". . . There are two cardinal differences between liberalism and
radicalism. The first can be characterized as idealism versus
materialism. Liberalism is idealist. The crucible of social reality is
the realm of ideas, in concepts, language, attitudes. In contrast
radicalism is materialist. Radicals see society as composed of actual
institutions - economic, political, cultural- which wield power,
including the power to use violence.
"The second disagreement is on the primary social unit. Liberalism is
individualist, locating the basic organization of society in the
individual. Hence, liberal strategies for political change are almost
exclusively individual actions. For radicals, the basic social unit is a
class or group, whether that's racial class, sex caste, economic class,
or other grouping. Radicalism of whatever stripe understands oppression
as group-based harm. For liberals, defining people as members of a
group is the harm. In contrast, radicals believe that identifying
your interests with others who are dispossessed - and developing
loyalty to your people - is the first, crucial step in building a
liberation movement.
"Liberals essentially think that oppression is a mistake, a
misunderstanding, and changing people's minds is the way to change the
world. Hence, liberals place a tremendous emphasis on education as a
political strategy. Radicals understand oppression as a set of
interlocking institutions, and, one way or another, the strategy for
liberation involves direct confrontation with power to take those
institutions apart.
"The Left in this country has embraced liberalism to the point of
becoming completely unhitched from any notion of actually being
effective. Activism has turned into one big group therapy session. It
doesn't matter what we accomplish - what matters is how we feel
about it. The goal of any action isn't to change the material balance of
power, it's to feel 'empowered' or to feel 'community' or to feel our
hearts open to our inner children because our mean, mean mothers never
loved us, and all of it is endless and self-referential and useless. And
the people who get caught up in this workshop culture will insist that
their precious little navels have something to do with changing the
world. Meanwhile, the planet is being eviscerated. . . .
"The related dead end of individualism is the extreme personal purity
of the 'lifestyle activists.' Understand: the task of an activist is
not to negotiate systems of power with as much personal integrity as
possible - it's to dismantle those systems. Neither of these approaches -
personal psychological change or personal lifestyle choices - is going
to disrupt the global arrangements of power. They're both ultimately
liberal approaches to injustice, rerouting the goal from political
change to personal change. This is easier, much easier, because it makes
no demands on us. It requires no courage or sacrifice, no persistence
or honor, which is what direct confrontations with power must require.
But personal purity only asks for shopping and smugness. The mainstream
version involves hybrid cars, soy milk, soy burgers, and soy babies, and
checking off the 'green power' option on your electric bill. On the
very fringe, there is a more extreme version which offers a semi-nomadic
life of essentially mooching off the employed. To point out the
obvious: power doesn't care. Power doesn't notice the existence of
anarchist freegans and it certainly doesn't care if they eat out of
dumpsters. Power will only care when you build a strategic movement
against it. Individual action will never be effective."
-----Lierre Keith, The Vegetarian Myth, pps. 264-5
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