- Location
- Newcastle, innit
-
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A Left Wing without a Marxist Engine: No Marx?
- Thread starter Joshuapooleanox
- Start date
- Location
- Over the rainbow
- Location
- Newcastle, innit
- Location
- Newcastle, innit
- Location
- Tiverton and Honiton
- Location
- Doncaster/ Sheffield
Would be kind of interesting to see a radical left movement that does not try to commit entirely to any singular particular thinker. Have it be more, open-minded, like, "Sure, thinker so and so had some good ideas, but I disagree with him in that regard, of course, there I am more inclined to agree with-..." etc., etc. Kind of like how liberals aren't slaves to Adam Smith nor conservatives in particular are not slaves to Edmund Burke.
But perhaps it is inherent to collectivist ideologies that they eventually all fall victims to a drive for conformity, and the self-destructive zeal for purity and unity of thought that that invariably brings with it. Pluralism, in a sense, requires individualism, and so a movement which regards individualism as something bad will over time necessarily counteract pluralism.
But perhaps it is inherent to collectivist ideologies that they eventually all fall victims to a drive for conformity, and the self-destructive zeal for purity and unity of thought that that invariably brings with it. Pluralism, in a sense, requires individualism, and so a movement which regards individualism as something bad will over time necessarily counteract pluralism.
Basically you end up with this left-wing tradition which is centred almost entirely on individual liberty; you have all the same issues but they all boil down to individuals, not collective groups. The fundamental difference they had with other socialists was that they rejected this idea of compulsory participation in the community.
It would resolve what I consider to be the fundamental failure of communism, which is that has no answer to what will and must happen after the state has withered away. This left-wing tradition which is based on individualist anarchism as opposed to Marxism would have that answer: the community itself must wither away and leave only individual people, free to associate with one another if they wish, but free to live their lives as they please.
You see, as long as any sort of community exists which has shared values which are enforced by and within that community, then oppression is inevitable. The entire concept of a "community" is inherently oppressive because it inherently prioritises the desires of groups ahead of the needs of people. In that regard, if you want to improve the American constitution you should change "without the consent of the governed" to "without the unanimous consent of the governed" because that's the only way to be sure. All communities are by their nature oppressive.
It would resolve what I consider to be the fundamental failure of communism, which is that has no answer to what will and must happen after the state has withered away. This left-wing tradition which is based on individualist anarchism as opposed to Marxism would have that answer: the community itself must wither away and leave only individual people, free to associate with one another if they wish, but free to live their lives as they please.
You see, as long as any sort of community exists which has shared values which are enforced by and within that community, then oppression is inevitable. The entire concept of a "community" is inherently oppressive because it inherently prioritises the desires of groups ahead of the needs of people. In that regard, if you want to improve the American constitution you should change "without the consent of the governed" to "without the unanimous consent of the governed" because that's the only way to be sure. All communities are by their nature oppressive.