A Sequence-1.Common Sense

i quite like and value some of those daily maxims that help me make sense of daily life and the world we inhabit.amongst those i value would be the following:-

nothing is what it appears

question everything

everything you know is wrong

and i would add from my own experience,the value of marxism as a tool in that process.it taught me that when applied,what was important was not siply the aanswers generated but the questions it generates as well.

historically it appears that not only has the world itself become more complex,it appears that our experience of it moves at greater velocity.furthermore,the way we understand it is also more complex also.it might be decsribed as having moved fro being mechanically propelled,quantumm physics and beyond now applies.this amonst other effects renders the world epistemologically(in terms of knowledge)much more unstable,unpredictable and relativist.very lttle can be absolutely trusted.some aspects of post-modernism,structuralism,post-structuralism open the possibility of certainty even mor open to question.and the mix includes some with connections to marx.

so what reinforces a sense of an ability to understand and act on the world?a return to marx(and the traditions)might be atsrating point but it is not enough.using it as a guide to action if not a science is important.and organisation of a mmeans to unite and analyse the knowledge we need is not merely a mecahnistic issue.

it allows us to temper and test our totalising knowledge.it is also an important part of our collective memeory.

a small incident that convinces me of the latter arises from the british general election in april-may 2010.i talked to others when the result came in as the least worst option given the options "on paper"and the lack of any kind of workers left organisation capable of doing what would be neccessary.i hope i am wrong in my pessimism here,but it leads me to believe that the working class and other oppositional forces in north africa know something that we don't.

that said,i do not want to fall into the trap that some sections of the left made for itself in say the 1968-1977 upturn in class struggle in which somme saw the wight and direction of struggle as only in new classses and distant countries,such as the peasantry of south east asia(vietnam).If we are missing a trick here,we are perfectly capable of learning what is neccessary and doing better.

Th#t will include recognising that pale though the ghost of stalinism may now be,it still needs to be finally buried.

it means understanding and overcoming complexity and change.and perhaps there are no guarantees.trying to re-establish marxism as a science,which in the past always depended on a comparison and parallelism with the physical sciences,might also be seen as an attempt to mark the future with a false guarantee.

whatever the specific form of organisation we grow and develop we will have to put together our picture of the world and to mobilise to change if not it as a whole then at least or part of it.i am not advocating socialis in one place,but that starting local can be built upon and generalised from.and solidarity and co-ordination should come "naturally"to us.....to be continued.

lost 28/02/2010