Politics’ Fatal Therapeutic Turn

[marmar]

from Dissent magazine:



Politics’ Fatal Therapeutic Turn
By Zelda Bronstein


This is a moment in American life that cries out for far-flung activism on behalf of a bold democratic agenda. Instead, the partisans of democracy are largely demobilized and defensive. Why?

Progressives are apt to blame cynicism spawned by Barack Obama’s betrayals of his left and liberal supporters, bafflement in the face of government dysfunction and corporate largesse, ignorance fostered by a deceptive or enfeebled media, and disgust at right-wing nastiness. Far down on the list, when it appears at all, is inertia born of deficient organizing. The organizing issue may merit a nod, followed by the ritual summons to get our collective act together. Rarely is that summons accompanied by a reflective analysis of why it’s so hard for us to respond.

To further such analysis, I want to examine a remedy for democratic demobilization that’s being advocated by a wide range of observers, activists, and entrepreneurs, including many influential individuals and organizations on the Left: treat politics as a source of personal validation and emotional succor. However well-intentioned, advocates of personalized activism fail to realize that therapeutic motives are fatal to political effectiveness and highly susceptible to manipulation. I aim to prompt that realization and to sketch the very different motives requisite to a durable democratic politics.

As Tocqueville observed, “the habits of self-government” are only acquired through civic association. It’s in local venues that the claims of democratic citizenship are most keenly felt. That’s also where the therapeutic style’s subversive effects are most visible. To illustrate those effects, I focus on two therapeutically informed attempts to encourage political participation at the grass roots: the online public comment process called Kitchen Democracy that operated in five East Bay cities between 2006 and 2009; and MoveOn’s implementation of Marshall Ganz’s narrational organizing model in its local council trainings. In both cases, political engagement is undercut by the desire to avert the emotional rigors of full-blown politics. At the same time, each project exemplifies a distinctive form that the therapeutic attitude assumes in the larger political culture: Kitchen Democracy uses digital technology to distance individuals from the aggravations of politicking; MoveOn and Ganz use techniques of mutual self-disclosure to propel individuals into a politics where aggravation is alleviated by the balm of righteous sentiment. I turn first to Kitchen Democracy because, unlike MoveOn and Ganz, its representatives openly deplore the unpleasantness of politicking and thereby afford a clearer view of both citizenship’s demands and the therapeutic palliative. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3972

[pscot]

1. She has a valid point

but she takes forever to make it. I think she's saying something important, but few will wade through the thicket to get at it.