Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 12:17:33 -0600
Sender: jafrost <jafrost@bentley.univnorthco.edu>
I've been reluctant to comment on the discussion of the SDS film, "Rebels
With a Cause," because I haven't been able to see the film in its final
version.
I did view it in rough cut in November 1999, however.
Because I saw the film as a collective memoir, the reflections of a group of
SDS members about their experiences in the Movement, I didn't expect the film
to provide the kind of historical analysis I expect of scholarly works on the
New Left. As Lemisch and Hogan remind us, Helen Garvy explicitly states that
she is telling "our" story and, we can only assume, to that "truth" she is
faithful. I approach the film as I would any memoir, autobiography, or oral
history: understanding that it is a subjective view of history, that silences
can be just as revealing as what is said, and that such personal testimony
ought to be subject to critical interpretation--as Lemisch and Rossinow have
done convincingly. Still, I do think that in portraying the motivations and
commitments of this group of sixties activists in a positive light the film
is an important intervention in a public discourse too long dominated by
conservatives and "Forrest Gump"--even as that public discourse influenced
the tone and content of the film.
All that said, I strongly endorse Lemisch's interest in problems and
disagreements in SDS, Hogan's interest in "what worked, what didn't and why,"
and Berry's interest in a "usable past." Like Rossinow, in my work on SDS's
experiment in community organizing, the Economic Research and Action Project,
I encountered some resistance from participants to my analyses and
interpretations. Yet, perhaps because ERAP was so obviously a failure, the
participants I interviewed tended to be fairly critical of various aspects of
this attempt to organize "an interracial movement of the poor" and their role
in it. Thus, it was not too difficult for me to present ERAP's negatives.
What became my challenge was the opposite: to present what was valuable about
ERAP, particularly the lessons learned about community organizing, without
romanticizing this effort. For me, this debate about the SDS film has only
reinforced how important--and difficult--it is for us as historians to strike
a balance between criticism and affirmation of the New Left, particularly
when our aim is to write history that is both accurate about past
radicalism and
relevant to future struggles.
Jennifer Frost
Assistant Professor
Department of History
University of Northern Colorado
------------------------------
From: "Hogan, Wesley C." <hoganw@countryday.net>
Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 08:30:50 -0400
While people on the list have raised many important points about the
purpose of a critical history of social movements on the left, I'll just
make two corrections. As Lemisch correctly points out, I erred in my
citation of him. I first came across his criticisms of _rebels with a
cause_ on the rad-hist list, then read the "film and history" piece someone
posted to rad-hist, then read the _Nation_ piece. This led to two errors.
First, I used "stunningly uncritical" and "triumphalist" when they were
posted in "Film and History," whereas "archaic" and "triumphal" appeared in
the _Nation_. Further, because of the order in which I came across these
arguments, I associated Lemisch, and not Lemisch and Weisstein, with the
tone of dismissal.
I've written to Lemisch off-list, but I wanted to mention one other
important correction to radhist list: I think it was a protective blind
spot not to include Weisstein in my letter, rather than a lack of mutual
respect. I first came across something Weisstein wrote about SDS and sexism
she encountered at UChicago when I was searching through the SDS files at
The State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Her powerful presentation and
stories about how she found her voice and kept on keeping on in the 1960s,
through all the intense societal and personal experiences of sexism she
encountered, has made her someone I honor as a foremother, someone whose
struggles, along with others, made it possible for me and other women to
enter graduate school in greater numbers in the 1990s, have kids while also
considering myself a scholar, and in general pursue a life of the mind that
I (and others) could take seriously. None of this would have been
conceivable before her, and others like her, paved, eased the way for me and
others in a subsequent generation. A small example to conclude. When
pregnant with my first child, several of professors I knew (men and women)
told me that it was a mistake, I'd be on the "mommy track", and never make
it through graduate school. While a major incident for me at the time,
compared to Weisstein's struggles with sexism in the academy, it paled in
comparison. It was this kind of knowledge that made it possible for me to
continue: she did it, I could too. So I feel I owe her and others like her
a huge debt: of gratitude, of respect, of honor. It's hard to criticize
someone whom you feel this way about, and I think this is what happened
here, why I didn't include her in my response. Yet given the history
Lemisch and she have lived through, I see why it is possible for Lemisch to
perceive it as sexism on my part. Another irony of postmodern debate,
perhaps.
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