"We take it in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs but by a two thirds majority in the case of..."
https://youtu.be/FSbl16vTovU
The pared-down promise of a tempered, world-weary post-"Occupy Wall Street" socialism expounded and argued for in this thoughtful essay by John Michael Colón still sounds a lot like the rhetoric parodied so splendidly in this clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's the first thing I thought of when I read about the wonders of a democracy of an "assembly of assemblies." You can't save the world through meetings, though you can certainly damage it if you're unfortunate enough to be successful: as our author candidly points out, authoritarian behavior and even outright atrocities have all too often been the practical result of such putative idealism, especially when such movements succeed in arrogating state power to themselves (which is surely the socialist goal, even in the humble sort of happy clappy socialism asserted here in the essay's more optimistic moments.)
However, even though it didn't convert me to Leftism, I did find it an absorbing read, as an interesting look into the mind of the sort of Socialist I would doubtless be if I were one: disillusioned yet faithful, respectful of the old gods even while suspecting that they design our doom. Don't get your hopes up, comrades, I'd say: maybe it won't be quite so bad this time, and it probably won't happen anyway, thank God, er, Mao, or... Science? Never mind let's all enjoy the lecture in the park on the history of May Day, that sounds like fun. My cynical self, which is as close to my true self as anything, always suspects that it all boils down to aesthetics anyway, a mere question of which sort of person you'd admire most when you look in the mirror. There's no conceivable way I'd want to be an Occupy Wall Street hippie snapping my fingers for applause and going to teach-ins and "assemblies" and such. But I suppose if I were this guy, I might, and what difference would it make anyway? I wish him well, though I do hope he never "seizes power" or whatever.
The article is here: https://thepointmag.com/2019/politics/the-dictatorship-of-the-present
"We take it in turns to act as sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs but by a two thirds majority in the case of..."
https://youtu.be/FSbl16vTovU
The pared-down promise of a tempered, world-weary post-"Occupy Wall Street" socialism expounded and argued for in this thoughtful essay by John Michael Colón still sounds a lot like the rhetoric parodied so splendidly in this clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's the first thing I thought of when I read about the wonders of a democracy of an "assembly of assemblies." You can't save the world through meetings, though you can certainly damage it if you're unfortunate enough to be successful: as our author candidly points out, authoritarian behavior and even outright atrocities have all too often been the practical result of such putative idealism, especially when such movements succeed in arrogating state power to themselves (which is surely the socialist goal, even in the humble sort of happy clappy socialism asserted here in the essay's more optimistic moments.)
However, even though it didn't convert me to Leftism, I did find it an absorbing read, as an interesting look into the mind of the sort of Socialist I would doubtless be if I were one: disillusioned yet faithful, respectful of the old gods even while suspecting that they design our doom. Don't get your hopes up, comrades, I'd say: maybe it won't be quite so bad this time, and it probably won't happen anyway, thank God, er, Mao, or... Science? Never mind let's all enjoy the lecture in the park on the history of May Day, that sounds like fun. My cynical self, which is as close to my true self as anything, always suspects that it all boils down to aesthetics anyway, a mere question of which sort of person you'd admire most when you look in the mirror. There's no conceivable way I'd want to be an Occupy Wall Street hippie snapping my fingers for applause and going to teach-ins and "assemblies" and such. But I suppose if I were this guy, I might, and what difference would it make anyway? I wish him well, though I do hope he never "seizes power" or whatever.
The article is here: https://thepointmag.com/2019/politics/the-dictatorship-of-the-present
