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Mormon Bigamists and Other Organic Intellectuals

Wow, a whole blog on post-hegemony.  Do follow the link in Jon’s first comment to my last post—or the link I’ve just provided.  He provides a great critique of cultural studies and the notion of hegemony.  Here’s just one line to give you the flavor:  “Populism enables a series of substitutions that fetishize culture at the expense of the institutional, and establish transcendence and sovereignty in place of immanent process and micropolitical struggles.”

I come neither to praise cultural studies nor to bury it, and am mostly sorry for the red herring of the Hall quote.  Because the issue I am groping toward has nothing to do with populism, which (as the commentators have rightly pointed out) has no set content.  I am not playing the time-honored and now discredited game of the leftist intellectual looking desperately for some hint of his own views in the “people.” The Mark Hewitt example (and I don’t know the guy, who would be more than bemused to see the thoughts that I have spun off from that one encounter with him) is in the interest of form, not content.  And the Hall quote was to give me the concept/fantasy of the “organic,” not to derive some effective—and righteous—political power from the “grassroots.”

Let me try to explain.  (I’m having trouble here because I’m groping toward something I can find satisfying, as both an explanation of the current state of politics and as an avenue to pursue in the search for effective interventions.) The fantasy of the organic in my case is not about populism, it’s about (to use Yeats’s phrase) “unity of being.” Hewitt’s opinions (as I am glossing them) grew out of his experiences; that’s the organic part (note the metaphor of “growing” in the first half of the sentence.) But—and this is a big but—those opinions don’t have much of an outlet in practice.  Recognizing that the economic world, as currently organized, allows him to be a potter and denies others that work does not change what he does—or the markets to which he sells.  The opinions don’t go anywhere.  Similarly, I don’t feel like my opinions go much of anywhere—beyond their expression in print and in the blogosphere.  The “form” of what I do—teach my classes, write letters of recommendation, sit on various committees, try to get some writing done, etc.—would be no different if I had Glenn Reynold’s opinions.  I say my piece and write the occasional check to Amnesty International, the Human Rights Campaign, and the other usual suspects.  So the fantasy is of a life in which one’s daily practices are the expression of, the enactment of, one’s politics. Am I being “micropolitical” in the various daily choices I make about how to treat my students, negotiate my institution, and do my writing?  Maybe.  But it doesn’t seem to add up to much.  And I can’t help feeling that the “difference” between me and the conservative professor down the hall (yes, we have one or two of them at UNC) in terms of daily practices is so slight that “micro” may be overstating the case.  That’s why organic farming and various local cooperatives came to mind when I first tried to write about this in October.  There’s a marked stepping out from the daily round.

That’s why I am interested in the “form” politics can currently take.  On the one hand, there is the “traditional” political arena of 1) taking over the party or 2) influencing the sitting government.  On the other hand, there is something that looks like a “counter-cultural” carving out of spaces and places to live differently. (And, yes, Mormon bigamists are as good examples of this as organic farmers.) Does this binary exhaust the possibilities?  Let’s hope not.  Does an attention to “immanent process and micropolitical struggles” point to another way to think—and to practice—politics?  Perhaps.  But I’m skeptical because it sounds so close to Edmund Burke or to Hegel to me.  There are complex processes that are beyond any purposive control; people struggle within the whole and their struggles do produce the future, but not in any way that they can consciously direct.  The flows sweep us along; we can’t expect to channel the flows, but are instead caught up in our own very partial, very incomplete understanding of what it is we are doing.  The cunning (current) of history (not reason, which is why it’s more like Burke than Hegel) is trans-human.  Or: play the immanence card hard enough and you end up, paradoxically, with a new transcendence unless you just accept pure randomness.  And I don’t see how you can get a politics out of pure randomness.

But enough theory.  My last post was, in fact, being driven by a much more mundane concern about how politics is now practiced in this country.  Let’s start with “influencing the government.” Who is doing that influencing? Paid professionals called lobbyists.  It matters not a whit whether they “believe” or even care about the causes they espouse.  Like good lawyers, their personal opinions are neither here nor there.  Being good at what they do, or the thrill of the game of getting as much as you can from a piece of legislation, would be just as acceptable, and productive, motives for their activities as political conviction. Organic political convictions of the sort I have been imagining, deeply felt and central to one’s identity, haven’t got a prayer against organized, well-funded, professional lobbying.  To even get a hearing requires time and money that you can’t get unless you jettison the way of life from which your convictions spring; politics is now a full-time job severed from any roots in ordinary life.  (There’s my romanticism; it’s not about populism; it’s about organicism.)

Here’s another practical worry along the same lines.  I think the large-scale demonstration has run its course.  The impact of the large civil-rights’ marches and the anti-war protests was significant.  They provided a way to by-pass parties and to address the sitting government directly.  (They also were effective ways to address the nation as a whole, to speak to the demos.) But the rhetoric of the mass demonstration no longer functions that way.  Politicians have become adept at paying them lip service as proof of the freedom to dissent in America and going on their merry way. The demos has tuned out, having grown used to the idea that there will be those who disagree noisily to various policies or actions.  I’d be interested in hearing your ideas about why the rhetorical and political effect of demonstrations has been lost, and on what alternatives there might be.  But my sense is that, for the current moment, the ability of citizens to address their government is just about zero.  Letters to one’s congress-person?  Letters to the editor?  A blog?  The Bush campaign’s decision to address itself only to vetted crowds of supporters perfectly captures how completely the channels of communication have been closed.  Only lobbyists and campaign donors need apply.

So that pushes those who wish to have some impact on the direction the nation is taking to the capture of a major party.  There, it would seem, one might actually gain some leverage.  That is certainly what various elements of the right—including, but not only, the Christian right—set out to accomplish. Their thought seems to have been: “we need to become the government ourselves, and the only way to do that is run for office (from school boards on up) and the only way to win when you run for office is to be the candidate of a major party.” If you read the leftist blogs, there is little effort put into influencing the sitting government.  It is mostly about paving the way for a change to Democratic rule—and worrying/strategizing about how to get the Democrats to do what the particular blogger wants once it does regain power (from my lips to God’s ear.)

The history of the Republican Party over the past 30 years is interesting in this regard.  The party elites have had to bend to the Christian pressure, but they have not broken.  They have, as Tom Frank tells us, used the Christian right for their own ends more than that religious right has managed to change the party—or its policies once in power.  But that hardly means the religious right has not had any successes, and it hardly means that their choice of tactics was misguided.  What other choice did they have? 

That’s the question.  What other choices are there for doing politics, since these two macro-ways present all kinds of difficulties, not least among them the time and money required to pursue them, so that one, almost necessarily, becomes a professional politician once embarking down either road, and thus loses any “organic” connection to the life (the way of life, the beliefs and practices) for which one wages the struggle in the first place.  That’s where I will try to go in the next post. 

Posted by on 11/18 at 01:14 PM

  1. This is probably obvious—and certainly theoretically unexciting—but what about local politics, John? 

    Even as a single individual, one can have an enormous impact on one’s city or county government, or one’s school board.  And if one gets a group of citizens together, that power increases exponentially.  A lot of important decisions are made at the local level, especially (but not limited to) decisions regarding our built environment and public education.

    What’s more, in most localities one does not even have to belong to, or work within, one of the two major parties to have a real political impact (heck I even get a lot done as a Green in Norman, Oklahoma).

    I don’t want to oversell local political activism. All politics is not local, and decisions made at the state, federal, and international levels profoundly limit what one can do locally.  I certainly don’t restrict my activism to the local level.  On the other hand, I’m always struck by how few of my fellow politically active academics involve themselves at all in local issues.

    Posted by  on  11/18  at  03:23 PM

  2. Thanks Ben, my first thoughts exactly!  John writes:
    “Organic political convictions of the sort I have been imagining, deeply felt and central to one’s identity, haven’t got a prayer against organized, well-funded, professional lobbying.”

    I don’t think this is valid, mostly from my own experience in politics and activism across the spectrum.  In my “work” i advocate first for “Thinking locally, Acting globally!” We need to expand our horizons of self-interest in our simplest and most basic activities.  The deception implied in thinking globally while acting locally is that the actions are local with no actual consequence on larger scales.  That is simply no longer true in this world.  Thus it is increasingly important to have these very discussions (as this multi-day forum here) to inform and engage in clarifying issues, politics, and action. 

    Local political engagement is very successful, even against professional lobbyists and the inherent corruption of the economic constructs of local and regional governments (developers, redevelopment monies-grants-tax breaks-tax incentives, real estate and financial speculation, etc.).  And “it” (local political activism) can be positively influenced by local academics who choose to become engaged, particularly ones from the physical & natural sciences, the social sciences, and yes, even the humanities’ own cultural studies.  There are so many LOCAL opportunities that go untaken because of the reticence of academics to get involved--to name but a few: water/air quality research, toxic and hazardous material pollution/spills, general overall population health analysis disaggregated to identify sub-group issues, drug laws versus drug treatment versus drug education reforms, etc.

    There’s a story that goes with this but this isn’t the place for it.  Suffice it to say, that as someone who has used and/or written and received grants (at all funding source levels) to facilitate direct action to solve “problems” (okay, mostly in education), i have always made the work (from parks and recreation, to indian health issues, to hazardous waste management, {and education}wink inclusive of local and regional academic participation and engagement.

    Posted by  on  11/18  at  04:49 PM

  3. I’m not really sure if the romantic fantasy about “unity of being” is really much better than the fantasy about populism.  Presenting this from my point of view again, try the interview with Diane Wilson here. She starts out by saying “I take a great deal of pride in saying I’m a grassroots activist. It’s like from the land and the sea and the people that I live among; it’s an organic thing, because it’s not only your livelihood, it’s your home, it’s your community.” Symbolically, though, she won her first victory when she sank her shrimp boat.  She’s now, as far as I know, pretty much full-time activist.  Should she really go back to shrimping just to keep her “organic” identity intact, and not “jettison the way of life from which [her] convictions spring”?  Shrimping must be pretty boring.

    I can see why you would like your organic opinions to be expressed without you having to jettison your job—you have a good job.  But why should this be a general goal?  It’s not clear that the situation would be better if more people gaining the ability to express their organic politics.

    Posted by  on  11/18  at  07:47 PM

  4. John, thanks for the further explication.  I think that again I’m with Rich, though, on the organic--or at least the organic as phrased here, the outgrowth of the individual, if embedded, life.

    But more, anon.

    Posted by Jon  on  11/19  at  08:53 AM

  5. It is in the nature of life that some people have convictions that they cannot pursue more than by the occasional rant (verbal or written) and check to the appropriate NGO.  The expression of a conviction, (if you don’t live contrary to your convictions), is effective because it may light up the mind of comeone who was groping for that conviction, but didn’t know it.  The someone may then go off and become a lifetime activist, assisting your cause along.  Your spark assisted the fire.

    Sometimes you need to wait until you retire to become an activist.  Delaying gratification, then, may be a good thing, because you have the wisdom of years of watching ineffective activists (organizing marches) and of thinking about how to be effective to apply to your convictions.

    The fact that you have attained maturity and still have convictions is a good thing.

    By the way, this is my backwards way of mentioning to the young “organics” out there that they might try reaching out to old retired folks.  I see them all the time at our PBS station fiddling around volunteering and being generally helpful.  Many need direction, but they are so used to being treated with contempt and disrespect by young people that they don’t even think about young people’s causes (like the local “action groups” formed by Howard Dean’s followers).  This is too bad, and a waste of human intellect, wisdom and energy.

    I too will soon sail off into my retirement years, and I am already pissed off at a lot of young people who tell me I don’t understand computers (I am a systems administrator, so I must) and that I don’t “get” the internet (although I have been using it as a research tool and commmunications path since before AOL was thought of).  Will my energy and abilities also be turned into collecting stamps in my twilight years?  Will my “organic” self never truly unfold because of the contempt heaped on me by other, more youthful organisms?

    Woe is me.

    Posted by  on  11/19  at  10:26 AM

  6. To use the old 60’s adage: “right on Carol!” It does however need to be noted that we retired old folks also have to make the effort to engage the “youth” to whom you refer.  But this isn’t my interest at the moment.  This story today seems to say way too much about the “inorganic” state of our nation’s mental health.

    WASHINGTON - Bruce Springsteen famously was “born in the USA,” but he’s getting scorned in the U.S. Senate.

    GOP SCORNS THE BOSS
    An effort by New Jersey’s two Democratic senators to honor the veteran rocker was shot down Friday by Republicans who are apparently still miffed a year after the Boss lent his voice to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

    The chamber’s GOP leaders refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, that honored Springsteen’s long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album, “Born to Run.”

    No reason was given, said Lautenberg spokesman Alex Formuzis. “Resolutions like this pass all the time in the U.S. Senate, usually by unanimous consent,” he said.

    Telephone calls to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s office seeking comment were not immediately returned.

    Lautenberg said he couldn’t understand why anyone would object to the resolution.

    “Even if the Republicans don’t like (Springsteen’s) tunes, I would hope they appreciated his contributions to American culture,” Lautenberg said.

    Corzine said he, Lautenberg and other Americans appreciated Springsteen’s contributions to American culture.

    “We’ll never surrender looking for ways to honor our local hero who made it big in this land of hopes and dreams,” Corzine said.

    Springsteen endorsed Kerry last year, and made campaign appearances that drew huge crowds who came to hear music described in the resolution as “a cultural milestone that has touched the lives of millions of people.”

    Posted by  on  11/19  at  03:08 PM

  7. Not earning ones living from the activity, why would anyone engage in politics unless he or she believed radical solutions were called for?  And since radical solutions are fantastical, the sane man and woman retires to his or her garden.

    Posted by  on  11/19  at  10:05 PM

  8. It’s late, but I cannot resist a short note. This post betrays an astounding ignorance of the whole process of organizing for social justice and social change. It essentially assumes that what is is the newspapers describes the entire political process, and that those who are in the extraparliamentary opposition lack all creativity and have no idea what’s been happening in the last 40 years. One small example—the reference to lobbyists is grossly naive. Even those who hire lobbyists these days know that change on major issues is largely about the grassroots—thus astroturf. And If you don’t know why I am referring to artificial grass in that last sentence, you haven’t been paying attention.

    There is no question that the right wing is powerful right now (though much weaker than it was a year ago.) But there is also no question that practical activists on the left have learned a lot and put it into practice.

    Let’s take the Iraq war. Why is the war effort so unpopular? The reality is that most USAns are hardly impacted by it, and that 2000 deaths is not a big number, about 5% of the annual deaths from automobilie accidents. But in every town of any size across this country, including the “red states” (which are mainly the former Confederate states - duh), there has been an active and persistent antiwar presence, reminding local people that there is a living and breathing critique of the war. Without that presence, the facts would not have penetrated. Have massive demonstratons failed to work? Everyone inside the system will tell you that, and they all said it in 1967 too. But even if they are less efficacious, when combined with local action, they make a difference.

    I could go on at great length. But quite simply, I read this as an essay of incompetence—as the work of someone who does not know what people who are serious about social justice in the USA in 2005 actually do.

    Do we make enormous mistakes? Undoubtedly. But we are not the straw people described here.

    By the way, the Christian Right didn’t really decide to take over a party. Opportunists in that party decided to use (and to some extent to create) the Christian Right. The demonization and exaggeration of the power of the Christian Right is, in my experience, one of the most common signs of political ignorance. If the Christian Right actually was an organized force that held power, how can one explain their almost total failure to achieve any of their political goals. In theory, they have been in power most of the last 25 years. So how come we still have Roe v. Wade? Because those who are actually in power, the opportunists around Nixon/Reagan/Bush2, could care less about abortion, but care deeply about increasing corporate profits and decreasing taxation of the wealthy.

    This blog has been a good source for me of some deeper thinking, and some clever epiphanies. And its caliber of academic thought is occasionally intimidating and usually challenging.

    Perhaps the only practical left project before us right now is taking over one of the parties. I certainly don’t think that. But before we come to that conclusion, I think we have to at least look seroiusly at what is being done by the various movements, not just what is visible about them in the corporate media.

    Posted by Larry Yates  on  11/20  at  02:26 AM

  9. To some extent I agree with Larry, in that professional lobbyists really aren’t as powerful in creating social change at the national level as many people think.  (They are great at getting a few extra billion for multinationals—and you know, a billion here, a billion there, sooner or later for a multinational you’re talking about real money.  The true power of business in politics, by the way, is not only from their direct buy-off of politicians, but also that they are well-funded enough to contest everything at every level: international, Federal legislative, Federal regulatory, state legislative, local.) But I think that John’s original use of “lobbyist” implicitly included anyone who works on politics full-time.  The basic complaint is that “politics is now a full-time job severed from any roots in ordinary life.”

    This is just wrong enough so that I don’t really see how to proceed to positive discussions.  No liberal politics could survive without people sending money once per year, or sending off a letter every two years when they are especially exercised about something.  Yes, this does not have a great individual effect compared to a professional’s permanent on-the-job status.  But the professionals on the other side will always be there no matter what, because their money will be there.  It really should be no surprise that in a society characterized by increasing specialization within every field, including academia, that political specialists are required as well.

    Posted by  on  11/20  at  10:50 AM

  10. In the middle of this elevated discussion it seems almost churlish to point out that “Mormon” is misspelled in the headline, but there you go.

    Posted by Patrick Nielsen Hayden  on  11/20  at  11:17 AM

  11. Sorry to whore my own <a href="http://blog.pulpculture.org/2005/11/18/shuttle-click/ “>blog posts</a>, but I wrote about same the other day, only in a somewhat different context. I was discussing a variant of identity politics.

    I think Foucault offers one answer. Power isn’t in a King anymore. What we’re fighting today is diffuse. Big demos don’t _seem_ to cut it.

    So, what about at the micro-level? Maybe the problem is, you’re asking for change at the macro-level—and for it to come about immediately. Maybe you’re not asking what demos _and_ micro-politics have in common: a way to help us get thru every motherlovin’ day knowing that the smallest of our activities matter to social change. That going to a demo that seems to do nothing matters. For that, I’ve written about what I mean in the link above.

    Posted by Hello Bitchy!  on  11/20  at  03:03 PM

  12. There was a really interesting thing on building structures outside of government and politics--a la Solidarnosc in Poland: A Coalition of the Left? —...Solidarity’s real innovation was its commitment to radical social transformation without bothering about the state. Partly because party dictatorship put the state off-limits and partly because Solidarity’s key ideologues had themselves been 1960s radicals inspired by the anti-authority ethos of the time, Solidarity developed the groundbreaking concept of “antipolitics.” The idea was not to “take” power but to get away from power and let society transform itself. ...

    Posted by  on  11/20  at  11:18 PM

  13. This link shows that blogs, writing letters, etc., etc. is having a major effect on politics by changing the way money is raised for Dem candidates.  I think the gloom and doom of the above post is understandable (I’ve certainly had many gloomy days during the Bush reign of terror), but I try to remember my dad’s advice:  people’s sensation of political change has too short a time horizon, so don’t give up on the democratic process so quickly.

    It may be that we have made a huge change in the political environment that is only becoming noticeable gradually, as the influence of lobbyists is reduced through a few election cycles.

    Posted by  on  11/21  at  06:05 PM

  14. I think one part of the problem is the abstraction that is necessary to discuss big phenomena. “Demos” doesn’t exist except as the aggregate action of many different people. Cultural machinery can make significant parts of this group generally go in the same direction, but it’s a alot like herding cats. Concepts like “organicism” and “hegemony” are useful insofar as they allow us to get some sense of the big picture, but their limitations show when we try to use them as if they possessed some reality on their own.

    Things like the Abramoff scandals should show us just how much even national politics works on the scale of individual relationships--doing favors, cultivating friendships, establishing social networks. “Taking over a party” begins with getting to know the people in the local group, and then using the institutional communication networks to expand your contacts.

    Mass media certainly plays a role in all this, simply because it’s one way to reach many people. But, for most people, word of mouth is much more persuasive than any mediated message. There’s a different kind of organicism--working on the basic desires of our organic, group-loving selves. The myth of organicism that you discuss is a variation on thinking that controlling the symbol controls the thing. It’s a modern version of shamanistic thinking.

    The Christian right, subverted and compromised as it may be, gets a kind of respect that the left does not; however, to see that group as some monolithic phenomenon belies the real work of community building that goes on in right-wing churches around the country. First they supply friendships, and the worldview comes along with it slowly. And once a worldview is in place, then information coming in gets filtered accordingly, with cognitive dissonance taking a long time to work if at all.

    Posted by  on  11/22  at  10:24 AM

  15. It seems that one model for change, both MACRO and MICRO would be the movement started (if you can believe the stories) by a guy also distressed by contemporary power structures: monastacism. I would suggest that this movement has had a greater impact on individuals and societies than any political party in any time epoch. Yes, time horizens are compressed these days, but one lifetime can sometimes be enough to get the ball rolling. 

    It seems a bit odd to me that a McGowan would write this blog without mention of the positive historical role of religion (not just Christian, but including Christian) to unite over time both in small groups (i.e., to help care for individals with disabilities), and in large communities spread across time and space (e.g., from UNC to India).

    Posted by  on  11/22  at  07:09 PM

  16. The history of the Republican Party over the past 30 years is interesting in this regard.  The party elites have had to bend to the Christian pressure, but they have not broken.

    Thanks for a great post, John.  I want to echo some of the points made above, though.  It’s nothing to be happy about, but I think the history of the Republican Party over the last three decades actually shows a pretty strong responsiveness to popular mobilization.  Bending is something, and there has been a lot of bending.  (I love what I know of Frank’s argument, but is there really much evidence that in the period at issue, right wing populist voters wanted economic justice rather than culture war?) To look at the Republican Party elites of 2000, say, and to compare them to the Republican Party elites of 1970 is to see a completely different, and worse, world.

    Posted by Sean McCann  on  11/23  at  08:03 AM

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