An independent and democratic information platform is necessary for the recovery of our movement (Reply to Anthony Teso)
Hi Tony, -- 1 -- The theoretical discussion on Bonapartism concerns how a ruling class makes decisions. At the level of individuals--such decision involve instinct, calculation and ideology. At a class level the decisions also include a 4th factor: organization. Organizations can be public (such as congress) or private (such as informal social networks). Organizations can be large or small, powerful or minor. (1) It is unhelpful to imply that any of these things are somehow mutually exclusive (ie: "both can't bear weight at once") -- or that we must choose one or another and disregard the others. (2) It is similarly unhelpful to assert that we must view our ruling class as either a "population" or a "subject" -- because our ruling class is both. In the context of the discussion of bourgeois class rule it is natural that we emphasize "subject". But this does not mean that other aspects of our ruling class are somehow unimportant. Bourgeois political leaders, for example, are restricted by the limits of the support they can command. What is important to consider is the weight of the class, the center of gravity, the balance of power within it. (3) It is unhelpful to create an artificial distinction between passive and active support. The lack of a clear boundary between active and passive support is captured in the phrase "a wink is as good as a nod", where one represents tacit approval and the other active support. Furthermore--my assertion that it is a waste of time for me to discuss boundaries with you--does not mean that I claim that no boundaries exist. Rather, I was simply attempting to steer the discussion in a productive direction and away from nitpicking nonsense. (4) Finally, it is unhelpful to misrepresent or create confusion about my views or what I have said. John asked you to exercise greater care in representing his views, and also to use fewer fancy words and employ better focus, and you agreed. I ask that you extend the same courtesy to me. We owe, to readers (and to ourselves) recognition that words can be clumsy instruments. Words are generalizations, and generalizations will always be imperfect because truth is always concrete. When we argue on the basis of some dictionary that we must choose X and disregard Y--we risk wasting the time of readers and ourselves--and undermine confidence that discussion of theory is valuable and necessary. There will always be topics (and rabbit holes) that lead us away from what is important. Our ability to (so to speak) keep our eye on the donut and not on the hole, reflects our recognition of the need to forge a common language and our devotion to the needs of our class. --2 -- The key part of your reply concerns my conclusion that the long-term response of our class to the rising danger of repression must be to develop independent digital infrastructure that could eventually grow to become the digital nervous system that allows our class to become self-aware, flex its muscles and sweep away the rule of capital. I said (Sept 13): > People (activists as well as non-activists) > have no place to go where they can get > the reliable knowledge they need to > understand the world and take effective > action to change it. This is what must change. You replied that there is a place where people can go: the MIA, journals, radical news sites and pirate libraries. I probably could have been more clear. When I discuss the growing crisis with activists and non-activists, they sometimes ask me where they can go to find out, objectively (without all the bullshit and confusion) what is actually going on. I reply that if such a place existed--the crisis would not exist in its present severity. You continued: > An activist in 2026 can reach more of the historical > experience of our movement in one afternoon than > Draper could reach in a year with a Berkeley library > card and a mimeograph machine. Access rose by > orders of magnitude. Clarity did not rise with it. You are overlooking key principles central to the recovery of our movement. (1) Information must be collected and refined to be useful Information being available in scattered form is not the same thing as information being available in concentrated form. Yes, the knowledge that activists need is available--but not in the way it is most needed. Yes, someone, could "access" hundreds of thousands of documents--but extracting the necessary information from them would require taking the time to read and understand them all. That would require more than an afternoon--especially as these documents all contradict one another. There is a hundred times more gold dissolved in the world's oceans than has been mined in all of human history--but no one can use this gold--since it is diluted at a level of 13 parts per trillion. Something similar is going on with the info people need to understand the world. Every bit of useful and necessary information is surrounded by thousands or millions of bits of "negative knowledge" (ie: things that are widely known--but misleading or simply wrong). What we need is a place where the necessary information can be collected, correlated, refined, corrected and finally, so to speak, broadcast. That place is an independent and democratic information platform. (2) An information platform will give birth to organizations You continue: > If anything the curve runs backwards, and the periods > when American socialists argued most fruitfully > about strategy were periods of worse > communication and better organization. An independent and democratic information platform would also greatly accelerate the development and evolution of radical political organizations. (3) Can we learn from the past or not? You said: > Now the crisis of theory . . . My explanation is > that theory is not settled by circulation. It is settled > by consequence. Questions get answered when > a body of people has to decide something and pays > a price for deciding wrong Yes, obviously, theory is settled by consequence--or in simpler language--by practice. The problem with your argument is that you are using the term "theory" to mean "ideas". This usage is common in science, where the term "theory" is often used to mean "hypothesis" (or, in simpler language, a "guess" as to how nature works). But there is also a different way in which the term "theory" is used (in both science and politics). For example--Darwin's "theory of evolution" is more than an idea--it is considered proven--supported by millions of observations. In political language, the term "theory" is often used to refer to lessons learned in practice. For example, John Reimann is fond of saying that "theory is a concentrated form of history" and John is completely correct in this. The term "crisis of theory" refers to the fact that the lessons of the history of the struggles of the working class and oppressed have become scattered--and are not available to the people who need them. This is what we must overcome. Ideas must be tested in practice--as you note--but this does not mean that we must throw out the lessons of the past and start over with a clean slate--again and again and again--like the brain-damaged character in the movie "Memento" who cannot form new memories or remember anything that happened more than 5 minutes before the present. (4) The recovery of our movement requires a "journal of record" John Reimann kicked off this thread with posts about Trump's plans to hijack the mid-terms, and noted that leftist online journals, such as Jacobin, Tempest and CounterPunch were failing to sound the alarm. Activists and non-activists read articles in journals like the above because they want to be informed. That is also probably the reason most people subscribe to MarxMail. You said: > This list is your platform in miniature. Serious > people, no gatekeeper, open discussion, > a signal ratio most journals would envy. > . . . > Multiply the subscribers by ten, and what you get > is ten times the discussion. . . . It is the only > evidence available about your proposal You have the right to believe what you want--and to look at the evidence you want. I remember when this listserv had a lot more energy and talent than it does now. This was not only a difference in quantity--but also a difference in quality. You may be right that this listserv is not capable of evolving to be much more than it is now. What is necessary is a critical mass of active people who have a relatively clear idea of what is necessary for the recovery of our movement. If that is not present here--then nothing is likely to happen. I have suggested many times that the recovery of our movement would be assisted by a "journal of record" where activists could post and publically discuss articles. The DSA/Jacobin does not do this (the DSA discussion forums are not public). Counterpunch does not do this. Last I checked, neither does Tempest. An independent and democratic information platform would do this. It would attract talent--because it would eventually be able to function as a place where people could go to get reliable answers to their questions. You said: > So build it. I mean that straight. I would rather > it existed than not, and I would argue in it. Cool. Except I do not have the ability to create it on my own. I have certainly tried. Such a project would require help from others. -- 5 -- My impression is that developments in the past week (ie: the Supreme Court ruling, the US Post Office announcement that it was giving up on its proposal, and a recent judicial order that Todd Blanche must turn over FBI notes of an interview of one of Epstein's victims who claimed Trump raped her when she was 13 years old) suggest that the bulk of our ruling class is pulling the plug on Trump. But whatever happens at this moment--there will be other crises down the road. The old world is dying. Activists need a place to gather and sort out the direction forward. If we fail to work in this direction--this work will be done by a new generation. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#43460): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/43460 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/121053097/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
