Parenting/Educational Psychology and Politics .. is there a link?

[durruti02]

Shit you really are turning into tbaldwin. It must be infectious.

why

 

[durruti02]

Well I disagree with durutti here- mainly.

There are many problems with the left and we need to face up to the massive crisis the left faces. However, to dichotimise it like tihs isn't that helpful. I've got to go out collect my partenr from work, cook the tea etc but I'll return to this in a day or two.

yes i guess i do make things too balck and white .. it is not always usefull .. tbh i think it can bring out issues that can be solved in other ways

and as i have said b4 i in london i think maybe see a worse left than you.
however really think lenins influence is critical .. teh actions o fteh left are still heavyly influenced by lenin and his ideology and i think it is critical to a divorce/seperation between politics and class

 

[Spion]

it is said similarly about workers control and the closed shop that it would be corrupt .. talk of racism vigilantes etc

That's bizarre. Who said that?

E2A: Well, it could be. Any community, workplace body could have reactionary politics. The point of organising a party should be to argue against rectionary ideas and for progressive ones while taking part in such bodies

 

[mk12]

Well I disagree with durutti here- mainly.

There are many problems with the left and we need to face up to the massive crisis the left faces. However, to dichotimise it like tihs isn't that helpful. I've got to go out collect my partenr from work, cook the tea etc but I'll return to this in a day or two.

The history of Leninist parties in power throughout history proves what durrutio02 is saying.

 

[urbanrevolt]

I think you mean Stalinist but anyway that's another debate. I think the original question durruti02 was asking is interesting though posed in a slightly off kilter way by being linked with ed psych (there is a link I can see but the question in my opinion is far more fundamental- why is th eleft so marginal?

I've written something on this a few days back then got laid low by illness and think I will start a new thread and see if anyone responds!

 

[Spion]

I think you mean Stalinist but anyway that's another debate.

That's what I thought. There's only one Leninist party come to power, AFAIK, and Lenin was in that one

 

[mk12]

I think you mean Stalinist but anyway that's another debate. I think the original question durruti02 was asking is interesting though posed in a slightly off kilter way by being linked with ed psych (there is a link I can see but the question in my opinion is far more fundamental- why is th eleft so marginal?

I've written something on this a few days back then got laid low by illness and think I will start a new thread and see if anyone responds!

No I dont. I think durrutti is entitled to criticise the troskyist left for having this mentality because in a country where a 'trotskyist' (leninist) party took power, this mentality led to all sorts of problems (estabilishment of one of the most brutal regimes in history). As far as I know, PR still claim to be a part of this tradition (Lenin/Trotsky/Bolshevik).

 

[urbanrevolt]

But rather than respond to labels why don't you concentrate on the politics?

Do we promote working class self-emancipation in our actions, working class self-activity? I think we do, I certainly try to. Don't get stuck on the labels; there is a legitmate debate to be had of course on history and there we defo disagree- I think Lenin despite some faults was far more of a democrat than you give credit for but whatever does it make a difference to how we organise today. Not necessarily.

 

[mk12]

" all claptrap about democracy must be scrapped"

Well if we had genuine community control over major issues, we'd still have immigration controls. Do you support that?

 

[In Bloom]

The mass of people aren't kids, and the politicos are not the teachers.

I think this is the root of the matter. Trying to convince somebody of a set of ideas is not the same as trying to teach them something, however you intend to go about the latter.

Saying that, there are discussions to be had about how people learn to organise, working class self-education and all that.

 

[urbanrevolt]

Of course (adult) people aren't children (though children are of course people).

And left/socialist/ communist activists are not teachers of the working class- the very idea seems anathema!

However, I think in a sense there is a parallel- partly because the reason the idea of left as teacher seems anathema is because people have a very antiquated idea of what a teacher is- perhaps based on their own experience admittedly!

If we see a teacher as critical pedagogy does as someone who guides people in their own self-discoveries of knowledge in dialogue with the discoveries of previous generations then it is quite similar to class politics which as In Bloom is saying (I think- not entirely clear) is far from convincing people of a set of ideas.


Actually a lot of politics- e.g.bourgeois parliamentary politics is precisely convincing people or trying to of a set of oideas and some of th eleft have fallen into that trap as well. But emancipatory politics- socialist revolutionary politics is the opposite of that.

Our politics is about people- workers- discovering our own agency and our own power to change the world and surely we are all co-learners in that.

 

[In Bloom]

However, I think in a sense there is a parallel- partly because the reason the idea of left as teacher seems anathema is because people have a very antiquated idea of what a teacher is- perhaps based on their own experience admittedly!

If we see a teacher as critical pedagogy does as someone who guides people in their own self-discoveries of knowledge in dialogue with the discoveries of previous generations then it is quite similar to class politics which as In Bloom is saying (I think- not entirely clear) is far from convincing people of a set of ideas.

Nah, even taking more modern views of education and the relationship between teachers and students, the relationship between millitants and other working class people is fundamentally different. A teacher-student relationship of any kind implies a difference in knowledge, that latter must learn from the former, while the former merely learns more about themselves from the experience. Basically, it's a load of vanguardist shit.

 

[urbanrevolt]

OK well I'm not sure I entirely agree-on teaching that is- perhaps with younger children sure but I think with olders tudetns teaching does become a kind of co-learning. The relationship between militants, political activsts and other working class people is one of learning together, creating our own agency. I think the idea of learning is iumportant- we don't have all the answers and we learn together.

And I can't see at all how that could be seen as vanguardist or shit.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what you mean by vanguardist- if vanguard means anything it is a section of workers who are forward in struggle, like soldiers may be in a vanguard or foremost position in an assualt. This is almost always going to be the case and doesn't in any sense imply any necessary hierarchy. If a group of workers are attacked or more organsied than others we may be can learn from their struggles - it doesn't mean they're somehow higher does it?

And it doen't mean that political knowledge is some kind of set of ideas to be transmitted- it is more complex and evolving than that.

 

[durruti02]

Of course (adult) people aren't children (though children are of course people).

And left/socialist/ communist activists are not teachers of the working class- the very idea seems anathema!

However, I think in a sense there is a parallel- partly because the reason the idea of left as teacher seems anathema is because people have a very antiquated idea of what a teacher is- perhaps based on their own experience admittedly!

If we see a teacher as critical pedagogy does as someone who guides people in their own self-discoveries of knowledge in dialogue with the discoveries of previous generations then it is quite similar to class politics which as In Bloom is saying (I think- not entirely clear) is far from convincing people of a set of ideas.


Actually a lot of politics- e.g.bourgeois parliamentary politics is precisely convincing people or trying to of a set of oideas and some of th eleft have fallen into that trap as well. But emancipatory politics- socialist revolutionary politics is the opposite of that.

Our politics is about people- workers- discovering our own agency and our own power to change the world and surely we are all co-learners in that.[/QUOTE]

good post but again i see such a differrent left to you mate! all the left i see are simply trying to "convincing people or trying to of a set of oideas" instead of "discovering our own agency and our own power to change the world and surely we are all co-learners in that" .. i just do not see the left doing the latter at all! .. i see no discovery no co-learning, i see simply dogma and programmes which they, the cadre, hold and we the people must embrace and learn to love

 

[urbanrevolt]

OK I am saying how the left should be- mainly, though I do think there are many good people on the current left who can be won to this and may be many more people currently put off by the sort of problems you and others idenitify.

 

[mk12]

I wouldn't keep trying to win people over from the current left. You're just preaching to the converted.

 

[urbanrevolt]

Well yeah fair point it has to go beyond that- but equally I wouldn't write them all off.

On immigration controls as you mentioned it- no. I'm sure I'm just creating a problem here by bringing it up but it's may be worth debating out- from pirnciples etc.

Even if the majority of people supported immigration controls or (and I'm not equating these) say racist measures or sexist or whatever- no. Because it's not just about majority decisions- to make sense that has to take place in a system based on equal rights. I know it;s thorny because then you might say who defines the equal rights- if not the majority then you get back to the idea of an elite or whatever. But in practice I think many of these kontty problems are not intractable.

I support workers' democracy, workers' power within the context of a struglge for freedom and equality. The struggle for socialism will requite mass participation and mass discussions and uderstandings and reflections etc. I am confident that through struggle related to the contexts of everyday lives of workers and bringing in explicit political discussion- give and take, not one way, solutions can be found.

 

[mk12]

Even if the majority of people supported immigration controls or (and I'm not equating these) say racist measures or sexist or whatever- no. Because it's not just about majority decisions- to make sense that has to take place in a system based on equal rights

And heres the problem. Firstly, the majority of people in this country wouldn't decide on racist and sexist policies, because I am fairly sure most people are not racist or sexist. But immigration controls is another issue. It's very obvious that if society was organised and run by "mass participation and mass discussions and uderstandings and reflections", then we'd have immigration controls. Only a tiny percentage of people support the idea of no borders. That's not necessarily my position, it's just stating a fact.

 

[butchersapron]

Well yeah fair point it has to go beyond that- but equally I wouldn't write them all off.

On immigration controls as you mentioned it- no. I'm sure I'm just creating a problem here by bringing it up but it's may be worth debating out- from pirnciples etc.

Even if the majority of people supported immigration controls or (and I'm not equating these) say racist measures or sexist or whatever- no. Because it's not just about majority decisions- to make sense that has to take place in a system based on equal rights. I know it;s thorny because then you might say who defines the equal rights- if not the majority then you get back to the idea of an elite or whatever. But in practice I think many of these kontty problems are not intractable.

I support workers' democracy, workers' power within the context of a struglge for freedom and equality. The struggle for socialism will requite mass participation and mass discussions and uderstandings and reflections etc. I am confident that through struggle related to the contexts of everyday lives of workers and bringing in explicit political discussion- give and take, not one way, solutions can be found.

So you support the *form* of workers democracy but not the *content* - that's a bit anarchist of you? Or do you mean that you just don't trust *todays* working class?

 

[urbanrevolt]

I'm not sure what supporting the form not the content means.

I mean that I support workers' democracy- people in a factory, office, college, estate making decisions but that I would oppose any collective decision that was say excluding of Black people, immigrants, any other minority- not by claling on management or whatever but by at least trying to mobilise wider forces.

I do trust workers today on the whole and in the future because I think in the context of struggle- of mass participation and discussions- even where there is a temporary majority in favour of say racism it can be won over.

Actually I think whilst th emajority of people do not support no borders for example in practice where I have lived and or worked in working class areas it is relatively easy to get support for a specific case e.g. against a deportation

 

[mk12]

As I said though, it's not about "racism" or "sexism" as abstract issues. I'm saying that it is more than likely that if communities did run their own affairs in 2007 Britain, immigration controls would not be abolished.

I was wondering how you'd react to this, as you seem to support the notion of total workers' control over every aspect of society.

 

[Fruitloop]

It's a nonsense to think that you can put the workers in control of the present political system with a few tweaks here and there. It wouldn't work because the system as it stands is not designed to behave like that (quite the reverse in fact), and any attempts to do so would most likely result in a big fucking disaster. So you need to grow the cojones and imagination to look at how you change the system to make it into one that is amenable to being controlled by its workers, which means you need opinions on how that would work beyond parroting 'the workers in control' like a small autistic child. Unfortunately some of our fellow leftists seem so cowed by the organised left's four decades in the doldrums that they've forgotten the basic point, i.e. to arrive by both argumentation and praxis at some kind of preferable social arrangement.

 

[durruti02]

OK I am saying how the left should be- mainly, though I do think there are many good people on the current left who can be won to this and may be many more people currently put off by the sort of problems you and others idenitify.

ok fair play and yes i accept there are many many good people in the left .. but my key point though is that this alienated authoritarian leadership role is intregal / intrinsic / fundamental to leftism

.. unless you reject leninism / trotsktyism this is part of the package that comes with it .. it permeates all of the left .. it is disasterous and inhibits the creation of a movement that can be part of the class/people not forever outside and ineffective

 

[Fruitloop]

I dunno, Lenin was pretty effective. It just depends whether you like the effects or not.

 

[urbanrevolt]

ok fair play and yes i accept there are many many good people in the left .. but my key point though is that this alienated authoritarian leadership role is intregal / intrinsic / fundamental to leftism

.. unless you reject leninism / trotsktyism this is part of the package that comes with it .. it permeates all of the left .. it is disasterous and inhibits the creation of a movement that can be part of the class/people not forever outside and ineffective

authoritarian leadership or attempts at it are part of the problem I think. However, not sure it is right to lump Lenin and Trotsky in with that- think they were far more democratic than many Leninists today.

In other words there are traditions from Lenin, the bolsheviks and Soviets we can fruitfully learn from. Sure mistakes were made but workers' democracy was at the heart of soviets and soviets at the heart of the revolution- perhaps as seperate debate? Also haven't got much time for the rest of this week now to contribute.

 

[mk12]

I don't think you should lump "the soviets" in with the Bolsheviks. The soviets were independent class organisations, whereas the Bolsheviks were just one political party out of many which competed in these councils. Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks helped snuff out all independent working class activity by expelling opposition parties and banned their newspapers, disbanded soviets which returned non-Bolshevik majorities, arrested delegates to democratically elected congresses, and shot workers who were pushing for political liberties.

I certainly think you should lump Lenin and Trotsky in to the "authoritarian" category judging by their actions in power.

[If you're who I think you are, haven't you read Brinton's Bolsheviks and Workers' Control?]

 

[urbanrevolt]

I'm not sure there's much point debating Lenin- I think there is only in one sense to learn from th epast and a real revolution both its usccesses and where it went wrong. In both cases successes and failure workers' democracy is pretty fundamental. However, it's too simplistic and doesn't learn the lessons I think to put it all down to just one or two nasty types or one bad party- something Brinton recognised I think but still fell into a kind of reflex anti-Leninism popular with ex-members of trotskysits groups who have abused democracy- (Brinton was once in the Socialist Labour League I believe) whereas we need a more general view that doesn't see history as the preserve of great men- evil or good depending on your prediliction- but of social forces. The question of democracy and workers' control are vital and they are down to more than just a debate about one group versus another.

Unfortunately (or otherwise), I haven't got time to answer this in any detail. I cannot I'm afraid refer to original historical documents or quotes, nor am I sure what it would prove, though from memory I can recall one: Lenin to the YOung Communist Leagues
“I must say that the tasks of the youth in general, and of the Young Communist Leagues and all other organisations in particular, might be summed up in a single word: learn…in such a way that Communism shall not be something learned by rote, but something that you yourselves have thought over...” http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/lenin/works/1920/oct/02.htm

I think though that the Bolsheviks were very democratic in their practices during the revolution- they made what many including many in the factory committees and the soviets thought were some necessary but deeply regrettable compromises after the revolution and undoubtedly with the benefit of hindsight the suppression of workers’ democracy was a fatal mistake. It wasn't only the Bolshevik leadership who closed down many facets of workers' democracy during the civil war- many supported this what they saw as regrettable necessity but that we should definitely now question. Certainly we should also be highly critical of some other decisions such as the banning of working class parties and factions.

Soviets or workers' councils were of course distinct from the Bolsheviks though they did have a majority of workers' delegates at the time of the October revolution. Trotsky of course was the elected leader of the Petrograd soviet.

I have read Brinton's piece- I am not an expert on this historical period and have not studied the original sources. I have read other pieces here and there by Brinton that I admire but this piece seems to me skewed by a kind of anti-Leninism that is perhaps understandable given the unsavoury practices of Leninists at the time but I think from my non-expert stance overemphasises the case. We need to disentangle Lenin from the distortions of Stalinism and Stalinised Leninism.

I've also read Rabinowitch's The Bolsheviks Come To Power which, whilst not without criticisms paints a different picture seeing the Bolsheviks win in a democratic workers' movement. It could hardly be otherwise unless you believe workers are dupes or playthings of revolutionary plotters- the real history of the Russian revolution and indeed any revolution seems distant from this.

Yes mistakes were made even mistakes that paved the way for catastrophic defeat, defeats with which we are still coming to terms. It is too simplistic to ascribe all these faults to the 'leaders' I think.

The real lessons must be the absolute centrality of workers' democracy to any revolution and the necessity to have an international movement.
We should certainly study history- to learn from the mistakes as well as the successes- I think though the focus should be primarily on the present.

To get this back on thread then whatever the virtues or otherwise of comparing politics to learning, it is absolutely essential in my view to make sure that self-direction, self0activity and collective decision making and accountability are at the heart of all political movements of the working class. Only we can free ourselves and in through struggle we learn to become fully human.

 

[mk12]

The real lessons must be the absolute centrality of workers' democracy to any revolution

You do realise that people were shot in the Bolshevik regime for demanding just this, don't you?

Soviets or workers' councils were of course distinct from the Bolsheviks though they did have a majority of workers' delegates at the time of the October revolution. Trotsky of course was the elected leader of the Petrograd soviet.

And what happened when they started to lose soviet elections in early 1918?

I disagree with most of your post by the way, as I think you're factually incorrect. But I think we've been through this before, time and time again.

 

[urbanrevolt]

You can disagree if you like.

However, I think experience shows time and again that it is important to have democratic control of struggles and for real accountability whether in trades unions, other movements or political projects like Respect. This is a vital lesson for today.

Your only point seems to be that Lenin and Leninists cause all the poblems. I think we should concentrate on the politics.

 

[mk12]

However, I think experience shows time and again that it is important to have democratic control of struggles and for real accountability whether in trades unions, other movements or political projects like Respect. This is a vital lesson for today.

And once again, for literally the hundreth time, I am not disagreeing with democratic politics, I am criticising the Leninist dismantling of democracy in Russia. I think the democratisation of society during those years is something to learn from. I also think the counter-revolution (by the Bolshevik Party for various reasons) is also something to learn from.

My only point is to prove that Lenin and Trotsky were authoritarian, and that there is a contradiction between your apparent support for concepts such as "workers democracy", and then your sympathy for people like lenin and trotsky, and groups like the bolsheviks, who actually dismantled democracy during the revolution of that time. It's just a debate on an important political period.