At 1:48 PM 3/20/99, Jay Lemke wrote:
>
>Strangely, the people who may understand these risks and dilemmas best
>(intuitively if not theoretically) are conservatives. They are quite sure
>that any substantial change in the structural balances of power between
>dominant groups and Others is likely to lead to the demise of traditional
>key values and the practices legitimated by them. They see us
>'progressives' as fools playing with fire, more likely to burn the house
>down than to warm a few cold guests down in the basement. We and the
>conservatives SHARE most of these traditional key values (up to a point)
>... how could we not, we proceed more or less from the same cultural
>traditions.
INDEED!!!! I am astonished, ceaselessly by the active uses of ignorance -
as a refusal to know - that are practiced so rigidly by so many - it is a
very difficult tension between complicity and implication, I think,
that is, to recognize how structures oppress, one would have to come to
terms with the ways their pegagogy may also oppress, and how have these
practices oppressed the academic? And if the academic begins to
question these basic moral aspects of higher education, then inevitably one
must admit that in teaching about emancipatory goals, the very practice of
teaching can
re-invent oppressions that have served the conservative as truth claims -
it is the same for women and men who want to engage with feminism and
issues of gender - to ask these questions is to question one's own gender,
and since most folks have collapsed gender into a dichotomy
there is no room for difference. And without that room for difference,
there will be conflicts, And rather than see conflicts as the pedagogical
moment, there is a tendency to smooth over the conflicts - something you
can discuss after class; something you might want to write about for your
term paper, but rarely is it signalled as a key moment in ideological
dissonance. Sad.
>
>Ask yourself: Do I really believe that progressive social change will lead
>to a world that will not accept some of my own currently most deeply
>regarded values and ideals? or to a world in which I will be profoundly
>uncomfortable and from which I will feel basically alienated in many respects?
No, never in my life time. I believe that capitalism is the driving force
of the social and political and economic; and transglobal capitalism will
increase the divisions of labour, and increase the chasm between haves and
have-nots, and the welfare programs and social assistance programs are
being
cut because there is a belief that work is good. like, even if you are
scrubbing men' pee from the corporate bathroom there is value in the work,
even if you work all night for six nights a week, and make less than on
welfare, there is a fiction of work that weighs down on a lot of
disenchanted youth and elders and single mothers and addicts and the poor -
and so it goes.
>
>What is the alternative belief?
What are some alternative beliefs: why only one? why not several?
>that we already have the final answers to
>basic human values issues? that what we really want is to make Them just
>like us (or slightly better by the same criteria)? that it is possible and
>necessary for them to change but not for us to do so?
>
no - it has to work the other way, in my experience, the academic must do
the work of disentangling institutionalism and all the histories that form
that
structure, and understand how s/he participates in collusion with the structure.
Then, I think it is possible to move towards speaking of change, but i do
think there must exist an aspect of alienation or outsiderness that
makes this possible, and there is so much seductive status in the university,
even i am seduced by the authorty if Dr. ... my business card:
Dr. Diane: Witch doctor - by appointment
Insurrectionist - works with groups and individuals.
(Fees based on risk evaluation: no bombs)
Anarchist - no fees. Will dismantle any fundamental belief.
it has to do with perks, like prestige and so on: it is hard to want these
and recongize these are the very same privilge that prevents more women of
colour from teaching, for example;
speaking as doctoral student, I think a lot happens to people between
graduate work & academic teaching - a lot of institution gets absorbed and
especially for students, who have been little more than something scraped
off the shoe of traditions, living in poverty, doing without, going
abslutely insane in the processs;
and then to GET there, and find yourself being asked to dismantle the
privilege - there is a powerful sense of resentment;
that is was so hard to get there - and this is a huge part of the
academy's narrative ; the blood sweat and tears that are required to be
accepted: a pound of flesh and no less. so, you strip people of every shred of
autonomy; reward them for complying; and then... the system runs like clockwork.
Like prisoners who turned into wardens and guards, what can one do but
accept the raise in pay and think, hey I gotta make a living here,
and plus the work is intellectual which is about the most insecure source of
capital in the world -
>I often hear a pragmatic argument which goes like this:
>"Ideally I'd like to co-create with Others a new and exciting,
>unpredictably different, hybrid poly-culture, but the realities of power
>are such that first and foremost we have to get those Others to operate the
>existing dominant cultural practices ..."
>and I think ... how convenient for us that the evil dominant powers-that-be
>let us off the hook and enable us in practice to just go on comfortably
>postponing any confrontation with the dimensions of that unpredictable
>hybrid future that might really disturb us ...
not to mention the hyberbole of jargon and the loss of a material
responsibility. Who sez hybrid poly-culture is what people want?
mebbe folks want smaller communties within which to self-determine.
mebbe separatism is a necessary cultural strategy for this historical time.
the problem with agendas for change is that they probit change
by being indifferent to conflicts that characterize the complexity
of social conflcits.
>
>I also know that any rhetoric of Us and Them is likely to miss the
>liberating confusion of identities and practices that defeats such
>dichotomies everywhere except in the safe worlds of our theoretical fancies
>... but I don't think that helps us escape this particular moral dilemma
yes, of course, there is no "us and them" because we are the "us" as well
as the "them" - or certainly tenured.tendered faculty are,
expected to have a position -
like I say, the biggest obstacle to this is that important moment
when the academic looks at herself and realizes she is not challenging the
structures that determine so many conflicts; so she is not challenging her
students either, and that do one must implicate the other, and there is the
sticky spot of complicity that is NOT insurmountable, not impossible to
reckon with, i know folks who do; but is incomprehensible to many.
ANECDOTE: A moral dilemma of intervention:
In an art-activist project I've been organizing, I have been working with
a First nation's women videographer, and a brilliant FN poet who is also
a member of the mental health consumer's community - (Translation = He is
obligated to take "x" number of drugs to "control" his behviour; and this
is monitored by a Health Team)
I am well aware of the SHIT that they went through to produce a video,
particuarly from the supporting organization, our partners, who
contradictorily acted from a desire to monitor NOT the production, but the
social relation between the two (aliases: Irene and Ted; they became close
friends) and a peculiar resistance in loaning the cameras out for use -
it seemed that it was ok for them to do this as long as they were humble
and apologetic, and polite and softspoken and tolerant of arbitary
decisions regarding the use of the camera...
Remarkably, at a time when Irene & Ted began to perceive themselves as
having some self-importance, they were identified as "arrogant" and
"uppity" and "rude" and were denied access to the equipment as a principle,
not a pragmatic rationale: it was to teach them a lesson. Ted was harassed,
expelled from the organization ;
Ted & Irende were told to stop working together, and so on.
The policing of behaviour in this context was so profoundly debilitating.
So what's the dilemma?
By my own agreement with the support organization for mental health
consumers, I was not allowed to work with Ted or Irene because Ted was on
suspension; and Irene would have to wait for Ted to be finished his exile.
I did get invovled, basically, what Jay said, i was in a position where i
had to pick a side, and so i chose the videographer & poet's side,
and defended their work, persistently fought for their access to the
cameras, and helped as much as i could with funds and support.
I learned that the "attitude" problem was, really,
a shift from victims of the system to an artistic position of authority
over meanings and production,
and Irene & Ted sought to cultivate a sense of artistic integrity.
Certainly this is an explicit objective of this activist project: to make
possible alternative opportunities for identity..
but in the contexts of the respective social structure affiliations, this
change in self-identity was unacceptable by the staff; just as it was
unacceptable with the White Producers.
As a result, and this is so true is is criminal,
the poet's health team was contacted and his dosage was increased,
and he was sent to an Anger managment course,
and penalized a variety of other ways: lost access to lunch services, lost
his job as a helper, which was how he paid for his meals, and was finally
banned for three months, during which time i was informed I could not work
with him)
So, the three of us worked anyway, and maintained a secrecy that was
awkward at times because of Ted or Irene were caught, they were were
screwed; and we talked about that as a consequence, but they were
determined to finish the project.
And so all of this, all of this dancing and buffoonery
because an ex-psych patient stopped sulking and moping and lamenting his
victimization, and identified as a poet and an artist.
It wasn't the identity that was unacceptable: it was the associate
behaviours of confidence, of self-esteem, of not wanting to sweep the floor
for his lunch everyday...
After all that, I was able to secure post-production digital facilties with
two professional producers;
where i then heard mixed stories
about sexual harassment and racism and partonization,
and the Producers, two white folks, very certain
because they work with FN people they are not racist,
and so were flabbergasted by the claim,
and I said, "Well, everyone is racist..."
which was stupid: who's says yes to that?
so oh no not them. I tried to explain that the videographer has gone
through more crap in production than we can imagine, has been harassed,
patronized, diminished, brushed aside, denied funding, access,
and belittled for years.
...and given these experiences, i explained, surely it is possible to
understand how she might
interpret authority relations; and might struggle to work within those
competing boundaries and histories;
then Producers announced with disgust that the videographer had a learning
disorder, probably dyslexic,
(which was out-of-the-blue, as if to say not only is she an uppity Indian,
she's learning disabled too!!!)
and I talked about about the effects of oppression and marginalization, and
how that impacts the way we might listen to others and respond, or shut
down, or feel defensive...
So the woman-Producer said, with unmistakable indignation,
"Hey I' ve been marginalized. In the 60s, I dropped
out, and I was very marginalized...so i know that feeling..."
and I look at this white middle class video producer, and think, does
she sincerely believe her voluntary exodus constitutes experience with
oppression, and as such, qualifies her to dismiss the effects of oppression
on others?
This is VERY typical in academia - whatever is being taught is not about
the subjectivity of the academic, complicity, or collusion:just as
students want to prof to KNOW; the system creates its own tautology,
Ah, if i were any more of an idealist, I'd be hopelessly utopian,
fortunately, I believe that the world as we know it will be destroyed though
not in my life time,
so all i do is the best i can, not to change to world, but to change
small pieces, smile at strangers who look sad;
jaywalk, give away bus transfers that are still valid; buy illegal cigarettes;
applaud graffiti and talk with the street kids to see what the Crime
Prevention Office is up to..., where last fall they began snatching kids
off the street, throwing them in a police van, and dumping them across
townn: Clean Up the Image of the City strategy.
So: moving into something else altogether:
Q: is a materialist philosphy a contradiction in terms? ( really - anyone
know where this leads to or comes from , with thoughts on it\sources?)
thanks the summary, and for poking at my thoughts Jay - I *am* a bit of a
windbag today!
diane