[lbo-talk] Re: WMT goes orgo

ravi gadfly at exitleft.org
Mon Aug 28 10:12:07 PDT 2006


At around 28/8/06 11:05 am, B. wrote:
> "In addition to this there is the horrible--the really
> disquieting--prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists
> are gathered together. One sometimes gets the
> impression that the mere words 'Socialism' and
> 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force
> every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer,
> sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and
> feminist in England."
>
> - George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
>
> ["Feminists," a bad thing? Otherwise, a-yup! -B.]
>

This is it, my friend! This is exactly it. That you can find the error in the other guy's name-calling and generalisations and not at all see how it reflects on your own... it's like my right-wing friend who now sees the error of his gay-bashing days, but finds all other aspects of his political philosophy unquestionable.

Either you have reasonable arguments against someone's viewpoints, actions, beliefs, or you don't. If you don't then perhaps you are the crank? Ultimately, I am beginning to think there is only one sort of leftist position and its a humanist one based on tolerance, openness, etc (I write 'etc' because I have ranted about this earlier at length). That left can I think abandon these terms "Socialism", "Communism", etc, much as the working class seems to have done in the USA (so Orwell and the few who meet his exalting criteria on non-crankiness can pass out membership cards to these exclusive, limited-membership organisations). There would be a lot more solidarity from such a change that alleviates/counters what seems to be justifiable suspicion that the general population has about leftist elitism.

A few hundreds of thousands of sandal-wearing pacifists in India threw out Orwell and his family (i.e., the imperialist machine that they lived on). They and those who follow in that tradition have no need for his terminology either.

--ravi

-- Support something better than yourself: ;-) PeTA: http://www.peta.org/ GreenPeace: http://www.greenpeace.org/ If you have nothing better to do: http://platosbeard.org/



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