Ideas are Funny Things
Ideas don’t know boundaries of time and place. They can be disproven or discredited. They can be hidden or forbidden. But they will still manage to seep into unexpected areas and pop up at unexpected times.
I was watching a program about James Baldwin once (my favorite author). One of the guests was a professor speaking about the influence of Russian Jewish thought on Baldwin’s writing.
I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if my adopted family was Russian. Wouldn’t it be interesting if one of the reasons that Baldwin’s writing spoke to me so strongly was because we had both absorbed some of the same ways of looking at the world – he by going to school with Russian Jews, me by being adopted by them.
My father never spoke about his family’s background. He was from the Bronx and that was that. His father died when he was only eleven. He didn’t talk about him, presumably because he didn’t remember much. He spoke about his mother, but never about where she originally came from. But I did remember a cousin of his saying something about Russia once.
Happily, in the age of the internet, I was able to solve the mystery a few moments after it popped up. There it was on the 1930 census. My father’s father was Russian. My father’s mother’s parents were also Russian. Practically the entire building in the Bronx where my father lived was Russian.
And I thought, how cool. How cool that I could feel such a strong connection to someone with such a different background and life experience. How cool that we are connected by thought.
I tell you this because I have been thinking a lot about thought, about world views, about debate, and about writing. I’ve been thinking about how frustrating it can be to butt up against people whose ways of seeing the world are so fundamentally different than your own. And I’ve been thinking about how it sometimes feels like an effort in futility to argue.
I have a particularly hard time arguing with people who accept authoritarianism. In fact, many people seem to relish it. Alicia over at Last Left Turn before Hooterville has a great post about the authoritarian tendencies of the republican party.
In the comments of Alicia’s post she says that she doesn’t think that die hard conservatives are amenable to liberal arguments and she prefers to spend her time trying to get progressives to become more active. That is a completely rational view from a liberal/progressive standpoint. There are many others liberal/progressives out there. You have a wide audience.
When your political views are more radical, the options are more limited. After all, the changes I would like to see are as drastic for most liberals as they are for most conservatives. At times it can seem hopeless.
But then I remember that you never know where an idea can go, once you put it out there.
I am not a bit surprised you have Russian heritage. I always thought you might. All my grandparents on both sides of the family were Russian Jews. Not anarchists, I'm not quite either, but definitely beyond liberal. My father told me yesterday he thinks we need a revolution in this country. He was all for Obama but he thinks capitalist forces are blocking everything. He surprised me by saying he thinks we need Communism — the pure variety no government has fully succeeded with. i believe he really means "Social Democracy" and said so. He said no one does that right either!
1It's funny. Once I found out about the Russian connection, I started looking at the backgrounds of other people who really spoke to me and so many of them were Russian too – Saul Alinsky, Noam Chomsky, George Seldes, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn…
Yet my father never mentioned being Russian, and was totally anti-communist (not McCarthy style, but still). Granted, many anarchists are also very anti-communist, but in a different way. I think he was in denial. He managed to pass all the ideas down despite himself.
2Very thought-provoking! I don't know enough about real anarchy to feel qualified to opinionate, but you have given me some ideas that I will definitely read more about. Some of the smartest and most thoughtful people I know are anarchists and Marxist Communists. Thanks so much for coming by Hooterville and giving your perspective.
3Thanks for the inspiration and for being open to new perspectives.
4I don't know much about true Anarchist thought : but I can do one better. Head over to Molly's Blog…and prepare to be stunned with the difference in the worldview of this lady.
5http://mollymew.blogspot.com/ CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-TORONTO:
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST TRANSIT FEE HIKE:
That's one of her articles. But the links!!! OMG
BTW Alicia and I don't quip often…but it's funny how much we share the perception of deceit in public affairs. http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/07/percept...
I'm a big fan of Molly's blog actually. It covers all sorts of news (on labor especially) that nobody else seems to know about.
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