–You want to retort: “Well, of course it’s ideological! It is part of the package of ideas and values that make up the social justice approach to which I subscribe”. (Alison Katz)
[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about why ideology is the elephant in the room and why you cannot but take a stand. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
1. Here are just two points that always struck me as useful to illustrate the necessity of ideology (or a cosmovision, if you wish): The contending ideologies of any given historical period represent the practical consciousness of how the social classes of society relate-to, and openly confront each other to articulate their respective vision of the needed social order (and, by extension, of the rights of people). What determines the nature of ideology more than anything else is becoming conscious of the fundamental social conflict between the alternatives that social classes face in confronting one another in the given social order. This will determine how they will fight their differences out. The objective in the end, is to fight-it-out (‘it’ being the injustice of a system based on the supremacy of one social class). (Istvan Meszaro, The Power of Ideology)
2. This class analysis is at the base of the need for a forceful critical examination of the plots of the ruling ideology –often enveloped in the seemingly impenetrable influence of well-oiled (political) ‘fog generators’. With the arrival of the people now in power both in the North and in the South, it is my hope that claim holders are going to fight it out. But, of course, I can only hope that the fight will not be violent. This has never been of greater urgency than in our own days (A. Katz) when the ‘leftbehinds’ are voting for populist or even fascist candidates. (Ulrike Guerot)
3. Although it is mostly resentment that has recently brought bad people to power, in the long run, this resentment will ultimately not keep them in power. At some point, claim holders will realize that these politicians who rant against elites are actually elites (oligarchs*) themselves in every important way so that the public will begin to hold them accountable for not keeping their promises or for stepping on their rights. And at that point, the public will be willing to listen to anyone who does not try to argue from authority, does not make false promises, but tries to tell the truth as best they can. (Paul Krugman)
*: The political oligarchs and their henchmen and hangers-on are focused on money and power –an approach that is clearly dysfunctional, going on suicidal. Is it not their stands on domineering matters of governance and of economics that are the causes of wars as picked up by the news channels we are exposed-to? (Colin Tudge)
So, who will the public listen to?
There are two types of Left: the Left that has an appetite for power and the Left that does not
–This dichotomy has been especially evident in recent decades.
4. There is a kind of leftism for which the most important thing is to reach power. It does not matter at what price; even if it means joining those who fought, imprisoned or exiled them in the past; even if it means deserting the convictions they proclaimed in the streets, within their parties, unions or in the heart of student and popular organizations. We are talking about leftists who are truly anxious to get a television interview, a space in the press. Basically, their intention is to blur their most radical proposals and, of course, to convince the right wing, the businessmen (and the US State Department –or the CIA) that they are ‘recycled’.
5. Meanwhile, the other Left, the one that avoids power, unfortunately continues in its incessant eagerness to divide itself, to populate itself with purists and to adopt even the most utopian causes**, giving no time for unity in order to compete in the next elections. They also do not overtly expose, as they should, the chaos and the lack of alternatives and leaderships of the ruling ‘pink left regimes’.*** (Juan Pablo Cardenas)
**: It is necessary to be aware where utopia has gone and has led us. (Leonardo Padura)
***: Take green parties that are going from green to olive (…or to pink?)
6. In contemporary politics it is sometimes difficult to discern the differences between the one and the other. Those who are behind and pushing for pink alternatives are not always physically in government, but are in finance, in the economy, in banking, in multinationals. Ultimately, the program the pink adherents support consists of satisfying their own aspirations and demands. Their objectives are to please the bosses and the empire. (Politika) As for the other Left, they sometimes do get together to face elections as one block.
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
Postscript/Marginalia
-Without knowing it, all politicians apply the recommendations of long-dead economists whose names they do not even know. (J. Meynard Keynes)
-Georges Clemenceau, famous French politician (1841-1929), used to say: “Politicians never lie as much as before an election or during a war (and after a hunt…)”. The first victim of war is not truth, as the adage says. It is peace. But, indeed, truth follows shortly after. (Toussaint Nothias)
-No politician is afraid of criticism, but what they do not tolerate (and are very afraid-of) is that somebody has better ideas than they have …and it is not too difficult to have better ideas than many a politician. (Jan Oberg)