There Are No Human Enemies
In the run-up to the Founding Conference there is a dynamic debate going on, not just about the ‘aims’ of the Party, or the key issues we want to focus upon, but about the very nature of the party we are proposing to be.
I have signed up to the Left Party Platform because I think the four pronged approach – socialism, feminism, environmentalism and internationalism – are a good start to describing our vision of a ‘broad left’. But I have been thinking that something else is needed, right now, before we get too well known. This is a decision to create a Party which is culturally different and attractive to all those lost political souls who might come knocking on our doors looking for a home.
I would like to propose that we remember at all times that Capitalism is our enemy, not we human beings who are the wounded victims of its poisonous ways.
Capitalism has conditioned us from infancy to compete with each other rather than collaborate. It has taught us to look for the differences between us and to focus on them rather than the commonalities. As a visibly disabled person I have had plenty experience of people doing this, to the extent of thinking I might like to live a completely separate life in ‘Special Land’ with ‘people like me’. Mistake!
Focussing on our differences and encouraging us to see each other as the enemy, is very useful to capitalism, as we all know. Divide and rule is not a new idea. So, what I would like to see, and be part of, is a genuine attempt to stop justifying our own beliefs by slagging off other people’s. I do not really want or need to hear what comrade ‘x’ has done wrong, or how crap all mainstream politicians are, or how disappointing and corrupt are our Union Leaders, or why this political theory is superior to that political theory, how stupid are the readers of the Daily Mail (my Mum is one) or how old white men are history (I love some of them). I don’t even want to hear that it is the Bankers or the Rich who are the problem. This doesn’t move us forward. The problem is the system itself. It will make devils out of angels. That is how it works.
It is my view that all humans get hurt – dehumanised – by the system whatever role we have been assigned to play, exploited or exploiter, oppressed or oppressor. What is interesting to think about together is how to shape an alternative system, complete with policies and models, which better reflects our true natures, and indeed nature itself. Then the task is how to inspire people to believe that it could become a living reality if we all put our weight behind it.
Do you think we could rise to this challenge? I know this is a much harder ask than it may sound because of our life-time bad habits. But I will personally start by removing that photo of Michael Gove with the horns and blacked out teeth from my wall…Grrrr…
Micheline Mason
(in a personal capacity)
Wandsworth Left Unity,
October 2013
14 comments
14 responses to “There Are No Human Enemies”
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Hi,sorry but i cannot agree with what you say.We all know that the Capitalist is our enemy,but.it,s the people who support this cruel system and make vast profits out of peoples misery. that are our main enemy,for stopping progress.
I was about to post a mildly insulting picture of David Cameron onto my facebook page. Perhaps I won’t.
Hi,yesterday I replied to Micheline Mason, Today I see it has been taken off. I would be very pleased to know why,because I didn,t write anything offensive.
No human enemies, exactly right. It’s the lizards we have to watch out for.
And the seagulls, they can get nasty.
And to be honest I’ve heard nothing good about wasps either.
Humans must unite vs the Seagull-Lizard-Wasp alliance of evil.
DOWN WITH WASPS!
Well said, Micheline.
The only point I would disagree with is when you say that you don’t want to hear why one political theory is superior to another. Of course you don’t have to want to hear about that! But don’t you agree that we do need a robust discussion about political theory if we are to understand the existing system and work out what we want to replace it with? After all, we need to ensure that the latter is an improvement over the former.
I do understand this feeling, but when I think of Obama sending out drones to kill Osama Bin Laden thinking that this would help defeat terrorism, I shudder.
Individuals do get made into dangerous beasts who must be disempowered, but while the system continues, new individuals will simply rise up and take their place.
It feels much more revolutionary to me to try and learn how such ‘beasts’ are made and to stop making them. When I first met Owning Class people who told the story of their childhoods, the emotional deprivation, I began to understand.
Capitalism was originally brought into being by human beings it is true, but my daughter was born into it with no say over the almost total power it had to proscribe her life, like us all. Wrenching back that power is easier when you identify the underlying cause of the problem, not its effects on individuals.
There is so much we need to learn about how to engage people in these debates.
What some of you call ‘robust discussion about political theory’ is experienced by many of us as being hammered over the head with a text book we dont understand by men (usually) who think that the world is going to changed simply by the strength of their argument which must be drummed into the empty heads of the masses at every opportunity. My world is full of ‘ordinary’ people who dont really understand what capitalism is or how it works, not because they are stupid, but because this information is deliberately with held or given in confusing forms to which people cannot relate. How to open up the debate to ‘my’ people is what excites me.
I too think that Micheline makes some absolutely essential points about the dehumanising nature of the capitalist system.
I’ll never forget the initial shock of hearing a teenage Methodist friend, newly recruited to the insurance business, explaining the phrase ‘business is business’ as meaning that you have to play a game in which normal ethics and decency do not apply. He had his mechanism for distancing himself, but many well-meaning people end up more screwed up than they realise, and hypocrisy takes over to the extent that they can no longer see it.
As to political theories, much of what we see on these pages comes in the category of either (a) tinkering with the existing system (trying to make the trickle-down system trickle a bit), or (b) replacing the men at the top with a new team of men and women who promise faithfully not to get sucked in by the system. Hmmm. No wonder Micheline and others are less than fascinated by the trials of strength.
The British state and the capitalist system are currently inseparable, and a whole string of gradually improving election results for Left Unity would do little to alter that. Perhaps it is finally time for ‘if you can’t join them, beat them’. Clue: do not challenge them on their own terms. And start now, right where you are.
I understand where Micheline is coming from but I’m afraid I can’t agree with her title. After all capitalism is not a product of nature it is man-made, literally as it happens :-)
There are therefore humans who will seek to defend it and go to any lengths in order to do so; including mass murder, environmental catastrophe, political assassinations and torture. These people are my enemy and I don’t believe that any amount of reasoned argument will change that.
Within Left Unity however I am with Micheline 100%. We really do have to move away from the tired old ways of the left, slinging labels and epithets at one another rather than actually engaging in serious debate and discussion.
I can remember when anyone who was not a member of the WRP was a revisionist, anyone not in the Militant was an ultra-left sectarian and anyone not in the SWP was a f*****g centrist. It is all rather lazy and silly.
Comradely,
Colin
Sorry, my reply above was really to Colin – pressed the wrong button!
the spirit level did some work on how inequality damages everyone, people can mock this post but it is true we should be tackling ideas not promoting hate. if someone has done something evil in the name of the system that should speak for its self even if we call for prosecutions. but what we need to do is change the way people think about things and promoting hate against individuals or groups will always strenghthen the part of the brain that believes in authoritarianism and rightwing or far-right ideas.
I honestly believe, if people think that trying to persuade the ruling class to change their minds will achieve a fairer society are living in another world
The ruling class cannot see and don,t wan,t to see anything other than greed and profit.Any amount of reasoning will only fall on deaf ears.Their hatred for the working class.Trade unions,gagging laws,and other bodies trying to protect the working class are all under savage attacks, all so they can make more and more profits without being challenged.
The ruling class have and will go to any lengths to defend the Capitalist system,which allows them to protect their wealth, through any means they can i.e
Mass murder through wars.
Allowing people to die because of cuts in the N.H.S.energy price rises
Destroying young peoples lives before they even start out in life,through cuts in education ,youth training and proper jobs.
The ruling class are a disgrace to humanity,and.I am afraid they will never change, just by asking them to do so.We need a political party that will change the system to a Socialist system.Which will put need in place of greed.
However it will be a long time before that inevitable time come.until then we have to build the struggle against the ruling class.
Hear, Hear!
I very much doubt that an overriding woolly humanistic sentiment is what it takes to wage a war against the kind of social injustice that is growing in the UK. For my part, I celebrate difference, which is the spice of life, while recognising that individuals need each other both because of their differences and their common humanity. Philosophical platitudes aside, it is also perhaps generally better, as someone else said earlier, to live in the real world where, as it happens, inner party politics are part and parcel of political life. We need a party whose structure and members are both able to warrant the cohesive force of the party’s goals and the dignity of its people. This requires lucidity, which is the ability to distinguish between things, if I’m not mistaken. Onwards!
Thank you for posting these humane and insightful thoughts, Micheline. I absolutely agree with you. The kind of socialism I believe in regards all human beings as equal and that is without exception – the bosses are people too. Of course sometimes people are deeply misguided and do great harm, but we have to remember that it is their ideas and actions rather than the people themselves we are fighting. A socialist world, free of competition, division, hatred and war would be better for everyone, including the rich (although of course there wouldn’t be rich and poor anymore under socialism).
I think the term ‘class war’ has sown confusion here. We need to fight vigorously, indeed much more vigorously than we have done, against attempts to drive down wages, to cut benefits, to privatize public services and industries, to drop bombs on people elsewhere in the world etc. We need more and bigger strikes, much bigger protests, civil disobedience – non-violent direct action in all its forms. But I think the Chartist movement of the nineteenth-century, which got literally millions of people taking part in these sorts of protests, was much more astute than most left movements in this country have been since. The Chartists always positioned themselves as ‘the people’, rather than ‘the working class’. They didn’t claim to be fighting a class war (i.e. against other people) but a war against ‘privilege’ (i.e. a thing/system). The truth is that society is an infinitely complex web of connections and that whatever class people belong to, the great majority know and interact with people from other walks of life, often have friendly relations with them, and know by experience that these people aren’t evil capitalists who deserve to die. Until we show that we understand how much unites as well as how much divides people, and make clear that we are fighting the system rather than people’s friends, relatives, neighbours etc etc, we will never command much popular attention and in one sense quite rightly so. We have to be energetic and determined in attacking the system – massive strikes, huge demonstrations, civil disobedience – while making it quite clear that we believe this is in everyone’s long-term interests, not just one part of society’s.