Lefty Despair

Jon Johanning jjohanning at igc.org
Wed Sep 18 21:56:06 PDT 2002


On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 at 16:17:21 -0400, Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:

>Why are so many LBO-talkers obsessed with finding fault with "the

>left"? If leftists themselves don't like "the left," why should

>anyone else? Self-flagellation and self-deprecation are

>unattractive. It makes sense to flog "the left" ritually once we

>cease to consider ourselves leftists, but, otherwise, it's

>self-defeating. Suppose we are interested in winning friends and

>influencing people, as everyone here says we should be; then it makes

>sense to stop saying that "the left sucks," which is like a salesman

>saying, "Never buy this product -- I won't use it myself."

I think there is (or ought to be) a difference between self-flagellation and self-criticism. The former is saying "the left sucks"; the latter is saying calmly and rationally, "Are we achieving the results we want? No? Then what can we do differently?"

It used to be that periodic self-criticism was regarded by radicals as a necessary exercise, like flushing the car's radiator once a year. Perhaps it would be a good habit to get back into.

Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org _____________________________ Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx



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