Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 21:33:27 +1100
Subject: Re: AUT: Perplexing Ilan
From: Thiago Oppermann <topp8564-AT-mail.usyd.edu.au>


On 3/12/02 7:34 PM, "Ilan Shalif" <gshalif-AT-netvision.net.il> wrote:

> Hi People
> I think I took lately too slice of the list band-width.
> However I find my self obliged to share the clearest
> way the lesson I learned from 50 years of activity and
> learning since I started with Capital I.
> 
> Thiago Oppermann wrote:
> 
>> On 3/12/02 11:05 AM, "Nate Holdren" <nateholdren-AT-hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Ilan,
>>> I agree with your comment below that "Achievements of struggles at the
>>> present are worth the efforts ONLY if they do not contradict the long term
>>> struggle for the libertarian communist revolution." This makes sense. We
>>> don't want to be struggling to strengthen the oppressors of tomorrow.
>> 
>> I am curious how you establish who the oppressors of tomorrow are.
> 
> It is easy to predict when you understand class society and the dynamics of
> blocking of the free-from-authority access of working people to means of
> production.

Yes but how can I tell if supporting the greens in my local town will, in
twenty years time, lead to them throwing their lot in with the the bombers?
How would anyone have guessed the way Joschka Fischer went?

Human affairs are radically unpredictable...

> 
>> How do we know the trajectory of long-term struggle?
> 
> If humans were not able to predict long-range trajectory - the rockets
> would not have reached the moon and the stars.

...in a way newtonian physics isn't.

Throwing a rock at the moon is pretty easy physics; there are only two
objects involved, the rocket itself being to small to matter. Three objects,
however, and you have chaos.


> 
>> Has someone worked this out?
> 
> About 57 years ago the scientists have already found the dynamics of
> authoritarianism in Humans. (You can even measure it quite easily
> with the appropriate scale.)

No kidding. Better let the scientists run the show then, he?



> 
>> Is there a blueprint somewhere I can check to see which struggles to support
>> today and which ones to oppose?
> 
> People with authoritarian tendencies are searching for "blueprints".
> More flexible people find it more contributing to have a good theory
> with application principles.

Ok, so there are no blueprints. Tell me, isn't "authoritarian tendency"
something which you observe today? If so, is there also a  "inalterably
antiauthoritarian tendency" which we can observe today, which would
guarantee that the anarchists of today won't , in 20 years time, become
slimeballs? 

Don't get me wrong: I share you hope for antiauthoritarianism- I just don't
have faith in it.

Your original claim was we should not join any movement which ran counter to
long-term revolutionary goals. I don't see how you can do this unless you
claim to be able to predict , in the long run, what will happen to society.
You now say that you cannot specify what these may be, and instead propose
that we ally ourselves with "antiauthoritarians". Ok, that is wise, but who
is to say that the actions of antiauthoritarians will necessarily bring
forth revolution? It need not be. Antiauthoritarian is a very loose
description, and people change all the time.  So this principle, alliance
with the antiauthoritarians may clash with your first , ie. not acting
against the long-term revolution.

I think that you have not followed the logic of your thoughts through to
their conclusion. It's not a bad conclusion, it just means we drop the talk
about "revolutionary ends", and the silly stuff about scientists knowing
stuff about human behaviour they don't know.

Truly antiauthoritarian thought demands justification for the authority of
goals: long term revolutionary goals included. And what did you provide?
Appeals to an analogy to natural science and psychology goofballs. That's
not very encouraging.

> 
>> Not even Marx, the arch-teleologist, did this, as Carrol pointed out.
> 
> If the new born children were conditioned walking on a clear
> blueprint for walking... we were all of us reptile.
> Ilan

?

> 
> 
> 
> 
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