As I watched Bernie addressing striking Verizon workers in Brooklyn a few minutes ago, tears came to my eyes. That is the sort of politics I yearn for. All right, I am just a soft-hearted sucker for old-fashioned working class solidarity. I know, I know, he can't win, not even with a quick trip to the Vatican, but in a better world, an appearance by a candidate for the Democratic nomination at a rally of striking workers would not even be worth a mention on the evening news. Take that, Paul Krugman!
Go Bernie!
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I'm sure that Krugman is in favor of higher wages for the working class and in general, for more equal distribution of incomes and wealth.
However, Krugman would feel as uncomfortable walking a picket line with striking workers (even for a symbolic 15 minutes) as you and I would in a meeting of the International Monetary Fund, where Krugman would feel quite at home, even if he were the most leftwing economist in the room.
That's a cultural as much as a political difference, although in this election it has become politically important.
I am sure you are right about that, but I also think that what you call culture reveals something deeper that the term suggests. I am, by upbringing and life experience, more naturally at home in an academic setting than on a picket line, but despite that fact, I would be more comfortable on the picket line, for all my upper middle class life, than at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association [my version of the IMF], and I suspect the same is true for you [even more so, considering the life choices you have made.]
In one of your lectures on ideological critique you mention a student who asked you
"which side are you on".
That's a very basic commitment that goes deeper, as you say, than philosophical commitments.
It's tribal. It includes cultural aspects, where you'd feel comfortable or uncomfortable, certain often vague ethical commitments (commitments that resist
philosophical rigour), semi-religious symbolism, a very very important part of personal identity, a shared history, who your friends are, whom you mate with, and lots more.
If I may make a provocative statement, it's a little like being Jewish was for my father at least.
Morale is all-important when you're striking and picketing. Bernie Sanders' speech to the Verizon workers was inspiring and important to them, I'm certain.
The support we received from the public when we struck last fall was crucial. It's difficult to express what an intense experience that was. Suffice to say that I remember who was with us and who wasn't. I keep my picket sign in my office at home to remind me of that experience.
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