Julio Huato wrote:
> The spiritual fodder, the signature of sectarianism (as it is of
> anarchism, utopian socialism, etc.) is the belief that you start by
> dreaming up models of political organization (or of the society of the
> future) and then seek to fit the real world into them. Sectarians (in
> the left) start by building up small groups based on ideological
> kinship, with a tendency to inbreed and decay. The litmus test is a
> shared ideology, the True Revolutionary Ideology (R).
I was thinking of "sectarianism" as an attitude of a group or
individual, one that's shared by a lot of different groups, including
those in the middle some times. It's a species of what social
psychologists call "group-think," one in which political differences
become personal and personal antagonisms get politicized, becoming a
vicious circle.
In terms of sectarianism as an attitude, I think of the statement that
"Or so the sectarians would have us believe..." as representing a
sectarian way of thinking: unnamed people are asserted to think some
specific way and are assumed to be automatically wrong. And as Carroll
notes, "Such labels as "sectarian" ... (applied to people rather than
ideas), ... are merely 20th-c embodiments of a rhetorical device ...
called poisoning the wells of discourse." [typo corrected.]
Of course, no word has any "official" meaning attached to it, so (like
everyone else) you're allowed to use "sectarianism" in your way. (It's
a free country!) Alas, your usage only seems to allow for leftist
sectarianisms. By the way, it also seems not to respect the
contributions by utopians and even anarchists, by lumping their ideas
in the same pot with sectarianism.
(Engels, for one, wasn't _against_ utopianism as much as seeing his
and Marx's contributions as learning from them, contributing to them,
and transcending them. And, if nothing else, anarchists tried to keep
Marxists honest. I can't see any real contributions of the anarchists
(beyond having a good sense of humor and independent of what they
learned from utopians, Marxists, and other socialists), but I'm
biased.)
But what you define as "sectarian" is what I'd think of as a kind of
(philosophical) idealism, which is something most right-wingers share.
Classic Burkean conservatives hearken back to an idealized image of
the past, which they'd like to impose on people (and sometimes do, as
under Franco in Spain). Modern "market libertarian" rightists can be
idealist and sectarian: the Chicago school of economics, for example,
has an idealized model which they try to foist on society (and have
succeeded to an amazing extent in this neoliberal age); they also
suffer from the kind of personal-cum-political antagonism toward
"outsiders" that my definition highlights. And I've known "centrists"
who put forth a True Reformist Ideology, one that by some cosmic
coincidence has the beneficial side-effect of promoting their own
careers. They are of course antagonistic to those on the left, though
sometimes explicit personal ire is replaced by a polite face and
back-room dealings.
> You're a Marxist.
For what it's worth, I'm also a Devinist. What that means is that
no-one can put me into some category and presume ahead of time that
they know what my opinions are. Now, I'm not saying that you do that,
but it's relevant to any political discussion. (You do seem to be
ignoring the fact that I'm voting for Obama, though.)
> So I'll give you a historical reference. In the
> 1870s, in the last few years of his life, Marx spent a big chunk of
> his energies fighting the influence of sectarians and anarchists on
> the workers' movement. ... In other words, that our job is not to pull models
> of
> political organization off the seat of our pants, but to discover and
> promote *the real movement* that -- before our very eyes -- *is*
> abolishing the status quo.
>
>... Even the most superficial look at
> the historical record shows that every significant success, every
> significant step in social progress, has resulted from the initiative
> of masses of people in motion, where the role of revolutionaries,
> socialists, etc. has been limited to recognizing and promoting those
> movements -- i.e. their unity, their organization, their scope, their
> understanding of the forces at play, etc. In all cases, Russia 1910s,
> China 1940s, Cuba 1950s, Venezuela late 1990s-2000s, the existing
> ideological preconceptions had to be scrapped or significantly
> stretched.
I totally agree that we need masses of people in motion (and in fact I
say that so often it's getting boring). Without that, we're not going
to get anything out of the next US President, no matter who he might
be.
I agree that socialists should recognize and promote mass movements.
But a crucial part of promoting a mass movement is to try to speak the
truth (as one sees it) rather than giving into the dominant cant.
Independence involves independent thinking, not just independence of
action.
But there's one thing I don't get: "masses of people in motion"
includes the extremely passive "action" of voting for Obama? Given the
current trends, that passive movement is going to be overwhelmed by
the very active movement of a wing of the financial capitalists to
push Obama. The Summers/Rubin crowd might fade as Obama brings in a
soupçon of left-sounding populism (as an election tactic), but I
predict that it will come back with a vengeance if Obama gets elected.
> In societies where political and economic power is highly concentrated
> at the top of the state apparatus, ... protests directly defy the entire
> political system. But in the case of the U.S. society, the exact opposite
> is the case. Power is dispersed, and thus political independence cannot
> be a premise. It has to be an outcome. It has to be forged through a
> series of decisive struggles.
As noted, political independence includes a very important element of
intellectual principle. This is possible even without "decisive
struggles." People like Marx, Engels, Chomsky, etc. didn't wait for
movements to arise to develop their ideas. In fact, they tried to use
their ideas to promote the mass
movements. (Sorry, Noam, about using the past tense with your name.
It's for purely grammatical reasons -- and it's not a very
transformational grammar at that.)
> In U.S. history, as far as I know, the U.S. working people has never
> acted, massively, as a united force, asserting their independent
> interest in the political life of the nation.
The working class never acts as "a united force." I've never heard of
that happening _anywhere_. In the real world, working people often
have more than one political organization (and sometimes these are at
loggerheads), while many people are too busy for politics. It seems we
have to lower the bar a bit. If so, how about during the beginning of
the 20th century or during the 1930s? Workers were often "masses in
motion" then, even though they didn't live up to Julio's impossible
standards.
Even the capitalists don't act as a united force. They're divided, for
example, between the GOP and the DP. Classes tend to be united the
most only in revolutionary periods (and we're not in one of those).
> So, where do we start?
> Look around at the actual movements in the U.S., mass movements
> oriented against the status quo. Take a wide look.
is being patronizing a symptom of "sectarianism"?
> Some are smaller,
> some are larger, but there are myriad attempts by people to stop wars,
> improve workers' living and working conditions, reduce inequality,
> eliminate racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc. Looking at all
> those movements as a whole, how are they conducting their struggles
> politically, with which political instruments? Are these movements
> independent from the ruling political interests? Are they above and
> beyond the dominant ideological horizon of our society? Where? As
> far as I can see, the *only* existing coherent political vehicle that,
> kind of, contradictorily, articulates all these movements is -- yes!
> -- the Democratic Party. Contradictorily because, above all, it
> provides that articulation subordinate to the interest of the ruling
> class. So, that is the starting point for you!
That's an interesting formulation: you take a lot of movements at the
base of society and distill them into an organization that these days
acts like a wholly-owned subsidiary of one segment of the capitalist
class. It's true that a lot of anti-war people, etc. _vote_ for the
DP, but isn't it a bit _rude_ to assert that that's the be-all and
end-all of their politics?? A lot of people vote one way or the other
because they're following the logic of the "lesser of two evils." That
doesn't mean that they think of the candidate they vote for as all
_good_. More importantly, that doesn't mean that all pro-Obama
anti-war activists or trade unionists or whatever give up their other
political commitments or activities just to vote for Obama. Popular
opinions cannot be reduced to a single name ("DP supporter").
(Shit, I'm going to vote for Obama in November, and I'm _insulted_
when people assert that that makes me a "Democrat.")
In fact, what "sectarians" like me are saying is: okay, vote for
Obama, but _don't_ drop your other political commitments and
activities. It's a _bad idea_ to allow yourself to be distilled in to
being merely a DP member. I've read people saying that _over and over
again_ on pen-l.
FWIW, I've heard almost all of this pro-DP stuff before. I was a
member of Michael Harrington's Democratic Socialists of America for
awhile. The official line was very pro-DP.
> The task suggests itself: wrest *that* political instrument off the
> hands of the ruling class, place it under the service of the working
> people, or -- *through* that effort, if the primary goal is not
> achieved -- develop enough political energy to build a viable
> alternative capable of advancing the interest of the working people on
> the next stages of its political development.
It's _amazing_ how you use revolutionary-sounding rhetoric ("wrest
*that* political instrument off the hands of the ruling class") to
advocate voting for Obama and to see Obamania as some sort of
progressive movement. I don't see how that voting is going to promote
anyone's political energy except to vote for Obama. And if you try to
get people to think beyond Obama as part of DP organizations or
meetings, I can _guarantee_ you that the DP operatives will work hard
to isolate and/or expel you.
(BTW, I am really tired of revolutionary rhetoric. It didn't work for
the Trotskyists or the Maoists pushing their revolutions and it
doesn't work for promoting DP reformism.)
> Or you tell me, what should the point of departure of our struggle be instead?
This question, it seems, assumes that I'm not voting for Obama. I'm
voting for the guy, as I've said again and again. I just don't have
_any_ illusions about the positive effects of such a vote.
His election is not going to whip up a revolutionary mass movement of
workers. (Sorry to disappoint you!) The DP will still be an
organization run by professional political operatives with a
commitment to "working within the system" that in practice means
helping to organizing for the positions of the more far-sighted
branches of the capitalist class. Rahm Emmanuel will still be a key
player. The DP forces for privatizing Social Security will still be in
place. Israel will still be treated as being more important than one
of the states of the union. Etc. In fact, the DP will disappear as a
mass organization for a year or two, being instead nothing but a
fund-raising machine, a mailing list, a staff, etc.
Anyway, what is to be done? given my position (which despite involving
tenure is pretty powerless in the larger scheme of things), all I can
do is to strive for clearer thinking on the left, asking hard
questions, etc. I don't have an organization behind me (or with me).
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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