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I believe we are on the cusp of a new wave of world revolution as a result of the outbreak of a capitalist crisis since 2008 that is the most profound such crisis since the 1930s, one that still lingers and shows every sign of deepening. However, unlike the period 100 to 50 years ago, this new wave is not led by revolutionary socialists and communists, thanks to the success of counterrevolutionary politics from within their own ranks stemming from that same period. Therefore two things appear to be going on right now, whether it is Libya or philosophy, or the "riots" in Britain: OTOH, there is the keen desire to be done with all the old rubbish, particularly that leftover from the 20th century, by partisans of the new revolutionary wave. This is an absolutely healthy impulse, as there is indeed quite a bit of rubbish, "socialist" or otherwise, that does need dispensing with. At the same time, there is also a tendency to subjectively idealize the various forms taken by the new revolutionary wave, forms that are in actuality experiments seeking the most effective ways forward in the struggle. Both sweeping away the old and groping towards the new are really one and the same process, and I am convinced that the value of some key elements of the "old" will be rediscovered, among them the classical principles of revolutionary Marxism, before it was overlaid with "all the old crap" of that cursed century. We are entering the time when the wheat really will be sorted from the chaff. That OTOH; on the other, the present-day avatars of the old crap themselves. I think Dabashi correctly sees this in Zizek, even as he engages in his own idealization of the Arab Spring; it can also be seen behind the veil of phony "anti-imperialism" in the attitude of certain sectors of the Left towards that same event, as it takes aim at "their crap *and* ours"**; and again in the apparent irrelevance of much of the socialist left in Britain in connection with the so-called "riots", an irrelevance certain to be repeated in the USA. Here the perspective is that of a gloomy pessimism, occasionally punctuated by hysterics as with all true depressive states. Why the glum face at the cusp of a New Dawn, one that some of us have waited decades for? To put it simply, it's the intimation of one's own doom, of being swept away forever by these new events. For the remainder of us, whose brains are still living yet keenly recall the nightmare, it will be our duty to be a part of that new wave, not as idealists, but materialists: the "turn" of 1848. "Zizek then turns his attention to the Arab Spring: ?But weren?t the Arab uprisings a collective act of resistance that avoided the false alternative of self-destructive violence and religious fundamentalism?? This should have given the European philosopher a sign of hope in what appeared to be a worldless world filled with absolutist religious meanings thrown like grenades by terrorist Hegelians. But it did not. The European philosopher has lost all hope: ?Unfortunately, the Egyptian summer of 2011 will be remembered as marking the end of revolution, a time when its emancipatory potential was suffocated.?" And so forth... ** Yes, the allusion to Trotsky's book title is deliberate. -Matt ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
