What I'm reading

MY SONG IS MY WEAPON
People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930-50
By Robbie Lieberman

A fascinating look at a facet of history that influenced the 60s folksong movement. What is striking to me is the idealistic naivety of these energetic songsters out to change the world. All were used by the American Communists, few joined, and many realized they were used in the end. But their humanist optimism remained to the end. A few who are still alive, like Pete Seeger, retain an unfailing belief in "the people" and their "natural" tendency toward just behavior. I don't share this view of humanity but I admire it because I wish I were wrong. I just don't think I am.

Even more fascinating is the book I'm reading now, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN AMERICAN COMMUNIST (1979) by Peggy Dennis, an incredible personal story. More later, I suspect.

I seem to be in a period of fascination with naive idealists. But if the problem is more systemic than political, if politics itself is "the problem" as Norman O. Brown and others would have it, then any "movement" is doomed to fail, usually be becoming corrupt. Brown concludes that the journey must be inward toward oneself, not outward toward society. "Doing nothing, if properly understood, is the supreme action."

I suppose this recent reading is research, what with my vague notions to write a labor novel, a political novel, in the tradition of Steinbeck's IN DUBIOUS BATTLE, perhaps. We'll see. It's fascinating, informative reading even if it doesn't prove to be "research,"