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From: mangoe@cs.UMD.EDU (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: theory and action
Message-ID: <8910130354.AA03023@mimsy.UMD.EDU>
Date: 13 Oct 89 14:08:21 GMT
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Richard Shapiro's article illustrates a lot of reasons why I do not trust
"radical" social theory.  He writes:

>It's easy to get sucked into the kind of naive individualism/positivism which
>pervades scientific life, and thus the world of usenet. One of the greatest
>achievements of feminism has been to challenge this -- to show how this way
>of thinking inevitably serves to rationalize and justify the way things
>happen to be (women subordinate to men, blacks subordinate to whites, working
>class subordinate to "upper" class).

Something else is being illustrated here: the tendency to a sort of
polarization; the inability to see middle ground.  In this sort of issue,
there is a tension between the fact that the actors *are* individuals, and
the tendency of the actors to see themselves and others in terms of these
classes.  There is also the generally ignored fact that the variation within
the classes is huge, and much larger than the variation between
classes.

The very revealing comment is made that

>We've been seeing this again and again in the anti-feminist "affirmative
>action is sexism" nonsense.  It requires constant attention to keep from
>drifting into this lazy "natural" way of thinking.

Well, the problem here is simply abuse of the language.  Affirmative action
IS discriminatory-- it does involve making decisions on the basis of sex.
This is simply a factual observation, not a moral judgement.  The question
which matters is: is it right?  Is it desirable?

I have grown suspicious of social revolutionaries because of this sort of
talk.  The tension between classes and individual action runs the other way,
too.  If the current system is tilting the scales on the basis of
irrelevancies (i.e., membership in these classes), the tendency is NOT going
to be to simply reverse this by metaphorically sticking one's thumb on the
other side.  The problem is that these responses are not neutral at all;
rational people will use their class membership to whatever advantage they
may in an obviously discriminatory situation.

The whole question of social action issues out of suffering.  But the
problem is, classes do not suffer.  People suffer.  Radical social action
has tended to ignore this distinction.  As a result, the sufferers in the
supposedly privileged classes are generally opposed to it; any class-based
action is almost certainly going to hurt them.  Perhaps the "constant
attention" spoken of earlier involves learning to ignore their complaints.

To be fair, criticism needs to go the other way as well.  People do
frequently act in groups, or act on the basis of their perceived membership
in groups.  But it is a fallacy to present these as alternatives.  They are
simply extremes in error.  Wise action here requires dealing with both.  You
cannot have an equitable social policy which ignores the variations within
groups; you also can have an equitable policy which ignores the groups
altogether.  In my opinion, AA leans in the direction of the former error.
And it is hardly surprising that a purely theoretical advantage is going to
loom small against a real loss.

There is also a strong tendency here towards several classical fallacies.
The argument about the status quo is simply a prettier version of "you say
that because you are an X."  It is convenient to be able to dismiss one's
opponents arguments as appealing to their self-interest, but it is not truth.

In the end, the republicans are winning because people think they are not
being served by the opposition.  In my opinion, some of this is just
irrational thinking.  But the opposition has tended to put itself in the
position of advocating to too many people that they slit their throats for
someone else's cause.  To put it bluntly, redneck males aren't going to vote
for feminism as long as feminism presents itself as an assault on them.