The thing that has struck me about this empowered/disempowered binary is that it really undermines someone's ability to talk with (i.e. negotiate with) the empowered because it also breeds contempt and dislike for the power.
I think this conflates the power and the empowered a little too much. It sort of resembles the strawman (strawperson?) feminism where the patriarchy is understood to be a cabal of rich white men deliberately seeking to keep women down, or the stereotype of the man-hating feminist. I think there's a huge difference between a recognition of privilege and contempt.
And since privilege comes in so many shapes and colors, thinking of it as a binary is probably less than effective.
Can one take lessons from radicalism about what the world's problems are and still find a new way to actually solve them? Or should one turn away from radicalism as an intellectually fascinating but ultimately fruitless cul-de-sac and look for something entirely different?
I just don't see what that something could be. It might just be my own blindness, but it seems like it'd most likely develope into that "most of feminism's battles are fought and won" post-feminist nonsense and complacency which is so frustratingly common nowadays. Radical feminism reveals just how deep (thus the name) the problems with our society go. I don't see anything else (other than the other forms of radical leftist politics, of course, which I think need to stand in solidarity with feminism) able to fulfill that role.
But I don't see why seeing just how deep the problem runs prevents one from making temporary, short-term attempts at, if not solving it (planning for the revolution might still be in order), at least mitigating it. And like the ship of Theseus, this approach might allow us to, over time, radically replace all elements of our culture while still existing within it.
So, no, I don't see any real tension between a liberal politics and a radical theory.
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Date: 2009-03-14 06:36 pm (UTC)I think this conflates the power and the empowered a little too much. It sort of resembles the strawman (strawperson?) feminism where the patriarchy is understood to be a cabal of rich white men deliberately seeking to keep women down, or the stereotype of the man-hating feminist. I think there's a huge difference between a recognition of privilege and contempt.
And since privilege comes in so many shapes and colors, thinking of it as a binary is probably less than effective.
Can one take lessons from radicalism about what the world's problems are and still find a new way to actually solve them? Or should one turn away from radicalism as an intellectually fascinating but ultimately fruitless cul-de-sac and look for something entirely different?
I just don't see what that something could be. It might just be my own blindness, but it seems like it'd most likely develope into that "most of feminism's battles are fought and won" post-feminist nonsense and complacency which is so frustratingly common nowadays. Radical feminism reveals just how deep (thus the name) the problems with our society go. I don't see anything else (other than the other forms of radical leftist politics, of course, which I think need to stand in solidarity with feminism) able to fulfill that role.
But I don't see why seeing just how deep the problem runs prevents one from making temporary, short-term attempts at, if not solving it (planning for the revolution might still be in order), at least mitigating it. And like the ship of Theseus, this approach might allow us to, over time, radically replace all elements of our culture while still existing within it.
So, no, I don't see any real tension between a liberal politics and a radical theory.