I'm with Machiavelli on the matter of fortune and virtue.
<http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince25.htm> The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli CHAPTER XXV What Fortune Can Effect In Human Affairs, And How To Withstand Her
IT is not unknown to me how many men have had, and still have, the opinion that the affairs of the world are in such wise governed by fortune and by God that men with their wisdom cannot direct them and that no one can even help them; and because of this they would have us believe that it is not necessary to labour much in affairs, but to let chance govern them. This opinion has been more credited in our times because of the great changes in affairs which have been seen, and may still be seen, every day, beyond all human conjecture. Sometimes pondering over this, I am in some degree inclined to their opinion. Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.
I compare her to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it; and yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defences and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous. So it happens with fortune, who shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her.
On 4/23/07, Jim Straub <rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com> wrote:
> But again, to eventually decide that the
> working class in the US just isn't gonna be down for transformative social
> change, what are we left with then? I still want a better world. Up to and
> including revolution. But that has never looked less likely. So what,
> instead? Ecological harm reduction? Yoshie has populist islam.
It is clear that populist Islam is a vital current of politics in the predominantly Muslim world, and there is a good chance that international solidarity will grow between it and the Bolivarian current of socialism in Latin America, for the common goal of checking US hegemony. Both are worth studying closely. When the political tide is low in a country where you happen to live, what you can still do is to make use of the time that is available on account of dearth of political opportunities and see if you can't learn to understand the world better than before. How about coming up with a new theory of imperialism, for instance (without a good one, more and more people will turn to either liberalism or conspiracy theory or both)? Such knowledge may come in handy, if and when conditions change here. Even if they don't, what is there to lose? The pursuit of knowledge is good in itself, not to mention its delight.
Aside from seeking knowledge, what else could we be doing? I've been paying attention to people who emphasize the idea of building people's capacities for resistance to capital and democratic self-government, e.g. Michael A. Lebowitz (cf. <http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/lebowitz090407.html>), Sam Gindin (cf. <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/gindin090207.html>), Jeff Crosby (cf. <http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/cm080307.html>), etc. That's probably the most important criterion in making choices about what to do and how to do it. -- Yoshie