Re: Capitalism and Heterosexism: Judith Butler & Nancy Fraser

[Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Malgosia,

Hi. You wrote that

> What would be a _Marxist_, or Marxian, program for action in the face of
> this kind of uncertainty?

You raise an interesting point. Ex-socialists now-neoconservatives gave up
their radical programs - *they say* - because they came believe that
knowledge was too uncertain to act collectively. They claim that facts are
counterintuitive, that action creates unintended consequences, and that
what appears progressive in the end unleashes latent destructive forces.
Of course, their appeal for restraint is a double-standard: it is not that
they don't believe in action; they just don't believe in popular action
(unless it serves their ends).

Pragmatism, not the whimsical sort of James or the life-is-talk
neopragmatism of the contemporary philosophical community, but materialist
pragmatism, and I am thinking here of Mead, presents a scientific model
that deals with uncertainty at the same time demands action. Even the
materialist form of pragmatism is insufficiently critical of social
conflict, and it tends towards reformism, but the basic underlying model
represents a radical epistemology.

Some of the ex-socialists now-neoconservatives were influenced both by
Marxism and pragmatism, many of them claiming that both influences share a
similar view of praxis. Both Avineri and Lefebvre pointed out in the 1960s
that the similarities are superficial. And it would seem that the
understanding of pragmatism by Hook and others might have led, in part, to
their coming to see uncertainty as major barrier to social action (again,
at least in rhetoric).

But I think Avineri and Lefebvre's critique of pragmatism, brief as it is,
is superficial in itself. They use James and the idealist wing of the
tradition to construct a strawman. Joas' work pointing out the
radical-if-released praxis of the Meadian species represents a much more
fruitful tack on the matter.

I am not saying that Mead's view can replace Marxism. But I do think that
the way Mead deals with knowledge and social evolution, particularly on a
microinteractionist level, fills in some gaps in Marx.

One last thing. Mead's take on uncertainty, and these assumptions are in
Marx, is based on an non-teleological view of natural and social evolution.
Systems' outcomes are uncertain because they are not guided by collective
rational planning (still, Mead, like Marx, asserts that non-teleological
development has a rational character). Mead argues that with the arrival
of consciousness, human beings find themselves in the position to
willfully take over the process of non-teleological evolution and make it
genuinely teleological, i.e., goal-oriented and rationally planned. So,
despite some of the reformist trappings the tradition Mead aligned himself
with (particularly apparent in his close friends Dewey), Mead, the
democratic socialist, has a view of social planning that approaches
Marxian goals.

Just some ideas late at night. I hope that things are good for you,
Malgosia.

Love,
Andy