The Duties of the Left-Wing Intellectual

 

First and foremost, the duties of the left-wing intellectual comprise those of any intellectual, regardless of ideological predisposition—to be an independent seeker of truth, and to follow the pursuit of truth no matter where it may take him/her, even into regions discordant with his/her already-established political, social, and cultural beliefs.  In other words, the pursuit of truth, no matter what, is a journey into knowledge, not faith; and should knowledge and faith conflict, for the true intellectual, knowledge, not faith, not belief, will win out.  If what I believe is now contradicted by the facts, I will abandon or modify my belief in favor of the facts.  Not the other way around.  That is what true intellectualism is, and it holds regardless of any ideology, be it left, right, center, or any combinations or hybrids of those. 

 

For the left-wing intellectual, be s/he a true intellectual, is a knowledge-seeker first, a committed ideologue decidedly second.  S/he is decidedly not a missionary, a proselytizer, a salesperson, an influencer; s/he is a mentor, a guide to others on what is truth and how it is to be found, not a pastor or guru with special arcana to impart.  The left-wing intellectual, same as any intellectual, relies on logic, reason, proof, demonstration, and evidence to raise awareness of knowledge; s/he does not rely on word magic, manipulation, one-sided talking points, loaded language, or other forms of irrationalities to convince others.  The left-wing intellectual trusts in human reason, even though such trust is bound to sometimes disappoint when dealing with the myriads of diverse humans, because s/he knows it is the only sure way to impart new knowledge, or reconsideration of old knowledge.  In other words, there is no quick fix, no magic Philosopher’s Stone, to bring masses of people over to one’s own left-wing personal convictions.  The building of consciousness is thus a slow but steady process, and is ofttimes maddeningly slow.  But quick fix shortcuts are ephemeral; what is affirmed today can just as readily be denied tomorrow.  For it is not the specific belief that counts; it is the proper process for coming to the belief that is crucial.  After all, it is indeed possible (as we all know from probability) to come to “correct” answers by incorrect or specious means.  Just randomly guessing the answer on a multiple-choice test all but absolutely guarantees that a certain percentage of the answers, e.g., 25% on a series of four-answer questions, are going to be correct, even if only chosen by randomness bereft of any actual knowledge!

 

Further, this process of correctly ascertaining new knowledge is also the most integrally democratic, i.e., democratically socialist.  It relies on the capacity of each to reason, and to be trained, educated, into the procedures for right reason.  It is this, the capacity of ordinary men and women endowed with ordinary intellectual skills to be able to be knowledge-seekers in themselves, that is the core tenet of a truly democratic socialism.  “We need no condescending saviors,” says the third verse of the Internationale, and it is eminently correct.  We ordinary people do not need arcane “vanguards,” infallible “leaders,” or magically endowed “saviors” to know what is best for us overall, although we as individuals, or even as groups of individuals, may stumble and fall sometimes, stumble and fall even badly.  This is well put in Abraham Lincoln’s noted dictum:  “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”  Yes, there will arise, even after a long historical slumber, the bold ten-year-old boy who exclaims, “The Emperor has no clothes on!” even as the sycophantic courtesans insist that he is dressed in the most exquisite finery.  Thus does a Hitler, or a Stalin, or a Pol Pot, become exposed for what he is.  That is what we of the left mean by the development of historical consciousness. And that is precisely where we, the left-wing intellectuals, have a role to play in furthering, developing, and nurturing this consciousness.  Through education, dissemination of knowledge (not, decidedly not, mere belief!), and advancing the processes of right reason, along with dissemination of awareness of those negatives which impede this—logical fallacies, rhetorical tricks, use of magic or loaded words, hyperbole, misleading half-truths.  That is why we, the left-wing intellectuals, are always students ourselves; learning both from books, and from life, what is the best way to continue our search for knowledge, and not just be content with resting on a cushion of comfortable belief.   

Why this blog

I've been intimately involved with the organized left for over 40 years, ever since my college days started back in 1965. Now, however, my intimate partner, the left, has grown daft, paranoid and hostile, and so this blog is a wake-up call to the left to get its act together, and stop, utterly stop, its obeisance to Political Correctness.

The left has seemingly been irrelevant to lived life now since at least the early 1970s, much to the diminishment of political and social life since then. While certain left ideas are more relevant than ever, especially in economics and economic policy, other leftist ideas which have gained fasionable currency are not only irrelevant but actually harmful, and the left that is organized into various groups here in the U.S. is simply a disaster. We, the left, are now our own worst enemy.

This undermining of the left by the left itself comes from both the Right and the "Left" wings of the left, from the very leftists themselves. On the Right is the slavish tailing after whatever Obama offers, and craven submission to the Democratic Party. On the "Left," however, is ultraleftist disaster: Politically Correct adherence on cultural and social issues with no dissent or raising of caveats allowed, whether it be on feminism, racism, what constitutes left and "advanced' culture, what is retrograde and what is not, what is "working class" and what is not; with the result being the stifling of any honest discussion on the left of all kinds of issues, baiting of those leftists who do try to dissent as "retrograde" and still slaves to "'male' or 'white-skin' privilege," of being "elitist" or "offensive," and myriad other charges. This results, needless to say, with a left absorbed today not in the advancingof its ideas and in recruiting, reaching out, but in censorship and the imposition of self-censorship in the name of Political Correctness.

In concrete terms, this means the denial that, e.g., blacks and women are individuals with varying mixtures of virtues and faults, but instead the left insistence that their structural oppression does not deform them to various degrees, but rather, only makes them into Ideal Types who can never do or say anything wrong. It means romanticizing them, and painting a Manichean picture of them as forever struggling against another Ideal Type, the Forever-Evil white, educated male. Talk about regression to Rousseau's Noble Savage!

But an obvious political conundrum arises: if women and blacks (not to mention gays, Hispanics, "conscious" workers, and others) are so Ideal as a result of their structural oppression (a structural oppression which I readily admit), then why is capitalism, which socially created these Ideal Types, something to oppose? After all, its oppression is only creating--paragon Ideal Types full to the brim with virtue! That would only make capitalism a moral good, and its sturctural oppression merely a challenge to face and overcome through Politically Correct deference to the Ideal Types--especially if one is a white, educated male such as myself. (However, I would like to point out that my college education came from Michigan State and Indiana Universities, not the schools of the Ivy League or the elite state universities of, e.g., Ann Arbor and Berkeley, where many of my fellow leftists were educated.)

Most especially this white, educated male, despite 40+ years of devotion to the left, but now found to be hopelessly Politically Incorect by his fellow leftists because he asks too many Politically Incorrect questions and raises too many Politically Incorect objections. Never mind the substantive, logical and reasonable basis of these questions and objections. Even substance, logic and reason come under attack by today's left as being somehow subordination to capitalism, to the minions of the right. After all, according to our modern leftists (especially those infatuated with Postmodernism, or just going along with it because it's the trend), science itself is but a pernicious ideological construct of capitalism and repressive institutional structures! There is no Logic and Reason, because everything is really nothing but competing Ideology.

So I'm thrown back on believing with the most Politically Incorrect Liu Shaoqi: "Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Chairman Mao have all made mistakes." Yes, and so have Fidel and Raul Castro, Trotsky, Bukharin, Rosa Luxemburg, Cesar Chavez, Gloria Steinem, Al Sharpton and Michael Harrington. So has George Fish, the writer of this blog. But the ideal of leftism was expressed precisely in the third verse of the Internationale: "We need no condescending saviors." No, comrades and fellow friends of discussion and debate, we do not need to close off full and unfettered inquiry by canonizing infallible Popes of Revolution and demanding strict adherence to Political Correctness. If anything, what we need most of all is what was advanced (but never sriously implemented) bu the Chinese Communist Party in 1957: "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a thousand schools of thought contend." Open up the floor for full discussion and debate! Nothing is too sacred, or too Politically Incorrect, to be denied the floor! Let all say what they will, and let them all be judged by merit and truth, but never by adherence to Political Correctness. No censorship, but only responsibility for one's ideas and actions. And that's why this blog, "Politically Incorrect Leftist." Because my home is still on the left, despite the too-frequently obtuse and willfully ignorant characters I must now share my quarters.