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I'm reading discussions about the idea of a communist "vanguard" for the working class, and trying to sort out my feelings about the whole thing.
The bare bones idea seems to be that you can't wait for a group of people who've been marginalized, denied educational opportunities, and denied opportunity for political expression to figure out how to start a revolution and then do it effectively (since all that crap piled on them seems aimed at preventing precisely that). The solution some people have come up with (if I'm understanding what I'm reading correctly) is that what's needed is for a "vanguard" of intellectual working-class-allies to agitate the working class, get them all riled up and carve out some room for them to express themselves and start exercising the power they were always told they didn't have or deserve.
This sounds fairly reasonable, especially because it's speaking to the part of me that gets very frustrated with low-income self-identified conservatives who repeatedly vote against their own self-interest (oddly, in the name of protecting the sanctity of self-interest itself). However, I feel like I have to check that part of me. That part of me also says that these low-income self-destructive conservatives are obviously too stupid to know what's good for them, and clearly a bunch of educated elites like me (since, though it seems odd to me, an education is kind of an "elite" quality, for good or ill) to come in and take their whole lives and all their problems out of their hands so that someone who knows what to do can make it all better.
How fucking disempowering is that logic? That's why I resist it. If I look at people who disagree with me as though they must be saved from their own decisions, I stop being the person who's trying to help them realize their own power.
Seems to me that's the power and the danger of the "vanguard" notion as well. Obviously not all corners of middle- or working- or lower-class society are going to be class-conscious enough (or have the energy to spare, or have safe enough conditions, though those are obstacles I don't see mentioned much in leftist discussions) to go out and kick patriarchal classist capitalist ass. Obviously those people who have a better idea should lend those skills to something useful instead of using them to further their own power.
But they can use this to further their own power. We've seen this with TEA Parties organized by multi-billion dollar insurance companies that are agitating less-conscious working-class people to give their power over from working for their own welfare to working for the welfare of their oh-so-helpful-and-sympathetic new corporate masters. That's the really nasty thing about astroturf organizing like this; it uses people's suffering and gets them all riled up to diffuse that bitterness and hope in a direction that accomplishes nothing and is therefore "safe" for the companies holding their leashes.
How to organize without doing that? How is it possible to get people interested in a cause without taking their energy and directing it as a commodity belonging to whomever can take it?
I think it comes down to something I learned in a women's empowerment circle (and yes, I attended one for a little while, and still would be if my work schedule allowed it). There is a huge difference between offering support to someone while she works through her problems, and taking her problems out of her hands to solve them for her. One of these affirms her right and ability to control her own life, and one undermines it even as it attempts to assist.
It seems to me there's a place for a "vanguard," but the term makes it sound cohesive enough to worry me. The only reason I'm even conceding the term is that--should the seemingly-impossible occur and a revolution come or... or something--these people will have power. They will. Since I am firmly against power being wielded in secret (since power that is openly named can be more easily held accountable), naming this kinda-sorta-group of people is okay with me right now.
I'm just trying to sort out my feelings on the whole thing, and trying to figure out just what it is that people are advocating when they talk about a "vanguard." I guess it might just be like any "ally" out there. White allies to POC are good, but shouldn't use their advantages to take over anti-racist work. Same with hetero and cis allies to LGBT people, men who support feminism, etc.
Maybe this is a case of an archaic word being jammed into a discussion which has moved beyond it. I'm still not sure what I think; I'm just rambling here and hoping it goes somewhere useful.
The bare bones idea seems to be that you can't wait for a group of people who've been marginalized, denied educational opportunities, and denied opportunity for political expression to figure out how to start a revolution and then do it effectively (since all that crap piled on them seems aimed at preventing precisely that). The solution some people have come up with (if I'm understanding what I'm reading correctly) is that what's needed is for a "vanguard" of intellectual working-class-allies to agitate the working class, get them all riled up and carve out some room for them to express themselves and start exercising the power they were always told they didn't have or deserve.
This sounds fairly reasonable, especially because it's speaking to the part of me that gets very frustrated with low-income self-identified conservatives who repeatedly vote against their own self-interest (oddly, in the name of protecting the sanctity of self-interest itself). However, I feel like I have to check that part of me. That part of me also says that these low-income self-destructive conservatives are obviously too stupid to know what's good for them, and clearly a bunch of educated elites like me (since, though it seems odd to me, an education is kind of an "elite" quality, for good or ill) to come in and take their whole lives and all their problems out of their hands so that someone who knows what to do can make it all better.
How fucking disempowering is that logic? That's why I resist it. If I look at people who disagree with me as though they must be saved from their own decisions, I stop being the person who's trying to help them realize their own power.
Seems to me that's the power and the danger of the "vanguard" notion as well. Obviously not all corners of middle- or working- or lower-class society are going to be class-conscious enough (or have the energy to spare, or have safe enough conditions, though those are obstacles I don't see mentioned much in leftist discussions) to go out and kick patriarchal classist capitalist ass. Obviously those people who have a better idea should lend those skills to something useful instead of using them to further their own power.
But they can use this to further their own power. We've seen this with TEA Parties organized by multi-billion dollar insurance companies that are agitating less-conscious working-class people to give their power over from working for their own welfare to working for the welfare of their oh-so-helpful-and-sympathetic new corporate masters. That's the really nasty thing about astroturf organizing like this; it uses people's suffering and gets them all riled up to diffuse that bitterness and hope in a direction that accomplishes nothing and is therefore "safe" for the companies holding their leashes.
How to organize without doing that? How is it possible to get people interested in a cause without taking their energy and directing it as a commodity belonging to whomever can take it?
I think it comes down to something I learned in a women's empowerment circle (and yes, I attended one for a little while, and still would be if my work schedule allowed it). There is a huge difference between offering support to someone while she works through her problems, and taking her problems out of her hands to solve them for her. One of these affirms her right and ability to control her own life, and one undermines it even as it attempts to assist.
It seems to me there's a place for a "vanguard," but the term makes it sound cohesive enough to worry me. The only reason I'm even conceding the term is that--should the seemingly-impossible occur and a revolution come or... or something--these people will have power. They will. Since I am firmly against power being wielded in secret (since power that is openly named can be more easily held accountable), naming this kinda-sorta-group of people is okay with me right now.
I'm just trying to sort out my feelings on the whole thing, and trying to figure out just what it is that people are advocating when they talk about a "vanguard." I guess it might just be like any "ally" out there. White allies to POC are good, but shouldn't use their advantages to take over anti-racist work. Same with hetero and cis allies to LGBT people, men who support feminism, etc.
Maybe this is a case of an archaic word being jammed into a discussion which has moved beyond it. I'm still not sure what I think; I'm just rambling here and hoping it goes somewhere useful.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 12:38 am (UTC)From:... which would be bad.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 12:42 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 01:32 am (UTC)From:I avoid "vanguards" because I associate them with "starting revolutions you can't finish".
My look at history suggests to me that those who agitate the oppressed classes either fail to agitate them sufficiently, and get stomped by the ruling elite; or they DO agitate them and get stomped by the masses in an orgy of uncontrolled mob bloodletting.
In this case, "stomped" can mean anything from being murdered by the system they themselves set up (Post-imperial Rome/Reign of Terror France/Stalinist Russia, to name the biggies) to starting a club on campus and being thrown out of it by people who think you're part of the problem.
I'll worry about the ethics of too-patronizing "leadership" when it becomes apparent that said leaders actually get to become long-term leaders and not victims.
Will and Ariel Durant wrote that wealth and power tend to concentrate into fewer and fewer hands, and that when this tendency reaches a critical point, one of two things ALWAYS happens. Either the rulers step in and do some controlled redistribution, like with the New Deal, or else there is a violent and bloody revolution. There are no other choices. I go with the redistribution, because I know that if the oppressed classes really get moving, it will get very ugly very fast, and the masses have a tendency, when busting heads, to not distinguish between the evil capitalist overlords and people like you and me. Look who got hurt the most during the race riots of the 60s/Rodney King/etc....it was usually small businesses in the neighborhoods where the oppressed classes lived, many of whom were struggling nonwhite victims of race prejudice themselves.
And if that shows that privileged white liberals have a different agenda than people of color and any other nonprivileged folks, then so be it. It's the truth.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 02:08 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 03:37 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 11:03 pm (UTC)From:I can think of a couple positive examples of "vanguard".
First, there's Martin Luther King, Jr, who was Harvard educated. He had the connections with whites who wanted to see change, as well as the vision for change in the south. His "vanguard" was a coalition of white and black church leaders. Without those people helping he wouldn't have had the resources to organize black Americans to fight segregation.
Another positive model was Ben Franklin's idea of an "aristoi", an upper class leadership, that was an essential part of the American revolution.
But I think you are correct that any vanguard that disempowers people in order to empower the vanguard is disenguenuine at best, and downright evil at its worst.
bb,
Cern
no subject
Date: 2010-01-02 01:50 pm (UTC)From:There have been plenty of cases of well meaning 'vanguards' moving in to help the 'helpless', doing a piss poor job because for all their smarts they didn't fully understand the situation or the people, shipping out and things fall apart when they aren't there to rule over the improvement.
I think the better thing to do would be to move in, assimilate, understand the situation, then as a person in the in-group of the society use the knowledge of the people to drive the change as a cooperative effort and not as a "Lemme fix it!! I has learnings to do so!!!"
For example, the Franciscans and the Dominicans moved into China with supposedly good intention of spreading the word to poor heathen China. Result, fucked up China in a significant way. Sure China had it's issues already but a foreign influence was the straw that broke the camels back and somehow that makes the fall worse. Furthermore, it turns off the natives to foreign influence cause...well..it fucks shit up. Not to mention that OTHER people see how foreign influence can just jack your shit up so now THEY don't like foreign influence. Making any other well meaning, capable efforts forced to fight against the current.
I know my biggest issue with people talking about marginalized people is the out-group, in-group dynamic. Sure a person can admit that as a person not in the group they understand they don't understand the in-group's pain fully but they want to help but it just props up the wall against outside influence especially if that outside force wants to 'rile things up' for the in-group.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-07 02:21 am (UTC)From: