A Democracy between "ISMS"

Democracy in the 1990s will be fluid: it will move freely between different economies and politics. Maybe this is the political meaning of postmodernism: that what were once thought of as clearly dichotomous and competing ideologies, discourses, and economies are now recognized as necessary pieces of each other. This realization does not erase politics or make it irrelevant; rather, it recognizes that oppositional politics are not conducive to real democracy. Oppositional politics often lead those in power to use oppressive strategies to hold the oppositions in place. Part of this process is often the limiting of dissent, privileging the viewpoint of those in power. This attempt at silencing dissent was seen in the Bush administration's charges of "political correctness" on college campuses and its wrongful attack on the Western secular model of knowledge; its call for color-blind legislation rather than preferential treatment; and its limited support for AIDS research because it was a disease of those who are "different." Even the Gulf War was made part of this process of silencing dissent and privileging the Western model: once again the message was that we should love America or leave it. Loving America meant supporting the all-American, white, heterosexual family and rescuing poor, oppressed Arab women. One glitch in

this message was that many of the troops in the Gulf were women—women of color as well as white women—and these women told another story about family life.

Given recent developments throughout the world, any discussion of democracy must begin with what is missing in both socialism and liberalism. As elements of the two political systems are incorporated not only economically but also politically, we must recall the patriarchal foundations of both systems. The problem of language, especially political language, is key here. Although many argue that it is wrong to call the political systems that evolved in any of the former Eastern European states truly "communist" or "socialist," they were named as such, discrediting the discourses of socialism, Communism, and, indirectly, Marxism. Although the real revolution may have been against totalitarian statism, it has been named as a rejection of Communism and its variants. As a result of this naming, many on the Left have argued for modernizing Marxism via liberalism, individualism, and free markets. But others have equated this argument with an embrace of neoconservatism or neoliberalism: an acceptance of the competitive individualism necessitated by the capitalist market.^[21]

The struggle toward democracy is a struggle, in some sense, over just how democratic liberalism and its discourse of rights can become. Just how much of the socialist promise of equality can liberalism incorporate without losing its commitment to individual freedom? Most neoconservatives have rejected any moves toward equality and argue that the state has no responsibility for creating equal access. On the other hand, feminists and defenders of civil rights argue that rights must become true to their democratic promise and intention. My argument here is that the radical orientation of rights discourse can be used to transform both liberalism and socialism by specifying their universal commitments to both freedom and equality in terms of sex, gender, and race. Gender, racial, and economic equality must be specified while guaranteeing sexual freedom. This argument reorients liberal democratic rights beyond liberalism and beyond democracy as we have envisioned it in either capitalism or socialism, moving us toward a new theory that has no name.

A well-known Marxist, Ralph Miliband, would agree in part with my orientation here. He acknowledges that socialists will have to build on the foundations of liberal democracy while pushing further in democratic directions. He also states that he does not reject Marxism; instead, he wants to use Marxism to highlight further the contradictions

that challenge us.^[22] Marxism's strength lies in such uses rather than in providing ready-made solutions. Chantal Mouffe similarly hopes to develop a "post-individualist concept of freedom" that pushes toward a radically libertarian, plural democracy. She adopts the de Tocquevillian notion of "perfect equality" and "entire freedom."^[23] The challenge is to give all of these concepts concrete meaning.

Black activist and writer Manning Marable is hesitant about the enterprise of revising liberalism for socialism. For him, liberalism only tries "to humanize an inherently irrational, wasteful and inhumane system"; it "tries to reduce but not eradicate great concentrations of poverty and homelessness." Such attempts are insufficient for him when there are 3 million homeless people, 38 million people without any medical insurance, and millions living in substandard housing, poor and hungry. Given this context, he argues that we must dare to have historical imagination and dare to be Marxists.^[24]

Marxism focuses on an egalitarian economy, and in this sense I am a Marxist. However, I think we must also dare to move beyond Marxism to recognize the complex interweavings of racialized sexuality and gender in current structures, and to embrace the diversity that exists within these webs. Marxism is not enough, nor is liberalism. Nor is a feminism bound by these categories. In the end, a radicalized democracy inclusive of women of color may not be enough either—but we are as yet a very long way from finding out.

My sense of postmodern politics is that theory does not create reality. At best, history will be the test of theory. For this reason, I privilege practice and everyday life as definitive of political narrative. It is this practice I turn to now.