Paul -I think this is a really thoughtful, measured and useful piece of
speaking/writing.
Thanks for sharing it with us & I for one would be interested to read more.best
wishesmichael
From: Paul Hertz <[email protected]>
To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2016 4:43 PM
Subject: [NetBehaviour] Solidarity in an age of repression
Here is the text of some words I spoke at a community meeting to reflect on the
recent election results in the States, held at the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago. It comes out of an ongoing conversation with my wife, Paula. There
are more topics we have touched upon. Energy and time permitting, I will write
about those, too. Brevity was more in order when I wrote this.
Reflections on SolidarityBefore I moved to Chicago, 33 years ago, I spent 12
years in Spain. Those were the years of transition from the Fascist
dictatorship of Francisco Franco to democracy, and also the years when I met my
future wife, a young political activist. We reflected on those years in
thinking about our current situation in this country. I want to share a few of
our observations with you.First of all, an admonishment on the careless use of
this term "Fascism." In this country we fortunately do not know the full weight
of its meaning: the militarism, the repression of all other political options,
of unions, of languages, of the right to attend school, even of the naming of
children. Of course our election was "rigged" as all our elections are, by the
paucity of choices given to us and by the manipulation of information--but the
institutions of democracy are intact and we should all realize that however
flawed, they are worth defending. This brings me to my second point. The change
in Spain came from decades of forging solidarity among diverse political
options, among people who would be political adversaries within a democracy but
were natural allies within a dictatorship. If you value democracy and you think
that it is in danger, you will need the help not just of people who share your
politics, but of everyone who has a fundamental belief in democracy. Some of
those people voted for Trump. Though Trump himself is most likely a fraud and
not a Fascist, there are those in his camp who will look to consolidate their
power permanently: those are the enemies of democracy.And this brings me to my
last point, the matter of categories. It is easy to blame Hillary Clinton's
loss on misogyny and racism--they were certainly factors among many others in
an overdetermined event. Over many years of struggle, we have come to
understand racism and sexism as something other than personal flaws, though
this is how they are most often treated in our country. Only recently has an
understanding of institutional and implicit racism and sexism entered into
public discourse. I think we all understand the value of that discourse. It
will be buried, as the right wing in this country would like it to be, if we
enter into a period of categorizing individuals instead of exposing
institutions and attitudes. We must not let that happen, even when there are
some individuals emerging who do deserve the epithets, precisely because they
would be happy to make a great noise about name-calling.Finally, let me extend
this question of categories further. It came as quite a shock for my wife to
realize that in this country she is "non-white." "Don't tell my father," she
said. Blame that on the category "Hispanic," that conceals all the diversity of
people who speak Spanish in America and generalizes our ignorance of them. The
same is true of all the other categories that have been noised about, "black"
and "white" being no less false than "Hispanic." But I would single out for
particular wariness the category "without a college education," as education is
the sector of the economy we are involved in. What is really meant is "working
class," but it reads as “uneducated” or "stupid." "Working class" is the buried
category, that cuts across all the others, as Bernie Sanders realized. "Working
class" is the economic truth that overshadows identity politics as it has so
far been practiced. We need to come to grips not with categories, but with
histories. Speaking the truth to power will consist not of defending
categories, but of never ceasing to recover and reinstate histories. That is
one of the tasks of art in a time of repression. Art is a demand on the future,
as Walter Benjamin said—but we can realize the future simply by learning to
listen to those people whose histories we do not know, whose histories need to
be heard if we are to forge an idea of what is to be citizens in a democratic
society. Protest, yes, but organize. Organize, yes, but listen.
Paul Hertz
Chicago, November 21, 2016
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