Ruthlessness is not always constructive, as in, fulfills a serious purpose. The Marxist posture of ruthlessness, as you seem to take it, is not a good model of political deportment. Marx may have been able to overawe other intellectuals, but I don't think he ever organized many workers. You can appreciate the shortcomings of walking into a workers' meeting and lording it over them, their extent of education, their culture, etc. I think that's what Moore et al., as well as list- members here were getting at.
Coming from a wc background, you may not appreciate that among middle-class radicals, there is a real aversion to rubbing shoulders with real workers, the better to fantasize about an uprising of the darker races. In my view, that was the source of such tendencies as the Weather Underground, uncritical views of nationalism, Third Worldism, liberal elitism, and post-modernism.
I would suggest this is not just a matter of one's proper appearances. In wc culture there are conflicting forces, both good and bad. I imagine there is a marxist story along similar lines too, but that's for others to tell. Real ruthlessness should be reserved for one's enemies, whereas the wc deserves more in the way of tlc.
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Don't give me that Jim Hightower/Michael Moore/Mike Albert
crap about leftist snobbery towards the average joe. Both of my parents
were shop stewards for the CWA. I myself work in a supermarket and
belong to a union. But you know what? MOST WORKING PEOPLE ARE IGNORANT,
DELUDED NITWITS. There, I've said it.
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Without romanticizing, I'd say you are dead wrong. I've known a lot of workers too, by family connection and in organizing. Most working people are good-hearted and competent. Not necessarily well-educated or well-informed (hence deluded in certain ways), and no worse morally than anyone else, but hardly dim-witted. If you are reacting against patronization of the masses, I think that is well-taken when there is a legitimate target for it. I don't see any in the other posts.
You've got to accentuate the positive if you want to eliminate the negative, to coin a phrase.
There's also an issue of intellectual intolerance, re: "idiotic belief in God." We had a donnybrook on this last summer on LBO, so I have no appetite for a repeat. All I'll say is that religion is not idiocy. I don't think marx believed that either, for what it's worth. Religion is deep.
Then there's a vanguard issue. We may want to fight for the people, but the fact remains that nothing much is going to happen until people fight for themselves. How this may come about is obviously mysterious, but its essentiality should not be.
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But here, on lbo-talk, a list comprised primarily of leftist
intellectuals, I feel justified at being condescending and nasty and
venting a little spleen against my "brothers and sisters" in the working
class.
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That's fine, as long as you recognize that's all you're doing.
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Anyone who cringes at the thought of criticizing the masses is a
namby-pamby liberal pantywaist trying to overcompensate for their own
position in life by fetishizing the working classes. So, there.
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Criticizing the masses is a waste of time. They could care less. They're the masses, after all, and you're the oddball. What matters is what is to be done, and the consequences of not doing it.
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I suppose now I'll be subject to a harangue about how I need to get out
to more sporting events and watch a lot more TV and listen to more
commercial radio and see more shitty Hollywood movies so I can put my
finger on the pulse of joe average. Spare me, please.
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You suppose wrong. I'm not proud of it, but I confess to a weakness for both Ally McBeal (the Barry White thing puts me in stitches) and Big Macs.
Cheers,
Max