xmcamail.2008_03: Re: [xmca] If all hopes are lost for establish

From: Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think who-is-at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon Mar 03 2008 - 20:32:42 PST

David,

  I'm wondering where you got the idea that the Black Panthers "succeeded" Malcom X? The Panthers grew out of a neighbordhood movement in Oakland California to put stop lights at a busy street corner where many children crossed when walking to school. They grew and ddeveloped at first in their "Free Breakfast" program for black school children and other such programs. Their advocacy of self-defense developed as a response to the white estaablishment']s attempts to crush these programs and keep blacks "in their place" Malcom X's advocacy of the right of self-defense might be considered an influence on Panther politics but one should remember that he was murdered several years before the Panthers came into existence at Merrit Community College in Oakland. Although they respected him as a major figure in the black liberation movement, the Panther ideology was explicitly Marxist-Leninist) and the major Panther theorists, e.g.,George Jackson (murdered by guards in San
Quentin prison) and Eldridge Cleaver,. make only marginal reference to Malcom X in their writings. ("Soul on Ice", "Letters from Soledad")

  The Nixon administration viewed the Panthers with fear and was supportive of the assassination of many of their leaders, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago.

  I'm wondering whether you think an adequate knowledge of the Panthers is necessary for categorizing them as a what you call a "neoformation" . I personally find it somewhat suspicious. It's also hard for me to see how anyone can generalize from ideographic interpretations of classroom discourse to institutions that grew out of broad social movements even if one did have a good understanding of those institutions.

  cordially,

  Paul

David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com> wrote:
Today, I'm reviewing my colleague Professor Yun's textbook on phonology, and he uses this example sentence:

Q: Do you advocate the overthrow of the US government by force or by violence?

The reason he likes this sentence so much is that like me has a very lively interest in intonation. If you say it like this:

Q: Do you advocate the overthrow of the US government by force (UP)...or by violence (UP)?

It is possible to answer without committing treason:

A: No.

But if you say it like this:

Q: Do you advocate the overthrow of the US government by force (UP) or by violence (DOWN)?

You cannot give a non-treasonable answer. Malcolm X, of course, answered like this:

A: By any means necessary.

This is, like Christ's answer to the money-changers, exactly right: it throws the onus of treason back on the questioners: if you stand in our way, the resulting force/violence is on your head. This is simply historically correct: the most successful act of forceful, violent treason in American history was the white secession that triggered the Civil War.

I was in America in February during Martin Luther King's birthday when Hillary and Obama got into a flap over whether LBJ or MLK were responsible for the "gains" of the Civil Rights movement: e.g. busing (RIP), and affirmative action, (ditto).... This made me wonder. Was Malcolm (and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense that succeeded him) a kind of transitional neoformation?

I think they were! We know that in childhood neoformations rise and suddenly disappear with no apparent sequel; for example, the period of "autonomous speech", the "negativism" of the terrible twos, and the affectation and posing of the crisis at seven. We know that these critical neoformations appear to have a catalytic function--they appear to be related, though not in any clear causative way, to major achievements and advances such as intonation ("autonomous" speech), volition ("negativism"), and role/'rule play ("affectation").

I guess I think Malcolm and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense were similarly related to the very limited gains made in integration and affirmative action under the Nixon administration (subsequently wiped out by more "liberal" administrations). I know, those fleeting gains too disappeared.

But sometimes a transitional form carries within itself the seed of a more workable social system, and when it vanishes utterly, it still plays a catalytic function. I suppose in our more optimistic moments, when we are indulging our poetic and non-materialist side, we can call the memory of these transitional functions "hope". Not to be confused with "the politics of hope"!

David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education

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Re: [xmca] If all hopes are lost for establishing a more workable social system , then please tell me where A.N.Leontyev has gone wrong with his definition of "Personal Meaning"