What is really important!

[the-red-under-the-bed]

Too many people on this forum i belive lose sight of what is really important.

in the eternal words of the big K Man, (karl marx)

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

You can have the most perfect rhetoric in the world, but if you not active in the struggle, or your active in a stupid, dogmatic and sectarian way, then you will get nowhere, and infact hold the movement back.

The only true way to test your theory, is to take it into the streets, try in in reality and see what you can achieve. A debate online proves nothing.

Too few people here realise this.

Obviously discussion is a good thing, and this site is amazingly helpful as a forum to share experiances and knowedge, but everyone needs to remember,

the essential thing and true test of your politics is in reality

[mikelepore]

Ever notice it's always the other person who's dogmatic and sectarian?

It's always the case that "Me - I'm adhering to important and fundamental principles. You - you're dogmatic and sectarian."

As comedian George Carlin said, "Did you ever notice that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac?"

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Ever notice it's always the other person who's dogmatic and sectarian?

It's always the case that "Me - I'm adhering to important and fundamental principles. You - you're dogmatic and sectarian."

As comedian George Carlin said, "Did you ever notice that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac?"

George Carlin has his way with words. :)

[Kami]

being philisophical, but loosing sight of the activism side seems to me not quite so tragic as being active, but loosing sight of the philosophical side, which many are equally guilty of.
As for your complaint, the purpose of a forum is discussion; just because memebers don't appear active on a forum does not mean they aren't active IRL.

[Dros]

1.) How old are you?

2.) Yes. We don't live on line. I personally am active in the "real world" far more than I am here. And so are most of the people on this forum. Are you?

3.) Without a theoretical basis, effecting change is impossible.

[the-red-under-the-bed]

1, i dont see how age is important, but i will say ive finnnished highschool and im a full time worker

2, yes, there are allot of good people on here who are good activists, and this site is a great resorce in shareing ideas and experiance and news from around the world. that being said, there are allot of wankers on here with nothing more then dogma.

3 yes i agree, but with out an activist base to your theory, enacting anything is impossible

[Die Neue Zeit]

You can have the most perfect rhetoric in the world, but if you not active in the struggle, or your active in a stupid, dogmatic and sectarian way, then you will get nowhere, and infact hold the movement back.

The only true way to test your theory, is to take it into the streets, try in in reality and see what you can achieve. A debate online proves nothing.

I haven't come up with my neologism through debate. I have done extensive reading of various works (Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Lenin, and especially modern articles and websites), and through that process came up with what I came up with.

That someone else is organizing around my neologism means something (escaping the "double-duth words" known as "dictatorship of the proletariat," "socialism," and "communism"). That you yourself are receptive to my neologism means something, as well.


Too few people here realise this.

Obviously discussion is a good thing, and this site is amazingly helpful as a forum to share experiences and knowledge, but everyone needs to remember,

the essential thing and true test of your politics is in reality

There's a key difference between jumping at the edge of a high-up diving board (for a proper dive) and simply walking past that high-up diving board.

Please consider my conciliatory response in your Chit-Chat thread. :)

[Kami]

1, i dont see how age is important, but i will say ive finnnished highschool and im a full time worker
I'll agree with you here, mainly because I'm the same age :P
...

3 yes i agree, but with out an activist base to your theory, enacting anything is impossible
Here I must differ; an activist "base" is not what we need; thought comes before action, else action is meaningless; activism comes always from a theoretical base

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Thank you for that remark, akin to a proper dive. :)

[RNK]

2.) Yes. We don't live on line. I personally am active in the "real world" far more than I am here. And so are most of the people on this forum. Are you?

No, not really. I mean, I'll go out to demonstrations every once in awhile, sell some papers, hand out flyers, so on and so forth, but I'm far more active here than I am in real life.

Difference, though, is that I don't hold any erroneous beliefs that my time here is worth a damn. But my leisure time is essentially dedicated to being wasted. If I weren't here I'd probably be watching TV, playing video games, jerking off or browsing some dank corner of the internet.

But it's not like any of us do anything important. Selling papers, handing out flyers, yelling at protests, maybe taking part in a riot or two if we're lucky. That's about as "active" as most if not all of us around here get. Maybe there's one or two...

[mikelepore]

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

I wonder if we can all agree that philosophical speculation not directly related to changing the world is, at least, no worst than diversion or entertainment in general. I mean, nothing is gained if a person says, "My philosophical preoccupation doesn't help to improve society, so instead I'll lie on the sofa and listen to rock'n'roll."

[Niccolò Rossi]

Without a theoretical basis, effecting change is impossible.

If this statement is to be interpreted generally, I would disagree. Real world action does not necessitate a theoretical basis, rather it is the idea in the form theory which has it's grounding in the real material world of life action.


Men must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, and therefore must work, before they can fight for domination, pursue politics, religion, philosophy and so on

This is Marxism 101. Knowledge (specifically class consciousness) is not brought down from the heavens. It has it's basis in the real material world. Action (without theory) can and does occur spontaneously, rooted in a deep human necessity.

The stance that a socialist revolution will occur spontaneously is another stance entirely (one I would object/disagree to), but generally speaking, claiming action must have a theoretical basis is just upside down thinking, something we have Lenin to thank for.

[the-red-under-the-bed]

Yes good theory is essential, im not trying to argue the oppersite, but as important as your theory is, your actions are essential as well.

Without theory, your actions are blind, but without actions, your theory is impotent.

[cenv]

Too many people on this forum i belive lose sight of what is really important.

in the eternal words of the big K Man, (karl marx)

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it."

You can have the most perfect rhetoric in the world, but if you not active in the struggle, or your active in a stupid, dogmatic and sectarian way, then you will get nowhere, and infact hold the movement back.

The only true way to test your theory, is to take it into the streets, try in in reality and see what you can achieve. A debate online proves nothing.

Too few people here realise this.

Obviously discussion is a good thing, and this site is amazingly helpful as a forum to share experiances and knowedge, but everyone needs to remember,

the essential thing and true test of your politics is in reality
well, don't you think it might be more productive to figure out what kinds of action we should be engaging in? You aren't the first here to point out the lack of successful "action"... but I think the problem is finding kinds of "action" that produce results, not going out and being "active" for the sake of being a "good activist." as RNK points out, most of the stuff we do isn't that useful. it's easy to say that we need to "take it into the streets, try it in reality," but the truth is that generations of "revolutionaries" have been doing this without much luck.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Without theory, your actions are blind, but without actions, your theory is impotent.

What's wrong with blind action if motivated by human necessity.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The stance that a socialist revolution will occur spontaneously is another stance entirely (one I would object/disagree to), but generally speaking, claiming action must have a theoretical basis is just upside down thinking, something we have Lenin to thank for.

Comrade, I think Lenin was VERY specific when talking about "action." He wasn't talking about just any plain action. For example, when he talks about so-called "trade unionism" in WITBD, he wasn't talking about "trade unionism" as we know it today; he was talking about tred-iunionizm in terms of the reductionist notion "nothing but trade unions."

[Die Neue Zeit]

"Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." (Lenin)

Comrade Zeitgeist, I do think that Lenin was very specific here. "Revolutionary movement" goes beyond spontaneous action (which, as you said, CAN happen).

What makes key movements revolutionary is their organization around revolutionary theory, which in turn is grounded on the prevailing material conditions. Perhaps Lenin should have been clearer here. :(

In any event, even Cockshott and Cottrell quoted Lenin:

http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/preface-a4.pdf


A century ago, pressing for the establishment of the Russian communist party, Lenin wrote that “without revolutionary theory there could be no revolutionary movement”. We can generalize this to say that without adequate theoretical understanding no social group can constitute itself as a class in the political sense.

[Niccolò Rossi]

What makes key movements revolutionary is their organization around revolutionary theory, which in turn is grounded on the prevailing material conditions. Perhaps Lenin should have been clearer here.

I would agree with this, the comment I made above was a spontaneous reflex against this particular Lenin quote. It puts theory in the light of a gift from the heavens and fails to recognise it's real material roots.

Action is based on theory in so far as theory is based on and represents real material conditions.