Please go read Andrew Coates excellent review of 'Waiting for the Etonians' here:-
I was particularly taken by the last paragraph. After agreeing with Cohen's attacks on much of the 'actually existing' left, Coatsy adds
'But there is a left that it emerging. It is one the spans the distance between radical social democracy, Compass, the unions, the small independent socialist publications, such as Labour Left Briefing, Chartist, and many others on the democratic socialist left, a gamut of groups, feminist, gay, anti-racist, green, and which extends to many on the ‘far left’ who are fiercely democratic. Ideas are now being developed, on welfare, public ownership and working conditions, that connect with the legacy of the socialist and labour movement. A left that never had any time for tyrants and dictatorships of whatever ilk, Stalinist, Nationalist, or Religious. Or so I think – because I come from this movement. As do many. It’s a shame that other than offering some warmed over diatribes, and a few real insights on class and culture, wrapped in well-written prose, that Nick Cohen doesn’t seriously engage with us. Perhaps the East Wind has frozen his frowning face.'
A left that is proud of and devoted to democracy and removing the inherent hypocrisies from the classic rights of Liberalism. That despises tyrants of every ilk, that has a moral compass with more points on it than howling fascist or uncritical worship, that thinks. That is the left we must build, one that both see today as what it is and is equipped with the tools and passion of hundreds of years of democratic struggle. One that realises the horror done in the name of it's ideals and that 1914 was not some new dawn, but a trauma that we have yet to recover
Both H/T and hats off Tendance Coatsy
6 comments:
I've added you to my favs, Mr. Social Republican, having taken a gander at your previous posts. Three month's probation.
BTW, These blogger comments are a pain in the neck. This is a test of sorts
Too much idealism and rationalistic fluff Mr. SR.
Not a single word on materialism.
How can you have a left without materialism is beyond me.
Although I agree with the motive, I am afraid to say that the mesage is flat and hollow.
If you can't figure the relation of empiricism and materialism to the left's project - then you are inevitably going to end in the wrong quarters.
Lets see some cohones and backbone and lets see you critique some of these religious like ideals you have spewed - you have taken this stuff you spew as far too granted and "self-evident".
Without an empirical basis and without a material understanding, the left is nothing, and will ultimately have to be avoided.
Welcome to oblivion, and don't waste our time.
Hamid from HP
Hamid
My point is thus. Materialists must be able to realise how deadly serious Idealists/Vitalists are in their contentions. Also, I think it is vital for clarity of thinking to see that making materialism some doctrinal dead letter with total primacy is to abandon its heuristic use. Indeed by doing so, you transform it into idealism and such 'fluff'
'How can you have a left without materialism is beyond me'
really? One can make a compelling case that anti-Bernsteinians and Bolsheviks were deeply commmitted to Sorelian myth. Lenin's strategy in 1917 was not based on materialist or 'objective' reasoning but seeing the possiblities of turning the political and social turmoil of the year in his personel political power.
If you want materialism, I can't offer you 'base does X, thus superstructure does Y'. I can say that changes in ownership and method of production creates vast sociatal conflicts, ones that are resolved though culturalist and materialist strategies. The relationship between man's anthroplogical condition as a social group animal equiped with a senses of mortality copes under the cash nexus or in a period of cultural pessimism or economic change fascinates me. I don't ignore the material, I just think that it's primacy in human actions is overstated by many of the left and it interests me, i.e. the author of this blog to look at 'superstructure'.
'religious like ideals you have spewed' - examples would be nice.
'Welcome to oblivion, and don't waste our time' Thanks and I'm sorry you were forced to see my muling font of dribble
Hi SR - thanks for your reply. I apologize that I will not pull it apart and engage you in details for reasons that are unrelated to SR and has to do with restrictions on my side. But to reciprocate, let me add a few things:
I think your interpretation of materialism is somewhat different from mine. Mine is not marxist, but rather classic.
The primacy of materialism cannot be overstated. Its easy to lose sight of the forest for the cloud and mist and leaves.
Religious ideals you asked: "public ownership", "discounting or denying the empirical arrival of value through markets", "fiercely democratic while negating the role of markets and small scale capitalism in ushering and holding up democracy", "oblivious to systems and systemic structures of society", etc.
Why do you think we despise tyrants and the fascists, etc. Is it simply a slogan (your writings come through like that) or is there a material basis?
Your love of democracy and hatred of tyranny, as commendable as it is, comes through as a personal choice kind of thing. Like at any time you may decide to change your choices as you may change your clothing. There has to better reasons than simply love and hatred of such ideals. Have you ever wondered why throughtout history much of the left and the idealists when given the opportunity turned into the very tyrants that you despise?
If its a personal choice, you would not even know when that happens to you.
This is what I mean by religion. These choices are coming from your ideal values and not from a conscious understanding of material primacy and the appreciation of the empirical as opposed to the rational.
Ultimately our values are arbitrary. Is religious idealism or its secular equivalent (activism, environmentalism, etc.)our moral compass?
The left I used to know, before the Great Corruption, may have been simplistic, but certainly not anti-materialistic.
Hamid
Sorry for the delay, Hamid. Your response deserved some thought
The material basis of my opposisition to tyranny and dictatorship is because it take something more that the bread off people's plates. Either you become an automaton or you die. Be it classical or marxist or Randian, matters little to me.
Your list of 'religious ideas' might have at times been 'sacralised', i.e. given 'supra-temporal importance, but they remain at heart, strategies and tactics. For those you mention, I might counter with 'making the hidden hand some mystical arbiter of human contact, making property the sole distinction of mankind's worth, proposing wealth as a iron indicator of virtue and knowledge'. These tactics have been raised up to lofty heights, people who contested them have been marked out as heretics and suffered for their sins. These incidents, of materialism into myth and totems, both your examples or mine, seem to be inevitable or probable part of seeking to bringing these tactics into reality
I don't think that democracy relies on making the market some gnostic eldar, fuull of maigc and existential magic. Property does not define people. Thus my socialistic take of democracy. I would base it on anthropological aspects of man the animal and the continuities of human behaviour as we have moved forward. I believe my opinions are not merely based on preference but tested by history and what we know of humanity's condition. I do not and cannot claim any rigid system where you enter X and always get Y. Rather it is an ongoing and reactive and reflective and most importantly individual sense, of meaning and place.
As such, looking at man, the animal and the artifact, I see that idealism can be as iron and compelling as that of want, self interest and hunger.
Maybe that makes me 'fluffy' but I want to understand the entire animal, the entire phenomena. Its reason, its unreason, its rationality, its greed and its altruism. Materialism, either classic or otherwise, can only take you so far. Unless you see human willed idealistic action and thought as a possibly primary agency, so much of the world, of life, is unexplainable. I might not think that this is a good thing, but it exists. To deny its ability to change the world is foolish to my mind.
SR actual out (and at work)
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