In your view, what is the biggest challenge to the Revolutionary Left today?

[Left-Wing Nutjob]

Hopefully the title was clear enough. I want this to be as open-ended as possible.

Would be interested in the responses here.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The very identity of the left. I think there is an almost total disconnect between who the left tend to be (for example, people who took part in Occupy London tended to be those who could afford to take a few weeks off and are disconnected from labour struggles) and the arenas of industrial and labour struggle.

There is an unwillingness on the part of the left to move past a very outdated insistence on a reductive class analysis of society. This is probably related to my first point in that Marxism in particular is better suited today as an academic exercise because those who purport it come from ever smaller, ever less-proletarian and ever more-academic origins. It therefore seems that even within left struggles and movements, there is a disconnect between 'communists' who reduce their analyses and solutions to reductive class analysis and other groups whom communists seem unwilling to include in 'their' revolution.

I think the biggest problem for revolutionaries is to make radical politics more cohesive. Rather than this being some crass attempt to 'unite' the Leninists, Anarchists, Stalinists et al. under one shaky banner, I think this needs to follow a period of collective, critical evaluation of who we are, who we stand for, and what sort of society we want to live in. We need to show a more genuine desire to be a movement that unites broad swathes of society, and abandon the tendency to pay lip service to such desires, and scream 'identity politics' at any person/group that tries to gain a deeper appreciation of genuine unity. Unity of workers, women, black people and people of colour is not just desirable but it is the only way that we can oppose the monolithic social, cultural, economic, political and military hegemony that capital enjoys.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

In my view?

Communication.

We on the left are VERY bad at communicating our ideas to the workers of the world in an easy-to-understand, cohesive ideal or program. We're so wrapped-up in ideological turf wars with varying sects, debating the merits of people who have been dead for decades and events that are no longer relevant to the working class as a whole.

I would also argue that, coupled with this is a rather depressing lack of militancy on the part of the American left. Far too many of the major left-wing organizations are terrified of real conflict.

[Ele'ill]

I don't really think there's a lot of hope regarding talking at people to get them to become militants but to be honest, to those who wish to engage in such activities, I think a lot of radicals completely miss opportunities to, at the very least, cause problems and escalate situations. I think it partially has to do with radicals being completely out of touch with major issues going on around them, locally, conveniently, because the issues have never or haven't in a long time, actually applied to their lives. They are hung up on historical moments in time and want to replicate what they've read about being important to other people and its because that is the only reality they can comprehend. This isn't limited to historical reenactment though there are a lot of current topics that come up in the radical sphere of conversation that while important, maybe, aren't nearly as approachable as other projects could be.

[Skyhilist]

In organizing events, the radical left often forgets to ask "what specific goal do I want to achieve here?", and more importantly "How will the actions taking place here help achieve that goal, or how can they be modified to be more effective at achieving that goal?" There's no analysis of what actually works going on in many leftist circles so it's no wonder that no progress is made. Also given the stranglehold that bourgeois ideology has on almost everyone due to its dissemination in schools, government, law, and media, it's going to be difficult to achieve any type of class consciousness on a large scale no matter what, unless there is some grave event like millions dying that makes capitalism's culpability so obvious that not even these aforementioned enforcers of bourgeois ideology can conceal this fault from most people.

[The Idler]

Dropping Bolshevism

[Krasnyymir]

Isn't much of what you guys refer to as "lack of communication" and being out of touch, also caused by what wage-labor looks like today?

Few people think of themselves as "working class" today.
Many factory jobs pay a wage that gives the worker a comfortable middle class existence.

And even the people that do get a really shitty deal: The fast-food workers and minimum wage clerks usually don't see themselves as "oppressed".

We're using words and terminology from one hundred years ago, and that's also why people don't see it as relevant.

[Zoroaster]

Breaking away from dogmatic politics.

Suck it "anti-revisionists".

[Diirez]

Reactionary propaganda.
Whenever you bring up something like Anarchy or Communism or even Socialism people tend to just rattle off reactionary propaganda because most people are too lazy and apathetic to research anything.

[Prole]

I believe the key is taking control of technology and it's advancements for the people. We are under a time restraint of when technology will advance to the point where meaningful change will be increasingly more difficult to effectively carry out.

The bonus to having technology work for the people is that we would most likely see efficient socialist policies become able to be implemented, paving the way for the future potential to achieve a communist society, aided by technology.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

In America, since I've got here and such, and in my experience, it's more or less a joke. Being radical has been satirized, demonized, lampooned and decayed in the public mind it's hard to see the Labour movement or revolutionary politics being taken seriously outside of strikes of other work place actions which have also become a joke due to incompetent yellow unions. Students seem to be really interested, from the people I've spoken too or let's say sympathetic but there again, misunderstandings, complacency, sex and school become a big distraction. I don't know. I'm pretty fed up with it. And it's dems like every smart egghead lefty I come across is some suburbanite who's read a lot but has no direct experience to reference from. I honestly have no idea though. I do think we, as a whole, need to drop the old, dead horses and try new shit. Handing out papers and yelling at people doesn't work not does squatting or 'occupying' public spaces and scaring passers by do much good either.

Not to derail the thread but I wanted to say agin ftr, I'm very disappointed by the Occupy.

[motion denied]

Capital and its overthrow.

How to do it "from the premises now in existence"? I don't know.

[RedMaterialist]

I think one problem is the failure of the revleft to recognize the absolute importance of the international aspect of the struggle. It seems that if it doesn't happen in the US or the West then it's not really significant.

The Vietnam War (American War to the Vietnamese) was a huge victory for the Vietnamese left and for the American left, they defeated the largest, most brutal military force in history. In the 1980's the Angolan rebels defeated the US backed UNITA thugs. And Cuba defeated the South African forces in Namibia leading to the overthrow of the white government. There have been left successes in Central and South America. Iraq and Afghanistan, while not socialist societies, have been able to force the us military to withdraw. This should be seen as what Maoists once called the paper tigers of the Western decadent countries.

The international struggle is happening in Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile. The left seems to be failing to link up with, organize with third world countries where the sturggle is active right now.

We should use the internet to organize with our fellow comrades around the world in Africa, Indonesia, India, Central and South America.

[Five Year Plan]

The biggest impediment to revolution today is obviously the absence of revolutionary consciousness among broad layers of the population. That, in turn, can be attributed to capital's impressive ability to maneuver skillfully from crisis to crisis through the rapid serial creation of speculative bubbles, but more importantly it can be attributed to the absence of a steeled revolutionary leadership capable of, for lack of a better word, capitalizing on crises when they emerge.

This latter problem is, to dig another layer deeper, the result of impatient opportunism on the part of large percentages of revolutionaries who think that unity, divorced from program is a virtue, and underestimate the ability of capital to convey broad-based struggles for reforms into bourgeois ideological directions that actually lead workers to believe that the system itself is fundamentally sound and works.

So what is the largest obstacle we as revolutionaries have some kind of direct control over? It's that problem: opportunism.

[Orange Juche]

Besides the glaringly obvious like "get more people", self-awareness. It's totally inadequate when it comes to things like trans-issues, honestly not much better than the Democratic Party.

[Red Economist]

The legacy of Communism; the communists became the victims of the very social forces they tried to master and produced a Frankenstein monster that pretty much ate it's creators and anything in it's path. Whilst the neo-liberal propaganda about totalitarianism is very crude and simplistic- it appeals to people's legitimate fears over revolutionary violence, the dangers of dictatorship to personal liberty and security and the results of confusing an illusion of empowerment for actual liberation. This same fear of state action and radical politics cripples both the far left and the centre left and inhibits even modest reforms by neoliberals to keep their own house in order (e.g. US health care reform- which is not even radical). The failure of communism has made people very conservative and deeply fearful of the 'human nature' and what people could do with freedom if they actually got it. We've kind of lost faith in human progress as well and in our collective capacity to grow and develop morally, even as we gain greater power through science and technology. People might want change, but they don't want Gulags.

[consuming negativity]

I think we're too arrogant and trying to take responsibility for doing things that we don't need to be doing. Realistically, there's barely any of us, and half of us have a lot of bullshit to battle in our personal lives before I can see us waging any guerrilla war. Maybe we should stop trying to pretend that we're even capable of doing X or Y, and instead focus on doing what we are capable of doing successfully. We should work towards a better historical and economic analysis by incorporating the lessons learned from what has happened before. We should try to make our lives better, and we should play our part in the system, which is exactly what we make of it. There's not any right or wrong answer... there really isn't any answer at all. What we do is pretty irrelevant... that's alienation for you.

[Црвена]

Thatcher and her union-bulldozing.

Also, the way that most unions have become liberal, and made themselves content with raising pay a little bit for workers rather than seeking to tackle the root cause of all oppression and exploitation of workers. The revolutionary left needs to be a lot more integrated with labour struggles if we're ever going to make communism seem relevant to the proletariat and like something worth fighting and taking risks for.

[Red Star Rising]

Itself mainly.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's telling, I think, that in this thread we are all willing to chime in with our own (mostly un-substantiated) opinions, but there seems no real urgency or will to engage critically with one another, or with our own personal and political situation.

What tends to happen, especially on internet fora, but in my experience also at real-world events, is that any opportunity for critical engagement very quickly turns into defensive dogmatism and, as mariel points out correctly above, a resort to historical values and events to justify some current programmatic point/political decision.

[RA89]

Couple things

Too difficult for regular people (like myself) to understand most the things being said let alone the 18th century texts etc.

Too many factions within factions within factions. People need to unite under some core values. When I first came across here I thought it was ridiculous how many tendencies there were, I still do.

[DannyMorin]

An infantile hostility to religion. Being unable to support a step in the right direction if it isn't 100% of what we want, right here right now. Academic pontificating on theory that has no relevence or resonance with the lives of real people.

[Red Economist]

It's telling, I think, that in this thread we are all willing to chime in with our own (mostly un-substantiated) opinions, but there seems no real urgency or will to engage critically with one another, or with our own personal and political situation.

What tends to happen, especially on internet fora, but in my experience also at real-world events, is that any opportunity for critical engagement very quickly turns into defensive dogmatism and, as mariel points out correctly above, a resort to historical values and events to justify some current programmatic point/political decision.

I think you might be right that we're talking 'at' each other than 'to' each other if that's what you mean. But the ability to talk sincerely and honestly about these things requires a mutual willingness to compromise our positions that is something of all tall order on revleft, but not impossible.

But it's perhaps worth trying, rather than just repeating the same stuff over and over. what do you want to talk about?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think you might be right that we're talking 'at' each other than 'to' each other if that's what you mean. But the ability to talk sincerely and honestly about these things requires a mutual willingness to compromise our positions that is something of all tall order on revleft, but not impossible.

But it's perhaps worth trying, rather than just repeating the same stuff over and over. what do you want to talk about?

Why has the left become so inward looking? But, more than that, because I think that is quite a superficial question. I think a deeper question might be, why have the communist elements of the revolutionary milieu stopped, in general, looking outward: towards real labour struggles, towards realms of oppression other than class (with a view to integrating them with class analysis)?

[consuming negativity]

Why has the left become so inward looking? But, more than that, because I think that is quite a superficial question. I think a deeper question might be, why have the communist elements of the revolutionary milieu stopped, in general, looking outward: towards real labour struggles, towards realms of oppression other than class (with a view to integrating them with class analysis)?

I think the real question here is "why do you think the far left even matters, or that there is something we should be doing that we aren't?" You quoted one of my posts in another thread today and accused me of taking an elitist standpoint when I said that most people aren't interested in reading or understanding Marx's theories. But that's the thing, you rightly recognized that much of academia is built specifically to shut people out as a sort of social grouping. Not a revolutionary social grouping, but a grouping of people who are, for the most part, middle class and higher up on the economic ladder. And things have always been this way. The people we read about and idolize are the same wealthy politicians and academics that we claim to be against as proletarians. Marx, Lenin, Engels, Kropotkin, whoever, they were all wealthy and looking at things from a detached perspective. They weren't proletarians fighting in the struggle - when they fought, they led the armies. They had real political and economic power, and used it to pursue their own interests.

Why do I bring this up? Because you also rightly identify that we have lost all of our steam and that we're sitting around arguing with ourselves about what went wrong and how we can get back on the train to progress. But the train is across Europe by now: the rest of the left has moved the fuck on without the ideas of proletarian revolution occupying their time, because they rightly recognized that going back and trying to re-do the USSR is a waste of time. Not only is it a waste of time, but it is reactionary by definition, which is why all of the so-called "communists" in the ex-Soviet countries are actually just racist, anti-Western reactionaries.

Instead, the modern leftists of today are worried about themselves. Black people are writing about black people and the challenges that they face. Women are writing about women and they challenges that they face. People are very angry and they are pursuing their own interests, as people always have been and done. But what Marx implicitly understood that we don't is that only outsiders can sit and think about things objectively like he and his contemporaries did. Why do you think it is that all of the regular posters here battle depression and over-analyze everything and have shitty lives? Because we're the only people who are detached and dissociated enough from what we're doing to see the forest for its trees. We're so unsure of everything around us that we double check and question everything, and think about what people are actually doing when we interact. There is a difference between RevLeft users and the average person, which is evidenced at its most basic level by the fact that we don't have literal billions of users. The far-left today is not an organic movement of normal people looking for change, but a radical movement of alienated social deviants. And we constantly make the mistake of assuming that we're not different... that everybody is just like us, and that they think and interact the way we do, and they draw the same connections to come to the same conclusions.

But that's not true. Most people believe the things that most people believe. Most people are normal and have a view of the world view fundamentally different from the way we see it. In their world, peace and democracy can actually change things, and violent revolution is stuff that "crazy" people like us talk about. Racism has been defeated, and sexism means not getting to work as something other than a teacher or nurse. That's the delusional world that the average person lives in. It isn't theoretically there - it is as real to them as the keys I'm tapping right now. And if you close RevLeft and head out to the local bar, you'll enter that delusional world, too. And it's only when that world gets shattered, and when people believe that compromise and appeasement are no longer an option, that revolution doesn't sound completely absurd.

Why? Because people don't revolt because of social inequality as a concept, they revolt because they have to. If I lie to you, unless you know I'm lying, you're likely to treat my lie as truth. Until it is demonstrated on a large scale that compromise and appeasement can no longer adequately address the conflict between the owners and the workers, the method people will support is democratic compromise. It doesn't even have to be true or actually tested; it just needs to be believed to be true. All of the other stuff about how the state functions and this and that are, ultimately, irrelevant. Once people see that the system can't give them enough of what they want, they'll get rid of the damn thing. That's all that has to happen. That's all that ever has to happen. The problem is with the details and predicting when and how it will occur.

[Red Economist]

Why has the left become so inward looking? But, more than that, because I think that is quite a superficial question. I think a deeper question might be, why have the communist elements of the revolutionary milieu stopped, in general, looking outward: towards real labour struggles, towards realms of oppression other than class (with a view to integrating them with class analysis)?

I've read some of the accounts of current far left activity by academics (which are mainly used for intelligence services- there are a few online, but it's not much). But by any measure, the communists are the least active of all of them, and are generally greying old men watching the movement die off with them.
Most of what is currently going on is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of capitalism. Neo-liberalism has created an extreme form of individualism which means we are both anti-political and anti-capitalist. We're anti-political because we hate the state and see it as a threat to our individual liberties and We're anti-capitalist, because we think of ourselves as consumers and therefore protest the abuse corporate power- not exploitation or the existence of capitalism itself. The Far left therefore get's split between the Anarchists who hate the state, and the rump of the Reformists, who hate corporations- but neither are able to bring a credible attack on the system because we are still part of it.

We're not able to join up the class struggle with all the other struggles, because those struggles are still highly individualistic and liberal 'identity politics' about fitting in and being accepted as 'equal' members of society. It's about equal opportunities, not the kind of equality that it achieved by the abolition of social class.

We'll be against almost anything- but rarely are we actually for something. The central ideological plank of neo-liberalism that that free markets are the economic basis for a liberal, democratic society. They got that from us- it's a very simplistic neo-marxist idea, but pretty much all the criticisms of the USSR etc, will argue it wasn't a classless society and was ruled by a bureaucracy of some sort. The left communists say it's Lenin's fault. The trotskyists say it's Stalin's fault. The Anti-Revisionists, say it's Khrushchev fault. etc. But it's always roughly the same line. It was an error of tactics or strategy- not something more fundamental.

But it's been nearly 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I don't think we're not activists anymore, we're re-enactors. It's a strange kind of theartre where we all know how the play ends- and that's the problem. None of us liked the ending, and everyone's a critic, but no-ones willing to turn round and try again because we basically agree with the neo-liberals, that the risk of a totalitarian system is too great. The irony of course is that we've had the biggest financial crisis in history- and the 'solution' everyone is trying is to go further right, like the Tea Party in the US, UKIP in the UK, The National Front in France. People just feel safer with what they know even if it's wrong.

The problem was that all the things that happened went completely contrary to the theory. We- like pretty much everyone else in the 20th century- we're taken aback by just how wrong we got it. So we're missing something- and unless we can get past the idea that it's a choice between neoliberalism and totalitarianism- an idea we came up with out of a sense of defeatism- no-one will touch this stuff.
But it wasn't just limited to us- we were just the most extreme advocates for progress and fell victim to the same problem that affected everyone else; a crisis in our understanding. So the whole human project needs to be taken back to the drawing board. we need a revolution- but we don't know where to start because we'd have to admit we were part of the problem.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I've read some of the accounts of current far left activity by academics (which are mainly used for intelligence services- there are a few online, but it's not much). But by any measure, the communists are the least active of all of them, and are generally greying old men watching the movement die off with them.

And this is probably a large reason for the irrelevance and associated intransigence amongst the communist left; politics does not occur in a vacuum and where communism, say 100 years ago, was a radically new, dangerous, and different ideology, today it is one where its largely white, male, academic proponents (in the UK, anyway, thinking of the leadership of the SWP, SPEW, CPGB etc.) fit in rather nicely to capitalist society, and have failed to update their politics to take account of demographic change, to really attack the imperialism that Rosa Luxemburg identified as far back as the 1910s in any meaningful way that goes beyond crass, binary, anti-Americanism.


Most of what is currently going on is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of capitalism.

Exactly.


Neo-liberalism has created an extreme form of individualism which means we are both anti-political and anti-capitalist. We're anti-political because we hate the state and see it as a threat to our individual liberties and We're anti-capitalist, because we think of ourselves as consumers and therefore protest the abuse corporate power- not exploitation or the existence of capitalism itself.

I don't think it is true to say we are anti-politics. Only in the sense that we are against the institutions that represent the way politics is done under liberal democracy - 'representative' parliaments, the courts etc. I would say that actually, we are pro-politics, because we are conscious that our actions come into being on a political basis, whereas under capitalism I think there has been a move away from doing politics in a conscious and active way; it seems that 'apathy' is quietly encouraged by the continued demonisation of any form of strong politics as 'extremist', 'terrorist' and 'away from the centre ground'.


The Far left therefore get's split between the Anarchists who hate the state, and the rump of the Reformists, who hate corporations- but neither are able to bring a credible attack on the system because we are still part of it.

I think it is unacceptable to say that we can't bring a credible attack on the system because we are still a part of it, but you are right to recognise - along with me - that we do not operate in a vacuum.


We're not able to join up the class struggle with all the other struggles, because those struggles are still highly individualistic and liberal 'identity politics' about fitting in and being accepted as 'equal' members of society. It's about equal opportunities, not the kind of equality that it achieved by the abolition of social class.

I don't think this is fair at all. Other struggles will look back at our struggle and think similarly negative things about us - all the things we identify about ourselves as being an irrelevant, obsessive, historical movement of greying old men not interacting with the world around them are the criticisms other struggles will throw at the communist movement, and rightly so.

If we really want to interact productively with other arenas of struggle then I think we need to seriously engage with them about our own failures; something i've noticed is that when we have our own spaces (amongst comrades IRL, or on communist-only online spaces such as here), the less dogmatic of us are happy and able to open up about the fatal flaws that currently beset our movement. But it seems that communists of most stripes will join together to defend communism against other struggles; against 'liberal' feminism, against 'divisive' race politics, against 'wild' anarchists and anarchists against 'authoritarian' Marxists.

I think that because we as a movement have had 20+ years of introspection since the collapse of the USSR and Berlin Wall, it is now relatively easy for us to acknowledge our shortcomings amongst each other because the same, obvious flaws have been identified time and again by intelligent people within the movement. If we really want to move forward from being this irrelevant, dying rump, then I think we really need to critically engage our own failings in less safe spaces; acknowledge that class struggle by itself has failed and won't be re-constituted by forming a new party or altering a programmatic point here or there. It can only re-form itself by integrating with other arenas of struggle. Until we do that we will just go round and round in circles, because we will not actually be productively engaging with anyone outside our dying movement.


We'll be against almost anything- but rarely are we actually for something.

Indeed, and what hope does a movement based on the negativity of our own experiences bring to outsiders? What worker is attracted to a movement that provides no solutions? I think that many people see, even on the most superficial level, that capitalism is unfair and unjust. Unlike 100-150 years ago, we now don't have a monopoly on that line of thought. We also don't really have many positive solutions.

I think we are currently at our most effective in an oppositional sense - we are very good at highlighting issues (for example, the current massacre in Gaza) and providing effective opposition to certain injustices. But obviously as communists we want more than to just alleviate the worst injustices of capitalism, and I think it is in that endeavour that we really become unstuck.


But it's been nearly 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I don't think we're not activists anymore, we're re-enactors. It's a strange kind of theartre where we all know how the play ends- and that's the problem. None of us liked the ending, and everyone's a critic, but no-ones willing to turn round and try again because we basically agree with the neo-liberals, that the risk of a totalitarian system is too great. The irony of course is that we've had the biggest financial crisis in history- and the 'solution' everyone is trying is to go further right, like the Tea Party in the US, UKIP in the UK, The National Front in France. People just feel safer with what they know even if it's wrong.

Exactly. You're very correct that we are like the neo-liberals in that we are not willing to 're-invent the wheel' (or perhaps, given the state of our movement, we are now unable).



we need a revolution- but we don't know where to start because we'd have to admit we were part of the problem.

I don't know how old you are. I'm 23. I was born in 1991 and so I will stand up and say I wasn't part of the problem. But I feel, in my mind and soul, that because I am part of this communist movement, that I am somehow responsible for what has gone before, and that my politics are intrinsically bound up with that which has gone before in the communist movement.

I always felt very awkward in political situations highlighting that I was a communist because, even when I was amongst other progressives, or doing radical work, the term 'communist' seemed to denote that I was/am something different. And I think a lot of that lies in the dismissal of other arenas of struggle by communists. I think that what we have seen in the past couple of decades (And perhaps more, I don't know?) is that parties, and people, and grupuscules and sects, within the left have tried to maintain their grip on power within the left. I feel as though the un-willingness of these communist actors to engage, genuinely rather than paying lip service, with other arenas of struggle is that they will lose their social control over the left.

Well, tbh, I feel as though I don't want to be socially controlled by greying white academic men just because they are communists and I am a communist. I am not a liberal, I am not a social democrat, but just because of this fact I don't feel like I should be owned, socially and politically, by some party, like I should be bound to its shitty programme or sectarian way of doing politics.

I want to transcend the boundaries between communists, and feminist women, and radical black activists, and LGBT activists.

I'm going to stop here for now. Communer, I will post a reply to your post later - I need time to think about what you've written and how I feel.

[Red Economist]

Quote:
Neo-liberalism has created an extreme form of individualism which means we are both anti-political and anti-capitalist. We're anti-political because we hate the state and see it as a threat to our individual liberties and We're anti-capitalist, because we think of ourselves as consumers and therefore protest the abuse corporate power- not exploitation or the existence of capitalism itself.
I don't think it is true to say we are anti-politics. Only in the sense that we are against the institutions that represent the way politics is done under liberal democracy - 'representative' parliaments, the courts etc. I would say that actually, we are pro-politics, because we are conscious that our actions come into being on a political basis, whereas under capitalism I think there has been a move away from doing politics in a conscious and active way; it seems that 'apathy' is quietly encouraged by the continued demonisation of any form of strong politics as 'extremist', 'terrorist' and 'away from the centre ground'.

Yeah, I kind of meant that anti-politics works well for the anarchists. The Communists have a much harder time because the state is so central to both the struggle against capitalism and for socialism/communism, even if it is in different forms. Lenin specifically talked about a 'political struggle' against the state because an 'economic struggle' for better conditions wouldn't be enough and the capitalist state would intervene on the side of capital.


Quote:
The Far left therefore get's split between the Anarchists who hate the state, and the rump of the Reformists, who hate corporations- but neither are able to bring a credible attack on the system because we are still part of it.
I think it is unacceptable to say that we can't bring a credible attack on the system because we are still a part of it, but you are right to recognize - along with me - that we do not operate in a vacuum.

I think that there is very much an 'anti-capitalist' message of simply opposing corporate rule- which unites the reformists and the anarchists both against capitalism and communism, because they are unwilling to go that extra mile and say a new system needs to be brought about. Superficially, they seem just to be tinkering round the edges.



Quote:
We're not able to join up the class struggle with all the other struggles, because those struggles are still highly individualistic and liberal 'identity politics' about fitting in and being accepted as 'equal' members of society. It's about equal opportunities, not the kind of equality that it achieved by the abolition of social class.
I don't think this is fair at all. Other struggles will look back at our struggle and think similarly negative things about us - all the things we identify about ourselves as being an irrelevant, obsessive, historical movement of greying old men not interacting with the world around them are the criticisms other struggles will throw at the communist movement, and rightly so.

I think this one is an error on my part, as I can't speak with any authority on it. In terms of media presence, the 'liberal' side is more visible than the 'radical', but I'll bow to your knowledge of this.


If we really want to interact productively with other arenas of struggle then I think we need to seriously engage with them about our own failures; something i've noticed is that when we have our own spaces (amongst comrades IRL, or on communist-only online spaces such as here), the less dogmatic of us are happy and able to open up about the fatal flaws that currently beset our movement. But it seems that communists of most stripes will join together to defend communism against other struggles; against 'liberal' feminism, against 'divisive' race politics, against 'wild' anarchists and anarchists against 'authoritarian' Marxists.

I think that because we as a movement have had 20+ years of introspection since the collapse of the USSR and Berlin Wall, it is now relatively easy for us to acknowledge our shortcomings amongst each other because the same, obvious flaws have been identified time and again by intelligent people within the movement. If we really want to move forward from being this irrelevant, dying rump, then I think we really need to critically engage our own failings in less safe spaces; acknowledge that class struggle by itself has failed and won't be re-constituted by forming a new party or altering a programmatic point here or there. It can only re-form itself by integrating with other arenas of struggle. Until we do that we will just go round and round in circles, because we will not actually be productively engaging with anyone outside our dying movement.

well said, I couldn't agree more. Your more upbeat and optimistic about this than me.


Quote:
We'll be against almost anything- but rarely are we actually for something.
Indeed, and what hope does a movement based on the negativity of our own experiences bring to outsiders? What worker is attracted to a movement that provides no solutions? I think that many people see, even on the most superficial level, that capitalism is unfair and unjust. Unlike 100-150 years ago, we now don't have a monopoly on that line of thought. We also don't really have many positive solutions.

I think we are currently at our most effective in an oppositional sense - we are very good at highlighting issues (for example, the current massacre in Gaza) and providing effective opposition to certain injustices. But obviously as communists we want more than to just alleviate the worst injustices of capitalism, and I think it is in that endeavour that we really become unstuck.

Communists have a SERIOUS image problem and we don't monopolise the workers movement in any way comparable to what it (looked) like before.
But I think there is a case that if we are willing to find the wisdom of our mistakes, that could mark us out from pretty much everyone else. It's easy to sell something positive, but most people don't want to be sold a political commodity, they want that conviction as it goes much deeper. We have to trump capitalism by not alienating ourselves from the inhumanity of the results of the movement- and that's tough.


I don't know how old you are. I'm 23. I was born in 1991 and so I will stand up and say I wasn't part of the problem. But I feel, in my mind and soul, that because I am part of this communist movement, that I am somehow responsible for what has gone before, and that my politics are intrinsically bound up with that which has gone before in the communist movement.

I'm 25 and was born in 1989, so I'm in roughly the same position. I feel the same way; it's a very uneasy feeling, but it makes you sincere and intellectually honest because of what happened 'before'. It's more than simply the bad 'image' as totalitarian despots, but a feeling of collective guilt. I'm a communist because I care, and realizing what they did just made it physically painful.

When I was 22, I got a copy of the Black Book of Communism. A close freind of mine paid a visit to cambodia; he was a politics so I had a hunch he might visit the killing fields, I just didn't want to bullshit him, so I 'got honest'. A lot of people will call the book propaganda, but it honestly doesn't need to be. It shook me to the core to realize what I had been supporting through most of my adolescence and made me question my convictions, even though the book does have it's faults. I ended up reading Hayek and Friedman, but they left me feeling cold with more questions than before. So somehow, I'm still in ideologically the same space, if only wiser.

You're the first person I've come across to say anything like that, so good on you. it takes alot of guts to be that honest. ;)


I always felt very awkward in political situations highlighting that I was a communist because, even when I was amongst other progressives, or doing radical work, the term 'communist' seemed to denote that I was/am something different. And I think a lot of that lies in the dismissal of other arenas of struggle by communists.

I'm only really starting to open up about it, but I avoid the 'c' word because it really is that toxic. there is a certain hangover from the cold war where, despite the fact the Soviet Union has collapsed, the 'communists' are still seen as the enemy. I live in the UK, but the kind of stuff that comes out of the US- absurd as it is- [e.g. Obama's a communist?] still illustrates just how deep the fear, hatred and unease went, and how it remains part of western political culture.


I think that what we have seen in the past couple of decades (And perhaps more, I don't know?) is that parties, and people, and grupuscules and sects, within the left have tried to maintain their grip on power within the left. I feel as though the un-willingness of these communist actors to engage, genuinely rather than paying lip service, with other arenas of struggle is that they will lose their social control over the left.


Very true.


Well, tbh, I feel as though I don't want to be socially controlled by greying white academic men just because they are communists and I am a communist. I am not a liberal, I am not a social democrat, but just because of this fact I don't feel like I should be owned, socially and politically, by some party, like I should be bound to its shitty programme or sectarian way of doing politics.

I feel the same, but I mistake this for anarchist tendencies. :grin:


I want to transcend the boundaries between communists, and feminist women, and radical black activists, and LGBT activists.

I suspect that it will only be transcend by turning these things in to aspects of 'Marxist' ideology, rather than simply being independent. They'll just get absorbed by it- which given it's issues makes me uncomfortable. Your thoughts on that are very welcome. (I'm Bi, so trying to reconcile the fact the USSR persecuted homosexuals has been a tricky issue in the back of my mind).

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I suspect that it will only be transcend by turning these things in to aspects of 'Marxist' ideology, rather than simply being independent. They'll just get absorbed by it- which given it's issues makes me uncomfortable. Your thoughts on that are very welcome. (I'm Bi, so trying to reconcile the fact the USSR persecuted homosexuals has been a tricky issue in the back of my mind).

I agree that Marxism subsuming everything else makes me very un-comfortable, but i'm guessing that as a member of the LGBT movement it makes you even more uncomfortable.

I think that perhaps a problem we encounter currently is that we are at the stage where Marxists need to engage with feminists who need to engage with black workers who need to engage with the LGBT movement etc. Where I see an end-point is where there is less of a dividing line between the various movements/isms. Like I have said before, I think the reason that there are fairly firm lines dividing various different arenas of struggle is a) the social dynamics of some groups (e.g. Communists in some countries largely being academic white men) and the lack of an ability to self-criticise outside of the 'safe' confines of our own movement. I think self-criticism is key in being able to acknowledge and empathise with the challenges faced in other arenas of struggle, and finding a mutually acceptable common ground, rather than trying merely to co-opt other movements into our own arena of struggle.

[Red Economist]

I agree that Marxism subsuming everything else makes me very un-comfortable, but i'm guessing that as a member of the LGBT movement it makes you even more uncomfortable.

I'm not politically active btw. My unease with Marxism kind of keeps holding me back, even though I know there's going to be a crunch point and I have to get political at some stage.
It is a worry- but it's just another dimension of the problem of 'unexpected consequences'. Stalin took power and pretty much all the Utopianism got killed off- along with the sexual revolution. there was the re-introduction of the prohibition on male homosexuality in 1934 (I think), but generally I'd consider it a subset of the same question as authoritarianism=sexual repression.

It's actually kind of tricky being homosexual and marxist because Marxism has such a strong bias towards environmental explanations for behaviour, that homosexuality does to some extent remain 'abnormal' if sex is defined in terms of procreation (but not 'wrong' or 'immoral'). I think a lot of the legitimization of homosexuality in liberal societies has been down to the idea it's genetic, so even in my kind of 'ideal' liberal-communist society, it would be a part of my identity that would be re-defined some how. That doesn't automatically mean prohibition (because of the 'withering away of the state' would mean the 'withering away of the law' too), but it does make me wonder what kind of a sexual revolution it would bring about.


I think that perhaps a problem we encounter currently is that we are at the stage where Marxists need to engage with feminists who need to engage with black workers who need to engage with the LGBT movement etc. Where I see an end-point is where there is less of a dividing line between the various movements/isms. Like I have said before, I think the reason that there are fairly firm lines dividing various different arenas of struggle is a) the social dynamics of some groups (e.g. Communists in some countries largely being academic white men) and the lack of an ability to self-criticise outside of the 'safe' confines of our own movement. I think self-criticism is key in being able to acknowledge and empathise with the challenges faced in other arenas of struggle, and finding a mutually acceptable common ground, rather than trying merely to co-opt other movements into our own arena of struggle.

I think the need to join up the respective movements will only happen if they accept they have common cause against the capitalist class as enforcing the social relations which make discrimination necessary. In the case of feminists and LGBT, it obviously is about a sexual revolution against the family as an institution based on private property. Race is something I need to look into more detail.

[Lord Testicles]

The left needs to audit it's behaviour.

"Over the past year we have had 26 meetings, one conference, we've gone on six different marches and we've achieved.... um.... fuck all."

I think we need to work out how and where we can have the most impact in our struggle for a classless, stateless society and do that.

If you tie up hours upon hours of a group of peoples lives and you have nothing to show for it at the end then you are an arsehole of magnificent proportions. (At least your boss will pay you, your party on the other hand won't give you diddly-squat.)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I'm not politically active btw. My unease with Marxism kind of keeps holding me back, even though I know there's going to be a crunch point and I have to get political at some stage.
It is a worry- but it's just another dimension of the problem of 'unexpected consequences'.

I have regressed from political activity in the past year or two because of similar problems; I wasn't really sure I belonged in this or that camp, or what I really wanted to achieve or even, what I would be achieving. I didn't want to become an activist just for the sake of it.

I was reading bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress a couple of weeks ago (i'm an educator so perhaps for that reason it rang very true for me personally), and she quotes Paulo Friere who says "We cannot enter the struggle as objects in order later to become subjects". One of the things she says in response is that "It always astounds me when progressive people act as though it is somehow a naive moral position to believe that our lives must be a living example of our politics".

The last part of that quote - "our lives must be a living example of our politics", really struck me. It makes quite clear for me (in the context of other concepts outlined in the book) that rather than confining ourselves to moralistic finger-wagging on the one hand, or lifestylism on the other, we can actually try to effect changes through small, personalised efforts. I guess this is easier for me as a teacher (especially reading bell hooks as an educator herself), because it says to me that more than going to this or that protest, or making choices over activism in the streets or in meeting halls, it is what I can do as an educator that can make a direct, if small, change to the consciousness of others I interact with.

Obviously, this is not possible for all professions and of course most proletarians don't have the direct opportunity that a professor or a teacher has to engage with the bigger conceptual ideas of education and philosophy and society, but I do think there is something to be taken from that quote in terms of attempting to live our work lives through the ideals of our politics, in the sense of adopting critical, open, and honest attitudes in examining the issues relating to us (which will vary by workplace, location etc.) and the people we interact with. I think that, on a personal level, this is crucial in bringing us together with other workers who may be similarly minded but for whatever reason (authoritarian experiences in education probably chief among them!) have not/do not engage with other workers in the workplace, in their social circle, on a politically conscious level.


It's actually kind of tricky being homosexual and marxist because Marxism has such a strong bias towards environmental explanations for behaviour, that homosexuality does to some extent remain 'abnormal' if sex is defined in terms of procreation (but not 'wrong' or 'immoral'). I think a lot of the legitimization of homosexuality in liberal societies has been down to the idea it's genetic, so even in my kind of 'ideal' liberal-communist society, it would be a part of my identity that would be re-defined some how. That doesn't automatically mean prohibition (because of the 'withering away of the state' would mean the 'withering away of the law' too), but it does make me wonder what kind of a sexual revolution it would bring about.

My understanding of sexual politics is limited at best, so i'm not going to try and wade in because I don't really have much that is productive to add to what you have already said, particularly as a straight person myself.

I think that in these areas, Marxism needs to adopt a less rigid approach to philosophy; the genetic explanation of sexuality and its very gradual acceptance in mainstream society I think has been one of the main causal factors in the lesbian and gay sections of the LGBT community gaining greater acceptance in recent years (although obviously the almost universal stigma that continues against bisexuals and particular transgendered people shows that all is not well in this regard).



I think the need to join up the respective movements will only happen if they accept they have common cause against the capitalist class as enforcing the social relations which make discrimination necessary.

Ultimately, I agree that class struggle must be tied up with racial and gender politics. But it must be a two way street. I've yet to see a substantiated argument on why, given the failings of the left with regards to race and gender in the 20th century, and the failings of the current Marxist and anarchist left on gender in particular in the 21st century, why it is feminism and race politics that should cave to the demands of a dying movement.

I think it is our job, as Marxists, to adopt a less defensive, more open, more self-critical attitude, and show a willingness to trumpet causes within feminism and race politics on an even level or in the short term even above, our own long-term struggle against capital.


Race is something I need to look into more detail.

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lorenzo-kom-boa-ervin-anarchism-and-the-black-revolution

Can I recommend the above reading? It's slightly out-dated and i'm uncomfortable with some of the things Lorenzo says, but I think overall it does provide an authentic perspective of race from a black American.

[Karker]

"Peaceful demonstrations" won't do it. It has to be somehow violent, like the ones in Turkey and Kurdistan.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's actually kind of tricky being homosexual and marxist because Marxism has such a strong bias towards environmental explanations for behaviour, that homosexuality does to some extent remain 'abnormal' if sex is defined in terms of procreation (but not 'wrong' or 'immoral'). I think a lot of the legitimization of homosexuality in liberal societies has been down to the idea it's genetic, so even in my kind of 'ideal' liberal-communist society, it would be a part of my identity that would be re-defined some how. That doesn't automatically mean prohibition (because of the 'withering away of the state' would mean the 'withering away of the law' too), but it does make me wonder what kind of a sexual revolution it would bring about.


Who would "define sex in terms of procreation"? Very sheltered virgins, I would imagine. That liberals tie "acceptance" of homosexuality to its alleged genetic origins is evidence, not of the necessity of a genetic explanation of homosexuality, but of the homophobia of most liberals ("well those gay people just can't help themselves"). The point is that there is nothing "wrong" or "immoral" about fucking members of the same sex or gender, and that anyone who thinks otherwise can go headbutt a moving train. That's it, no ifs, no buts, and if you're trying to justify yourself ("I was born that way"), you're already conceding far too much.

[VivalaCuarta]

The biggest challenge is the crisis of leadership of the working class.

Put another way, the challenge is to cohere a cadre of working class militants who can drive out the present class-collaborationist leadership of the working class and lead the fight for a socialist revolution.

This requires an all-sided propaganda effort to convince the advanced workers of the correctness of the Marxist program and the bankruptcy and perfidy of the fake Marxists and fake socialists, to discredit and demoralize these jokers in the eyes of the workers, clearing them out of the way so that an authoritative communist party can be built.

[Dagoth Ur]

Fake marxists? Cool way to find enemies within our own ranks when we're already surrounded on all sides. You'll make a fine trot.

ITT: a bunch of non-workers wonder why they have no appeal to workers. Maybe it's because they don't know you and they can tell you haven't had a hard job in your life. Seriously we can tell.

[Futility Personified]

I'd say that even if the working class got their shit together, even if the disparate left could find ways to unite and the constant tide of propaganda disseminated throughout every channel in our cultures was ignored or seen through, we would still have the persecution of security services inhibiting prospective mobilizations. Not to mention the terrifying prospect of another USSR style debacle.

Even if a revolution was achieved in one country, the revolution MUST be international and in the face of isolation and persecution for revolutionaries inside, other countries would close their borders in fear of "infection". Not to mention the false-flags of "communist" china and the strange ideas that communism seems to bring out in some sections of the working class (i'm thinking of the russian communist party). As a caveat, I think in the face of environmental catastrophe we could deal with it if capitalism was destroyed. However, at present it would seem to me to be socialism or annihilation.

Really though, the main issue to my mind would be mainstream culture. Right wing ideology permeates so much in the UK, overcoming that is extremely difficult given that opposition is demonised in the press or out and out ignored.

[Lord Testicles]

ITT: a bunch of non-workers wonder why they have no appeal to workers. Maybe it's because they don't know you and they can tell you haven't had a hard job in your life. Seriously we can tell.

The prolier than thou is strong in this one.

[VivalaCuarta]

Fake marxists? Cool way to find enemies within our own ranks when we're already surrounded on all sides. You'll make a fine trot.

Remember this?

[Dagoth Ur]

Not to mention the terrifying prospect of another USSR style debacle.
Yes the debacle of the USSR also known as the greatest achievement of workers ever. But don't let me get in the way of your anti-proletarian tirade.


The prolier than thou is strong in this one.
Read: who is this dirty commoner who is trying to talk to me?


Remember this?
Yeah I remember the biggest expression of black solidarity in literally decades. Glad to see you shitting on their parade.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

insufficient reverence for the kim dynasty

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Black solidarity with a bourgeois politician elected as jailer-in-chief of racist America. So yeah, not really something communists should celebrate.

[VivalaCuarta]

Yeah I remember [the celebrations of Obama's election as] the biggest expression of black solidarity in literally decades.

Solidarity must mean something different to you.

To me it means helping, lending a hand, specifically in the sense that the power of the workers comes from our solidarity.

These were mistaken expressions of "solidarity" with the newly elected chief oppressor of blacks.

In other words, solidarity with the newest executive of the white supremacist U.S. ruling class, against the oppressed black people.

You weren't in solidarity with the blacks who celebrated Obama's election. Quite the contrary. You did your part to deceive them.

[Lord Testicles]

Read: who is this dirty commoner who is trying to talk to me?


Shut the fuck up you dick cheese. You're the self-serving, self-righteous anus that implied that you were the only working class poster in this thread.

As if everyone on Revleft is some kind of capitalist and only poor old Dagoth Ur has to work hard and therefore has any idea what it is to be working class.

How about you roll that shit up and work it up your jacksie.

Here's what you wrote again:



ITT: a bunch of non-workers wonder why they have no appeal to workers. Maybe it's because they don't know you and they can tell you haven't had a hard job in your life. Seriously we can tell.

Not only is that statement a clear indication of your "prolier than thou" mindset but it also shows what a condescending bastard you are.

[Dagoth Ur]

Black solidarity with a bourgeois politician elected as jailer-in-chief of racist America. So yeah, not really something communists should celebrate.
le sigh. I meant solidarity among Black people not solidarity with Obama or the Democrats. More black people were out doing shit and active politically than there have been since the civil rights movement. What's sad is that it took the election of a bourgeoisie black hawaiian to accomplish this.

Also lets not forget that electing a Black president was important. The quality of the term was never the point.


You weren't in solidarity with the blacks who celebrated Obama's election. Quite the contrary. You did your part to deceive them.
Because I'm a democratic party member who went out and told "them" blacks to vote for Obama because he means change. :rolleyes:

The reason black people voted for Obama was the only reason to vote for him, he was black and in America that means a whole lot for a president.

Go on more about the WWP instead of formulating your own counterargument though.


Shut the fuck up you dick cheese. You're the self-serving, self-righteous anus that implied that you were the only working class poster in this thread.
You sure are a quality poster. Me thinks the lady does protest to much.


As if everyone on Revleft is some kind of capitalist and only poor old Dagoth Ur has to work hard and therefore has any idea what it is to be working class.
No I'm talking about you and the other children on this site with no connection to the working class because they don't work. Don't you have a college campus to go back to and leave shitty newspapers at?


Not only is that statement a clear indication of your "prolier than thou" mindset but it also shows what a condescending bastard you are.
At least I can make a post without resorting to childish and base insults.

And yes I am condescending towards middle-class students who think they're smarter than all the workers and that if only they'd just listen you'd show them the way. Condescension begets condescension.

[Lord Testicles]

You sure are a quality poster. Me thinks the lady does protest to much.


Fuck you.
http://www.onemonthlater.co.uk/2up8rw9.jpg



No I'm talking about you and the other children on this site with no connection to the working class because they don't work. Don't you have a college campus to go back to and leave shitty newspapers at?


I've never gone to university but let's not let that little fact get in the way of your baseless insults and your pathetic projecting. I hope you get some kind of virulent STD.


At least I can make a post without resorting to childish and base insults.

And yes I am condescending towards middle-class students who think they're smarter than all the workers and that if only they'd just listen you'd show them the way. Condescension begets condescension.

Tell me, what is the Marxist definition of middle class?

I'm glad you have to work hard, you deserve it.

[Dagoth Ur]

Fuck you.
I love you too.


I've never gone to university but let's not let that little fact get in the way of your baseless insults and your pathetic projecting. I hope you get some kind of virulent STD.
Crying about insults from Mr. I-Call-People-Dick-Cheese? Interesting. I do find your flying off the handle here pretty interesting.


Tell me, what is the Marxist definition of middle class?
Yeah it's the small bourgeoisie/labor aristocracy formalized into a social class. Which in turn ends up raising a litter of bourgeoisie radicals who wonder why the workers don't listen to their disconnected nonsense.


I'm glad you have to work hard, you deserve it.
I don't have to work hard I could just choose to be a jobless activist who leaches off everyone and then turns around and tries to tell them how to think.

[Five Year Plan]

Because I'm a democratic party member who went out and told "them" blacks to vote for Obama because he means change. :rolleyes:

No, you're right. You didn't join the Democratic Party and tell black people to vote for Obama. You just celebrated the fact that they joined the Democratic Party and voted for Obama. Huge difference, that.

[Lord Testicles]

Crying about insults from Mr. I-Call-People-Dick-Cheese? Interesting. I do find your flying off the handle here pretty interesting.


I'm not crying about insults you fucking moron, I'm being verbally abusive to a condescending "prolier than thou" wanker.


Yeah it's the small bourgeoisie/labor aristocracy formalized into a social class. Which in turn ends up raising a litter of bourgeoisie radicals who wonder why the workers don't listen to their disconnected nonsense.

Way to prove you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about.


I don't have to work hard I could just choose to be a jobless activist who leaches off everyone and then turns around and tries to tell them how to think.

"jobless" "leaches"? Quick! Your right wing sympathies are showing!

I think it just goes to show what a isolated jumped up little shit you are when you have more time for the president than you do for the unemployed.

Take your protestant work ethic and shove that up your fucking gaping arsehole too.

[Dagoth Ur]

Blah blah I've never worked a day in my life but I know better than any of those dumb workers. Good luck with that mentality comrade.

@FYP: No I celebrated the fact that Black people organized in a big way and actually exercised some power as a voting block. Unfortunately that didn't last very long.

And besides when all the players on the stage are the same, why not pick the one whose people are systematically attacked? Regardless of if he helps his own people his election is a windfall against cracker establishment. Tea Party dudes are still shitting their pants over a black man being their leader.

[Five Year Plan]

@FYP: No I celebrated the fact that Black people organized in a big way and actually exercised some power as a voting block. Unfortunately that didn't last very long.

And besides when all the players on the stage are the same, why not pick the one whose people are systematically attacked? Regardless of if he helps his own people his election is a windfall against cracker establishment. Tea Party dudes are still shitting their pants over a black man being their leader.

This is just mindless celebration of unity for the sake of unity, divorced from program. If workers unite behind a bourgeois candidate, I don't celebrate that for obvious reasons. If black workers join black bourgeois and petty bourgeois elements to unite behind a black bourgeois candidate, I don't celebrate that for the same reason I don't celebrate the first scenario. Marxists don't fight for unity in the abstract. They fight for working-class revolutionary unity.

[Lord Testicles]

Blah blah I've never worked a day in my life but I know better than any of those dumb workers. Good luck with that mentality comrade.

Who the fuck are you to tell anyone on this board how much work they've done? How the fuck would you know arsehole?

But I get it already, you're so wrapped up in your "prolier than thou" mentality that you can't see what an utter insufferable prick you are.

You're right though. You are the working class. The working class is Dagoth Ur. Nobody else on the planet does any work, only Dagoth Ur. Only Dagoth Ur can speak to the working class because the working class is a class of one. That one is Dagoth Ur.

All bow down and heil Dagoth Ur, the proliest of all proletariat.

Dagoth Ur is the way, the light, and the truth.

[Christopher Johnson]

I think that one of the major problems is power. The left, specially in the west, has very little power. I'm sure people would want to participate in a revolution with all the risks, but they also want some sense of security. I'm sure people aren't very keen on risking their lives, or risking getting brutalized and tortured by police/military for a small scale protest that is mostly symbolic. Also, I think that many people are afraid because they know that if something happens to them, no one has the power to come out in their defense to either prevent or stop harm.

[Dagoth Ur]

Finally the light shines upon your non-proletarian eyes. I'm sure when you move out of your parents house and have to take care of yourself you'll understand the respect that hardworking people deserve.

@FYP: So until the revolution we're just supposed to sit on our hands and ignore the presently existing working class? The SPUSA beat you to that platform.

Uniting the working class doesn't start at revolution. It's years of showing that workers united are strong as fuck. This can be done in all sorts of ways from as simple as organizing to fix a local road to something more symbolic like electing one of your own to a position that is supposed to be closed to your kind.

[Lord Testicles]

Finally the light shines upon your non-proletarian eyes. I'm sure when you move out of your parents house and have to take care of yourself you'll understand the respect that hardworking people deserve.

I don't live with my parents, stop projecting.

Our Dagoth Ur, which art with Marx,
hallowed be thy name;
thy revolution come;
thy will be done,
in earth as it is in das kapital.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive labour aristocrats that trespass against us.
And lead us not into fascism;
but deliver us from capitalism.

For thine is the revolution,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Dagoth Ur.


P.S You're still a fucking wanker and you deserve nothing but ridicule for all the hard work you do.

[Dagoth Ur]

I wasn't talking about myself as my current job is easy and I just have it so I can support a heroin habit. But then I'm not trying to present myself as some messiah for the moronic masses who must be held by the hand to cross the street.

Also how am I projecting? I've been more or less constantly employed since I was 18 and moved out of my parent's home. I'm just reading into your outrage that I would dare to spotlight the fact that most of the people on this forum do not deserve to be listened to by anyone because they don't know what the fuck working class people deal with.

[Lord Testicles]

I wasn't talking about myself as my current job is easy and I just have it so I can support a heroin habit.

It must be hard to afford heroin on the pocket money that your mother gives you for doing household chores.


But then I'm not trying to present myself as some messiah for the moronic masses who must be held by the hand to cross the street.

No, you're trying to present yourself as the sole worker in the midst of a gaggle of out-of-touch bourgeois children thereby dismissing anything anyone else has said because only the holy Dagoth Ur is "down" with the working class. Look at me! Look at how proletariat I am!


Also how am I projecting? I've been more or less constantly employed since I was 18 and moved out of my parent's home.

Sure you have kid, and I'm Thomas Aquinas.


I'm just reading into your outrage that I would dare to spotlight the fact that most of the people on this forum do not deserve to be listened to by anyone because they don't know what the fuck working class people deal with.

Dare to spotlight! Haha, like you're some kind of investigative journalist. All you did was spout an assumption about people on this forum thereby dismissing anything they have to say because what the fuck do they know right? They don't know what it's like to deal with day to day life, not like the ever insightful Dagoth Ur.

[Five Year Plan]

@FYP: So until the revolution we're just supposed to sit on our hands and ignore the presently existing working class? The SPUSA beat you to that platform.

No, you're not supposed to sit on your hands and ignore the existing working class. That's what the Democrats want you to do (and do, in fact do), one of many reasons revolutionaries don't cross the class line and give any kind of political support to bourgeois parties. As opposed to ignoring the working class, you're supposed to struggle alongside them in the workplace and on the streets while explaining that their interests are opposed to capitalism, to the bourgeoisie, and its political representatives. Including its black ones.

[Dagoth Ur]

Oh look at me I'm skinz I claim people are projecting because I got mad at being called out for being a parasite and now I'm playing the I'll call an adult a child and then I win. [/skinz]

tl;dr: Skinz is a joke bourgeoisie student who has never worked a day in his life.

@FYP: Or you could y'know listen to the working class and build from their instead of trying to show them how they are stupid and don't know their own interests. It's funny how much people will listen to you when you listen first.

[Lord Testicles]

Oh look at me I'm skinz I claim people are projecting because I got mad at being called out for being a parasite and now I'm playing the I'll call an adult a child and then I win. [/skinz]

Oh what's that? You don't like it when people make unflattering assumptions about yourself? Maybe you should stop doing it to others then arsehole.


tl;dr: Skinz is a joke bourgeoisie student who has never worked a day in his life.

I'm beginning to think you don't know what the word bourgeoisie means.

If you must know, you are right about me, I've worked very little however that is not due to me being a student (I'm willing to bet that you have more qualifications than me) It's because I've spent the majority of my adult life unemployed.

Still that doesn't negate that you are a fucking "prolier than thou" self-righteous fuck-wad who doesn't have the slightest fucking clue what you're talking about.


Or you could y'know listen to the working class and build from their

Can someone say liberal, populist or workerist?

[Dagoth Ur]

Yada yada I'm skinz and I insult people. Get a new shtick.

[Lord Testicles]

Yada yada I'm skinz and I insult people. Get a new shtick.

Profound.

[Dagoth Ur]

That one word post really put me in my place. All behold Skinz, master of high-brow dialogue.

[Lord Testicles]

That one word post really put me in my place. All behold Skinz, master of high-brow dialogue.

Oh! Your wit is so sharp it cuts.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/delicate.jpg

[Dagoth Ur]

So are we just supposed to keep back and forthing at each other?

I'll close with: AMERICA!

[Lord Testicles]

So are we just supposed to keep back and forthing at each other?

I'll close with: AMERICA!

No, we get a mod to come and clean up this mess you've made me create.

[Dagoth Ur]

I made you create? I made you spew insults for like 10 consecutive posts? Awesome.

[Lord Testicles]

I mean these pointless one-lines. I'm quite fond of the insults.

[Five Year Plan]

@FYP: Or you could y'know listen to the working class and build from their instead of trying to show them how they are stupid and don't know their own interests. It's funny how much people will listen to you when you listen first.

I think it's funny how you confuse listening to the working class with cheering on their mistaken faith in bourgeois politicians and parties.

[Dagoth Ur]

I like how you have no fucking idea about my political stances and like to build a strawman version of me instead. I'm sure that will take a beating.

[Five Year Plan]

I like how you have no fucking idea about my political stances and like to build a strawman version of me instead. Classy.

I know that you support celebrating Obama's victory as a way of "showing solidarity" with black people. And that's all I need to know, since that forms the basis of my criticism.

[Dagoth Ur]

Except that's not what I said at all but continue with bullshit all you want.

[Five Year Plan]

Except that's not what I said at all but continue with bullshit all you want.

Right, what happened was somebody posted a front page article from your organization's publication celebrating Obama's victory, and you responded by saying:


Yeah I remember the biggest expression of black solidarity in literally decades. Glad to see you shitting on their parade.

So, yeah, you did defend your organization's press, which spoke in glowing terms of how black people in Harlem celebrated Obama's re-election. Just as I have been saying.

[SonofRage]

Being stuck on forms of organizing that developed under different material conditions than our current owns, and contradictions within the class (e.g. White privilege, male privilege, etc.)

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Skinz & Dagoth Ur, well done for ruining a good thread. Thanks.

If you wanna argue like a pair of kids, go to school and find the naughty corner or something. This was actually a productive thread, and you are both proving fuck all by your macho posturing. Seriously, it's just embarassing. It's a fucking internet forum. The least you could do is at least attempt to be productive.

[Dagoth Ur]

You're welcome.

[consuming negativity]

Their argument does bring up a point similar to the ones being discussed, though. One obstacle to the different parts of the working class working together is that the different sections of the class all live very differently and share values that differ substantially. It's easy to say "you know what? those white/blue collar folk are just awful" and just want nothing to do with them because of prejudices.

[Red Economist]

I've obviously missed something, but I'm just going to ignore it.


I have regressed from political activity in the past year or two because of similar problems; I wasn't really sure I belonged in this or that camp, or what I really wanted to achieve or even, what I would be achieving. I didn't want to become an activist just for the sake of it.

exactly the same here. I think there is a phrase that's kicking around at the moment about how people have to learn the difference between change and activity, which seems appropriate.


I was reading bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress a couple of weeks ago (i'm an educator so perhaps for that reason it rang very true for me personally), and she quotes Paulo Friere who says "We cannot enter the struggle as objects in order later to become subjects". One of the things she says in response is that "It always astounds me when progressive people act as though it is somehow a naive moral position to believe that our lives must be a living example of our politics".

The last part of that quote - "our lives must be a living example of our politics", really struck me. It makes quite clear for me (in the context of other concepts outlined in the book) that rather than confining ourselves to moralistic finger-wagging on the one hand, or lifestylism on the other, we can actually try to effect changes through small, personalised efforts. I guess this is easier for me as a teacher (especially reading bell hooks as an educator herself), because it says to me that more than going to this or that protest, or making choices over activism in the streets or in meeting halls, it is what I can do as an educator that can make a direct, if small, change to the consciousness of others I interact with.
Nicely put. I've tried to actually practice my politics in a way that directly affects my friends and family, and taking a step back from really authoritarian conceptions of politics involved in engaging with the state or parties etc. It's now more of an 'ethic' or an intellectual exercise than anything.
It's really demanding as you have to unlearn all the acquired habits of wanting other people to believe what you believer and let them come to their own judgements. Plus the emphasis shifts to be utterly honest with yourself as if you talking about an ideology that screwed up that badly to someone you care about, the consequences matter more. Which is a good thing to make you stop and think.


Obviously, this is not possible for all professions and of course most proletarians don't have the direct opportunity that a professor or a teacher has to engage with the bigger conceptual ideas of education and philosophy and society, but I do think there is something to be taken from that quote in terms of attempting to live our work lives through the ideals of our politics, in the sense of adopting critical, open, and honest attitudes in examining the issues relating to us (which will vary by workplace, location etc.) and the people we interact with. I think that, on a personal level, this is crucial in bringing us together with other workers who may be similarly minded but for whatever reason (authoritarian experiences in education probably chief among them!) have not/do not engage with other workers in the workplace, in their social circle, on a politically conscious level. The best teachers don't need a classroom. they just find the right time and place, person and use the opportunity to help someone out. But it's an art form.
I'm a teacher's son, (god help me) so I've seen both sides of what's going on in the UK with how teachers are slowly being drowned and buried under bureaucratic regulation, targets etc, and it gets in the way of the spontaneous human moments when something is actually learned by trying to turn schools into factories, where children are like battery hens, force fed 'facts' so they can complete examinations. Teachers have to sh*t themselves on cue when OFSTED (inspectors) come round. It's amazing how liberals can impersonate all the worst features of Stalinism and convince themselves it's a good thing because it's result-driven and therefore in the kids 'best interest' when they enter the labour market.

Sorry. YEARS of discussions in a single paragraph there.


My understanding of sexual politics is limited at best, so i'm not going to try and wade in because I don't really have much that is productive to add to what you have already said, particularly as a straight person myself.
Wise. Sex is something which just makes people go crazy, even in political discussions.


I think that in these areas, Marxism needs to adopt a less rigid approach to philosophy; the genetic explanation of sexuality and its very gradual acceptance in mainstream society I think has been one of the main causal factors in the lesbian and gay sections of the LGBT community gaining greater acceptance in recent years (although obviously the almost universal stigma that continues against bisexuals and particular transgendered people shows that all is not well in this regard).
Our understanding of sexuality is great impeded by our inhibitions as a society. I once saw the film Kinsey (2004) about Dr. Alfred Kinsey who collected information on sexuality in the US and wrote reports on 'sexual behaviour in the human male' and 'sexual behavior in the human female'. He got to this point because he wanted to study human sexual behavior as a biologist would- and found that most of our ideas about sex are not scientific, but morality dressed up as science.

As a result he came up with the Kinsey scale of sexual orientation. sexual orientation both changes over time and is not a strict line of demarcation, e.g. person X is gay, person Y is straight. there are graduations, variations and the very concept of 'heterosexual'/'homosexual'/'bisexual' implies the existence of the 'other'.


Ultimately, I agree that class struggle must be tied up with racial and gender politics. But it must be a two way street. I've yet to see a substantiated argument on why, given the failings of the left with regards to race and gender in the 20th century, and the failings of the current Marxist and anarchist left on gender in particular in the 21st century, why it is feminism and race politics that should cave to the demands of a dying movement.

I think it is our job, as Marxists, to adopt a less defensive, more open, more self-critical attitude, and show a willingness to trumpet causes within feminism and race politics on an even level or in the short term even above, our own long-term struggle against capital. my suspicion is that both issues of race and gender are sub-sets of the issue about class and class rule. But it's a hunch based on ideological bias.



http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lorenzo-kom-boa-ervin-anarchism-and-the-black-revolution

Can I recommend the above reading? It's slightly out-dated and i'm uncomfortable with some of the things Lorenzo says, but I think overall it does provide an authentic perspective of race from a black American.Yeah. that's fine. (please forgive if it takes me a while to get round to reading it).

[Edit: I've read chapter 1; a lot of good ideas in there.]

[Red Economist]

Who would "define sex in terms of procreation"? Very sheltered virgins, I would imagine. That liberals tie "acceptance" of homosexuality to its alleged genetic origins is evidence, not of the necessity of a genetic explanation of homosexuality, but of the homophobia of most liberals ("well those gay people just can't help themselves").

The sexual revolution marked a very limited liberalization of sexual relations; it changed very little other than making homosexuality 'acceptable' and women 'officially' equal. Sexuality is defined in terms of procreation quite widely; in moral terms it's reserved for conservative and religious people, but it has more widespread usage in it's scientific presentation in terms of evolutionary 'sexual selection' (i.e. I don't fuck because I want to, I fuck because I'm predestined to procreate).

As I pointed out in my previous post, the very concepts of 'homosexuality' and 'bisexuality' imply the existence of the 'other' whilst in reality- most people are bisexual to one degree or another in terms of their attractions and sexual partners. The role of the concepts of homosexuality and bisexuality as the 'other' simply reinforces the belief in a heterosexual life-long monogamy as the 'norm' based on the predetermination (by god- or science) to procreation. Sex is still not generally pursued out of an uninhibited pursuit of sexual pleasure, because the 'commitments' of marriage still linger in the back of people's minds. And 'sexual libertinism' is not sexual freedom; more does not mean better; it's still based on treating a person as an object, not a person.


The point is that there is nothing "wrong" or "immoral" about fucking members of the same sex or gender, and that anyone who thinks otherwise can go headbutt a moving train. That's it, no ifs, no buts, and if you're trying to justify yourself ("I was born that way"), you're already conceding far too much.

The genetic theory of human behaviour ("I'm born this way") is a bastardized version of the theory of human nature dressed in a lab coat. As I think I've already said- most people are bisexual (not 50/50 but more like 80/20 or 90/10). They're not 100% heterosexual, so this idea that people who are gay are 'born different' actually ignores the sexual repression in the rest of the population. the idea that sexuality is driven by environmental factors, not genetic, is not automatically a concession if you throw the idea of marriage as 'natural' out the window.

God I love being subversive....More sex for everyone! :grin:

[renalenin]

The biggest challenge to the revolutionary left today?

Probably being able to gather support for the working class and its allies to take over the state and the organs of the state, without being side tracked by some Trotskyist ego-maniac or by an equally vile apologist for reformism and gradualism.


:hammersickle::hammersickle::hammersickle:

[Brutus]

The biggest challenge to the revolutionary left today?

Probably being able to gather support for the working class and its allies to take over the state and the organs of the state, without being side tracked by some Trotskyist ego-maniac or by an equally vile apologist for reformism and gradualism.


:hammersickle::hammersickle::hammersickle:

Maybe the biggest challenge is that people like renalenin wish for the working class to take over the state?

[renalenin]

Not saying that is where it stops. But it sure is where it starts.

[Red Son]

The never-ending tendency wars; it always seems like there are more differences in theory and perspectives about 'socialist' countries past and present than there are similiarities to unite behind (the chief one being - wanting an end to capitalism).
The other challenge, I think, is that appears to be little or no desire among the majority of the working class for any revolutionary change - either due to right-wing populist ideas or settling for social democratic reforms, it feels like our class as a whole has never seen the need to topple capitalism. Admittedly this could be due to apathy caused by the current political landscape and the slow demise of radical trade unions, Labour and the rise of centre right, but I feel like it also comes from a fundamental belief / feeling of 'capitalism is alright, what we need is x, y and z'.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The sexual revolution marked a very limited liberalization of sexual relations; it changed very little other than making homosexuality 'acceptable' and women 'officially' equal. Sexuality is defined in terms of procreation quite widely; in moral terms it's reserved for conservative and religious people, but it has more widespread usage in it's scientific presentation in terms of evolutionary 'sexual selection' (i.e. I don't fuck because I want to, I fuck because I'm predestined to procreate).

As I pointed out in my previous post, the very concepts of 'homosexuality' and 'bisexuality' imply the existence of the 'other' whilst in reality- most people are bisexual to one degree or another in terms of their attractions and sexual partners. The role of the concepts of homosexuality and bisexuality as the 'other' simply reinforces the belief in a heterosexual life-long monogamy as the 'norm' based on the predetermination (by god- or science) to procreation. Sex is still not generally pursued out of an uninhibited pursuit of sexual pleasure, because the 'commitments' of marriage still linger in the back of people's minds. And 'sexual libertinism' is not sexual freedom; more does not mean better; it's still based on treating a person as an object, not a person.

[...]

The genetic theory of human behaviour ("I'm born this way") is a bastardized version of the theory of human nature dressed in a lab coat. As I think I've already said- most people are bisexual (not 50/50 but more like 80/20 or 90/10). They're not 100% heterosexual, so this idea that people who are gay are 'born different' actually ignores the sexual repression in the rest of the population. the idea that sexuality is driven by environmental factors, not genetic, is not automatically a concession if you throw the idea of marriage as 'natural' out the window.

God I love being subversive....More sex for everyone! :grin:

I don't think homosexuality is "acceptable" except on paper. And not even the fanatically religious define sex in terms of procreation, although they might think its "natural purpose" is procreation, which just shows that communists need to be suspicious of teleological language in general. But biologists do not - a biologists who claims that animals do not engage in sex because they want to is a biologist that should have been failed in ethology. Some times people who study population genetics talk like that, but it's a form of shorthand, similar to when physicists talk about a system "trying to" minimise its free energy etc.

Ad for the claim that most people are bisexual, it always seemed like a weird form of posturing to me. There are no real data to back it up.


I think that in these areas, Marxism needs to adopt a less rigid approach to philosophy; the genetic explanation of sexuality and its very gradual acceptance in mainstream society I think has been one of the main causal factors in the lesbian and gay sections of the LGBT community gaining greater acceptance in recent years (although obviously the almost universal stigma that continues against bisexuals and particular transgendered people shows that all is not well in this regard).

Lesbians and gays are still very much oppressed, to a much greater degree than bisexuals. I don't know where this claim about a "universal stigma... against bisexuals" came from to be honest.

[consuming negativity]

Lesbians and gays are still very much oppressed, to a much greater degree than bisexuals. I don't know where this claim about a "universal stigma... against bisexuals" came from to be honest.

This is bi erasure and one of many consequences of bisexuality not being taken seriously.

[Red Economist]

I don't think homosexuality is "acceptable" except on paper. And not even the fanatically religious define sex in terms of procreation, although they might think its "natural purpose" is procreation, which just shows that communists need to be suspicious of teleological language in general. But biologists do not - a biologists who claims that animals do not engage in sex because they want to is a biologist that should have been failed in ethology. Some times people who study population genetics talk like that, but it's a form of shorthand, similar to when physicists talk about a system "trying to" minimize its free energy etc.

The nature of sexual relations is concealed behind the ethic of 'till death do us part'; that is that a person should be loyal to only one person. Consequently, sexual activity is restricted purely to the role of procreation and child rearing within the family institution, as opposed to the free pursuit of pleasure, which is not necessarily monogamous. This same assumption that life-long compulsive monogamy is the norm is imported into scientific concepts.

[QUOTE=870]
Ad for the claim that most people are bisexual, it always seemed like a weird form of posturing to me. There are no real data to back it up.
[/URL]

It's more of a hunch based on criticizing the notion of demarcating sexual orientation into strict categories, but I got the idea from here.


Parts of the Kinsey Reports regarding diversity in [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation"]sexual orientations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#cite_note-12) are frequently used to support the common estimate of 10% for homosexuality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality) in the general population. However, the findings are not as absolute, and Kinsey himself avoided and disapproved of using terms like homosexual or heterosexual to describe individuals, asserting that sexuality is prone to change over time, and that sexual behavior can be understood both as physical contact as well as purely psychological phenomena (desire, sexual attraction, fantasy).[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)] Instead of three categories (heterosexual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosexuality), bisexual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexuality) and homosexual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality)), a seven-point Kinsey scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale) system was used.
The reports also state that nearly 46% of the male subjects had "reacted" sexually to persons of both sexes in the course of their adult lives, and 37% had at least one homosexual experience.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#cite_note-7) 11.6% of white males (ages 20–35) were given a rating of 3 (about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response) throughout their adult lives.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#cite_note-8) The study also reported that 10% of American males surveyed were "more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55" (in the 5 to 6 range).[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#cite_note-9)
7% of single females (ages 20–35) and 4% of previously married females (ages 20–35) were given a rating of 3 (about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response) on Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale for this period of their lives.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#cite_note-10) 2 to 6% of females, aged 20–35, were more or less exclusively homosexual in experience/response,[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#cite_note-11) and 1 to 3% of unmarried females aged 20–35 were exclusively homosexual in experience/response.[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#cite_note-12)


As far as i know, the kinsey reports are pretty much all we've got to figure out what human sexuality really is, not what it's supposed to be.


Lesbians and gays are still very much oppressed, to a much greater degree than bisexuals. I don't know where this claim about a "universal stigma... against bisexuals" came from to be honest.

At a guess, I would say that I this is probably down to the idea that bisexuality is conflated with promiscuity and is therefore seen as a choice. But behind that is the belief that promiscuity is immoral because it conflicts with the institution of marriage/monogamy. hence confusing the two, people think "promiscuity is immoral" and "bisexuality is promiscuity" therefore "bisexuality is immoral"/isn't a real problem. Bisexuals are oppressed like homosexuals because they face the same institution: the family and the assumption of heterosexual monogamy as 'normal' or 'moral' behavior.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The nature of sexual relations is concealed behind the ethic of 'till death do us part'; that is that a person should be loyal to only one person. Consequently, sexual activity is restricted purely to the role of procreation and child rearing within the family institution, as opposed to the free pursuit of pleasure, which is not necessarily monogamous. This same assumption that life-long compulsive monogamy is the norm is imported into scientific concepts.

What scientific concepts? I think the non-monogamous nature of most animal copulation is a fairly established concept in zoology. The problem is, I don't know what you're criticising.


It's more of a hunch based on criticizing the notion of demarcating sexual orientation into strict categories, but I got the idea from here.

[...]

As far as i know, the kinsey reports are pretty much all we've got to figure out what human sexuality really is, not what it's supposed to be.

Kinsey dealt with sexual activity, not attraction, and in any case the sample size was far too small to make any sort of definite conclusion.


At a guess, I would say that I this is probably down to the idea that bisexuality is conflated with promiscuity and is therefore seen as a choice. But behind that is the belief that promiscuity is immoral because it conflicts with the institution of marriage/monogamy. hence confusing the two, people think "promiscuity is immoral" and "bisexuality is promiscuity" therefore "bisexuality is immoral"/isn't a real problem. Bisexuals are oppressed like homosexuals because they face the same institution: the family and the assumption of heterosexual monogamy as 'normal' or 'moral' behavior.

Yeah, this is the same thing I constantly criticise - oppression isn't someone saying mean things about you, but structural violence, that bisexuals are less exposed to due to their ability to pass as heterosexual in certain situations. This sort of thinking leads to ridiculous concepts like "homosexual biphobia".

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Lesbians and gays are still very much oppressed, to a much greater degree than bisexuals. I don't know where this claim about a "universal stigma... against bisexuals" came from to be honest.

I agree the lesbians and gays are still very much oppressed, and in many parts of the world to a very large degree.

In my experience I have found that whereas, in some parts of the world, lesbians and gays are accepted at least on a basic level (i.e. being lesbian/gay from birth is legitimate), bisexuals are still viewed as promiscuous 'sluts' or 'slags' or whatever, and that they are somehow making a choice rather than being born that way.

Somebody very close to me thought they were bisexual their whole adult life, and I think there was this perception from a lot of people that it was just a phase and that they were expected to lead a heterosexual life, get married in a heterosexual, monogamous relationship etc., and that the bi aspect of their sexuality was merely experimentation.

Now that they have come out as gay, I have observed that there is at least an acceptance that their sexual identity is fixed; that they are gay and that it is not a phase, nor experimentation.

There also seems to be (at least in the UK here) more of a community for lesbians and gays, whereas as I said when this person was bisexual they were very much isolated, even from the lesbian and gay sections of the LGBT community.

I may be wrong, but as Red Economist says, it's just a hunch based on my observation of people's attitudes. Bisexuals seem to be oppressed through a lack of acceptance and not being taken seriously, which i'm guessing can not only lead to baseless accusations of promiscuity from others, but a great level of inner mental strife for the person themselves.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I agree the lesbians and gays are still very much oppressed, and in many parts of the world to a very large degree.

In my experience I have found that whereas, in some parts of the world, lesbians and gays are accepted at least on a basic level (i.e. being lesbian/gay from birth is legitimate), bisexuals are still viewed as promiscuous 'sluts' or 'slags' or whatever, and that they are somehow making a choice rather than being born that way.

Somebody very close to me thought they were bisexual their whole adult life, and I think there was this perception from a lot of people that it was just a phase and that they were expected to lead a heterosexual life, get married in a heterosexual, monogamous relationship etc., and that the bi aspect of their sexuality was merely experimentation.

Now that they have come out as gay, I have observed that there is at least an acceptance that their sexual identity is fixed; that they are gay and that it is not a phase, nor experimentation.

There also seems to be (at least in the UK here) more of a community for lesbians and gays, whereas as I said when this person was bisexual they were very much isolated, even from the lesbian and gay sections of the LGBT community.

I may be wrong, but as Red Economist says, it's just a hunch based on my observation of people's attitudes. Bisexuals seem to be oppressed through a lack of acceptance and not being taken seriously, which i'm guessing can not only lead to baseless accusations of promiscuity from others, but a great level of inner mental strife for the person themselves.

Alright, so, this is tangential to the topic of this thread, but I think it illustrates one of the problems of "the modern left" (not "the" problem - here I agree with VL4, the main problem is the crisis of leadership). Besides these threads tend to turn into sadsturbation sessions over how no one buys our newspapers anymore.

I am a bisexual. I would consider myself oppressed on the basis of my sexuality (although as a member of the technical intelligentsia I do not experience the brunt of this oppression). Why? Not because some idiot is going to say bad things about me - they will say bad things because I'm from the coastal region as well (good old Croatia, national chauvinism isn't good enough for us so we hate each other on regional basis as well), but I am not oppressed on that basis. Some people will say bad things about me because they perceive me as a Croat. And I am definitely not oppressed on basis of perceived membership in the dominant nationality and so on.

No, I'm oppressed because if I go out with another man, I run a very real risk of ending up in a hospital. And yes, this is Croatia, the septic tank of the universe, we're talking about, but if anyone thinks things like that don't happen in "the West", they're in for a rude awakening. I run the risk of being fired and not having enough to make ends meet. I run the risk of ending up in the "care" of our mental "health" system and so on. I experience the constant threat of structural violence (although to be clear, I am well aware that there are people who have it worse; the point is not to complain, as I've come to terms with these things a long time ago, but to illustrate what oppression is, and to stave off the inevitable accusations of being an evil bi-erasing gay biphobe blablabla).

Nonetheless I experience it to a lesser degree than someone who is exclusively homosexual. And I experience it precisely because some of my behaviour as seen as identical with that of homosexuals. When I am with an opposite-sex partner, I can breathe a sigh of relief. I am able to pass for a straight, at first glance at least (I've been known to lose myself in the sight of a well-shaped arse to the eternal consternation and not a few physical corrections from my current girlfriend).

And yes, some exclusively homosexual people resent me for that. I would be a massive dick if I didn't understand that. I don't think they're "biphobes" any more than I think black people who are uncomfortable around white or white-passing people are "racists" or "mullatophobes". And by no means are they oppressing me. Sorry, gay people don't beat up bisexuals.

I think sections of the socialist movement in recent years have completely lost sight of what oppression actually is, treating any sort of negative statement as oppression. So on one hand the actual oppression of people who have sex with other people of the same sex or gender (how's that for being inclusive?), of people with variant gender expressions, of people of non-dominant races and nationalities, of specially-oppressed castes etc., and on the other hand telling someone that, no, they're not a pyrofox from the forest planet is considered oppression by tumblrites and their allies. I think this is a clear example of sections of the movement having completely lost the thread.

[Red Economist]

What scientific concepts? I think the non-monogamous nature of most animal copulation is a fairly established concept in zoology. The problem is, I don't know what you're criticising.

Then I must be ill informed on this. It was an impression I have, but nothing concrete to back it up. So my apologies.


Kinsey dealt with sexual activity, not attraction, and in any case the sample size was far too small to make any sort of definite conclusion.

Can you separate the two? how is it possible to distinguish between the psychological mechanism of attraction and the physical action of having sex?
Surely the reason there is not data on actual human sexual activity is because people avoid studying this like the plague; they just don't want to touch it for fear of being ostricised as perverts, etc.


Yeah, this is the same thing I constantly criticise - oppression isn't someone saying mean things about you, but structural violence, that bisexuals are less exposed to due to their ability to pass as heterosexual in certain situations. This sort of thinking leads to ridiculous concepts like "homosexual biphobia".

The exercise of power through structural violence is a literal interpretation of oppression. the fear of such violence my not be so obvious but is no less important. The effect of the fear is the retention of those institutions and therefore is as much a part of the problem as the structural violence itself. Is their any difference between a bisexual being in the closet and a homosexual in the closet?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Alright, so, this is tangential to the topic of this thread, but I think it illustrates one of the problems of "the modern left" (not "the" problem - here I agree with VL4, the main problem is the crisis of leadership). Besides these threads tend to turn into sadsturbation sessions over how no one buys our newspapers anymore.


I think sections of the socialist movement in recent years have completely lost sight of what oppression actually is, treating any sort of negative statement as oppression. So on one hand the actual oppression of people who have sex with other people of the same sex or gender (how's that for being inclusive?), of people with variant gender expressions, of people of non-dominant races and nationalities, of specially-oppressed castes etc., and on the other hand telling someone that, no, they're not a pyrofox from the forest planet is considered oppression by tumblrites and their allies. I think this is a clear example of sections of the movement having completely lost the thread.

What I think your example (and though i've not quoted it i'm including your personal story here) illustrates is that cultural expectations and norms vary around the world, which is problematic because it prevents any one group, be it socialists or liberals, from being able to created a 'unified political theory of everything' in a neat, tick-box sort of way.

I found your story interesting and it's that sort of exposure I think that can open people's eyes up and, as I have said to you in other threads too, I think that bringing these sorts of personal experiences to our politics can be invaluable in helping others to a) empathise with your own experience, and also b) understand that what holds true for one person's reality is not necessarily the objective reality in another person's situation.

What I do find frustrating is that there seems to be a tendency on the left (and whilst it is not exclusive to the left, I think it is certainly more prevalent) to stick rigidly to this or that programmatic point or dogmatic belief. What sharing stories on an equal basis can do, I think, is to provide a concrete way of doing what I have suggested in this and other threads that we do more of - self-criticse, engage on an honest, equal and respectful level with other struggles be they in the arena of gender, race, or any other issue of oppression.

I do agree that it is not easy to define oppression and perhaps we are not very good at this for the reason that oppression differs in form and content and the same arena of oppression (i.e. race or gender) might be different across different cultures and locations.

[VivalaCuarta]

The second biggest problem on the left (or on RevLeft) is that so many people confuse their belly aches and their whims for politics and insist that Marxism accommodate their longwinded personalist bellyaching.

Trotsky had your number:


a disdainful attitude toward theory and an inclination toward eclecticism; disrespect for the tradition of their own organization; anxiety for personal “independence” at the expense of anxiety for objective truth; nervousness instead of consistency; readiness to jump from one position to another; lack of understanding of revolutionary centralism and hostility toward it; and finally, inclination to substitute clique ties and personal relationships for party discipline.

("A Petty-Bourgeois Opposition in the Socialist Workers Party," 15 December 1939)

[Five Year Plan]

There also seems to be (at least in the UK here) more of a community for lesbians and gays, whereas as I said when this person was bisexual they were very much isolated, even from the lesbian and gay sections of the LGBT community.

As a gay man, I'd really love to know: what is this LGBT community you speak of? Where can I find it?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

What I think your example (and though i've not quoted it i'm including your personal story here) illustrates is that cultural expectations and norms vary around the world, which is problematic because it prevents any one group, be it socialists or liberals, from being able to created a 'unified political theory of everything' in a neat, tick-box sort of way.

I found your story interesting and it's that sort of exposure I think that can open people's eyes up and, as I have said to you in other threads too, I think that bringing these sorts of personal experiences to our politics can be invaluable in helping others to a) empathise with your own experience, and also b) understand that what holds true for one person's reality is not necessarily the objective reality in another person's situation.

What I do find frustrating is that there seems to be a tendency on the left (and whilst it is not exclusive to the left, I think it is certainly more prevalent) to stick rigidly to this or that programmatic point or dogmatic belief. What sharing stories on an equal basis can do, I think, is to provide a concrete way of doing what I have suggested in this and other threads that we do more of - self-criticse, engage on an honest, equal and respectful level with other struggles be they in the arena of gender, race, or any other issue of oppression.

I do agree that it is not easy to define oppression and perhaps we are not very good at this for the reason that oppression differs in form and content and the same arena of oppression (i.e. race or gender) might be different across different cultures and locations.

I did not post "my personal story", nor do I intend to. I posted about some of the problems homosexual and bisexual people experience, in a somewhat personalised manner as I have had this exact conversation several times in the past and in most cases I have been accused of being a "biphobe", someone who has no personal understanding of what bisexual people experience and so on. But the information is valid across national and cultural boundaries - gay people might experience additional problems in, for example, Iran, but there is unfortunately no region of the world where a gay person is not exposed to structural violence in the form of homophobic attacks, employment problems etc.

In fact I don't think that it is particularly difficult to define oppression - oppression is structural violence. Obviously there are grey areas, and no one in their right mind would imagine there is some sort of "checklist" one could use to determine whether a specific group is oppressed, but at the same time there have to be some criteria. Otherwise we are forced to either ignore the issue, decide on the issue arbitrarily, or simply accept any and all claims of oppression, and I don't think men, white people, the petite bourgeoisie or people who think they're leprechauns are oppressed as such (that is - as men, as white people...).

You, however, seem just about ready to ignore the objective existence of oppression. That is not exactly compatible with any form of Marxism or materialism in general - and it doesn't help. It reduces oppression from a vast, material system of violence to a matter of individual feeling. In a very real sense, it trivialises it, as it implies that what a gay or black worker experiences in America (for example) is analogous to when some self-absorbed teenager feels oppressed because someone doesn't understand what specific part of the "forest of identifications" they subscribe to (tri-hemi-sexual and so on - making fun of these things is almost too cheap).

[Five Year Plan]

870's lapse into personalism and lifestylism! Stay tuned for footage: news at 11!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

870's lapse into personalism and lifestylism! Stay tuned for footage: news at 11!

I don't think VL4 was commenting on my post. I'll tell on him to Parks if he was.

[VivalaCuarta]

870's lapse into personalism and lifestylism! Stay tuned for footage: news at 11!

Just in case you are referring to my previous post: that is not what I meant, so I guess my previous comment was poorly worded. My comments were aimed at VIL and the Red Economist mostly. 870's notes about the definition of oppression appeared while I was typing it.

[Five Year Plan]

No, the comment was not aimed at you VL4. It was a joke about 870's immediate and unequivocal disavowal of even the possibility that he was sharing his personal story. :lol:

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

No, the comment was not aimed at you VL4. It was a joke about 870's immediate and unequivocal disavowal of even the possibility that he was sharing his personal story. :lol:

Ha, if I was, no one reading it would be awake right now.

[Rafiq]

There are an infinite amount of problems. All of them come down to the state of the Left itself. The Left today is a protest movement that has accepted the infallibility of capitalist ideology. It is a Left that has lost its own heart, which is a parody of the historical Communist movement. The Left today, above all things fears power.

Another problem is that there are reactionary and petty bourgeois trends that overwhelmingly plague the Left, so much so to the point that all identification we could possibly have with much of the Left is solely cosmetic. Because the application of 20th century Communist ideology in the 21st century is reactionary - the only place something like Leninism has today is to serve a reactionary role in the totality of capitalist politics.

Notice how it is almost indecipherable to identify what it actually means to be part of the Left with the ability for (Leftists) to assume every which position. We can support reactionaries in the name of anti-Imperialism. We can support Imperialism in the name of progress. The Left has lost both its head and heart and the absence if a single, uniform Communism has destroyed the Left. Communist ideology derives from existing premises - and it is written with the blood of the worker's movement. We can only conceptualize and formulate a Communist universe (ideology) through the struggle for power by the proletariat. However the class struggle is not going to pick up. It will go through a series of bizarre fluctuations, always muddied with reactionary petty bourgeois ideology only to bring it once more to its knees. The proletariat today is ready to fight - mark my words the time for Communism is precisely now. We no longer live in the 1990's, degenerate ideologies today have formed formidable challenges to bourgeois liberalism. What's the point? The point is that the Left sees the subject, be it the "working class" or "the people" as an external subject that will carry out its Utopian aims for them. There is no 'other' which will restore our glory and rightfully assume the legacy of Communism - our whole legacy is at stake and we throw it to the dogs of superstition. We have already seen what 'the people' are doing on their own - modern emulations of Fascism and degenerate bourgeois ideologies. Dissatisfaction with the existing order never organically presumes and upholds the achievements of the existing order (in retrospect to a previous one).

It is not enough to be a Marxist. Often Marxism today takes a strictly anti-political character prevailing almost solely in universities. What we need today is real Marxist politics and the merger of Marxism with the worker's movement. Marxism without Communism is blind and dispirited. We must cease to step into the abyss of obscure identity politics with all such bizarre, carefully crafted and specified formulations and return to our roots: We must re-conceptualize Marxism, we must seek a careful return to classical Marxism and understand Marx in response to Hegel who without which there would be no Marx.

To his deathbed Marx, for example, presumed many things solely introduced by Hegel. To do away with these presumptions is to do away with Marx himself.

It is ridiculous for anyone to say Communism can be casual and simply a rational deduction by the proletariat. Those who trivialize the ferocity of Communism do not recognize the power of ruling ideology. Instead they reinforce it by presuming its most basic presumptions. If Communism does not encompass the heart and soul, if Communism does not possess (I say this unapologetically) our deepest sentiments it does not exist. Communism is not adhered to as a result of basic logic or careful reasoning. Communism is an ideology and ideology constitutes a distinct universe. The desire to radically change the fundamental relations of power, the stormy alterations of revolution - as Lenin called it, can never be sustained by rationality or modest deductions alone. This pervades in our deepest sentiments, Communism is the truest expression of universal love, political love - and at the same time the scorching fires of hatred, the hatred of the damned, of the exploited against the exploiters.

The Communist spirit entails our ideas in relation to our social being. These cannot simply be developed by self consciousness or recognition of facts but a thirst - a thirst for real action. It requires real belief. A Communist who does not understand this is like a secular Jew who still refrains from eating pork out of the most basic, deep and tacit superstition. We know, but insofar as it affects our actual, immediate reality? (rather than an ABSTRACT reality).

[Red Economist]

The second biggest problem on the left (or on RevLeft) is that so many people confuse their belly aches and their whims for politics and insist that Marxism accommodate their longwinded personalist bellyaching.

Trotsky had your number:

Quote:
a disdainful attitude toward theory and an inclination toward eclecticism; disrespect for the tradition of their own organization; anxiety for personal “independence” at the expense of anxiety for objective truth; nervousness instead of consistency; readiness to jump from one position to another; lack of understanding of revolutionary centralism and hostility toward it; and finally, inclination to substitute clique ties and personal relationships for party discipline.
("A Petty-Bourgeois Opposition in the Socialist Workers Party," 15 December 1939)


Just in case you are referring to my previous post: that is not what I meant, so I guess my previous comment was poorly worded. My comments were aimed at VIL and the Red Economist mostly. 870's notes about the definition of oppression appeared while I was typing it.

I will apologize for being wrong, but I won't apologize for being free.