you posited leftists who think that personal resp, hard work, and self improvement are not values that we uphold.
bhaskar and i said, no actually. we think the problem is that they aren't realized under capitalism.
what the fuck are you talking about?
these are useless hoary abstractions to you?
At 01:47 AM 4/18/2010, SA wrote:
>Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
>
>>but I am quite sympathetic to the virtues of, "personal responsibility, hard
>>work, and the ability of the individual to improve his or her own condition
>>through their efforts." I'd rather try to show why these values
>>are incompatible with capitalism
>
>shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
>>totally agreed Bhaskar. i think what's often missing, for many who lean
>>left (progressives) - katha pollit arguments on this list in the past
>>come to mind -- is that, for whatever reason, they _do_ associate
>>responsibility, hard work, and self-improvement with capitalism and
>>implicitly see socialism/communism as anti-thetical to those values, as a
>>priori a system that can never be compatible with those values, let alone
>>foster them.
>
>Yeesh! I thought it would be obvious that my phrasing was meant as a
>provocation, not as a real, literal assertion. I hoped to provoke exactly
>these kinds of thoughts. *This* is the kind of ideological work that needs
>to be done. These are the debates that need to be had. These are the kinds
>of ideas and symbols that people care about. When non-political people get
>attracted to a political ideology, it's usually because it offers an
>explanation of how politics connects with such basic thematics of life.
>
>Not to be invidious, but working out "words and theories" on issues like
>these is a much more pressing task than working out theories on hoary
>abstractions concerning the nature of capital. Not that I don't enjoy a
>good argument on that as much as the next email list subscriber.
>
>SA
>
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