[PEN-L:4715] Human Factor/Social Consciousness I

[SHAWGI TELL <v600a8e6@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

     Of all things in the world, what the working class and the
broad masses of the people want the most is to exercise control
over their lives. What kind of system exists that will provide them
with this control? To frustrate and block the people from sorting
out this question, the bourgeoisie has been carrying out deafening
propaganda that communism has failed. The dogmatic rendering of
socialism and communism which preaches that everything with
socialism and communism is just fine has the same aim. In this
scheme of things, the options of "left" and "right," with a variety
of each, are pushed on the people.  What do the people want? They
want to actually involve themselves in working out the kind of
system they want and to fight for it.
     The anti-communist dogma of the so-called failure of communism
includes in it this or that objection against this or that
communist regime. The principle aim of this attack is to divert
people from creating a society in which they can exercise control
over their own lives. This is the self-serving aim of presenting
everything new and modern in the colors of the old, even going so
far as to suggest that the new is not even possible while
glorifying "liberal democracy" and the capitalist status quo as the
highest and final achievement of social development. Posing as
those who want the best for the world while persisting with the
worst possible, that is, capitalist exploitation, the bourgeoisie
is imposing the anti-human factor/anti-consciousness over the
people so that they cannot exercise control over their lives. The
aim of this anti-communist dogma is precisely to block people from
working out a system which will be in their service. Like the
medievalists, the bourgeoisie is also asserting that its own epoch
is a natural development, preordained while anything beyond it is
really going against nature especially human nature.
     The broad use of anti-communist dogma also reflects that the
epoch of the bourgeoisie has truly come to an end. This epoch has
nothing more to offer except its last ditch effort to block the
advent of the new epoch, the epoch of the negation of everything
that enslaves humankind, the epoch of the conscious creation of
history for the affirmation of human beings themselves. When the
bourgeoisie spreads anti-communist dogma it expresses its
bankruptcy in more ways than one but most importantly, it is a
declaration and an invitation that either it is overthrown by force
or it will continue to cause every kind of problem and inflict
every kind of brutality on the people by its stubborn resistance to
the opening of the door for the progress of the society. The
working class plays its historical role only in the rejection of
all dogmas and by invoking all that will involve people in working
out their own system through which they will be able to exercise
control over their lives.
     Every effort is made by the ruling circles to keep
the people bogged down in the quagmire of "left" versus "right" and
the subtle shades of variation within each. The people are told
that the elimination of the profound crisis of the capitalist
system depends on them rallying behind one or the other. The
experience of the working class says otherwise. The society can be
lifted out of the crisis only by the old giving way to the new. This is what
is at the very heart of the struggle. It is a struggle between what
is new and modern and all that is old and archaic. The new and the
modern are comprised of all those things which are in the service
of, and the product of, the involvement of the working class and
people to work out and establish their own system on the basis of
their own efforts.
     The epoch of the bourgeoisie was brought into being with the
capitalists creating a world in their own image. Raising its fist
against the old feudal order which was obstructing the path to
social progress, the bourgeoisie created a new society, leaving no
sphere of life untouched. In the sphere of ideology, politics, and
culture it gave rise to a grand flourishing which it wielded as a
weapon against the old. In the struggle between the negation of
bourgeois being and the affirmation of Bourgeois Right, celebrated
in the dilemma to be or not to be, the capitalists affirmed
themselves as the natural rulers. With the slogan of "equality,
fraternity and liberty" they held up a world of plenty which they
said was there for the taking by everybody.


Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
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