>The fundamental problem here (which W. Kiernan already pointed out to
>Chris) is why some leftists have begun to think _as if_ they were
>formulating foreign policies that they had the power to execute (when, as a
>matter of fact, they are not in power at all). Such a habit of thinking
>only belongs to the governing elite and their think-tank servants. Since
>e-lists are media of sovereign individualism, I suppose anyone is free to
>put forward as many proposals, with as much wishful-thinking, as s/he
>wants, but still it is an odd exercise.
But not necessarily as odd as spending hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours, in collective debate which is essentially regarded as solipsistic: It will have no relevance for what happens in the outside world *as a matter of principle*. Indeed to think it might, is the first step on the slippery road. The only purpose of this endeavour is therefore logically to find other similarly pure revolutionary souls?
But the truth is always concrete. What is going to happen in East Timor and in Indonesia is in fact unpredictable. Tonight Portugese authorities say a military coup is on the way. It is quite possible.
For the bourgeoisie, imperialist or pre-monopoly, all their actions are taken in the stupidity of thinking they may really be able to determine the result.
Leftists, pure or pip-squeak, face the same philosophical dilemma.
Engels' famous passage in his letter to Bloch Sept 21 1890 seems relevant:
"...history is made in such a way that the final result always arises from conflicts between many individual wills, [and not just on e-mail lists!] of which each again has been made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life. Thus there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant - the historical event. This may again itself be viewed as the product of a power which works as a whole, *unconsciously* and without volition. For what each individual wills, is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed. Thus past history proceeds in the manner of a natural process and is essentially suject to the same laws of motion."
[Hopeless. The only purely revolutionary act is one of contemplation. - but Engels goes on with a "But"]
"But from the fact that individual wills - of which each desires what he is impelled to do by his physical constitution and external, in the last resort economic, circumstances (either his own personal circumstances or those of society in general) - do not attain what they want, but are merged into a collective mean, a common resultant, it must not be concluded that their value is equal to zero. On the contrary, each contributes to the resultant and is to this degree involved in it."
Perhaps he means without pipsqueaks there would be no history.
Chris Burford
London