>The whole analyze-the-process-but-don't-describe-the-goal line of socialist
>analysis has been one of the worst tendencies of the 20th century Left,
>since it ends up privileging horrendous means with no measurement of their
>value against the potential gains and goals.
-Means without goals lead to barbarism, as you argue; but goals -without means are senseless, & senselessness contributes to ineffable -horrors. Leftists in the West, in my opinion, have seldom suffered -from the former but have been perpetually plagued by the latter.
I am not arguing for reversing the means-end unilateralism, but instead argue that they are inextricably linked, for means are both the causal agent for change and an endproduct in themselves, for if respect for each others' humanity is a goal, then means violating those goals are often a rocky causal agent. But the Left has often suffered from a focus on means, whether monomania on "general strikes" as method or direct action or any particular means as the measure of leftist authenticity, often ignoring shared goals in favor of division over means, or foresaking goals altogher in a near-worship of militant means. Yet without a measure of the justice of the goals and the effectivenss of the means, it all amounts to little.
But clear goals, however modifiable by democratic empowement, serve a function beyond measurement of the justice of means. Discussion of goals are a way to engage across constituencies, of finding a mental space for all peoples are finding the shared humanity that may bridge, if only temporarily in the thought-space of the goal process, the differences that immediate divisions threaten to accentuate.
-- Nathan Newman