Bijou Drains
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Had a little chat with one of the SPEW stall holders outside my workplace earlier this week. It was unnerving just how little capacity for critical thinking some of the trots have.
He was a fairly young lad but had been in SPEW for five years and was telling me that the demands from his party were realistic. The particular theme that day was student grants not loans and other student sops to attract students, as well as the usual list of nationalisation and higher taxes on the rich. He called them “stepping stones towards Socialism”.
When asked if he knew that even the leaders of his group knew the demands couldn’t be achieved and that these demands were put in place deliberately to demonstrate to the workers who support these demands capitalism can’t meet their desired outcome, this turning them into revolutionaries, he seemed genuinely non plussed. He went off to talk to the top banana who was accompanying him to check out what I said was true!
Looks like only the top echelons of SPEW are privy to the truth about the famous Trotskyist alchemy routine.
“In any event, this is the worst Labour government that there has ever been. And from day one.”
Not so sure about that, it’s a pretty high bar to get over
Wonder if this means that “The Collective” are using entryism to get control of TUSC and Spew, or are TUSC and Spew using entryism to get control of “The Collective”.
Who ever enters who, no doubt both parties will be intent on shafting each other.
I predicted a Labour split before the election.
Clearly John McDonnell, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne and Zarah Sultana, have no future in a Starmerist Party.
What choice do they have other than forming a Party of their own. Add others like ex Mayor Jamie Driscoll, Jeremy Corbyn and a few others, you probably have a similar situation to when the ILP disaffiliated from Labour in 1931.
If they don’t form a party, any hope of remaining on the reformist gravy train will be over. (It’s not likely that they will survive the next election, but a chance in a hundred is better than not having a ticket in the lottery)
No doubt they will pick up a few groups of avaricious Trotskyist who will pick over the bones hoping for tasty morsels from the few idealist who get swept away with any enthusiasm this creates.
No doubt the same Trotskyist demagogues will morph into the next generation of Labourist apologists, just like Starmer.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!
“ Obviously the stool-pigeon was one of Coleman’s many admirers from the Islington Branch”
An open meeting with Labour Party members present and you come to the conclusion that it is “obvious” that the Special Branch source was from Islington Branch?
Perhaps it’s just that you’re envious of the fact that as a speaker Coleman was head and shoulders above the self appointed guardians of the truth from the then Camden and North West London branches (I’ll exempt Hardy from that criticism). Given the choice of listening to Jim D’Arcy speaking or a paper cut on my bell end, it would be the paper cut every time!
I’ve got a feeling that all of these arrests and prison sentences may well erode Wetherspoons’ customer base quite significantly.
Not sure that the title of this article “working class riots” is particularly helpful, when have we seen capitalist class riots? Don’t think the pampered offspring of the 1% will be much use in a full blown drunken brawl.
Also describing the riots as “A few hundred men” doesn’t appear accurate either. It’s not what some feminist theory would describe as a “gendered issue”, as the recent court proceedings clearly show.
“Wez, have you looked at some of Stanley Milgram’s work. Not a perfect explanation to be sure, but a little more credible than penis envy.”
twc, please note I didn’t say I agreed with it, just that it was more credible than penis envy!
If anyone is interested in similar ideas, Zimbardo’s Stamford Prison Experiment and the similar studies done later in the UK and in Germany give food for thought about authoritarianism. Don’t personally agree with Zimbardo’s take on his findings and the alternative interpretation by Erich Fromm is quite interesting, pointing out that the majority of the prison officer students did not join in the abusive processes, although they did not intervene. The holocaust was perpetrated by a small minority of the population, however the majority and especially those who knew, did not intervene.
It’s a bit like the scandals in the Police, TV, showbiz recently. Other officers have known that some of the other police have been sexual predators, but didn’t do anything about it.
On a personal level I do think there is an important issue about the self selection of those who end up in authoritarian positions, whether that is being a concentration camp guard, a police officer or perhaps even leader of a Trotskyist/Leninist splinter party. It is similar to sexual abusers. As well as grooming the children/vulnerable adults, these people are very good at grooming organisations and intimidating those who have any chance to do something about it.
Going back to my earlier postings, there are clear links between psychopathy and insecure attachment and early years trauma.
Here’s a couple of studies:
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/55765296.pdf
Interestingly both Stalin and Hitler had very abuse early years experiences, looking through the biographies of some of the well known names from the holocaust, many also experienced disrupted and abusive relationships. This kind of mirrors Bowlby’s original study “44 thieves”.
I’m not saying it is an explanation, but it offers some insight.
Another author I have always found quite interesting is Erving Goffman, especially his concepts of Total Institutions.
Wez, have you looked at some of Stanley Milgram’s work. Not a perfect explanation to be sure, but a little more credible than penis envy.
So I’ve answered your question can you answer my question, do you believe that all of that semi mystical guff about Oedipus complexes, castration anxiety, boys being sexually possessive of their mothers and that infants are sexually excited and develop libidinous drives about passing a turd?
Straight yes or no would suffice
L Bird “They’re all politically, philosophically, ideologically and methodologically, opposed to democracy!”
You might say that, but has there been a vote to confirm your theory?
Wez Stated “There are no grounds for dismissing a theory because its originators were Victorian gents“. I have never said that there were grounds for dismissing Feud’s work because he was a Victorian Gent at any point. So your point is irrelevant
“indeed in terms of the origins of the holocaust Freud’s work with Austrian petite bourgeois patients can be very helpful”
That is just a statement of opinion, to justify that you need to provide some evidence to show this. To date you have provided none.
It is also notable that you praise the work of Marx and Darwin for their universality thus admitting that sometimes one size does, in fact, fit all
No I didn’t, I praised the scope and breadth of their investigations. As opposed to the extremely narrow study material that Freud used (a small group of bourgeois children some of whom were very possible victims of child sexual abuse). My criticism is not of universalist theories, but the wild and wacky universalist conclusions Freud made from such a small and clearly culturally and economically biased sample group.
So in the vain hope that you would actually provide a straight answer to a straight question, do you believe that all male children fear emasculation in their early childhoods, do all female children experience penis envy, do all male children fall in love with their mother and wish to kill their father to gain sexual experiences with their mother, and that do all female children experience a similar “libidinal” experience with their fathers? Indeed do you think that through the mouth all infants makes contact with the first object of libido (sexual energy), the mother’s breast?
This is important because you go on to say that:
I think it self evident, especially to parents, that the child/parent relationship can often be a battle ground (especially in a capitalist cultural context).
Which interestingly makes use of pure assertion again (I think it is self evident) and interestingly makes you move your ground from the universalist idea that all childhood relationships are paradoxical to them being often a battleground.
Whilst agreeing that parenting can be difficult and being a child can be difficult and sometimes boundaries are hard to maintain or accept, I find it baffling that a grown up would still consider any theory which uses Greek Mythology to explain this in terms of an ongoing libidinal struggle between children and their parents. As far as I can see you would be just as well served as constructing a theory about child development based on the Lord of the Rings, at least it is a bit more realistic than the guff Freud dreamed up.
Hi Wez,
So you have observed one mother shout at one child and have developed a conclusion that covers the nature of relationships between children and their parents, especially during their summer school holidays. Further deciding that there is universality in the dysfunctional nuclear family, an “unending power struggle between parent and child” and that parents see their children as their ‘property’ which gives them the right to enforce their values on them.
Well, no one could say you’re not a sincere Freudian, you’ve certainly taken his methodology, of creating meta theories from tiny anecdotes to your bosom! Or could it be just the sound of straws being clutched?
I would compare the universalist approach you suggest, i.e. that all children and their parents are in a paradoxical and conflicted relationship with their parents, (I’ll ignore at this time the idea that this is predicated by the crazy idea that this is driven by the sexual fantasies of the child!!!) and that this will lead to a predictable series of staged conflicts, including that boy children all worry that they will be emasculated, all children will find the passing of faeces erogenous, etc., etc. with the basic proposition of Attachment Theory.
This theory puts forward that the styles of parenting vary and that the more cooperative, nurturing and available the parent is, the more likely that the child will develop a trusting, secure and enduring attachment and that that children who experience a lack of nurture, support and consistent care, will develop less secure attachments and are more likely to develop issues such as Mental Health problems, etc.
You may have noted that I have used the terms more likely, rather than will develop, as this theoretical approach is much more nuanced and less deterministic than the Freudian approach.
This theory has predicted that differences in terms of cognition, vocabulary, physical growth, emotional regulation, planning, interpersonal relationships, etc. based on attachment theory. The rigorous testing of these predictions over many years has provided huge support for these predictions.
This theory has also been supported by over 60 years of substantial data collected across many Parts of the world. Not only that, more recent developments involving CT scans, MRI scans, analysis of neuro transmitters such as serotonin and cortisol also provide support for Attachment Theory.
Perhaps reading Jeremy Holmes excellent introductory book “Holmes J (1993). John Bowlby and Attachment Theory. Makers of modern psychotherapy. London; New York: Routledge” might help you make an informed decision about which theory makes sense to you.
Who knows, L Bird might even arrange a vote about it.
7 Labour MPs lose the whip for voting against the continuation of the two children limit on welfare payments. It hasn’t taken long for move from the new Attlee to the new Ramsey MacDonald.
Will there be a left wing rump to feel brave enough to split from Labour?
Interesting that “fire brand” MP Ian Lavery, (who put his best left face at the Durham Miners’ Gala) and Kate Osborne (who did the same at the Jarrow Rebel Town Festival) are not amongst the seven.
