Re: leftism LITE (fwd

WSN

let me be brief bacause i have lots of work to do!!

1. i strongly disencourage the wsn members to use a "vulgar" sexist
language like the one that was posted on the list today. since i find that
person's manifesto largely cheap, poor and rhetorical in style, i do not
find it worth responding. this is an acedemic forum, not a porno chat
room!! 

2. regarding another post, can somebody show me who said "violence is 
unavoidable" in this list?. nobody is posing "violence" as an "end
in itself". such a position is an idealist, not a marxist
position. however, i said, following a philosophy of "praxis" adopted by
Lenin and Gramsci (with varying degrees), revolutions are the "concrete
manifestations" of the conjunctural conditions availabe to the actors who
aim to alter these conditions by any practical means, including force
and violence. such an action reguires signifigance in so far as it is the
expression of a "practical will" on the part of the "oppressed". thus, i
was was using force neither in a purely spontaneous (voluntarist) sense
nor in a vulgar "determinist" sense. since all the historical revolutions
WERE the concrete manifestations of particular circumstances and
inter-play of social forces, force was an intermediary element in seeking
to attain certain goals such as independence, agitation, propoganda,
etc...to put in a nut shell, i was explaining the "sociology of force" as
part of any revolutionry strategy and "counter-factual possibility".  the
fact that capitalism did not come about naturally, but largely through
oppression and force, already shows us why a counter-hegemonic group may
use counter-forces for different strategies and practical (productive)
purposes:

"change can come about either because a situation of well-being is
threatened by the narrow self interest of a rival class, or because
hardhip has become intolerable and no force is visible in the old society
capable of mitigating it and of reestablishing normality by legals means"
(Gramcsi, _Prison Notebooks_, p.184) 


enough for the time being!

Mine Aysen Doyran
Phd student, Politics
SUNY/Albany