chapotraphouse

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159

on dividing the left (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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poor leftists talk about poverty, labor aristocrats get uncomfortable and insist that sociological classes aren't materialist. "all that matters is that we're working class - we're all in this together"
black leftists talk about racism, whites get uncomfortable and insist that they're not personally part of the problem. "we mustn't allow the bourgeois to divide the proletariat along racial lines - we're all in this together"
female leftists talk about patriarchy, men get uncomfortable and insist that it hurts them too. "this men vs women stuff is reductive anyway - we're all in this together"
third world leftists talk about imperialism, americoids get uncomfortable and insist that red white and blue lives matter too. "what happened to the international working class - we're all in this together"

you don't have to invite yourself to every form and experience of oppression. anyone with a baby's consciousness of intersectionality ought to be capable of admitting when they have privilege

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 years ago

Everyone engaged in practical work must investigate conditions at the lower levels. Such investigation is especially necessary for those who know theory but do not know the actual conditions, for otherwise they will not be able to link theory with practice. Although my assertion, "No investigation no right to speak", has been ridiculed as "narrow empiricism", to this day I do not regret having made it; far from regretting it, I still insist that without investigation there cannot possibly be any right to speak. There are many people who "the moment they alight from the official carriage" make a hullabaloo, spout opinions, criticize this and condemn that; but, in fact, ten out of ten of them will meet with failure. For such views or criticisms, which are not based on thorough investigation, are nothing but ignorant twaddle. Countless times our Party suffered at the hands of these "imperial envoys", who rushed here, there and everywhere. Stalin rightly says "theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice". And he rightly adds that "practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory". Nobody should be labeled a "narrow empiricist" except the "practical man" who gropes in the dark and lacks perspective and foresight.

I may be misunderstanding this mao-wave quotation, but I think it aligns with your post. One who holds class/ethnic/racial/gender/cis/etc privilege and doesn't have the empathy and curiosity to investigate how that privilege effects their material circumstances makes a poor communist.