Eugene,
Does this mean you reject all the work of soviet progressivism done by the
bolsheviks before Stalin's rise to power , like the liberation of women
from the veil and other forms of oppression in the islamic regions? If so,
where does one draw the relativist line? For example, what about the West
African practice of female genital mutilation (clitorectomy)? Should we
defend it as a legitimate part of those particular local cultures? What
about the Taliban? Aren't they a more legitimate expression of local
culture and history than the progressivist Afghani regime that invited in
the Red Army to defend the right for women and girls to attend schools?
Pete Farruggio
At 04:46 PM 1/26/00 , Eugene Matusov wrote:
>Hi Phil and everybody--
>
>Phil wrote,
> > what Leigh Star has indicated keeps methods of oppression normalized -
> > routinized - from, as Eugene has pointed out, boarding schools for
> > native americans, to, as Ogbu has pointed out, normal schools of public
> > education, including schools of education within universities.
>
>I'm thinking how else describe the process besides normalization and
>routinization. In the mood of creation of new English words, I 'd add one
>more "tion" to describe another aspect of sneaky oppression. It is
>"functionalization" of oppressive practices. By functionalization I refer to
>functional usefulness for oppressed people to be involved in their own
>oppression. For example, for Uzbeki young person in the Soviet Union to be
>aspired to go to college or read books of his/her interest or to become a
>doctor meant to learn Russian and to stop using Farsi. A generation of my
>Jewish grandparents in the Soviet Union were happy to rush to integrate with
>Russian and assimilate among Russian population after the Bolshevik
>revolution to forget their "backward" Jewish culture, religion and language.
>Functionalization is often done via destroying indigenous practices and
>channels of communication and offering alternative, oppressive ones that can
>serve the same function that whose that were destroyed. Finally, the
>"highest" from functionalization is when oppressed become an oppressor
>him/herself through socialization in oppressive practices (not
>"internalization", sorry Nate :-). Developing people who are oppressed and
>oppressors at the same time is what functionalization can achieve. For
>example, many oppressive policies in the Soviet Union were done by natives
>in the national republics. These natives were specially trained in the
>mainstream institution of Russian-Soviet party apparatus. Interestingly that
>during the perestroika and collapse of the Soviet Union these natives
>quickly switched to become nationalists.
>
>What do you think?
>
>Eugene
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Phillip White [mailto:Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2000 1:43 PM
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Cc: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: Re: middle class/intellectual labor
> >
> >
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >Paul H. Dillon
> > writes:
> > > However, as we've also seen, intellectual workers tend convert
> > >their specific relation to the productive process into the basis for new
> > >kinds of domination (bureaucratic domination).
> >
> >
> > yeah! i think Pete F. has pointed this out several times
> > - and it's
> > what Leigh Star has indicated keeps methods of oppression normalized -
> > routinized - from, as Eugene has pointed out, boarding schools for
> > native americans, to, as Ogbu has pointed out, normal schools of public
> > education, including schools of education within universities.
> >
> > and i think too of the few prison guards who gave Vaclav
> > Havel paper,
> > food, bits and pieces of respite from the normalizing routine of prison -
> > in fact, Havel's description of the format norms imposed on him by the
> > prison director on the structure of letters were remarkably similar to
> > what i experienced in high school. yes, forty years ago, but i notice now
> > that high school teachers use the formatting capabilities of word
> > processing to set the present normings of what a paper should _look_ like.
> >
> > phillip
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