I often think that a fair bit of things related to this stuff is all bullshit, but I have to say, I find the category “non-antagonistic contradiction” in Mao’s writings to be really interesting. It makes me want to read more Mao. (And makes me wish I remember more of the stuff I know I’ve read but somehow didn’t retain.)
Anyhow, it seems to me quite reasonable to say that in any organization that wants to or objectively does contest the prevailing states of affairs in some way, there will likely be disagreement. Given the potential stakes for these organizations, disagreement can easily become conflict. This stuff happens, in my experience.
It seems to me it’s important to avoid treating the other side in a conflict as analogous to the organizations’ opponents. It’s also important to avoid becoming narrowly focused on getting one’s way in a conflict for the sake of getting one’s way. On a related note, it’s important to try hard to tell the difference between one’s own investments in the outcomes of a conflict and a more sober assessment of a conflicts’ implications for the organization (and the class). It is particularly important that one not get into the habit of treating all disagreement as always-already conflict. It’s is also particularly important that one understand how conflicts and disagreements link to larger matters, again as part of not simply seeking to have one’s way.
Some conflicts will be composed of multiple conflicts. It is important to see how conflicts link up (or how pursuit of one can be at cross purposes with pursuit of another). It is especially important to retain as much involvement as is feasible in other work in the organization beyond intra-organizational conflict, for the sake of one’s credibility and even more so for one’s happiness and effectiveness.
yeah like this, this is awesome
“Non-antagonistic contradictions are interactions between classes whose basic interests and aims coincide. The socialist revolution resolved and thus eliminated antagonistic contradictions, but it did not eliminate contradic tions in general. Socialism has its contradictions, for example, those between developing production and increasing demands, between the advanced and the backward, between creative thinking and dogmatism.”
Comment by todd — July 31, 2009 @ 3:28 pm
Yes. I think the real point is prescriptive - some contradictions should be antagonistic and others shouldn’t.
Comment by Nate — July 31, 2009 @ 11:43 pm
Some conflicts will be composed of multiple conflicts.
Yes. Someone should remind academic marxists of that, routinely. Trade unionists, for example, aren’t really like following some french red or zizekian-bolshevik template (I’m still waiting to meet ONE cali unionist sort who has even read a paragraph of Lacan (few have even heard of Zizek), or engaged in the sort of quasi-theological-psychological BS that Kotzko and pals specialize in).
Even within the unionist ranks, there are sort of industrialist,de leon types, and those who favor statisms of various sorts (mao or marxist).
Really, I don’t think mao or stalin should be mistaken for the authentic left either. What happened to like Bakunin? (And his nice rips of marxist hypocrisy)
Comment by Perezoso — August 2, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
hi Per,
For what it’s worth, I agree with this 100% - “I don’t think mao or stalin should be mistaken for the authentic left.” I’d add Lenin to the list as well. I do think Maoism and Stalinism among left groups are complicated and not reducible to their fucked up elements (likewise christianity is in my view on balance not good for humanity but actually existing christians and their practices are not reducible to that balance, know what I mean?), but I think that Mao(ism) and Stalin(ism) are real bad. On the other hand, they succeeded in some of what they set out to do, and that success may hold lessons for the rest of us, even though we want to avoid their problems. I also find Mao quotes and stuff useful for thinking through some of this stuff, likewise with Lenin.
Re: Bakunin, he’s someone I’ve been meaning to read seriously for a long time, but I need some other folk to read it with, I’m crap at doing stuff on my lonesome.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — August 2, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
OK. I’ve never cared for bolshevik tactics–whether in theory or practice–but finally have understood why Lenin and Co finally decided on vanguardism (rather than the euro-left tradition of trade unions, the state, professors, etc). I don’t think the maoist tradition really involved a vanguard, but more of a widespread peasant discontent, though the history is murky. Maoists started the party by pitching professors in ditches (and I suspect some of those professors could quote Marx and Hegel at length…)
At least in CA, any real radical movement will be controlled, if not shut down by the big trade unions themselves (and CA-Dems). The WSWS ( Ms Dean quoted them a while back) has been increasing in power–the WSWS may deserve some respect, but they represent a sort of “grocery clerk socialism,” if that. Meet your new boss, Maria, the career check-out chica.
The Dems and unionists now are in a position of power, at national level as well–especially if they revise the 2/3s law to a simple majority. However non-unionist progressives or leftists might ask themselves what say janitors unions, or grocery clerks, food service workers, or the cop/guards unions have EVER done for them. Or the schoolmarmie phony soft-unions.
Which is to say, we’re fucked, either way–whether via anarcho-capitalism, or the sort of massive syndicalism of urban economies, controlled by union jefes (who care little about real marxism, or Bakunin). The labor-management war thus sort of resembles a Camus-like spectacle, however quaint that might seem to the zizekian hipsters.
Comment by Perezoso — August 3, 2009 @ 12:42 pm