Revising my PhD notes I read a short essay by Immanuel Wallerstein that I had sourced but not looked at five or so years ago. The paper "Radical Intellectuals in a Liberal Society" was written around 1970 and constitutes Wallersteins reflections on his experiences of the 1968 student uprising at Columbia.
I was struck by how much of what he wrote nearly 50 years ago remains valid; although a better way of looking at it is how much of the potential he identified then remains potential while the dangers of which he warned have become the present reality of the left.
That Wallerstein saw 1968 as a decisive turning point in the history of modern capitalism is not new - this was the theme of the paper I presented at the conference on the history of 1968 at Melbourne University in 2008 and which still sits in my files as an unfinished article. What is interesting is to see the enthusiasm and optimism he displayed a mere 2 years after the events. The revolt of the young he insisted had liberated the entire American left from the cramping fears of Cold War McCarthyism and from the cramping and stultifying domination of the surviving corners of the left by Stalinism. He was convinced that this revolt had not only put left ideas and concepts back into circulation, but had 'indigenized' the left in America. He was optimistic that this indigenization had made the long time survival of the left possible.
Sadly as we know now, that was not to be, not in America and not elsewhere. Ten years after '68 overt institutional and state strategies commenced, as part of the neo-liberal counter revolution, to marginalise and nullify the gains made in society, in social and political ideas and in the world of the academy, by the generation of '68. By 1989 the left was once again non existent, and this predated even the collapse of the bureaucratic authoritarianism that (mis)called itself 'actual existing socialism' in eastern Europe. So why did this happen?
Obviously part of the story is that concerted attack commencing in the late 1970's to which I just referred. But part of the story lies also in what the left did, and failed to do, in the years when it had some traction, roughly between 1968 and 1979. And here some of Wallersteins observations are worth considering.
Firstly he identified as of 1970 that there were some '"putative steps toward re-Stalinization made by some segments of the New Left" which he then thought would fail. Again sadly this was not to be the case. Stalinist, as in bureaucratic, manipulative anti-democratic practices, remain deeply entrenched even today in the left and in the labour movement. One of the interesting - and deplorable - illustrations of this has been the decline of the ISO into a Stalinist caricature, 'toy Bolshevism' as many of its critics (often former members) describe it. Trotskyist organisations, founded on a tradition of left opposition to Stalinism have by and large become practitioners of the very things they condemn. Now no one who thinks dialectically should be overly surprised by this; after all the essence of a dialectical perspective is that every notion turns into its opposite. Trotskyist organisations were always under attack - from the official Stalinist left, from the anti communist labour movement, from the repressive organs of the state (all states) - and it is no surprise that under those circumstances, defensiveness, institutional paranoia and repressive practices to safeguard the organisation would thrive. I singled out the ISO in particular, because it grew very much out of the '68 experience and yet went down the same route. Wallersteins observation about the tendencies in the New Left was correct, his optimistic dismissal of it mistaken in retrospect. Re-Stalinization was a definite problem.
Wallerstein identified two dangers that could undermine the post '68 American New Left. The first was that it would over emphasise what had been its biggest success - spontaneity. The second was the possible inability to build alliances against the right with the 'liberal centre'. Let's take a closer look at what he had to say about each of these.
Wallerstein thought that the spontaneity of the youth revolt had taken three forms: intellectual debunking, militant collective action and personal liberation. Debunking had taken two very necessary and thoroughly useful forms; firstly showing that the various intellectual concepts of liberalism were not self evident truths but forms of ideology and secondly that institutions supposedly committed to the self evident truths of liberalism (like the universities of the Cold War era) had in fact failed to uphold and act according to their own standards. In this debunking the New Left was very successful and after images of that debunking still haunt the pages and venues of intellectual discourse. But there was a danger in taking debunking too far, When the 'cobwebs of deception' as Wallerstein put it, had been largely cleared, a persistence with debunking requires the creation of new cobwebs. This he asserted was 'witch hunting' and the signs could be seen in 1970: "Fear of success, and fear of co-optation, led to frenetic desire for purity, to a paranoiac fear of infiltration which becomes self fulfilling and to a casuistical concern with past peccadilloes and future dangers." Needless to say almost, such an environment is the perfect place for re-Stalinization to occur.
But I want to take Wallerstein's observation a lot further. What replaced more or less Marxist analysis in the academy in the 1980s was an amalgam of imported - and not always fully understood - ideas, largely from French thinkers, that came to be called post modernism. And what grew up alongside of this was a form of politics that rejected the universalism of both the old and the new left in favour of particularities - identity politics. (It is interesting to read Naomi Kleins generational self-criticism in No Logo about how the immersion of her age cohort in identity politics gave corporations the space to to restructure into brand machines free of scrutiny). Now I don't want to get into an analysis and critique of those topics here, but I do want to note a consequence of them. And that has been the perpetuation of an internal and eternal witch hunting mindset. Each identity elevates itself to the supreme pinnacle of repression, identifies itself as the most deserving and important of all oppressed identities, demands recognition of its unique role and engages in endless 'calling out' of other identities to 'check their privilege'. The break down of solidarity, of comradeship, of an aspiration to a universal liberation of all of humanity from repression and exploitation is submerged under the self privileging of each identity. And the need to protect that identity and maintain it unique position provides a marvelous environment for re-Stalinization.
If we turn to the second manifestation of '68 spontaneity, militant collective action, or direct action, we find again that Wallersteins judgement is positive. Paraphrasing his argument: the form of confrontation tactics within the universities (and elsewhere too - a big weakness of Wallersteins view of '68 is its confinement within the world of campus uprisings), such actions had been very successful. Once issues were forced in this way, institutions by and large made significant concessions to the demands of the left, which would not have been made when faced with intellectual debunking only. In short a tactic of intellectual challenge to the prevailing ideology could only be successful when combined with militant direct action. This is a very important point and must be reiterated. Direct physical political action and intellectual political argument must go hand in hand. One cannot succeed without the other. Let me quote Wallerstein directly: "Militant collective action is necessary to counter the systematic violence of entrenched authority, and to shake up the timorous inertia of the parlor pinks. But militant collective action is serious political activity and can only be undertaken when one has serious strength". Moving too far ahead of real strength based on self confidence leads to repression and disaster. At this point action crosses over into adventurism.
Now there has been adventurism aplenty in the annals of the left, some of it on display during the final half decade of the New Left. In Australia I think of the anti uranium rallies and some of the anti US base protests in which I participated in the late 70s / early 80s in which small numbers led us to bravado and confrontations we could only lose, and worse, to look ridiculous in the act of losing. But there has been a further problem with militant direct action which Wallerstein did not foresee, that in seeking to avoid adventurism excessive caution prevailed to the stage that protest and rallies are now conducted according to a ritualised program and have degenerated into spectacle, something we do because we don't know what else to do. Wallerstein warned about adventurism; the other side of the coin is spectacle and both have contributed to the public irrelevancy of the left.
The final element of the '68 spontaneity Wallerstein identified was personal liberation. By this Wallerstein was referring to the "youth culture"of the 1960s. Like Marcuse (a connection I had not made before) Wallerstein saw participation in that culture as liberating in that it broke ways of thinking free from the dominant modes of internalised social control and ideology. But committed as always to the Aristotlean via media, he cautioned against taking this too far, in to the realm of the 'cop out'. Once again it was the cautioned against excess that came to dominate - youth culture morphed into New Ageism and self indulgence, and many of the hippies of the late '60s became quite comfortable neo-liberals as time went on. Neo-liberalism is different from earlier liberal ideologies in its emphasis on personal choice as enabling the commodification of lifestyle choices and thus is its willing acceptance of 'counter culture'. (Naomi Klein in No Logo is good on this).
SO much for the first danger - the excess of spontaneity. The second danger dealt with failing to ally with the 'liberal centre' against the right. In 1970 by 'right' Wallerstein was referring to what we at the time called the "establishment', the ruling class and the power elite. Nowadays we tend to think more of the resurgent extreme right, but they were still largely hidden away then, driven into hiding by the general antipathy to extreme right views after 1945. But they were there, like cockroaches lurking in the sewers. One of the great ironies of the turn to identity politics was that that enabled the public reappearance of extreme right politics as a from of identity politics. Encouraged subsequently by government pandering to their prejudices for electoral advantage (this was certainly the case in Australia where I live) the extreme right is now a very real presence and potential threat in political life. But I digress here.
As of 1970 Wallerstein clearly thought that the 'liberal centre' contained 'honest liberals' who while unhappy with the illiberal tendencies of the Cold War national security state, and in particular with the subordination of the universities to that state. He was of the view that this centre could be brought into active alliance with the left to liberalise the academy and with that intellectual and cultural life. He was forthright is acknowledging this liberal centres past passivity and its own inability to combat the system. He was of the view that the necessary debunking (short of degenerating into witch hunts) would win them over and even cancel their dislike of mass direct action. His concern was that the distrust (justified on past experience) that the left harboured for the 'liberal centre' would hinder the formation of necessary alliances.
Now on this point I think Wallerstein was wrong, and I suspect he would agree now too. His work in the 1980s and 1990s on the development of centrist liberalism as the core ideology of the modern capitalism and the concomitant invention of the social sciences to manage, absorb and defang anti systemic challenges would suggest that. In the optimism of the 1968 aftermath I think he overestimated the 'honesty' of the 'liberal centre' and underestimated their closeness to power. Some comments indicate that he was already aware of this. One of the causes of the potential excess of spontaneity allowing it to degenerate into witch hunts, adventurism or the cop out would be the reaction of the liberal centre he suggested. And I think in this view he was close to correct. The liberal centre could absorb the debunking, eventually enabling that to become a technique by which the left turned on itself, as I suggested above. It could even overcome its initial hostility to mass collective action by taming it into the kind of ritual spectacle of protest that now exists. The corollary of this spectacle, when the repressed classes do organise mass action of their own that goes outside of the spectacle - for example mass picketing, union 'run throughs', Black Lives Matter, actual confrontations with the police apparatus, Aboriginal tent embassies, environmental blockades and lock ons, running the Trump campaign out of Chicago and the like - is to call for order and disparage the rebellious as being 'violent' and 'excessively confrontational'. As to personal liberation, well this has proved to be a commercial bonanza when commodified as 'lifestyle choice', and a very effective political strategy too. The commodification of lifestyle choice has won over many elements of the Gay community as was documented in the book Homocons: The Rise of the Gay Right by Richard Goldstein. Liberal feminism - the reduction of the Women's Liberation Movement to issues of pay equality and getting more women as CEOs or in government as an end in itself - provides another example.
What lessons for a potential left can be drawn from this? I would suggest as a start: build our own movement, build our own networks among the natural constituencies - the repressed, the exploited, the marginalised, the excluded. Avoid the liberal centre, they are fully integrated into the class system. Distrust always the 'morally motivated' middle class with an investment in the system. Avoid the universities and students as some kind of cadre - they will play for a while and then by and large return to their middle class role. If some of them through their studies and experiences have genuine epiphanies let them come to us. Avoid incorporation at all costs into the system. Mass collective action is powerful, but serious. Do not overuse it or use it for symbolic purposes only. Rather than organise a rally that is small and marginalised opt for the hard work of campaigning and community organising. Keep your ire and anger focused on the real enemies and avoid witch hunting among comrades. (The authors of Deep Green Resistance very aptly called this 'horizontal hostility' - I might come back to this at some time in another post). And realise that lifestyle choices are not necessarily political. The personal is political, but it is not the only political. Individualism will never be revolutionary - that requires collectivism, and a collective identity that incorporates and transcends other identities.
Sunday, 13 March 2016
Tuesday, 1 March 2016
On drawing lots
My friend Jason Adams posted this quote on his Facebook wall today, an extract from the book Hatred of Democracy by Jacques Ranciere. It is an argument on why to reject elections, and instead embrace sortition, or selection by drawing names out of a hat.
"The drawing of lots, so they say, was fitting for ancient times in those small towns with little economic development. How could our modern societies, made of so many delicately interlocking cogs, be governed by individuals chosen by drawing lots, individuals who know nothing of the science of such fragile equilibria? We have found more fitting principles and means for democracy: representation of the sovereign people by elected members; and a symbiosis between the elite, elected representatives of the people, and the elites educated in our schools about the mechanisms by which our societies function. But differences in time and scale are not the heart of the matter. If the drawing of lots appears to our ‘democracies’ to be contrary to every serious principle for selecting governors, this is because we have at once forgotten what democracy meant and what type of ‘nature’ it aimed at countering... We habitually oppose the justice of representation and the competence of governors to arbitrary justice and the mortal risks of incompetence. But the drawing of lots has never favoured the incompetent over the competent. If it has become unthinkable for us today, this is because we are used to regarding as wholly natural an idea that certainly was neither natural for Plato, nor any more natural for French and American constitutionalists two centuries ago: that the first title that calls forward those who merit occupying power is the fact of desiring to exercise it."
I was very taken with this extract. It brought to mind something I read by Immanuel Wallerstein when I was engaged in research for my not completed PhD thesis. From memory Wallerstein was talking about filling positions of functionaries, rather than elections of office bearers. His argument was that human talents are distributed along a bell curve and the vast majority of people are average. That means that the relevant skills, talents and so on will be clustered around the average value, and that consequently:
1)the people available or applying for a certain position are not especially different from one another and
2) it is virtually impossible to distinguish among the competencies and so other, hidden, (and thus inequitable) criteria must enter the process.
Truly outstanding individuals (in the senses of both competency and incompetency) are found on the ends of the bell curve and thus are rare and not to be expected. In Wallerstein's view positions could be filled as well by selecting names out of a barrel as any other method. As sortition is also more equitable and cost effective, the case against it can only rest on ideology. And this is exactly what Ranciere argues above.
To my way of thinking sortition is the most democratic, most equitable and most effective way of filling all government, administrative and occupational positions. There is nothing to prevent limiting the eligible population from which the names are drawn in particular cases. For example, the position of a surgeon or an engineer to build a bridge would draw names from people who had the relevant skills.
Further pre-sorting of the eligible population could also ensure more equitable outcomes. The low representation of women and people of colour in many occupations could be rectified by limiting the number of white men in the eligible population to a number equal to the number of women or people of colour. This would ensure a statistically equal chance of selection to each group. In situations such as filling a parliament or similar such body the population could be sorted into category barrels and a specified number of names drawn from each barrel.
If we are serious about the development of a more democratic, more equitable world, the use of sortition as a selection / election mechanism seems essential.
1)the people available or applying for a certain position are not especially different from one another and
2) it is virtually impossible to distinguish among the competencies and so other, hidden, (and thus inequitable) criteria must enter the process.
Truly outstanding individuals (in the senses of both competency and incompetency) are found on the ends of the bell curve and thus are rare and not to be expected. In Wallerstein's view positions could be filled as well by selecting names out of a barrel as any other method. As sortition is also more equitable and cost effective, the case against it can only rest on ideology. And this is exactly what Ranciere argues above.
To my way of thinking sortition is the most democratic, most equitable and most effective way of filling all government, administrative and occupational positions. There is nothing to prevent limiting the eligible population from which the names are drawn in particular cases. For example, the position of a surgeon or an engineer to build a bridge would draw names from people who had the relevant skills.
Further pre-sorting of the eligible population could also ensure more equitable outcomes. The low representation of women and people of colour in many occupations could be rectified by limiting the number of white men in the eligible population to a number equal to the number of women or people of colour. This would ensure a statistically equal chance of selection to each group. In situations such as filling a parliament or similar such body the population could be sorted into category barrels and a specified number of names drawn from each barrel.
If we are serious about the development of a more democratic, more equitable world, the use of sortition as a selection / election mechanism seems essential.
The battle with the cannon
I have been recalling a story by the French nineteenth century author Victor Hugo, 'The battle with the cannon". The story is part of a chapter in the historical novel of the French Revolution, 1793, centered around the counter revolutionary uprising in the Vendee in western France.
The story in this particular chapter hinges around the naval vessel that is carrying the commissioners of the revolutionary government on an important mission. While at sea, the vessel encounters rough weather and one of the deck cannons breaks lose and careens around the deck. Now a naval cannon was a heavy thing of brass and cast iron mounted on a heavy wheeled wooden gun carriage. Roaming all over the pitching deck it causes an immense amount of damage, smashing things, damaging the masts, injuring crew who cannot get out of the way fast enough. Hugo describes the gun like it is a wild beast, raging furiously and creating havoc. At this point the gunner steps forward, armed with a marlin spike and some rope, he leaps onto the cannon and in Hug's description it is like a man wrestling with a wild beast or even a gladiatorial combat. The gunner uses the spike to brake the gun's trajectory and succeeds in lashing it fast. A heroic and brave deed,
At this point the senior commissioner steps forward and immediately praises and decorates the gunner with a medal for bravery. Virtue rewarded.
But here comes the twist, and it is this twist that interests me and causes the few people I have shared the excerpt with to pause - even to find it confronting.
In the next breath the commissioner points out that if the gunner had not been negligent in the first place and properly secured the gun, none of the near disaster would have happened. His negligence has nearly caused the failure of the mission. He immediately sentences the gunner to death commands his execution by firing squad.
People with whom I have shared this story are generally at this point discomforted. They find the commissioner's actions unfair. Reasons advanced include that the heroism and rectification at immense personal risk cancel out the error, that the original error was not intentional and therefore not culpable, that it was an 'accident', that the gunner was clearly a brave man and as such an asset to the revolution and killing him is a waste of talent. Above all, they feel the execution in unjust.
All of these reactions represent I think, the instinctive responses of liberal bourgeois ideology. By contrast, in giving us this story, Hugo has represented in fictional but concrete form the thinking of a revolutionary. The liberal approach emphasises the individual with a obsessive concern for culpability, intent and ameliorating circumstances. The revolutionary on the other hand is focussed on objectivity. What actually happened, what actually did people do, and how did those actions advance or frustrate the progress of the revolution. For the revolutionary, the revolution is a world - historical event, a significant eruption into history of the dialectic of freedom. Individuals in such a process are primarily instantiations of dialectical forces, the means or tools through which the logic of history is operating. In the realm of revolution we are face to face with history rather than with the everyday concerns of human beings. The vagaries of human motivation and the individual balancing of virtues and vices is of far less consequence than the objective impact of their actions on the course of revolution.
So in this context the gunner must be rewarded, he has prevented a potential disaster and thus has contributed materially to the progress of the revolution, to the unfolding of history. Such actions must be encouraged and praised; the course of history and the course of individuals need to unified in action. The gunner must also be punished; by his inaction or inadequate action he has potentially sabotaged the course of history and put much at risk. Such actions cannot be let slide.
Had the story involved two individuals the reader would have fewer qualms. The queasiness of the reader is stimulated by two divergent tendencies, two opposing objectivities, been united in the same individual person. This of course creates the drama necessary to the novel as a work of art, but it is also utterly believable and likely. Novelists can through fictions display a deeper truth than can sometimes be found in the bland record of historical facts.
Hugo's commissioner is able to look beyond the contingent individual to the two trajectories instantiated in the person. He is able to discern the heroism that need reward and the objective act of sabotage that requires retribution and is able to assign the appropriate reward to each. What the commissioner provides the reader is an instruction in thinking like a revolutionary. Now, many people will not like this. Their decision is to decide then which side they are on.
The tragedy for the gunner is that his frail humanity embodies the contradictory objectivities. But the consolation for him also is this: that all people die and while he is to be executed as a saboteur, he is dying as a hero.
The story in this particular chapter hinges around the naval vessel that is carrying the commissioners of the revolutionary government on an important mission. While at sea, the vessel encounters rough weather and one of the deck cannons breaks lose and careens around the deck. Now a naval cannon was a heavy thing of brass and cast iron mounted on a heavy wheeled wooden gun carriage. Roaming all over the pitching deck it causes an immense amount of damage, smashing things, damaging the masts, injuring crew who cannot get out of the way fast enough. Hugo describes the gun like it is a wild beast, raging furiously and creating havoc. At this point the gunner steps forward, armed with a marlin spike and some rope, he leaps onto the cannon and in Hug's description it is like a man wrestling with a wild beast or even a gladiatorial combat. The gunner uses the spike to brake the gun's trajectory and succeeds in lashing it fast. A heroic and brave deed,
At this point the senior commissioner steps forward and immediately praises and decorates the gunner with a medal for bravery. Virtue rewarded.
But here comes the twist, and it is this twist that interests me and causes the few people I have shared the excerpt with to pause - even to find it confronting.
In the next breath the commissioner points out that if the gunner had not been negligent in the first place and properly secured the gun, none of the near disaster would have happened. His negligence has nearly caused the failure of the mission. He immediately sentences the gunner to death commands his execution by firing squad.
People with whom I have shared this story are generally at this point discomforted. They find the commissioner's actions unfair. Reasons advanced include that the heroism and rectification at immense personal risk cancel out the error, that the original error was not intentional and therefore not culpable, that it was an 'accident', that the gunner was clearly a brave man and as such an asset to the revolution and killing him is a waste of talent. Above all, they feel the execution in unjust.
All of these reactions represent I think, the instinctive responses of liberal bourgeois ideology. By contrast, in giving us this story, Hugo has represented in fictional but concrete form the thinking of a revolutionary. The liberal approach emphasises the individual with a obsessive concern for culpability, intent and ameliorating circumstances. The revolutionary on the other hand is focussed on objectivity. What actually happened, what actually did people do, and how did those actions advance or frustrate the progress of the revolution. For the revolutionary, the revolution is a world - historical event, a significant eruption into history of the dialectic of freedom. Individuals in such a process are primarily instantiations of dialectical forces, the means or tools through which the logic of history is operating. In the realm of revolution we are face to face with history rather than with the everyday concerns of human beings. The vagaries of human motivation and the individual balancing of virtues and vices is of far less consequence than the objective impact of their actions on the course of revolution.
So in this context the gunner must be rewarded, he has prevented a potential disaster and thus has contributed materially to the progress of the revolution, to the unfolding of history. Such actions must be encouraged and praised; the course of history and the course of individuals need to unified in action. The gunner must also be punished; by his inaction or inadequate action he has potentially sabotaged the course of history and put much at risk. Such actions cannot be let slide.
Had the story involved two individuals the reader would have fewer qualms. The queasiness of the reader is stimulated by two divergent tendencies, two opposing objectivities, been united in the same individual person. This of course creates the drama necessary to the novel as a work of art, but it is also utterly believable and likely. Novelists can through fictions display a deeper truth than can sometimes be found in the bland record of historical facts.
Hugo's commissioner is able to look beyond the contingent individual to the two trajectories instantiated in the person. He is able to discern the heroism that need reward and the objective act of sabotage that requires retribution and is able to assign the appropriate reward to each. What the commissioner provides the reader is an instruction in thinking like a revolutionary. Now, many people will not like this. Their decision is to decide then which side they are on.
The tragedy for the gunner is that his frail humanity embodies the contradictory objectivities. But the consolation for him also is this: that all people die and while he is to be executed as a saboteur, he is dying as a hero.
Monday, 29 February 2016
A new blog. The title comes from Marx, who in the one autobiographical sketch that he wrote said that following the collapse of the revolutionary wave of 1848 and the triumph of the counter revolution by 1851, he made the decision to "withdraw to the study".
I have self identified as a communist since I was 12 years old. That's 46 years ago. My political involvement and activism has gone through waves of engagement and withdrawal since that time. My current wave of activism commenced in 2004 when I became active in the refugee movement and the Perth Social Forum. That's 12 years. I have as of now decided consciously to withdraw to the study.
This may seem odd to many. After all, are we not in a surge, an upswing of progressive politics? Left of centre parties have been doing well in European elections, establishment parties have been pegged back, there is the Corbyn phenomenon and the Sanders campaign...Well all these individual issues can and probably will be discussed in this blog. But for now, let me state, no, I don't think so. I don't see these as harbingers of change. That is not to negate the underlying pressures and popular swings that have the potential to direct towards social transformation, but to acknowledge that the mechanisms, ideas and dynamics that could lead those underlying developments in that direction do not exist.
Furthermore I live in Australia, and even more so in the state of Western Australia, a reactionary, complacent, generally prosperous region. What I have observed - especially in the last few years - is the left in Perth engaged in vicious and ugly cycle of self destruction - not that I am convinced it is entirely self destruction. There are elements that are I think hell bent on destroying the revolutionary left. Not necessarily consciously or willfully, but as prisoners of the kind of pseudo left ideologies that have grown up in the world since the 1980's. Again this is a topic I intend to comment on in more detail some other time. But for now I am merely seeking to introduce the blog and explain the title.
A number of people may recall my other blog "An Historians' Notebook". It has been idle for some time, mainly because I have not been engaged much in reading and writing history for some time. Perhaps in withdrawing to the study I will be able to engage in reading, thinking about and writing history again and that blog will revive too. But the point I want to address is the distinction between the two blogs, and it will be one of subject. I hope to address historical matters in "Historian's Notebook" and matters of general theory and current politics in this blog. But best laid plans of mice and men and all that, we shall simply have to see...
I have self identified as a communist since I was 12 years old. That's 46 years ago. My political involvement and activism has gone through waves of engagement and withdrawal since that time. My current wave of activism commenced in 2004 when I became active in the refugee movement and the Perth Social Forum. That's 12 years. I have as of now decided consciously to withdraw to the study.
This may seem odd to many. After all, are we not in a surge, an upswing of progressive politics? Left of centre parties have been doing well in European elections, establishment parties have been pegged back, there is the Corbyn phenomenon and the Sanders campaign...Well all these individual issues can and probably will be discussed in this blog. But for now, let me state, no, I don't think so. I don't see these as harbingers of change. That is not to negate the underlying pressures and popular swings that have the potential to direct towards social transformation, but to acknowledge that the mechanisms, ideas and dynamics that could lead those underlying developments in that direction do not exist.
Furthermore I live in Australia, and even more so in the state of Western Australia, a reactionary, complacent, generally prosperous region. What I have observed - especially in the last few years - is the left in Perth engaged in vicious and ugly cycle of self destruction - not that I am convinced it is entirely self destruction. There are elements that are I think hell bent on destroying the revolutionary left. Not necessarily consciously or willfully, but as prisoners of the kind of pseudo left ideologies that have grown up in the world since the 1980's. Again this is a topic I intend to comment on in more detail some other time. But for now I am merely seeking to introduce the blog and explain the title.
A number of people may recall my other blog "An Historians' Notebook". It has been idle for some time, mainly because I have not been engaged much in reading and writing history for some time. Perhaps in withdrawing to the study I will be able to engage in reading, thinking about and writing history again and that blog will revive too. But the point I want to address is the distinction between the two blogs, and it will be one of subject. I hope to address historical matters in "Historian's Notebook" and matters of general theory and current politics in this blog. But best laid plans of mice and men and all that, we shall simply have to see...
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