By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 19th, 2011 
Ideological clichés are deadly. In 1989, the end of the short twentieth century (1917 – 1989) with all its horrors, I thought this simple proposition was something that had been learned, broadly across the political spectrum . I was wrong, and the evidence has been overwhelming. This was my biggest mistake as a sociologist of the politics and culture.
When Soviet Communism collapsed, I thought it had come to be generally understood that simple ideological explanations that purported to provide complete understanding of past, present and future, and the grounds for solving the problems of the human condition, were destined for the dustbin of history. The fantasies of race and class theory resulted in profound human suffering. I thought there was global awareness that modern magical thinking about human affairs should and would come to an end.
My first indication I had that I was mistaken came quickly, December 31, 1989, to be precise. It came in the form of an op ed. piece by Milton Friedman. While celebrating the demis e of socialism in the Soviet bloc, he called for its demise in the United States, which he asserted was forty-five per cent socialist, highlighting the post office, the military (a necessary evil to his mind) and education. He called for a domestic roll back of the socialist threat now that the foreign threat had been vanquished. Friedman knew with absolute certainty that only capitalism promoted freedom, and he consequentially promoted radical privatization as a solution to all social problems. This was an early battle cry for the neo-liberal assault of the post-cold war era.
The assault seemed particularly silly to me, and hit close to home, since I heard Friedman lecture when I . . .
Read more: My Big Mistake: The End of Ideology, Then and Now
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 11th, 2011 
What do these people want? What are they advocating? In the opinion of many, including Gary Alan Fine in his last post, it is easy to discern what OWS is against, but unclear what they are for. They know how to say no, he knows, but he wonders if they can say yes. He thinks this both about OWS and The Tea Party, as a detached but sympathetic observer of both.
Looking at OWS up close, taking part in a small but significant activity, I think the positive commitments of OWS are actually quite clear, and in marked contrast to The Tea Party. As I maintained in The Politics of Small Things, the democracy is in the details. I had an opportunity to look at some details in a corner of Zuccotti Park, joining the OWS Think Tank.
Many of the OWS activists who have taken part in The Flying Seminar sessions are active in the Think Tank. We started working together at The New School teach in. They have been among the active members of the seminar. I have visited them a couple of times in Zuccotti Park, and earlier this week, on Monday, I joined them in their work there. It was an illuminating afternoon.
From noon to 6:00, the Think Tank conducts discussion sessions of a special sort on a variety of topics. Many different people facilitate the discussions. I responded to an email call for help and volunteered to do my part. The workshop topics range from the quite general, to the immediate and practical. They hope to inform decision-making in the park and to further understanding of problems of broad public concern, and even contribute to the formulation of policy positions and recommendations. It’s one of the spaces where the big questions about the occupation are being answered in daily practice, a striking case of the politics of small things. It confirmed for me that in politics the means are a significant part of its . . .
Read more: The Clear, Present and Positive Goals of Occupy Wall Street
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 3rd, 2011 
A new kind of politics is upon us. Many observers have highlighted the technological characteristics of this politics. Cell phones and Facebook and other social media are the heroes in these accounts of the Arab Spring, the Israeli summer, and now of not only the Tea Party but also Occupy Wall Street. Yet, these accounts are unsatisfying, because they don’t take into account the human agency of the new politics, the specific political struggles. We should clearly recognize the importance of the new media, but it seems to me that what is extraordinary is the way a type of power, political power as Hannah Arendt understood it, is becoming increasingly important. People are meeting each other, now virtually and not only face to face, speaking and acting in each other’s presence, developing a capacity to act in concert.
I analyzed the way this power works in our world in my book, The Politics of Small Things. It points to the way the power of “the politics of small things” was common to both the Solidarity Movement in opposition to the previously existing socialist order in Poland of the 80s and to the anti-war movement and the Dean campaign during the Bush years in America. Recently a Korean translation of the book was published. I wrote a special preface, including some thoughts on how the politics of small things worked in a social movement in South Korea, the Candle Movement. Now, those reflections are helping me understand what I am seeing in lower Manhattan and considering its potential. I think the power of the politics of small things is becoming a significant force throughout the world today in many different contexts, and that it is important to take notice in places far and near.
My general understanding as an outsider and non-expert of the Candle Movement: Using . . .
Read more: A Specter is Haunting the Powers That Be: Thinking about Korea while Looking at Wall Street
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 12th, 2011 
Yesterday, I was with Steve Assael, my friend of nearly 60 years, retracing, as much as possible, his steps of ten years ago. He worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield on the 25th floor of North Tower of the WTC. The vivid specificity of his memories was moving, from the opening tragedy, the paraplegic colleague who couldn’t escape because the elevators weren’t working and his co worker who decided to stay with him, to the loneliness of direct experience, riding on the subway in Queens along with the daily commuters ten years ago and walking downtown yesterday. We spoke, walked, looked around, remembered 9/11/01 as a day of personal experience and national trauma. I wondered and worried about how the people we saw yesterday remember. I recalled that the U.S. has been implicated consequentially in the suffering of so many others since that day. Steve and I don’t agree on such matters, but political discussion wasn’t on the agenda.
We met in Penn Station at 7:45. The time, more or less, he had arrived on his morning commute from Massapequa, Long Island, ten years ago. We took the express train downtown to Chambers Street, as he did then. Instead of a crowd of office workers, we joined the anniversary memorial ceremony, part of the general public observers (only the relatives of those who died were included in the ceremony). Steve later told me that he had hoped that by chance he would bump into one of the hundreds of people whom he knew when he worked there. But, ironically, we met my friend and colleague Jan Gross, author of Neighbors, one of the most important and troubling books of recent decades.
We passed through a security checkpoint at 8:30. We were a couple of blocks from the memorial, with a clear view of the rising tower. We observed the ceremony on a huge television screen and listened to the reading of the names for a while, and heard the dignitaries’ readings. Our project was to wander, look . . .
Read more: New York, N.Y., September 11, 2011
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, June 17th, 2011 
As a social critic, I am ambivalent about the power of imaginative action in politics. On the one hand, I think that the power of the definition of the situation is a key resource of power for the powerless, the cultural grounding of “the politics of small things.” On the other hand, I worry about myth-making that is independent of factual truth.
On the positive side, there is the definition of the situation: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” This relatively simple assertion, the so called Thomas theorem, was first presented in a study of child psychology and behavioral problems by W.I. Thomas and his wife, Dorothy Swain Thomas. Yet, the theorem has very important political implications, going well beyond the area of the Thomases initial concern, moving in a very different direction than the one taken by the field of ethnomethodology, which can be understood as the systematic scholarly discipline of the definition of the situation.
While researching cultural and political alternatives in Poland and beyond in the 1980s and 90s I observed first hand how the theorem, in effect, became the foundational idea of the democratic opposition to the Communist system in Central Europe. The dissident activists acted as if they lived in a free society and created freedom as a result. A decision was made in Poland, in the 70s, by a group of independent intellectuals and activists to secede from the official order and create an alternative public life. People ignored the commands of the Communist Party and associated apart from Party State control, openly publicizing their association. They created alternative publications. They opened the underground by publicizing their names, addresses and phone numbers. They acted freely. They developed ties with workers and others beyond their immediate social circles. And when the regime for its own reasons didn’t arrest them, an alternative public life and an oppositional political force flourished, which ultimately prevailed over the regime.
The powerless can develop power that . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Political Imagination, the Definition of the Situation and Fictoids
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, March 23rd, 2011 
There are serious arguments for and against military intervention in Libya. Michael Walzer, who is often wise about such things, makes a strong case against. Yet, on balance I am convinced by Conor Foley’s minimalist position for intervention, presented at Crooked Timber. Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s decision to defend his power by any means necessary led Foley to conclude: “I think that the situation in Libya immediately prior to the intervention passed the threshold test … the UN is fulfilling its responsibility to protect the lives of civilians in this case.” Of course, there are many other situations where such intervention on these grounds should be called for, perhaps too many, but in Libya it became possible and has been immediately successful in the stated goal of reducing civilian deaths.
But there is also a greater hope that as their lives are being defended, Libyans will contribute to the democratic transformation of 2011. If Qaddafi would be defeated, a new democratic force may emerge, what Benoit Challand calls, “the counter-power of civil society.” My heart hopes it will be so. My head suggests extreme caution. Looking closely at the way the big political issues are enacted in everyday interactions, what I call “the politics of small things,” suggests why the caution is called for, but also where there may be hopeful signs.
There is a dilemma. For a successful democratic transition, the Libyans must develop a capacity to say more than no or yes to the dictator, as I put it while speculating about the Egyptians and when studying the Central Europeans. Yet, war generally doesn’t provide the time or place for this to happen. Opposition to the perceived evil source requires resolute action, disciplined unity of purpose. Democratic life is based upon diverse opinions and judgments and civil contestation. War generally does not support such civility and diversity. Significantly, Qaddafi’s regime worked against this throughout its history.
In politics the means are the ends. . . .
Read more: Libya and the Mission Creep I Hope For
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 25th, 2011 
For the first time since we have been operating, I felt like the discussions on the blog were getting away from my editorial control. I take this to be a good sign. While there were interesting posts on the economy and economic theory, and on media and media theory, as well as on revolutionary hopes in Egypt, the focus of our discussion this week was on the issues surrounding the events in Madison, Wisconsin, moving in interesting and somewhat unexpected directions.
Anna Paretskaya opened our deliberations, with her “Cairo on the Isthmus.” She presented a bird’s eye view, including some telling photos. I actually found some of the details of her post more interesting than the elements that stimulated heated discussion. Particularly fascinating was how she understood the beginning of the movement as she reported in the opening of her piece:
“What started as a stunt by a group of University of Wisconsin-Madison students to deliver a few hundred “Valentine’s Day” cards from students, staff, and faculty to Governor Scott Walker asking him not to slash the university budget has now become national news: close to 100,000 Wisconsinites have come to the State Capitol in Madison over the past four days to protest the so-called “budget repair” bill…”
This made clear to me Madison, Wisconsin’s connection to Cairo, and Cairo’s connection to the movement I observed around the old bloc, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to the Obama campaign and the Tea Party movement. People meet with each other, speak to each other, develop a capacity to act together, create a power that hitherto did not exist. They may or may not reach their political goal, but they change the political landscape as they act. This is what I see as being the most significant consequence of “the politics of small things.” Not only has there been regime change in Egypt and Tunisia, but the Arab world will never be the same after the wave of protests we have observed. And the Republicans may or may not succeed in their battle against public employee unions and the . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: The Wisconsin Events
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 28th, 2010
Deliberately Considered is an experiment. My hypothesis is that the web  offers a relatively untapped possibility for serious deliberation about difficult issues, not just enclaves for the like minded and platforms to denounce political adversaries. New serious perspectives outside the frames of conventional reporting and analysis can develop.
We already have interesting confirmation of the hypothesis in the many posts and discussions in our first months of operation. A discussion that developed in response to my post on the Afghan women’s soccer team, I think was particularly illuminating.
I started with an examination of an instance of the politics of small things. This opened a discussion of the big issues on the question of war and peace, and to my mind the discussion came to a strong insightful ending with a reply that used the perspective of everyday life to address the big issues under discussion.
There were notes on all sides of the issue, from Michael who critically but sympathetically reflected on the American position, to Alias who denounced the NATO effort in no uncertain terms, and opinions in between, including mine. But Mariam Yasin, offered another perspective completely. That of a person against all wars and as someone whose position in the conflict provides a unique perspective:
“There are too many stories of family and my family’s acquaintances killed by Americans, Soviets, and Taliban. This is not to mention the dispersal of Afghans; Afghans just want to be left alone. My family’s house was not shelled by Taliban, but by the Americans and coalition forces. Fortunately no one was hurt that time.”
She made telling observations in her two replies:
“Though I would have to agree that women have regained new means of re-entering social and political life in Afghanistan, I believe there is too much ignored by the strong focus on women and women’s rights…
The struggles faced by Afghan men are ignored and effaced because, as we know, Afghan men are terrorists. However, their mere “inclusion” in society and presence in public life is also a matter of life and death. Those without beards, for instance, risk imprisonment or even immediate execution. Men and . . .
Read more: Afghanistan War Revisited
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 17th, 2010 
 Democracy, social justice, freedom, cultural refinement and pleasure, all, along with their opposites, are to be found in the detailed meetings and avoidances, engagements and disengagements, comings and goings of everyday life. The politics of small things has been our theme of the week.
Adam Michnik and I decided to try to organize our friends in a common discussion. Despite the workings of the security police and his jailers, and despite the hard realities of the cold war, we created alternatives in our own lives, and this affected many others. Although I am not informed about the specifics, I am sure that such things are now happening in China.
But I should be clear. I am not saying that therefore, the People’s Republic’s days are numbered, or that liberal democracy is just around the corner. Escalation in repression is quite a likely prospect. Michnik’s life after receiving our honorary doctorate did at first lead to a prison cell. Shirin Ebadi is in exile today, as was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn after his prize. But people continue to interact around the shared human rights principles to which these people dedicated their lives, and this has persistent effects, at least for those people, but beyond their social circles as well. As Michnik put it “the value of our struggle lies not in its chances for victory but rather in the values of its cause.” My point is that if people keep acting according to those values, they are very much alive and consequential.
And it is in this way that I applaud the Afghan Womens Soccer team and  understand its significance. That these young women manage to play their game despite all the horrors of war and occupation, despite the persistence of harmful traditional practices and inadequate implementation of the law on elimination of violence against women in Afghanistan (this was the subject matter of the UN report that Denis Fitzgerald referred to in his reply to my post) is their great achievement. We have to pay attention to such achievements, and . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: the significance of the politics of small things
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 13th, 2010
 As the United States reviews its policies in Afghanistan they should pay close attention not only to events on the central stage, but also to small details of everyday life, such as the Afghanistan’s National Woman’s Soccer Team.
A review of our policy on Afghanistan is due this month. As I have already indicated, I think this is a war that is bound to fail if the current logic of engagement does not include a planned withdrawal. The longer American and NATO troops stay there in large numbers with great visibility, I think, the stronger the support for those who fight against occupation. But a rapid and complete disengagement will lead to a battle between the Taliban and the highly ineffective and corrupt government of Hamid Karzai, in which the victor is not known but the victims are the Afghan people.
It is truly a dilemma.
In the face of the dilemma, I think it is important to pay close attention to the facts on the ground. Last week, in The New York Times there is a report on an instance of what I mean by “the politics of small things,” a report on a national women’s soccer team.
They play under great restrictions. Their fathers, brothers and uncles frequently disapprove of their activities. They actually have to practice on a NATO helicopter landing field, because outside the military zone, they are too vulnerable to attack. They take great pride in their physical accomplishments. Most recently, they actually defeated the women’s team of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Khalida Popal, an official of the Afghan women’s soccer federation and long a team member, noted that “We wanted to show them Afghans are friendly people, not like the stupid people they are fighting.”
These women also reveal to us and to themselves the power of Afghan women to fight for themselves against great odds, and the importance of their struggle. And as is the case of other instances of the politics of small things, such as the poetry café in Damascus I discussed in a previous post, Afghanistan with its national women’s soccer team . . .
Read more: The power of Afghan women
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