His books are pretty interesting? I have nothing negative really to say.
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The Radical's Opinion on Howard Zinn
What do people think of Howard Zinn? From what I've seen from him, he was a socialist and wrote the book "A People's History of the United States", which is highly critical of capitalism of all sorts. However, it seems like a lot of liberals like him, which isn't such a good warning sign.
"Whatever you do, never lose your fondness of walking. I walk myself into my daily well-being, and I walk out of all illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so heavy that one cannot outwalk it." -Soren Kierkegaard.
"Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality. There remains madness, 'the madness that one locks up', as it has aptly been described. That madness or another..." -Andre Breton.
His books are pretty interesting? I have nothing negative really to say.
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
His works do have value, but he was more of a left-populist than anything else.
Left-wing liberals like to pay lip service to the labor movement, toting Howard Zinn is a pretty easy way to do that and still act like things are way better now (ie Mission Accomplished on the whole Labor Issue).
I like Howard Zinn. In my opinion was too critical of the Bolsheviks, and spent too much time talking about problems instead of solutions, but beyond that he was an excellent historian. A People's History of the United States sums up American history so eloquently, with so much detail and depth. If liberals and social democrats like to read his book and distort its message to fit their reformist agenda, that's their problem, not Zinn's.
Last edited by TheWannabeAnarchist; 16th August 2014 at 16:09.
Howard Zinn was a legend. He is sorely missed.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
^ Agreed.
"This is my test of character. There you have the despotic instinct of men. They do not like the cat because the cat is free, and will never consent to become a slave. He will do nothing to your order, as the other animals do." — Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
"The intellectual and emotional refusal 'to go along' appears neurotic and impotent." — Herbert Marcuse.
"Our blight is ideologies — they are the long-expected Antichrist!" — Carl Gustav Jung
People's History is just so essential to everything; who cares if liberals like him?
His last lecture "Holy Wars" is also especially worth hearing/reading if you haven't already.
He passed away the same year I graduated college. I'm forever grateful to the professor who brought Zinn--among many others--to my attention during my freshman year.
If it weren't for that professor and his reading lists, maybe I'd be a liberal myself.. Or worse...
*shudder*
Last edited by atheistpally; 25th October 2015 at 17:54.
I think he was a great academic and a great man. RIP.
http://ppe.mercatus.org/
Liberals also like pizza, poutine, and beer. Fuck, looks like the Left has to create radical alternatives to these.
We've got your war!
We're at the gates!
We're at your door!
We've got the guillotine...
He also wrote a pretty cool play that get's recommended on this forum every now and again: Marx in Soho.
+ YouTube Video
Modern democracy is nothing but the freedom to preach whatever is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie - Lenin
I think his writing is excellent, I'm about 90 pages into A People's History of the United States and I'm loving it.
I'd never even heard of poutine. I must try it. It looks really nice, I must say.
http://ppe.mercatus.org/
Pontine is delicious.
I wasn't aware that pizza dealt with political questions. I might be eating at the wrong pizzerias.
I think the last chapter of Zinn's most famous work, "A people's history..." is itself an indictment of his politics. Namely:
'Against the reality of that desperate, bitter battle for resources made scarce by elite control, I am taking the liberty of uniting those 99 percent as "the people." I have been writing a history that attempts to represent their submerged, deflected, common interest. To emphasize the commonality of the 99 percent, to declare deep enmity of interest with the 1 percent, is to do exactly what the governments of the United States, and the wealthy elite allied to them-from the Founding Fathers to now-have tried their best to prevent. Madison feared a "majority faction" and hoped the new Constitution would control it. He and his colleagues began the Preamble to the Constitution with the words "We the people ...," pretending that the new government stood for everyone, and hoping that this myth, accepted as fact, would ensure "domestic tranquility." '
'With such continuing malaise, it is very important for the Establishment-that uneasy club of business executives, generals, and politicos-to maintain the historic pretension of national unity, in which the government represents all the people, and the common enemy is overseas, not at home, where disasters of economics or war are unfortunate errors or tragic accidents, to be corrected by the members of the same club that brought the disasters. It is important for them also to make sure this artificial unity of highly privileged and slightly privileged is the only unity-that the 99 percent remain split in countless ways, and turn against one another to vent their angers.
How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred-by economic inequity-faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices. '
'The critical question in our time is whether the middle classes, so long led to believe that the solution for such crimes is more jails and more jail terms, may begin to see, by the sheer uncontrollability of crime, that the only prospect is an endless cycle of crime and punishment. They might then conclude that physical security for a working person in the city can come only when everyone in the city is working. And that would require a transformation of national priorities, a change in the system. '
'The society's levers of powers would have to be taken away from those whose drives have led to the present state-the giant corporations, the military, and their politician collaborators. '
Bourgeois populist twaddle, to put it simply. "Oh no they're taxing the middle class." "Oh no they're busing blacks into white neighbourhoods." "We have to take power away from the giant corporation." "The middle class needs to see that it can only be safe if MY populist proposals are put into effect."
Zinn's book is often used in high school classes in the US. I would much prefer a "Worker's History of the United States" which would teach about the bourgeois-democratic nature of the 1st and 2nd American revolutions.
My overall point is that just because a liberal likes something doesn't make it worthless. Last time I checked, communism wasn't about being "leftier than thou" and hating on things non-commies like. It was about changing the system, bringing about revolutionary change.
We've got your war!
We're at the gates!
We're at your door!
We've got the guillotine...
Zinn wanted to "change the system" by slashing the tax on "the middle class", restricting "corporations" and so on. He had nothing to say about the smashing of the bourgeois state or the socialisation of the means of production. That's why liberals liked him - because he was a liberal.
Liberals like a lot of things we like, at least on paper, but when it comes to politically-active individuals, you always have to ask yourself - why do they like them? Do they like C. Chavez because they think he helped workers or because they see a fellow anti-immigrant labour bureaucrat in him? Do they like Zinn because he once made some noises about a "revolution" (blatantly misusing the term), or because he talked about unity among "the 99%"?
Do you even know what liberalism is, 870? You throw the term around a lot, in a lot of places that don't make sense.
"Whatever you do, never lose your fondness of walking. I walk myself into my daily well-being, and I walk out of all illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so heavy that one cannot outwalk it." -Soren Kierkegaard.
"Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality. There remains madness, 'the madness that one locks up', as it has aptly been described. That madness or another..." -Andre Breton.
That might be the case, although I doubt it, but here it makes perfect sense. Liberalism is the nominally "left-wing" ideology of the bourgeoisie, upholding to some extent the accomplishments of the bourgeois revolutions in France etc. just as bourgeois conservatism represents the alliance of the bourgeoisie with elements alien to it, against the proletariat. Liberals aim at a bourgeois-democratic republic and some modicum of bourgeois rights. Liberalism itself encompasses various currents, from those that aim to accommodate themselves to reactionary elements in the short term (this was the case with the Ka-Det party in Russia) to populist elements (this is the norm in America).
The line between liberalism and socialism is primarily in the recognition of class struggle. Zinn did not recognise it, his statements about the plight of workers aside. Zinn advocated "unity" between "the 99%", not independent proletarian politics.
