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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Doug asked this tough, but important,
question:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>"What is it about the left that it draws so many people of gloomy
<BR>temperament who only want to see the worst in the world? We used to <BR>be
about possibility, transformation, finding the seeds of the new in <BR>the womb
of the old. Now we're about why everything sucks and is <BR>getting
worse."</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Your question implies the need for a
psychological answer, but there's an important social-educational dimension that
can't be ignored. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>First, I suppose part of the answer inheres
in the frustration, anger, and probable depression that 'left'
individuals experience from their studies of objective
conditions in economy, politics, and society. Things ARE bad and
getting worse. Compared to what? Compared to visions of a more
perfect society and successes of past revolutionary or progressive
movements which appear to less and less be available
to us. Perhaps then, to avoid (possibly to
express) intense depression and/or destructive personal habits,
</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>we take our tensions out on comrades,
or we angrily regurgitate theoretical platitudes calculated to raise the
ire of some human target (or political 'tendency'). Let's put the idea of
'agents' on the back burner for now. Assuming the 'left' is a composite of
persons believing in some kind of socialism, and forming a kind of extended
family of believers, there's a parallel with the nuclear family where the
level of violence is the highest to be found. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>T</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>his is bull
shit social-psych 101so far unless we consider that "p</FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>eople of gloomy temperament" are, I suppose, all that the
'left' can draw on. We're a deviant sub-set of a highly
depressive general population that has difficulty discerning truth
from fantasy, lies through its teeth, constantly borders on rage, and shades
into schizophrenia. That's part of the 'American' personality, but I don't
rely much on this kind of analysis since capitalism has always made
things that way. Granted, the 'left' sub-set of today may be
operating in such accelerating conditions (technology, accumulation,
concentration, greed, social control, etc.) that it's unable
to build any resistance to successfully counter the
objective pace of capital. If so, defeatism and ennui might be
'normal' responses. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Perhaps we aren't endlessly bound to these
constraints. There's a potentially liberating dimension in
the social psychology of the left which could come through the
process of organizing and alternative education. I reckon we need to
do a thorough overhaul here or, at least, return to left roots. For
starts, have many more social forums all over the country, from top to
bottom. Forums like the coming July 23-25 Boston Social Forum (with
an amazing 550 workshops) lay substantive and methodological groundwork,
and get people together. I attended the smaller scale, but similar,
Midwest Social Forum held in June near Madison, WI. I'm helping construct
a Midwest Labor Center in Detroit that will provide educational resources to the
'non-traditional' working class (out-of-work, homeless, etc.) and possibly
organize something akin to the Brecht Forum in Manhattan. Let's get people
together and raise consciousness in any way possible wherever we're
stationed. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>We have to transcend the temporary
highs coming from films like Farenheight and The Corporation, and the vast
information now available on 'the system,' and the energized liberal peace
& justice movement (in a trumped-up critical election
year). We pride ourselves as possessors of this
information, but it's really only a cheap tool in the act of getting
down to the nitty-gritty of grass roots organizing for structural
change. There's a serious class-based problem in the social
psychology of left organizing which must be solved. 'Left'
actors (self-proclaimed) tend toward privilege and/or intellectual
exclusiveness. That persona is the last thing we need if we are
to successfully participate in a mobilization of the working class which, from
one theoretical rendition, is REALLY the foundation of the left, once
consciousness is raised. The obvious point learned from the past
is that the most exploited and oppressed are the 'natural' class leaders.
</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>If this is so, our high priority might
be patient inquiry into how this is to be accomplished. And
once understood (however tentatively), how can the 'left' be efficiently
integrated into any resulting 'social movement?'</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bob Mast </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>