But I must say: it is funny. Having been organizing a "party" locally -- not really, it's a bike advocacy group -- these are all the problems we've been up against. They aren't easy to answer but I can assure you that you will never get answers if you don't have to. In other words, if there's nothing pushing you, forcing you, to simply throw a dart and pick a method, approach, solution, wevs, a group of people interested in doing something like this will never do it.
You have to have something forcing you to do it. In our case, someone wanted to donate a large sum of money and a business group wanted to make us the beneficiary of donations as well. But we weren't a 501 3 c because we'd been too busy debating how and whether to implement radical democratic principles. So, we had to throw darts at the various solutions we'd debated, pick one, move on, apply for incorporation....
This is exactly what would have to be happening to create a "party". There would have to be some external forces and events, presenting themselves as something akin to emergencies, that force people to pick something and see what happens.
You can sit around and prepare, by having debates, discussions, symposia forever and a day before anything actually happens. I think that's what Dean wants: for people to get ready for such a day by having discussions, circulating ideas, feeling as if some sort of agreement has been achieved on this or that, moving on and building a body of evidence, arguments, ideas, theories, strategems, tactics. Like a giant toolbox we can steward until the day it's needed to be put to use...
It's a noble idea but it's probably not going to happen that way - mostly because the people involved at the time aren't going to feel they've been given an opportunity to participate in the creation of that toolbox. They aren't going to just take it, something handed off to them, with the words: trust us, we debated it all out before hand. these will work.
It'll be under conditions that feel like an emergency is my guess.
And now that i've typed it all out, I can't see how this Stewardship of the Toolbox by Intellectuals is any different than the supposed obsessive focus on process embraced (ostensibly) by OWS.
> Like shag, I have a very hard time taking Dean and Zizek seriously. And
> to that extent the following question is not a real question,
because
> I
> don't believe it can have an answer. But I am also a bit curious, and
> if there is any answer at all I would like to hear it.
> As I understand this comedy, the argument concerns the _need_ for a
disciplined party. That Party could then provide the analysis,
> organizational theory, and goals which, those proposing it claim,
are
> necessary for a revolutionary movement.
> My questions.
> How is the membership of this Party to be recruited?
> What are to be the qualifications for membership?
> How are they going to make themselves visible to potential recruits?
It is funny. This is so amateurish. And I did start out trying to be
serious. But like shag, I can't be.
> Carrol
> P.S. They really should have invited Bob Avakian or a representative to
> be on the panel.
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