- 23 Dec 2014 21:31
#14502193
Contrapunctus:
Just remember an ideology cannot exist in the abstract. It is particularist; embedded in a particular time and culture, it must provide both a vision of what might be and a road map of how to get there. Do not accept evasiveness on this last point.
What exists now must be the launching pad for what you hope to achieve. Society is built on inertia. You cannot un-evolve that which is already evolved, you can only shift the direction of the evolution. And even that is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty.
Do not fall prey to the siren song of revolution unless you can reasonably hope to put together some kind of scenario that would enable you to focus its direction. Do you have a sufficiently large disciplined cadre infiltrated into the police, military, judiciary, and the media? If not, then your revolution is absolutely guaranteed to produce a bad outcome, that is to say, an even stronger repressive authoritarian regime.
Never forget that there are a lot of clever people who are just no damn good. In any chaotic environment, they will seize the opportunity to divert your revolution to their own ends. Can you handle these people by the hundreds, and the thousands? Are you willing to do so?
Most of the ideologies represented here in pofo have some real world world historical representations. The most valuable thing you can do to further your own political education is an honest forensic analysis of their failures. You will see a few ideologies that have no real world analogs, and these are the ones that you must view with the most suspicion. If you hear the phrase "capitalism, the unknown ideal" then you must ask yourself why it is unknown; chances are there are very good reasons idealist programs of various stripes are never implemented.
Be skeptical, and challenge your own preconceptions. Start from the center and understand what you really believe and why. There are a lot of smart people, listen and learn.
Just remember an ideology cannot exist in the abstract. It is particularist; embedded in a particular time and culture, it must provide both a vision of what might be and a road map of how to get there. Do not accept evasiveness on this last point.
What exists now must be the launching pad for what you hope to achieve. Society is built on inertia. You cannot un-evolve that which is already evolved, you can only shift the direction of the evolution. And even that is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty.
Do not fall prey to the siren song of revolution unless you can reasonably hope to put together some kind of scenario that would enable you to focus its direction. Do you have a sufficiently large disciplined cadre infiltrated into the police, military, judiciary, and the media? If not, then your revolution is absolutely guaranteed to produce a bad outcome, that is to say, an even stronger repressive authoritarian regime.
Never forget that there are a lot of clever people who are just no damn good. In any chaotic environment, they will seize the opportunity to divert your revolution to their own ends. Can you handle these people by the hundreds, and the thousands? Are you willing to do so?
Most of the ideologies represented here in pofo have some real world world historical representations. The most valuable thing you can do to further your own political education is an honest forensic analysis of their failures. You will see a few ideologies that have no real world analogs, and these are the ones that you must view with the most suspicion. If you hear the phrase "capitalism, the unknown ideal" then you must ask yourself why it is unknown; chances are there are very good reasons idealist programs of various stripes are never implemented.
Be skeptical, and challenge your own preconceptions. Start from the center and understand what you really believe and why. There are a lot of smart people, listen and learn.
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters. -Antonio Gramsci