Reimagined Communities

When I read through the first couple of pages of the Twilight of Equality?, keeping in mind this is our last book of the semester, a logical link was obvious; since we started with phenomenon of nationalism, the most historically logical end was to approach neo-liberalism as the end of social movements (or at least, the latest movement we know of). However, there is much more to Lisa Duggan than the eye can see; her exploring the complicated and intertwined relationships between the residues of neo-conservatives through corporate markets, and the social dimensions which have impacted the society such as gay and lesbian, and women rights. One argument she brings forward and that to me seemed as a core was the legitimacy to gain power and the battle of interests. It seems to me that that recurring theme appeared earlier, in fragments, through McAllister, definitely through Bolstermann, and in fragments or argument through Levitt and through Goose.
Because eventually, the aim of asking for the acknowledgement and equality in rights of a particular community means 1)sense of belonging 2)fight for self-interests and legitimacy of one’s own existence through the community they belong to. Even if there is a certain irony in the name of a movement which promotes corporate business and interest but is also called “neo-liberalism”, I see a clear shift from the time McAllister started summarizing American hegemonic interest abroad to Duggan’s explanation of neo-liberal corporate maneuvering. It seems that the benevolent supremacy is a phenomenon that cannot really stop, or in other words, needs to renew itself constantly; post-Second World war period, when American was striving to become a global power, and in the past half a century it has definitely succeeded, and the result is a form of globalization which seems to be in essence a large majority of countries of the world become more American. But even now, there is a need to establish organizations and institutions which such an impact that a form of American imperialism is still going to be seen. Therefore, the corporate world is just a repetition of one and the same principle to be a hegemonic power, adapting to the changes of the World. In those terms, the concept of Re-Imagined Communities comes into place, since the Word is an inconstant space where there is constant change, there is a need to form each time new living foundations and test or dismantle the terms nations, community, liberalism and other social constructs that constitute our reality.

I think Duggan is trying to present a nationalistic view of the world. As Benedict Anderson defined it, a nation is “an imagined political community- and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (6). Duggan is presenting leftist views and neoliberalism as a kind of nation that is slowly evolving in American society. Her views of neoliberalism place a heavy emphasis on how neoliberalism is not conservatism and that the two exist in separate spheres. To me, this seems to fit Anderson’s definiton that says ‘limited and sovereign’. Nations must exist in contrast to each other, as Duggan points out by using neoliberalism and conservatism. Duggan’s analysis doesn’t leave a lot of room to conclude that transnationalism is possible, since she makes it very clear that there are two sides of the issue: liberal and conservative. While she says that neoliberals have come from both sides of the spectrum, it appears that most of the people she believes support neoliberals are democrats/leftists. For similar reasons, Duggan’s book can’t be postnational, either. The argument she presents is simply too controversial to allow for any blending of the two sides.
The fact that nationalism is what is best represented by The Twilight of Equality? also makes it highly compatible with Gramsci’s ideas of hegemony. Neoliberalism and conservatism also work as contrasting hegemonic structures. I do think it is difficult to say which one is the hegemony and which is the counterhegemony, though. It seems to me that they both exist within a very fluid hegemonic system and have changed roles/importance throughout history.
The problem I found with Duggan’s analysis is that she too falls victim to one of her own critiques. Throughout the book, Duggan looks at any leftist movement as part of the greater neoliberal movement. In Part 4, Love and Money, Duggan points out that many scholars, politicians, and other theorists focus on the identity aspect of neoliberal/leftist movements and ignore the greater political and economic factors. Duggan’s analysis also seemed to do this, at least from how I read it. Most of the chapters focused on the ways people in leftist movements saw themselves in society. Except for brief sections where she connects the social aspects to economic or political one, Duggan kind of over emphasized the identities of people, whether they were racial, sexual, or gendered.

The Lisa Duggan reading The Twilight of Equality? reminded me an awful lot of Gramsci. A few people at the top of the American hegemony, according to Duggan, manipulatively craft the cultural and political messages that shape society. Yet, she argues, individuals still have the power to change the direction of such political tides. American citizens must “connect culture, politics and economics” in order to effectively combat and overtake the type of “democratic” governance forced upon communities in the United States (41). Gramsci would probably make a similar argument, noting the multi-dimensionality within a hegemony that is always susceptible to change. Thus, we come full circle in this course with Duggan’s reading. The successful counter-hegemonies can overrule the larger hegemony if their union and plan of attack is construed by various elements within a society.

The shift to neoliberalism actually resembles one such counter-hegemony, a potential backlash to the recent developments of transnationalism and postnationalism within an increasingly imagined American community. National identity is more obscure and, consequently, more up for grabs. “There is no vision of a collective, democratic public culture,” (62) writes Duggan in regard to the growing homosexual political movements. Politicians respond to these “contentious cantankerous queer politics” by upholding military and marriage with domestic housewives and the as the standard (62).

Duggan also describes the work of Governor Pataki and Candace de Russy to use a SUNY conference on sexuality as a means of tightening government control and funds over intellectual material at the collegiate level. De Russy attacked SUNY New Paltz’s president for allowing offensive dialogue to take place at a publicly-funded state school. “President Bowen and its other defenders have emptied academic freedom of all its dignity,” announced de Russy in a radio address shortly after the conference (28).

While de Russy did not make any legitimate political gains at the state level from her attack on President Bowen, this manipulative assault made public by a small organized group of powerful politicians is not typical of the counter-hegemony described by Gramsci. If Gramsci’s model holds true, then a handful of individuals within the political hierarchy would not be able to accomplish this damaging feat on freedom of speech and expression. Perhaps this is due to declining numbers of participation in this American democracy that allows for these unusual counter-hegemonies to take hold. Gramsci no longer seems applicable if the leaders of the state and federal government can actually get away so discreetly with impositions on constitutional rights without much more than a peep from the American public.
The only way his model would prove true is if society is able to understand these violations and unite collectively against them. But, as described in class throughout the semester, American society is a quilted patchwork of a wide variety of people who may or may not bring their cultural and national identities and incorporate them into American culture, as described by Levitt’s work on transnationalism within the Dominican population in the United States. So, if transnationalism and even the ideas of postnationalism really do play into account in the imagining of America, then no single counter-hegemony could legitimately lay claim to an American identity, as attempted by the recent neoliberal movement. This attempt, like the one made by de Russy, may make a dent but cannot permanently sculpt national identity. In which case, national identity belongs to no one counter-hegemony and does not legitimately exist, lending postnationalism more accuracy in the make-up of a re-imagined American community.