[lbo-talk] clarification

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Sat Feb 13 11:01:07 PST 2010


At 01:49 PM 2/13/2010, Somebody Somebody wrote:
>I don't understand this attitude. We've had almost a century of historical
>experience with socialism. It isn't as if we're back in Marx's time when
>the Paris Commune was the only experiment in proletarian revolution.
>
>I mean, are you guys seriously arguing that all the millions who
>struggled, fought, and died for socialism in the 20th century, suffered in
>vain because there's absolutely nothing we can learn from their experience
>about what socialism is and how it would work? Amazing.

no. probably just a short-circuit. i'm writing from a tradition that argued that, to provide a roadmap for getting from here to there is tantamount to tyranny. it's a capitulation to the desire for experts to tell everyone what to do. it's anti-democratic.

my first encounter with it was with the frankfurt school theorists. alison jagger wrote about it in her book, feminist politics and human nature. my recent encounter with this tradition of political thought - one that expressed the idea directly anyway -- was with Moishe Postone's book, Time, Labor and Social Dominionation. Probably the biggest practical experience I have with this approach is in my work with feminists who've eschewed drawing out maps for how people ought the get from here to there, but have focused on building a good process for how people can do that, together, on the ground, as events are happening rather than pre-planning it and selling it in books. there were factions of feminists who didn't do that and, instead, wrote prescriptive books containing recipes for how women should live the feminist future right now. they are all resting in the dustbin of history. consciouness-raising, however, is still with us. the communes and utopian women's encampments, though, are dead.

-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list