Re: [Marxism] MTA threatens to eliminate check-off

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rubinelli writes:

> PS:  Nothing wrong with sarcasm.  Has a long, honorable, and cherished
> position in Marxist debate.
----------------------------------------------
Well, I used to think so too, and was a regular offender like most everyone
else. You get schooled in sarcasm and flaming when you read Lenin and
Trotsky and the fierce polemicizing that went on among the early Bolsheviks,
which, whatever their other merits, now seems to me to have been mostly a
demagogic device used to whip up the ranks against the opposition to the
left and right - a practice carried over in the SWP and other groups
identifying with that tradition. A lot of impressionable young radicals were
apt to mimic the style because it made them feel more like the tough
Bolsheviks they admired, while the truly alienated types were just looking
for any acceptable outlet where they could express their deep-seated
resentments and hostility to others.

The problem is that this kind of posturing only goes so far. More often than
not, if you resort to this behaviour in wider circles it is almost always
politically damaging. You're perceived as less the "clever" or "witty"
personality you think you are than as an anti-social misfit who is a
disruptive influence on the group. This is a pretty serious indictment when
the group you're involved in is engaged in struggles which have more than
intellectual consequences. Even within narrower political cultures where
such behaviour is deemed to be acceptable - even celebrated as "honourable"
and "cherished", as by yourself - I have yet to be persuaded that it fosters
rather than impedes discussion and clarity and the broadest possible unity.
I'm convinced, in fact, that it does the opposite. A lot of former comrades
I have run into over the years - often, not coincidentally, the ones who
enjoyed "mass work" more than writing documents and faction-fighting - have
cited the agitated polemicizing within these groups as being the chief
reason why they fell away from them.

I should make clear that my remarks aren't chiefly directed at you, though
you've provoked them. Your sharpest comments always seem to me to be, at
bottom, good-natured rather than personally vicious, and you wrestle with
different views rather than retreat into name calling. Still, there are many
regular and respected contributors on the list who are deliberately careful
to avoid giving offence in order that there is no static interfering with
the arguments they are advancing. You say "there is nothing wrong with
sarcasm". Maybe as a form of cultural expression for writers and stage
artists, but in politics it mostly runs at cross purposes, IMO, with "the
art of defensive formulations" - a far more effective form of political
pedagogy.



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