Harutiun Kassakhian <hk1@axe.humboldt.edu> asks:
> Can we speak of a depoliticized anti-systemic movement?
I've been saying, for years, with no prospect of any satisfaction other
than being proved right In The Last Days or more Engelsianly, "In the
final analysis," rather fatuously, right there, positing that anyone else
would notice, that the *next*, not the *previous*, "cycle" of "antisystemic
movements" (the terms in quotes have stuck, without serious theoretical
justification, and no more than vaguely descriptive as they are, so I'll
put up with them here), will be considerably less amenable to characterization
as Leftist or Political than were those previous ones, themselves requiring
a protracted struggle of a generational sort within academia, sociology in
particular and above (below) all, to attain dignification qua social
dovements. The condition of sociological theory of social movements was so
deplorable because it had fixated on the Cold-War-concrete-embedded
totalitarian party-state menace as its Pole Star (Blau, Heberle); its
great days of occupational heroism preseved the 1930s ambience in amber;
and between the two, partly reinforcing and partly antithetical as these
Heritages or Traditions, 1930s-derived, were, the Golden Oldie Age (a
variant on Hobsbawm's Golden Age; see The Age of Excess, 1995) of the
1950s, recalled today as the type case of a socially-quiescent historical
period (howbeit recent research is turning it into, you guessed it, a
Transitional Period), gave no hint that social upheavals to come should
differ from those of the 1930s and earlier. [Note: profuse apologies for
the preceding sentence which, as an ethnic sociologist from birth, I began
under the misapprehension that it was simply writable; whereupon, in the
Night of the Reifications, complicative contributory causal-correlative
connections Suggested Themselves.]
Cursory historical-sociological skimming will reveal that the regnant
paradigm [<choke> [That's it. Switch to English.], better, *figment*, used
in sociologists' vulgar notions of social movements, date from the period
1829-1834, for the USA(1829), France(1831), and Britain(1833-4), in that
order. In all three countries, later generalized to soidisant Western
Civilization (given space I may explain why points should be taken off
for juxtaposing those words by a student), bourgeois parliamentarism
was made to mediate the class struggle through political parties, as the
bourgeoisie as class increasingly exhibited its historically unique
bifurcation into entrepreneurial and politico-military specialists. In
periods of social quiescence, bourgeois stifling suffocation of vestigial
consciousness of class interests under the pall of fragmented "issues,"
as fought over in frequent elections, complicated by ethnic or subethnic
cleavages and the quirky outcroppings of idiosycrasy even in the most
conformist times and places, The Man Who, was matched by the entrpreneurs'
wallowing in their own vulgarity to overtly express their hegemony. Some
of you harbor a theoretical error, occasionally articulated in carping over
CEO remuneration. It's like this.
There is no formal neoclassical-economic reason why wasteful consumption
by the rich should be helpful to capitalist economic growth. It is not. It
is harmful; it is waste. Rich people's significance is exclusively cultural.
It must be rammed home, internalized, takenforgranted, that *mere
moneygrubbers are the highest form of life* (in Medieval times, believed
indicative of the imminence of the antichrist). The incentive to get rich,
itself, is contingent upon the visible uncontested adoration-prone social
licentiousness, "doing-whatever-i-damn-please," of the filthy rich. It's
demonstrable that (howbeit separable only notionally from structural factors)
when the impulse to become filthyrich, Else its popularly accorded
desirability, Else the *normative alternatives* in high-prestige to filthy-
richness such as perhaps the Full Professorship coupled with fame of stellar
magnitude (consult Lingua Franca, ascertain which of you are real Stars),
Else some sudden appeal to either the politico-military wing of the class or
to some real or socially constructed Opposition (eg, that which once was
called Free, and at the time was cheap, becomes bit by bit Alternative,
charges exorbitantly, and conveys snob appeal to the mere affluent (howbeit
still ignored by filthyrich proper). Reagan triumphed over just such a threat.
When social movements appeared, they were, during the period c. 1830
to c. 1950, notable for a trend, carrying over from the previous to the
present version to the next one, to increasing formal-organizational
cohesion. Also, as on a continuing basis, the proletariat was identified
as the "dangerous classes," a reputation it continued to justify by most
predictably Making the Trouble, formal, overt, and doctrinal formulations
of the rationale for class-consciousness, and in several advanced capitalist
countries the theory, additionally, of the historic mission of the proletariat
and its identification with Human Reason, became normative. Formal-organizati-
onal cohesion bridged the functional division the capitalist class' internal
bifurcation had previously imposed on the workers themselves. *Secular-
rationalist* ideologies dominated discourse so long as the bourgeois order
was neither objectively nor delusionally under threat; these included the
liberalism of the bourgeoisie itself. The political repertory of conservatism
copied the techniques of the proletarian left with more money and relatively
unobtrusive hierarchical direction: In relative bossiness, as between union
bosses and boss bosses, there is no contest. Political bosses, hereditary
autocrats in Chicago, have attained the magical powers which summon imaginary
Community Groups out of the ground to applaud the televised destruction of
pay phones in minority neighbourhoods, such that the applauders themselves
cannot make calls after dark, so much for the First Amendment. That's, however,
only the culmination of unobvious hierarchical coercion, an all-important
*image* or *appearance* denied the masses each of whom is powerless singly.
I have mentioned trends which, as trends will (others do not), ceased.
Anyone recall something we once called "secularization," likewise supposedly
endureth forever? No more, ask your local Muslim or, as of roughly the same
period in the USA, Christian. But the background of Christian desecularization
is the 1960s. The following occurred in the 1960s, and I cannot explain here.
(a) Subcultural cohesion superseded formal-organizational cohesion.
members of some given social category are eligible and which is at the
inception of insurgency, imparted in group process, superseded secular-
rationalist ones. Cf "identity politics," an unfortunately merely
descriptive usage.
(c) Social-movement-agent roles were adopted by social-category advocates
on every possible basis except class.
(d) Social-movement upheavals were marked by a dialectic whereby an
incessant pressure was placed upon the liberatory culture to innovate faster
than it was being commercialized and mass-marketed; subsequently, the culture
almost wholly slipped into niche-market status within the capitalist culture
industry.
(e) The test of authenticity having become Direct Experience, the contrary
proposition, that Direct Experience made something authentic, was manipulated
by the Experience-fabricators of the Right; this however only after the
struggle subsided.
*** Now for NEXT TIME ***
Repetition of any of the previous social-movement types, each once
objectively rational in its appropriate historical epoch, ie, the religious,
the secular-rationalist/class-organizational, the subjectivist/subcultural,
would be masochistic. The most creative aspects of the 1960s lay precisely
in their bypassing the countertechniques applied by conservative bureaucracies
in repression directed against social-movement bureaucracies; "solidarity
forever/for the union makes us strong." Until your negotiators see the inside
of that boardroom. Arrests and surveillances of activists, leaders, "outside
agitators," and Leninsts to whom was attributed Vanguard magic by themselves,
untransformed Movement participants, and police-bureaucrats alike, were decoys
for the Movement proper, however unwittingly. It is noteworthy that repeated
calls for reversions to the 1930s model by SDS would-be authority-figures were
given guilt-ridden Yeas at the time, and applause after, but got *behavioural
nays* in Movement culture and life: As everyone agreed that more bureaucratic
structure was vitally necessary, its enfeeblement to utter collapse, as SDS
did in 1968, developed apace. Overt appearances of dissidents superseded
membership cards; refusal of Drugs identified one of Them. Most important
of all, whether the Movement "accomplished" anything or not, whether any
vestige of its physical remains survived, became tangential. ("What do you
hope to *accomplish* by doing this?")
Where can you go from that?
The next social upheaval will, it is safe to say, have as social-movement
agents people of origins and social-category placement not susceptible to
prediction at this time. They will be unconscious of or will vehemently deny
their involvement in "politics," which they will use as a term of abuse,
perhaps in inciting fistfights. (Not sexist, as I foresee the popularity
of suchlike brawls among women, even elegant ladies of NOW. ANYTHING IS
POSSIBLE; AND GUESSWORK, IF ANYWHERE CLOSE TO WHAT HAPPENS, WILL EXIBIT
IMPOVERISHED IMAGINATION.)
I believe it certain that none of the participants will have any intention
of having the least thing to do with any Left, and will punch out, I suggest,
those who hopefully tell them so. At best, the virtuous, ie, deserving of
moral support from well-wishers Up In Cyberspace, where the movement partici-
pants, as good citizens of the USA, will spend a great deal of time wandering
around in themselves, and quite as much lost as we are, will be those who
hit but do not shoot. It's unlikely that the same brawlers will confront
consistently solidary brawlers on the other side.
That is, the Bloods and Crips are as obsolete as all other allegiances.
The social-movement activists will be assailers of bureaucracies; they
will refuse to have any speak in their name, represent them, or even know
where they are to be found. A movement activist will be identifiable by
having assaulted a bureacratic agency or part thereof, solitarily or in
mob formation. It doesn't matter which bureaucracy that was. Free-enterprise
terrorism is highly likely, to the extent that psychic preparedness for
panic-inducing acts is widespread among millions at any given time, yet
those who actually commit the acts never knew beforehand that they would,
as it happened they actually did, do it when they did do it.
Less dramatic forms of chaotic behaviour may take the form of, say,
inexplicable, to the person called upon in principle to explain, reluctance
to remove his or her body from the domicile to the place of employment by
the appointed time, as required. Or, as we colloquially say, "function."
(Something which did not exist as socially normative prior to c. 1800, in
England; see Landes, Revolution in Time, 1980.) "Function," of course, is
a mixed metaphor from medicine and engineering with the connotation, "moving
part in somebody else's machine."
Let's face it, it will be big, it will be disgusting, and I as well as
the lot of you, pretty much, will denounce it as The End Of Civilization,
equated with The End Of The World. You may recall, the same denumciations
were made by genteel academics of the 1960s Movements. And this time, I
hope, provided I'm not required to watch it or get caught outside during
it, that the charge is accurate this time. By Civilization, we euphemize
the class relation such that some do the work; others, no kin of theirs,
do the Civilization. For the latter, their inability to delegate to a flunkey
the looking-on whilst the lowly scum did the work, while they themselves hung
out with Socrates at the drunk-orgy (*sym-posion*) where higher Thingies of
the Mind got wrung out, was indeed The End of the World.
High time this racket ended, already.
Don't worry; I foresee that all those not actually Created Equal will be
readily able to get the hang of the thing in an accessible-to-all twelve-step
program.
Daniel A. Foss
<having more questions than when he started>