un regime socialista in cui – nella migliore delle ipotesi – la giustizia sociale era contrapposta alla libertà. In questa incapacità di coniugare libertà e giustizia sta al fondo il fallimento del tentativo novecentesco di transizione al socialismo. Noi che siamo nipoti della lotta partigiana – quante lapidi ci sono nel nostro paese su cui sta scritto “morto per la libertà” – abbiamo salutato positivamente la caduta del muro. Il socialismo senza la libertà semplicemente non è socialismo: è un tentativo di andare oltre il capitalismo che ha imboccato la strada sbagliata ed è abortito. Così non poteva andare avanti e così non si andava da nessuna parte. Senza libertà nessun socialismo. Giusto quindi picconare il muro e bene che il muro sia caduto; bene che i dirigenti della DDR abbiano scelto di non sparare, preferendo perdere il potere piuttosto che cercare di mantenerlo con una strage.

Nel mondo la caduta del muro è stata salutata come la vittoria della libertà sulla barbarie, come la possibilità di un nuovo inizio per la storia del mondo basato sulla libertà e la cooperazione. Sappiamo che non è andata così. Gli stati Uniti hanno colto l’occasione della sconfitta del nemico storico per rilanciare la propria egemonia incontrastata su scala mondiale e il capitalismo ha preso da questo passaggio l’abbrivio per aprire una nuova fase della propria storia, quello della globalizzazione neoliberista. I cantori del capitalismo hanno colto l’occasione per dire che eravamo alla fine della storia. Marx aveva speso la vita e scritto migliaia di pagine per dire che il capitalismo non era un fenomeno naturale ma bensì un modo di produzione storicamente determinato e quindi superabile. La caduta del muro è stata usata per “rinaturalizzare” il capitalismo, per affermare su scala globale che viviamo nel migliore dei mondi possibili; per affermare che essendo il capitalismo naturale, ogni tentativo di superarlo diventa un atto “contro natura” e in quanto tale barbarico. Gli anni ’90 sono stati caratterizzati da questo unico grande messaggio, trasmesso a reti unificate dal complesso dei mass media e da tutte le forme di produzione culturale, cioè di costruzione dell’immaginario individuale e collettivo, a partire dall’industria cinematografica. La caduta del muro è stato l’evento simbolico che ha permesso di costruire una grande narrazione che ha rilegittimato completamente il capitalismo. Kennedy non è più il presidente dell’escalation della guerra di aggressione al Viet Nam o l’aggressore di Cuba con l’avventura della Baia dei Porci. Kennedy è celebrato come il paladino della libertà e il suo discorso berlinese ne è il suggello. Dietro il paravento della libertà, sono riapparse, anche in occidente, incredibili differenze sociali e livelli di sfruttamento del lavoro che pensavamo seppelliti per sempre dopo le lotte degli anni ‘70. Nella vulgata la libertà d’impresa è diventata il presupposto della libertà dei popoli. Questa completa rilegittimazione del capitalismo ha un sapore mortifero di falsa coscienza: Che Israele costruisca muri per imporre l’apartheid in Palestina e che gli Stati Uniti costruiscano muri per impedire l’immigrazione dal Messico non fa più problema. Ogni muro è diventato lecito per l’impero del bene. In Italia questo fenomeno ha assunto dimensioni maggiori che in altri paesi in virtù della proposta di Achille Occhetto – accolta dalla maggioranza del suo partito – di sciogliere il PCI in nome di questo nuovo inizio, appiattendo così tutta la storia del movimento comunista italiano sul fallimento del socialismo reale. La storia del nostro paese è stata integralmente riscritta, la lotta partigiana è stata denigrata nel suo valore simbolico di rinascita della nazione e così si è aperta la strada all’aggressione della Costituzione. La cancellazione della memoria del paese e la sua ricostruzione fatta dai vincitori ha sdoganato ideologie razziste e comportamenti xenofobi che pensavamo definitivamente finiti nella pattumiera della storia dopo la barbarie nazista.

Il fascismo, lungi dal presentarsi come una parentesi della storia patria, si evidenzia sempre più come una delle possibilità inscritte nel sovversivismo delle classi dirigenti di un paese che – come sottolineava Gramsci – non ha vissuto la riforma protestante e il cui risorgimento non è stato fenomeno di popolo ma di ristrette elite. La democrazia e la stessa costruzione di un etica pubblica in questo paese è concretamente il frutto delle lotte del movimento operaio, socialista e comunista. La loro disgregazione apre la strada a populismi di tutti i tipi, di destra come di sinistra.
In questo imbarbarimento del costume e dei rapporti sociali nel nostro paese e nel mondo vediamo confermata quotidianamente non solo la possibilità ma la necessità di battersi per superare il capitalismo.

In questa dialettica sta il nostro giudizio politico sulla caduta del muro di Berlino: è stato un fatto positivo e necessario, da festeggiare, ma non costituisce di per se un nuovo inizio per l’umanità. E’ stato anzi l’evento utilizzato per costruire un nuovo inizio e una nuova rilegittimazione dello sfruttamento dell’uomo sull’uomo e della guerra. Mi pare che questa sia anche la consapevolezza dei compagni e delle compagne della Linke: nessuno propone di tornare a prima ma nella Germania riunificata occorre organizzarsi e lottare – all’Est come all’Ovest – contro il capitalismo e la guerra, per costruire un socialismo democratico.
Fuori da questa comprensione dialettica della positività della caduta del muro e della chiara consapevolezza che questo non segna nessun nuovo inizio, non esiste nessuna possibilità di porsi oggi il tema della trasformazione sociale e del superamento del capitalismo. Fuori da questa comprensione dialettica possiamo solo diventare anticomunisti o far finta che i regimi dell’Est non abbiano fallito nel tentativo di costruzione del socialismo. Il pentitismo e la nostalgia indulgente sono i rischi che abbiamo dinnanzi a noi: nella loro apparente opposizione rappresentano in realtà la completa negazione della possibilità di lottare per il socialismo, per una società di liberi e di eguali.

Da questa comprensione dialettica della caduta del muro scaturisce la nostra scelta della rifondazione comunista.
Dopo il fallimento del tentativo di fuoriuscita dal capitalismo che ha dato luogo ai regimi dell’Est non basta definirsi comunisti: occorre porsi l’obiettivo teorico, politico ed etico della rifondazione del comunismo e dell’antropologia dei comunisti e delle comuniste. L’obiettivo cioè di superare il capitalismo coniugando libertà e giustizia. L’utilizzo di due parole – rifondazione comunista – anziché una per definirci non è un lusso o una complicazione: è il modo più corretto per esprimere oggi il nostro progetto politico, in cui sappiamo dove vogliamo andare e sappiamo cosa non dobbiamo rifare. Il comunismo dopo il novecento è uscito dalla fase dell’innocenza. Compito nostro è farlo diventare adulto ed è un compito per cui val la pena spendere la vita.

Paolo Ferrero, segretario nazionale di Rifondazione Comunista

8 novembre 2009

editoriale da Liberazione di domenica 8 e lunedì 9 novembre 2009

Hegemony is the process by which we learn to embrace enthusiastically a system of beliefs and practices that end up harming us and working to support the interests of others who have power over us. … Knowing of hegemony makes it easier to understand how racism and sexism flourish unchallenged and unacknowledged. It is not so much that people go around loudly declaring bigotry, patriarchy, or homophobia, though this certainly happens. Rather hegemony is lived out a thousand times a day in our intimate behaviours, glances, body postures, in the fleeting calculations we make on how to look at and speak to each other, and in the continuous micro-decisions that coalesce into a life.

To re-emphasize the basic point – hegemony saturates all aspects of life and is constantly learned and relearned throughout life. If anything can be described as lifelong learning, it is this. … Learning to think critically about power and control and learning how to recognize one’s class position and true political interests are major adult learning projects for Gramsci.

Stephen Brookfield  – The Power of Critical Theory

As I’ve said recently I quite agree with Duncan that “if intellectuals want to be politically useful in some way, as intellectuals, some of the more useful things they can do are 1) provide an adequate analysis of current social, economic and political conditions; 2) start generating concrete proposals for social, political and economic alternatives.” If we take these to be worthy goals, the blog medium is promising for both.

It should be noted that marxists have historically been reluctant to do 2), going back to the young Marx’s scathing and perhaps counterproductive dismissals of the ‘utopian socialists’ with their neat little plans for ideal worlds. In this sense although the communist telos remains definitive in marxism and creates some distinctive categorical limitations, marxism and ANT have been consonant in a theory of practice for which networks and structures must be actively assembled rather than posited as givens.

It is possible to extract just this sort of theory of practice from Gramsci’s journalism and prison notes; he does some of that work himself, although presumably his plan to turn the Notebooks into a finished text for the ages included more such. But the thing to remember is that Gramsci’s practice was praxis (it was theorized), so extracting the theory from it and setting it aside as a thing in itself is not (yet) gramscian praxis. Gramsci’s theory of practice emerges from and depends upon its actual deployments, in the same sense that Bourdieu resisted extractions of his theory from his concrete studies. There’s a certain amount of making it up as we go inherent in ANT/Gramscian praxis; as the Notebooks show, everything is in play, from popular literature to philosophy and from party politics to the organization of work.

Ultimately the point I want to get at with all this ANT/Gramsci stuff, and it may not be all that new or interesting, is that neither ANT nor Gramsci authorize a practice oriented toward killing the werewolf with the silver bullet. There’s no single, focused problem, nor is there a single, focused solution. Of course this does not mean that ‘it’s all good’ as we go about the business of making the world a more pleasant place, but it does suggest that a flexible, recursive distribution of analysis and action is more likely to move us along, because it’s the only thing that ever does.

Because of the way the blog medium arose out of the interactive affordances of the internet, each blog, post and comment creates a node in a possible network of relations and alliances. Or they can just sit there doing nothing but taking up space.

Whether networks actually come of blogs depends to some degree on their content, and to a large degree on the work of authors and readers to create, maintain, intensify and extend links to other nodes. One of the first things I figured out is if I didn’t want to be just another odd online hermit muttering alone in my own cave, I’d have to go out and drum up business by finding other blogs with dimensions of affinity and making comments suggesting connections. (This can be a pleasure in its own right, of course.) Sometimes folks follow the trail of breadcrumbs and sometimes they don’t, sometimes they like what they find at the end and sometimes not. Over time, though, there tends to be an accumulation of readership and participation.

To shift metaphor, a blog is a bit like a gravitic mass. If it just sits in one place its pull is limited to the stuff that happens to wander by from the depths of outer space. But if it gets on a trajectory and visits other star systems it has a better chance of encountering capturable bodies, ranging from close orbiters to eccentric comet flybys; or even to get caught itself in a multi-gravitic system, like a group blog or a stable multiblog network. So anyway, dynamic motion and a certain weight of presence are important; connections don’t just happen because we’re nice people and our moms like us.

(For some reason Moby seems to think being made of stars helps ya get hot babes.) Btw, from the standpoint of this analysis the current series of posts has been a fail, attracting very little traffic or commentary [thanks to you who did!] and no links. So far Dead Voles has had its biggest days with posts that can be interpreted as gossip. This too is community-building, albeit negatively. Rather than moaning about this the next step might be to reflect on what it is about that communicative mode that attracts attention and participation so well, then find a way to inflect the dynamic for good purposes.

As I’ve already mentioned, the blog medium is not well-suited to enforcing orthodoxy, but it can work well to assemble alliances of affinity. It’s a good way to find and hook up with people who share interests and agendas. This is both a strength and a weakness. Communities’ tendency to create and maintain narrow, exclusionary biases can just be amplified and propagated. But if the community affinities remain open to negotiation and revision there’s an opportunity for the whole to become emergently more than the sum of the parts. I’m afraid I’m not saying much more than the creation myth of Web 2.0 here….

I mentioned in pt. 3 that Gramsci’s goal of a homogeneous collective revolutionary consciousness might itself be what he called an ‘Enlightenment’ error. And in pt. 4 I poked some fun at the distinctive wigglings of Left intellectuals hoist on this petard. The problem is a fundamentally doomed and therefore frustrated command-and-control model of political action. With Actor Network Theory we get closer to something that can illuminate politics’ unintended consequences by showing how multiple actors in various modes at various scales bump and ooze their way into particular emergent configurations and trajectories.

Emergence is not linear. What you can hope for in non-linear dynamics is outcomes (themselves moments in longer-term emergent processes) somewhere within a range of possibility. Momentum builds, tipping points are reached, little causes produce big effects. In the more ‘ethnographic’ notes in the Notebooks Gramsci shows this happening for capitalism and begins to theorize it for communism. But because in the more synthetic notes he premises capitalism and communism as the procrustean beginning and ending points, there’s only so far he can get with it before defaulting to stretching and cutting expedients. This is a cautionary tale for ANT/Gramscian blogging praxis. The trick would be to keep your options open and your feet moving, that is, to build links across a range of sites and to nudge it all toward tendential assemblages with lots of little angular pushes. Sort of like herding cats.

In a post at Crooked Timber on the history of the terms ‘politically correct’ and ‘liberal fascism’ John Quiggin writes

At least since the 1970s, the description “politically correct” or, in Australia, “ideologically sound”, had been used within the left to mock those who were excessively concerned with doctrinal and linguistic orthodoxy. The story of how “political correctness” turned from an inside joke to a Marxist-inspired assault on All We Hold Dear is reasonably well known. Bernstein traces its emergence as a pejorative to a conference by the Western Humanities Conference held, appropriately enough, in Berkeley.

Ha! I used to live just south of Berkeley, cosmic epicenter of well-intentioned impotent righteousness. In the comments John Emerson muses

The phrase I remember, used seriously within some Marxist groups, was “correct position”. It was used seriously by people who thought that solving the dialectical questions came first, and and that before these were solved, any political activity was opportunistic and doomed. It was used jokingly within this same groups by those of a more activist sort. One guy told me how, after a succession of Trotskyist splits, his group had ended up being of about 50 people in one room—but they had the correct position. And then he laughed uproariously.

I think that a lot of the ideologues of that time did not actually believe it, but just were trying to make a stand against the amazing sloppiness of the free-lance left.

Later the term “politically correct” came to be used internally to label the minute rules of cultural politics within the left. At the beginning the term was sometimes used by old-school macho leftists to ridicule the newer feminists and gay liberationists. But the personal cultural politics really did get extreme.

Scylla – sectarianism. Charybdis – sloppiness. With a touch of genius – both.

Can actor networks fix this? Well, given commitments to sectarianism or sloppiness, no. But otherwise a flexible orientation to alliances may offer both an analytical grasp on the conditions, configurations, operations, strengths and weaknesses of whatever situation one might want to change; and an activist grasp on actors likely to share and/or obstruct the agenda.

Comments are welcome. Does the finger look “just photoshopped enough”?

Antonio Gramsci:

A short excerpt from a post from my blog The Excerpt Mill:

In Bourdieu’s early work with Jean-Claude Passeron, we find the term “the cultural arbitrary” used in a way which seems quite similar to Gramsci’s concept of normative grammar: “In any given social formation the cultural arbitrary which the power relations between the groups or classes making up that social formation put into the dominant position within the system of cultural arbitraries is the one which most fully, though always indirectly, expresses the objective interests (material and symbolic) of the dominant groups or classes.” In developing this concept, Bourdieu draws upon William Labov’s early work which showed that “members of a speech community can share allegiance to the same standard, despite differences in the (nonstandard) varieties they themselves speak.”

Gramsci’s historical method serves to highlight the cross-class alliances that stabilize in any given “historical bloc”-a phrase that refers to the “complex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of the superstructures” and corresponding “relations of production.” The hegemonic ideology of any given bloc does not simply reflect the interests of only the ruling elite, but also those of the other classes with whom they have entered into alliances and even the very process by which that alliance took shape.  While Bourdieu may tacitly acknowledge the importance of such processes, his theory of the “cultural arbitrary” retains its structuralist roots.

Antonio Gramsci

P. Kerim Friedman reviews Peter Ives‘ book Gramsci’s Politics of Language and the connections between Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) and Antonio Gramsci:

In Bourdieu’s early work with Jean-Claude Passeron, we find the term “the cultural arbitrary” used in a way which seems quite similar to Gramsci’s concept of normative grammar: “In any given social formation the cultural arbitrary which the power relations between the groups or classes making up that social formation put into the dominant position within the system of cultural arbitraries is the one which most fully, though always indirectly, expresses the objective interests (material and symbolic) of the dominant groups or classes.” In developing this concept, Bourdieu draws upon William Labov’s early work which showed that “members of a speech community can share allegiance to the same standard, despite differences in the (nonstandard) varieties they themselves speak.” Bourdieu’s work with Passeron serves to highlight how the educational system institutionalizes these arbitrary standards; thus naturalizing the success of the elite who are socialized into these norms before they ever set foot in school. Unlike normative grammar, however, the phrase “cultural arbitraries” reveals a lingering Saussurian structuralism. The specific content of the dominant cultural or linguistic form is less important for Bourdieu’s theory than the mere existence of an arbitrary standard which is recognized as legitimate even by those unable to perform it.

…

Gramsci’s historical method serves to highlight the cross-class alliances that stabilize in any given “historical bloc”-a phrase that refers to the “complex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of the superstructures” and corresponding “relations of production.” The hegemonic ideology of any given bloc does not simply reflect the interests of only the ruling elite, but also those of the other classes with whom they have entered into alliances and even the very process by which that alliance took shape. For instance, even though America’s financial elite share a generally secular libertarian ideology, the conservative movement was able to succeed by combining elite interests with those of evangelical southern white Christians. This has its roots in post-Civil War Reconstruction and in the “Southern strategy” adopted by Nixon’s Republican party in the wake of the civil rights movement. Choices regarding hegemonic cultural forms are not arbitrary nor do they simply reflect the cultural forms of the elite. They are the product of the “complex, contradictory and discordant ensemble” of a given historical bloc. While Bourdieu may tacitly acknowledge the importance of such processes, his theory of the “cultural arbitrary” retains its structuralist roots. (Friedman, 361-363)

Source

Friedman, P. Kerim.  “Ethical Hegemony.”  Rethinking Marxism 21, no. 3 (July 2009): 355-365.

I need something or two short, pithy and on-point to frame my talk, perhaps even to pass out to participants. To both validate and complicate the idea that the blog medium can participate in the assembly of networks of Gramscian praxis, consider this from the Prison Notebooks, Q 24 (also in Selections from Cultural Writings):

The unitary … elaboration of a homogeneous collective consciousness demands a wide range of conditions and initiatives. … A very common error is that of thinking that every social stratum elaborates its consciousness and its culture in the same way, with the same methods, namely the methods of the professional intellectuals. … It is childish to think that a ‘clear concept’, suitably circulated, is inserted in various consciousnesses with the same ‘organizing’ effects of diffused clarity: this is an ‘enlightenment’ error. … When a ray of light passes through different prisms it is refracted differently: if you want the same refraction, you need to make a whole series of rectifications of each prism.

It may be that the goal of a homogeneous collective consciousness is itself an ‘enlightenment’ error; in view of the revolutionary terrors of the last century, a dangerous one. The balancer here is Gramsci’s understanding of the diversity of consciousness, culture and methods that must be honored with “a wide range of conditions and initiatives” rather than bulldozed with domineering dogmatic intellectualism. This is the preparatory work of the ‘war of position’ for hearts and minds among the ‘forts and pillboxes of civil society’ that must precede the more classically revolutionary ‘war of maneuver’.

Thinking then in terms of war of position, Gramsci encourages us away from a singular magic bullet approach and toward a plural strategy of initiatives and methods responsive to diverse conditions. Oppositional consciousness is not an existing thing but, as John Law says in explaining ANT, the contingent product of network-ordering relationships among objects, “better seen as a verb — a somewhat uncertain process of overcoming resistance — rather than as the fait accompli of a noun.”

There are ways in which the blog medium, which in itself encompasses “a wide range of conditions and initiatives,” is well-suited to the work of resistance-overcoming network construction, if not the construction of homogeneous collective consciousness. And there are ways it’s not. But that’s for a following post. Any thoughts?

This is the actual title and proposal as submitted to RM.

ANT and Blogging as Gramscian Praxis

Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks were not written for public consumption. Nevertheless, they often read like blog posts, little condensed nuggets of information and analysis linking to a wide range of observations, readings and reflections. As praxis, they point to Gramsci’s understanding of the operations of hegemony across an immense and crosslinked field of structures and relations and the need patiently to respond in kind. Nevertheless, in their current form the notes are not easily ‘activated’ as praxis because their targeting is distorted by their removal from context.

In this paper I propose to participate in the growing conversation between Marxism and Actor Network Theory by thinking through what Latour’s concepts of alliance and network might offer to an understanding of how to activate Gramscian noting as praxis through the blog medium.

Las posiciones del movimiento del libre cambio se basan sobre un error teórico cuyo origen práctico no es difícil de identificar, pues reside en la distinción entre sociedad política y sociedad civil, que de distinción metódica es transformada en distinción orgánica y presentida como tal. Se afirma así que la actividad económica es propia de la sociedad civil y que el Estado no debe intervenir en su reglamentación. Pero como en la realidad efectiva, sociedad civil y Estado se identifican, es necesario convenir que el liberalismo es también una “reglamentación” de carácter estatal, introducida y mantenida por vía legislativa y coercitiva. Es un acto de voluntad consciente de los propios fines y no la expresión espontánea, automática, del hecho económico. El liberalismo, por lo tanto es un programa político destinado a cambiar, en la medida en que triunfa, el personal dirigente de un Estado y el programa económico del mismo Estado, o sea a cambiar la distribución de la renta nacional.

Notas sobre Maquiavelo, sobre política y el estado moderno

No