This book offers a clear-eyed examination of how recent social justice movements have failed to create lasting material change, before laying out a vision for building an effective leftist mass movement.
I’ve struggled which side of this debate to fall until I realized, they are the same struggle when based on your vision of an end state to the process.
If you only want to state a preference and do nothing to fundamentally change the system then these two approaches are vastly different.
If are working for a vastly different, regenerative, distributive system, that includes everyone, the differences melt away. We all go forward together.
Thanks - a very helpful summary (I'll buy and read the book) and it fits my own sense that class-first (but with an intersectional view of all divisions) is the most potent way to go. In England, where I come from, we make a distinction in the middle class realm to recognize that most of us, like me, are lower-middle class (working people with college ed like nurses, CPA's, junior managers and so on) who have been split from classic blue-collar working people to become system lackeys, differentiated from the senior managerial/coordinating class who are tightly bonded by aspiration to the owning class. I see the re-unification of the lower-middle class with the working class as the most do-able priority and this mostly means that us lower-middle class need to deconstruct the false sense of superiority that too much education of the wrong kind lays on us ... try rc.org for help with this ...
Yes! That the striving class relates more readily to the owning class than their fellow wage earners, and that they think of themselves as above from people who work with their hands, are crucial constructs to challenge.
Yes, at age 74, I'm pretty misanthropic -- been burned too many times. I don't believe in god, the soul, or or free will; I see humans as big-brained animals. Our brains have three tiers; the lowest one is the Reptilian Complex, when activated, it's vicious in every way. But, of course, my conclusions are no doubt imperfect, and you're wise to follow your own insights.
What you list and describe are all accurate and true: The book indeed has value; however, it's "cloudily" written: I understood it better through your summation of it. Maybe it's my bumper-sticker mentality and encroaching senility.
Also, a point to Fred: Calling yourself a Marxist is a conversation-ender in America today: too much baggage: Lenin, Stalin, the gulag, the bloody invasions before Putin. Even China declares itself to be only socialististic. The only communist state today is North Korea; enough said. Early Christians tried communism; they couldn't swing it, so they dropped it, as did American Pilgrims. Whether communism is viable or not, it's street cred is zero. Which makes it an albatross around one's neck when arguing politics.
But the end results, its foundational political philosophy, that communism argues for -- from each according to his or her ability; to each according to his or her need -- is ideal and worth striving for as a society. Unfortunately, most societies are chockablock with greedy, violent, stupid, lazy animals with clothes on. You can't fit a square peg into a round hole.
FYI - when working using green timber (oak) for building roof trusses we'd make pegged mortise and tenon joints of great strength using slightly oversized squared (usually 8 sided) pegs that got sledge-hammered into slightly undersized round holes. Squared pegs are easy to make with a draw-knife and round holes with an auger. The observation being that square(d) pegs do fit round holes if you hit them hard enough and the end result is a joint that self-tightens as the timber dries-out.
I think you’re right about the zero street cred, and yet the end results remaining worthwhile. I find myself more hopeful about human nature than your description suggests you are, and whether or not i’m right, my stubborn optimism has served me well, so I’ll keep choosing it.
I think most of us do, i.e., we really believe what we believe whether it's in democracy, ghosts, or UFOs.
Well, there's goes another famous phrase out the window. You're bustin' up my game here, Andy.
I’ve struggled which side of this debate to fall until I realized, they are the same struggle when based on your vision of an end state to the process.
If you only want to state a preference and do nothing to fundamentally change the system then these two approaches are vastly different.
If are working for a vastly different, regenerative, distributive system, that includes everyone, the differences melt away. We all go forward together.
Well said!
Thanks - a very helpful summary (I'll buy and read the book) and it fits my own sense that class-first (but with an intersectional view of all divisions) is the most potent way to go. In England, where I come from, we make a distinction in the middle class realm to recognize that most of us, like me, are lower-middle class (working people with college ed like nurses, CPA's, junior managers and so on) who have been split from classic blue-collar working people to become system lackeys, differentiated from the senior managerial/coordinating class who are tightly bonded by aspiration to the owning class. I see the re-unification of the lower-middle class with the working class as the most do-able priority and this mostly means that us lower-middle class need to deconstruct the false sense of superiority that too much education of the wrong kind lays on us ... try rc.org for help with this ...
Yes! That the striving class relates more readily to the owning class than their fellow wage earners, and that they think of themselves as above from people who work with their hands, are crucial constructs to challenge.
Yes, at age 74, I'm pretty misanthropic -- been burned too many times. I don't believe in god, the soul, or or free will; I see humans as big-brained animals. Our brains have three tiers; the lowest one is the Reptilian Complex, when activated, it's vicious in every way. But, of course, my conclusions are no doubt imperfect, and you're wise to follow your own insights.
I'm sure you come by your perspective honestly!
What you list and describe are all accurate and true: The book indeed has value; however, it's "cloudily" written: I understood it better through your summation of it. Maybe it's my bumper-sticker mentality and encroaching senility.
Also, a point to Fred: Calling yourself a Marxist is a conversation-ender in America today: too much baggage: Lenin, Stalin, the gulag, the bloody invasions before Putin. Even China declares itself to be only socialististic. The only communist state today is North Korea; enough said. Early Christians tried communism; they couldn't swing it, so they dropped it, as did American Pilgrims. Whether communism is viable or not, it's street cred is zero. Which makes it an albatross around one's neck when arguing politics.
But the end results, its foundational political philosophy, that communism argues for -- from each according to his or her ability; to each according to his or her need -- is ideal and worth striving for as a society. Unfortunately, most societies are chockablock with greedy, violent, stupid, lazy animals with clothes on. You can't fit a square peg into a round hole.
FYI - when working using green timber (oak) for building roof trusses we'd make pegged mortise and tenon joints of great strength using slightly oversized squared (usually 8 sided) pegs that got sledge-hammered into slightly undersized round holes. Squared pegs are easy to make with a draw-knife and round holes with an auger. The observation being that square(d) pegs do fit round holes if you hit them hard enough and the end result is a joint that self-tightens as the timber dries-out.
Well played!
I think you’re right about the zero street cred, and yet the end results remaining worthwhile. I find myself more hopeful about human nature than your description suggests you are, and whether or not i’m right, my stubborn optimism has served me well, so I’ll keep choosing it.
Thank you for this review! It's excellent 🙂
It’s my pleasure!