Notes on
selected bits from: Bridges, G. and Brunt,
R. (1981) Silver Linings -Some
Strategies for the Eighties. London:
Lawrence and Wishart.
[This book also contains a version of Hall 'Whites
of Their Eyes', which I have summarised in a
separate file]
Davis, T. 'Stand By Your Men'.
There are struggles within socialist and feminist
politics as well as a basis for alliance, hence
the need for autonomy for the Women's Liberation
Movement. The theoretical project is to
reconstruct work on women and families, so this is
the basis of the alliance, but more positive
developments are needed two, more than just the
latest conversions among political parties to
equal rights for women. The splits between
the women's liberation movement are described 13
F. For example, Rowbotham has developed a
more calculating approach rather than a general
theory. Davis says we still need a general
theory, however. Feminist should lead any
alliance with other political movements.
Dyer, R. 'Over the Rainbow—Pleasure and
Identity in Gay Politics'. Gay
politics offer an object lesson for any politics
based on lived experience. 'Homosexual' is a
sexual identity, but also a social construct, and
if we look at it we can see how sexuality comes to
be constructed as a genital matter as well.
Identities are formed within culture rather than
ideology alone, and this explains their ability to
retain both material and affective dimensions as
well as cognitive elements. There are
dangers in seeing culture as merely marginal,
compared to work and reproduction (57), although
there is a correspondence with how gays feel
themselves, with gay identity something that has
to fit in inner space outside of work.
Political correctness is proper politics (58), for
example in getting the word 'gay' accepted, and in
the seemingly trivial debates about discos and
their influence. For Dyer, disco music is
'emblematic of different ways of being' (60), and
dress shows a 'consciousness of the categories of
gender and sexuality in the lived texture of
experiences'. Gay culture includes
exaggeration and parody of the characteristics of
'real' men (61), as in the Village People.
Studies of gay cultures are responsible for
introducing the notion of pleasure to the Left,
asserting sexuality as an assertion of
pleasure. Gay culture is also seen as a
unifying tendency, opposing fragmentation and
alienation. Studying gaze mean we have to
rework sexuality away from an emphasis on fucking
(63). It is a matter of body culture, there
is no more refusal of the body. Social life
itself can be seen as an organization of the human
body rather than relying on genital
sexuality. Body politics offers a necessary
dimension to materialism, instead of, say,
linguistic constructions of subjectivity.
Mouffe, C. 'Hegemony and the Integral State
in Gramsci'. How should we understand
the emergence of new subjective identities,
especially if they seem to cross classes?
Althusser's approach would locate these identities
inside ideological state
apparatuses, but what are the ideological
conditions which have produced them? For
Althusser, the western state is enlarged, but it
is still instrumental and still must be captured
first. But how do 'bad subjects' emerge to
fight the class war? Althusser's work is
still class reductionist, and in this sense, there
is no real autonomy for ideology, and, ideology
must be smashed rather than transformed [surely
not for Althusser -- there always will be ideology
etc.Maybe I have misnoted this -- is this Mouffe's
position?] .
Gramsci is no class reductionist. The
concept of hegemony involves 'political,
intellectual and moral leadership'(172). It
stresses political activity leading to
articulation, intellectual and moral activity
producing social cementation. Subjects
appear in a world which is a composite one, an
ensemble, rather than a direct reflection of
bourgeois ideology. Bourgeois articulation
appears rather than total dominance, and we have
'incessant struggle'. However, there are
only to hegemonic principles, because there are
only two 'principal classes' (173). We need
to struggles to disarticulate and transform this
ensemble, requiring a new 'national - popular
collective will'. This is what Gramsci meant by
the war of position as a necessary condition for
the war of maneuver, and this was an 'enrichment'
of Lenin [see Anderson
on this]. It is still applicable even if we
reject Leninism.
The integral State is 'enlarged. We can draw
from the tussles over idealist notions of the
state. Marxist views should also be
incorporated. What we end with is an
emphasis on the 'ethico - political' and on class
struggle to grasp the emergence of the transformed
modern state which now includes positive and
educative elements. We need to develop a
broader base, to form an alliance with other
groups [but with gramscian leadership]. We
will then get a double enrichment of the
instrumentalist conception of the state, and help
revitalize Marxism after the failure of social
polarisation.
Politics is now enriched and must include
philosophy and culture, because it is still based
on 'a vision of the world'. This really
explains the apparent need for the proletariat to
grasp philosophy: philosophising is a 'form of
activity not very prevalent in the working class
movement' (182). This explains the
'sclerosis' of Marxism. Some national
communist parties are now engaged in this broad
struggle, but they need to develop an
'articulating principle' before any seizure of
power. They need to address all the new
'political subjects' including 'all groups
struggling against domination at different levels
of society' (185). 'Everything in society as
political', including the widespread dislike of
bureaucracy. If there is no response on the
left, the right will express it, as in the
neoconservative turn. We need to go back to
the notion of a 'substantive democracy…
where real equality [is the goal] irrespective of
sex, race, sexual orientation and occupation'
More social theory
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