New binarisms (aka Evil politicians)

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

davemarc queries:

>Did I miss something?  What's the new communalism?  What are the signs that
>it's been accepted?  What's so frightening about it?  

Maybe I am he who missed something.  I am reacting to the notion that 
individuality is inherently selfish or dangerous and that only a communitarian 
consciousness can offer a counterforce to Them.  I see it as firghtening because  it 
has created exactly the kind of divisive splits among Progressives rehashed so 
painfully in our recent PC exchanges.  It;s a new totalitarianism to me.  It's the way 
people who ought to know better think it's great that tobacco companies are being 
pilloried (because SMOKING IS BAD) and fail to see that tobacco companies are just 
the corporate sacrificial lamb They have decided to bring down to clear the way for 
the rest of the corporate sector to ooze itself into every nook and cranny of our 
existence--with the State's fawning assistance (just keep dem soft dollars a-rollin' 
in!).

A personal digression:

Thanks to money set aside long ago by a now  deceased grandparent, my son goes to 
a very progressive private elementary school in LA.  When he was in 3rd grade 
they called an assembly to tell him and his peers that their gym teacher, who had 
gone out on sick leave, had died of AIDS.  My son really loved this teacher (as did 
we) and was crushed and bewildered--it was his first knowledge of AIDS as 
anything but a word he didn't understand.  While the school's presentation of the 
story of this teacher was completely sympathetic, I was outraged that we hadn't 
even been alerted that this assembly was going to take place, much less consulted to 
see if this was how we wanted our children to learn this brutal fact of brutal life.  
This school is the perfect embodiment of Hilary's "Village" (they ?EVEN CALL 
THEMSELVES A VILLAGE AS OF THE PAST SIX MONTHS, speaking of 
signifiers), and I want none of it.   For weeks my son came home every day asking 
(obviously after long discussion with classmates in the yard) if you could AIDS 
from coughing, from falling down, from eating bad food.  It was really painful to 
see his perplexity.  My feeling is that this behaviour is typical of what I am calling 
"new communalism."

Sorry for the personal digression, but I am trying to respond to davemarc's 
question.

My reading of TRP  leads me to suspect all systems, even--maybe especially--those 
that call themselves my friend.

john m