How Socialists Might Inspire a Broad Section of the Working
Class to Fight Once Again For Socialism. Some preliminary comments
“A map of the world
that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out
the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands
there, it looks out and, seeing a better country, sets sail.”
Oscar Wilde
Socialism is not an empty word to me. It means different
things to different people, but for me, it is about a better world. In this
world, there is no war, poverty, manmade diseases, oppression, manipulation and
exploitation. Humans enter into a completely different set of relations where
they associate freely to decide what is needed, how it should be produced and
how it is distributed. We (the people) democratically control the vast
resources of the world and set them to work for the benefit of the many. As
Wilde comments, there is a place here for Utopia, Imagination and Vision.
How this new world might come about in the 21st century is
problematic but not impossible. Utopian thinkers have been given little respect
in the Marxist movement of the 20th century and this one and I believe they
should re-examine Marx’s relationship, Lenin’s relationship also to this. Marx
and Engels had huge respect for the Utopian Socialists and Lenin thought that
not enough “useful dreaming” occurred within the party of what a future society
would look like. What Marx did not respect were the sterile sects that followed
the great Utopian thinker. There is confusion and a misunderstanding of Marx
within some sections of the Marxist movement and what passes as the
Revolutionary Left.
The world is a crazy and irrational place. But what is
particularly crazy is this, and this really is what has been taking place. Ask
a Socialist what Socialism looks like, and they won’t be able to tell you. They
might say, “We don’t have a blueprint for Socialism”, “It is not our job to
prescribe this sort of thing but to be fought out by the workers themselves”.
This is a terrible state of affairs, and if socialists don’t have a clue about
what a future society will or could look like, then how the hell is the working
class going? This is the product of an objectivist outlook very common in
sectarian organisations and has nothing in common with a dialectical
philosophical outlook that Marx, Engels or Lenin used.
Speaking about a better world should not be a taboo subject.
Speaking about the ills that we face under this system of commodity production
where a ruling class exploits without the blink of an eye, what could be done
to replace this and how to replace it should be given priority and a hearing.
What we are facing right now and what we have lived through these past 30 years
is crazy. It has been one crisis, war, disaster or scandal after another. The
average person is absolutely fed up and is crying out for leadership and
political representation that reflects their wishes, and that is up to the task
of inspiring the working class and leading it to victory. Right now, we don’t
have that.
The nineteenth century was imbued with an entirely different
spirit, as we see in Oscar Wilde’s work. We see it in William Morris, too.
Morris was even brave enough to write the novel “News From Nowhere” which wants
to express some ideas about what a future society might look like. Where are
our modern day equivalents to Wilde and Morris? They don’t exist. But I
anticipate a renewed interest in these writers. Just like Gerrard Winstanley
was rescued from obscurity, other writers and thinkers will hopefully be
rescued. I hope to be a part of that rescue mission. But what does it have to
say to us in the 21st century?
The human spirit is a tremendous force that can endure and
overcome, but it has to be imbued with hope. I want to say that where there’s a
will, there’s a way, but the reverse is also true. Where there’s a way, there
will more likely be a will. The socialists are not showing the way or giving
inspiration because they choose to look away and engage in constant debates and
arguments that the working class doesn’t give a shit about. The working class
has no time to wade through 1000 pages of some tract without immediate
alleviating wisdom. It is too worn down to constantly hear about the betrayals
and losses right now. That’s for the revolutionary to bring to the working
class.
In all the jobs I’ve had, they are front-facing with members
of the public. I do not see myself as separate from them, for I know I face the
same struggles. I don’t shy away but want to understand the patient in my chair
and ask how has this disease process taken hold, what is the aetiology of this
and the pathogenesis of that? When we understand the enemy, we have a chance at
treatment, but the success of that will depend on many things and will depend
on how inspired the patient is and how confident they are at winning. Without
hope, my patient may not be fair too well!
The socialist movement is no different. The last great
movement we had that was guided by a belief in a better world was in the ’60s.
Where are the equivalents of Martin Luther King and JFK? Where are our
musicians that are equivalent to Jimmy Hendrix, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain or
Tupac? Where are the equivalents of Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein or
Oppenheimer? Where are they? Where are the Historians that are equivalent to
Hill or Thompson? What about new
Orwells, Steinbecks or Millers? We have
lost something, and it was a faith, passion and vision that the future could be
different. There is a total malaise around this, with the Marxist movement also
contributing by failing to correct this by keeping a vision of a better future
alive by examining how the productive forces could be used creatively to meet
real wants and needs. Whatever your politics or beliefs are is not my concern.
All I can hope for is that I am read with an open mind and given the basic
right to express an opinion. One thing I can agree on is the question of dead
dogs. A whole load of dead dogs also lie on the bodies of Utopian thinkers that
have been placed there by so-called Marxists. They ignore these thinkers,
unlike Marx and don’t know how to deal with them. The movement is sterile now
and impoverished due to adaptation to objectivism and ignoring the subjective
factor. Marxists have to win over both hearts and minds and if it chooses (the
revolutionary Marxist movement) to ignore the heart of humans.
Then fascism will appeal more confidently as it knows better
how to exploit repressed emotion. It’s not a game anymore, and just like Orwell
talks about in The Road to Wigan Pier, we still have the same problems. The
working class is not attracted to asceticism or sectarianism, nor am I. What I
propose to do in my writing is rescue some branches of thought and ideas, give
them a hearing and try to appeal to those that are more thoughtful.
I recently contacted a revolutionary party and asked what
socialists would do about the dark web. I wondered what the banking system
would look like under socialism. I have received no reply, and it must have
been three months ago that I wrote in. I have questions that are not being
answered. I am not surprised that they are not being answered, but I'm
surprised that I might have to answer these myself. I know I don’t have all the
answers but I sure know I will have to try and find some. There was also something
that troubled me recently. It was a podcast and the host (posturing as a
revolutionary) commented on someone liking Ska music and that that should be
seen as a red flag. How the movement will attract the working class when it
holds such prejudices is cause for major concern. They will remain a closed
club, and Orwell knew this all too well.
As mentioned, I would like to rescue some thoughts, writers
and thinkers from a pile of dead dogs and start to assimilate their thoughts
and answer some of my very own burning questions. A burning question for me is
why was it that Gerrard Winstanley was able to cut a path to a revolutionary
road and his peers didn’t quite get there. What was peculiar to Winstanley that
was absent in others? The same can be applied to Lenin. Why was Lenin able to
see further? What is it about these human personalities and their experiences
that enabled and gave birth to this? I believe the world is knowable and I
believe that coincidence is just the measure of our ignorance. There is a
reason for everything even if we don’t fully grasp what those reasons are right
this moment, the searching shouldn’t stop. It is not enough for me to say that
it was just the genius of Winstanley. I would love to examine the genesis of
his thought, but his collected works are £300, and I don’t have that spare.
What is interesting to me is that he replaced the word god with reason. I
believe that since he married the daughter of a surgeon, being around the
medical profession at that time had some bearing on him. It is a special
profession with its Hippocratic oath and scientific method. It is also a
profession that was not alienated from its own labour, and there was no
division in the surgeon but a unity of manual and intellectual labour working
for the greater good. This gave them a certain outlook that was quite separate
and peculiar to other branches of activity. It is just a theory and yet to be
fully explored, but Winstanley was different and I don’t see it just as an
accident in that it can’t be explained. This is just my opinion, of course.
Thanks for reading, and serious comments are welcome. This is just a piece of
prose, and footnotes can be provided. I am just interested in getting things
down on paper at this stage.
Some of the thinkers and trends I would like to comment on
in the future or have an interest in reading are as follows: Wiliam Morris, Erich Fromm, Freud, William
Blake, The State of my Profession, The NHS, Trump, state of reason, the
cultural level, P Diidy, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, John Potash, Shaun Attwood,
John Wedger, the dark web, the Cabal/Illuminati, Q-Anon, Maggie Oliver, Judy
Mikovich, Anthony Fauci, Andreas Moritz, Dr Robert Malone,Marcuse, Hegel, what
appeals to me most about Marx’s thought. The Salem Witch Hunts, children’s
literature, Anna Freud, Bruno Bettleheim, Marshall Berman and Oliver James. I
will want to express what I have found interesting in their thought and why it
is so. I can reflect on myself and ask what is piquing my interest. What is it
that I am relating to?
Here’s an example: I
believe and live by this as closely as possible. I don’t allow much into my
house that I don’t find beautiful or useful. I hate waste, and I hate junk.
William Morris was the same. Having been around art and design, I can relate
well to Morris in what he has to say, and I would like to discuss his relevance
but also ask why I am like this, too. Over the past 18 months since my child
left to study a degree in chemistry I have had much freedom to explore and
listen to many podcasts and spend more time socialising. There are trends and
things happening in our world that I have not had the chance to explore or
knowledge of. They should not be dismissed but given a hearing by the widest
possible audience. I don’t know what I believe regarding some of it, as there
isn’t enough evidence yet to make an informed conclusion, but I have been
astonished by some of the things I have learnt. The question isn’t wheter it is
true or not but is a fight to get access to information that will verify such questions.
I will argue that revolutionaries should be a part of that fight if only they
would listen. I write............................. to be continued.
I would like to draw attention to a paragraph from
Christopher Hill’s “The World Turned Upside Down.”
“Each generation, to put it another way, rescues a new area
from what its predecessors arrogantly and snobbishly dismissed as “ the lunatic
fringe.” Hill goes on to thank many people for their work, for without them and
their work, subjects such as alchemy, astrology and natural magic can now take
their place as reasonable subjects for rational men and women to be interested
in. Further still, Hill says
“Historians would be well-advised to avoid the loaded phrase
“lunatic fringe”. Lunacy, like beauty, maybe in the eye of the beholder. There
were lunatics in the seventeenth century, but modern psychiatry is helping us
to understand that madness itself may be a form of protest against social norms
and that the lunatic may in some sense be saner than the society which rejects
him”.
With that being said by such a respected historian, I hope
that what I wish to discuss will be given the same respectful and open-minded
treatment as Hill is urging for here, as there is much to be gleaned and learnt
if one could just drop the arrogance and snobbishness. Hill echoes Erich Fromm
here, who was a Freudo-Marxist who thought that when his patients were
experiencing psychosis, they were fleeing into this peculiar state of thinking
because they were escaping the insanity around them. In other words, the
patient retreated into this state because they were sane but couldn’t square
themselves to the conditions they were experiencing because the patient was
actually more sane and found it intolerable. The protest couldn’t be expressed
outwardly but was turned in on itself. It has to go somewhere, and that
disturbance is felt within the psyche.
Now, just for a minute, think here. Out of all the words
Hill has written, this chimes with me and out of all the other other possible
paragraphs I choose this. That’s not an accident. Christopher Hill is good
company to be in, and I’ve only just started to read him in the past 4 weeks. I
have talked to many people in my life due to the work I have undertaken and
come up against some very difficult positions and attitudes. They have to be
understood, not dismissed outright. It won’t lead to anything new by dismissing
it. Back in the 90’s, I was lucky enough to visit the Hayward Gallery, where
the Prinzhorn collection was being exhibited. When the pieces are examined, and
you know what you are looking at, Hill makes even more sense. The Prinzhorn
Collection is for another time. But it is a collection of over 5000 pieces of
art drawn by inpatients of psychiatric institutions. It is troubling what is
being expressed visually but it finds expression nonetheless and is not as
insane as one might think.
