Question for Older Revlefters

[Red Economist]

In your experience, What is it that separates the communists/anarchists/revolutionary socialists who continue to fight capitalism into old age, from the ones who only do it during their adolescence? What is it that makes the fires of radicalism burn longest or brightest?

[Q]

Many good comrades are burned out pretty quickly by hyperactivism: Selling papers like your life depends on it, going to one or more demonstrations every weekend and having this idea that the revolution is going to come a little quicker if only we put in some more time... is only going to work for so many people for so long. Many of the groups on the far left act like revolving doors: They mostly break about even in terms of recruiting/losing members.

Many others simply get on with life: Get a job, start a family, pay a mortgage... It's difficult to do those things if you're expected to be a 'professional revolutionary', so most of these drop out too. There is an interesting age gap related to this in many groups: You have lots of students and lots of people beyond their 50's or 60's. There is little in between though. This age composition feeds back in the nature of the organisation: Both hyperactivist (young layers), yet often very conservative (older layers).

A more sustainable attitude, that worked for me at least, is to sit down and start to think. This is what helped me in my difficult period and helped me to deepen my commitment to Marxism. No longer do I run around from demo to demo, but work within my abilities to the political project of universal human liberation. We need more people in the 'middle ground' to be able to build a long term project of revolutionary patience.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Even though I'm not an old foogie and refuse to admit I'm even in my mid-twenties imma answer anyway. :)


In your experience, What is it that separates the communists/anarchists/revolutionary socialists who continue to fight capitalism into old age, from the ones who only do it during their adolescence?

Actual intellectual conviction not temporary indentitarian infatuations.


What is it that makes the fires of radicalism burn longest or brightest?

Cannabis. Lots and lots of cannabis.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

In your experience, What is it that separates the communists/anarchists/revolutionary socialists who continue to fight capitalism into old age, from the ones who only do it during their adolescence? What is it that makes the fires of radicalism burn longest or brightest?
Commitment. Not getting involved too much in the system or bourgeois values (like having a house, family, etc.). Optimism.

[Sasha]

For all its shortcomings the sub-cultural aspect and the established infrastructure of the autonomous movement is something that keeps me coming back into activism, even though i dont live in a squat anymore, that i dont have the time and energy to hang in the scene bars 3 days a week, i dont run the squatting assistance hours anymore etc etc there is still a conncetion through the continuating existence of iniatives that used to spend much time on/in, i can still walk into the places where i did my activism and there will be at that moment new young people doing the same kind of activism, as such it will be not long before they aproach me or i aproach them for help and experience.
Because there is such a overlap between politics and personal life you cant really escape the politics unless you completely drop out. The places i go to have a meal with friends, a drink or to see a punk show are the same places where young people are meeting to do revolutionary stuff from, as such you stay in the loop and its easy to occasionally help, attent info-evenings, get mobilised for actions and demo's etc etc
Also most of my friends have the samebackground, many actvists who are the same age but also those that or are younger or older than me are choosing more or less the same paths as i do so even when i cant be an activist anymore full time now rents needs to be paid so jobs need to be worked, some career needs to be had etc etc many of the people i work with are also old activist comrades from me, the young people i have working under me are often just starting with activism etc etc.

[Blake's Baby]

Refusing to be demoralised in the face of constant failure.

So stupidity, possibly, or just having people around that are persuasive enough to see you through times when you think 'that's it, we've lost, now humanity's screwed'.

I saw a number of people who just gave up in the 1980s and some who burned out in the 1990s. Immediatism - the belief (that's ultimately religious/magical I think) that 'if I work really hard at being a revolutionary then the universe will somehow bend to my will' - is one of the biggest causes I think. No, it won't. Your impact is tiny and most of it you won't even see anyway. If you can accept that still 'do the revolution thing' then you're less likely I think to become discouraged when you find it's not going to immeiately pay off.

[Quail]

Commitment. Not getting involved too much in the system or bourgeois values (like having a house, family, etc.). Optimism.

I don't know if I would agree that having a family necessarily makes you more likely to give up revolutionary politics. For me having a child makes it seem more important to try and do something to improve the world he's growing up in. Although it does make it more difficult to get to meetings and I have to plan more carefully to get to demos, I still do my best. Perhaps one thing about having a family that makes people drop out of radical politics is that actually a lot of groups are quite unwelcoming to people with kids and they don't tend to think about making their meetings accessible. The worst example of this has to be ladyfest in Leeds, a feminist festival with no childcare!

[BIXX]

I don't know if I would agree that having a family necessarily makes you more likely to give up revolutionary politics. For me having a child makes it seem more important to try and do something to improve the world he's growing up in. Although it does make it more difficult to get to meetings and I have to plan more carefully to get to demos, I still do my best. Perhaps one thing about having a family that makes people drop out of radical politics is that actually a lot of groups are quite unwelcoming to people with kids and they don't tend to think about making their meetings accessible. The worst example of this has to be ladyfest in Leeds, a feminist festival with no childcare!

I had never even considered the I accessibility of meetings to parents- from here on out I'll do my best to try and make it easy for parents to come. Thank you for that insight.

[Red Economist]

keep em coming. It's kind of a relief to read as I've found my 'fanatical' phase has come to an end and the 'realism' of the long road stretching out in front of me has started to kicked in. The sense of working towards something does feel rewarding despite the 'cop in my head' telling me that it's futile. Regrettably, I have only ever read stuff rather than go out to demos or meetings (will be 25 this year and currently stuck living with my parents in an isolated, rural and reactionary area), so I asked because I don't have the opportunity to really get to know an adult on the far left whose sustained, developed and matured their beliefs over the years.

[Art Vandelay]

keep em coming. It's kind of a relief to read as I've found my 'fanatical' phase has come to an end and the 'realism' of the long road stretching out in front of me has started to kicked in. The sense of working towards something does feel rewarding despite the 'cop in my head' telling me that it's futile. Regrettably, I have only ever read stuff rather than go out to demos or meetings (will be 25 this year and currently stuck living with my parents in an isolated, rural and reactionary area), so I asked because I don't have the opportunity to really get to know an adult on the far left whose sustained, developed and matured their beliefs over the years.

There are many historical examples, as well as Q pointed out, older members in various leftist groups out there. I personally think vox's raises a good point about actual intellectual conviction. I've personally always found churchill's quote (if you aren't a red when your 20 you got no heart, if you are when your 30 you got no brain) to be total b.s. I could see how if one's sole involvement in radical politics, is based on their youthful rebelliousness/angst/identity/whatever, it could lead to their views to shift rightwards over the years; however if one's radical politics are rooted in a proper grasp of materialism, I don't see why it has to be the case.

Anyways I'm only 21, so I should probably just shut up and let the older folks talk.

[Five Year Plan]

I'm going to mention the elephant in the room here, and point out that I think the major fissure in "types" of radicals or revolutionaries falls along the divide of student/worker.

Students tend to be young people who are insulated from the vicissitudes of mainstream material incentives that come with a non-student lifestyle, and find themselves in a milieu in which they are encouraged to question and think critically about the world around them, including how power is institutionalized. This combination of factors is responsible for making students one of the most likely demographics to mobilize politically for radical causes. But because 'student' is a stage in a person's life, it also means that this kind of relative intellectual autonomy from society disappears before long. And all too often, so too does the political activity associated with it. Students mobilize quickly, but can't be trusted to mobilize for prolonged periods of time. Historically, the first side of the coin makes student a highly attractive target for revolutionary groups attempting to swell their numbers, but it is also responsible for the observation you make of the revolving door. It's often not so much burn out as it is just moving on with life, as Q mentioned, to a stage where activism just no longer makes sense in terms of their day-to-day reality.

Organizations that tend to have the most stable base of memebership (or "cadre") tend to develop them around the second type of recruit: the worker who is affiliated not because she is insulated from a typical mainstream mode of existence, but precisely because she is experiencing that mode of existence and knows that there is something profoundly wrong with it. Groups that base themselves on this kind of member have a number of advantages: they are rooted in organic workplace struggles, which do not require much additional effort (like travel) to participate in, since they involve a constant aspect of a person's daily routine. As a result, there is less intense pressure to study and absorb revolutionary theory quickly, since it is understood that this learning is an ongoing process tied to everyday experiences in organizing within the workplace. In short, it just creates an environment far more conducive to long-term, stable membership.

Every group has (and should have) some combination of these 'types' (as well as the odd other type: the ominous 'petty bourgeois intellectual'), but the mistake many leftist groups tends to make is to try to take a short-cut to greatness and run straight toward the students.

[Axiomasher]

Commitment. Not getting involved too much in the system or bourgeois values (like having a house, family, etc.). Optimism.

This chimes with me. As an older socialist I'm prone to a kind of 'realism' - that capitalism's collapse (or transformation) and a turn to socialism may be just around the corner or it may not be, but no matter, I live by my values as best I can and promote my values as best I can.

[Axiomasher]

Refusing to be demoralised in the face of constant failure.

So stupidity, possibly, or just having people around that are persuasive enough to see you through times when you think 'that's it, we've lost, now humanity's screwed'.

I saw a number of people who just gave up in the 1980s and some who burned out in the 1990s. Immediatism - the belief (that's ultimately religious/magical I think) that 'if I work really hard at being a revolutionary then the universe will somehow bend to my will' - is one of the biggest causes I think. No, it won't. Your impact is tiny and most of it you won't even see anyway. If you can accept that still 'do the revolution thing' then you're less likely I think to become discouraged when you find it's not going to immeiately pay off.

If anything I probably represent something of an opposite to the 'immediatist'. As far as previous modes of production go they have generally lasted centuries at the least. Capitalism is, of course, radically transformative and might easily have an accelerated trajectory, but we can't assume that this is our decade or this is even our century, however keen we are for it to be the case. How many generations of slaves endured in the ancient (and not so ancient) world before such an institution eventually, after much struggle, lost favour as a mode of production?

[The Feral Underclass]

Many good comrades are burned out pretty quickly by hyperactivism: Selling papers like your life depends on it, going to one or more demonstrations every weekend and having this idea that the revolution is going to come a little quicker if only we put in some more time... is only going to work for so many people for so long. Many of the groups on the far left act like revolving doors: They mostly break about even in terms of recruiting/losing members.

Ugh, the amount of times I have seen this happen. You can see it happening too, and there's nothing you can say to people like that.

[synthesis]

I think to a certain extent, beyond just the personal and particular reasons listed here - which are certainly valid - there's also the question of broader ideological motivation. It could be said that there are two sides to the socialist sphere: the "class" element consisting of working class people organizing in their own class interests; and the "left" element, consisting of a cross-class dynamic organizing for moralistic or ethical reasons. These sides are of course constantly overlapping and I'm sure some would find it contentious that they should be considered separate at all.

On an individual, atomized level, of course the "left" camp is going to lose energy among its participants over time, leading to the burnout described in this thread, though the law of conservation of energy requires that the left camp be continually replenished with new blood and sweat from the idealist youth. From a historical materialist standpoint, the issue isn't just that the "left camp" is not intrinsically tied to the class interests of its constituents and can therefore often be negligible as a historical actor. It's that the principal antagonist, so to speak, of the "class camp" is the exploitation, while the "left camp" primarily targets the oppression, owing implicitly to the fact that the oppression produces the most morally disturbing consequences of capitalist exploitation. Ultimately, of course, the oppression is inherently a function of the exploitation and trying to fight the former without focusing primarily on the latter is like fighting the mythical creature that grows three heads for every one you chop off.

[Thirsty Crow]

In your experience, What is it that separates the communists/anarchists/revolutionary socialists who continue to fight capitalism into old age, from the ones who only do it during their adolescence? What is it that makes the fires of radicalism burn longest or brightest?
I'd wager that the initial young age activist frenzy and the burn out it can cause is significant here, especially when a person starts to settle in a kind of a stable life - jobs, spouse, children, which is tantamount to shifting the entire "paradigm" of one's life, perhaps leaving little to no time for this kind of activity (and I'd say that the wonders of psychological impact of the former "phase" don't really help either).

And as others have mentioned, demoralization, which itself is I believe more than likely if a youth is prone to a kind of an impatience and wants to get shit done immediately.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Ugh, the amount of times I have seen this happen. You can see it happening too, and there's nothing you can say to people like that.

This (and I think what Blake's Baby referred to - 'the universe bending to my will') is a form of egotism that separates the 'hyper-activist' from the class struggle. As you say, there's little in the way of being able to rationalise someone who is so intent on going down this path.

I also think the idea of a 'professional revolutionary' itself can be quite damaging. The idea of having to give up one's time to do menial (nay, meaningless) activities all the time is another thing that can easily separate someone from the class struggle, as it is another way in which a person's time is directed away from thinking, away from discussion and propaganda that perhaps leads to useful conclusions and useful organisational improvements (within one's peer group, for example, or through other informal networks) and towards activities that are, essentially, a dead end (for all her liberal idiocy, Laurie Penny's comment about cockroach SWP sellers is really quite valid).

If it were accepted amongst existing and new leftists that being a committed socialist/anarchist does not necessarily mean selling one's soul to a party or a movement in the way of performing menial labour and extending one's own ego about it, then we may make more progress by way of deeper political thinking, and may actually have a movement that is less dis-united by egotism and 'better-than-you' activist types, as it is today.

Also must say this is a fantastic thread; we are not introspective and reflective enough in a productive way as socialists and this is a great opportunity for genuine reflection.

[Blake's Baby]

I'd wager that the initial young age activist frenzy and the burn out it can cause is significant here, especially when a person starts to settle in a kind of a stable life - jobs, spouse, children, which is tantamount to shifting the entire "paradigm" of one's life, perhaps leaving little to no time for this kind of activity ...

It was having children that got me back into political activity after a long period of being basically a total hedonist. Responsibility, I found, had the effect of sharpening my desire to re-engage with the world.

[Prometeo liberado]

Having a clear understanding of the construct of what it is I believe as opposed to idealism which very nearly made me walk away from the movement. And a shit load of humility.

[Dodo]

I am in my early-twenties so not exactly old. My "revolutionaryness" does not come from my youth though(I did join up when I young, thought it was cool to throw tear gas back at police). My connection is foremost, intellectual. As a perspective of the world, I have embraced Marxism due to its explanatory power of phenomena. It is not because I believe in a revolution, red flags and equality. I take Marxism as a doctrine, a method and a philosophy which is what it primarily is.
Since I want an academic career as well, it goes along well as a method to employ.

On the other hand, reading a lot of material all the time that is also non-Marxist, I come across very convincing other methods that sometimes contradicts with Marxism. So I try to stay away from a dogmatic-embracing of Marxism like many young ones do. Many times I have questioned my "Marxism", felt like I was a religious zealot, and realized that the lighter you stick to its interpretations and more to the philosophy/epistomology the stronger it becomes. It is when we go out and claim to have everything about humans sorted out Marxism becomes its weakest.

I doubt that as I age I will become un-Marxist at this point. I will more act as an academic Marxist, writing/publishing stuff on economic development, sustainability, capitalism's problems and contradictions in a less partisan way. Though I am thinking of joining for more Marxist organizations, currently I am in one.

[PhoenixAsh]

I think a lot of people get disillusioned with the fact that the left is thoroughly fragmented, sectarian and has a prosecutionist mentality these days.

As for the anarchist scene...this gets taken over more and more by a faux praxis of privilege theory and a virtual (you fill in the blanks) measuring contest of who is oppressed the most and therefore everybody else should shut up and their opinion made worthless....all based on assumptions made by everybody else while individual narratives of oppression are shoved aside. Labelism. :mad:


So you work...you try to organize. And some asshole just splits of for pretty much the same reason a truck going 80.5 mph is trying to overtake the one going 80.49 mph....blocking all the other traffic for miles and miles. This gets frustrating.

The older ones usually either are thoroughly entrenched in this mentality....or simply have no where else to go because they invested in it so much already.

[Red Shaker]

To remain committed to the revolutionary movement has three main components, continue to be involved in class struggle, be part of a collective that encourages you to do this and have a good knowledge of dialectical materialism. I have many friends, some much better off than others, who have spent a life time building the revolutionary movement and it is based on this experience that I offer these comments.

[tallguy]

I was brought up in a home where we were always taught to side with the underdog and to have a visceral dislike for unfairness. Although I politically wavered in my early twenties, that upbringing never really left me and, as I have hit 50 and see the kind of shit we are leaving behind for our kids and grand kids to clean up, it has come back with a vengeance. So, I suppose, if socialist leanings carry on into later life, it's because they are born of a fundamental morality and emotional instinct as opposed to any amount of intellectualising. It's got to be in your bones to last a lifetime.

[synthesis]

Couldn't it also be argued that many left groups (particularly Trotskyists) have followed the mold of capitalist relations in and of themselves? By this I mean you have a "proletariat" of paper-pushers and a "bourgeoisie" of professional Central Committee members or whatever else you want to call it, who do what they see fit (http://www.revleft.com/vb/disgusting-article-international-t183764/index.html) with their positions of power. I would think this to be a major source of disillusionment for anyone who joins such an organization earnestly believing the basic axioms of Marxism.

[Ele'ill]

disillusionment cause the same shit happening over and over, elevated possibility of prison because of past stuff, alienated emotional state

[blake 3:17]

So, I suppose, if socialist leanings carry on into later life, it's because they are born of a fundamental morality and emotional instinct as opposed to any amount of intellectualising. It's got to be in your bones to last a lifetime.

Yep.

[Regicollis]

I once saw an interview with an older comedian/singer songwriter who has been known as a leftist since the 70's. When asked if he was "still a socialist" he answered "Yes. I still think we should treat each other decently."

I'm 30. I don't know if that is 'old' although it certainly feels so. I have always subscribed to some kind of socialism although I have never been an activist for a party.

As a child I learned what all children learn: That you share your toys, that you make sure everybody is included and that you don't hit those smaller than yourself. Unlike many other people I never unlearned this.

I was brought up to regard the avarice of the rich as something vulgar and inane and to notice just how ridiculous the snobbery of capitalist society is. I also learned from an early age to have sympathy with the common man and to distrust leaders.

These basic moral convictions has since been strengthened intellectually. History shows that advances for ordinary people has only been made through struggle and never by any "invisible hand" or other methaphysical entities. As a species we are also heading towards the abyss regarding global warming and resource depletion which makes constant growth, and thus "capitalism with a human face" impossible in the future. Socialism or Barbary are the only two paths humanity can go down in the future.

I used to believe in bourgeois parliamentarism and thought that if just the socialists could convince enough people then a peaceful transition to socialism would be possible. Seeing how the parliamentary system works and how effective the consumerist brainwash and the bourgeois media monopoly is has made me loose all faith in those established institutions. A revolution is the only possible way we can start the journey towards socialism and leave the path to Barbary.

On a more personal note having children has made the fight for socialism much more urgent for me. It is no longer about some abstract future. Now it is the fight whether my children are going to live in a free or an authoritarian society.

[tallguy]

Bang on the nail on Reg. Every single word. As you say, resource depletion means the papering over the cracks of capitalism's inherent contradictions is now drawing to a close. Those at the top are taking back the toys they gave us and are beginning the return to older methods of keeping us in check. Some form of socialism or a return to serfdom is what awaits us unless we stand and fight now.

[Brotto Rühle]

Stop wasting your time trying to lead the proletariat, and realize that the revolution will be an act of the class for the class. Not an act of the class because a bunch of LARPing knobheads yelled slogans and sold newspapers.

[tallguy]

Stop wasting your time trying to lead the proletariat, and realize that the revolution will be an act of the class for the class. Not an act of the class because a bunch of LARPing knobheads yelled slogans and sold newspapers.
The above makes it sound like you think everyone else on here is a "LARPing (non proletariat?) knobhead". Though, I am bound to confess, I haven't a clue what LARPing" means.

Is that what you think?

[Blake's Baby]

None of us are connected to a real movement of the proletariat. There is no real movement of the proletariat at the moment. Glimmers, flashes, stirrings, possibilities, but... there are few places where the working class is organising as an independant power in society. So there is very little real in which to involve ourselves. We have to be much more modest in what we can accomplish.

LARP(ing) = Live Action Role Play(ing). Dressing up with rubber swords and pretending to be orcs in the forest/dressing up in Red Army uniforms and pretending to be Trotsky. Whatever. Thinking that we do as 'activists' at the moment has much connection to the working class (eventually, possibly) overthrowing capitalism is pretty much a giant game of 'let's pretend'.

[tallguy]

None of us are connected to a real movement of the proletariat. There is no real movement of the proletariat at the moment. Glimmers, flashes, stirrings, possibilities, but... there are few places where the working class is organising as an independant power in society. So there is very little real in which to involve ourselves. We have to be much more modest in what we can accomplish.

LARP(ing) = Live Action Role Play(ing). Dressing up with rubber swords and pretending to be orcs in the forest/dressing up in Red Army uniforms and pretending to be Trotsky. Whatever. Thinking that we do as 'activists' at the moment has much connection to the working class (eventually, possibly) overthrowing capitalism is pretty much a giant game of 'let's pretend'.
You might be playing "let's pretend" mate, but I'm not. I have to work for living which barely pays enough for me and my family to get by. I have barely any savings and no pension and I'm a pay packet or two away from the bloody street. You're dead right about there being little if any movement of the working class at the moment. But what's that got to do with "let's pretend" when it comes to posting on here or anywhere else. You just sound like a professionally smug cynic.

[Creative Destruction]

You might be playing "let's pretend" mate, but I'm not. I have to work for living which barely pays enough for me and my family to get by. I have barely any savings and no pension and I'm a pay packet or two away from the bloody street. You're dead right about there being little if any movement of the working class at the moment. But what's that got to do with "let's pretend" when it comes to posting on here or anywhere else. You just sound like a professionally smug cynic.

there are a lot of socialist and left parties who organize separately from the working class and also act like they're the god-given vanguards of the people as well because they have The Ideology. there's huge issues with becoming a "professional" revolutionary the way a lot of younger folks do these days. that could be where a lot of burnout comes from: they ignore the fact that class action is contingent on the action of the class, and not on some enlightened twenty-something spreading the deity's word through slogans and newspapers.

[Anti-Traditional]

You might be playing "let's pretend" mate, but I'm not. I have to work for living which barely pays enough for me and my family to get by. I have barely any savings and no pension and I'm a pay packet or two away from the bloody street. You're dead right about there being little if any movement of the working class at the moment. But what's that got to do with "let's pretend" when it comes to posting on here or anywhere else. You just sound like a professionally smug cynic.

That's a ridiculous thing to say. How do you know that said user isn't facing similar problems? You shouldn't use your problems to beat others. To be honest BB is right, people posting on this site isn't filling my bank account or stopping me from being hungry, neither is party meetings or anything like that.

[renalenin]

In your experience, What is it that separates the communists/anarchists/revolutionary socialists who continue to fight capitalism into old age, from the ones who only do it during their adolescence? What is it that makes the fires of radicalism burn longest or brightest?
Great question.

In my experience it is often but not always the ones who are from a red family background who keep going. When you grow up with the stories and emotions of many struggles of the working class it gets in your bones. Even if you become a petty bourgeois in your economic position you will more likely stay red in your heart.

The other thing I find is keeping up the reading and criticism of capitalism and imperialism. And also taking classes if possible. :)

[Blake's Baby]

You might be playing "let's pretend" mate, but I'm not. I have to work for living which barely pays enough for me and my family to get by. I have barely any savings and no pension and I'm a pay packet or two away from the bloody street. You're dead right about there being little if any movement of the working class at the moment. But what's that got to do with "let's pretend" when it comes to posting on here or anywhere else. You just sound like a professionally smug cynic.

I don't think that you've understood what I said. I don't think what I'm doing has any necessary connection to the overthrow of capitalism. So, no, I'm not playing 'let's pretend'. The pretending comes from thinking that our actions are terribly terribly important. Making declarations about the working class while the working class is utterly indifferent to our existence shows a massive disconnect between desire and reality.

[keine_zukunft]

I think there's a number of factures as we get older responsibilities heighten and getting arrested or injured start becoming more and more problematic as you get older. but the subcultural element too can work both ways whilst it's good to always have a place to dip into it can also end out being something you grow out of if you dont have the philosophical convictions too. burn out is a big one too, so taking the odd break helps alot and it's how i have maintained myself till my mid/late 20's. also the movement doesn't take social reproduction seriously enough, i know a few comrades with kids who struggle to get out due to childcare issues.

[Luís Henrique]

Well, I am 56, and stubbornly committed to working class politics, socialism, revolution, etc.

So I have the impression this subject concerns me. What is then the difference between me and scores of people who were my comrades thirty years ago but are now concerned with just living along?

First, I think "youth" is the name we give to a kind of institutionalised crisis in each person's life. Which makes people particularly sensitive to socialist propaganda and agitation (indeed, to all kinds of non-mainstream propaganda and agitation, not only socialist but also "libertarian", fascist, religious, whatever), so it is more or less expected that people get radicalised between their 15s and their 25s. Keeping a compromise, however, is much more difficult than engaging in it (how many people get romantically infatuated to someone else, and initially believe it is something "for life", and how many of such romantic loves last seven years, or two, not to talk about 20 or 30?) Besides, political activity requires time, and time is something scarce for people who have to work for a living, which is the case of practically all people older than 25. So it seems only natural to me that the transition from "youth" to full adult age involves a decreasing interest in politics - especially of that kind of politics that is not mainly spectacle, but requires direct and frequently boring engagement.

Then why there are people who keep engaged in leftist politics for life, or in any case for most of their adult life? I am not sure that there is a single answer, but people in this thread have made some valid points, and there are other possibilities that I haven't seen discussed:

* An emotional commitment to class struggle, born of a gut feeling that we have a side, that our side has enemies, that those enemies will extort our blood, brains, muscle, nerve, and bone marrow if we don't fight back;

* An intellectual comprehension of how the system we live in destroys our lives, our loves, our integrity, our environment, etc;

* A sense of personal continuity and identity - if you engage for enough time and with enough enthusiasm in some thing, it is possible that you end not conceiving your "self" separated from that investment;

* An actual taste for politics as an activity (yes, there are people who like meetings and discussions, and the dispute between tendencies, and in general the competitivity of politics, and there are people who are able to endure the very boring aspects of the activity without getting dismayed or disgruntled);

* For some, the hierarchical aspect of so many leftist organisations, that people have denounced as a huge turn off here, may in the contrary work as a stimulus (you have gone your way from selling papers on the street to being actual cadre of an organisation - you now command other, younger, people to sell papers on the streets, which, for some, may be quite satisfying)

* Also, contrary to what Blake's Baby says, some of us are actually connected to a real movement of the working classes. For some, the feeling of being part of something bigger, that involves thousands or even millions of people is quite overwhelming, regardless of how well one emotionally fits or intellectually agrees with the real movement. Having your demands, feelings, ideas, reinforced by many people can be quite an experience, and I sincerely pity those who have never enjoyed it.

Luís Henrique

[Ele'ill]

I def. feel these two but none of the other points and I don't really feel like there's a working class movement or feel connected to 'the working class' (I am 'working class' though). I guess you could replace it with social war or some other trendy phrase although not really a commitment.


* An emotional commitment to class struggle, born of a gut feeling that we have a side, that our side has enemies, that those enemies will extort our blood, brains, muscle, nerve, and bone marrow if we don't fight back;


* An intellectual comprehension of how the system we live in destroys our lives, our loves, our integrity, our environment, etc;

[tallguy]

I don't think that you've understood what I said. I don't think what I'm doing has any necessary connection to the overthrow of capitalism. So, no, I'm not playing 'let's pretend'. The pretending comes from thinking that our actions are terribly terribly important. Making declarations about the working class while the working class is utterly indifferent to our existence shows a massive disconnect between desire and reality.Well, then, my apologies Blake. I, for one, am making no such pronouncements. Or, at least, none which I consider worth anything more than stuff I am working out as I go along and on which my opinions evolve and change as I go along. This place being merely one of the many ways in which I am doing that. There are plenty of people on here, to be sure, who are fond of pontificating pointlessly. But I'm not interested in that shit. Amongst it, however, are bits and pieces which help me to a greater or lesser extent to gain a better understanding of who, what and where I am in history. That's it. That's all. For what it's worth.

[Five Year Plan]

Stop wasting your time trying to lead the proletariat, and realize that the revolution will be an act of the class for the class. Not an act of the class because a bunch of LARPing knobheads yelled slogans and sold newspapers.

Unless you think that all proletarians will arrive at revolutionary consciousness at the same time, your model of revolution presupposes the very concept of leadership, the advanced workers leading the reactionary ones, you are denigrating here. The irony is that your snide, two-line sectarian jab conjures to mind the image of a "LARPing knobhead" more than any other post in this thread.