Foreigner
21st February 2009, 01:18
Hello all,
I am not quite sure how to introduce myself in this context, so I'll just start with a banal hello and say a bit about myself and what I'm about. Please forgive me ahead of time for the length of this, and note that I am not as stuffy as I probably appear here -- I am being formal here because I wish to be fairly disciplined with this subject matter (and, of course, it's highly sensitive and personal, and connected with a fair bit of hard experience).
First off, I'll state that I came to be what I consider a Leftist and a Communist through fairly nonstandard channels; I have not actually read Marx, have taken no college philosophy or even sociology classes, and am indeed fairly uncertain of the differences between the different trends in the Left -- Trotskyist, Maoist, the various forms of anarchism, and so forth. I am not very conversent in the major ideational frameworks within the "field" as it were -- I do not, for example, really understand what dialectical materialism is.
Rather, I come to my ideas and my convictions from the perspective of the study of history, law and a general personal lifetime trend of deeply-felt sociopolitical discontent and social criticism.
I have, at different times in my life, been:
a self-absorbed middle-class North American youth who takes nothing, including himself, seriously;
a vaguely-populist-minded-but-conservative member of the U.S. armed forces;
a right-wing religious fundamentalist (Mormon);
a typical American educated liberal (i.e. judgmental, philosophically mysanthropic and experientially contemptuous of the ignorant) in the process of moving to the left of center;
and a confused Leftist trying to figure out why my worst enemies seem to be those who should be most sympathetic (though I know the answer to this one now).
After leaving the military after one enlistment, I studied history in a left-wing history department carefully hidden in a very conservative liberal-arts college (which I have only recently began to fully appreciate), focusing on the American south, Europe since the 18th century, fascism, and the Soviet Union (I do *not* conflate the two latter issues, and consider such conflation deeply wrong). I studied political science and national security policy during the run-up to the most recent U.S. war on Iraq, and was well on my way to radicalizing, by the time I hit my first year of law school.
I completely abandoned all conventional views and hit full-on disenchantment toward the end of my first year of law school after discovering the online filesharing treasure trove of dissident lectures from such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Edward Said, and others. (For the record, I am more favorably inclined toward Parenti than Chomsky.)
At this point, I decided to abandon all "bourgeois pretense" and other forms of self-righteousness and arrogance, following through on my belief that strength is not virtue (intelligence, education and experiential breadth being, after all, other forms of strength). However, this and the general attitude change it accompanied was inimical to the study and practice of law, at least for me, and, feeling alone and necessarily silenced, I entered depression and barely managed to graduate law school (down from being one of the best students in the early part of the first year).
I have since been struggling to find a decent outlet for my convictions (and to bring my wife around). I joined the National Lawyers Guild (the NLG, the left-wing U.S. bar association famous for defending Communists and refusing to take loyalty oaths during the McCarthy purges), but found most of the people in it to be unfriendly toward avowed revolutionary Leftists, and finally abandoned it entirely after I received an NLG-labeled Bank of America credit card offer in the mail. (I mean, seriously. An NLG BofA credit card??)
I tend to find that I am the most radical person in the room, anywhere I go, often finding that I make other left-of-center liberals profoundly uncomfortable, and am hoping to find more congenial company.
Having come to where I am through historical study, I am profoundly aware of the level of infiltration consciously and constantly maintained by the establishment, and given what amount to my conservative credentials (i.e. military, religious, conservative college, law education, descent from fascistically-right-wing family), I cannot but imagine suspicion of me being a salt, provocateur, or what have you. Adding to that my own concerns and fears about the difficulty in distinguishing false consciousness from purposeful interference, it has been very frustrating to find truly congenial people and give direction to my convictions, but this is my hope. Either way, though, I really know of no way to either assuage others' fears or my own in this regard, and it's been very discouraging. But then again, I acknowledge I could be overthinking it all... but it's clear that there are a lot of hostile assholes pretending to be fellow-travelers.
My choice of noms de plume comes from the fact that I was raised between two cultures, being decisively separated from both and belonging to neither: one being American, the other being Middle-eastern.
In terms of my actual approach and how I see things, I consider myself rationalist and scientific, and am in opposition to postmodernism (denial of objective truth/reality, etc.) and other views that could be labeled "anti-rational." I place high value on "truth," in the sense that I find even useful conceits/deceits/superstitions to be poisonous for humanity in the long run. I believe in rethinking things from the ground up, and in attacking the dominant ideology at its strong points, rather than its weak points (for reasons which can be explained later).
I very much believe that humanity is capable of positive, humane and just forms of social organization, and that it is culture and custom, not human nature, that limit us -- the cold, dead hand of the past, pulling us down and telling us we're not good enough. I believe in universalities, including moral (but then again, so do all Leftists, no?).
I do find necessity in a revolutionary party, and I don't believe the establishment will allow peaceable change beyond limited co-optation that the ruling class fully intends to reverse when political conditions become favorable again, as we are currently seeing with the U.S.'s current reversal of its mid-century social welfare concessions to discontent at home and the threat of a viable alternative abroad (the "third-worldization of America").
But, overall, I must also concede, I have the eccentricity of the auto-didact in this way, so while I believe I have useful insights to offer and am free of certain fetters, I also recognize that I certainly have blindspots.
In terms of personal life, I am thirty-something, married (happily enough -- it's been a tough road, but she is with me on a lot of things now, though she is fearful) and have two children, whom I am seeking to raise outside of the horrid confines of consumer capitalism (and am coming to the conclusion that this is impossible to do in the United States without being wealthy enough to afford private schooling and all that). I'm unemployed and desperately hoping to find some genuine outlet.
Overall, I'm very serious about these things, and actually am seeking to move to Europe, and am genuinely considering joining or helping create an "intentional community" with others of similar outlook. For the time being, I'm content to get to know others and learn more.
Anyway, that's a little bit about me. If you read it all, thanks and hi!
I am not quite sure how to introduce myself in this context, so I'll just start with a banal hello and say a bit about myself and what I'm about. Please forgive me ahead of time for the length of this, and note that I am not as stuffy as I probably appear here -- I am being formal here because I wish to be fairly disciplined with this subject matter (and, of course, it's highly sensitive and personal, and connected with a fair bit of hard experience).
First off, I'll state that I came to be what I consider a Leftist and a Communist through fairly nonstandard channels; I have not actually read Marx, have taken no college philosophy or even sociology classes, and am indeed fairly uncertain of the differences between the different trends in the Left -- Trotskyist, Maoist, the various forms of anarchism, and so forth. I am not very conversent in the major ideational frameworks within the "field" as it were -- I do not, for example, really understand what dialectical materialism is.
Rather, I come to my ideas and my convictions from the perspective of the study of history, law and a general personal lifetime trend of deeply-felt sociopolitical discontent and social criticism.
I have, at different times in my life, been:
a self-absorbed middle-class North American youth who takes nothing, including himself, seriously;
a vaguely-populist-minded-but-conservative member of the U.S. armed forces;
a right-wing religious fundamentalist (Mormon);
a typical American educated liberal (i.e. judgmental, philosophically mysanthropic and experientially contemptuous of the ignorant) in the process of moving to the left of center;
and a confused Leftist trying to figure out why my worst enemies seem to be those who should be most sympathetic (though I know the answer to this one now).
After leaving the military after one enlistment, I studied history in a left-wing history department carefully hidden in a very conservative liberal-arts college (which I have only recently began to fully appreciate), focusing on the American south, Europe since the 18th century, fascism, and the Soviet Union (I do *not* conflate the two latter issues, and consider such conflation deeply wrong). I studied political science and national security policy during the run-up to the most recent U.S. war on Iraq, and was well on my way to radicalizing, by the time I hit my first year of law school.
I completely abandoned all conventional views and hit full-on disenchantment toward the end of my first year of law school after discovering the online filesharing treasure trove of dissident lectures from such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Edward Said, and others. (For the record, I am more favorably inclined toward Parenti than Chomsky.)
At this point, I decided to abandon all "bourgeois pretense" and other forms of self-righteousness and arrogance, following through on my belief that strength is not virtue (intelligence, education and experiential breadth being, after all, other forms of strength). However, this and the general attitude change it accompanied was inimical to the study and practice of law, at least for me, and, feeling alone and necessarily silenced, I entered depression and barely managed to graduate law school (down from being one of the best students in the early part of the first year).
I have since been struggling to find a decent outlet for my convictions (and to bring my wife around). I joined the National Lawyers Guild (the NLG, the left-wing U.S. bar association famous for defending Communists and refusing to take loyalty oaths during the McCarthy purges), but found most of the people in it to be unfriendly toward avowed revolutionary Leftists, and finally abandoned it entirely after I received an NLG-labeled Bank of America credit card offer in the mail. (I mean, seriously. An NLG BofA credit card??)
I tend to find that I am the most radical person in the room, anywhere I go, often finding that I make other left-of-center liberals profoundly uncomfortable, and am hoping to find more congenial company.
Having come to where I am through historical study, I am profoundly aware of the level of infiltration consciously and constantly maintained by the establishment, and given what amount to my conservative credentials (i.e. military, religious, conservative college, law education, descent from fascistically-right-wing family), I cannot but imagine suspicion of me being a salt, provocateur, or what have you. Adding to that my own concerns and fears about the difficulty in distinguishing false consciousness from purposeful interference, it has been very frustrating to find truly congenial people and give direction to my convictions, but this is my hope. Either way, though, I really know of no way to either assuage others' fears or my own in this regard, and it's been very discouraging. But then again, I acknowledge I could be overthinking it all... but it's clear that there are a lot of hostile assholes pretending to be fellow-travelers.
My choice of noms de plume comes from the fact that I was raised between two cultures, being decisively separated from both and belonging to neither: one being American, the other being Middle-eastern.
In terms of my actual approach and how I see things, I consider myself rationalist and scientific, and am in opposition to postmodernism (denial of objective truth/reality, etc.) and other views that could be labeled "anti-rational." I place high value on "truth," in the sense that I find even useful conceits/deceits/superstitions to be poisonous for humanity in the long run. I believe in rethinking things from the ground up, and in attacking the dominant ideology at its strong points, rather than its weak points (for reasons which can be explained later).
I very much believe that humanity is capable of positive, humane and just forms of social organization, and that it is culture and custom, not human nature, that limit us -- the cold, dead hand of the past, pulling us down and telling us we're not good enough. I believe in universalities, including moral (but then again, so do all Leftists, no?).
I do find necessity in a revolutionary party, and I don't believe the establishment will allow peaceable change beyond limited co-optation that the ruling class fully intends to reverse when political conditions become favorable again, as we are currently seeing with the U.S.'s current reversal of its mid-century social welfare concessions to discontent at home and the threat of a viable alternative abroad (the "third-worldization of America").
But, overall, I must also concede, I have the eccentricity of the auto-didact in this way, so while I believe I have useful insights to offer and am free of certain fetters, I also recognize that I certainly have blindspots.
In terms of personal life, I am thirty-something, married (happily enough -- it's been a tough road, but she is with me on a lot of things now, though she is fearful) and have two children, whom I am seeking to raise outside of the horrid confines of consumer capitalism (and am coming to the conclusion that this is impossible to do in the United States without being wealthy enough to afford private schooling and all that). I'm unemployed and desperately hoping to find some genuine outlet.
Overall, I'm very serious about these things, and actually am seeking to move to Europe, and am genuinely considering joining or helping create an "intentional community" with others of similar outlook. For the time being, I'm content to get to know others and learn more.
Anyway, that's a little bit about me. If you read it all, thanks and hi!