General Election
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I have always believed that the ‘culture industry’ is much more important in disseminating reactionary ideology than the upfront political propaganda of the media. The insidious violent and idealist/authoritarian narratives of most films, digital games and graphic novels breed a mixture of cynicism and a belief in leaders who can resolve problems through violence.
Anyway, Johnson won because he’s charismatic and a good stuntman. He didn’t say, unlike Corbyn, that he would never press the nuclear button, and he thus speaks to the average British worker, who wants above all a “strong leader.”
But the workers are quite content with that…
I thought it was George Bernard Shaw who scored the winning goal in 1987?
Oh no, hang on. He died just before the American Civil War, didn’t he, when Hitler invaded?
What’s the point you are trying to make? That most workers are thickos who will never understand socialism because they can’t? Lenin at least thought they could understand trade unionism if not socialism!
Looking at the bright side of Labour’s election defeat. If the press are to believed and Corbyn is a Marxist revolutionary, it’s quite encouraging that nearly 1/3 of those who voted voted for him. At least it shows that the terms Marxist and revolutionary don’t put some people off.
ALB, Not at all. There is no biological reason they shouldn’t understand, but there may well be psychological and social reasons that are not encompassed by the simplistic view that it’s “capitalist propaganda.”
The fact is that the wills of millions of people are evidently not motivated to give attention to socialism or even to begin to seek us out or respond positively to our ideas when they do come across us. Reading our material leaves most of the tiny minority who do read it cold too.
Lenin’s minority vanguard idea would indeed be disastrous.
It’s because we want socialism that we must continue to try and propagate the idea. However, if it works out that the mass of workers never come round, that will mean that, whatever the reasons, conscious or unconscious, it was impossible for them to ever do so.
Without us lying back and giving up, it is nonetheless true that what will be will be and what couldn’t be couldn’t be. We must continue our work though, because we don’t know what will be.
Maybe this is the humility we need.“There is no biological reason they shouldn’t understand, but there may well be psychological and social reasons that are not encompassed by the simplistic view that it’s “capitalist propaganda.”
I think it is important to acknowledge that our fellow workers exist on a spectrum of receptivity to what we have to say. Its not a question of inability to understand. There is absolutely no reason why any worker could not understand what we have to say. Rather it is question of wanting, or being bothered, to understand what we have to say. It is a question of values.
We tend as a political party to place inordinate importance of rationality and logic and overlook or marginalise the role of irrationalism or emotion. Human beings are neither purely rational nor purely irrational and perhaps if we made the effort to address both these aspects of our nature in a more balanced fashion it might help the grow our movement.
I have always believed that easily the most important factor impeding the growth of the movement is the “small party syndrome” – we are small because we are small – which exactly illustrates the significance of irrational thinking in politics. Our smallness ensures that we continue to remain small. Being small conveys the idea that we lack credibility and lacking credibility means we continue to fail to recruit significant numbers of workers to our cause. Its a vicious circle.
But its a vicious circle we can break free of by breaking through a critical threshold in terms of numbers after which the recruitment of new members becomes progressively easier. What that threshold is I dont know though we can all hazard a guess. The point is that NOW is the most diffuclt and perilous part of the journey towards a mass movement of socialism. By the time we have become a mass movement the entire social and political environment would have been radically transformed. Growing will be plain sailing by then.
In the context of these elections and the years leading up to these elections, what we have been witnessing is the hollowing out of the Left outside of the Labour and now the deep demoralisation of the Left inside the Party. I have always belieived and I think most comrades will agree that the Left presents more fertile ground than the Right in which to plant the seeds of revolutionary socialism. So this development is important.
While we might all be aghast at the results of this election in that such a large fraction of the working class should have placed its trust in such a transparently and obnoxiously anti-working class organisaton as the Tories – at least Labour to their credit talked about things like “workers rights” which is completely alien to a Tory worldview – I think it is also clear that we have entered a period of opportunity and promise for our tiny socialist movement given the state of Left politics today.
We need to seize the moment and do whatever it takes to reaching that critical threshold of members to become a credible political force
I think we have been inordinately fixated on this election.
It appears that regardless of the wonderful promises made by Labour, its reneging on complying with the referendum result and the smearing of its leader was the two primary motivations for the anti-Labour vote.
Neither really has any consequences for our own case for socialism. We can speculate on whether Brexit will bring about an escalation and intensification of the class struggle…or a continued passivity.
Nevertheless, it is acting as a distraction to what should be our main focus at this moment of history and that must be the current climate crisis.
Some may well be right that the environmental emergency is not an existential threat but we all accept that the ramifications of the projected effects of global warming will be serious ones which will bring social upheaval for many.
We also can see that unlike Labour’s manifesto wish-list, many of the climate campaigners if they follow the logic of solutions to the crises, they may recognise that their proposed options cannot be reconciled with the capitalist system, that capitalism is incapable of fixing the problem. For sure, not all involved, but a substantial number will potentially acknowledge the slogan “system change not climate change” is the only choice they are left with when COPs and carbon trading and all the rest fails to retard the progress of global warming.
I did not detect any such receptiveness to any form of revolution in the election that we could possibly attach ourselves to. So if we are going to discuss future strategies then we should be sure we know where our arguments will get a better response.
One is reminded, in The Great Dictator, of Charlie wearing the Phooey’s uniform giving an anti-Phooey speech, and the crowds still applauding and saluting because they think he’s the Phooey.
I did not detect any such receptiveness to any form of revolution in the election that we could possibly attach ourselves to.
Not during the election itself, Alan, but possibly now in the aftermath of the election with the Left in disarray and deeply demoralised, we might begin to see a greater degree of receptivity.
Also I wouldn’t say our fixation on this election has been “inordinate”. There is little doubt that what has happened represents a kind of watershed moment, rather different from the ordinary run of the mill elections in my view
Why, are the Left thinkers, then?
They are followers of imagery – the rank and file, that is.“…what has happened represents a kind of watershed moment, rather different from the ordinary run of the mill elections in my view…”
This is where we disagree. But we shall see. If you are right, then we can expect more of this.
This need not be an either/or.
We are able to make approaches to two distinct constituents but it will be a stretch of resources and who knows, they may eventually over-lap.
How pathetic but how typical. Less than a week after an election which confirmed and re-enforced Johnson as Prime Minister the anarchists organise minority “direct action” to try to overturn the result. It sounds, though, from the report that they were just there for the brawl.
Some things Chris Hedges says and repeats I find mistaken but he does sometimes express ideas that resonate with me.
ALB is critical of anarchist protests but Chris Hedges article is titled “Hope Lies in the Streets.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/16/hope-lies-streets
If some here are correct in their educated guesses that we face an unprecedent reign of Parliamentary power from Johnson with his Commons majority, where can the opposition go but on to the streets.
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