Hi Joe,

It's the best analysis I've read which actually takes into account the whole picture.

I really cannot understand why people are determined in remaining ignorant of Islam. We live in strange times.

Nothing is black and white. You are the only person who has commented on it (apart from Yuyutsu who said he loved it). I've posted it three times now.

Thanks.

Hi Constance,

Another day, another bombing. Three, I think, all in the name of a fictitious being, the ultimte cop-out for psychopaths, killing randomly - i.e. without knowing or caring to know who they are killing - in the name of a Good Cause. Sacrificing Others for One's beliefs. Sounds like the Old Left. No, that's cruel.

But in the light of the Victorian elections, I was thinking - in my old-fashioned sort-of-Marxist way - of the class shifts in the last forty five years [bear with me :) ] in Australia, and perhaps in most of the world too. It occurred to me, in my dotage, that the working class has never ordinarily favour revolution - reform, yes but never revolution. Then who has ? Who has fervently championed the revolutionary sacrifices of others, for the eventual Common Good ? Why is this uncannily like the rationale of ISIS, with differ3ent gods, and different sacrifices ?

Let's see, is there a pattern ? Marx trained as a economist and philosopher I think, Lenin as a lawyer, Stalin as a priest, Mo as (I could be wrong) a university lecturer. What do they and more contemporary would-bes, and say, the Greens, have in common ? They are not working-class. Ah, they are all in the professional classes.

And lo and behold, yes, the massive growth of the professional classes coincided with the decline of the working class in Australia, around 1970-1975. Migrants then pushed their kids to go to uni. The Whitlam 'reforms' benefited the middle-classes enormously, allowing them to reproduce and enhance their social position.

Perhaps, similarly, in the Middle East, the petty-bourgeoisie (i.e. the middle-classes) pushed their kids to go on to university and, hopefully, positions of power in the bureaucracies, and the promise of family affluence. But perhaps, in stagnant economies, too many would-bes have been chasing too few jobs.

Hence, the development of an ideology of 'quick-fix', revolutionary change, cutting the Gordian knot of reaction, etc., not necessarily for the Greater Good, but for their Own Good. Hence, frustration of these goals turn people towards Islamism......

[continued]

So is Islamism, Salafism, ISIS, the ideology of sections of the eternally-frustrated petty-bourgeoisie in the Muslim world, who think that they have simply found an alternative way, a much quicker way, to affluence and power ?

And by extension, have most 'revolutionary' theories, everywhere, always been the impatient expression, not of working people, but of people above the humdrum world of drudge-work, people who think they work with their minds, never with their hands, people who are - 'really' - born to rule in the modern world.

That would explain much of the 'Left', the Greens, etc.

Just trying to understand.

Joe

Hi Joe,

I'm rather busy at the moment. Hope to reply to your post by tomorrow.

Interesting topic.

Hi Constance,

Yeah, as an old Marxist, I'm intrigued in the links between classes and ideologies, and the Gramscian turn in Marxist theory after about 1925-1930 - after any working-class revolution in Italy (and anywhere else in Europe) had obviously failed, and Gramsci, in prison, and perhaps without realising it, was 'turning' away from it towards some other would-be revolutionary class, and of course found his own - the professionals.

And his new version of Marxism would be one whereby capitalism and democracy and all their institutions would be eaten away from the inside - the 'march through the institutions'.

Ever since, rebels (a better word) in the professional class have been focussing on tearing -down, not on reforming or building, with a sort of out-of-this-world ideology which they never think fully through, but which characteristically advocates doing away with something without much thought to its genuine, feasible replacement: away with energy generation, production, and most certainly mass comfortable living, i.e. the institutions of modern society. Hence frustration with any 'materialist' objections. Hence a preference for sweeping change in the here and now. Hence pseudo-revolution.

So fifty-odd workers have been massacred in their sleep in Kenya last night by al-Shabaab. Is ISIS and its affiliates the archetype Gramscian broom which will sweep away all modern 'corruptions' ? Along with all the post-Enlightenment institutions ?

Or am I drawing much too long a bow ?

Joe

Hi Joe,

Yes, Marx was apparently to be a filthy slob who had servants. You were a Marxist when you were young ,naïve and ideological? I guess a lot of us were – I did read about Marx but never found it ideologically sound.

Post Enlightenment institutions? I think that’s a bit of a furphy, actually. You mean there was nothing worthwhile going on before? Now we have the humanists with their secular fundamentalists. Moderation gets dismissed.

Problem is the lack of spirituality. When man flock to these Atheist gods like Marx, Stalin and Mao (and CEO’s) is the problem. Man creating their own gods. I agree with Stephen King (author) who recently said, we are now living in the Dark Ages.

Now we have a dog eat dog world where we have become slaves since Enlightenment. Slaves to work and mortgages, due to the Protestant work ethic. Usuary use to be sinful under Catholic theocracy. There is a great book called “How to be Free” by Tom Hodgkinson who reckons life was more humane and fair in the middle ages. And more community orientated. Monasteries looked after the poor. Peasants, Tom says paid little rent and sometimes no rent and only worked on the fields for a few months of the year with plenty of celebrations of holy days (holidays) in between. Working in the fields and usually a creative other occupation. Sounds pretty rich to me. I really am not pontificating but seeing no one else is… But, who cares! There is plenty of contempt of Christianity around these days.

Since the coming of the so called Enlightenment where Humanism appeared and Secularism ensued and now we have problems with Islam. Is it a coincidence?

Cont....