“Underlying the I.W.W.’s activities in the pre-World War I period were efforts to derive, from the diverse pattern of activity and sources of political and cultural influence emerging out of the international labor community, an associational context that would augment concerted action among workers excluded from or in conflict with existing political and labor formations and contain the potential for alliance. The I.W.W.’s early years were, therefore, characterized by a constant interplay between activism and theoretical development in which the movement’s original principles were tested, modified, and redefined.”
(Salerno, _Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World_, page 5.)
So basically the early Wobblies were trying to develop theory based on their experiences in struggle?
Comment by Nate — September 27, 2006 @ 10:34 am
Yup. Salerno’s big on the interplay of European and American sources. I’ve only just started his book. I’m interested, but also ambivalent. On the one hand, the emphasis on intellectual sources and so on is great, shows that the wobs were thinking and reading. On the other hand, one can think - and theorize - without using accepted sources, based on one’s experiences. In other words, I’ve got a reservation about the language of sources and deriving, rather than producing, as it can imply a sort of active component (received theoretical works as the volatile substance used in the combustion process) as a precondition for thought. I’m reading too much in I know, but these are concerns I try to keep in mind generally to use as a sort of litmus test on stuff I read, to try to see how adequate it is to what I think about working class (capacity for) self-activity.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — September 27, 2006 @ 1:34 pm