Saorsa
18th August 2009, 09:44
Before I begin I'd like to say, I don't think the problems I'm talking about here are evident in all the Marxists on this site. It's just a trend I've observed that annoys me.
I want to say something about anarchism and the debates people have with those who subscribe to it. I for one am getting sick and tired of how almost every time my fellow Marxists feel the need to criticise anarchism they resort to tired old cliches, inncaurate strawmen and what can frankly only be described as bullshit. There are real, legitimate differences between anarchism and Marxism that we should argue and debate. Most of the arguments my fellow Marxists seem to so often resort to against anarchists are just embarassing.
Newsflash - not all anarchists are vegans. Not all anarchists are in black bloc. Not all anarchists are lifestylists. Not all anarchists dumpster dive. Etc etc etc etc etc
A good example of how debates between anarchists and Marxists should not take place is this post by Charles Xavier in response to a post by Pogue responding to a critique of anarchists written by Huey P.
And what have you done with all that he's given you? Eat Vegan food and talk about how much you hate cops even though for the most part you are not victimized by them personally? I mean I'm not going to say the Black Panther Party was adopting the correct line but what is the alternative? Anarchism?Apart from the political dubiousness of Xavier's opposition to hating cops (which while often taken to counterproductive levels of obsessiveness by many anarchists imho), this is just awful. And it's typical of what you see over and over again, particularly from the more "Stalinist" inclined Marxists.
Pogue raised a whole host of criticisms of Huey P's article, and not one of them was adressed by Xavier, the man who posted the article in the first place. Instead we just see knee jerk, politically empty attacks on anarchists making out they're all a bunch of vegan idiots. I mean seriously, if the best you can do in response to political criticisms is to say "lol what's the alternative, you?", it makes you look like your not actually capable of responding.
And frankly I don't think a lot of Marxists are. Anarchism isn't that difficult or complex an ideology, or at least not any more so than Marxism. There are real points of difference - the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, vanguard parties, national liberation, participation in parliamentary elections and bourgeois parliaments and so on. I don't see what's so hard about actually adressing these differences in a rational and (as far as possible) comradely way. But there are Marxists out there who just treat anarchism with absolute contempt and see it as this homogenous, threatening force beyond human understanding that we need to keep at arms length for fear of contamination.
You really have no right to complain when dumbass anarchists and others go "lol Stalin ate a billion babies for breakfast" and leave their political critiques of Marxism at that if the best you can do when critiquing anarchism and the political positions of anarchists is to mock them for being vegan dumpster divers.
I am not an anarchist. I disagree with anarchism and think it's an idealistic, incorrect ideology. In the past I was guilty of everything I've criticised here! But I work with anarchists in my revolutionary activism, I have friends that are anarchists, and while I haven't read that many anarchist books and don't consider myself by any means an expert on anarchist theory, I like to think I could hold my own in a theoretical debate with an anarchist without resorting to stupid name calling.
Rather than just trying to laugh anarchists off, why don't Marxists actually try and defeat in argument their political lines that we disagree with? It really isn't that hard.
I want to say something about anarchism and the debates people have with those who subscribe to it. I for one am getting sick and tired of how almost every time my fellow Marxists feel the need to criticise anarchism they resort to tired old cliches, inncaurate strawmen and what can frankly only be described as bullshit. There are real, legitimate differences between anarchism and Marxism that we should argue and debate. Most of the arguments my fellow Marxists seem to so often resort to against anarchists are just embarassing.
Newsflash - not all anarchists are vegans. Not all anarchists are in black bloc. Not all anarchists are lifestylists. Not all anarchists dumpster dive. Etc etc etc etc etc
A good example of how debates between anarchists and Marxists should not take place is this post by Charles Xavier in response to a post by Pogue responding to a critique of anarchists written by Huey P.
And what have you done with all that he's given you? Eat Vegan food and talk about how much you hate cops even though for the most part you are not victimized by them personally? I mean I'm not going to say the Black Panther Party was adopting the correct line but what is the alternative? Anarchism?Apart from the political dubiousness of Xavier's opposition to hating cops (which while often taken to counterproductive levels of obsessiveness by many anarchists imho), this is just awful. And it's typical of what you see over and over again, particularly from the more "Stalinist" inclined Marxists.
Pogue raised a whole host of criticisms of Huey P's article, and not one of them was adressed by Xavier, the man who posted the article in the first place. Instead we just see knee jerk, politically empty attacks on anarchists making out they're all a bunch of vegan idiots. I mean seriously, if the best you can do in response to political criticisms is to say "lol what's the alternative, you?", it makes you look like your not actually capable of responding.
And frankly I don't think a lot of Marxists are. Anarchism isn't that difficult or complex an ideology, or at least not any more so than Marxism. There are real points of difference - the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, vanguard parties, national liberation, participation in parliamentary elections and bourgeois parliaments and so on. I don't see what's so hard about actually adressing these differences in a rational and (as far as possible) comradely way. But there are Marxists out there who just treat anarchism with absolute contempt and see it as this homogenous, threatening force beyond human understanding that we need to keep at arms length for fear of contamination.
You really have no right to complain when dumbass anarchists and others go "lol Stalin ate a billion babies for breakfast" and leave their political critiques of Marxism at that if the best you can do when critiquing anarchism and the political positions of anarchists is to mock them for being vegan dumpster divers.
I am not an anarchist. I disagree with anarchism and think it's an idealistic, incorrect ideology. In the past I was guilty of everything I've criticised here! But I work with anarchists in my revolutionary activism, I have friends that are anarchists, and while I haven't read that many anarchist books and don't consider myself by any means an expert on anarchist theory, I like to think I could hold my own in a theoretical debate with an anarchist without resorting to stupid name calling.
Rather than just trying to laugh anarchists off, why don't Marxists actually try and defeat in argument their political lines that we disagree with? It really isn't that hard.