On Feb 13, 2010, at 1:53 PM, SA wrote:
> The idea of devoting your life to a struggle for something you
> cannot describe is something only somebody steeped in the Hegelian
> mysteries of the great texts can embrace. It's like those mid-20th
> century Protestant intellectuals who felt like they needed to reject
> the old "unsophisticated" image of god as an old man with a white
> beard, but all they could come up with were extremely abstract and
> intellectualized descriptions, like Paul Tillich's "God is the
> ground of our being." Only intellectuals can devote themselves to
> such abstractions. The vast majority of people need something more
> tangible to hold dear.
I can understand the position that you could never describe in operating-manual detail what a socialist society of the future might look like. But you have to have some ideas to guide you in the right direction in doing politics today, no? There's a way in which revolutionary socialists imagine some sort of Rapture, in which everything is transformed through some magical intervention. But that's not the way we're likely to get there. It's going to be by messing with existing institutions and changing them in a desirable direction. Presumably one's idea of what's desirable is informed by a set of principles that point to some better, socialist future. Otherwise, what are you supposed to do, just hang back and wait hopefully?
Doug