[lbo-talk] tipping and control, again

[Carrol Cox]

There's also a practical issue. We need eventually to mobilize a huge
coalition of coalitions to confront the reorganization of world capital
known as Austerity/Repression, and it's no way to move towards cooperation
by being superior to someone on the basis of superior  knowledge of his/her
_real_ motive. Motives are motions of the mind (& see Damasio); those
motions vary towards infinity of variations from one individual to another.
It's insulting, even one might say dehumanizing, to be forever reducing the
_public_ positions of others (including Hitler for that matter) to some
'essence' only the uppity critic can identify. It's also cowardly. Mary Roe
has a given position; you disagree. Well, _meet_ that position with
arguments of your own. Talk about the world you share with Mary Roe, and
don't pretend to know her mind better than she does.

Labels such as "purity" end up being not much more than an excuse for the
critic to remain on the sidelines. Let me sit on a  throne by the s ide of
the road and sneer at the fools  going by.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Eric Beck
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 8:29 AM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: [lbo-talk] tipping and control, again

On Tuesday, November 19, 2013, Carrol Cox wrote:


> It's dishonest to treat anyone's politics as reflecting "purity,"
> purification, etc.
>


> You mean like Hitler's? Nazism had a lot to do with purification and
purity. And I do think it's applicable in some way to Trotskyism: How does
the joke go, something like if you gather five Trots you'll have three
splits and two tendencies? And what about the anarchist collective that the
other day released a statement in opposition to Kshama Sawant's election
because she didn't run on the platform of abolishing capitalism, only its
reform? That sounds like a stand based on purity to me.

But maybe not. I think Shag first raised the issue of purity. But she
coupled it with danger, and it probably only makes sense to think of them
together.
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