Supplementary > July 6, 2005

A Source of Light

By Pat Aufderheide

When In These Times and I stumbled upon each other in 1978—when I was hired without a lot of thought on either part as cultural editor—it was the gift of a lifetime for me.

Jimmy’s understanding of politics as the prosaic complex of institutions, structures and actions through which people organize consciously for social change dialed down the noise level on personal-is-political politics.

It helped me to clarify critical challenges, and to ask interesting questions about the constitution of culture. I went on to learn much from Jimmy about the history of the left, and came to trust my own distrust for cant and dogma. I came to admire beyond measure the notion that social justice is not a radical demand but an ordinary aspiration of millions upon millions of people. I came to see Jimmy’s historical vision as rooted in a profound respect for the capacity of human beings to honor themselves with self-respect and to evoke it in others. He was also a real Gramscian optimist of the will. In one of my last conversations with Jimmy, I asked him what his old ex-communist buddies had thought about the current bleak political climate. He said, in his usual wry way, “They can’t see where it can go. But then they remembered that in 1958 they couldn’t see where it was going and in 1960 there was the New Left.”

Jimmy was an astoundingly generous person (I had the desk next to him and overheard while he quietly arranged assistance, sometimes entirely unrecognized, for friends, colleagues and employees), and he was an admirably generous political thinker. He is one of my sources of light in all the dark times.

• subscribe to print magazine

  First Name Last Name Home Address City State Zip Code Email

  2-year, 24-issues, $44.95 1-year, 12-issue, $24.95

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments

  There are no comments on this article yet. Start the discussion below.

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Member Login

Also by Pat Aufderheide

• P.O.V.: A Home For Homeless Films
  
• Apocalyptic Activism at Sundance
  
• Save the Dramatic Chipmunk
  
• Is Wikipedia the New Town Hall?
  
• Sundance Docs 2006
  
• A Source of Light