>I thought this all came up in the context of trying to understand the
>massive lack of interest in politics so widely displayed today.
There are many causes for the absence of left-wing mass movements (e.g., the war on crime which promotes the ideology and practice of submission to authorities, overwork which leaves little time for political participation, and so on), but the most important cause is the ideology that there is no alternative to what exists (capitalism). Imagining anything better than the present brands you as a silly Utopian with an anachronistic hankering for a blueprint for a perfect society. Arguing for socialism is enough to make people -- including many 'leftists' -- think that you are literally or at least figuratively insane.
>>If you think of politics through the
>>perceptions of a professor or a journalist or a politician (in
>>electoral politics) you simply cannot see that the process of
>>reaching people is a function of concrete struggles, not of
>>abstract psychological or rhetorical or pedagogical or
>>public-relations theory.
>
>The bourgeoisie has actually done quite well with public relations
>"theory." All without leafleting or sitting around in meetings in
>airless church basements.
The ruling class own the means of ideological production (like the mass media), whereas we don't. We have small presses, leaflets, and meetings in church basements, not because we think "small is beautiful," but because we simply do not have the same resources at hand. That is why we cannot employ the same means as the bourgeoisie.
Yoshie