People of a certain age (say, 140) will remember where they were when they first heard that the Russian rabble-rouser Vlad Lenin had published a Bolshie booklet called “What is to be done?”
The year was 1901, and Vlad and chums had been dossing around in Munich.
Agitated yet?
Well, my point – such as it is – is that the “What is to be done?” question, whether you were a Leninist, are a Leninist, hate Leninists, or you are an Anarchist, Businessman, Campaign group member, ‘Democrat’, Etc is agitating and aggravating.
Why? I’m glad you asked. Because the implication embedded in those five innocent words is that what you are currently doing and have been doing is… how to put this… NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
If someone is asking ‘what is to be done?’, especially if they have a well-deserved reputation for being an obstreperous and judgemental asshole (no names, no names), then you brace yourself for a critique of your personality, your talents, your diligence, the functionality of the tribe you have attached yourself to etc.
Not much fun.
You will ALSO then be obliged to accept not only past failure, but the likelihood of future failure with even less comfort. You will be forced to agree that you need to move into several “zones of proximal development” but probably without the scaffolding (resources, training, mentorship etc; all that Vygotsky malarkey). You will have to concede that you have to support OTHER people doing same.
It’s all rather lot of work for very few Activist Credibility Tokens, and you can get the same currency at a better exchange rate on the next demo (march, rally, whatever).
Meanwhile, if you are more a ‘change the system from within the belly of the beast’ kinda person (nicer perks, status, income), then the ‘what is to be done?’ question also interrogates not just the reformability of the system but your complicity with the propping up of said system (“man”).
It took me decades to realise this, because for a “smart” guy I can be as dumb as a fucking rock.
Future work
A spoof booklet called “What is to be done? Questions for our movement on a Burning Planet”
An essay that integrates the following two insights from an extremely smart friend of mine.
I think the other side of so many of us just not getting it right is simply that it is so hard to get it right and so easy to feel that whatever we do it is not enough and is inadequate, hence some of the cheery optimism kicking in as defence…It’s very hard to create the necessary spaces to talk about our fragility, wherever it comes from and so many people retreat into false hope.
and
Something else that strikes me is that the last thirty – forty years have largely been a period of diminishing success and failure for the left. Some exceptions clearly but so many people are spending time struggling with failure or small returns for effort and that is something that it is very hard to deal with and so brings with it this culture of never being able to talk about defeat, disappointment, regret, sorrow and which leaves the optimistic register feeling empty of meaning….
marchudson.net 