Getting Arrested, Internal Debates, Etc.

JBrown72073 at cs.com JBrown72073 at cs.com
Sun Feb 9 21:23:10 PST 2003



>> > I think the idea that it's dangerous to have an internal debate on
>> > the left because the right might pick up on it is thoroughly ridiculous.
>>Jbrown:
>>Obviously so.
>
>Yoshie:
>Much of the materials on Infoshop.org aren't what we might call "an
>internal debate on the left": e.g.,
><http://www.infoshop.org/myep/myep_wwp_cops.jpg>. Besides, I recall
>Chuck0 has identified himself as "post-leftist," so I don't think he
>thinks of himself and other anarchists as belonging to the same left
>to which WWP also belongs. Chuck0 may still debate Lou Paulsen, but
>the debate won't be one internal to a left to which both belong, as
>there can be no such left according to Chuck0's "post-leftism."

No debate on a publicly-archived email list is 'internal' for purposes of 'the right might pick up on it.'


>I've seen productive debates on WWP internal to a left of sorts (such
>as it is) on the Solidarity and Marxmail lists among other places.
>
>On both lists, there have been sharp and even fierce criticisms of
>WWP's theory and practice as well as qualified evaluations of WWP's
>accomplishments. Believe me, such internal debates have little to do
>with threads on WWP on LBO-talk. If we had a sense that there was a
>left of sorts (such as it is) to which most here -- including Chuck0
>and Lou Paulsen -- belonged, we could have "an internal debate on the
>left."
>- --
>Yoshie

Sure, some prior unity can make the argument better. I have no interest in arguing about human evolution with creationists. But with too much prior unity the discussion just becomes unrelated to the general issues out there in the world. Doug's probably hoping LBO-talk can avoid either extreme.

Yoshie:
>Principled internal debates on the left are absolutely


>necessary, but internal debates, much less principled ones, can't


>happen without a sense that (A) either there already exists a sort of


>left to which debate participants belong one way or another or

I don't agree. The 'left' preceeds Marx, is informed by his contribution, and goes on. If we still need to fight out the basic issues of democracy, then we still need to fight them out, not evade them, even if it means backtracking into what we foolishly thought was already settled. That's the left project. Very little is settled.


>(B) debate participants are involved in a project to create such a left


>to which they will belong one way or another.

There's a place for this, but an email list among people who don't otherwise work together obviously isn't it.

Jenny Brown



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