I have found myself unable to attend the Socialist conference in Chicago this year as I had originally planned. The circumstances were a bit out of my control, but I try to ‘go with the flow’ as much as possible, particularly as I get older. One of the ‘perks’ of aging? However, I have committed to use some of this ‘long weekend’ to write some. This is very much a stream of consciousness. I am currently reading some incredible books. As many of you know I am a voracious reader. Because of the volume of my getting new information, it is difficult for me to be overwhelmed or completely find my worldview completely shattered. I tend to find that my intellectual/spiritual/cognitive/political reality is developed “sometimes slowly sometimes quickly” but usually at a fairly regular pace. However, every so often I find a book (or books) that really transforms my worldview in a radical and immediate manner. I am in such a moment right now. I am reading. “Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism” by Gabriel Rockhill. It is an absolutely stunning work of scholarship and completely subverts so much of the way I view so much of our culture, reality etc. It is really staggering.
I suspect there has been some ‘build up’ to what the book has brought me to, but nonetheless, it does crystalize some of my intuitions, and in many way refines my critique of not only the intellectual apparatus within the United States in general and the Academy in particular, but also the entire cultural apparatus found in 21st century Capitalism. Recently I began to understand how much all the voices, and visions in the United States are shaped by the profound parochialism of living within the walls of the Empire. I am here reminded of a quote which I believe comes from Che Guevara who spoke about his respect for the U.S. people because we are indeed in ‘the belly of the beast’ or as Gabriel Garcia Marquez called the United States “El monstruo del Norte”. The incredible power of the Empire to completely hamper our critical thinking skills, and neutralize our capacities to create sharp and incisive insights into the world we inhabit is extremely effective. This includes the voices and visions that we would call the ‘left’ or the emancipatory intellectual community. I want to give a brief itinerary of my recent ongoing epiphany.
Recently I began to read books from a more radical tradition. This isn’t just the obvious Marxist tradition(s) but specifically the Marxist tradition that takes seriously the role of imperialism and also the anti-colonialist perspective. However, as some of you may be familiar with these categories I wish to refine these categories a bit. I began to read an author named Domenico Losurdo, interestingly enough he is a man who hails from Italy (clearly an Imperial Center location) he has been described as a “Marxist philosopher, historian, and communist militant” who has written extensively on many subjects including (but not limited to) “critiques of liberalism, colonialism, and anti-communist historiography”. He has written extensively about the distinction between Western Marxist and the Eastern Marxist traditions. I also found myself become aware of the communities that can loosely be called the Marxist from the Global South. Especially the work of Walter Rodney who is a “Guyanese historian, political activist, and Pan-African Marxist theorist” (among others). I have come to realize that one of the early insights found in the liberationist tradition is the place of location in creating ones way of viewing reality. The early formulation was articulated by the phrase ‘right orthopraxis leading to right orthodoxy’ I remember hearing it once stated colloquially as ‘if you want to ‘get’ Jesus you have to ‘do’ Jesus’. If we live in the mode which most accurately reflects the way in which Jesus’ inhabited we will understand what Divinity is. I have found that trying to understand the world in the manner most like those living in revolutionary/emancipatory/liberationist spaces (intellectual and otherwise) allows us to more accurately discern accurately what this type of life requires and entails. I would like to connect the various ‘strands’ of my meanderings…
I have always felt like the intellectual tradition that we have in the United States is severly hampered by our inability to view the world outside of our ‘Imperial/Empire’ bubble. I remember being stunned that I had never heard of how the Western Powers had tried to subvert and overthrow the Russian Revolution of the Bolsheviks right after the country had sacrificed more than any other country in “our” fight against Faciscm. It is certainly an interesting way to show gratitude??? What is become glaringly obvious to me is how just being in the United States has disfigured our ability to do emancipatory analysis. This is especially true because of two factors. These are issues that while distinct are inseparable. The first is that virtually all analysis is framed within the ‘meta-narrative’ of “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence” (for a masterful understanding of this concept I would recommend the book: American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News–From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror by Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong). The second is to simply the inability of academics to move away from an Idealist worldview towards a more Dialectical Historical Materialist understanding of not only the distribution question but more specifically the production question. I would like to briefly unpack both of these factors.
The framing of American Exceptionalism and American Innocence begins with the inaccurate perception that the United States was founded on virtues principles. This is not merely an “un-American” accusation. This simply forthrightly acknowledges that the founders of the United States Experience already had a very clear, and specific agenda. We can not speak in the same moment speak about the genius of these men and neglect the fact they had some very clear and unapologetic economic interests which they were protecting. This is not only the black bodies that were their “Property” (Slave holders) but also an entire economic/philosophical/ideological structure that protected their ‘Property” Interests. This includes how to view all reality. They constructed a brilliant system that allowed for a certain type of exploitation. While concurrently releasing themselves from other forms of obligation and oppression; specifically, the monarchy of their European heritage. One thing that distinguishes much radical scholarship in the Global South from our own is the generous hermeneutical perspective which seems to allow all of our (the United States) injustices to be treated as mistakes or aberrant behavior.
The second element that I wish to highlight is the how we cover social reality so unconsciously from within an ‘ideal’ framing. This is counterposed to a much more concrete and Dialectical-Historical-Materialist lens. To give but one example; I have had very well-educated people speak of the banking crisis of 2008 being caused by the ‘greed’ of the financial community. While this may seem like a legitimate explanation it takes very little interrogation to realize that our human species, that of Homo sapiens, have not actually developed any physical or biological item in our bodies to ‘explain’ for this increase in ‘greediness‘? The reality is that the crisis is more accurately explained by very concrete, historical, material realities that certain people chose to do! Members of our species, exercising their agency, were able to impact social reality. This includes not only those who actively created the conditions for the financial destruction but must include the multitude of others who were complicit in allowing this to occur. Both in what ‘we have done, and what we have failed to do’. This in no way minimizes the place that ideology or formation of conscious (public opinion) is key in allowing these conditions to arise. The wonderful Italian Marxist spoke of how hegemony functions precisely by allowing the ‘owners of the means of mental production’ to create (or produce) thoughts, feelings etc. which will allow for the material interests of the ruling class to take precedence. He spoke repeatedly about the way in which in advance Capitalist societies people will be ruled by ‘consent rather than coercion’. The other benefit of engaging in DHM analysis is that it empowers communities that can resist the exploitation to actively begin to identify the problem and challenge its hegemonic power.
In closing I would just say that we as not only citizens, but particularly as, intellectual sisters and brothers must become much, much, much more intentional about our willingness to move ‘outside the box’ of official sanctioned analysis. This might include being even more courageous about allowing ourselves to move past the traditional voices of resistance which the powerful have sanctioned or accepted. This may also entail (demand?) that we for a certain amount of time stop reading, or otherwise intellectually digesting the status quo fare offered as sources of information from which to form our analysis. I am aware that this is a huuuuge ask, but one of the benefits of having some degree of education and privilege is that we can afford precisely to use our ‘comfortable’ positions to help those among us with less safety. Lest people think I am being naive, let me just finish with one final example to illustrate what I mean. Last year, I had some major health issues which entailed that I not being admitted to and stay in the hospital for some days, but that I miss a fair amount of work. Because I am a salaried employee, I was able to do this without it effecting my ability to pay rent, make my car payment. pay my other monthly bills. I have family members who are wage earners, if they missed as much work as I did it would have had a much more harmful effect on their quotidian existence. This is not to say that there will be no risk, but merely to begin to ‘move the needle’ in the direction of making loving revolution and the Beloved Community a bit closer to reality. But there will be struggle, including sincere dangers ahead. I believe we can do it, only and especially, if we do it together.
“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Frederick Douglass
