The errors of so many left intellectuals in their early response to OWS were essentially 'Trotskyist' errors: they tried to fit Occupy to their abstract theory and there was no fit. The implicit theory, for instance, assumed "demands" as the basis for political action, and that led to an inability to grasp the "concrete conditions" which engendered Occupy.
Carrol
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pen-l-bounces at lists.csuchico.edu [mailto:pen-l-
> bounces at lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Chuck Grimes
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:41 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Cc: Progressive Economics
> Subject: [Pen-l] Meditations on Trotsky and Occupy_2
>
>
> Returning to Jim Cgreegan's answer to my post Meditations on Trotsky and
> Occupy, I want to develop the last point 3).
>
> The first part of the point was that Lenin and Trotsky worked as
journalists
> within socialist movements, as opposed to the journalists that I mentioned
> for example like Chris Hedges, Bill Moyers, Arun Gupta, Doug Henwood and
the
> many others we depend on to get the word out on this issue or that.
>
> Hold that thought and consider that the above list amounts to a duel
> personality. One part is advocate, expose, and communication media of
> journalism. While all of the above have a spectrum of personal politics,
the
> all share something of an intellectual life that in some vague way can be
> called leftist. Most have at least read some of Marx, but likely not in a
> programmatic fashion that Lenin or Trotsky did. In a way it doesn't
matter.
> Once you get a handle on what capitalist bourgeois society is all about,
you
> can usually fill in the blanks. This battle between classes has been
around
> a long time and there is plenty of intellectual and historical material to
> read, discover, and articulate, which in turn leads to shifting
> understanding of the `forces' of our world.
>
> Now to the second half of point 3). The basic thrust of it was that the
> intellectual class or intelligentsia in the US here and now do not have
much
> contact with the working class and the working class seems more or less
> immune to whatever insights and messages the intellectuals might offer.
>
> All true on the surface and that is why I've been thinking about this
> separation. This is also a bit of self-examination because I live or lived
> in both worlds, and frankly, thank age and social security that I could
> leave my long standing working class jobs behind. Believe me, it is a
> liberation I would wish on anyone.
>
> Unfortunately there was an upside. Working in a mechanical trade puts me
on
> the front lines of class war and in my case, in direct contact with a
broad
> spectrum of the poor and working class america. It's a view that only the
> sociologist, committed advocate, and radical journalists are likely to
know,
> see, and understand. It creates heart, in the vernacular.
>
> So journalism in its expose and drumbeat modes, informed by less explicit
> intellectual background and instincts forms a bridge between the vast
> collection of knowledge and ideas of the historical intelligentsia and the
> current working class in the US, and certainly in Europe and the Middle
> East. That's the interface.
>
> I realized that most of my posted links and much of my time goes to news
> stories, lectures, panels, and conferences posted on the web. The news
> stories may make it to the interested and receptive working class, and the
> detailed and archane discussions at conferences and panels will probably
> not.
>
> The central art form for this intellectual class is the documentary and
its
> most effective medium is video and film. But that requires a lot of money
> and a production crew. The less well endowed don't have those means. The
> most traditional medium is print and once you are used to reading and
> writing it is still just as effective, and hopefully by some more hawking
> the wares, those works will form the basis for a video or film production
> which has the capacity to reach many more people.
>
> It was afterall print that has been used since Guttenburg to advocate and
> organize. That was certainly Marx, Lenin and Trotsky's greatest skill, the
> word.
>
> It took me forever to finally start reading them. I was stalled out on
> Capital maybe fifteen years ago. It is certainly no pleasant read. It took
> David Harvey's video lectures to get over that hump. In a couple of weeks
I
> was half way through Capital and got distracted and frankly bored. Yeah I
> got the basic ideas, and I was not interested in the archane economics
> theory. On the other hand, once I started reading just an outline of
> neoclassical economics, it was enough to realize there was no there there.
> It's pretense to objective social science was an outright fraud. This
wasn't
> just an ordinary fraud. It was an ideology and went to the root of most of
> our social, political and economic history. As such, unfortunately, it
needs
> to be studied anyway.
>
> If anything it was Marx who was the social scientist, because at least he
> went to the factories, he studied the production systems, and he looked at
> the social consequences of the economic systems that oppressed society. He
> made no pretense to objectivity or place it beyond judgement. This system
is
> brutal, destructive of everything alive, and it has to be changed in a
> radically different direction.
>
> In any case that is a sketch to answer how the intellectual class can
begin
> to effect and merge in a virtual sort of way with working class life.
>
> It helps tremendously to join the working class for awhile to get your
> bearings as Barbara Ehrenreich and others have in various books. It is in
> the grand tradition of journalism, social reform movements, and directly
> corresponds to the history of field studies in other social sciences.
>
> CG
>
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