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.

Sarah G. Bagley on Religion and the Laboring Class

"...They attend church as much--nay more than could be expected, under all the circumstances. If they should not go to church at all, they would be quite excusable, and if at the day of retribution the operatives of our country should be found guilty of a want of religious devotion, how much more will the teachers of religion have need of repentance and forgiveness for their sanction of the system which disqualifies them to attend church and cultivate the spirit of the gospel.

"It will be said, that we are infidel to offer an apology for a neglect to attend church? We are aware that the operatives are rapidly verging to infidelity to the religion that lays heavy burdens upon their shoulders, that it will not remove with one of its fingers. Is it strange that the operatives should stay away from the churches where they see the men filling the 'chief seats,' who are taking every means to grind them into the very dust, and have no sympathy with them, and look upon them only as inanimate machines, made to subserve their interests?"

Voice of Industry, May 6, 1846

Something interesting is going on here. Many reform movements founded and organized by 19th century women have found their rallying call in/through religion, yet in the quote above Bagley insists that religion is in some way anathema (too strong a word?) to the interests of the laboring classes. In fact, instead of using religion to call for labor reform, she appears to be using the condition of labor to call for religious reform.

Any thoughts?

Historical Context – Sarah Bagley and Labor Reform

Writing in 1845, Reverend Henry A. Miles described the working conditions of the female Lowell Factory laborers. “From the boarding-houses to the mills are laid side-walks of brick and stone, for the comfort of the operatives in wet and muddy walking,” says Miles. “The mills themselves are kept of uniform temperature, being heated in cold weather either by steam, or by hot-air furnaces. The rooms are lofty, are well ventilated, and are kept as free from dust as is possible, while the machinery is carefully boxed, or otherwise secured against accidents”.[1] However, at one point in his description, Miles is forced to confront some of the apparently negative descriptions of factory life that were then circulating. After appropriately detailing some of the seeming objections to his glowing report, Miles can only conclude:

A walk through our mills must convince one, by the generally healthy and robust appearance of the girls, that their condition is not inferior, in this respect, to other working classes of their sex. Certainly, if multitudes of them went home to sicken and die, equal multitudes of their sisters and neighbors would not be very eager to take the fatal stations which were deserted. The united testimony of these girls themselves, of the matrons of their boarding-houses, and of the physicians of the city, can be reconciled with only one conclusion, and that only the prejudiced and designing will resist.[2]

It is not unlikely that Miles had in mind someone much like, if not particularly, Sarah G. Bagley. President and founding member of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, as well as the first female labor activist, Bagley’s perceptions of life in the mills was much different.[3] Perhaps she, too, had someone like Miles in mind when she said:

There is not a man in [the] community who would not blush to say in view of the physical organization of the female operative, that the laws of health are necessarily and unavoidably violated by them every day, in various ways. The long hours of labor, the short time allowed for meals, and the large number who occupy the sleeping and sitting apartments, all go to prove that physical inability must be the result. There is no time or accommodation for bathing in their sleeping apartments, a practice that has been deemed as necessary to health, as food or sleep, by the physiologists of our day. With but a few moments of time allowed to take their food, which is swallowed without being half masticated, and the pores of the skin being encrusted, or nearly so with cotton dust, it is not strange that so many of their number fall a prey to consumption, and find an early grave.[4]

From these accounts emerge two very different versions of the life of the women that have come to be known as the Lowell Mill Girls. Both accounts are indicative of a battle in Lowell over the definition of the conditions and nature of the woman workers who labored in the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. However, due to Lowell’s prominence in the factory scene at large, as well as the nascent labor reform movement that extended from Lowell into other New England states, these local disputes over the nature of workers in Lowell come to participate in a much larger dispute over the nature of labor reform generally. Lowell may provide the particular entrance into this rhetoric of reform, but the rhetoric in turn speaks to a generalized battle over the place of work and women in society, a battle in which women played a key role.

No Text for my Context

I’ve narrowed down my time and location (1834-1845, Lowell, MA), however I’m still having trouble coming up with an artifact to analyze. The difficulty with analyzing the strikes of 1834 and 1836 is the lack of a clearly identifiable artifact, at least that I’ve been able to locate. And at this point doing archival research isn’t really an option (anyone want to fly me to Massachusetts?) What I have been able to find is the petition the women circulated, a document about unions that they attached to the petition, and a newspaper article referencing the second strike. Part of me wonders if I’m looking in the right place. And if I am, have I found enough to analyze?

I’m still interested in The Lowell Offering generally, but I think it is another project. On the one hand, it offers an excellent look into the creative output of mid-18^th century, working women. In a way, it reminds me of Jacques Ranciere’s work in The Nights of Labor. And in fact, his historical analysis provides a useful (and perhaps novel) way of looking at the Offering. However, it lacks an apparently obvious connection to the labor agitation that was occurring in the Lowell Mills, and for this project I’m largely interested in engaging labor movement history.

Having said that, I think I have found an artifact that allows me to touch on the Offering and the labor movement—but I’m just now considering it. The potential object of study is an exchange between Sarah Bagley, editor of the woman’s section of the Voice of Industry and founding member of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (who one researcher claims is the first female labor organizer in the U.S.—though I’m going to need to do some more digging to verify it) and the former editor of the Offering, Harriet Farley (or Harriot F. Curtis—I don’t have the name in front of me). The exchange takes place in the letter-to-the-editor section of Industry (I believe), in which Bagley accuses Farley of establishing an editorial policy that favored views held by the mill industrialists, while neglecting a pro-worker stance. The exchange is insightful as it can be read as a theoretical-political dispute. However, unlike the usual theoretical-political disputes that were taking place between intellectual-elites in the labor movement, this dispute features members of the working class. I need to examine it further before I can legitimately make that claim, but I think something interesting might be going on.

I’m still working through this, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out there.

Choosing a Topic and Narrowing it Down

My research interests, conceived very (very) broadly, are centered around (re)theorizing the possibilities for social change. The question I've started to formulate around this (and where rhetoric comes home to play, especially regarding invention) is: What kinds of public rhetoric (and/or discourse) produce the possibilities for radical social change? How do they do it? So, I'm looking for a case study that will contribute to that research agenda (recognizing the necessity for other, more specific research questions once I select the particular* artifact for this paper).

So, with those general interests in mind, I need to come up with a case study for this specific course. To help narrow it down, I’ve come up with several criteria. The case study should 1) be an example of social change (failed or realized), 2) be historical, 3) have a clearly delineated text of some sort that is available for criticism (meaning, I want to have something a little more concrete for this project).

The other day I met with Dr. Poirot and she and I discussed several possibilities. One possibility she mentioned was looking at the Lowell Mill Girls Strikes of 1834 and 1836. As early examples of women’s organizing, the strikes provide an opportunity to look at the intersections of gender and class. I’ve been doing some reading about the surrounding time period, and found particularly interesting a monthly magazine called The Lowell Offering, that included poetry, essays, short stories, etc., written by the Lowell Mill Girls. This topic gives me a couple of directions. I could choose to look at discourses immediately surrounding the historical strike, or alternatively I could start looking through the Offering, started four years after the second strike, and see how these women’s reflections on the strike (maybe there are reflections?) help influence/orient our understanding of early female attempts at social change, and what the broader implications are for that understanding. So, still a lot more narrowing to do, but I think I've found a starting point.

Having said that, I implore you for comments and suggestions.

*I'm feeling very self-conscious about using this word after our discussion in class today. Lol.

A Brief Description

Elizabeth Cady Stanton read the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions to the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York in July of 1848. The text is designed to parallel an earlier declaration penned in 1776: The Declaration of Independence. The Sentiments and Resolutions provides a list of injuries—15 in total—that men have perpetrated on women. It then offers a series of 12 resolutions, the implementation of which would help to eliminate the “absolute tyranny” of men over women. The enumeration of the injuries produces an overwhelming effect on the reader. As the accumulation of offenses are stacked on one another, line by line, those offense also come to weigh heavily on the reader’s mind. The list of resolutions produces a similar effect, in which the weight of the work required to correct the injustices weighs heavier and heavier as each resolution is read.

Much like the text it imitates, the tone of the Sentiments and Resolutions is strident and sweeping. However, though the Sentiment’s most obvious characteristic is its similarity to the Declaration of Independence, its most striking characteristic is the manner in which it departs from its precursor—a departure that can be read as a critical failure. This failure functions to expose the failures of the Declaration of Independence. Namely, that by excluding women, the Declaration did not stand up to its own declared principles. Evidence of this omission appears quickly in the document, beginning in the second sentence. Where the Declaration posits “that all men are created equal,” the Sentiments and Resolutions declares “that all men and women are created equal.” This maneuver exposes the word men as a non-inclusive term. By placing the word women next to men, the document draws attention to the exclusivity of men (both the Declaration’s writers and those honored with its rights), as well as the Declaration’s own failure to extend equal protection to all people in the United States.

The very first post on my very first blog

The subtitle of my blog, taken from Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road,” says something about the potential of rhetoric and my approach to it. Namely, writing about rhetoric, either theoretically or historically, is always a redemptive process. On the one hand, rhetoric requires redemption from its own proclivity for flattery, from its own ‘mere-ness’. On the other hand, “every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably…Nothing that has ever happened should be regarded as lost for history” (Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History). However, another of Whitman’s poems says perhaps something more about this specific blog:

I believe of all those men and women that fill’d the/ unnamed lands, everyone exists this hour here or/ elsewhere, invisible to us,/ In exact proportion to what he or she grew from in life,/ and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved,/ sinn’d, in life (“Unnamed Lands”).

Which is to say: this blog is a collective endeavor, and in at least two ways. First, my topic of study will come from the collective that is the past (which speaks to the historical orientation I’d like to take in my studies). Second, my attempts to write critically about that past will be influenced by the collective contributions of my colleagues in Dr. Kristan Poirot’s "Rhetoric and Textual Methods" course. In keeping with the pragmatic nature of the latter endeavor, this blog has four goals (subject to change):

1. To provide a platform for my writing and ideas related to rhetoric.
2. To improve my writing skills.
3. To better understand (and get better at) the revision process.
4. To receive feedback from my peers (and whoever else perchance runs into this blog) on both my writing and thoughts.

I also hope this blog can function somewhat beyond Fall Semester 2010 at Texas A&M University. Namely, as I develop and pursue other ideas and writing, this blog will continue to be a place to perform those rhetorical contributions as well as get feedback on them. I might also post things of general interest on occasion.