Ehrbar's confessions

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hans,

For someone who says "Usually I try to hide myself behind my arguments,
which I want to be speaking for themselves", your post of 6th April
is as fascinating as it is politically relavent.

I welcome your acknowledgement of the personal in politics. I think
marxism must take this on board from the feminist movement.
There is a continuity between the personal and the political.

I also welcome that as someone who has just stepped in as a moderator with
broad shoulders, you are consciously making overt, the emotional
aspects for you of the role you have taken on.

I feel freed up by
stepping down as moderator. The sense of responsibility without power
is heavy, at least for people with my temperament. And because this
l'st is a structureless network, people hang on to the moderators as
a point of leverage. Part of the battle about the PCP was being
fought out in terms of whether Chris B could or could not post.

Perhaps that seems narcissistic to many, but I have no doubt it
felt true to my assailants, and *because it also felt true to me*
it therefore became a fact, which inhibited my better judgements.

Yes, you are now in danger of being a hero. I was a bit surprised that you
became so quickly spoon liaison. I hope Bryan is happy with that.
Probably he is. Spoon liaison was reported to be technical, but
it has turned out it gives the person an ear to the ground of
the range of Spoons thinking and therefore a very small piece of power.
It was a feat for Lisa to set up a second l'st within one week of
returning from holiday and seeing the situation was unacceptable. I rather
envy that.

Being the recipient of unwanted envy, admiration, resentment or
threats, are part of the psycho-social role you have taken on.
It is the psychological phenomenon of projection, which links the
personal and the social. (Projection spelt with a 'j' not a 'y')
It has links with left wing analysis about the mass psychology of
fascism etc - how we project our good bits and our bad bits
onto others, who through some quirk of their own, are willing
to *introject* these projections, and play a social role, and
perhaps also a political role.

Actually there is a more serious point behind my play of words
on Louis's surname. Despite, but more relevantly because of
his contradictory positions, I think in all seriousness he has
played not only a pivotal role in this l'st pulling itself
up by its intellectual bootstraps, but, in this context has IMO over a
year, been more than any other in touch with the emotional atmosphere of
the l'st.
His return to thrash things out with Adolfo, and then to make a
compromise that, read carefully, (and it could have been more carefully
written) does not sacrifice principle on either side, is a
remarkable event in the emotional dynamics as well as the theoretical
progress of the l'st.

You were attacked by both Louis P before, and by
Adolfo. Re-reading the post it was not a threat of physical violence,
but I can see it felt like that. Now you have been attacked by
Louis again after I had composed the first draft of this piece.
I would somewhat fear for my safety after receiving such a post.
But you and he, and we will just have to put it in context.

No, nor have I been cowed by threats from the PCP. Partly because
I consciously monitored my degree of fear, weighed up the risks as being
smaller for me than for Adolfo, and decided we must just slog this one out.
[The likelihood of the British Home Secretary wanting to make political
capital by deporting a "terrorist" who has not got enough friends among the
churches and similar constituencies, to kick up a big enough fuss,
is a real one.]

Louis's furious reaction to the suggestion that he might have been
intimidated by Adolfo, suggests to me he may indeed have denied the
element of fear in his calcula
tions.

I may seem soft on the PCP because I often use ad hominem arguments -
appealing to people's reason on their own terms. [That is the English
use of the phrase ad hominem - in American it seems to mean
personal attack - how odd! wouldn't that be "contra hominem"?]

But whether I am soft on the PCP in the
long term remains to be seen. I have given more than one warning
that however good the revolution in Peru, a policy of autarky is
not viable to insulate the country from the neo-liberalism
of finance capital, and the revolutionary government will have
seven million mouths to feed in Lima. I hope Louis P is right
that they will find alternative to those of the Khmer Rouge.
Michael Luftmensch and my quiet references to other sources of
information will eventually outgun anything the PCP supporters post
that is not itelf *more* authoritative. It is a fair challenge
and one which they may very well wish to accept.

I am also convinced of the futility of arguing with abuse, even when
abused. Luciano could not understand why I replied amiably when
he called me a complete political idiot. OK I gambled on l'st dynamics,
but like yours, it was not an ill informed gamble or one lacking in political
principle. The stats do not appear overwhelmingly to have vindicated
Luciano's judgement.

Nor is it about being a do gooder, though like all people in the
caring profession, I am caring for projected parts of my own needs.
[monitoring that is also a basic]

Who are our friends and who are our enemies? Adolfo
thinks that is an important question. Unfortunately for him he thinks
that everyone infected with social democratic and revisionist ideas is
an enemy.

Your dilemma, Hans, was how to reply to Adolfo's intimidating posts.
No, you did not have to fawn, or apologise. Nor did you. But what to
say? Well my analysis was this. Just because Adolfo behaves in
an antagonistic way towards me, does not mean he is fundamentally an
enemy. I refused to treat him as such, just as I refuse to treat
Luciano as such - he had the good humour to copy his post to me after
all.

There are perhaps only a couple of enemies on this l'st and
they cause *no overt problems at all*. They are very deep lurkers just
hoovering up all the information for the intelligence services.
Probably very nice chaps and chappesses. Just doing their job.
[Hi Jeremy! Such a lot to skim! What key words do you search for?]


We do however get a lot of people on this l'st who treat contradictions as
antagonistic. That is inevitable because of the passions and the serious-
ness of the questions. But it does not mean the contradictions really
are fundamentally antagonistic. Why should the bourgeoisie have all the
best tunes in conflict management? We have learned one or two -
if a third person bravely comes in to "triangulate" between two
protagonists to suggest another way of looking at the conflict.
Also waiting 24 hours to post. Also talking to friends of friends.

A lot would be achieved if
people did not try to impose their own moral principles on one
another. M and E specifically distanced themselves from
that approach in the Communist Manifesto.  (I agree Adolfo is a moralist
to a significant degree). It is better to clarify a dialectical and a
materialist analysis of what is going on. And indeed we are starting to do
so in the case of Peru.

This l'st is a vast self-organising system that can rebuff and
absorb many different threats. Its size (still over 300) is chemically
an enormous buffering system. Biologically it provides a way of dealing
with even some predatory aggressors, in the way small birds can "mob",
confuse and exhaust an unwise carnivorous owl.

No, Hans, I am confident my remarks about Peru are not the result of
intimidation, but of independent study. But I enjoyed the opportunity to
respond to your post bringing together the personal and the political.

Warm regards,

Chris B, London.



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