Wez
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Blimey, first you accuse us of hostility and now, apparently, we lack basic emotional intelligence. Talk about passive aggressive! I advise you schekn to take your own advice and not be so hostile towards those with whom you disagree. This lengthy debate proves how willing we are to constructively discuss politics with anyone.
The idea that a minority of activists or conscious elite can change capitalism and make it environmentally friendly is the very definition of contemporary idealism and reformism. Why is to disagree with someone an act of hostility? Again why do you continually accuse us of this and not our opponents – we always incur their hostility by challenging liberal leftist shibboleths. Instead of focusing on our short-comings you should be challenging them about their idealist ivory tower hostility towards socialism – after all they have the thousands of supporters and high profile.
Spiritual/mystical/love – these are all concepts of transcendence; they speak of the existence of something vitally important that is not physical. In other words they are ‘unmaterialistic’ like Jung’s ‘collective unconsciousness’ their metaphysics is not empirically based. Such ‘faith’ has been and continues to be one of the most dangerous and historically impotent ideologies that opposes socialism.
This kind of reformism/idealism has built its own enormous and ethereal ivory tower that will not allow them to listen to materialism and socialism. We will never stop trying to communicate to such groups but their inability to comprehend us is somehow our fault? We are the only party that is not waiting for socialism – we work for it 24/7. The thousands of groups like XR just make our job more difficult because they refuse to engage in ‘ productive dialogue’. Save your criticism for them – not us.
schekn itrch – Of course nobody can answer such a question with absolute certainty. What we can use is what Marx called ‘the internal contradictions of capitalism’ as part of a dialectical inquiry into potential futures. Where ever capitalism exists so does the contrast of its promises (ideology) with its reality. In this way the ‘propaganda’ of the media contributes to the consciousness of this – it will always highlight the inconsistency, for instance, of the promises of politicians and their failure to carry them through when in office etc. This can lead to political cynicism and/or populism and contempt for the political establishment – but the dynamic of contradiction is always present and sometimes subverts what those in the media desire (conformity). It is our task to direct this frustration into positive action for socialism. What I’m saying is that the media brainwashing is not monolithic and one way – it very often leads to unintentional consequences. With this in mind there is every reason to believe that socialist consciousness will arise spontaneously within any capitalist context. Since we already exist as a world wide organization there is nothing to prevent such individuals and groups from joining us.
“Despite their concern for the environment these people are not on our side.” – this is exactly the hostility I was talking about, Alan. “These people” are only talking about environmental collapse, and it is entirely possible to join them so that they would be on our side.’
This is a very naive political statement. Firstly it is entirely possible for someone to be environmentally concerned/active and be anti-socialist. You have conceded that many join such pressure groups out of a superficial emotional response to the problems of the world – they are not accessible to rational argument. As Alan has noted as soon as we challenge their liberal/leftist shibboleths (which always, in my experience, accompanies the ideology of such people – there is no such thing as ‘only talking about environmental collapse’) they will manifest intense hostility towards us. Secondly there is the well known and sadly tested phrase: ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. Many of the members of XR (like many on the Left) are people of integrity with benign intent but this is no substitute for knowledge of how capitalism really works. Obviously we have no objection to talking with such groups but just occasionally it would be nice if they were to approach us – but this will never happen for the reasons that I’ve outlined above.
In my experience the hostility usually comes from those we debate with and not the other way around.
‘Do you know why in science and technology things get done? Because people agreed to use common language and get persuaded by evidence. This is why scientists can work with, not against, each other.’
What an incredibly naive view of science and scientists. You make them sound saint-like in serving a religion called science. You must be aware of the struggles between the ‘scientific establishment’ and those ‘maverick scientists’ who turn out to be correct? For every correct hypothesis there are thousands of erroneous ones. Science is very much about ‘hit and miss’ and just dumb luck. Scientists are people like the rest of us caught up in the ego struggles implicit within our sick society. What, for instance, do you make of the career of Heisenburg and his working for the Nazis? For every scientist with integrity there are others who serve only their egos and/or their company. Without whistle blowers the many corrupt scientists would still be convincing us that it’s OK to eat beef that has been fed a ‘cannibal’ diet or that smoking tobacco is good for us.
‘ but also, even mainly, from external events making people really discontented with capitalism (even, who knows, some eco9logical catastrophe or war).’
Blimey, sounds a bit like the Trots expectation that capitalism will crash itself out of existence. War and catastrophe can also destroy many people’s optimism about the possibility of making a better world. Marx’s model for working class action was based on the bourgeoisie’s class consciousness in terms of their perceived economic interests being the catalyst for their revolution. I still think this is the most likely motivation for working class revolution and the establishment of socialism (although not always the sole motivation).
In answer to Shekn’s: ‘there must have been some kind of lucky coincidence that allowed us to not be fooled by the capitalist propaganda’ I can only speak of my own experience; from a very young age I always had to have a reason for doing or not doing something. Just because an authority figure (parents or whomever) told me to do it was never enough. I’ve always believed this ‘innate’ anti-authoritarianism is something all socialists share and makes us so distinct psychologically from the authoritarian Left. I would be interested if other comrades agree.
John Oswald makes a very important point here – the universities and academe have become ghettos of the intellectual elite. But it is also important to be aware of the anti-intellectualism that pervades our culture and even some Socialist Party members lapse into philistinism occasionally.
‘ The same way we can expect people to self-educate forever, it will never happen, as long as they are imprisoned in wage slavery and exposed to capitalist media all the time.’
And yet you, like all of us in the Socialist movement, were also exposed to the same unrelenting 24/7 media indoctrination – and yet we rejected it. It has always interested me how we achieved this as we are not special, geniuses or aliens. We are just ordinary people like every one else. I would be interested in how you explain our existence. I think it is as important to understand why we became socialists as it is to discover why the majority did not.
‘ exactly what gives you the qualification to make such sweeping statement? ‘
What qualifications do you need to state the blindingly obvious? The 20th century saw experiments in every conceivable form of capitalism – from Fascism to Bolshevism, Anarchism and Co-ops to Keynesian reform and Monetarist free markets. And after all the suffering and dying was over what do we have in the 21st Century? The same old capitalism.
One of our greatest problems is that, unlike all of the above, we appeal primarily to the intellect and not the emotions. In this age of marketing, advertising, slogans and sound-bites our appeal to the intellect is drowned out. The paradigm shift from emotional individualism to a rational social being is a huge challenge for most. Schekn itrch, with his rational discourse, must be aware of this when he attempts to communicate with the politically naive or the downright cynicism of our age. Unfortunately I fear XR are just another example of appealing to the emotions without any understanding of what capitalism really is and how it works and that in their emotionalism they will not be able to hear us.
‘We cannot afford another hundred years of the Socialist party, there will be a lot less to build socialism from if we fail to act now.’
Do what now? We have to achieve socialism before anything meaningful can be done. There are no magic formulas, no shortcuts – they’ve all been tried and failed (usually making things worse). Raising political consciousness among the majority of the working class is the only meaningful activity.
