From: Ben Seattle
To: marxism-international
Subject: Re: M-I: Communist unity (Ben replies to Carrol Cox)
Date: Sunday, April 05, 1998 10:01 PM
Carrol Cox:
========
>Incidentally, it is arguable, even persuasive, that internet media
>will play an important role in achieving marxist unity. It by no
>means either "goes without saying" or is at all obvious that such
>is the case. I would have a hard time taking Ben seriously if he
>does not take alternative positions on the importance of
>electronic communications serious[ly].
Ben Seattle:
========
Hi Carrol. I think you are misunderstanding what I wrote.
When I say:
"It goes without saying, naturally,
that everyone who is serious will
have to deal with these questions ..."
I am referring to the following type of question:
======================
What tasks are decisive for the
creation of a genuine communist
movement ?
======================
This is the type of question that, at least so far,
no one seems to be very interested in dealing
with directly. (At least, when I have asked it,
as I have repeatedly, it is always ignored.)
*Naturally* I do not expect that participants
on this list will *agree* with *my* particular
answers.
Carrol Cox:
========
>Ben includes an unnecessary personal reference in his, and
>I would like to ask him (or perhaps Mark himself) to repost
>Mark's offending post (perhaps with the parts of Ben's
>original message Mark's post referred to).
> ...
>I find it offensive not only to Mark but to all of us who
>have taken Mark's contributions *seriously* to attempt
>to begin a new thread while including such an affront.
Ben Seattle:
========
Maybe some clarification is in order. I posted my
essay "1917 was the Beta Version" to M-I on Nov
4th. In my essay I lay out my views for which tasks
are decisive (in the realm of practice and the realm
of theory) for building a communist movement.
I asked for responses. What I got was the following:
Mark Jones -- 5.Nov.97:
=================
>There has to be sand as well as oysters.
>This is swimming against the tide, I know. Ben Seattle offers
>*even the Marxists* the filters which are already becoming
>widely-deployed Net technology, so I'm told, and which
>allow people to hear only what they want to hear. A more
>disastrous assault on democracy, free speech and debate is
>hard to imagine, and the chief result will exactly be the intense
>reinforcement of prejudice, illusion, complacency, mental sloth
>and generalised intolerance on a mass scale. You [Mark is
>replying to Louis Proyect] are more old technology, I know,
>perhaps because you've been around computers long enough
>to know vapour-ware when you see it.
Ben Seattle:
========
Carrol, you appear to confusing two different things:
I do not consider Mark's comment to be "serious".
This is not the same as being "offensive".
This is an important distinction.
Mark's comment is non-serious because it does not represent
an effort to deal in a serious way with the issues I raise in my
essay. Mark is not seriously considering how the class
struggle in society, the burning desire of the masses for clarity
and the competition between political trends will make
"information isolation" a losing strategy and force trends to
deal with one another.
Mark's comment is not offensive however. It is merely
shallow and thoughtless. However, as I'm sure you must
suspect on occasion, much of the discussion on this list
might be considered shallow and thoughtless. So Mark
does not necessarily stand out in this regard.
Carrol, I hope what I am saying now does not strike
you as offensive. I have high regard for you and others
on the list. I often place great value on your contributions.
But this is *very much different* from considering any of
you as being serious about building communist organization
that is capable of overthrowing bourgeois rule.
That would be confusing, so to speak, apples and oranges.
Or something like that ;-)
I have respect for everyone here but at the same time
I am constrained to speak the truth.
In my essay, I offered *anyone* a public link from the
bottom of the web page where it is posted. Mark has
the right (and so would Malecki for that matter) to get
a link at the bottom of my web page to a web page
of his own which replies to my views. Not only have
I offered to give anyone a link, I have also offered to
post on one of my web pages a 200 word summary
(by the author) of every reply. I do this, among other
reasons, because, my essay has a prominant link from
www.communism.org which I consider to be a public
resource.
No one has taken me up on my offer--so far. But I
am confident that this discussion will eventually grow.
I will link to replies which I do not consider serious
because this will help to build the discussion. But I
am not required to *reply* to anything I do not
consider serious because my time belongs to the
struggling workers and people's of the world and
I will not allow anyone to steal it.
Carrol Cox:
========
>before spending a good deal of time responding to Ben,
>I want a bit more information on the parameters of what
>he deems unserious.
Ben Seattle:
========
It is really simple:
Serious = dealing with the question of what are
the decisive tasks for building a
communist movement *as if*
a correct answer to this question
was more important
than whether you live or die.
Non-serious = anything else.
Carrol, I believe you will spend time responding to me
if you feel like it--and you will not if you don't. I would
like to think that you would feel impelled somehow to
grapple with some of these issues--but it is ok with me
if you don't. People should do whatever they like and
the serious activists will learn how to recognize one
another.
I have great confidence in M-I. But this confidence is
not based on what takes place here today as much as
what this indicates will take place tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 5.Apr.98 10 pm
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