[lbo-talk] Re: Consumer Self

[Michael Dawson -PSU]

> When you challenge people's consumer mindset, you challenge one of the
pillars that prop up their sense of self.  To me it makes sense to attack
both the pillar of consumer identity as well as the false notions of self it
supports.
>
> As someone posted at the beginning of this thread, the Left failed to
follow its own logic/wisdom to its conclusion about human beings.  In this
way the left has hamstrung itself and crippled its efforts to bring about
change on a large scale.
>
> Brian Dauth
> Queer Buddhist Resister

But the left doesn't have particularly good logic/wisdom about individuals
and individualism.  As has been abundantly shown in this thread, most (not
all) leftists scornfully dismiss individualism.  The vast majority of people
I have met, meanwhile, treasure it and would never contemplate giving it up.

The corollary of the dominant left habit of demonizing individualism is well
dsiplayed in your own diagnosis above:  The problem, you say, lies in the
worldview of ordinary individuals, who fetishize and internalize ideas like
"consumer."

Bunk.  "Consumer" is an label imposed upon us by the masters of the
institutions of illegitimate power.  To the very small extent ordinary
people think about that label, they merely tolerate it.

Mature (sociologically realistic) individualism is a very good and precious
thing.  As Marx (unlike so many of his later followers) knew, cultivation of
the necessary conditions for bringing this quality to the forefront for the
masses was the essence of the socialist project, which is supposed to launch
real human history by ending our benighted pre-history.

I say it again:  You are simply wrong about individualism.