Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 14:43:33 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re:  Raw meat & Boiled Potatoes


Ah, that mid-summer lull when everybody takes a vacation and
nobody does any serious work, at least not on marxism2.  I am
enjoying this round of invective and vituperation, esp. Doug and
Hugh, but Rahul and the others too.  Doug I'm sure already has his
MBA (Master of the Bating Arts), and Hugh is rapidly building up
his credits. Though I'm gratified that the Ole Master Bater has
been mentioned from time to time, I do feel left out.  Could it be
I'm mellowing with age?  Not a chance.  I'm just saving up my most
delicious taunts for those nearest and dearest to me who have
stabbed me in the back.

Dare I rupture this delightful round of nastiness by intervening
with some constructive remarks?  I feel so unclean doing so, but I
can't help myself.  The recent dialogue between the novice who
ostensibly wants to know all about Marxism and the marxism2
veterans who have put him in his place got me to thinking.

Generally, I don't think it is wise for Marxists to cultivate a
closed, cult-like ethos that screens outsiders for their
suitability to be admitted into the inner circle.  But I don't
disagree with the chilly reception that aforementioned interloper
received, because I detect a note of insincerity behind his
ingenuous pose as a serious inquirer, and in any case I am put off
by people who view social problems from the standpoint of
detached, academic observers.  Several of you got the same feeling
I did and reacted accordingly.  At the same time many of you put
out various recommendations for studying Marxism.  I don't care
two figs for said interloper, but could we not make lemonade out
of the lemon we have been handed?  Suppose a more sincere and
vitally concerned person comes to us in the future; what will we
say then?

Debating socialism abstractly strikes me as an unfruitful,
idealist enterprise.  Trying to "prove" to people what they
already know, in an age of pervasive cynicism in which hardly
anyone who is not wealthy believes in anything at all (no matter
what they say), strikes me as a wasteful enterprise.  The
comfortable and the complacent are not going to learn; they will
only learn if ever when their world comes crashing down on them.
To hell with them.  The fact is that the majority of people
perceives our society in deep crisis, and the answer is not to
pose as anyone's savior but to induce people to seriously examine
the nature of the crisis.  What is the crisis of capitalism now
and what is the horrible future it portends for the majority of
humanity, and for working people in the USA in particular, the
most politically challenged country on earth?  What will the
crisis force us to do?  What immediate and long range goals should
we fight for?  What would it mean for the majority of working
people to exercise control over an economic system which utterly
mystifies them and appears to be a power in and of itself, a force
of nature beyond human control?  Millions of people must engage
and decide these questions; there are no saviors.  The starting
point of a serious discussion about socialism must begin with the
contemporary crisis.

As for historical matters, an exclusively moralistic approach,
which seeks only to retrospectively defend or demonize figures of
the past -- e.g., was Lenin right to be such a hardass in the
circumstances which he faced? -- is of limited value.  The past
course of "socialistic" experiments must be analyzed with brute
objectivity.  There is an historical logic behind what happened as
there is a logic to how we must face the problems we face today.
Precisely because the question of how to avoid the mistakes and
limitations of the past is not an abstract question only, and
because today's problems can't be solved by mechanically imitating
the strategies of the distant past, the point of departure for
such discussions as what is socialism or what guarantee is there
that a new dictatorship will not arise must be other than what
have read here.  The questions of dictatorship, etc., can best be
answered: given the conditions we face now, what is the best and
most practical course of action we can follow now, given the
conditions of the nation/society we live in?  Given that both
social democracy and Stalinism are on the skids, we don't face the
same political climate as we did before.  Our task is both easier
and more difficult: statism is an unpopular option now, but the
public sphere is so attenuated any common goal seems beyond reach.
We ought to be grateful for the destruction of the USSR; at the
same time the imperialist juggernaut seems to many to be
invulnerable.  I do not feel any crisis or "loss of faith" in my
world-view following 1989, because I did not feel socialism was an
inch nearer before then.  I continue to marvel at the downward
spiral of social decay, but that demands a fiercer confrontation
with reality, not cringing laxity. The alienation of labor is a
more serious problem now that an any prior moment in history, and
it is that foundational, tabooed, holy shrine which must mark the
compass of our quest.


     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---