[Marxism] Gordon S. Wood on Sean Wilentz

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

There's an interesting review of Sean Wilentz's "The Rise of American
Democracy" by Gordon S. Wood in today's NY Times Book review section
(<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/books/review/13wood.html>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/books/review/13wood.html).
Wood, a historian himself, correctly identifies Wilentz as having the
reinvigoration of the Democratic Party as one of his chief aims in this
book, particularly through his elevation of Andrew Jackson, a figure who no
longer is flattered the way he was in Arthur Schlesinger Jr. "Age of
Jackson," a book that didn't even mention the ethnic cleansing of the
Cherokees.

Unlike Schlesinger, Wilentz does acknowledge the Democratic Party's
pro-slavery and anti-Indian policies, but forgives them in the same way
that Communists used to apologize for Stalin. In Great Projects like
building American Democracy or Socialism, it is sometimes necessary to
subordinate lesser peoples for the Greater Good.

Wood makes the case that Wilentz has no use for pesky minorities when it
comes to advancing the cause of the Democratic Party today:

"Like Schlesinger in 1945, he wants in 2005 to speak to the liberalism of
the modern Democratic Party. By suggesting that the race, gender and
cultural issues that drive much of the modern left are not central to the
age of Jackson, Wilentz seems to imply that they should not be central to
the future of the present-day Democratic Party."

Of course, this is somewhat old news. People like Richard Rorty and Sean
Wilentz deeply resent the New Left's impact on American politics. By
forcing the issues of Black, gay and women's inequality on the world's
oldest bourgeois party, they allow the Republicans to demagogically exploit
the fears of the sort described in Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with
Kansas."

As everybody probably knows, there is no such thing as "impartial"
historiography. Every historian imparts his own ideological agenda into
yesterday's events, no matter the pains they take to conceal it under a
veneer of scholarly dispassion. What about Gordon S. Wood himself?

As the author of "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," one might
expect Wood to be Howard Zinn's second cousin. However, the radicalism he
writes about is that of Thomas Jefferson than that of Crispus Attucks.

For Wood, as well as Wilentz, it is necessary to learn to appreciate the
Greater Mission of American capitalism, even when they are getting short
shrift:

"I do think that there were -- there are lots of historians who feel that
we didn't do enough for these oppressed or -- oppressed people,
particularly black slaves and -- and women. I mean, I -- my answer to that
is, of course, that the Revolution did really substantially change the
climate in which slavery had existed.

"For thousands of years, slavery had existed in the Western world without
substantial criticism. And the Revolution marked a major turning point. It
suddenly put slavery on the defensive. And I think that's the point that
needs to be emphasized, not that Jefferson didn't free his slaves, but that
as a man raised as a slave holder, in a world that was dominated by
slavery, he criticized it. That's what's new. That's the point that I think
needs to be made. Where did that come from? Why -- why did this generation
suddenly become critics of slavery and put it on the defensive? That I
think is an important point."

Full:
<http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1672>http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1672

John Chuckman, a frequent contributor to Alexander Cockburn and Jeff St.
Clair's "Counterpunch" has an interesting review of Wood's book on
amazon.com that starts as follows:

"Mr. Wood's book tries to put some intellectual and moral sizzle back into
an American Revolution that has long come to be regarded by world scholars
as something less than an earth-shaking event.

"Despite much-labored efforts, Mr. Wood fails, and he is pretty dull along
the way in presenting his case. It really could not be otherwise, for his
basic thesis is faulty. The Revolution has been summed up, quite accurately
I believe, as a group of home-grown aristocrats taking power from a group
of foreign-born aristocrats.

"America's central myth about its founding goes something like this: An
extraordinary bunch of men, dressed in frock coats and wearing powdered
wigs, closeted together after a long and heroic war against tyranny, worked
unselfishly to give the United States a perfect modern system of government."

For obvious reasons what repels a genuine radical like Chuckman also
attracts Newt Gingrich, who hyped Wood's book when it came out and that is
found on the 'recommended books' section of Gingrich's website, along with
"Gone With the Wind" and Mario Puzo's "The Godfather."



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