[lbo-talk] (The 23%...)

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Feb 25 03:54:22 PST 2012


This is very good; one slight qualification. The change is not "effervescent": that is true. But neither is it necessarily permanent; it has to be reinforced by further "advance" into and 'stabilization' of direct democracy. Otherwise it can fade. But Joanna is completely correct that it is not the mere excitement of the moment. From the beginning it is more than that.

Another related matter. When, as in the'430s, in the Chrtist movment, and in the '60s, the movement does not 'go over the top' as it were, it encounters both heavy repression (e.g., the Panthers) and overwhelming ideological attack from the whole might of bourgeois culture (e.g., the women's movement: by the mid-70s students who _were_ femiwre beginning their statements with, "I'm not a feminist, but..." And recognition that cannot name itself begins to weaken rapidly. "Human Nature" does change; it can change rapidly. That change can also be reversed rapidly if new conditions are not established that tht lead to the daily reaffirmation of the change.

Carol

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of 123hop at comcast.net Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 1:24 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] (The 23%...)

" Someone here, a few months ago, poo pooed the idea that it matters, for example, that people felt transformed by the experience of direct democracy. they saw it as crazy and cultish that rational human beings might get caught up in something as silly as the effervescent excitement what was going on around them. This does make little sense to the manly man approach to politics as one where individuals make rational decisions about self-interest and public interest."

If you read John Reed's "Ten Days that Shook the World"; if you read Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia"; if you read Olsen's interviews about her political work in the thirties, for which she abandoned a brilliant writing career; if you read Traven's account of the Mexican revolution (in the Jungle novels): they all bear witness to the metamorphosis of consciousness for people engaged in mass action and direct democracy. This was thoroughly villified by all and sundry as "mob" mentality (Hugo through Shirley Jackson). Ehrenreich has a good account of this in "Dancing in the Streets."

The main point is that it is not effervescent excitement; it is the great inner illumnation that can take place when people make history consciously and for the common good.

Joanna

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