Acti-vision

Following up on Red's Friday post, Paul Rosenberg has an interesting dissection of the Obama call to activism that echoes what Red said about the tension between the lofty ideas of educated progressives and the everyday needs of working class communities they want to help. In comments to the piece, I wrote:

Where I think Red is onto something is what connects to a general divide between Obama and Clinton supporters that's the real rift within the party: the question of who is organizing whom, for what purpose. And I tend to agree with Red on this: we can't come into communities where we are outsiders, with our educations and our sense of the perfect good, and not expect pushback from people who live an experience much different from our own.

Academic notions of poverty relief, fair housing, racial justice and all sound wonderful in the abstract... but they are wonderful abstractions, separate from the political realities of how you use government (or any large organization really... which pulls in this whole "corporatist" discussion which I think is well beside the point) to get things done.

Red responded:

Also, beware "good government" - part of many reform efforts to streamline government, make it more effective, etc. often involve removing the troubling elements that stymie cities to begin with - such as labor unions and their demands for living wages; or district-based elections where neighborhoods feel they have a particular advocate to address their grievances, versus a good govt. model of all at-large elected officials who address everyone universally, when we don't all - as citizens/residents - have the same needs or the same resources to fight to make our needs heard.

And here's Rosenberg on the subject:

The diary shows that there are incredibly wide-ranging differences between the organizing traditions of middle class activists involved in issues like peace and the environment, and working class activists, as epitomized by unions.  Among the characteristics cited for middle-class activists, in contrast with working class ones is that their activism is voluntaristic, and individualist, involving abstract and theoretical discussions, with goals that are conceived of as interest-free, beneficial to all.  In sharp contrast, working class activism is a product of necessity, carried out in a disciplined, hierarchical environment, with goals that are clearly understood as being interest-based, in conflict with those who have contradictory interests. 

Two points stand out as particularly important for the purposes of this diary-first, that the differences in class backgrounds are so various that it be very challenging for people to work together across class lines, despite the best of intentions.  And second, that the middle-class activists tend to discount the significance of power, struggle, and differences between different interests.  They presume the possibility of universally valid, disiniterested, technical approaches to policymaking that can be univerally acceptable to all-if the policymaking process is done right.  Working class activists, in contrast, see such a vision as hopelessly naive.

There's a very real divide here between the kind of community organizing experience and expertise Obama is bringing to this election, and the more working class activism Hillary Clinton has given voice to which has resonated so strongly in working class voters. Two competing visions, really, that go to the heart of what Democrats hope to accomplish and how. And, sadly, I don't think either vision is bridging the gap between them.  Which is why, narrowly, Obama is able to prevail... and yet not really able to unite the party.

Comments

[Redstar]

Can you provide the link to my Friday post, please? Here it is:

http://nycweboy.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/regime-change.html

I do want to thank Obama for spurring discussions of organizing and activism, across class and race, in particular. Finally, I'm not shouting into the ether!! :)

[Redstar]

That Rosenberg piece is excellent; I hope pp will click through and read the whole thing (and I clearly need to read more of his diaries).

For those not inclined to take the time, I'd excerpt the following pieces here:

"...the two tendencies [populism v. progressivism], historically rooted in successive movements over 100 years ago, reflect two strikingly different views about the nature of democracy. The populists saw it as a popular enterprise, engaged in sporadically, in which the people as a whole reigned supreme. The progressives saw it as an ongoing deliberative process that people had to be specially prepared for. Populists tended to see the progressives' approach as patronizing and paternalistic, progressives tended to see the populists as short-sighted, partisan, ill-informed, even dangerous.

I would make 3 points in light of this discussion:

(1) Obama's primary orientation is that of a classic progressive. He seeks prolonged deliberation, and seeks to draw people into that process who are not ordinarily engaged. This is what he did as an organizer, and many people-perhaps including Obama himself-make the mistake of confusing his close contact with those he organized for somehow becoming one with them, rather than a prolonged attempt to make them more like himself. Of course, some of those he organized may have wanted to be more like him, but it is clearly not the case that most people do. Populism is a much more common orientation than progressivism.

(2) Obama's antipathy to partisanship is strikingly parallel to the classic progressives' antipathy to populist outrage. It is sharply at odds with the rationalist deliberative model that the classic progressive cherishes. Yet, partisan outrage may be exactly what's called for at this point in time. It was certainly called for when Sinclair Lewis wrote The Jungle, for example. But the progressives were morally asleep at the time, and it took another two decades for the Great Depression to deliver the opening for the workers Lewis described to get a modicum of the justice they deserved.

(3) Obama's remarks about "bitterness"-although touching on an important truth-legitimately did serve to crystalize his classic progressive attitudes that are experienced as "attempts at managerial purification [that] are paternalistic." [From Balkin's essay.] Paternalism, in turn is taken to mean that one's concerns are not really taken seriously.

Yet, if the charge of paternalism was true-and I believe it was, however unintended-the second part, about concerns not being taken seriously, does not necessarily follow. Indeed, from the classic progressive's point of view, managerial purification is necessary in order to get amorphous concerns translated into policy terms as a form of pre-processing before policy deliberation proper can begin. If one truly cares about people's suffering, and wants to do something actually effective about it, then this is what one does, from the classic progressives' point of view."

And whether Obama might pursue an economic security agenda for the middle-class, Rosenberg concludes:

"Obama remains locked into a middle-class, classic progressive mindset that is, unfortunately, blind to it's own material vulnerability, via the enormous rise in risk that Hacker is talking about-risk that has been shifted onto the very individuals who find Obama's rhetoric so appealing.

This is why I think that Obama is extremely vulnerable politically-not necessarily in the upcoming election, as McCain is an incredibly vulnerable candidate who could easily lose by 10-20 points this November. Rather, if Obama's cultural blinders disable him from grasping the true nature of the challenge he faces, he could end up drowning in the flood of consequences from 30+ years of conservative failure.

In Matt's diary, mentioned at the beginning of this post, he ticked off the ways in which Obama was centralizing power within the Democratic Party. What seems clear to me is that Obama is doing this because it's the easy path to power-compared, say, to confronting the power centers beyond the party, and engaging in a Gramascian "war of position"/"culture war" to challenge, take over and transform the institions of cultural power that define the limits of the thinkable. Various people have suggested that once Obama has consolidated his power as President, he will be able to disarm his opposition and force his agenda through. Perhaps.

But the ultimate problem with this scenario is the question of whether Obama himself will have an agenda adequate to the magnitude of the problem, or if his technocratic ideology of reasonable compromise will prove inadequate to the task at hand, just as the classical progressives of a centrury ago could not solve the problems of injustice they faced, because they feared the very people who they sought to "save."

The problem is, ultimately, whether it is ever even possible to actually be technocratic for the people. Or whether that was just a dream. Just a dream."

I've said this countless times - we have an historic opportunity to drive hard to the left after the Bush oligarchy, but instead we're poised to elect ourselves a centrist technocrat who's agenda is much too modest in scope for the perils Bush has left us. Unless Obama surprises us all with a truly radical agenda once elected. Right.

[greg]

This is an interesting discussion. Thx for your replies on the prev post. I don't have time to write something as sharp as above, but a few things:

1) I think we might be taking Obama's post-partisan shtick a bit too seriously. I always saw it as 1 part genuine belief to 2 parts empty rhetorical device to attracts indepedents/mod republicans. I could be wrong of course, but the approach a candidate talks about on the campaign trail is rarely consistent with how they govern; remember Bush's "humble" foreign policy or "uniter not divider" stuff?

2) There are examples of technocratic-based liberal progress. Tony Blair, despite his obvious and odious shortcomings, actually made tremendous progress in improving the social fabric of Britain, under the guise of 3rd-way-ism:

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=595

(scroll down to 10th graph)

Anyways, I don't think you're wrong on any of this, but I'm not convinced that there is a bright line dichotomy between technocratic versus populist approaches that Obama necessarily falls on the wrong side of...and an Obama administration, like any govt, will require constant pressure from the left to keep it on the path of virtue.

[Red Queen]

Hi (I'm here by way of Red's shameless blogwhoring ;)

As a reasonably educated poor person who lives in a very poor, minority heavy community, lemme tell you what we don't need more of.

We don't need more hoops to jump through to prove that we are poor for pure enough reasons to get help. We don't need more regulations and investigations into our lives to prove that we need help. I fill out the same kinds of paperwork with 15 different offices to get tiny bits of help with food or utilities or rent or cash or daycare or .....

And go through an investigation for each.

And then have how I use the help I am given carefully controlled (wouldn't want me to do something unsavory with the help- like use food stamps at whole foods for hormone free beef).

The best thing that can be done for the poor is to stop seeing poverty as a moral failing and start trusting that poor people can decide how best to use resources- as long as they are actually given the resources to begin with.

That's my own two cents.

[Redstar]

Hear, hear Red Queen! I've had my aunts, uncles and cousins casually bring up in our conversations to me the rules and requirements for living in public housing - as both tenants, managers and maintenance staff in the developments - while I think to my precious self, how do they deal??

I'm aware from their shared experiences with me and my own work that this country has created a rigidly separate, highly unequal and shamefully patronizing government system for the poor - to put it mildly.

[Redstar]

Not to mention my parents...my mother likes to reminisce about the notices from the management in the projects with "friendly" advice on how to keep a clean house.

[Red Queen]

You know what's really funny- the advice on how to shop cheaply from the food stamp people. You're supposed to eat from all the food groups- heavy on the fruits and veggies, but food stamps only give you enough for cheap processed carbs. If you want poor people to eat healthy food you need to give them enough money to buy healthy food. Simple really

[Redstar]

Yes, our whole food system is a MESS. So what do they tell you to do about fruits and veggies other than the theoretical purchasing of them?

Do you have any community gardens in your area?

[Redstar]

TO GREG:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10315.html

Are we still taking him too seriously?