It’s arguable that every successful movement in our long and checkered history was infused with, if not inspired by, an idealistic component. Even freedom or liberation movements looked beyond the immediate gains that would benefit the oppressed masses to the idea. And the same goes for the Civil Rights activists, or the pacifist movement spurred by Gandhi and adopted by Martin Luther King, Jr., the abolitionists or the suffragettes. It was the idea that fired them all: from Lenin and Castro to Che Guevara and Daniel Ortega (and yes, even Hitler and Mussolini, because we can’t ignore the negative examples since they, too, prove the point) – an idea that was bigger than life, bigger than the immediate circumstances of the moment, however deplorable, and which stood in need of correcting, bigger than the people themselves.
For better or worse, that’s the nature of the beast; the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Ideas rule, and the New Left is an example par excellence. The million-dollar question is: Can it sustain itself?
Don’t forget that the New Left and the ensuing ideology – the heightened consciousness which has since spread throughout the globe to become a universal, or mass, consciousness was a child of prosperity. A child of the unique conditions in America and the industrialized West which made it possible for bourgeois offspring to disavow their own self-interest, embracing instead the interests and the plight of the many who have been left out by the system, rebelling against the very principles which made it possible for them to think progressively and altruistically. Concern for others is a luxury that only a few can possibly afford; if material conditions deteriorate to the point that every man or woman must fend for themselves in the interest of their own survival, then idealism is indeed a shaky proposition and it stands on no less shaky ground.
It is thus that capitalism, the very (by some estimates) "inhumane" system which has given rise to the most humanistic philosophy ever and made it the exclusive domain of the common man, carries within itself the seeds of its own self-destruction. It's something to think about.
Which brings us back to the million-dollar question: Can we continue in this vein, retaining this idealistic strain while the conditions which made idealism possible, a level of general prosperity for a great many, are about to become extinct? What would it do to mass consciousness if the masses themselves were forced to become more and more concerned with the business of making a living? Isn’t there a danger here that once again, humanity might revert to its primitive self and selfish and unenlightened thinking? Is the progress we’ve made a fleeting phenomenon, no different from any other accomplishment peculiar to a particular epoch or period of history? Civilization is indeed a very thin veneer; but does that have to mean that all the gains we’ve made in the past fifty years or so, the idealistic thinking which has fired the imagination and focused on the plight of the disadvantaged and the have-nots, is going to dissipate and become just another episode in our long and sorry history? And for what good reason?. Just because our own comfortable existence is likely to disappear, taking with it any inclination to concern ourselves with our brothers and sisters? Because the “take care of the number one” rule, the matter of sheer survival, will invariably take precedence over all other fine feelings we might have towards our fellow men? I’d hate to think that we're as limited as all that.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
Roger,
You say,
It was the idea that fired them all: from Lenin and Castro to Che Guevara and Daniel Ortega (and yes, even Hitler and Mussolini, because we can’t ignore the negative examples since they, too, prove the point)
I would say all of those are "negative examples." There are two million Cubans in the USA who would definitely agree with me about Fidel and Che.
Nice article, though. I like your central theme regarding capitalism as the engine which allows us to spread our democratic principles.
2 - roger nowosielski
I can't argue with that when it comes to considering the fruits. The case could be made, however, that in their original conception, the former were "liberation movements" - against the Tsarist Russia, or dictatorships. It's difficult to say whether Lenin or Castro foresaw the full effects of the program. But even if they did, they surely regarded it as more advantageous social arrangements then the existing ones. But one could hardly say that of Hitler, I should think, whose "solution" for a depressed German nation was conquest and world domination.
3 - m A r k
While I appreciate the sentiment underlying this series, I question whether the principle of maximization (of profit or production) is the only way (or even a potentially successful way) to rationalize our economic activity so as to maintain the high level of production necessary for human progress.
4 - Dave Nalle
That idea that capitalism is the precursor to democracy is one I've believed for a long time. The key to bringing peace to the world is not to go out conquering and nation building and imposing democracy on people who are not ready for it, but to encourage the growth of capitalism, even if under the rule of dictators or oligarchs and once capitalism is established then representative government will naturally follow.
In America it was the widespread devotion to capitalism and economic independence which drove the revolution. Ideas like republicanism and democracy didn't come until after the nation was free and they started considering what kind of government would be most friendly to the capitalist values they had fought for.
Dave
5 - roger nowosielski
Well, that is a big question, Mark. If you're asking it in a strictly economic sense, I'm afraid I'm not qualified to answer it. History is also not a very reliable guide, I'm afraid.
If you mean there are some inefficiencies that come part and parcel with "a free market" system, I agree. The Soviets were much better able to direct their industrial machinery to achieve the objectives that were important to them - strong military, space program etc. (at great expense in the area of consumer goods). So there is argument here that central planning (especially if discount the possibility of corruption) is better suited to eliminate much of "social waste" - e.g., duplication of products, packaging, all the unimportant things.
My view of capitalism is that it's a necessary evil (evil, however, which can be properly controlled and set aright so as to minimize the efficiencies). My support of it stems from the value I place on freedom - to include economic freedom - because to remove the element of "private initiative" from the (social) equation would be tantamount IMO to curbing this freedom. Besides, private initiative tends to promote ingenuity and creativity.
I suppose that's no argument against the Soviet scientific community; but these were creative people to begin with, not to mention the fact that the Soviets were very supportive of those programs. It's in the private sector that their failure was most blatant.
6 - roger nowosielski
I can't disagree with your #4, Dave. For although the kind of freedom which capitalism initially brings about and makes available is limited at first to, shall we say, certain classes, eventually that freedom spreads throughout the society. And even if it is limited at first to the economic arena - say, the area of consumer goods, and having choices - eventually it's bound to affect other realms, politics included.
7 - Cindy
The key to bringing peace to the world is not to go out conquering and nation building and imposing democracy on people who are not ready for it, but to encourage the growth of capitalism, even if under the rule of dictators or oligarchs and once capitalism is established then representative government will naturally follow.
Dave is and has defended installation of totalitarian regimes that crush the democracy people are struggling for (DAVE SAYS, "They weren't ready for democracy."
Dave defends sweatshops, Dave defends landowners (thieves who committed/supported/profited from genocide to rob land) having power over the landless).
You are a more skilled justifier than most of your ilk. I am talking to libertarian, anarchist, capitalist, agorists, or whatever they are. They all believe they are for liberty.
It's as if they absorbed some business-model of liberty. Like automatons raised on a steady diet of business POV. They don't even seem to mind at all that they have been brainwashed.
The religious quality of their beliefs becomes distinct as one watches them teach each other the tenets of this libertarian religion. Questioning them, it is apparent, even to them that there is a lot they haven't considered. They're simply buying into an ideology.
Hopefully, they will be forced to wrestle with enough ideas that question their thinking before they all grow up to be Daves and firm up their reality-proof armor.
Fuck that soulless, lying, greedy, fucked up libertarian bullshit.
8 - Bliffle
I only read the first page and already found so much I disagreed with there was no need to continue:
"...Civil Rights activists, or the pacifist movement spurred by Gandhi and adopted by Martin Luther King, Jr., the abolitionists or the suffragettes."
Uhhh, the abolitionists and suffragettes PRECEDED Gandhi. How on earth could you get this wrong? Getting things backward seems to be a theme in this thread, however.
"It was the idea that fired them all: from Lenin and Castro to Che Guevara and Daniel Ortega (and yes, even Hitler and Mussolini, because we can’t ignore the negative examples since they, too, prove the point) " an idea that was bigger than life, bigger than the immediate circumstances of the moment, however deplorable, and which stood in need of correcting, bigger than the people themselves."
Jeez, can't you cite better examples? Castro was/is a duplicitous blowhard control-freak opportunist. Che was a cold-blooded killer freak. Hitler was mad. Etc. These people only impressed people with ideas for a brief time until they had enough power to use violence, torture and threats to control them. Ideas? I don't think so. the only 'idea' any of them exemplified was dictatorial control-freakism.
"For better or worse, that’s the nature of the beast; the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Ideas rule, and the New Left is an example par excellence. The million-dollar question is: Can it sustain itself?"
Huh? What New Left? The poor forlorn democrats couldn't even form a respectable Loyal Opposition against the run-wild Bushians (witness todays spectacle of Pelosis abject humiliation at supporting torture), and now that an aroused electorate has given them a big campaign win, they can't even summon enough courage and thought to form an effective majoritarian leadership!
The "New Left" looks like nothing so much as the Old Right, which the rightist crazies left behind as a shell as they marched ever further into the insanities of more corporate predation at home and abroad.
Your "New Left" seems to be embracing more policies of the Bushians every day, starting with the mad bailout policies of paulson/bernanke etc., the various endless wars in far reaches of the globe, and now the whole damn 'detainees' sadism routine.
"Don’t forget that the New Left and the ensuing ideology " "
Huh? What ideology is THAT?
"...the heightened consciousness which has since spread throughout the globe to become a universal, or mass, consciousness was a child of prosperity."
Oh Bull! First of all, there is no "...heightened consciousness which has since spread throughout the globe to become a universal, or mass, consciousness ...".
...then...
"...A child of the unique conditions in America and the industrialized West which made it possible for bourgeois offspring to disavow their own self-interest, embracing instead the interests and the plight of the many who have been left out by the system, rebelling against the very principles which made it possible for them to think progressively and altruistically.""
How silly. These modern children of their parents prosperity are as grasping and selfish as any people in history. And now they have a deepening class system to which they can give their allegiance. That class system is re-inforced by the diminution of inheritance taxes and capital gains taxes (the source of their wealth) while the lower caste will have to forfeit their houses and pensions to pay for the expensive foreign wars and corporate bailouts that fearful plutocrats must resort to after their numerous policy screwups and mis-administration of the powers they have seized.
9 - roger nowosielski
Bliffle,
As usual, you're overreacting. The first thing you've got to get out of your head is that the New Left, as I'm describing, has got nothing to do with the Democratic Party or the political establishment. Start thinking of it as "public opinion" which is voiced time and again - as against the Iraqi war, for example. And it's not just in US.
The Left has been a force in Germany, Britain, and now UK. So you've got to shed old categories like the old Labor Movement, etc.
Perhaps you were too old to experience the sixties, but it was the most dynamic period in American history. I'm sorry it kind of passed you by.
10 - roger nowosielski
Bliffle,
You're getting to be as bad as Dave - picking a line here and there and dealing with it to the exclusion of the whole content. It's but a reaction. I realize these ideas may be foreign to you; but to react to something just because it's foreign doesn't make for the most critical judgment.
11 - Clavos
bliffle, Pelosi's 'abject humiliation" is self-inflicted, and a result having been outed as the lying scum she is.
12 - Dave Nalle
Dave is and has defended installation of totalitarian regimes that crush the democracy people are struggling for (DAVE SAYS, "They weren't ready for democracy."
IMO very few people are ready to handle democracy responsibly. Democracy in the wrong hands leads inevitably to oppression. Representative government, on the other hand, is almost always a good thing. And there is a big difference between representative government in general and the form of mob rule we call democracy.
Dave defends sweatshops, Dave defends landowners (thieves who committed/supported/profited from genocide to rob land) having power over the landless).
I bought my land. Never oppressed or exploited anyone for it. That's the kind of landowner I defend and the kind you want to destroy in your indiscriminate hatred of anyone who has achieved anything.
You are a more skilled justifier than most of your ilk. I am talking to libertarian, anarchist, capitalist, agorists, or whatever they are. They all believe they are for liberty.
And what's wrong with that? Better than being openly for oppression and the elimination of rights for everyone, which seems to be your preference. The philosophy that if you take away everyone's rights then everyone is equal is pure evil, and you subscribe to it.
It's as if they absorbed some business-model of liberty. Like automatons raised on a steady diet of business POV. They don't even seem to mind at all that they have been brainwashed.
Certainly, someone around here has been brainwashed. In my experience beliefs like yours are mostly found in those who are very young and very naive or intensely indoctrinated to the level of brainwashing.
The religious quality of their beliefs becomes distinct as one watches them teach each other the tenets of this libertarian religion. Questioning them, it is apparent, even to them that there is a lot they haven't considered. They're simply buying into an ideology.
You clearly have little experience of libertarians beyond perhaps some encounters with the confused fringes of the anarcho-libertarian coterie who have very little ability to analyze their beliefs intellectually.
Hopefully, they will be forced to wrestle with enough ideas that question their thinking before they all grow up to be Daves and firm up their reality-proof armor.
What are the classic libertarian beliefs? Thinking for yourself, questioning authority, knowledge is freedom.
You don't really grasp the diversity among those who are lumped into the class of libertarians these days. We're hardly all randian sociopaths anymore than all anarchists want to throw bombs.
Fuck that soulless, lying, greedy, fucked up libertarian bullshit.
Written with the pure hate of ignorance.
Dave
13 - roger nowosielski
I wouldn't want to call her that, Clav; but Miss Clean she's definitely not.
14 - Clavos
Uhhh, the abolitionists and suffragettes PRECEDED Gandhi. How on earth could you get this wrong? Getting things backward seems to be a theme in this thread, however.
It's a list, bliffle, and it wasn't described as presented in any particular order. Even you should be able to discern that.
Take your meds and go back to bed.
15 - roger nowosielski
Right! Bliffle read it so hastily he assumed I was providing a chronological account.
16 - Clavos
Roger #16,
Here's a point of disagreement between us Roger. I see pelosi not only as a liar, but also as a divider; a politician who thrives on partisanship and does whatever it takes to advance her own partisan goals, with no regard for what is best for the country.
17 - roger nowosielski
Well, we all know about Pelosi's career as a politician - an old style politician, at that. She was being groomed for the job since the sixties; tremendous fund-raiser and expecting favors for favors. That in itself is not an indictment. Whether she lacks in integrity I can't say. Again, extreme partisanship is not perhaps the greatest sin. Which politicians are free of it?
18 - Cindy
I bought my land. Never oppressed or exploited anyone for it. That's the kind of landowner I defend and the kind you want to destroy in your indiscriminate hatred of anyone who has achieved anything.
If kill people and steal from them what is in the common (community) use and then I pass it along through generations, isn't that just living on pirated booty? Aren't my heirs taking an advantage over the people whose ancestors weren't thieves?
Sure, some thieves sold/gave it to people like you Dave. But you were in already positioned in the system to take advantage of being able to buy it.
What about all the other people? Most people. Oh right that pesky majority--wouldn't want them oppressing the freedom of the minority to rob, steal, pillage and plunder there way to the top.
Dave, I'm also sick and tired of your business mentality ruining children's minds. Fuck your marketing manipulation schemes. Go secede and start your own country where you can all suck the life out of each other willingly with your brand of sickness.
19 - Cindy
By the way Dave, the world is not very interested in being forced to do things based on your opinion about whether they are ready for democracy.
I mean just in case that never occurred to you while you were figuring out how to justify insane behavior.
You're like a doomsday cultist. When the apocalypse doesn't happen, sane people think, well they wake up and realize their mistake. But they never do. They just make another even more insane explanation about why their beliefs are correct.
Dave you justify the most horrible oppression--complete evil. I don't buy it. You are lying to yourself. You're just a liar.
20 - Clavos
Oh, bull, Cindy.
You can't blame someone today for what may (or may not ) have happened over their little parcel of land a hundred or more years ago.
There are millions of homeowners of all income levels in this country, did they ALL "rob, steal, pillage and plunder there way to the top?"
21 - Clavos
You're usually measured and reasonable in your comments, Cindy, but today you're way over the top.
22 - Cindy
Clav,
People say, when I discuss this with them...Well, who originally owned the land? We can't figure out who to give it back to. How can we track them down? We don't have to. The same people the land was stolen from are still their waiting to benefit from its being given back. It was stolen from the common (community) use. It should go back to that use. Otherwise, what does all this talk of fairness and liberty amount to, but the liberty of thieves and those lucky enough to benefit from thievery and the hell with those who didn't or won't be able to.
I'm not blaming little landowners, I'd be blaming myself. I'm outraged at the blindness of those who promote the ideology that continues things this way. And they do it in the face of all the evidence to the contrary--evidence they won't even look at or if they do look, they just build another justification, instead of being moral human beings. Then they call this good! It's the best way to be! The best so far! WTF? Sweatshops, human slavery, death, starvation, disease---this is the best we are capable of? And whatever you show them, no matter how degraded, it never affects them. They never cry about it, it doesn't hurt them. They can't empathize. They just factor it into their calculations and justify it.
When you justify anything you are no longer human.
You're usually measured and reasonable in your comments, Cindy, but today you're way over the top.
Yes, yet it is not over the top as far as what I think--just how I am expressing what I think. Sometimes I can't seem to detach. I take in horror every day. Then, I patiently try to talk to people, whose ideas I see as responsible for creating it. And sometimes I just can't do it. In day trader parlance, it's called being on tilt. Overcome with emotion and unable to take sensible action. I know the only hope to change things won't be found in yelling at people. I have to learn to be reasonable and patient in the face of what I see as destructive and inhumane.
23 - Irene Wagner
Cindy, yes - some people (not saying Dave necessarily) are TOO good at saying, Hey, there are some burdens I'm just not built to carry. And then there others who aren't good enough at saying it.
24 - Cindy
Irene,
...there are some burdens I'm just not built to carry.
Yes, some burdens no one is built to carry.
We could end that. It's hard to know that and just keep talking to people. People seem crazy after awhile.
I think, every single person needs to pick that burden up and carry those pictures in their mind every day. It's not the answer for me to drop it. I just have to find a better way to do something about it.
25 - Irene Wagner
No don't drop the compassion, Cindy, I'm not saying that.