I’m not sure if this type of post is allowed on Genzedong or not. I wanted to see more discussion on Lemmy and this is the largest community so I crossposted here. Please accept my apologies and remove if not allowed.
I want to preface this by saying that I am still extremely ignorant of Marxist theory. Currently working to catch up but I am very open minded to different perspectives. However, I also want to add that I come from a Chinese family with strong communist sympathies and I feel that I have certain insights into China and the history of communism in China that many in the west do not. My grandfather as well as my father were Marxist philosophers. My father did not push Marxist theory onto me as a child (which I appreciated), hence my late introduction to theory.
Since I grew up primarily in the West, access to Marxist theory was limited. Richard Wolff was one of the people who helped reignite my interest in Marxism. I realize Wolff has some opinions that do not align well with Marxist or ML theory, but I’ve always thought that he was a good gateway to leftist theory as most of what he teaches is rooted in Marxism.
I decided to look up what /r/communism thought of Richard Wolff and while I saw many comments that echoed my thoughts there were also many comments that were virulently anti-Wolff, some of which left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/h8mosl/what_are_your_thoughts_on_richard_wolff/ Specifically the comments by /u/ah-gou.
I don’t know enough to form an opinion on most of his comment but the part about Wolff propagating a socialist market economy as “true communism” seems damning, but I also have never heard Wolff say this before either. Another user also replied that while Wolff may not be correct on all the theory, he ultimately teaches Marxist related theory, which cannot be said for most political or economic educators in the West. I thought there was a lot of merit in that.
I previously mentioned that reading these old threads and especially u/ah-gou’s comments left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. That wasn’t because I didn’t agree with his theory based opinion, rather it was mostly because of the strong and almost hateful reaction he had against Wolff. It reminded me of the stories that my aunt used to tell me of the most radical red guards back when she was a red guard. To my understanding, these kind of bottom up radical sectarian actions are what led to most of the violence and suffering seen in the cultural revolution. My initial reaction is that people like /u/ah-gou are exactly why the cultural revolution has been completely and utterly disavowed by the CCP today. Which is interesting given that most of my family who are knowledgeable about the cultural revolution do not absolutely disavow the cultural revolution.
In my view Richard Wolff plays a very important role of educator and usher of Marxism within liberal society. He plays up certain areas that he doesn’t necessarily believe wholeheartedly (such as co-ops) in order to move liberals towards the left. I think he has been an important factor in moving Western political discourse in the past 20 years towards the real left. He may not be right in all things theory, but his impact is important nonetheless. Discussing and criticizing Wolff’s theory is absolutely necessary but the way I have seen him being criticized is too akin to the sectarianism that has plagued and hurt socialist movements around the world, and especially reminiscent of the mistakes seen in China. I think Wolff is a vital part of the socialist movement and is exactly the type of educator we need to see more of in the West. Once you have a basic understanding of Marxist theory you can move on past him, but he is a keystone figure in moving any anti-capitalist towards Marxism.
Thoughts? I am happy to be wrong. Would love to see more discussion on lemmy.
Edit: Question for those who disagree: Those who disavow this type of liberal-pandering Marxist education/communication; what is your envisioned path towards revolution in the west?
^ genuine question, not asked in bad faith.
I am not familiar with MLs hating Wolff but I know in general the phenomenon you are speaking of. I agree that it is a problem and one that we should be aware of and try to correct.
I think we should appreciate that everything is a spectrum and that we can’t make thing so black and white with individuals, movements, events etc. I think we should find a way to not only make sure we are compassionate to our comrades who we share 99%+ of our ideas with, but to the many others who do not quite reach such an unrealistic level of purity. It’s a tough balancing act as, of course, we have seen throughout both history and the modern day what happens when nasty elements infect a good thing. But fanatical purity politics is absolutely doing us no favors and part of a greater campaign by our enemies to weaken the Left. I think compassion and kindness are underrated virtues and more comrades should realize not only the humanity and value in those they would deem “insufficiently pure” but recognize that such values will, in the long run, do nothing but help us, just as cruelty, hostility, shit-talking and contempt–especially when excessive and unwarranted–will likewise do nothing over time but rot us from the inside and make us ineffective at growth; compassion and kindness of a sincere and informed sort is very revolutionary in a world where most people are forced to choose between sugary fake plastic la-la land and terminal cynicism and irreverence. This is an issue I’ve encountered much less with MLs than I did during my time among the Synthetic Left but we are all human and such faults are still present. I understand everybody has their own lives and their own problems and that there are traumatizing forces that many of us cope with via anger, impatience, sadism, and similar habits, and we should not belittle everyone who succumbs to their own internal weaknesses, but we should use kindness and compassion to set a standard of kindness and compassion and make sure that toxicity doesn’t root itself in our minds as individuals but particularly as a political group.
I know that I will be, in many ways, unlikable to many of my comrades. I have been very happy to join Lemmygrad but I live in constant fear of being too “me” as throughout my life this has been an eventual death sentence for my social being. I am very opinionated and have developed a lot of odd ideas and I wish greatly to share them with as many people as I can. I keep a face of sharing 99% in common with my comrades when perhaps this number is 90% or even lower depending on the individual. I fear rejection. I don’t think the solution is a cuddly cult-like love-bombing squishy and soft way of being, I just would hope that people could disagree with me (and others) and be confrontational in a way that is healthy for both parties. I might not vibe with XYZ about any given comrade, maybe even severely so, but I love them as a comrade and gladly accept the things I don’t like about them, it’s almost even a part of WHY I like them. I want a political movement and a world populated by people who are as different to me in as many different directions as possible. I think it’s healthy in a human way but also in a pragmatic way as different perspectives, tactics, etc. are needed in this multi-front war where the egregore of capitalism is certainly glad to be attacking us from a hundred radically different angles.
I even appreciate certain liberals as a greater part of a radicalization funnel…even if they perhaps hate me and view us as monsters. People radicalize in different ways. Sometimes a fascist can move straight towards being an ML, but sometimes they must first become a conservative and then a liberal and then a progressive liberal and so on and so forth. Maybe I am happy X person I am not a huge fan of can spread valuable concept Y even if it is littered with the garbage of Z because Z is already such a prominent concept and Y is a hard pill to get people to swallow, even with peanut butter (silly metaphor but you get it).
At the same time, in interest of said diversified tactics that I’m espousing, I can appreciate that pungent negativity is sexy to a lot of people and is a useful tool for certain targets. But yes, I would hope they could at least direct that negativity towards someone who is only 40% like them instead of somebody who is 80% like them. I do not judge people for negativity, I myself can be insufferably negative and as they say “hurt people hurt people.”
Anyways. This is getting cyclical and rambly.
TLDR: Yes comrade, I agree.
That was very poignant and I appreciate the time it took to edit all that…
Now let me tell you what I think of Co-ops 😈😈😈
Seriously though, it wouldn’t hurt to be nice more :3.
Thank you! It definitely could be trimmed WAY down but I was just freely rambling.
Tbh I don’t know much about co-ops 😅 but from what I do know I think my opinions align with most MLs (I think).
But yes, it is definitely emotionally demanding in a day and age where we are sapped of as much energy as we can allow and our ceiling is kept perpetually low but it almost always does better in the long game. I have seen hostile people that seemed impossible to reach take on a slight shift for the better just by policing my own tone and making sure I was being patient and not condescending. Oftentimes it will take a person a dozen acts of kindness from a dozen different people through a long period of time before the changes these amounted to are finally tangible; we must always appreciate the butterfly effect. Cheers!