Repressive Tolerance & Some Utopian Musings

Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance," published in 1965, and again in 1968 with an additional postscript, is unsettling, to say the least. I'm writing on it for a graduate seminar on the First Amendment. I initially began the project with an eye to defending Repressive Tolerance--a position that I'm not sure I can claim any longer--not without some serious revision. Instead, what I might try to do, is salvage some of Marcuse's insights into reason, consciousness (raising), community-based rule, etc. What impresses me most about RT, is Marcuse's insistence that communities have, despite the conditions of living in a one dimensional society, the capacity to decide that which they will and will not accept, based on the historically identifiable (not transcendent) category of progress: "The experience and understanding of the existent society may well be capable of identifying what is not conducive to a free and rational society, what impedes and distorts the possibilities of its creation" (p. 87). The truth is, that if they (which is to say: we) are not capable that there would be very little room for optimism. Yet, Marcuse remained, even obliquely, optimistic, or at least hopeful. His entire project depended on it.

I'm still unsettled by Repressive Tolerance. Yes, Marcuse is right: there are certain speech patterns that should not be tolerated. (He's writing with the Nazi rise to power in mind, with the historical hope that had certain speech not been tolerated, the atrocities of fascism would not have been committed. And, this, at least speculatively, speaks something to Marcuse's concept of history--something I wouldn't mind exploring.) The uptake of this claim, as scholars have noted, has been a justification of confrontation politics. And the problem with confrontation politics is that it will totally ruin your Thanksgiving Dinner. And I'm only speaking somewhat in jest. But, it is my interest of making sure the cranberry sauce doesn't land in someone's lap that seriously disrupts my ability to go full-RT.

I'm beginning to accept that I'm a hopeless moderate who sometimes masquerades as a radical. Truthfully, I'm a hopeful moderate. And that statement says something about that which makes me radical: an apparent wistfulness for utopian thinking. The belief, rooted in an ontology that posits an essential goodness of humanity; that through human labor we can create a new, better society; that the tools for the creation of said society exist already, in a material sense; that the goal to enacting that society must take place in the realm of consciousness (raising); that a correct conception of consciousness must locate the individual within the social, as a communitarian being, capable of enacting both collective and personal change.

Now, to make no-place, some-place. (And get working on this paper.)

Bagley, Sarcasm, & Fourierism

Bagley’s rhetorical tone is remarkably sarcastic in her letters, especially considering the constraints of feminity that characterized women as demure and submissive. In private, it might have been acceptable for a woman to exercise a sarcastic mode; however, in public, restraint was expected. Though judging sarcasm in 150 year-old-letters is somewhat difficult, two examples should suffice. Bagley’s manner of sarcasm works by calling attention to the obvious. In this way she privileges common understanding over the intellectual, or elite understanding, of her detractors. When asked about the “state of morals among the factory operatives,” Bagley’s reply can only be characterized as snarky: “I can assure you it is just what any reflective mind would expect of seven thousand females thrown together under a great diversity of circumstances and with all kinds an no kind of cultivation.”[1]  This remark functions as a public shaming of sorts.  Instead of submitting to the authority of her male interlocutor, or instead of feigning the benign feminine, as would have been characteristic of female rhetors in this time period (cite), Bagley instead favors a forceful, evenly alienating response. It becomes clear in this instance that Bagley’s intent is not to persuade her interlocutor, but readers of the exchange. This exchange shows how Bagley is able to maneuver the argument in such a way as to change the intended audience, as well as to control the rhetorical situation. Bagley adeptly manipulates not only the message, but also the intended audience, in effect making the male interlocutor into a public cuckold.

As mentioned, Bagley’s characteristic use of sarcasm functions as a way to elevate the common while at the same time leveling the elite. In an exchange with Harriet Farley, editor of the Lowell Offering, Bagley continues the public dispute with Farley by crafting a letter-to-the-editor in the Lowell Advertiser. In it, she says, “I notice by the Advertiser of last week that I have been favored with a specimen of refined literature, from the pen of one of the geniuses of the age, and a feel myself highly honored with a passing notice from such a high source, although it comes in the form of personal abuse.”[2] Bagley’s own italicizing reveals the sarcastic nature of her reply, as well as the intended effect of that sarcasm. Of the four words italicized, three refer to high culture: “refined,” “geniuses,” “high.” The first word, “favored” serves to illuminate the connection between the four italicized words. The effect of this rhetorical maneuvering is to associate a particular social, or cultural consciousness, with upper class, the capitalists, or the bourgeousie. Bagley does this so that she might also dismantle it. By drawing attention to the high culture distinction with sarcasm, she privileges common understanding and being as superior to upper class distinctions. In doing so, even though Farley was once a working mill girl herself, Bagley aligns Farley with the interests of the upper class, and in aligning Farley with corporate interests, Bagley positions Farley as an actual member of that class. This is particularly interesting. For Bagley, class position appears to be rooted in the social, and not necessarily the mode of production (as Karl Marx would later say in his writings). Though Farley is a member of the lower class as a former operative herself and editor of a struggling publication, Bagley groups her with high culture and the upper class by virtue of Farley’s sympathies—Bagley, who did not hesitate to quote Christian scripture, might have agreed emphatically with the statement: for where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. This fact speaks to some of the inherent contradictions in Bagley’s writings. On the one hand, Bagley’s emphasis on consciousness-raising appears to represent an abandonment of revolutionary impulses while instead choosing to focus on pragmatic reforms. On the other hand, Bagley never abandoned a deep commitment to the intellectual condition of the working classes. In this sense, Bagley appears to align herself more clearly with Fourierism.

Fourierism was an early socialist movement begun by Charles Fourier, a French eccentric and perhaps early feminist. Sometimes noted as a pre-Marxist movement in a hopelessly anachronistic label, Fourierism was interested not in economic equality, but rather in social equality. Fourierism differs from the socialist school in “its respect for the wealthy classes, for property, inheritance, capital, and all that is commonly spoken of constituting the foundations of social order.”[3] In fact, Fourierism privileged social harmony over economic equality.[4] However, this, as mentioned, marks one of the tensions in Bagley’s writings. At times she calls for impassioned revolution, but she never calls for the overthrowing of the means of production. In this sense, the revolution that Bagley argues for is a revolution of consciousness. When assuming editorship of the Voice of Industry, Bagley claims as a policy statement: “Capital must not be permitted to demand so much of labor. Education of the mass, must be made to possess an individual certainty, past escape.”[5] This, too, is a decidedly Fourierst claim. In it, Bagley articulates a type of liberalism that privileges the individual, while at the same time remarking on the importance of the social. Also, Bagley does not insist on dismantling capital, or the relationship between capital and labor; rather, Bagley’s stated purpose is to improve the relationship, as well as the collective welfare of labor through the education of individual minds. This more interesting revolution—if it can still be called that—will be discussed latter in the paper as a proto-consciouness-raising that includes both gender and class.

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[1] Voice of Industry, May 6, 1846

[2] VOI, July 23, 1845

[3] Charles Gide, "Introduction," in Design for Utopia: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier, (New York: Schocken Books, 1971): 31.

[4] For example, “Compound unity, which must be physical and passional and which can only be established in Harmony, requires that humans be identical in everything which concerns the fulfillment of the soul as well as the development of the body. Compound unity requires that men be homogenous in language and manner even though unequal in wealth” in Charles Fourier, The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction, ed. Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu, trans. Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1983), 260.

[5] VOI, May 15, 1846

Word Cloud of my Blog

Cool.

Relating with the dead, a poem

I'm thinking more and more this morning about what it means to engage in historical research, and most especially about the relationship with the dead such research engenders. For this blog post, then, a little poem I wrote that tries to express something of the nature of that relationship:

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Falling in Love (Or, the Delirium of Discovery and the Eroticism of Historical Research as Told Me by an Apparition on a Sunday Morning)

Just before the ectoplasm runs like salty mucous down my thigh, I hear:
I am mesmerizing you.
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Recovery and Criticism in Women’s Public Address Studies

This post is something of a rough stone rolling—but I’m just glad to be rolling at this point. Anyway, looking forward to your thoughts on this next installment. The end ventures a bit down the rabbit hole, but I’m hoping with a few more rewrites I’ll start to find some clarity.

**Also, a little help: Should I use woman's or women's when describing rights, public address, rhetor, etc....?

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Recovery and Criticism in Women’s Public Address Studies

As is true of much historical scholarship, recovery plays a key role in woman’s public address history. Feminist scholars have made huge strides in bringing to light the absconded discourses of many women, and in doing so, have not only increased academic knowledge of woman rhetors, but have likewise increased an understanding of how historical women have participated in rhetorical performance. The result has been the accumulation of a substantial amount of literature on women’s rhetoric. In this literature review I have two purposes: the first is to categorize the literature on historical women’s public address into two overarching categories based on topical content to demonstrate that working class women have been ignored as a topic of study. The second purpose is to attempt to articulate a theoretical account for why the literature has largely ignored working class women. I do this by explaining a dialectical relationship characterized by recovery and criticism.

Where does Bagley fit?

A few thoughts (without any particular claim to coherence) on Sarah Bagley as I read further into her own words and the literature on women's rhetoric:

1) Is it more historically and textually accurate to look at Bagley as primarily a labor activist? That, consciously or unconsciously, agitating for labor was a priori to women's rights agitation (i.e., to what extent would the vote have been useful if women laborers had no time in which to exercise it?) However, this is not to say that her gender was absented (in fact, it might have found expression through absence) from her rhetoric, rather it played into a rights talk that strategically emphasized labor rights over women's rights. Perhaps Bagley had to choose (I use this word very, very tentatively) which to emphasize, and she chose the former. But, if she strategically chose the former, How? Why?

2) Building off point #1, to what extent does Bagley fit into a line of women that includes Mother Jones and Emma Goldman, rather than Angelina Grimke, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony?

3) There appears to be a dialectical tension between Bagley as labor reformer and Bagley as woman. How does this compare to women who agitated primarily for rights other than women's rights? This poses an interesting problem: One the one hand, such a woman would be a de facto feminist by virtue of her existence and rhetorical style (for breaking gender norms, speaking on behalf of herself and class, advocating in public). But on the other hand, such a woman would be anti-feminist based on substantive content (women as lowly servants to men in their joint(?) goals).

4) Perhaps these three points lead to an additional reason, aside from a possible class bias, that resulted in the exclusion of Bagley from the women's rhetoric canon. Was her contradictory position as lower-class, laborer and woman responsible for her exclusion? In this case, I'm wondering if something along the lines of W.E.B. Du Bois' double consciousness is at work here? (And in what ways that phenomenon has lead to the exclusion of other women from the feminist canon, most notably non-white women--see especially bell hooks).

5) Most controversially: To what extent has the study of women's rhetoric suffered from the constraints of canonization--a process that has virtually eliminated the presence of Sarah Bagley? With few exceptions, does Bagley's rhetoric demonstrate how class has been suppressed by historical and contemporary understandings of feminist rhetoric? Are we being tyrannized by the canon? Or is it just a blind spot?

Any thoughts?

Walter Benjamin on Writing

A little inspiration from Walter Benjamin as the semester becomes more and more writing intensive. These days I find myself thinking about #6. I always find #7 oddly encouraging.

The Writer's Technique in Thirteen Theses

1. Anyone intending to embark on a major work should be lenient with himself and, having completed a stint, deny himself nothing that will not prejudice the next.

2. Talk about what you have written, by all means, but do not read from it while the work is in progress. Every gratification procured in this way will slacken your tempo. If this regime is followed, the growing desire to communicate will become in the end a motor for completion.

3. In your working conditions avoid everyday mediocrity. Semi-relaxation, to a background of insipid sounds, is degrading. On the other hand, accompaniment by an etude or a cacophony of voices can become as significant for work as the perceptible silence of the night. If the latter sharpens the inner ear, the former acts as a touchstone for a diction ample enough to bury even the most wayward sounds.

4. Avoid haphazard writing materials. A pedantic adherence to certain papers, pens, inks is beneficial. No luxury, but an abundance of these utensils is indispensable.

5. Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.

6. Keep your pen aloof from inspiration, which it will then attract with magnetic power. The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.

7. Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Literary honour requires that one break off only at an appointed moment (a mealtime, a meeting) or at the end of the work.

8. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written. Intuition will awaken in the process.

9. Nulla dies sine linea -- but there may well be weeks.

10. Consider no work perfect over which you have not once sat from evening to broad daylight.

11. Do not write the conclusion of a work in your familiar study. You would not find the necessary courage there.

12. Stages of composition: idea -- style -- writing. The value of the fair copy is that in producing it you confine attention to calligraphy. The idea kills inspiration, style fetters the idea, writing pays off style.

13. The work is the death mask of its conception.