Our future is far from certain. Will we succumb to the exigencies of the moment or rise above? The human spirit is beckoning.
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.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Cindy
I'm sorry Irene. I think I do understand what you are saying. I would never imagine you, of all people, meant to drop compassion.
27 - Irene Wagner
Just don't hurt your ability to DO by taking too much on. Sometimes, and I don't know if I'm wrong, I've just been thinking about this for awhile. It seems like to do good/combat evil, you have to be a warrior or have to be a medic. I'm not sure people can be both, at least not simultaneously.
Does that make any sense? It's half-baked.
28 - Irene Wagner
It looks dumber the longer I look at it!
Well, in some ways, it does. I've got to go plant some basgetti squash and think on it some more. Cindy, take good care this week, of yourself and as many other people as you can reasonably handle. :) Bye for now.
29 - Cindy
Yes, I think it does, you know. I don't know which one to give up. It's like I can't give up either one. Thanks, Irene. That's very helpful. I'll think about it more.
30 - Ruvy
Can the Infantile Left sustain itself? Is this what this article is really about? I should give a damn about these neo-fascists? Is this what you wasted four pages on, Roger?
Alright, I'll give you the simple, quick answer. Those snotty bastards will manage even when they're standing on a lecture podium pissing into a Depends diaper. So long as they can keep their mouths going and so long as they have groupies in a mosh pit ('scuse me - audience) - even if the groupies are pissing into Depends diapers and toking up joints (or having home health aides help them toke up joints while they sit in wheelchairs), the egotists of the Infantile Left will be just fine.
There will be quanta of solace for them....
31 - Ruvy
BTW, Roger, in case you were wondering, I couldn't force myself to read more shit (one page was enough) about the Infantile Left - and no, I didn't even bother looking at the comment thread.
32 - Cindy
This is a romanticized idea where Capitalism leads to the emergence of this 'New Left' that made struggle for the benefit of all possible.
Zapatistas (you know dirt poor people) have solidarity with other people who struggle for justice in the world. The real struggle. Not the one where people plan marches such as the 10k strong pentagon one I attended in DC on a weekend when every war business is closed, the pentagon is closed and we march along out of the public eye along a roadway used to reach only this area.
The 200 person SDS protest through the streets was much more effective than the 10k march that served to do one thing--make the protesters feel good about themselves.
The 'New Left' are often nationalists themselves. They act like social workers who are above everyone else and can offer help from their perch above. They want to enlist governments to do what people need to do. Some of the "new Left' cause more problems than they solve. No one needs Capitalism to give them the leisure to get a conscience.
Real efforts are made through the efforts of the common people and often against Capitalists and their governments.
Governments do not go into countries to 'help' people...they go in with their own imperial and nationalistic agenda. The 'New Left' aids them in this cause, by calling for national interventions.
The New Left needs to get a clue from real struggle..even in this country struggle was not all about middle class offspring of leisure-time Capitalists that won rights for the down-trodden masses.
This is romantic thinking that glorifies an idealized version of history.
33 - roger nowosielski
That's OK, Ruvy. You are in too emotional state of mind, I'm afraid, to discuss ideas. Perhaps a year or two from now.
34 - Cindy
Noting that the author uses romanticized films to make historical comparisons, it isn't surprising that romanticized beliefs about history result.
The Other Boleyn Girl comes to mind. It’s a heckuva movie if you’re keen on comparing our present with our historical past. (from part I)
35 - roger nowosielski
The kind of conscience/consciousness people derive from struggles on behalf of themselves is a limited one and self-centered. It's only when you're free to concern yourself with things beyond your own stinking affairs that you acquire the kind of vision and power and ideas that are further-reaching and more comprehensive. All revolutions have been started by idealists. And yes, idealism is a form of romanticism - which doesn't make it any less potent for the fact.
As to capitalism having provided the necessary background for what constitutes today the predominant public opinion (as expressed by the liberal press, the BBC, the NPR, and all such, which are some of its organs and which are detested by the reactionaries) - though not as effective yet as one should hope for - yes, one has to be free from the immediacy self-directed and pressing concerns in order to become other-directed. Human nature.
36 - Cindy
There is a lefter left than the 'New Left' though and there always has been. Their POV doesn't get publicized in standard history often. In fact, it is often covered up and avoided. But it is there and passed down just the same. This is the left where these 'others' (the others in 'other-directed') are active in their own struggles on behalf of their own interests. They don't rely simply on 'liberal' media of your "New Left" or on your 'New Left' itself to aid or understand them. While the "New Left' is busy buying up green products as fast as they can waste them, like the good consumers they are, marching around in circles to make themselves feel better, and asking governments to intervene on behalf of everything in sight, the other left are taking direct action on their own behalf, and in conjunction with activists who are in solidarity with them. It needs to be beyond a social worker-client sort of relationship. It's control of the people not of governments.
Idealism and romanticism--I can identify with those as sort of creative, poetic visions (being a romantic myself)... But idealizing or romanticizing history in such a way that it doesn't see all the facts, that I think is a problem. It leads to wrong conclusion then to wrong action.
Media outlets that are empires themselves present a slanted view. Even 'liberal' media has advertisers--so the view can be slanted as it generally reports through the filter of the dominant viewpoint. BBC is an MSM outlet. Guardian UK...still MSM, but often much better. BBC, for example, was reporting based on the Police propaganda during the G20 protests. Guardian UK was investigating the propaganda and coming to very different conclusions about what was happening. That is a huge different in POV. It also is what spurred investigation of the police and all that they were doing. Without that POV the police were off the hook for the death of Ian Tomlinson and everything else they did. IPCC was ready to dismiss everything.
Even now I bet BBC did not report that an MP would be giving evidence for his witnessing of agent provocateurs used by the police to attempt to incite protester violence against police during the G20 protests.
The 'New Left' seems to rely on 'liberal media' (rather than independent news and relevant independent sources) and to trust it for the bulk of its information. There is a more grassroots, fundamental left that doesn't seem to get a mention in your picture of things. That is the danger of idealizing from a particular POV. This whole amazing ground up movement is missing from the picture, where the people walking around supporting Obama are glorified as the people who change things.
37 - Ruvy
The 'New Left' seems to rely on 'liberal media' (rather than independent news and relevant independent sources) and to trust it for the bulk of its information. There is a more grassroots, fundamental left that doesn't seem to get a mention in your picture of things.
Reading what Cindy writes reminds me of these meetings I'd go to of these "Revolutionary Zionists" who would meet in buildings near 14the Street or 23 Street in Manhattan - mass workers' movements all of them - of 7 or 8 people - arguing over Katznelson and other long forgotten socialist Zionists.
Quantum of solace much, guys....
38 - roger nowosielski
"There is a lefter left than the 'New Left' though and there always has been. Their POV doesn't get publicized in standard history often. In fact, it is often covered up and avoided."
Of course there is: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!), Paul Goodman and Kenneth Galbraith (speaking of ghosts). But it's always the case that the most radical exponents don't command the greatest audience. So naturally, what trickles down to the masses through BBC, NPR and other commercially-infested media is a highly-diluted message, ready-made for popular consumption. (How many people read "The Nation"?)
The point of the article was not to make those valid distinctions - only to point to a change of climate: It's no longer considered OK to participate in unjust war, to blatantly discriminate against women or the minorities, and so on and so forth. So even insofar as the popular mind and popular consciousness are concerned, these are taboos whereas a hundred years ago no one gave a fuck. It's not to say that "the popular mind" had reached the pinnacle of progressive thinking, only that those gains are for real. Whether public opinion on these matters carries sufficient weight to offset the doings of self-serving politicians and egotistical governments - I'd be the first to say that it doesn't. But it does come into play when it comes to shaping and determining public policy. The infatuation with Obama is a popular phenomenon and product of shallow thinking. And yes, the radical Left is very critical of him. But the radical Left hasn't swayed the masses to the radical view; still, the popular view counts for something.
It's no idealization of history to point out to the changes in America and the world in the past fifty or hundred years. It would be an idealization of history to expect too much from these changes. I made no comment in that regard.
The masses always do the heavy lifting. No one's denying it; but there are also leaders, people with ideas, that the masses follow. The point of the series was simply to point out the fact that we've become sensitized to a great many injustices and practices that years ago left us cold and uncaring. And that is, no matter how one looks at it, a positive development.
39 - Cindy
Your point Ruvy? You went to some meetings with a few people and that means that people haven't historical engaged in struggle and dissent to win freedom?
IWW
40 - Cindy
Zapatistas
Venezuela's worker occupied factory movement (which has grown according to the panel in NYC I just went to see)
Iceland (the whole population uprising)
...on and on could go a 42 mile long list.
So yes, I am talking specifically about the people on the ground in solidarity with one another--people without well-known names.
They, as well as those with the well-known names are documenting what they do, this information rarely trickles up to the 'New Left'.
So it is that is a whole 'nother world of activist activity and history. It doesn't usually get reported into the mainstream news or history. So, this 'New Left' is often and generally unaware of it.
Yes, a positive development it is, but not without its problems (some caused by the 'New Left' itself!) Thanks for appreciating my distinction.
41 - Ruvy
My point, Cindy, is that between you and Roger gabbing away, it reminds me of those meetings in lower Manhattan. Mass movements of 8 people or so leading the world to revolution.....
42 - roger nowosielski
I don't believe, however, these developments will prove to be lasting, or spread worldwide. Yes, there may be individual successes - such as the suffragettes, the abolitionists, or single-issue movements which have been hard-fought and won - but that will be a part of the larger picture. In short, I don't believe there will be a radical or lasting split along class lines, nor do I think it would be desirable.
In any case, I consider "humanistic" ideology and "humanistic" type of consciousness as superior to mere "class consciousness" (that's BTW, my disagreement with Marx) because it's more comprehensive (and I tried to provide my reasons in the article). Which is to say, I regard "freedom" and "universal justice" as more durable and worthwhile qualities upon which to build one's conception of self-worth than mere "economic equality" - if only because they transcend the latter. I certainly don't consider myself any less worthy or less deserving than Bill Gates, e.g. Economic well-being, besides, is a circumstantial thing, and therefore contingent. "Justice" and "freedom" are absolute. And it's to the credit of modern, humanistic consciousness, that it has able to rise above what's merely circumstantial and contingent, and to embrace instead values that are eternal and which ought to define us like no other.
"Egalitarianism" is part of the creed - the belief that when it all comes down to it, we're all equal.
43 - Dave Nalle
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?
No, because it is utterly impossible to figure out whose ancestors were never thieves. There was no garden of Eden. There were no 'noble' savages. Everyone took something from someone else's ancestors and that's just the way the world is. If you start judging people on what their ancestors did you open the door for the most outrageous kinds of oppression.
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.
I bought my land from a retired civil servant who bought it from a farmer whose ancestors bought it from the government. Where does any fault attach to me in that process?
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.
We have government to enforce laws against theft and fraud, so if people make it to the top and government is working, they should not be doing it by the means you suggest, and for the most part in the history of this nation that's the way it has worked.
Dave, I'm also sick and tired of your business mentality ruining children's minds.
My mentality is the mentality of the greatest possibly liberty for the most possible people. How is that going to ruin childrens minds? Would you prefer that we teach them not to value freedom, self-reliance, initiative and hard work?
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.
When did I ever say anything about force? You really need to read what I write, not just read your own prejudices into it. What I said is that capitalism paves the way for democracy and that it's more important to get capitalism started in a country than it is to overthrow their existing government and force democracy on the people. That's an anti-aggression position, though apparently you prefer forced democratization because that has worked SO remarkably well.
Dave you justify the most horrible oppression--complete evil.
I do, when? How? Give me an example. I've never tried to justify Soviet Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba or any of the other really repressive regimes currently in power or recently relevant.
I don't buy it. You are lying to yourself. You're just a liar.
And you're delusional. I understand that your idealistic illusions are starting to crumble in the face of reality in Obama's America, but don't waste your rancor on me, I'm not the problem.
Dave
44 - Cindy
Oh Ruvy, I'm sorry. (sheepish grin)
45 - Cindy
#35
The kind of conscience/consciousness people derive from struggles on behalf of themselves is a limited one and self-centered. It's only when you're free to concern yourself with things beyond your own stinking affairs that you acquire the kind of vision and power and ideas that are further-reaching and more comprehensive.
I just have to say I don't think this is accurate. From where I look, people struggling for themselves, against oppressive government or Capitalism, often create a very much more egalitarian plan than those who have the consciousness of privilege--and therefore have benefited from its hierarchical design--the supposed 'enlightened'.
This hierarchical idea is instilled in your "New Left'. It's harder for them to achieve the raised consciousness of the poorer people because they don't have to struggle daily against the hierarchy imposed by state and Capitalism like the poor do. They, in fact, try to work within its guidelines.
This 'New Left" also seems to have a mindset instilled by Capitalism that pits people against each other. The leftists I describe have solidarity as a tenet. The very way you put this idea sort of evidences this 'New Left" mindset, when you discuss: the concern with one's own affairs, sort of like one is all alone fending for ones self. This is a Capitalist mindset.
If you look, you will see radical egalitarianism in these people presumed to have a 'lower' conscientiousness. Because they often resist the Capitalist or gov't oppressive models. They have suffered under them. So they are more apt to come up with different models. These models tend to be both freer and have community support.
I think the raised consciousness is reversed from what I see.
46 - m a rk
Rog, I think we've about done the leader/guru thing to death. You want to lead? Learn to follow.
47 - roger nowosielski
"From where I look, people struggling for themselves, against oppressive government or Capitalism, often create a very much more egalitarian plan than those who have the consciousness of privilege--and therefore have benefited from its hierarchical design--the supposed 'enlightened'."
Of course they may and oftentimes do. But their struggle is still personalized and defined in rather narrow terms - the enemy. And that is one limiting factor. A far more comprehensive view is that we're all humans - even our "oppressors."
Another point - "the New Left" rebelled against the system. So the fact that there came from the position of privilege is no indictment in my mind as to the authenticity of the sentiment.
Third, and I'm quoting here:
"A major crime of capitalist society for Marx was that it had destroyed all ties between men other than naked self-interest and had 'resolved personal worth into exchange value.'"
True enough. But the point I'm making is that humanistic consciousness in terms of egalitarianism, equality, freedom and universal justice does away with the detrimental effects of the system by transcending them. Which, in essence, is an argument to the effect that in order for us to be truly free, we can't be in an antagonistic position with respect to anyone, because it only limits us, and must therefore embrace all. For freedom and equality are natural rights; and the sense of self-worth cannot be bequeathed to anyone; they must come from within, their own conception and self-understanding.
It's a matter of principle and therefore overriding whatever existing social relations, just or unjust. The matter of freedom and equality is a matter of personal decision. It's not subject to the dictates of the state or the ruling class. You may have to die for your beliefs, but so what.
It's more a matter of vision than actuality. Meanwhile, we can conduct ourselves appropriately and live as free women and men.
48 - roger nowosielski
Whatever gave you that idea, Mark? Is it because you're speechless?
Just in case you didn't get it - no, I'm not soliciting!
49 - ma rk
I forgot your...sensitivity. Sorry. Not 'you' in particular, 'you' generally.
A slogan. You know?
50 - Cindy
You making up rules about how things operate. I think you have the wrong set of rules there. I don't see things in reality operating according to them. They sound like a creative mind imagining something it's never actually seen in real life.
You presume you can guess what people think or what they are capable of believing based on some reasoned formula, but without the experience of actually knowing or working beside the real people you're judging or even reading the experience of those who have. This stuff is all bias and imagination--rationalized.
Read the work of people who have struggled with the poor and working class. That is what you are missing there I think--real information.
51 - roger nowosielski
No sensitivity, Mark, just a question point blank. I really didn't know how to that your remark.
52 - ma r k
Just my response in passing to your #38; I should have referenced it.
53 - roger nowosielski
It is a fact that when you're engaged in a combat against someone, it does limit you - because the very nature of personal combat is a limitation.
As to real struggles - I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's the idea - of freedom, equality, and justice - all these "petty" (and to your mind inconsequential little things) that have fueled and won the fight.
It's not just a silly little concern with one's own peculiar circumstances, sorry as they may be, that ever served as sufficient enough motive. Rather, it was a matter of rising above oneself and their stinking situation that made it happen.
Ideas rule - not our stinking existence.
54 - Cindy
And I am not indicting your 'New Left' having joined it for most of my life, I think I can at least say, I fell right into indoctrinated liberal patterns of solving world problems, among other things. The only ideas based on anarchism I maintained were in my direct relationships with people. But to me anarchism was a dead issue most of my life. Except in personal relationship. I didn't even bother seeing the world through anything but a liberal framework. I am quite familiar with my own mindset and what I was and was not capable of seeing all that time.
55 - roger nowosielski
I see what you were getting at. My being an elitist. Well, perhaps I am.
56 - Cindy
I'm going to simply say in looking at what real people have done in real struggles. What real people say they believe (now what you assume they are capable of believing in). You are wrong. Dead wrong. You presume things you don't know. So, we differ and that's as far as we can go.
57 - ma rk
(Gak...No, I objecting to the leader/follower model. Nothing personal.)
58 - Cindy
It is not just elitism...but it is certainly partly that. And I was an elitist myself. But it is blindness. An inability to see because of something else being in the way. And I was that too.
59 - roger nowosielski
I'm not trying to vindicate "the New Left." All I'm saying that, though a fortuitous set of circumstances, they've done us an invaluable service - namely, affording us a view of the world through idealistic eyes.
Whether it will work or not, I don't know. All I can say is that never before in the history of humankind have we been so conscious of, and brought face to face with, with the sight of injustice.
60 - ma rk
(And that should read: 'I's objecting'.)
61 - m a r k
lol I've clearly had too much sun today.
62 - Cindy
lol can't tell now whether your 'elitist' comment was directed to Mark, now. Oh well, it worked out for me.
63 - roger nowosielski
I'm sorry, but I don't have much confidence in the common man. I have faith that they'll come around, but that's it.
But then again, your complaint about the fact that "the New Left" is but an adolescent expression rather than mature, surely smacks of eliticism. Is it too elitist to say that the writings of Chomsky and Goodman are wasted on the common mind.
I don't think so. Yet, that was one of your complaints - that "the New Left," as commonly conceived, was plain and shallow.
64 - roger nowosielski
I appreciate, BTW, you two understanding and getting into this dialog because you happen to view it as a conflict of ideas.
It's good to know that not all of BC membership is moronic.
Sorry, my eliticism is showing again.
65 - Cindy
I'm sorry, but I don't have much confidence in the common man. I have faith that they'll come around, but that's it.
Read Staughton Lynd. You might get some faith from a man who has worked with the 'common man' all his life.
I think schools do that. They teach us to self-identify as 'special'. (poor ones who can't climb that ladder) And encourage us to see others as above or below us. We judge people according to this hierarchy. In doing so we forget to actually look at the actual people we judge. It's bias. Sort of makes 'intelligent' people turn out to be bigots or anti-intellkigent or something like that.
66 - Clavos
Sorry, my eliticism is showing again.
Not really. The word is elitism.
67 - roger nowosielski
You're being ideological, imputing meanings where none are intended. I haven't expressed any disrespect or lack of ability, not even of the right kind of instinct. My experience, in fact, is just the contrary - far better than the average contact on BC.
It was only to say that there are leaders and followers.
Again, ideas rule!
68 - roger nowosielski
Sorry, Clav. I knew it was wrong. Just didn't look it up.
69 - Cindy
I'm sorry, but I don't have much confidence in the common man. I have faith that they'll come around, but that's it.
Your exact words. It's all in there. I input nothing.
I'm not being ideological. I am describing both my own experience in what school did to me, my observations of and discussions with children and students, and the experience of teachers such as John Holt, and others.
(time to go off in search of something to cook...)
70 - roger nowosielski
I stand by the statement, for whatever it's worth. If your care to ignore subsequent comment, fine with me.
71 - Cindy
Not my intention to ignore. Just life calls. I was explaining my sudden disappearance after a lengthy conversation is all.
On the way home though, I wondered had I painted an idealized picture, so I hope in defending I haven't appeared to have gone too far the other way.
I accept your standing by your statement. That's cool.
72 - roger nowosielski
I'm off to see a "romantic movie."
I'll be back.
73 - Cindy
Dave,
No, because it is utterly impossible to figure out whose ancestors were never thieves...
You don't really get the point, do you? All landowners originally either stole the land, or bought it from people who stole it. And typically they committed genocide or other atrocities in order to do so. In order to cut others out.
In doing so they gave themselves an unfair advantage, having stolen property to work with and all.
It was land that was available to all. To simply take it makes it unavailable to all. It's called stealing. It should always have been available to all--forever. Like water or air.
It's an easy remedy. We return it to the use of all.
74 - roger nowosielski
There is an interesting distinction to be made when it comes to "theory of rights" - between "rights to the goods themselves," and "rights to institutional protection of those goods." If one accepts the latter, though more narrow, interpretation, than "land ownership," for example, is not a natural right but the institutional protection of land ownership would be - for as long as landed ownership is part and parcel of the existing social arrangement.
It's an important distinction, because it allows us to remove certain goods (land ownership, in this instance) from the sacrosanct circle of the untouchables (because they're unalienable). Well, the goods are not unalienable, to right to protection is.
I'll be covering this in my next article on the theory of rights.
75 - Somik Raha
Roger,
I am impressed with the humanistic and sensible approach in your series. I think it is high time people started challenging the labels they can choose from. I think the New Left is a start, and I certainly hope there is a corresponding New Right, and many more such labels that challenge the current ones and make us question our own identities.
I have a little piece that echoes your views. Will send it to you over email.