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Rethinking
political parties Agency
for change Some
observations on building a left politics Neo-liberalism
and Promotional Culture Capitalism
and its Others |
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28.11.07 Tony Blackshaw comments
The way I see it, our
collective challenge is turn 'difference' from something unique into something
banal - like Salman Rushdie, in Shalimar the Clown, I look forward to a
time when we all see 'differences' as more like 'descriptions' rather than
'divisions'. This process has been underway in this country for the last
30 years or so, but seems to have stalled in recent times. There are a number
of reasons for this.
As Grahame suggests one of the key reasons is the emergence of fundamentalism. What he does not discuss in relation to this issue is the problem of identity, or more precisely the problem of identity and belonging. As Julia Kristeva recently put it, we are at that moment in human history when men and women are not asking the question 'who am I', but 'to what do I belong? As a result, these days identity is too often confused with belonging. And the problem with belonging is that is not about questioning. Moreover it is often used to perpetuate the idea of the illusion of a singular identity - which so often foments hatred and confrontation. Yet it is not surprising that the idea of a singular identity is so appealing today because of the Unsicherheit - what Zygmunt Bauman calls that complex combination of uncertainty, insecurity, and lack of safety - that is today is so widespread and overwhelming.
As Axel Honneth has consistently argued, the other key reason why people seek singular identities is because of the lack of respect and recognition (real and perceived) that they have in the wider society in which the live. In other words, they look for in identity and through belonging the kind of respect and recognition that compensates for all the disrespect and lack of recognition they obtain from being absolutely superfluous to the dominant culture in society (or on the labour market). These are what Honneth calls 'privately felt and publicly identified social injustices'.
Honneth argues that it is the idea of mutual recognition that is the basis of any strategy for making sure that the circle of individuals and communities who recognise one another grows. I'd argue that the key to opening more discussions about difference and sameness are the cultural intermediaries. I'm not using the term in the negative way articulated by Bourdieu (via Featherstone) to describe those members of the new unrooted middle classes - postmodernity's ultra-cool set - who engage in the promotion and transmission of popular culture in order to legitimate life-style shopping, fashion, popular music and celebrity as 'valid fields of intellectual analysis', but in relation to the task of breathing life into the cross-fertilisation of cultures which might have taken place had it not been for ignorance, intolerance or distrust.
What we need to do is think about new ways of paying people the compliment of taking them seriously as individuals and communities with moral intelligence. As Richard Sennett has recently argued, there are three critical values - narrative identity, usefulness and craftsmanship - that provide the basis for the cultural anchor of a more coherent and secure work existence. The workplace is also one of the key sites where mutual recognition is formed. But I'd say, so are the places where popular culture takes place (leisure, sport, 'Strictly Come Dancing' etc.). These have a key role to play in this process, because they have the potential to communicate across those cultural boundaries that divide different social and cultural groups in a way that is at the same time respectful of the differences that separate them.
21.11.07 Grahame Thompson writes
Stuart Hall is rightly concerned to stress the importance of - and support for - what he calls the 'multicultural question'. It would be a disastrous day if the Left abandoned something along the lines that Stuart outlines in terms of meeting the aspirations of those that make up the rich cultural mix that is such an attractive feature of contemporary Britain. In relation to this he poses the key question: "…… how are they going to live in greater equality but also with difference? How are these often conflicting objectives - equality and difference - to be reconciled?" Quite so.
The key concept Stuart deploys in his analysis is that of 'difference'. This stress on difference is perhaps a defining motif in the 'cultural turn' that Stuart has been such an important figure in developing over the last twenty years or so. It is one of a number of linked 'D-words' that have become the essential vocabulary of this cultural turn: difference (Hall), differance (Derrida), le différe(a)nd (Lyotard). To these I would add disputation and disagreement (Rancière). But the issue I want to raise concerns another word that is somewhat missing from Stuart's account, but which is related to difference in particular (but also to the other 'D-words'). That word is 'sameness'.
My proposition is that it is not so much difference that is the issue of the day in respect to many of the matters that Stuart speaks but rather it is sameness. And this relates to a further issue that hovers around Stuart's analysis but that is never quite confronted by it. That problem is fundamentalism. Fundamentalists abhor difference; they see difference as the cause of everything they are against. It is the cause of all the ills, disputes and conflicts that typify the World. They want everything to be the same; the same as them. And many of them are prepared to die in the name of this sameness.
Here we have to be very careful, of course, since I would not wish to identify fundamentalism just with Islamic fundamentalist nor with other contemporary forms of fundamentalism associated with Christianity or Judaism. Indeed, there are many secular fundamentalisms that are just as pernicious and threatening of differences, like extreme neo-liberal market fundamentalism (everything should be subject to the same competitive conditions) or animal rights liberationists (every living animal should have exactly the same 'rights').
But once one opens up a discussion of sameness along these lines many rather difficult problems need to be squarely faced, not all of which would necessarily be immediately conducive to the Left, or easily accommodated by it. But they need to be confronted by the Left nevertheless. Thus I would add to Stuart's engaging and eloquent analysis based on the need to respect differences, the need to confront those forces - cultural and political - that wish to deny it and instead to demand sameness.
13.11.07 Nick Stevenson writes
I thought this was a very interesting and productive set of questions, but was a bit short on solutions. I think we have to accept that the old style labour movement that sustained an alternative to capitalism is now probably finished in its old form. The question that haunts these debates is what next? I think personally if the Left is to have a future it will need to become a cosmopolitan human rights Left. The most positive development during the 1990s has been the extent to which many people around the world seem to be standing up and proclaiming their human rights. This would give Left arguments a normative core, and arguably connect up local struggles to more international struggles. I realise there are lots of difficulties in making this move, but the Left needs to attach itself to one of the most positive and powerful movements sweeping the world. Of course we need to do so carefully, be alive to the debates concerning questions of difference and how human rights arguments are mobilised by the powerful. However as the Make Poverty History campaign demonstrated the idea of universal rights has a distinctive popular appeal. Further I would also argue that a culture of human rights can be positively located within the culture of schooling to promote a wider culture of democratic authority, participation and respect for difference. The Left I would argue needs a positive story to tell that is deeply critical of the inequalities produced by neoliberalism, the vital importance of human dignity and scepticism about the erosion of civil rights in the context of the war on terror. A critical human rights culture could potentially enable us to address these questions in a way that allows us to speak after the collapse of state socialism etc etc.
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