>>> seamus2001 at home.com 08/10/01 04:24PM >>>
A cup of
> tea and solidarity....
>
> ((((((((
>
> CB: In the case of socialism/communism , I think the role active
ruling class opposition in the forms of biggest wars ever, fascism,
McCarthyism, Gramscian hegmonic operations, myriad of other
anti-communist methods has blocked mass consciousness more than
general lack of smartness, as contrasted with barriers to advancing
physics.
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That was totally true in the past, yes. It seems the challenges for us
now are very Gramscian; creating and placing the best ideas we have
for land use, organizational accountability and participation, health
care access, investment policies, debt eradication, logistics for food
distribution, education, demilitarization...the big grocery list for a
better world. At the same time we have to acknowledge human
limitations and come to a better understanding of why many want to
perpetuate 'dog-eat-dog' competitiveness as the optimal form of social
dynamics and organization.
That is, we have to take up G A Cohen's challenge in the 'Withering away of Social Science':
"Being social animals, exploiters have to feel that their social behavior is justifiable. When the feeling is difficult to reconcile with the truth, the truth must be hidden from them as well as from those they oppress. Illusion is therefore constitutive of class societies."
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CB: I tend to think more that the exploiters, the ruling class retain their rule in part by divide and conquer of the working class, and fostering a dog-eat-dog state of affairs is one of the basic ways of dividing the proletariat and other working strata. With many workers at each others' throats they don't get around to fighting the bourgeoisie.
So, one of the Gramscian hegemonic dynamics is alienated masses tossling with each other. Anti-solidarity within the working class is a great set of the ramparts and ditches that stand in our way before the actual confrontation with the fort of the repressive apparatus of the state, standing bodies of armed personnel, army,navy, police , secret police.
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While theory alone won't do it, if we don't have the ideas of robustly thought out alternatives so as to undo the mirage-like character of capitalism, then fellow citizens aren't likely to mobilize to change it for the better. The past 24 months have seen more citizens take up the challenge in Cohen's statement since, perhaps, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and calls to mind the 'graffiti' on the BW: "Next Time it Will Be Better". That statement calls for much humility, imo.
>
> On the struggle as the thing, in the early 1900's there had never
even been socialist revolutions anywhere, and thus the general sense
of the realistic possibility of socialist revolution probably was not
higher than today. Yet , Lenin counselled in opposition to Bernstein's
" the movement is everything, the final goal nothing" that "without
revolutionary theory , there can be no revolutionary movement" In
other words, even today, when it seems the best we can do is just
"struggle", we may better strive to make a big plan and strategize
===========
Totally agree. At the same time we need to understand that
egalitarianism and non-authoritarianism is not consistent with
vanguardism of any kind.
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CB: Democratic centralism is an effort to deal with the unity and struggle of the opposites of "all power to all the people as a whole" and , yet,the need for leadership and unity especially when the struggle takes on a military or paramilitary structure. Actually, the first era of trying to build socialism teaches that the bourgeoisie are able to force the working class to take up militarized structure in order to survive. The riddle of organizational form for the working class' struggle must be solved, but posing the issue as "how democratic centralism" has not be exceeded or gotten beyond. Vanguardism has not been proven more of failure than non-vanguardism, which amounted to almost donothingism, critcism from the sidelines.