[lbo-talk] Left wing loathing for the working class (Was Re: Zizek

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 3/24/07, Jim Straub <rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com> wrote:
> If one lacks any real personal connections to ordinary, relatively
> apolitical, or relatively conservative (or even just non-radical)
> people, one is likely to have a distorted view of politics, and
> eventually arrive at a frustrated loathing of all those outside
> one's bubble whose political behavior seems mystifying and
> horrifying (which it is, in a sense, but... if we hold the ideals we
> do, we

Yeah, leftists' complaints about normal people are almost frustrating
for me to hear, as no one ever talked to me seriously (without heavily
emotionalizing/sloganeering) about this stuff. Until I learned leftist
positions mostly on my own. On the net. Because I didn't have the
resources to look through those obscure books.

And the people I spoke with about these issues were antagonistic
right-wingers, rarely leftists.

I remember one person here writing recently,

    "intellectuals who do not know how to push emotional hot buttons

    don't get to harness emotion in motion to their political

    projects."

Let the fastfood commercial with clowns manipulate my emotional
buttons in order "harness" my emotion. I mean really, you put
harnesses on beasts of burden.

Why not simply ask people why they don't trust leftists? I remember
why I didn't. Thought they had many useful observations, but that in
itself doesn't make them right or wise in a broad sense. Doesn't imply
they had a commitment to truth.

I thought they were like basically like the right wing, and wished for
honest moderates who could filter and tie together the sensible ideas
from both camps. I'm certainly not the only one who feels this way.

Tayssir