*A Slight Irving Howe Confession-The Sins Of An Ex- Social Democrat

Click on title to link to the Leon Trotsky Internet Archive's copy of the chapter on "Dual Power" from Trotsky's "The History Of The Russian Revolution" mentioned below in today's entry.

Commentary

In two recent commentaries I have done my fair share of kicking Professor Irving Howe, the late social democratic editor of the intellectual quarterly magazine "Dissent", around. And I am not finished by any means. (See "The Retreat of the “Greatest Generation” Intellectuals" and "Who ‘Lost’ the Sixties?" in the May 2008 archives) But today, as this is as is oft-quoted a confessional age, I have a confession, or rather two confessions, to make about my connections to Irving Howe. So for the time that it takes to write this commentary up I will call an armed truce with the shades of the professor.

Confession #1- in the mist of time of my youth I actually used to like to read "Dissent". The articles were interesting, and as we were too poor for the family to afford a subscription, I spent many an hour reading through back issues at the local public library. I make no pretense that I understood all that was in each article and some that I re-read latter left me cold but there you have it.

Probably the most impressive article I read was Norman Mailer’s "White Negro". I could relate to the violence and sense of 'hipness' that was hidden just under the surface of the article, especially the violence as it was not that far removed from that in my own poor white working class neighborhood, although I probably would not have articulated it that way at the time. Interestingly, Professor Sorin in his Howe biography notes that Howe thought the article was a mistake for "Dissent" to publish for that very homage to violence implicit in the article. That now says it all.

The funny thing about reading "Dissent", at the time, thinking about it now, was that I was personally nothing more than a Kennedy liberal and thought that the magazine reflected that New Frontier liberalism. I was somewhat shocked when I found out later that it was suppose to be an independent 'socialist' magazine. Most of my political positions at the time were far to the left of what was being presented there editorially, especially on international issues. I might add that I also had an odd political dichotomy in those days toward those to the left of my own liberalism. I was very indulgent toward communists but really hated socialists, really social democrats. Go figure. Must have been something in the water.


Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Trotskyist world view. As I noted last year I have been a Marxist since 1972. But after some 150 years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. This year marks my 35th year as a follower of Leon Trotsky. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution", a section called "On Dual Power". I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars- the truce is over.

In Honor Of Women's History Month- Lucy On The Edge Of The World

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

People, ordinary night owls, hung-over refugees from the now closed bars and cabarets, average vagabond wanderers of the Harvard Square night, the shiftless, the toothless homeless, coming into the all-night Hayes-Bickford seeking, like him, relieve from their collective woes with a cup of weak-kneed coffee and steamed, steamed everything, did not bother Lucy (the first name Lucy was all anybody ever found out about as far as he knew) sitting alone at her “reserved” table in the back of the cafeteria toward the rest rooms. Lucy Lilac (nicknamed by some ancient want-to-be fellow bard perhaps but like her surname the genesis undisclosed to him by the other regular tenants of the night when he asked around) spent her youthful (she was perhaps twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, had just finished college, he had heard, so that age seemed about right) middle of the nights just then hunched over a yellow legal notepad filling up its pages with her writings and occasionally she would speak some tidbit she had written out loud, not harmful out loud like some of the drunks at a few of the tables, or some homeless wailing banshee cry, but just out loud.

Some of it was beautiful, and some of it was, well, doggerel, about par for the course with poets and other writers, But all of it, whatever he heard of it, was centered on her plight in the world as a woman torn, as a woman on the edge, the edge between two societies, between as one professor that he had asked about it later stated it, two cultural gradients if that term has any meaning, and maybe she had been but let him try to reconstruct what it was all about, all about for Lucy Lilac night owl. See he became so fascinated by where she was going with her muse in 1962 summer nights, about how she was going to resolve that battle between “cultural gradients” and about the gist of what she had to say to a callow world in those days that he turned up many a two in morning to try to figure her dream out. He had more than a passing interest in this battle since he was also spooked by those same demons that she spoke of.

[Oh, by the way, Lucy Lilac, was drop-dead beautiful, with long black iron-pressed straight hair as was the style then, alabaster white skin whether from her hours of sleep or by genetic design was not clear, big red lips, which he did not remember whether was the style then or not, the bluest eyes of blue, always wearing dangling earrings and usually wearing some long dress so it was never really possible to determine her figure or her legs important pieces of knowledge to him, and not just to him, in those sex-obsessed days, but he would have said slender and probably nice legs too. Since neither her beauty, nor the idea of sex, at least pick-up sex, enter into this sketch that is all that needs to be pointed out. Except this, her beauty, along with that no-nonsense demeanor, was so apparent that it held him, and others too, off from anything other than an occasional distant forlorn smile. ]

What Lucy Lilac would speak of, like a lot of the young in those days, was her alienation from parents, society, just everything to keep it simple, but not just that. On that she had kindred spirits in abundance. She was also alienated from her race, her white race, her nine to five, go by the rules, we are in charge, trample on the rest of the world, especially the known black world, like lot of the young, him included, were in those days as well. Part of it was that you could not turn open a newspaper or turn on a radio or television without having the ugly stuff going down South in America (and sometimes stuff in the north too confronting you headlong). But part of it was an affinity with black culture (the gradient, okay), mainly through music and a certain style, a certain swagger in the face of a world filled with hostility. Cool, to use just one word.

Now this race thing, this white race thing of Lucy’s had nothing to do, he did not think, at least when she spoke never came through, with some kind of guilt by association with the rednecks and crackers down in places like Alabama and Mississippi goddams. It was more that given the deal going down in the world, the injustices, the not having had any say in what was going on, or being asked either make her feel like she was some Negro in some shack some place. Some mad priestess fellaheena scratching the good earth to make her mark. And as she expanded her ideas (and began to get a little each be-bop flow as she spoke, a flow that he secretly kept time to), each night he got a better sense of what she was trying to say. (He later learned that she was, as he had been, very influenced by Norman Mailer’s essay in The Partisan Review The White Negro, a screed on what he called the white hipster, those who had parted company with their own culture and moved to the sexier, sassy cultural gradient.) And while they both were comfortably ensconced in the cozy Cambridge Hayes (well maybe not cozy but safe anyway) and had some very white skin to not have to James Crow worry about he began to see what she meant.

And Lucy Lilac really hit home when she spoke of how she had, to his surprise since she gave every indication of being some cast-off Mayfair swell’s progeny, minus that important race thing, been brought up under some tough circumstances down in New Jersey. She spoke about being from poor, very poor white folks somewhere around Toms River, her father out of work a lot worrying about the next paycheck and keeping him and his under some roof, her mother harried by taking care of five kids on two kids money, about being ostracized by the other better off kids, about seeking solace in listening to Bessie Smith, Billie, and a ton of other blues names that he recognized. And he too recognized fellahin kindred since his own North Adamsville existence seemed so similar ….

Yes, those nights he knit a secret and unknown bond with Lucy Lilac, Lucy who a few months later vanished from the Hayes-Bickford night, Lucy from the edge of the world, and wherever she wound he knew just what she meant by the white Negro hipster-dom she was seeking, and that maybe he was too…

And hence this Women’s History Month contribution.