Mike Ballard wrote:
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>
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> Perhaps part of the problem is that the left keeps
> repeating its mistakes, as Zizek states, and keeps
> embracing 'milder' forms of the wages system a la
> Sweden or Cuba. Perhaps the left has a case of
> amnesia when it comes to its own needs, its own
> use-values.
>
"The Left" THE LEFT Where do I find this creature?
Amnesia is a condition characterizing the brain of an organism. A single brain.
One may use it as a trope for an institution or an organization: some collective entity that may legitimately be seen as a coherent whole with an informing purpose: a mind.
But in the light, say, of the current ongoing exchanges over the Cuban petitions does it make any sense whatever to speak of "The Left"?
Browsing through the list of signatures for that obscene petition, I'm not sure it makes any sense even to speak of "The Democratic Left." It is highly doubtful that those signers could produce among them any program of political action that went behind the mere signing of that offensive bit of verbiage. There is no _mind_ there, no metaphorical or collective individual, to which an intention could be assigned.
It seems to me that statements of the form, "What is wrong with The Left," are either unfortunate verbal lapses, not seriously meant, or in deep bad faith. Usually it is the former. I have varied over the last few years in my response to Zizek on this. I am tending to think his usage is in bad faith.
Carrol