Post by stevepoole on Jun 30, 2011 18:40:10 GMT -5
well, I'm not suggesting I want to be sidetracked from politics or lost in an aimless world of neutrality and relativism, it's more that I'm sceptical about understanding any past society's politics (in the broadest sense) if I separate moments of conflict from their wider cultural contexts. Moments of conflict, resistance or 'protest' - however we like to frame them - are often exceptional in social relations, while the cultural currents than underpin them, perhaps less colourful, are often not. We used to argue, contra those who told us that Chartism was a 'failure', that it actually wasn't because it produced a proto-democratic domestic economy, profoundly affected gender relations in working class households, and altered the everyday reality of working class life. What we often missed nevertheless, was that the development of a proto-democratic domestic economy was probably influenced by (and expressed in) phenomena other than struggle. And this is where it really gets interesting. There's a great bit about the co-operative market gardening of the Radstock miners in Kropotkin's Mutual Aid that I find every bit as compelling as their resolution during strike action - and for Kropotkin, moreover, it provided contextual understanding.
But my other unease about studying 'protest' in isolation is that it seems to me the language of power, not of resistance, and certainly not of progressive or democratic demand. Like Tom Paine said, 'the right of petition is the right of slaves to complain'. And Tom Paine didn't trouble himself with petitions. I'm not sure that it's helpful to characterise the mental world of the LCS (say) as one defined by acts of reactive protest. I may go on a march or take other forms of political action myself, but I wouldn't want to be characterised simply as a protester by future historians, or have those moments of overt dissent picked over at the expense of my broader experience of the world.
This has been said before lots of times - but we really should take care that the language, and the demarcated simplicity of the concept (protest) doesn't get in the way...
What I'd like to call for then is an approach to protest that takes real care to situate it in quotidian experience. Barry Reay's book on Tom Courtney and the Bossenden Wood affair remains a pretty good model.
That's what I think at the moment anyway!
But my other unease about studying 'protest' in isolation is that it seems to me the language of power, not of resistance, and certainly not of progressive or democratic demand. Like Tom Paine said, 'the right of petition is the right of slaves to complain'. And Tom Paine didn't trouble himself with petitions. I'm not sure that it's helpful to characterise the mental world of the LCS (say) as one defined by acts of reactive protest. I may go on a march or take other forms of political action myself, but I wouldn't want to be characterised simply as a protester by future historians, or have those moments of overt dissent picked over at the expense of my broader experience of the world.
This has been said before lots of times - but we really should take care that the language, and the demarcated simplicity of the concept (protest) doesn't get in the way...
What I'd like to call for then is an approach to protest that takes real care to situate it in quotidian experience. Barry Reay's book on Tom Courtney and the Bossenden Wood affair remains a pretty good model.
That's what I think at the moment anyway!