my point is: a lot of people, probably 99% here, were not radicalized by economic hardship or economic hardship plus correct left organization.
if it's possible to become radical - and it clearly is because a ton of people on this list seemed to have pretty ordinary middle and upper-middle class backgrounds - without economic discipline to radicalize *us*, then the idea is to ask how we became radicalized under such conditions.
i say this because we've had this conversation before and, as it turned out, I am one of the few people who did live through economic hardship having grown up in a town where, at one time, there were literally no jobs to be had and I slept in my $200 Ford Pinto. I, however, wasn't radicalized by the experience, nor am I someone who now advances the idea that it couldn't hurt if some of these lazyass do nothings went jobless and had to watch an entire community go jobless and live in their car for awhile so they will can be sternly disciplined by the free market and wake up to a klewX4.
but if you have any disciplinary stories about your intellectual arousal while scrounging for food, I'd certainly lurv to read them.
At 10:53 PM 4/21/2010, brad wrote:
>shag wrote:
> >i just always think that it's a laff riot that people who take up this view
>- that economic crisis begets radicalization or even that economic crisis +
>correct left organization begets radicalization - didn't actually live
>through economic crisis or economic crisis + correct left organization in
>order to become radical!
>
>shag
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Oh really. We didn't live through the 1970s, 1980s and the early 2000s, not
>to mention the whole 40 years of neoliberalism in aggregate? Invert your
>claim- how do those who never lived through good times account for
>radicals? Doesn't work. Both can and have historically given rise to
>powerful left movements.
>
>Brad
>___________________________________
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