I find that "leftism" on the internet, and particularly the mailing lists,
has taken on an increasingly apolitical form.
More and more it shows itself to be a subset of the dominant narcissistic
ideology, more rooted in "People Magazine" than "Capital;" some people
chitchat about movie stars, some about stamps, and some about politics. In
each case the primary purpose is personal entertainment, not
action-in-the-world.
Witness how discussions routinely blow apart within a matter of days.
Witness also the people who raise hundreds of points for discussion, only
to drop them almost immediately.
This does not reflect a political motive. Rather it reflects the diminished
persona of late industrial society. The person does not raise real issues
for real discussion; the issues more take the form "Hey world! Listen to
me. Listen to me! Pay attention to me! Here's what I have to say! Here it
is. Listen to it! Pay attention to me!"
It is also why the discussions -- so often demanded with vehemence -- go
nowhere; once the world has "looked" at the person the need for attention
has been met. It is also why some people can continually raise hundreds of
points; being "looked at" has no long-term effects for the person who
demanded the attention and so a new demand on a new issue must replace the
old. So the old issue is abandoned and a new issue is immediately proposed
to again have the world "pay attention!"
This dynamic often forces the person to turn against the very discussion he
proposed. The initial proposal was not political but narcissistic. But if
people actually discuss the issue as political adults it pulls attention
away from the narcissist. The continued discussion of yesterday's issues
means diminished amounts of attention for the narcissist today, and thus
his hostility to discussing his own issues.
We also see how so much discussion is rooted in infantile magical thinking.
Or, to root the same point in the culture of late industrial society, the
"discussion" really takes the form of advertising jingles, presented in
bumper-sticker-sized statements.
The person cannot discuss their own ostensible issues because there is no
issue to discuss; nothing stands behind the jingle. The dynamics of the
presentation is magical, not political; the underlying purpose of the
presentation is personal, not political.
One can consider the methodology to be one of subjective idealism. One puts
words down on paper and then treats the words as real. ("This is bullshit.
I'm not a subjective idealist! I have a leaflet right here that says so!")
But the words, like the advertising jingle, have no real meaning.
Expressions of belief today don't exist tomorrow; support for principles
yesterday and not expressions today. Witness the person who can present a
mechanical -- but rather good -- critique of the intense personal attacks
by prosecutors and judges at the Soviet purge trials. The next day they're
denouncing critics as "assholes" who "are full of shit" and present not a
political analysis but "crap."
Witness also the people who are literally unable to answer a question today
like "what did you mean yesterday?" for the person has no ideas what was
"meant" yesterday. Rather yesterday's pseudo-political comment has no
content today to which any meaning can be attributed (and also witness the
tirades against the "assholes" and "crap" by the people asked such a thing).
The people must demonstrate their "terrible cleverness" on issue after
issue after issue. It appears that they known pretty much a lot more about
virtually any topic than the people who first present it, have an
understanding of the details far greater than those who study it, and ...
the world doesn't notice.
Increasingly then we see infantile temper tantrums expressed when they are
challenged, or when a discussion moves forward in ways they do not like or
with people they hate.
One can see examples of this especially on the usenet news group
<alt.politics.socialism.trotsky>.
There one can find leftists present conscious inventions , if not out of
People Magazine, then certainly by the press flacks who fire off the
pseudo-news releases.
One finds leftists inventing the most personal issues of themselves,
describing their physical existence in utterly false terms, and even
listing (falsely) the movies they've been in. The reverse is also true;
they target critics with equally invented personal descriptions, falsely
presenting the critic's physical appearance, dirty clothes, smelly body,
and habit of wandering the streets muttering to himself.
Perhaps the most telling example of the infantile tantrums is the fact that
neo-Nazis now pick up on Trotskyist lies and provide a greater distribution
of the Trotskyist writings then the Trotskyists themselves provided. And
the Trotskyists manage to miss this. ("But lets chitchat for a few days
about Hitler-Stalin pact! Let's chitchat about all the lies the Stalinists
told about Trotsky!)
