I am not a sociologist and have not done my homework on the theory and
definitions underlying your discussions, so I could easily be off base
in what I have to say here.
Nevertheless there is perhaps something worthwhile in my comments,
despite their naivety.
Reducing things to absolutes and voiding them of their complexity is
always good for argument and can create reams of it, but is not
necessarily the best way to truth. Saying that dissent is
anit-systematic only when it 1) seeks an absolute flushing of the
"host" system & 2) self-immolates, martyrizes itself, in the effort/
OR ,without doing so, be defined as not being an anti-system (not being
"pure"), strikes me as seriously flawed. Further injesting today's
common economic paradigm sub-language, Mr Wagar goes on to reduce
dissent to a bid for market share which, one gets the inference, reduces
opinon and beleif to functions of greed. Well, economics may indeed be
an aspect of the underlying dynamics of social movements but is
certainly far from their total definition. I would suggest that
anti-systematic movements be allowed to include as much "realistic"
thinking as any other. The acheivement of some form of recognition by
anit-systematic movements usually a function of wrenching some domain of
freedom , not just market share, may be acheived within a host system
but does not equate with the packing up of intention and belief. Nor
is it an end to the effects such movements will have within the host
system. In fact, as opposed to a Waterloo (to parady Mr Wagar's
conflict model), their very existence within the system may work as a
slow poison, or a source of revolutionary change over a long time frame.
That most of the members of these movements have no fundamental
quarrel with the system as such" may even be absolutely true of many of
the individuals in these movements, after all they're only humans not a
string of absolutist or anti-systematic theory, but the ends sought by
their movements are often such that their realization cannot fit into
the capatilist world system without altering it so fundamentally that it
needs another name (and indeed it could well change things more than the
dissenters bargained for).
To sum up, I think there is a flaw in the essay because, besides
being an attempt at thinking about systems, it is also a vehicle of
cynical commentary. This is acheived by applying an extreme
theoretical model to ordinary lives, not in an attempt at definition and
understanding, but as a measure of value and even perhaps existential
validity, ie, anything short of an anti-system is a sell out. I
suspect there is a confusion and/or misapplication of
critical/theoretical contexts in Mr Wagar's essay.
Victor Woronov