The article below is thought-provoking, though, and I commend it to Babblers.

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Intellectuals on the left certainly lack certainty: we no longer have a general theory, such as Marxism once was, that tells us how things are going and what ought to be done. Does that mean that we are no longer "general intellectuals" but only locally and particularly engaged-"specialists," as Michel Foucault argued? This left intellectual writes about education, this one about city planning, this one about health care, this one about the labor market, this one about civil liberties-and all of them are policy wonks. Is that our world? Well, maybe it is ours, but it isn't theirs. Here is the crossover again: there are definitely general intellectuals on the right. The theory of the free market isn't a world-historical theory exactly; one might say that it is a world-ahistorical theory. But it does have extraordinary reach; it allows its believers to have an opinion about pretty much everything.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
I have always liked Michael Walzer, though I consider him to be more rightwing than I think is justified.

The article below is thought-provoking, though, and I commend it to Babblers.

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/sp05/walzer.htm

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This particular paragraph is telling:

"Fear has to be our starting point, even though it is a passion most easily exploited by the right. Religious zeal and terrorism produce real insecurity; if ordinary Americans are fearful today, they have good reason. Some leftists argue that the fear of terrorism is contrived, one more example of false consciousness, a diversion from the things we really need to worry about. There are probably people in the Bush administration who have exactly the same view; the only difference is that they admire the contrivance. But that view is wrong, and it would be politically disastrous for the left to act upon it. The first task of the state, as Hobbes argued, is to protect people from the fear of violent death and from actual violent deaths-and that is a legitimate and necessary task. But while the state is doing that, it can do many other things. Hyping the threat of terror is indeed a way of making Americans forget the other things. But acknowledging the threat can open up a wider politics of collective security. After all, the defense of vulnerable men and women is classic leftism. And if we want to protect the American people against environmental degradation, or nuclear accidents, or pandemic disease, or the vagaries of the market, or long-term unemployment, or destitution in old age, then we need to make the case that we can also protect them against terrorist attack."

If you want a starting point for a thought-experiment, try honest observation instead of wishful theory. What are people like? How do they behave? What do they need?

If you want a starting point for a political platform, try the basic requirements for survival and build on that. What's the biggest threat, at this moment, to the survival of the species? To the survival of the nation? to the survival of individual citizens? Make up a program that addresses threats, from the most urgent or the most cataclysmic (if it's the same one, your task is simpler) to the least.

If you want a starting point for action, pick the issue closest to your heart and do some little thing about it.

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Originally posted by jeff house:
Intellectuals on the left certainly lack certainty...

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[QUIBBLE] Note to copy editor at Dissent magazine: 'You're fired.' [/QUIBBLE]

[Note to self: proof snide copy before posting. ]

[ 08 April 2005: Message edited by: Tape_342 ]

To wit:
- People will enter into and remain in bad marriages for the sake of security.
- People will stay in lousy jobs in the name of security.
- People will join the military and invade innocent countries, killing the inhabitants if they can be made to believe their security is at risk. Others will allow tyranical regiemes to rule for fear of either their personal security of the percieved threat of national security.
- People will pay huge amounts of taxes (to the extent that it may later financially cripple or even bankrupt the country) in fear of any threat to their immediate security (read: terrorism).
- People will buy expensive SUVs with the desire for personal security, real or imagined.
- Social Security in the US is called the "third rail" due to the security it offers, the administration must seek to change it by suggesting that it may fail, ie. it is "insecure".
- Canadians love public health care because of the security it offers.
- People will polute their land in the search for economic security.

How should the left deal with this? Simply put, I would suggest it should offer real programs that increase security.

Some of these programs might be as follows:
-Defend public health care on the facts which suggest it tends to be cheaper and safer than privatized systems.
-Defend free public education (including University) on the basis that it offers long-term benefits such including social and economic security.
-Investigate and promote those non-allopathic treatments that are likely to be cheaper and more effective in treating disease than their allopathic counterparts.
-Defend economic security by switching to a more fully backed currency and full-employment policy. Explain why the current system is doomed to crash and burn, and how to make a safe transition.
-Promote world security by offering infrastructural aid to poorer countries, appologizing for past mistakes that might have supported repressive regiemes, and forgiving any debts that contribute to the death of children and crippling of economies.
-Investigate energy sources that might one day be safer and cheaper than oil/gas/coal based sources.
-Support green technologies insofar as the cost/benefit equation is positive, all things considered.

Do this well, and the left could be in power indefinately, and rightly so. Allow another group to claim thay they offer better security, and the opposite is the probable outcome.

[ 09 April 2005: Message edited by: Mr. Anonymous ]

What I believe is the underlying problem with left wing intellectualism is the partial, and not total reliance on scientific method. We don't argue well, and articulately because right from the get go, we're not confident of our facts.

Compounding this is the lack of people who have the gift of taking technical stuff and laying it out succinctly and entertainingly to "the layman." This is a rare tallent. In the world of Science writting, we have had but a handfull that have caught the popular imagination.

This is something we need to cultivate.

This is a good observation to me, because it verifies old idealogy, much like it's predecessor in the collapse, has to go through revisions for it to fit appropriately in todays world.

Science and it's implcations and how math arises from philosophical exploration.

If we do not keep abreast of what is happening much like old ideology it goes by way of walls that have been created, and have since, come down.

Complex ideology

Did You know Penrose had to implore the likes of Escher in order to play out some of his idealizations that he worked on? Arthur Miller speaks on Einstein, or Salvador Dali, speaking to the spiritual nature of the Tresserack. If you read some of Dali's life you'd wonder what kind of statement he was making?

Michio Kaku's vision of the carp looking towards the surface.

Such vision articulated for the laymen, is pictures, and not said to be rudely or degrading of the comprehension factors of some people, but the true recognition is, that a picture does indeed speak a 1000 words.

Soviet style communism failed for a reason.

You have to get rid of the ole Red Guard first

Those guys are just as dismayed(meaning the extreme right corporate challenged), and are "sheep" in their own right carrying the corporate logo banner.

God gives us dicrimminating powers, to recognize what we have read as to whether it rings true to the basis of our expressions and dignities for human rights?

Ultimately this "regress of reasons," helps us understand, that the first principles can then be moved upon.

We act on belief structures all the time, whether they are right or wrong, aware of them or not. This is a karmic response I guess, to the leadership you would offer of yourself. Is it right?

If we do not have the knowledge at hand, then indeed it becomes very difficult to make proper decisions, and advance the ole guard without idealogical comprehension of the ole philosophies?

How do you expect to advance? You got to know what the hell your talking about before you spread the ole leftist message.

I have seen to often the good engineer design to spec's and find that his comprehension of the field did not prepare him for the greater variables that such logic did not present previously.

Even the laymen can recognze when educated people might have missed something. That's why you get the good engineer into the field to look at the possibilties of other variables that he might run up against. They earn stripes then, and much nicer bars worth leading the charge

obstuse

2 a : lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect : INSENSITIVE, STUPID b : difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression

If these are reasons for butting out I'd hate to be the instigator. Too bad.

[ 09 April 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

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Originally posted by nonesuch:
None of those are starting-points: they're all mid-points.
And that's the only place we can start, because we're always in the midst of life. We can't erase what is and build a fresh society... and even if we could, we'd have to do it with the same old materials.

If you want a starting point for a thought-experiment, try honest observation instead of wishful theory. What are people like? How do they behave? What do they need?

If you want a starting point for a political platform, try the basic requirements for survival and build on that. What's the biggest threat, at this moment, to the survival of the species? To the survival of the nation? to the survival of individual citizens? Make up a program that addresses threats, from the most urgent or the most cataclysmic (if it's the same one, your task is simpler) to the least.

If you want a starting point for action, pick the issue closest to your heart and do some little thing about it.

It's not merely possible, but almost unavoidable to overintellectualize. Every half-way bright person since Adam and Eve has known the difference between good and bad behaviour, between a good and a bad social structure. Every sage has written it down. We already know what we should do - we just don't do it.

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I'm thinking the fault lies with my faculties, and not anyone elses.

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Originally posted by nonesuch:
None of those are starting-points: they're all mid-points.
And that's the only place we can start, because we're always in the midst of life. We can't erase what is and build a fresh society... and even if we could, we'd have to do it with the same old materials.

If you want a starting point for a thought-experiment, try honest observation instead of wishful theory. What are people like? How do they behave? What do they need?

If you want a starting point for a political platform, try the basic requirements for survival and build on that. What's the biggest threat, at this moment, to the survival of the species? To the survival of the nation? to the survival of individual citizens? Make up a program that addresses threats, from the most urgent or the most cataclysmic (if it's the same one, your task is simpler) to the least.

If you want a starting point for action, pick the issue closest to your heart and do some little thing about it.

It's not merely possible, but almost unavoidable to overintellectualize. Every half-way bright person since Adam and Eve has known the difference between good and bad behaviour, between a good and a bad social structure. Every sage has written it down. We already know what we should do - we just don't do it.

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Name one fucking person has no mind for "need". Is there a day that goes by that there is not a charity knocking at the door or ringing up the phone? I am picturing a Swastica and a cow. Guess who...

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Alienation is the process whereby people become foreign to the world they are living in.

The concept of alienation is deeply embedded in all the great religions and social and political theories of the civilised epoch, namely, the idea that some time in the past people lived in harmony, and then there was some kind of rupture which left people feeling like foreigners in the world, but some time in the future this alienation would be overcome and humanity would again live in harmony with itself and Nature.

Marx had a specific understanding of the very sharp experience of alienation which is found in modern bourgeois society. Marx developed this understanding through his critique of Hegel.

According to Hegel, through their activity, people created a culture which then confronted them as an alien force. But for Hegel human activity was itself but the expression of the Spirit (or Zeitgeist) which acted through people.

In the first place, Marx insisted that it was human labour which created culture and history, not the other way around; in other words spirit was a human product, not the other way around.

“Subjectivity is a characteristic of subjects and personality a characteristic of the person. Instead of considering them to be predicates of their subjects, Hegel makes the predicates independent and then lets them be subsequently and mysteriously converted into their subjects.
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/subject/frames/index.htm

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The supersession of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human senses and attributes; but it is this emancipation precisely because these senses and attributes have become human, subjectively as well as objectively. The eye has become a human eye, just as its object has become a social, human object, made by man for man. The senses have therefore become theoreticians in their immediate praxis. They relate to the thing for its own sake, but the thing itself is an objective human relation to itself and to man, and vice versa. [Marx's note: In practice I can only relate myself to a thing in a human way if the thing is related in a human way to man.] Need or employment have therefore lost their egoistic nature, and nature has lost its mere utility in the sense that its use has become human use.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm#s2

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It can be seen how the history of industry and the objective existence of industry as it has developed is the open book of the essential powers of man, man's psychology present in tangible form; up to now this history has not been grasped in its connection with the nature of man, but only in an external utilitarian aspect, for man, moving in the realm of estrangement, was only capable of conceiving the general existence of man – religion, or history in its abstract and universal form of politics, art, literature, etc. – as the reality of man's essential powers and as man's species-activity. In everyday, material industry (which can just as easily be considered as a part of that general development as that general development itself can be considered as a particular part of industry, since all human activity up to now has been labor – i.e., industry, self-estranged activity) we find ourselves confronted with the objectified powers of the human essence, in the form of sensuous, alien, useful objects, in the form of estrangement. A psychology for which this book, the most tangible and accessible part of history, is closed, can never become a real science with a genuine content. What indeed should we think of a science which primly abstracts from this large area of human labor, and fails to sense its own inadequacy, even though such an extended wealth of human activity says nothing more to it perhaps than what can be said in one word – "need", "common need"? http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/epm/3rd.htm#s2

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Name one fucking person has no mind for "need". Is there a day that goes by that there is not a charity knocking at the door or ringing up the phone? I am picturing a Swastica and a cow. Guess who...

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:
I believe the left in the U.S. and Canada started abandoning Marxist, and certainly Soviet ideology as an answer to our problems very early in the game, after Ema Goldman returned from the revolution to decry Bolshivism. That started it, and the convolutions and excesses of Stalinism sealed it back in the 50's.

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Their excesses paled in comparison to the Tsars who lived in obscene grandeur and opulence in 30 some odd summer and winter palaces while millions roamed Russian countrysides. What sealed it was when Nicky ordered throngs of hungry protestors shot dead at the palace gates.

No leaders were more corrupt or oppressive as imperialists. The super-rich in North America have learned from the revolutions to hide their wealth offshore and deny they even exist. Their wealth and assets now dwarf that of the tsars, kings and emperors. The corrupt Soviets were never even close to the net worth of the imperialists, then or now.

I think Emma Goldman wasn't there to observe the opposition to Bolshevik revolution, the chaos and the purges which were absolutely necessary for removing imperialism from power in Russia. The imperialists did not go gently, no they did not. The blue bloods and their privileged entourage, the hangers-on, all fought gallantly to maintain brutal and oppressive rule over millions. Emma spoke to Lenin about freedom of speech while violent revolution was still happening all around them. Lenin listened intently to Emma, and then pointed out to her that freedom of speech was being hard fought for then and there. Emma didn't understand that bloody violence was the only thing imperialists could possibly understand at that particular point in time. All talks between the army of Russian peasants and oppressive imperialists had been called off at that point. The revolutionaries had no other options. Their bluff was called, and the revolution was unstoppable.

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What I believe is the underlying problem with left wing intellectualism is the partial, and not total reliance on scientific method. We don't argue well, and articulately because right from the get go, we're not confident of our facts.

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The left has been pointing out the very unscientific nature of laissez-faire capitalism for decades now. The model was based on a single human behaviour, self-interest, and it is deeply flawed. People are not one dimensional prisoners of our own self-interest and greed. We are capable of a wide range of behaviours. And when the model is wrong, results are become as distorted as they are today. Corporate and political corruption have been defining moments of corporate and political corruption in the liberal democratized world. ENRONg, Nortel, Adelphia, Global Crossup, World CON and more were just the tip of what is surely a larger, hidden iceberg of corruption, according to the left and now talk on the street. People have no faith in politicians, and that's a first step to rebellion.

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This has lead to the right being able to steal out from under us popular issues that they've run with over the last twenty years or so.

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I think that the right has been rigging elections in the States. They are holed-up in America and having to resort to stealing elections. We have to realize that this cosmetic leader, and who represents the last real bastion of conservatism in the world, has the narrowest margin of support of any second-term president in U.S. history. And they've had to rely on lowest income, have-not States for support at the polls. The left is leading the charge for proportional representation as exists in umpteen European social democracies. The American right-wing have been propping up other unstable dictatorships for several decades now. Without the hawks and CIA slash military industrial complex guiding world politics, the world would choose social democracy, naturally. Colonialism isn't dead yet though.

The three most conservative western nations are the US, Britain and Canada where first-past-the-post elections promote 51% of the vote to 100% representation while reducing 49% to zero. Our conservative politicians and their corporate donors will fight hard against PR. They don't wish to be politically neutered as their counterparts in Europe are. Conservatives in Europe can only threaten to be as far to the right as they'd wish to be. Here, they actually carry through with their wanton corruption because they know that corporations and banking elite can do business as usual with the liberal party. And people tend to vote liberal so as not to elect conservatism here in Canada and the States. This two-party illusion of democracy is just that, and people know it.

I think that the economic elite and their agenda are beginning to return to those days of British enclosure when the common good was gradually displaced by private good and individualism. The next generations may well have to choose between submitting to oppressive oligarchies and making a stand themselves.

[ 09 April 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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I think Emma Goldman wasn't there to observe the opposition to Bolshevik revolution, the chaos and the purges which were absolutely necessary for removing imperialism from power in Russia. The imperialists did not go gently, no they did not. The blue bloods and their privileged entourage, the hangers-on, all fought gallantly to maintain brutal and oppressive rule over millions. Emma spoke to Lenin about freedom of speech while violent revolution was still happening all around them. Lenin listened intently to Emma, and then pointed out to her that freedom of speech was being hard fought for then and there. Emma didn't understand that bloody violence was the only thing imperialists could possibly understand at that particular point in time. All talks between the army of Russian peasants and oppressive imperialists had been called off at that point. The revolutionaries had no other options. Their bluff was called, and the revolution was unstoppable.

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Fidel is lying of course as all Vanguardists do on this tragic story. For a true Situational account of what happened I point you to this:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Russia/

It was more then free speech. Emma learned about Nestor Maknho, she learned about Kronstadt, she saw what happened to prostitutes(she was one for a while to buy a gun) She saw the people with such high hopes cursing 'communism' in the streets as they starved. She saw the that whatever the damage the counter revolutionary forces did failed in comparison to red terrorism. The part with Kropotkin was sad too.

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Originally posted by Tommy_Paine:

What I believe is the underlying problem with left wing intellectualism is the partial, and not total reliance on scientific method. We don't argue well, and articulately because right from the get go, we're not confident of our facts.

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I think you and I agree here 100%. There is much here on the board to substantiate your point (eg. like the one who thought I am I right wing nut for posting excerpts from Hegel and Marx [not a very good reader I guess]}. Some people seem to only think of science in the second person like only another person could practise science. Others like to 'write' many posts that seem an attempt to sustain a superior loftiness.

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
It was more "then" free speech.

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LeftRight:
a human science of humans

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Emma just missed the 14 nation invasion of Russia to put down the revolution. Included were Spanish fascists, Poles, Germans, Brits, Czechs and more surrounding from the east, and American battalion of about 3000 or so who were last seen heading for the heart of Russia and never to be heard from again.

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This excuse really doesn't work anymore Fidel. That was no excuse for the people to be treated like slaves. And they were already beaten by Red Fascism when this was happening. And mentioning Spain, what about the fact that Stalin helped Franco crush the anarchist thing in spain?

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And then, if that wasn't paranoia over communism enough for the world, wealthy bankers and industrialists had to fund Hitler's buildup for Nazi war against Russia all over again while anywhere from 50 to 80 million people went missing after WWII. And then a cold war and associated fascist-corporate trade embargos to prove that communism should not, and probably would not work. Watch Hitler mini-me Vigilante come to the fascists defense now while skirting around any real praise for Hitler and the rest of the corporate stooges of fascism. ha ha

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The only ones who seemed paroniod about true communism were the red fascists decided that the workers who were serious about it had to be crushed. And I condemn all forms of fascism including the one you don't awknoledge. And I really can't be bothered by the mini-me hitler thing Fidel. It is not suprising that someone as deranged and enslaved to a dead ideology such as yourself would do that.

Anyone who bleats this bit of anti-intellectual crap:

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I actually think people shouldn't pay attention to economics. It's all based on language and socially constructed lies.
The whole thing is a religion that for the sake of life on earth and in general should go the way of the dinos.

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And my quote stands. Economics is all based on a set of social constructs and relationships that should have been long discarded.

There are indiginous people who exist in the world who have never heard of concepts such as employment/unemployment ect and live just fine.When they are forced off the land and into the job market they come to wish they never heard of it. Ecomomics is a religion that puts us in a state of mind that all of us can snap out of if we want to.

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Originally posted by Vigilante:
Hows that dwindling social group of vanguardists doing Todd? Shouldn't they be put on the intellectual endangered species list?

And my quote stands. Economics is all based on a set of social constructs and relationships that should have been long discarded.

There are indiginous people who exist in the world who have never heard of concepts such as employment/unemployment ect and live just fine.When they are forced off the land and into the job market they come to wish they never heard of it. Ecomomics is a religion that puts us in a state of mind that all of us can snap out of if we want to.

I know this forces people to drop alot of what Marxism is, however if Marx was serious about people freeing themselves he would realize this today.

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