Defeatist Attitude among Leftists

[Loony Le Fist]

I'm sure many of you have also experienced the defeatist and negative attitudes that permeate the left. It is disappointing to watch. The only way we can smash capital is by truly believing it is not only just but possible. It is tough to believe the world will change. We know things will get a lot worse before they get better. That is precisely why the left will win. How do others feel?

[The Intransigent Faction]

I'm sure many of you have also experienced the defeatist and negative attitudes that permeate the left. It is disappointing to watch. The only way we can smash capital is by truly believing it is not only just but possible. It is tough to believe the world will change. We know things will get a lot worse before they get better. That is precisely why the left will win. How do others feel?

I think fatalism is a mistake, whether in the defeatist variant or the teleological "don't worry, the contradictions of capital will inevitably lead to socialism" variant, but we need to keep in mind the difference between "defeatism" and refusal to engage in the same old failed tactics. If we don't do that, then yeah, we are screwed.

[Armchair Partisan]

Defeatism is more of an issue among those workers who understand the problems of class society (even if within a social-democratic or liberal mindset) but think that there is no chance for a revolution anyway so it's better to just take their chances with a 'capitalism with a human face'. Revolutionary leftists, in my experience, tend to be a lot more motivated already.

[motion denied]

we're fucked

[bcbm]

i dont see any reason not to be pessimistic

[Rafiq]

As someone who is capable of being politically conscious, as someone who has been possessed by the ideas of Communism, then the point is to keep fighting even if you know failure is an inevitability. With everything that you should know, to passively accept the existing order should take more of a toll than to oppose it.

[The Feral Underclass]

I'm sure many of you have also experienced the defeatist and negative attitudes that permeate the left. It is disappointing to watch. The only way we can smash capital is by truly believing it is not only just but possible. It is tough to believe the world will change. We know things will get a lot worse before they get better. That is precisely why the left will win. How do others feel?

The only way to smash capital is by believing it is just and possible?...What kind of hippy-dippy nonsense is that?

The issue here isn't defeatism, it's delusion.

[BIXX]

Who even cares if it's possible? I just want to enjoy myself in revolt... if something comes of it, great.

[Loony Le Fist]

The only way to smash capital is by believing it is just and possible?...What kind of hippy-dippy nonsense is that?

The issue here isn't defeatism, it's delusion.

How will you bring others to your side if you don't even believe in your own ideas. You cannot convince others if you can't even convince yourself. Now that's delusional. You cannot fight capital with weapons alone. Especially when your enemy is most powerful in that dimension.

Perhaps you prefer that we all stay in our mother's basements, eagerly awaiting a revolution that will never come?

[Loony Le Fist]

Who even cares if it's possible? I just want to enjoy myself in revolt... if something comes of it, great.

Of course it's possible. Revolting is the first step. It must be seen through for meaningful change to ever happen.

[Cliff Paul]

"Do you know what I really think? My own opinion? I think time is running short. I think time is running short. I think there are forces of evil in the world. I think that global capitalism is just, like, one inch away from being everywhere. I think now is not the time to be frittering away playing in a silly-assed post-rock band. I think everything you do in the face of this is inadequate...Which is good, it's all good, it's good to make feeble attempts, right? I think that's what they are. It's like throwing yourself up against a big fucking wall and the wall is just getting bigger and bigger...That's not hopeless!...It's beautiful. It's beautiful that people try to do it. It's beautiful that people exist..."

Efrim from Godspeed

[G4b3n]

Veteran defeatist reporting for duty.

[Popular Front of Judea]

How will you bring others to your side if you don't even believe in your own ideas. You cannot convince others if you can't even convince yourself. Now that's delusional. You cannot fight capital with weapons alone. Especially when your enemy is most powerful in that dimension.

Perhaps you prefer that we all stay in our mother's basements, eagerly awaiting a revolution that will never come?
No I expect you to leave your mother's basement, go live your adult life while waiting for a revolution that never comes...

[Mr. Piccolo]

It is the product of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transition to capitalism of the other Marxist-Leninist states like China which badly disoriented the Left. I don't know how the Left will get out of its rut.

[Popular Front of Judea]

It is the product of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transition to capitalism of the other Marxist-Leninist states like China which badly disoriented the Left. I don't know how the Left with get out of its rut.
The left has been in this rut for the past 25 or so years. So far its most successful intervention to date was Occupy. Alas

[Mr. Piccolo]

The left has been in this rut for the past 25 or so years. So far its most successful intervention to date was Occupy. Alas

Yep. Its pretty sad. Although I think, because of their excessively hierarchical nature, the M-L states were bound to collapse because there was no reason for the elite in those states to keep their system going when they could become wealthier and more powerful under capitalism. I am not a total Tankie. :)

I think the Left has had some serious difficulty dealing with the issue of organizational strategy over the last 25 years and some significant new thinking is in order.

[The Feral Underclass]

The left has been in this rut for the past 25 or so years. So far its most successful intervention to date was Occupy. Alas

In what way was occupy successful?

[The Feral Underclass]

How will you bring others to your side if you don't even believe in your own ideas. You cannot convince others if you can't even convince yourself. Now that's delusional. You cannot fight capital with weapons alone. Especially when your enemy is most powerful in that dimension.

Perhaps you prefer that we all stay in our mother's basements, eagerly awaiting a revolution that will never come?

You said that the only way to smash capitalism was to believe it was just and possible. Do you wonna revise that statement or are you still gonna go with it?

[motion denied]

Fuck cynicism though.

[Loony Le Fist]

You said that the only way to smash capitalism was to believe it was just and possible. Do you wonna revise that statement or are you still gonna go with it?

That would be the starting point. There is nothing to revise. Only by knowing that something is possible can thoughts translate into action.

[human strike]

That would be the starting point. There is nothing to revise. Only by knowing that something is possible can thoughts translate into action.

You assume thoughts translate into action when I find the opposite to be true.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Fuck cynicism though.

Cynical people are actually easier to reach for leftists, at least in my experience. The charge of cynicism is ironically used to dismiss those for whom reforms are not enough when they dare to argue that reforms are not enough.

[ckaihatsu]

Cynical people are actually easier to reach for leftists, at least in my experience.




The charge of cynicism is ironically used to dismiss those for whom reforms are not enough when they dare to argue that reforms are not enough.


You're essentially saying that the term 'cynical' is pejoratively used on those who express either revolutionary or ultra-leftist views -- if this is somehow actually true (though not in my own experience), then it *has* to be atypical.

More commonly it would be the *inverse* -- where the term would be applied to someone who has vested interests in the system, meaning that they're not radical or revolutionary enough, and thus overly pessimistic compared to potential possibilities.





cyn·i·cal (sĭn′ĭ-kəl)

adj.

1. Believing or showing the belief that people are motivated chiefly by base or selfish concerns; skeptical of the motives of others: a cynical dismissal of the politician's promise to reform the campaign finance system.

2. Selfishly or callously calculating: showed a cynical disregard for the safety of his troops in his efforts to advance his reputation.

3. Negative or pessimistic, as from world-weariness: a cynical view of the average voter's intelligence.

4. Expressing jaded or scornful skepticism or negativity: cynical laughter.




http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cynical

[The Intransigent Faction]

You're essentially saying that the term 'cynical' is pejoratively used on those who express either revolutionary or ultra-leftist views

Insofar as those views are expressed by rejections of reform of the existing system. Anyone who rejects participation in bourgeois elections or expresses doubts about the effectiveness of single-issue 'liberal activism' is quickly branded as completely cynical precisely because hegemonic ideology and the media does not permit such positions to be registered in workers' consciousness as based on awareness of a possible alternative.

What I am suggesting is that what the 'acceptable narrative' presents is a half-truth, and that what people are expressing could be called cynicism toward participation in existing institutions. Granted, such cynicism tends to carry with it doubts about the possibility of constructing alternative institutions, but this is not based on privilege or conscious and active opposition to an alternative.

Certainly, in my experience, it's much easier for leftists to appeal to people who don't see their votes/signatures on petitions/consumer choices as making a difference than to appeal to those who do, even if they're initial reaction when presented with an alternative is doubt (rather than outright hostility, as seen when you tell a liberal that you won't be voting Liberal just because the Conservatives might otherwise win).

[ckaihatsu]

Insofar as those views are expressed by rejections of reform of the existing system. Anyone who rejects participation in bourgeois elections or expresses doubts about the effectiveness of single-issue 'liberal activism' is quickly branded as completely cynical precisely because hegemonic ideology and the media does not permit such positions to be registered in workers' consciousness as based on awareness of a possible alternative.

What I am suggesting is that what the 'acceptable narrative' presents is a half-truth, and that what people are expressing could be called cynicism toward participation in existing institutions. Granted, such cynicism tends to carry with it doubts about the possibility of constructing alternative institutions, but this is not based on privilege or conscious and active opposition to an alternative.




Certainly, in my experience, it's much easier for leftists to appeal to people who don't see their votes/signatures on petitions/consumer choices as making a difference than to appeal to those who do, even if they're initial reaction when presented with an alternative is doubt


I may be helpful to just cut to the core of what they're basing their politics on -- ask them if they have been granted personal access to any politicians as a result of their (liberal) politics. If not, then on what general / public / collectivist basis have they benefitted, from having those politics -- ?

(A follow-up would be to ask if they know about 'income equality' and the '1%' -- what have their politics been doing lately to eradicate this fundamental structural elitism -- ?)





(rather than outright hostility, as seen when you tell a liberal that you won't be voting Liberal just because the Conservatives might otherwise win).

[The Feral Underclass]

That would be the starting point. There is nothing to revise. Only by knowing that something is possible can thoughts translate into action.

You don't understand what the word 'only' means.

[Loony Le Fist]

You don't understand what the word 'only' means.

Don't blame me for your inability to draw inferences and follow the point being made. In order to have action you must have an idea and believe in that idea. Only from that is it possible for action to spring forth. I apologize that is too difficult a conclusion for you to draw from what I was saying.

Why don't you offer some concrete ideas, instead of tearing down others? It sounds to me that you'd be at home with an idealogy that appeals to your desire to criticize without making any useful contribution of your own.

And BTW, your elitism and pretentiousness is incorrigible :laugh: It gives me hope that other leftists do not suffer from it.

Now are you going to contribute something about your observations of nihilism and defeatism amongst the left, or are you going to continue to spew your vitriolic and useless drivel in this thread?

[Ele'ill]

you don't have to have a solution/program/project in order to criticize things and not having a solution etc.. doesn't mean that you don't have ideas and being critical of a 'front' or movement, however diverse, doesn't mean that you can't act and it also doesn't mean that you have to act

[Jimmie Higgins]

Cynical people are actually easier to reach for leftists, at least in my experience. The charge of cynicism is ironically used to dismiss those for whom reforms are not enough when they dare to argue that reforms are not enough.If that were the case, then we'd have to set up a velvet rope and a bouncer to prevent overcrowding at anarchist and marxists events.

I think the premise of this thread is wrong - the population in general are cynical and beaten down from decades of gains by the ruling classes and loss of power and means to win even modest reforms by populations and this influences revolutionaries. Revolutionaries aren't in a vacuum and the prevailing mood of people is not optimism in the belief that anything can be any different or their ability to change things.

The general cynicism in society is not a problem for the ruling elite. In fact they coined the phrase, "There is no alternative". Sure people are cynical about liberals... but then they cynically vote for Democrats/Labor because it doesn't matter anyway and maybe it will be less-worse. People are cynical about the mainstream news, and then repeat the lies spread on it anyway because without a counter-narrative it just becomes "common sense". People are cynical about work (TGIF) but then try and talk to your co-workers about organizing a slow-down or walking-off and they are cynical about the ability of them and other co-workers to do so.

So cynicism is going with the flow today as much as optimism in gradual reforms and progress was going with the flow in the post-war period.

Cynicism and optimism are too abstract. Revolutionaries need to be both cynical (I think "critical" would be a better way to put it) about things changing on their own or through "progress" without working class intervention and optimistic that workers and the oppressed can alter present dynamics in ways that have the potential to produce a challenge to the status-quo and low-expectations among workers.

Riots, protests, workers organizing independently can make cynicism about the mainstream into something more than passivity. In Oakland, if you talked to black folks about police violence 5 years ago most people would respond, "yeah, fact of life, don't talk back to them, don't make eye-contact, put your hands against the wall when they ask etc". People actually fighting back, countering the official narrative changes this dynamic -- at least for a while and as long as this sentiment and organizing and discussion among people is out of reach of liberal politics dominating the narrative again.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Revolutionaries need to be both cynical (I think "critical" would be a better way to put it) about things changing on their own or through "progress" without working class intervention and optimistic that workers and the oppressed can alter present dynamics in ways that have the potential to produce a challenge to the status-quo and low-expectations among workers.

Riots, protests, workers organizing independently can make cynicism about the mainstream into something more than passivity. In Oakland, if you talked to black folks about police violence 5 years ago most people would respond, "yeah, fact of life, don't talk back to them, don't make eye-contact, put your hands against the wall when they ask etc". People actually fighting back, countering the official narrative changes this dynamic -- at least for a while and as long as this sentiment and organizing and discussion among people is out of reach of liberal politics dominating the narrative again.

I don't really take issue with any of this. Gramsci's attitude toward pessimism/optimism (as quoted in my sig) suggests something similar.

[The Feral Underclass]

Don't blame me for your inability to draw inferences and follow the point being made. In order to have action you must have an idea and believe in that idea. Only from that is it possible for action to spring forth. I apologize that is too difficult a conclusion for you to draw from what I was saying.

How does someone draw inferences from a statement presented as fact? You specifically said that the only way to bring down capitalism is to believe it is just and possible. You weren't equivocating or implying anything, so what was there to infer?


Why don't you offer some concrete ideas, instead of tearing down others? It sounds to me that you'd be at home with an idealogy that appeals to your desire to criticize without making any useful contribution of your own.

Firstly, you haven't presented any ideas. You have offered some pseudo-mystical pronouncement and expected us all to just accept it. Secondly, being critical does not come with some mandatory pre-requisite of having a solution. This infantile notion that people have to have ideas or solutions in order to make legitimate criticisms is simply a way to stifle debate and silence critics. It's an age old tactic and it should be roundly rejected.


Now are you going to contribute something about your observations of nihilism and defeatism amongst the left, or are you going to continue to spew your vitriolic and useless drivel in this thread?

I don't really need to justify what I am or am not going to do. Unless I'm breaking any board guidelines, I'll continue saying whatever I want...

[The Feral Underclass]

If that were the case, then we'd have to set up a velvet rope and a bouncer to prevent overcrowding at anarchist and marxists events.

I think the premise of this thread is wrong - the population in general are cynical and beaten down from decades of gains by the ruling classes and loss of power and means to win even modest reforms by populations and this influences revolutionaries. Revolutionaries aren't in a vacuum and the prevailing mood of people is not optimism in the belief that anything can be any different or their ability to change things.

The general cynicism in society is not a problem for the ruling elite. In fact they coined the phrase, "There is no alternative". Sure people are cynical about liberals... but then they cynically vote for Democrats/Labor because it doesn't matter anyway and maybe it will be less-worse. People are cynical about the mainstream news, and then repeat the lies spread on it anyway because without a counter-narrative it just becomes "common sense". People are cynical about work (TGIF) but then try and talk to your co-workers about organizing a slow-down or walking-off and they are cynical about the ability of them and other co-workers to do so.

So cynicism is going with the flow today as much as optimism in gradual reforms and progress was going with the flow in the post-war period.

Cynicism and optimism are too abstract. Revolutionaries need to be both cynical (I think "critical" would be a better way to put it) about things changing on their own or through "progress" without working class intervention and optimistic that workers and the oppressed can alter present dynamics in ways that have the potential to produce a challenge to the status-quo and low-expectations among workers.

Riots, protests, workers organizing independently can make cynicism about the mainstream into something more than passivity. In Oakland, if you talked to black folks about police violence 5 years ago most people would respond, "yeah, fact of life, don't talk back to them, don't make eye-contact, put your hands against the wall when they ask etc". People actually fighting back, countering the official narrative changes this dynamic -- at least for a while and as long as this sentiment and organizing and discussion among people is out of reach of liberal politics dominating the narrative again.

Do you not worry that this optimism (aka faith) is just a desperate way of creating a self-justifying fantasy that serves as a narrative for your life's work?

While I understand the temptation and even need to erect a mechanism of survival against the despair that capitalism creates, if we genuinely wish to see the coming of a communist age, then the self-delusion people allow themselves to live in needs to be addressed.

The left in the West has become simply a function of capitalism; it's official opposition. The emergence of a communist epoch is not inevitable. Doing revolutionary work guarantees nothing.

[The Feral Underclass]

Here is a quote for you:

"The domestication of humanity and the escape of capital are concepts which can explain the mentality and activity of those who claim to be revolutionaries and believe that they can intervene to hasten the onset of revolution: the fact is that they are playing roles which are a part of the old world. The revolution always eludes them and when there is any kind of upheaval they see it as something external to them, which they have to chase after in order to be acknowledged as "revolutionaries"."

https://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/agdom.htm

[The Feral Underclass]

You're essentially saying that the term 'cynical' is pejoratively used on those who express either revolutionary or ultra-leftist views -- if this is somehow actually true (though not in my own experience), then it *has* to be atypical.

More commonly it would be the *inverse* -- where the term would be applied to someone who has vested interests in the system, meaning that they're not radical or revolutionary enough, and thus overly pessimistic compared to potential possibilities.

I think Diogenese would have something to say about that definition.

[PhoenixAsh]

Sorry. But the revolutionary left is a joke...wasn't always the case. But we have come to a point a long time ago where we spend more time denouncing each other, movements and events over correct political lines than we do influencing them....and we have become marginalized as a result.

Put 12 revolutionaries in a room and you end up with 24 splits in a matter of hours....endless rehashing and quarreling over who the liberal is over unimportant theoretical issues either belonging in the past or pertaining to a victory we have not yet won.

And all the time we cling to tired old strategies which worked once or at one time....pretending we still mean something we no longer mean.

Is it possible? Sure it is. Should we stop trying? No we shouldn't. But it is increasingly becoming a theoretical possibility more and more....unless we find a way to radically alter our tactics, message and way we engage people.

[The Feral Underclass]

Is it possible? Sure it is.

Why is it sure though?

[bcbm]

Sorry. But the revolutionary left is a joke...wasn't always the case. But we have come to a point a long time ago where we spend more time denouncing each other, movements and events over correct political lines than we do influencing them....and we have become marginalized as a result.

even when the left wasnt marginalized everyone was busy denouncing each other.

[PhoenixAsh]

Why is it sure though?

Sure that it is a possibility? Or do you think I think it is sure in the sense of a certainty?


even when the left wasnt marginalized everyone was busy denouncing each other.

Hence why I said we arrived at that point a long time ago and the result of it was marginalization.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Do you not worry that this optimism (aka faith) is just a desperate way of creating a self-justifying fantasy that serves as a narrative for your life's work?

The emergence of a communist epoch is not inevitable. Doing revolutionary work guarantees nothing.


No because I don't have faith that communism is inevitable.

The faith is that capitalism creates situations that people will want or have to fight. How they do so and how well they do so is subjective and up in the air. How revolutionary trends develop, fail or succeed are all up in the air. I don't know for sure, but history seems to show this happen.

I don't have faith that there are one set of ideas or strategies that are most useful or correct in any given situation - just hunches and estimations and attempts to learn from experience (personal and historical). But I do think that how people subjectively act and organize themselves matters in some way.

However what the revolutionary-left does subjectively right now in many places doesn't matter much. Not because doesn't matter in the abstract, in my opinion, but because workers have few (and weak) bases of power right now. That helplessness is the source of the general cynical attitude among both the general population and within the left. So it's easy to be cynical because of current circumstances both for the population (particularly workers or the unemployed) as well as the left within (and a small part of) that population.

But I think that's a narrow view historically and a leap of logic to go from the observation that workers and the oppressed haven't been successfully fighting to conclude that people can't struggle or that it makes no difference if they do. Cynical leftists might (rightly, for the most part) point out that maybe people do struggle, but then that just goes towards reformist strategies and organizations. But if that is true, then the subjective activity and organization of people does matter! It would make no sense to argue that subjective action by groups in the population only matters in the negative.

So at times and in certain circumstances, it matters a lot how people organize themselves, how what they do and if they are acting independently in their own interest as workers or oppressed people or not. It matters in Greece if people think they can just vote for Syriza and the party will make capitalism easier on them or if they organize their own independent sources of power.

Do radicals who hold a cynical view of the potential for subjective actions by the population to accomplish anything worry that this view is just a way to pose as preceptive and create political concepts that are immune from being proven or disproven in practice?

[John Nada]

Everyone in this thread's talking about the left or it potential converts, but what about everything to the right? Are center-leftists, center-rightist and rightists optimistic, confident, and positive? Besides them not being lined up against the wall by a revolutionary firing squad, what is the right optimistic about? If anything, it seems the center-left, liberals, conservatives and the far-right don't think things are going their way either. They complain and argue all the time. Freak out over any recession. Why I remember when that crash happened the politicians and capitalist were afraid of even calling it a recession. Gordon Brown had plans drawn up for mashal law in case the masses rioted.

Third-world rulers fear coups, insurrections and military invasions. Even the first-world, various parties and ruling class cliques don't like each other. Various military alliances have members that piss other members off, such as France and Germany not going along with the Bush-Blair regime's Iraq war. Israel getting pissed at the US for deals with Iran. And Germany, once considered Russia's closes friend in Europe, helped the US overthrow a government friendly to Russia. China, which is a major trading partner with the US, is allies with Russia and back countries the US is hostile towards.

Democrats and Republicans, for example, fucking hate each other, even though they mostly agree to the point were they might as well be one party. Similar thing with Labour and the Conservative, A lot of various bourgeois figures back different sides, and would love nothing more than to take over another bourgeoisie business.

And I think the bourgeoisie fears the masses more than they'll admit. All that money spent on the military, police, prisons and surveillance, while cutting everything else, doesn't seem to be for show. Demanding the government impose austerity, and mostly abandoning Keynesian economics, is a defense to keep money, which various factions of the bourgeoisie have different views on. I'd say the bourgeoisie is scared both of the far-rightist(until the need them), and the left(who they don't need beyond cooping).

Perhaps all this cynicism is more a reflection of society at large.

[bcbm]

Hence why I said we arrived at that point a long time ago and the result of it was marginalization.

no i mean even prior to some high points everybody talked shit, i don't think talking shit has anything to do with why the left is marginalized. i guess maybe it feels like the situation can be more easily remedied to blame something like infighting, but the truth is that the revolutionary left got routed and defeated by our enemies and has never been able to take the initiative back.


Are center-leftists, center-rightist and rightists optimistic, confident, and positive?

fascists and their fellow travelers have been gaining a lot more momentum than the left. im sure theyre not all optimistic and positive, but many are.