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This is a blog for a community of students in Sociology 101A: "Sociological Theory," in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, Fall, 2008.
Welcome!
This is the informal blog spot for errant questions, random ramblings, and clever musings. For the rest of the semester, we'll use this blog to clarify the work(s) of Lenin, Gramsci and Fanon. Feel free to endlessly post, and don't forget: Theory Rocks!
Will Obama bring the U.S. closer to socialism?
Obama: A Traditional or Organic Intellectual?
Grappling with Gramsci
"The mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, 'permanent persuader' and not just a simple orator (but superior at the same time to the abstract mathematical spirit) ..." (Prison Notebooks, 10).
"The relationship between the intellectuals and the world of production is not as direct as it is with the fundamental social groups but is, in varying degrees, 'mediated' by the whole fabric of society and by the complex of superstructures, of which the intellectual are, precisely, the 'functionaries'" (Prison Notebooks 12).
"The superstructure of civil society are like the trench-systems of modern warfare. In war it would sometimes happen that a fierce artillery attack seemed to have destroyed the outer perimeter; and at the moment of their advance and attack the assailants would find themselves confronted by a line of defense which was still effective" (Prison Notebooks 235).
"The massive structures of modern democracies, both as State organizations, and as complexes of associations in civil society, constitute for the art of politics as it were the 'trenches' and the permanent fortifications of the front in the war of position ..." (Prison Notebooks 243).
"... [I]t is obvious that all the essential questions of sociology are nothing other than the questions of political science" (Prison Notebooks 244).
"As long as the class-State exists the regulated society cannot exist, other than metaphorically---i.e. only in the sense that the class-State too is a regulated society" (Prison Notebooks 257).
What did you think of the Rosa Luxemburg film?
Oh No He Didn't: Endless, Evolving and Perplexing Lenin Quotables
"We are in favour of a democratic republic as the best form of state for the proletariat under capitalism" (The State and Revolution, 323).
"Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time become democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force; it is clear that there is no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence" (The State and Revolution, 373).
"The expression 'the state withers away' is very well chosen, for it indicates both the gradual and the spontaneous nature of the process. Only habit can, and undoubtedly will, have such an effect ..." (The State and Revolution, 374).
What did you think of Salt of the Earth?
Who got it right?
Blog Archive
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2008
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November
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- A Different Wretched of the Earth!
- Fanon in Context
- Frantz Fanon
- The Thousand Threads and Obama's Economic Advisors
- Theory Barocks Assignment
- Rosa Luxemburg
- The revolutionary visions of Rosa Luxemberg
- Rosa Luxemburg's Fight for Revolution
- Will Obama bring the U.S. closer to socialism?
- Is Obama connected to the state with a thosuand th...
- Lenin on Obama
- Lenin's view of Obama
- Theory BAROCKS!!!
- Lenin and Obama
- Lenin: "Obama and his capitalist tendencies"
- Lenin and Obama,
- Thousand Threads Remain
- Baracks Assignment
- Theory Barocks
- The "Revolutionary" Question
- Lenin says...
- Lenin on Obama
- Lenin on Obama's Victory
- Obama and Lenin
- What would Lenin say about Obama's Victory....
- Lenin vs Obama
- Revolutionary Transitions: Luxemburg and Lenin
- Luxemburg & Lenin
- Lenin believes that Obama’s.....
- what would lenin say
- Obama and Lenin
- Traditional vs. Organic
- Traditional vs. Organic
- Thousand Threads Connected to Congress Too?
- Gramsci on Luxemburg
- Sounds like a Gramsci Studybreak!
- Jeopardy Question: Class in Itself
- Luxemburg meets Burawoy
- Vida de Gramsci
- yay for today's debate!!!
- 1981 PATCO Strike
- Kropotkin's Letter to Lenin
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November
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1 comment:
Even before the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the question of whether Obama was too revolutionary or not revolutionary enough freighted the viability of his presidential candidacy. Obamian rhetoric of emancipation and hope, in the aftermath of his historic victory, continues to elicit ambivalence regarding the ‘revolutionary’ question—an inquiry into which Lenin in “The State and Revolution” provocatively provides answers. To Lenin, Obama’s victory promotes an oppressive, capitalist-tied, revolution-less reiteration of the status quo, reflecting nothing of Lenin’s violent zerbrechen mandate (Lenin 336). From a more Gramscian perspective, however, Obama’s victory offers revolutionary possibility by the mobilization of grassroots efforts that prefigure a potential reconstitution of civil society (Gramsci 126).
But first, according to Lenin, Obama’s victory lacks revolutionary substantiation on multiple grounds. Obama’s future presidency already perpetuates oppression by pretending to moderate irreconcilable class antagonisms through an endless evocation of overcoming racism in the United States (Lenin 315, 342, 367; Zeleny 2008). Even more significantly, Obama’s recent and emerging cabinet selections render visible the capitalist-tied, revolution-less “thousands of threads” that bind the State to capitalists’ interests: e.g., Obama’s choice for secretary of health and human services Tom Daschele to the Mayo Clinic and Obama’s choice for Treasury chief Lawrence H. Summers to the World Bank (Lenin 330; Kirkpatrick 2008; Calmes and White 2008). Obama’s victory also represents “the best shell for capitalism” since it seduces citizens into a faith-based hope that progressive change will actually materialize while sedating others into docile acceptance of the status quo by the symbolic concession of electing the first minority U.S. president (Lenin 319). Obamanomics, too, in its merging of Clintonian and Friedmanian economic policies stops short of the zerbrechen mandate to overthrow the state and install a dictatorship of the proletariat (Leonhardt 2008; Lenin 322). The complete absence of state overthrow, then, exposes the most strikingly non-revolutionary aspect of Obama’s victory, according to Lenin (Lenin 322, 336, 337).
In response to Lenin, Obama’s rhetoric of “overcoming racial barriers” may, in the immediate, actually serve to obscure criticism of capitalist exploitation while continuing the entanglement of the “thousands of threads” (Lenin 343; Kirkpatrick 2008). However, from a more Gramscian perspective, Obama’s election has mobilized and continues to excite grassroots, working-class efforts that call attention to multiple inequalities, which applied more rigorously may bring about “a concrete phantasy” that inspires a dynamic war of movement (Lenin 319; Gramasci 126, 238, 239). This war of movement may be harnessed into a reconstitution of a civil society more apt to accept the terms under which communism seeks to be understood and lived, thereby rendering Obama more revolutionary than Lenin would have him.
REFERENCES
Calmes, Jackie and Ben White. 2008. “Obama’s Possible Treasury Choices Draw Criticism.” The New York Times, Nov. 8 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/us/politics/08treasury.html).
Gramsci, Antonio. 1929-1935. “Selections from Prison Notebooks.” Soc 101A, edited by Michael Burawoy. Berkeley, CA: Copy Central.
Kirkpatrick, David. 2008. “Obama’s Pick of Daschle May test Conflict-of-Interest Pledge.” The New York Times, Nov. 20 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/us/politics/20daschle.html?scp=1&sq=Obama%92s%20Pick%20of%20Daschle%20May%20test%20Conflict-of-Interest%20Pledge&st=cse).
Lenin, Vladimir. 1917. “The State and Revolution.” Soc 101A, edited by Michael Burawoy. Berkeley, CA: Copy Central.
Leonhardt, David. 2008. “Obamanomics.” The New York Times, Aug. 24 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/magazine/24Obamanomics-t.html).
Zeleny, Jeff. 2008. “Obama Urges U.S. to Grapple With Race Issue.” The New York Times, March 19 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/politics/19obama.html?ei=5124&en=34dc3111e823748d&ex=1363665600&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pa gewanted=all).
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