this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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This is the problem. You can walk into a meeting of Hitler's inner circle and pronounce half of them as "on the left", meaning it as a "relative term". Then someone else picks that up and uses it as an absolute term, and plans some unity with these leftists.
A wrecker couldn't dream up a more useful use of language.
What is the "centre" to you?
Yeah, I'm not big on the term "left unity" unless it is specified exactly what is meant by "left". It makes absolutely no sense for instance to lump Marxists together with what is considered "the left" in the mainstream of bourgeois democracy. That would be a complete absurdity, we have next to nothing in common.
I guess "center" for me would be that position which at any given time reflects the broadest possible consensus position within a group.
Thanks. It's something that keeps preying on my mind because I see so many confused discussions due to people not having agreed upon terms. Even in this thread people think it's sad that this "left unity" didn't work.
It's been a while but I think Tariq Ali's Extreme Centre: A Warning is a useful book. It's quite short, too. Michael Rosen makes a similar point: the 'centre' isn't so much in the middle of left and right; they are three points of a triangle. I'd add, in agreement with your conversation above, that this triangle is bourgeois.
I'm not sure if it makes sense to map communist politics in the same way. I'm inclined to say it wouldn't make much sense.
Edit: wiki link – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extreme_Centre
Thanks for this! I really appreciate the recommendation because this particular topic keeps jumping out at me from around every second corner I turn. I know I must be missing something because everyone seems to accept it, even in ML spaces.
You're welcome. I hope it's as good as I remember! It was one of the books I read as I was beginning to read Marxist works and it helped me to mentally demolish the overton window that liberalism had built into my brain.
I think 'centrist' is used as a kind of shorthand, a lot of the time. Similar to 'leftist'. And when they are used in this way, they're practically meaningless. It seems to stem from lazy liberal thinking. Similar to 'middle class'.
These terms that are bandied about in mainstream liberal discourse aren't really backed by any kind of analysis. It serves the bourgeois to have us all arguing within this very narrow horizon. And it makes it difficult to have fruitful conversations.