…

(I should also add that I realize that electoral politics isn’t the end-all or be-all of political engagement and that my experience in party politics was, in the end, pretty dismal and a really bad and stressful time in my life.)

I won’t disagree with his final point though.

I don’t want to diss John but, as I told Michael and others after his really quite amazing talk, it seemed as if the third act was missing from the paper – the part where after laying down his stakes and personal feelings on the subject, he puts out solutions or at least paths. In a sense, the lack of the third act in culturl studies in general is its most distressing feature … because without the third act, we all still have something “important” still to study.

Of course, no political party is all good or even altruistic since, as said before, the point is to win (and seize power). But, perhaps it’s best to grab onto hold of the lesser evil, compromise and get actually involved.

Also, the other thing missing in many of the papers last week (especially the overtly anti-Liberal “John Howard sucks” types) was the realization that:

(a) Howard is a really freaking great politician who knows how to get votes, tap into emotions and win elections
(b) the Australian economy has, for the most part, been quite good under his administration
(c) the ALP sucks

Cultural Studies types should try to learn from A to improve C.

Some impressions of the ‘what can we do?’ conclusion, however. It would seem as though continuing with critique, intervention and a broader engagement with the public sphere as a whole is dependant on political investment and, ultimately, hope. The emotional/romantic appeal of profound constraint and desperation might operate as a driver, but is produced from the very erosion of the conditions that allow for the possibility of writing. I agree that this is not simply a case of bad economics, but equally one that demands endurance, through the experience of failure, and the continual and seemingly permanent inability to effect change. As you point out, fatigue and sheer exhaustion is something we share in common; cynicism and apathy need to be guarded against.

For myself, the constraint of being trapped in a responsive position was another aspect actutely highlighted in John’s concluding remarks; at present, a documentary style approach to listing the slow destruction of democratic pluralism, civil rights, the environment, etc. More so than desperation, the key driver to change now appears to be crisis. Will anyone be able to gauge the impact of so many successive tipping-points, will anyone still be listening when that time comes? Should be thankful that environment devastation might prompt a change in government?

This:

“I think that kind of writing comes from a sense of profound constraint, of desperation – when there’s nothing left to lose.”

Is surely a paradox? A good one.

The movement from constraint to desperation to nothing-left-lose is very powerful. Desperation is much more profound than anxiety; it involves more of a ruthlessness. This resonates with the nothing-left-lose, of an eclipse of life and work and the work of life, but what of the constraint? Don’t we give it our all when writing?

No, we have to be even more generous.

Isn’t this where we take something *out* of writing? A subtraction? An element removed to leave a space for the reader or listener. A pedagogical moment where it is not a case of transmission, a ‘doing to’, but of participation and a ‘doing with’.

I know I need it.