[csaa-forum] Is cultural studies inherently left-wing?

[Terry Flew]

Fellow CSAA members

Here is a conversation starter that I wanted to post for 2005.

Cheers
Terry

__________________________

IS CULTURAL STUDIES INHERENTLY LEFT-WING?

Terry Flew

Cultural studies is commonly seen, by both its friends and its critics, as 
an intellectual adjunct of the political left. For its critics, which in 
Australia include newspaper columnists such as Andrew Bolt, writers such as 
Keith Windschuttle, and academics such as Gregory Melleuish, cultural 
studies presents the spectre of obscure and complex theory and political 
correctness which, they argue, is in danger of strangling intellectual 
diversity in the arts and humanities.

Leading cultural studies academics, such as Graeme Turner and Elspeth 
Probyn, have responded to these polemical arguments by pointing to both the 
diversity and the social value of ideas emanating from Australian cultural 
studies. It is also pointed out that cultural studies is one of the 
relatively small number of academic fields in which Australian researchers 
can claim genuine, internationally recognised intellectual leadership.

Yet there is a deeply rooted tension in these responses. On the one hand, 
there clearly are a diverse range of positions, perspectives, and range of 
issues considered within cultural studies, and this diversity would be well 
known for those working within the field. On the other hand, cultural 
studies academics have consistently drawn attention to the alignment of 
their work with left politics. If the gist of the critics' arguments is 
that one cannot do cultural studies research if one has have political 
views other than those of the left, then they would seem to have a point.

Cultural studies academics have on many occasions affirmed their affinity 
with a left-wing politics. Stuart Hall's observation that the purpose of 
cultural studies was to develop 'organic intellectuals' who could critique 
capitalist hegemony, on behalf of 'emerging historical movements' that 
possessed the numerical clout to challenge capitalism, provides a template 
for many of the introductory textbooks and readers that attempt to define 
what cultural studies is. More recently, at the 'Crossroads in Cultural 
Studies' conference in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, the conference 
organisers insisted that, for cultural studies academics and researchers, 
'to remain silent is to be in collusion with this (Bush) regime'.

I should make it clear that I am not arguing that academics working in the 
field of cultural studies should not be politically engaged. Similarly, the 
issue here is not whether a gathering of cultural studies academics may 
tend to have a left-of-centre political leaning. Groups of people, whether 
they be teachers, graziers, building workers, real estate agents, talk back 
radio hosts, or retired military officers, may well tend in a certain 
direction politically, and Cass Sunstein's 'law of group polarisation' 
suggests that this is to some extent inevitable.

My question, rather, is whether cultural studies as an academic field and 
an area of teaching, research and scholarship, is inherently left-wing? By 
this, I am referring to three inter-related points:

1.	That the theoretical and methodological resources of cultural studies 
are such that they are not comprehensible in the absence of a left-wing 
political standpoint;
2.	That the degree of alignment of arguments within cultural studies to a 
left-wing political standpoint is such that you can determine the 
intellectual validity of intellectual arguments on the basis of their 
relationship to left-wing politics;
3.	That if one did not hold to left-wing political views, it would be 
impossible in principle to have one's work considered to be within the 
field of cultural studies, however much it dealt with the study of culture.

If these three points have come to be constitutive of what cultural studies 
is and does, and what it means to be a cultural studies research and 
academic, then I would suggest ten reasons why identifying cultural studies 
as an intellectual field which takes inherently left-wing political 
positions is unwise, even for those sympathetic to such left-wing arguments 
and principles.

The first problem with defining cultural studies as inherently left-wing is 
that, historically, it links the field to the 'big theories' of the 
anti-capitalist left, most notably Marxism, in ways that, in practice, many 
cultural studies practitioners would not agree with. While the origins of 
cultural studies are certainly linked to the rise of the 'New Left' in the 
1960s and 1970s, its relationship to Marxism has always been a tense one. 
Pioneer theorists such as Stuart Hall have always emphasised the extent to 
which, in its particular focus upon popular culture and the complexities of 
ideology, there has always been a history of critical argument with the 
Marxist intellectual and political tradition. At the same time, more 
orthodox left-wing academics, such as critical political economists, have 
long expressed the concern that, in its focus upon the pleasures of 
consumption and popular culture, cultural studies is not left-wing enough.

This bring me to the second problem, which is that defining cultural 
studies as 'left-wing' in advance can cause a loss of insight into the 
complexities of culture itself, by flattening everything onto a 
pre-existing political power grid. For popular culture will never be 
left-wing, however you define it, because most people won't pay enough 
money in a capitalist economy to receive the products of left culture. At 
the same time, it is not inherently right-wing, either, as the significant 
number of people with left politics in the media and entertainment 
industries attests to. Historically, cultural studies theorists have dealt 
with this by saying that these media and cultural forms are contradictory, 
thereby leaving the left/right categories in place and fitting popular 
culture around them. But I no longer think that this argument is adequate. 
Programs such as South Park, for example, cheerfully satirise people and 
positions from across the political spectrum.

Third, approaching your subject-matter from a pre-given political 
standpoint will inevitably weaken the analysis, by losing sight of 
important insights that don't fit the established framework. One of the 
best books on Australian politics in recent years has been Judith Brett's 
Australian Liberalism and the Moral Middle Class. Brett's book starts from 
the commendable premise that, rather than assuming that we already know 
what the Liberal Party of Australia stands for (big business, the middle 
class, political conservatism etc.), researchers should work through the 
documentary and archival records of the Liberal Party to identify important 
and neglected strands of the Party's history, as well as reasons why it has 
been so successful in Australian politics. Brett's point in doing this has 
been to draw attention to how little is known about the Liberal Party' 
history  particularly when compared to the Australian Labor Party  because 
political history tends to be predominantly written either by Labor 
supporters or by their left critics.

Importantly, Brett is able to separate her analysis of the foundations of 
John Howard's current political success (such as his ability to tap into 
popular nationalist sentiments across the spectrum of Australian society) 
from the question of how she feels personally about the policies of the 
Howard Liberal government. In doing so, Judith Brett seems to have been one 
of the few to overcome what has been a collective clogged artery among 
Australian humanities intellectuals.

Fourth, a left-wing oriented cultural studies may be on the wrong side of 
history. This is not simply because conservative governments are being 
returned to power in the United States and Australia, but because of its 
way of constructing the political spectrum. The concepts of left and right 
have their origins in the politics of the pre-revolutionary France of the 
late 18th century, and sit very oddly in other parts of the world, 
particularly in a post-Cold War environment. Recent elections in Eastern 
Europe and the nations and regions of the former Soviet Union (notably 
Ukraine) are the obvious examples of this.

Fifth, the political left is prone, as is the political right, to 
overgeneralising about contemporary cultural phenomenon. The rise of 
spiritualism in various forms, in apparent opposition to secularism, is a 
tendency widely taken to be associated with the rise of the political 
right, but it has many manifestations, including New Age spirituality, 
progressive Christianity, the rise of Buddhism in the West etc., which may 
tilt in other political directions. Similarly, the demand for greater 
parent choice in school education is often presented as a rejection of the 
state school system driven by consumerist greed, but clearly also involves 
a demand for the decentralisation of power and a closer connection between 
parents, teachers and curriculum that could be seen, in other contexts, as 
being about democratising eduction.

Sixth, there is a tendency to assume that support for more market-based 
approaches to public policy is synonymous with political conservatism. Yet 
in many parts of the world, economic liberalisation and a greater role for 
the commercial market has been associated with the relaxing or lifting of 
authoritarian political controls. The development of commercial media in 
China may be the most conspicuous instance of this, but there are enough 
instances of this worldwide to suggest that the idea of 'commercial 
democracy', and a link between a greater role for commercial markets and 
political democratisation is far from simply a fantasy of the political right.

Seventh, sometimes the market may be more attuned to a progressive 
political outcome. While the cultural policy debate of the 1990s challenged 
some of the reflex anti-statism found in the 'resistance' strands of 
cultural studies, it arguably did so by reinforcing a notion that 
governments were best equipped to deliver cultural democracy. As such, it 
was perhaps too focused upon the official institutions of public culture 
(museums, art galleries etc.), middle-class forms of cultural consumption 
(public broadcasters rather than commercial media or pay TV), and a 
'top-down' understanding of how culture is created and cultural resources 
distributed. What is apparent is that, not only is there a lot of 
'bottom-up' culture being created and distributed from multiple sites, much 
of it commercially, but that the cultural or creative industries are not 
simply a handful of global corporate behemoths living off the copyrighted 
culture of others. Indeed, digital media technologies, by blurring lines 
between producers and consumers, may indeed be harbingers of an upsurge in 
'do-it-yourself' (DIY) cultural production and distribution.

Eighth, what is considered to be 'left' in cultural studies is well to the 
left of current party politics, in Australia or elsewhere. Had a Cultural 
Studies Party (CUSP) ran in the 2004 Australian Federal Election, its 
platform would presumably have been well to the left of that of a Mark 
Latham-led Labor party, or indeed any of the state Labor governments. 
Perhaps it would be more aligned to a 'party of principle' such as the 
Australian Greens, but the evidence, both historically and in the current 
electoral climate, suggests that about 10 per cent of the population, at 
best, are likely to direct their votes in such a way. For the other 90 per 
cent, tax and public spending, economic prosperity and national security 
will continue to shape how they vote, and, at this point in time, the 
conservative parties are delivering a stronger message to more people at 
present.

Ninth, what is considered to be left-wing or right-wing changes 
considerably over time. Some discussion ensues recently on the Cultural 
Studies Association of Australasia mailing list on whether Herald-Sun 
columnist Andrew Bolt was a Hawke government staffer in the 1980s, and 
whether this 'left' past was contradictory with his current conservative 
viewpoints. In the 1980s, no-one considered the Hawke government to be 
left-wing, with people on the left tending to be either reluctant 
supporters or vocal critics. The Clinton Administration in the U.S. was, of 
course, denounced as 'neo-liberal' by the left while it governed in the 
1990s, until a conservative republican administration was elected. Even the 
Whitlam Labor government of the 1970s, seemingly the paragon of Australian 
leftism, was denounced at the time by a significant minority as being 
right-wing and pro-capitalist.

Finally, if you have left-wing political views and teach cultural studies, 
listen to your critics. Rather than denouncing people who disagree, or 
trying to ignore them  which won't work, as they are in many cases better 
at accessing the popular media  engage them in dialogue and debate. If your 
own arguments are strong, this experience should reinforce them. If they 
are not, it is best to find out why not, by subjecting them to people with 
differing political and intellectual views.

Former Labor cabinet minister John Button, in his diagnosis of what is 
wrong with the Australian Labor Party, Beyond Belief, suggested to his 
local ALP branch that, rather than inviting yet anther Labor Senator to 
speak to the branch, they should instead invite Tony Abbott. His point was 
that the turnout would be high, the debate would almost certainly be 
lively, and, hopefully, those who attended would leave with a clearer sense 
of why they were ALP members. It is certainly better than strategies of 
denial, dismissal or exclusion of opposing points of view. Needless to say, 
John Button's ALP branch didn't take up his suggestion. But its not a bad 
one for that.

Intellectual life benefits from the vigorous exchange of a diversity of 
views, not the restatement of established orthodoxies. Rather than 
automatically assuming that cultural studies is a left-wing intellectual 
field, it may be time to ask what a cultural studies that is not 
self-evidently left-wing may look like.

Dr. Terry Flew
Senior Lecturer and Discipline Head, Media and Communication
Acting Head of Communication Design
Course Co-ordinator, Creative Industries postgraduate coursework degree program
Reviews Editor, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies

Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology

GPO Box 2434
Brisbane Queensland 4001

Location: The Hub Z6-510 Kelvin Grove Urban Village
Phone: 61-07-3864 8188
Fax: 61-07-3864 8195
Mobile: 0405 070 980
Email: t.flew at qut.edu.au
Research profile: 
http://www.creativeindustries.qut.com/people/staff/next.jsp?userid=flew&secid=Introduction

CRICOS No: 00213J

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