A colleague once mentioned his objection to the use of the flag as part of the Trouble-Tickets logo. "I can't direct the people I work with to the site if there's a flag on it."
I told him he's clearly working with the wrong people. But, there's no reason to expect him to understand a joke like that.
Why is that flag there?
Yesterday I posted a piece about the overdetermined complexity of ideological narratives. The flag is a narrative, in our sense. Along with the word "patriotism" it has many meanings, often contradictory, often confused.
What does it mean to the people who visit the site? To average Americans? To the people my colleague works with who won't visit the site if there's a flag on it?
Different things, which illustrates the point.
Meanings are never simple. They're the outcomes of complex and intense and ongoing processes, not of neutral interpretation, but of struggle. Overt, obscure, conscious, unconscious, individual, societal: their overdetermination is the result of these complex and intersecting processes of struggle.
Why is that flag there?
Because we believe that the meaning of words like "patriotism" and symbols such as the flag can be and should be struggled over.
"Patriotism" means: loyalty to the best interests of our people.
The "Patriots" of the revolutionary period are the political forefathers of the contemporary left. The "Tories" of that period are the political forefathers of the contemporary right.
These are powerful narratives. They shouldn't be abandoned. It's incompetent to abandon them.
Why do the people my colleague works with object to the flag logo? Because they're sectarians, who refuse to struggle, that is who agree in advance to be defeated, because the messy realities of the struggle conflict with their sectarian agenda. Why did I joke with my colleague that he shouldn't work with them? Because they can never win, because they don't want to win, because they don't want to struggle, because the messy realities of the struggle conflict with their sectarian agenda.
Fuck 'em.
But that's maybe a different blog.
