On 12/8/06, Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> In addition to the how-to questions, though, leftists also have to
> reckon with their fundamental problem. We, lacking in a new powerful
> world view since the loss of the myth of inevitable dialectical
> progress, do not have as much passion for social change as white
> evangelicals here and Islamists and Bolivarians abroad. We are not
> unlike George Herbert Walker Bush: we lack "the vision thing." We
> need a world view that inspires faith in the work we must do, without
> which no one will get or stay motivated to put in her time and money,
> make her skills available, and mobilize all other resources she has,
> for any cause.
There are complications. First, re the empirical existence of whether
the "myth of inevitable dialectical progress" was ever a major factor in
strong revolutionary (or other mass) movements.
Among the cadres, aka organizers, definitely. It's the spirit of The
Internationale:
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
C'est la lutte finale
Groupons-nous, et demain
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
That is the faith that once moved people.
Today, even on the Left, the dominant thought about the future is much
more tentative and uncertain: Another World Is Possible. That's not
the same feeling as There Shall Be a New World, after "the final
battle," the world of the "Internationale" that "unites the human
race."
Another world is possible, but is it probable? Will another world,
even a socialist world, be a better world? On both counts, there is
doubt, much doubt, in the minds of many people. Understandably so.
Both state socialism of the past and environmentalism of the present
have destroyed the kind of faith in progress that once existed on the
Left.
We need a new world view that inspires as much faith in our own powers
to make social change as the old one, a new faith that can live
without the myth of progress.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
