Pfeil’s essay “Sympathy for the Devils: Notes on Some White Guys and the Ridiculous Class War” investigates a few groups of white men that are often accused by those on the Left, by feminists, and by minority groups, as being motivated by racism and sexism. Pfeil thinks this analysis is limiting, “bound to occlude more than it reveals” (115). He found that moreso than racism and sexism, a belief “that white men as a whole are without traditions and bereft of wisdome” (117) and an anti-federalist sentiment (122) drove these groups. The anti-federalism comes from a perception that the government is taking away many things and giving strict guidelines that force them to spend money on new equipment.
Pfeil notes that “those same people seem incapable of understanding that the most overarchingly powerful and the most icily indifferent players and insterests behind the scenes are those of corporate capitalism itself — perhaps because this entity is too large and abstract for comprehension…” (122). Pfeil concludes that “both these groups of white men [malitias and upscale men’s movement groups] have to get up the strength and wisdom to call their foremost enemy by its right name, corporate capitalism, the enclave of those (largely) white men who really own the field and call the shots” (124).
I liked this assessment, though I was a bit disturbed that Pfeil seemed to dismiss sexism and racism so quickly. What about the racism and sexism that created a system where there is “the assumption that women, African-Americans, Native Americans and other non-white or non-male Others are, each and all, self-enclosed communities of people whose identities are first and foremost culturally given rather than politically and historically made” (117). It’s not that Pfeil dismissed the presense of them, but his discussion seemed to hinge on “there is no overt racism or sexism” so it’s not a major problem.
I do like his general argument that we must accept straight white guys, especially working class ones, as on “our side” in the class war, because otherwise the class war is “ridiculous” when we don’t know who is on whose side.
Pfeil, Fred. “Sympathy for the Devils: Notes on Some White Guys and the Ridiculous Class War.” New Left Review 213 (1995): 115-24.
