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roachboy · 08-23-2007, 06:21 AM

this is all probably terribly particular---->

a little story: when i was about to leave france after 2 years of research for the behemoth i now refer to as my dissertation, i ha to return some papers to an older couple who were involved deeply in the revolutionary marxist group i was writing about. they took me to lunch, in part in order to tell me something as it turned out.

during the lunch, one of them looked at me and said :you have to be careful about the way in which you take this political work seriously. you have to remember that you must live in this world too. you have to let yourself enjoy things.

this from folk who had been involved in revolutionary politics for 50 years, across a period that saw the political universe within which they had operated simply dissolve.

i cant say that this instantly changed anything, but i have thought about this story alot over the years and it has had a big effect.

it seems that the distinction between being critical and being bitter lay in curiousity about the world---which is linked to the idea that what you see is a variant on what is possible and not the whole of what is possible. you can see political work as making new possibilities. this is quite different from seeing the same activity as limited to pointing out the myriad ways in which the existing order sucks, is wrong, wastes people and their lives and so forth.

the former gives you space to explore: the latter doesnt. the former enables you to value exploring that space and thereby to get yourself out of living in your head: the latter doesnt. it seems to me that you have to understand that you create your world as you move through it, that being alive is a creative act. you have to be able to imagine something else. it almost doesnt matter what enables you to do that. but something has to. creative work,a hobby, something that engages you. bitterness comes from boredom and boredom comes from a lack of curiousity, even about yourself and what you can do when you stop allowing yourself to be wholly defined situationally. and you have to, sooner or later. otherwise you suffocate.

if you pull down around you everything that you see in the world that is shitty and decide at one level or another that what is shitty defines everything you can imagine, then of course you'll become bitter and shut up in yourself. you'll perform your alienation all the time. that's more or less all you'll do. you'll confuse it with something Important. you'll learn to enjoy it. it'll become what you do. you can confuse the reactions of others to your performance of alienation with confirmation of your superior moral position. your righteousness makes them uncomfortable--that kind of thing.

to my mind, all that's an illusion: but it an be a powerful one because it is mostly about the same thing radical political work is ultimately about--rationalizing your alienation (in amore existentialist sense than a marxist one).

it is easy to forget that people need hope, and all the more easy if you do not allow yourself to have any. being able to hope for something more or different or better isnt some pollyanna copout--its a reason to continue. and if you do critical work, it is easy to forget that what you produce is not so much an outline of a shitty world, but a demonstration of its arbitrariness--behind which lay the idea that if this world is arbitrary then it could be otherwise. if you forget that, you're fucked.

it's easy to be bitter. it's easy.

i dont really have any advice. for me, this problem obviously slots into another one, and i dont have a way to split them apart, so i just say it.

08-23-2007, 06:21 AM	#13 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	this is all probably terribly particular----> a little story: when i was about to leave france after 2 years of research for the behemoth i now refer to as my dissertation, i ha to return some papers to an older couple who were involved deeply in the revolutionary marxist group i was writing about. they took me to lunch, in part in order to tell me something as it turned out. during the lunch, one of them looked at me and said :you have to be careful about the way in which you take this political work seriously. you have to remember that you must live in this world too. you have to let yourself enjoy things. this from folk who had been involved in revolutionary politics for 50 years, across a period that saw the political universe within which they had operated simply dissolve. i cant say that this instantly changed anything, but i have thought about this story alot over the years and it has had a big effect. it seems that the distinction between being critical and being bitter lay in curiousity about the world---which is linked to the idea that what you see is a variant on what is possible and not the whole of what is possible. you can see political work as making new possibilities. this is quite different from seeing the same activity as limited to pointing out the myriad ways in which the existing order sucks, is wrong, wastes people and their lives and so forth. the former gives you space to explore: the latter doesnt. the former enables you to value exploring that space and thereby to get yourself out of living in your head: the latter doesnt. it seems to me that you have to understand that you create your world as you move through it, that being alive is a creative act. you have to be able to imagine something else. it almost doesnt matter what enables you to do that. but something has to. creative work,a hobby, something that engages you. bitterness comes from boredom and boredom comes from a lack of curiousity, even about yourself and what you can do when you stop allowing yourself to be wholly defined situationally. and you have to, sooner or later. otherwise you suffocate. if you pull down around you everything that you see in the world that is shitty and decide at one level or another that what is shitty defines everything you can imagine, then of course you'll become bitter and shut up in yourself. you'll perform your alienation all the time. that's more or less all you'll do. you'll confuse it with something Important. you'll learn to enjoy it. it'll become what you do. you can confuse the reactions of others to your performance of alienation with confirmation of your superior moral position. your righteousness makes them uncomfortable--that kind of thing. to my mind, all that's an illusion: but it an be a powerful one because it is mostly about the same thing radical political work is ultimately about--rationalizing your alienation (in amore existentialist sense than a marxist one). it is easy to forget that people need hope, and all the more easy if you do not allow yourself to have any. being able to hope for something more or different or better isnt some pollyanna copout--its a reason to continue. and if you do critical work, it is easy to forget that what you produce is not so much an outline of a shitty world, but a demonstration of its arbitrariness--behind which lay the idea that if this world is arbitrary then it could be otherwise. if you forget that, you're fucked. it's easy to be bitter. it's easy. i dont really have any advice. for me, this problem obviously slots into another one, and i dont have a way to split them apart, so i just say it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 08-23-2007 at 06:25 AM..