From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Mon Sep 10 2007 - 14:53:48 EDT
Hi Jerry, I can understand your point of view. As for myself, I am not "anti-authoritarian" and have never really been that, although probably like most people I don't like arbitrary "authoritarianisms". I do very much respect authority, if it is real authority, i.e. based on recognizable ability, competence and experience. I think that's just part of a civil life. It is obviously more difficult to respect authority, if it's just somebody pretending to be an authority when they're not, and I find it difficult to be "in reverence" of an authority. Some writings or actions are also definitely authorative, insofar as they contain a lot of thought and experience about a topic. But if you are a free being, you also have to be able to question authority - this helps avoid problems of dogmatism - and not make more of it, than is due to it. I've had the experience of being in the middle of a demonstration and really feeling quite isolated, insofar as my own thinking was quite different from most of the demonstrators. I broadly agreed with what was happening, otherwise I wouldn't have been there, but I had quite a different perspective on it. Political participation is a funny thing in my experience, because you might be in the thick of it and learn very little, or far removed from it and learn a lot, i.e. there is no guarantees, that simply doing some recognizable political activity by itself gets better answers. Basically my experience is that you always have to be able to distinguish between the political rhetorics, and what's really happening. As I said, the label "Marxist" doesn't make much sense to me, though I do accept what Marx & Engels styled the "materialist approach to human history", i.e. I reject mumbo-jumbo explanations of human life. There are some fine Marxists who really make the idea come to life, through research into specific, substantive problems or through a political engagement, but there is also a lot of rhetorics, and I am not very interested in all that (well, I've been accused of rhetorics too by people who wanted to see real meat I wasn't in a shape to provide at the time). I'd regard myself as a socialist though, I was that way already before I knew what it was, even so, I don't even think that is very important, except to myself. In fact, often it's more of a problem to me, than an answer, i.e. I am often thinking, how would I do things differently, or how would I do things better, from the point of view I have? Insofar as the answers ain't easy, or I have no opportunity for an alternative, I often think more about different aspects of things, than I can solve. Ultimately, the way I make my life is obviously my own answer. Sometimes that seems a surreal joke, I am miles away from where I'd like to be, at other times it's very rewarding! I don't regret my Marxian studies for a minute though, it provided just so much insight, and stimulated me to delve into things. It's just that I am not very "doctrinally" inclined, and I find no security in doctrines, at best they are more a pedagogical device to eludicate a train of thought. Maybe things would be different, if I was more political or managerial. Jurriaan
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