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September 1994

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From:
Road Angel <[log in to unmask]>
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Road Angel <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 5 Sep 1994 23:52:04 -0600
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In his recent essay on Forrest Gump (cross-posted here, I believe) Wally
Bowen challenges the movie for being, among other things, irresponsibly
personal and individual (and I do not believe I overstate by using the
word "irresponsibly").
 
He says, in conclusion:
>>        Bringing to life a larger progressive vision will be all the more
difficult because of our popular culture's relentless focus on the individual
and its validation of the status quo.  But one step toward this larger vision
is the awareness that our popular culture is political, and that its meanings
must be critically and relentlessly challenged.
        We can begin by appreciating the beauty of Gump's innocence and
devotion, while recognizing that he is incapable of challenging the larger
society's shortcomings and resisting "the nostalgia that puts us to moral
sleep."  Because of his handicap, Gump cannot choose; but we can.<<
 
Again, I think we see the triumph of dead collectivist ideology over live
thinking here, and I remain dismayed by the unwillingness of Bowen and
his ilk to at least admit that deductivist metanarrative criticism has
been indicted.  Lyotard, for one, has argued quite persuasively that our
culture has passed the point where traditional grand narratives such as
liberalism, marxism, Christianity, and dare I even say feminism can lend
sufficient meaning to our lives.
 
To be sure these social theories had their day and each contributed
significantly to the advancement of our thinking.  Liberalism provided an
enlightened way for us to reorganize power in our societies, and whatever
failing the US and the other great Western democracies may exhibit today,
it would be hard, if not impossible, to argue that such democracies
represented an unprecedented improvement over the totalitarian monarchies
which dominated Europe prior to the late 18th Century.  Marxism,
likewise, lent a voice to the very real struggle of common laborers
against the exploitative practices of capitalist factory owners, and
there is reason to wonder how bad the American worker might have it today
absent the Marx-influenced advances of the Western labor movement.
 
And so on, and so on, and so on.  Still, it doesn't take a genius to look
at corporate America run wild in the 80s and 90s and conclude that
something is horribly amiss.  Tocqueville's "self-interest, rightly
understood" got neatly neutered somewhere along the line, and we exist
today in a society of "self-interest, right NOW."  Our institutions are
not governed by any sense of enlightened virtue, and as scandal piles
upon scandal in our whorehouse of a government we have very real cause to
wonder if, in fact, the truth will out.
 
Marxism, as well, has proven an abject failure, and the only people who
don't realize it are American tenured intellectuals.  To argue that the
fall of the Soviet Empire wasn't really about Marxism at all is facile -
to the best of my knowledge there has never been any practical exercise
in governance which came close to mirroring the theoretical ideals of the
system's founders.  As such, the failure of the best possible execution
indicts the theory whole cloth.  Theories of social organization, left
unapplied, are at best masturbatory.  Regarding Marxism, we do not see
merely the failure of the best execution.  We have seen the undeniable
collapse of ALL executions.
 
I could slaughter more photons on the failings of Christianity and
feminism, but I think the careful reader pretty clearly sees where I'm
heading.  Bowen's essay is essentially urging us to reject the appealing
individuality of Forrest Gump in favor of a larger exercise in
deductivist social theorizing.  The argument he puts forth is seductive:
the failure of the left to mobilize a coherent social philosophy has
created a vacuum into which the rabid right can funnel feel-good status
quo (at least he managed to avoid using the word "hegemony," and for that
I applaud him) drivel like Gump.  Such a "discourse" distracts the
critical liberal mind from its proper function - that being the
construction of enlightened left-leaning social policy.
 
Yes, well.  As I say, this is seductive stuff.  Nonetheless, it is
painfully misguided.  Bowen proposes precisely the same form of top-down
intellectualism that doomed the left in the first place.  If the left has
failed it has been because Americans have examined the evidence with
which they have been presented and found it lacking.  The metanarratives
of the left found no resonance among the "people" - the great mass of
voters who were essential to the implementation of these great programs.
Without being catty, I don't think I stretch too far in indicting the
salon liberal mindset which gets quite impassioned about the plight of the
masses, but which never quite manages to make meaningful contact with
these masses either.
 
I do not here offer a new idea.  Hoggart, in his brilliant THE USES OF
LITERACY, attacks England's university-bound parlor Marxists for knowing
little, if anything at all, about the human beings who make up that
"class" of workers.  The absolute worst I have ever read is Stuart Hall,
who in one piece openly laments the need for theory to deal with the
"problem" of "people."
 
Well, my leanings are clear enough.  I grew up working class in a
suburban/rural Southern home, and for me these people aren't a class at
all.  I also know them well enough to know that Forrest Gump provides a
far better window into their world than all the leftist grand theory ever
constructed.  I do not claim to be a disciple of Lyotard, who I think
remains an elitist at heart, but I have no doubt that he is correct in
asserting that theories which are constructed artificially and then
imposed deductively upon reality are doomed to fail.
 
I offer one simple assumption for your consideration: the big picture is
composed of many small pictures.  I do not see FG as proto-conservative
backlash.  On the contrary - I see Forrest as the embodiment of many
humanistic values which we of the "left" claim to value highly.  Let's
not forget that Forrest rejected Christianity, too - a strange thing to
find in a reactionary bit of conservativism, don't you think?
 
Lt. Dan:        Have you found Jesus?
Forrest:        I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for him.
 
Contemporary British audience researchers are onto something.  Ignoring
criticism from the macro-theorists like Bowen, they have taken to
studying individuals and families in their homes.  They are involved in
what some refer to as "grounded" theory - social theory which emanates
from the actual data of people's lives, from the actual fruits of our
studied observations.
 
Such theory is inductive - issuing from the ground up.  And I would
suggest to one and all that we finally dispense with the proven failures
of the past - deposit Bowen in the nearest trash can, as it were - and
commence developing a sense of the humanist left which can provide a
viable alternative in the minds of the individuals who comprise the mass
of American society.
 
==================================================================
Samuel Random Smith
Center for Mass Media Research          303.543.8610 (voice)
University of Colorado                  [log in to unmask]
==================================================================

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