On Saturday night, there was a panel discussion in a bar near our place in Brooklyn to discuss the gentrification of our neighborhood. Liza Featherstone moderated the panel. At the end, Liza was telling me how it was a good idea that these political discussions also be held in places with food, good music, and spirits. Indeed, most events of the type here tend to be held in well-meaning but aesthetically lacking leftist quarters, schools, and churches, which impose a completely different mood in audience and discussants. I was reminded that the First and the Second International had it in their agenda to promote pubs and workers' clubs where political discussions were duly lubricated with alcoholic beverages. I believe the Third International was less inclined to doing that, perhaps imbued by a sort of Bolshevik puritanism. Anyways, that's one anecdote.
One thought is that I find it encouraging to see people in other lands (in this case, York) willing to label themselves Marxists, and grappling with the same issues that preoccupy us here. Anything that fosters cooperation, camaraderie, understanding, and mutual enlightenment among leftists and working people is good in my book. Yes, we disagree. We must disagree. Because we all come from different points in history and geography, and we have to process all that diversity in a way that move us forward as a united, coherent political force. But the main thing is that there's no Marxist or socialist Superman coming to change the world for us. It's us -- with our huge stock of blemishes and faults, stretching ourselves in a measure we didn't know it was in us -- who have to take charge. What you see is what you get.
Re. a recent list thread, I know Joanna and consider her my friend, but I had a gut-level dislike of her post on Michelle Rhee. I resist my own tendency to dehumanize our political enemies, because -- I admit it, as much as I usually disagree with Carrol here -- our attempts to degrade them is more a testimonial to our own alienation, if not a reaction to the horror that comes from looking ourselves in the mirror of their motives and hideous actions. Also, because every time we indulge in it, the exercise bite us back many times over. José Revueltas, a Mexican Marxist, used to say that the dividing line between alienation and freedom that social conditions impose on us goes right through our hearts -- and that even in the case of individuals whose hearts seemed to be entirely shifted to the alienation side, one could always find one or two healthy emancipatory cells that, in a conducive environment, could multiply and take over the whole organ and steer it in a liberating direction. If a guy who so many of his adult years in prison could be that optimistic, how could I contradict his claim? Attack the actions those people take, as they are harming children and working people, question the rationality and morality of their actions, uncover their base motives and interests, but respect their humanity. Having said that, as insinuated by ravi (I think), hating the enemy (including the enemy in us) may not be the ultimate solution, but it can certainly be one of those transitional Hegelian passions (as per his lessons on the history of philosophy) that move people to realize the Idea even if unaware of their doing so.
Final anecdote: I was recently at an academic event in Amherst, Mass, where we had a conference of political economists (a few of us Marxists), which showed to me how humbling the linguistic barriers among leftist economists can be. One of the most moving scenes, for me was the video connection over the web with a group of extremely sharp Russian Marxist economists (most of them speaking in perfect English), who streamed their presentations from some place in Moscow. It was scheduled late in the evening, but I tried to stay until the very end, as each new speaker came up with unexpected, interesting new angles on socialism, capitalist crises, etc. I found it all very impressive. It made me feel that, yes, what appears so solid can vanish in the air with no prior notice. We can be -- and will be -- a formidable force.