Alan OldStudent
18th July 2013, 07:42
Hello all,
This is my first post here. I live in the Tacoma, Washington area, and I have been active in Occupy Tacoma since it began. I consider myself a Marxist, and I have been a revolutionary-minded socialist for more than half a century. I am now in my 70s.
By the time I was in my early 20s, I was sure that I had a lot of answers and not too many questions.
However, today, I have many more questions and far fewer answers, and I'm much less impressed with my analytical abilities than I formerly was. My answers are far more provisional than they were 50 or 60 years ago.
As a young man, I thought I had a brilliant analysis of how the general course of history would evolve over the following 50 years. I was confident I knew how socialism could be brought about, to the point that I subscribed to a well-defined program. It was just a matter of bringing that understanding to the masses and organizing them to seize power from the capitalist class, and I was sure the world was on the eve of revolution. But alas!
The damnable thing about history was that it stubbornly refused to conform to my little schema. :confused: I had to face the fact that reality was far more subtle, contradictory, dialectical than I had originally imagined.
In my youth, I was active in the anti Jim Crow and antiwar movements. I was a writer, a speaker, and a union shop steward. For a while, I was in SDS and then joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Although I can no longer call myself a Leninist or Trotskyist, I have a lot of respect for both Lenin and Trotsky. However, I can and do call myself a Marxist.
The history I've lived through and my life experiences have shown me the power of Marx's theories and analyses. Marx and Engels brilliantly analyzed the general course of capitalist development over the course of the last 150 years. In my opinion, Marx and Engels have the most accurate theory of political economy of any of the great economists. They have a brilliant approach to the understanding of history with their class analysis. But I do not regard Marxism as revealed scripture, and I believe Marx would be horrified at those who treat his ideas as dogma, never to be developed.
I continue to hope for a socialist future for humankind and continue to add my small contribution to the worldwide collective effort to bring socialism about. Probably, I won't live long enough to see it, as I am elderly now. But I still have confidence in the human race, especially the youth.
We stand a better-than-even chance of bringing about socialism. We must do what we can to avoid the barbarism Marx predicted if we don't abolish capitalism. Capitalism threatens to inflict a horribly painful extinction of our race, as well as threatening to poison our mother, the planet earth.
We really don't have much time. Humanity is at a crossroads. Much needs to be done.
***************
One key to bringing about the kind of mass understanding of socialism necessary to make the revolution lies in realizing that no one has a corner on the market of truth.
If we as revolutionaries want to teach others, we must be willing to learn from others.
If we want others to listen to what we have to say, we must listen to what others have to say
If we want others to consider our ideas seriously, we must consider others' ideas seriously.
If we want to share our insights, we must let others share their insights with us.
Self education is an act of revolution and an empathetic imagination is subversion. We must educate ourselves and not let a narrowness of our vision to crush our empathy.
Right now, I believe we are at the cusp of a new radicalization. When the Occupy movement started, my spirits soared. Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, Los Indignados, and similar phenomena are the leaves at the top of the trees fluttering in the gusts that come before the full power of the storm.
Ordinary Americans are beginning to understand the class nature of life under corporate capitalism. Those of us who are Americans are shedding our illusions in the myth of a classless America, along with the myth of unlimited social mobility for anyone who "works hard" and "plays by the rules."
My only regret is that I wish my wife, my dear companion of many decades, my best friend and my lover, had lived long enough to see what's happening in the world today.
She was a pacifist, a vegetarian, and a socialist, and the most decent and ethical human I've ever known. She died just 7 months and 2 days before the Occupy Wall Street exploded onto the scene.
How thrilled and inspired she would have been to see this harbinger of revolution!
Regards,
Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living-Socrates
This is my first post here. I live in the Tacoma, Washington area, and I have been active in Occupy Tacoma since it began. I consider myself a Marxist, and I have been a revolutionary-minded socialist for more than half a century. I am now in my 70s.
By the time I was in my early 20s, I was sure that I had a lot of answers and not too many questions.
However, today, I have many more questions and far fewer answers, and I'm much less impressed with my analytical abilities than I formerly was. My answers are far more provisional than they were 50 or 60 years ago.
As a young man, I thought I had a brilliant analysis of how the general course of history would evolve over the following 50 years. I was confident I knew how socialism could be brought about, to the point that I subscribed to a well-defined program. It was just a matter of bringing that understanding to the masses and organizing them to seize power from the capitalist class, and I was sure the world was on the eve of revolution. But alas!
The damnable thing about history was that it stubbornly refused to conform to my little schema. :confused: I had to face the fact that reality was far more subtle, contradictory, dialectical than I had originally imagined.
In my youth, I was active in the anti Jim Crow and antiwar movements. I was a writer, a speaker, and a union shop steward. For a while, I was in SDS and then joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Although I can no longer call myself a Leninist or Trotskyist, I have a lot of respect for both Lenin and Trotsky. However, I can and do call myself a Marxist.
The history I've lived through and my life experiences have shown me the power of Marx's theories and analyses. Marx and Engels brilliantly analyzed the general course of capitalist development over the course of the last 150 years. In my opinion, Marx and Engels have the most accurate theory of political economy of any of the great economists. They have a brilliant approach to the understanding of history with their class analysis. But I do not regard Marxism as revealed scripture, and I believe Marx would be horrified at those who treat his ideas as dogma, never to be developed.
I continue to hope for a socialist future for humankind and continue to add my small contribution to the worldwide collective effort to bring socialism about. Probably, I won't live long enough to see it, as I am elderly now. But I still have confidence in the human race, especially the youth.
We stand a better-than-even chance of bringing about socialism. We must do what we can to avoid the barbarism Marx predicted if we don't abolish capitalism. Capitalism threatens to inflict a horribly painful extinction of our race, as well as threatening to poison our mother, the planet earth.
We really don't have much time. Humanity is at a crossroads. Much needs to be done.
***************
One key to bringing about the kind of mass understanding of socialism necessary to make the revolution lies in realizing that no one has a corner on the market of truth.
If we as revolutionaries want to teach others, we must be willing to learn from others.
If we want others to listen to what we have to say, we must listen to what others have to say
If we want others to consider our ideas seriously, we must consider others' ideas seriously.
If we want to share our insights, we must let others share their insights with us.
Self education is an act of revolution and an empathetic imagination is subversion. We must educate ourselves and not let a narrowness of our vision to crush our empathy.
Right now, I believe we are at the cusp of a new radicalization. When the Occupy movement started, my spirits soared. Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, Los Indignados, and similar phenomena are the leaves at the top of the trees fluttering in the gusts that come before the full power of the storm.
Ordinary Americans are beginning to understand the class nature of life under corporate capitalism. Those of us who are Americans are shedding our illusions in the myth of a classless America, along with the myth of unlimited social mobility for anyone who "works hard" and "plays by the rules."
My only regret is that I wish my wife, my dear companion of many decades, my best friend and my lover, had lived long enough to see what's happening in the world today.
She was a pacifist, a vegetarian, and a socialist, and the most decent and ethical human I've ever known. She died just 7 months and 2 days before the Occupy Wall Street exploded onto the scene.
How thrilled and inspired she would have been to see this harbinger of revolution!
Regards,
Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living-Socrates