I don't identify as a leftist (except when I'm being especially lazy), but then I don't identify as an anarchist either. There are some anarchists who reject the leftist label, but the vast majority embrace it.
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The left is too broad a church to be meaningful. By the left people mean anything from the self-emancipation of the proletariat and the destruction of present society to the preservation of capitalism. Shit, there are scabs who are considered left wing! The left includes 3 lots of class interests (prole, petit & huate bourg) which inevitably results in calls for 'left unity' being fundamentally class collaborationist and thus incapable of the revolutionary transformation of society. While of course recognising anarchism is 'of the left' i sigh everytime i'm associated with a class i fight against
I don't identify as a leftist (except when I'm being especially lazy), but then I don't identify as an anarchist either. There are some anarchists who reject the leftist label, but the vast majority embrace it.
"It is slaves, struggling to throw off their chains, who unleash the movement whereby history abolishes masters." - Raoul Vaneigem
"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things." - Karl Marx
"What distinguishes reform from revolution is not that revolution is violent, but that it links insurrection and communisation." - Gilles Dauvé
Anarchists do call themselves leftists...
Unless you get those stuck-up ones that say stuff like: "No, no, we are beyond the spectrum"/"We are our own thing bro".
Is it just anarchist intellectual pursuits that you find so pretentious, or all intellectual pursuits?
Am I to understand from this little intervention that, in your view, the concept of 'moving beyond' and progressing from failed practices is something to be opposed?
I find that to be a fundamentally conservative point-of-view. Then again it comes as no surprise, since conservative attitudes are pretty much indicative of leftism.
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As we all know 1789 French politics is the be all end all of the political spectrum? That's a pretty silly worldview, really, as the "right wing" doesn't exist anymore, to be replaced by the capitalist right wing and the "left wing" is, well, in shambles and has shown itself to be opposed to the communist movement every time. Not even modern day capitalist politics can really be seen as a mere left-right divide.Originally Posted by Psycho P and the Freight Train
What makes someone a leftist anyway? A desire for egalitarianism? Engels showed many times that egalitarianism is a bourgeois hypocrisy, that it is the ideology of the bourgeoisie; the worst caricature of marxism is that it is for "equality."
"We must flee from Time, we must create a life that is feminine and human - it is these imperative objectives that must guide us in this world heavy with catastrophes."
Jacques Camatte, Echos from the Past
"For example, to say that the relation between industrial capital and the class of the wage workers is expressed in precisely the same way in Belgium and Thailand, and that the praxis of their respective struggles should be established without taking into account in either of the two cases the factors of race or nationality, does not mean you are an extremist, but it means in effect that you have understood nothing of Marxism."
Amadeo Bordiga, Factors of Race and Nation in the Marxist Analysis
How so exactly?
Post-left anarchy is pretty cool. I like a lot of the anti-work stuff.
Come little children, I'll take thee away, into a land of enchantment, come little children, the times come to play, here in my garden of magic.
"I'm tired of this "isn't humanity neat," bullshit. We're a virus with shoes."-Bill Hicks.
I feel the Bern and I need penicillin
there's certainly no shortage of 'left' ideologies that have dramatically increased hierarchy, for one. i think the political compass left/right/up/down scale is more useful
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
i think a lot of people from 'the left', anarchists included, are jumping ship or already have, not that post-left mopey and pessimistic shit is now radikewl or anything but there's a general shift in what folks feel is important/realistic or maybe I am getting older and friends are too and we're going through some opposite to what usually happens where folks get liberalized and a house, job, retirement, dead (instead we live forever as vagrant scavengers and cafe urchins bleeding out intellectually into complete imminent madness)
"whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams"
http://youtu.be/g-PwIDYbDqI
Well I certainly agree that it's a simplistic and unhelpful term. Saying someone is "left" or "right" can have a huge range, which is why people shouldn't just casually label themselves as that without giving a specific name to their beliefs.
But it still stands. It is an absolute that the less reaction, the further left you are. If someone promoted capitalism during feudal times, they would be the furthest left on the spectrum. The spectrum may be absolute in its relation to reaction, but that doesn't mean what's considered left or right can't change as society changes.
Many many fascists claim that they are outside of the spectrum and reject the notion that they are right wing because they claim to offer an alternative modernist worldview, rejecting anything that came from the legacy of the Enlightenment. That doesn't mean that they are correct. Since fascism is the furthest reactionary line one can hold, they are the furthest right, and that will always remain true.
The artist formerly known as Ace Steel
Isn't the furthest reaction one can get primitivism and fascism be a pretty "modern" ideology, considering that it is not a return to feudalism, but rather an ideology of the real domination of capital?
"We must flee from Time, we must create a life that is feminine and human - it is these imperative objectives that must guide us in this world heavy with catastrophes."
Jacques Camatte, Echos from the Past
"For example, to say that the relation between industrial capital and the class of the wage workers is expressed in precisely the same way in Belgium and Thailand, and that the praxis of their respective struggles should be established without taking into account in either of the two cases the factors of race or nationality, does not mean you are an extremist, but it means in effect that you have understood nothing of Marxism."
Amadeo Bordiga, Factors of Race and Nation in the Marxist Analysis
Primitivism is right there very close to fascism, yes. The reason fascism is a bit further right is because it is actually a mass so-called "populist" movement that makes use of "modernity" to promote reaction on a massive so-called "revolutionary" (their words) scale.
Primitivism doesn't really make use of mobilizing on such a large scale to achieve its reaction. But yeah, that can be debated.
The artist formerly known as Ace Steel
Fascism didn't really turn the clock backwards, but really kinda secured it its place. I'm not saying fascism isn't bad but fascism is one of the ideologies used to further capital's real domination - not some arch reactionary nonsense that went back to pre capitalism but made capitalism Extra Secure. a lot of leftists have this weird metaphysical fixation on fascism when really fascism isn't "far right" but rather a syncretic.
Like neoliberalism. That isn't left wing but if right wing = reactionary (turning back the clock) then neoliberalism isn't possibly right wing either, as it solidifies capitalism, it doesn't return to some pre capitalist land.
"We must flee from Time, we must create a life that is feminine and human - it is these imperative objectives that must guide us in this world heavy with catastrophes."
Jacques Camatte, Echos from the Past
"For example, to say that the relation between industrial capital and the class of the wage workers is expressed in precisely the same way in Belgium and Thailand, and that the praxis of their respective struggles should be established without taking into account in either of the two cases the factors of race or nationality, does not mean you are an extremist, but it means in effect that you have understood nothing of Marxism."
Amadeo Bordiga, Factors of Race and Nation in the Marxist Analysis
But there are no significant contemporary political ideologies that want to "turn back the clock", so it would seem that if this is the criterion used when talking about reactionary politics - there is no such a thing.
FKA LinksRadikal
“The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties – this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.” Friedrich Engels
"The proletariat is its struggle; and its struggles have to this day not led it beyond class society, but deeper into it." Friends of the Classless Society
"Your life is survived by your deeds" - Steve von Till
I meant the typical "back in the old days" be this the old days of "laissez-faire," of small businesses and competition, of social democracy, of kings, of feudalism. Reactionary in that regard, wishing for an earlier capitalism. Or even a pre capitalism in some cases. Even fascists want to go back to the good old days of fascism, today they are among the arch reactionaries (or are getting close to it).
"We must flee from Time, we must create a life that is feminine and human - it is these imperative objectives that must guide us in this world heavy with catastrophes."
Jacques Camatte, Echos from the Past
"For example, to say that the relation between industrial capital and the class of the wage workers is expressed in precisely the same way in Belgium and Thailand, and that the praxis of their respective struggles should be established without taking into account in either of the two cases the factors of race or nationality, does not mean you are an extremist, but it means in effect that you have understood nothing of Marxism."
Amadeo Bordiga, Factors of Race and Nation in the Marxist Analysis
Moving beyond the historical experience of the revolutionary left does not negate that you are leftists. You are leftists whether you like it or not. Also, I don't see a lot moving beyond.
pew pew pew
I see what you're getting at. I don't think reactionary is completely synonymous with turning back the clock or anything. Although turning back the clock is
a reactionary concept.
I agree with your analysis of fascism except that I believe it certainly is right wing. Just because they don't want to start hunting/gathering like our ancient ancestors doesn't mean that they aren't the epitome of reaction. In fact, their ultra nationalist hunger for an alternate modern world is precisely more reactionary than primitivism because they want to apply their beliefs to a modern world.
That sounded pretty damn convoluted, but I'm tired as shit. Hope you get what I'm saying though.
The artist formerly known as Ace Steel
"Moving beyond the Left" sounds like intellectual masturbation over labels.
"I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property." - Assata Shakur
hey...
noOriginally Posted by remus
nopeOriginally Posted by psycho p
its not about labels, it is about praxis.Originally Posted by danielle
'heavens above, how awful it is to live outside the law - one is always expecting what one rightly deserves.'
petronius, the satyricon
Since 'moving beyond' those historical experiences and practices is to reject leftism that is precisely what it negates.
As already stated, to be a leftist is to embrace leftism and since leftism is something that we are talking about rejecting, that necessarily makes us not leftists. Whether you like it or not.
Then pay more attention.
