Unofficial Notes on March 9 & 22: Sitting Thru Avakian’s Synthesis to Get Beyond It
Posted by Mike E on March 23, 2008
This thread contains reports on the RCP’s programs presenting Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of Marxism. It starts with the following in-depth report on the RCP’s March 9 presentation — and the March 22 remarks on the Chicago and Berkeley events are made in the comments below.
by DMC Ulises
About 200 of us gathered at New York City’s St. Paul’s Cathedral on March 9 to hear the RCP answer its own question: “What is Bob Avakian’s New Synthesis?” As I walked in, I immediately noticed the church banner above the lectern: “How Good It Is When Brothers and Sisters Dwell Together in Harmony.” The sentiment was, sadly, inappropriate for this event.
The RCP’s security team had just excluded a well-known revolutionary activist at the door because of his association with a detailed communist criticism of Avakian’s synthesis. There was a sense of tension and unease everywhere – averted eyes of the rank-and-file, smirking among the leadership, and a curious lack of excitement.
The question I felt hanging over the room, and mixing with the religious ambience, was Mao’s “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?” And there was much conservatism in this night as a result of this. There was a stifling defensiveness among Party supporters. The expansive interior of this cathedral was turned into a heavily controlled space — not, as promised, an opening for real debate.
Yet again on….
The formal presentation ran for almost exactly two and a half hours. And as the congregation sat, warming the pews, Lenny Wolff regaled us with the finer points of the New Synthesis. It has been stated on this Kasama blog that there was nothing new in this presentation. There is much truth to this. For those of us who have been following Avakian’s work, it was overall pretty boring – even the Q and A. It was not “More on the synthesis,” but “Yet again on that synthesis.”
Only a few nuggets of newness brightened that grind.
Everything spoken to that evening could be and was referenced to pieces of Avakian’s published works, including some articles of orientation which were not directly credited to Avakian (particularly in issue # 102 of Revolution). The only new content presented were pre-release copies of Avakian’s book Away With All Gods. This work was not credited with any theoretical breakthroughs. It was described as an exemplary piece of communist agitation in the realm of ideas; a kind of agitation considered a central piece of Avakian’s “Enriched What-Is-To-Be-Doneism.”
On the other hand, in laying out the New Synthesis in this concise and tightly formulated way, the Party had done something which it had not done up to this point: It has put forward publicly its case for Avakian’s specialness, and centrality to any revolutionary movement.
There were other points of interest. For instance, Lenny Wolff reoriented me on exactly what Avakian’s conception of the core was (within his larger concept of “solid core with a lot of elasticity). Wolff framed the question as “WHO is the core?”. I had always asked, “WHAT is the core?” This may seem like a relatively semantic point. But the answer given by Lenny to this question had everything to do with the RCP’s current vision of how hastening for revolution occurs. Effectively, the “core” is the vanguard or a broader view of the vanguard, even as it is not always entirely encompassed by the Party, but in today’s situation that “core” is seen as those who uphold and promote or “get with” Bob Avakian and his New Synthesis. (And, significantly this question of “who is the core?” is being framed within a highly hypothetical discussion about future socialism.)
As described in Zerohour’s notes on March 9 (posted at Kasama), the presentation was organized around three main themes of advancement in the New Synthesis: (1) Philosophy, (2) Politics, and (3) Strategy. And while a deeper critique of all of these claims and positions will require a collective process of discussion and investigation, I will attempt to critically relay the essence of these claims as best I can.
Claims of Philosophical Breakthroughs
In philosophy, Avakian has been credited with stripping away the notion of inevitablism from Marxism, along with more thoroughly breaking with religiosity within the communist movement. As Lenny Wolff put it, “At the very heart of the New Synthesis has been Bob Avakian’s work in critically interrogating and analyzing [the] philosophical foundation [of communism], and he has put these foundations on a more fully scientific foundation.”
By religiousity, they mean atendency they see in even Marx, Lenin and Mao to see communism as “almost like a heaven.”
Avakian was also credited with developing “a far deeper understanding of the potential role and power of the human consciousness” and with the discovery of “the relative autonomy of the superstructure.” He has, they said, thoroughly criticized what were called the philosophical errors of Stalin (instrumentalism, empiricism, positivism, etc.). And Avakian has (it was again claimed) brought forth an epistemological rupture on the question of class truth.
Further it was said that the particular philosophical errors of Stalin denied the ways in which “theory can and must run ahead of practice.”
| What is the standard of “truthiness” if not practice? |
Two questions would later be asked in the Q and A around this issue. One question asked to what extent Avakian’s epistemology was a break with Mao’s On Practice. The other question asked how a theory is verified as being true, and specifically what is it that verifies the truth of Avakian’s New Synthesis. Basically, what exactly is the standard of “truthiness” that the RCP is using, if not practice.
Neither question was well answered. Mao’s On Practice was explicitly not upheld. It was said that a “critical rereading” of “On Practice” was called for. There was really no answer to the second question. In conversations after the presentation it was argued that any attempt to nail down the process by which the RCP understands its theory as true comes from a narrow, even pragmatic, viewpoint.
Now, this is not the place to get into every one of these claims. There is in fact some truth to the positions marked out by Avakian. And it is certainly not the view of our Kasama project that these claims should be struggled with from the standpoint of an “orthodox” and backward-looking defense of everything in Marx, Lenin or Mao. But aside from the epistemological issues which are handled in Letter 4 of the 9 Letters, there is a very problematic distortion of the historical record which runs throughout the New Synthesis, and which lays the basis for it and for the claims around Avakian’s person.
Let’s look at the claims that Avakian has developed “a far deeper understanding of the potential role and power of the human consciousness,” and the claims regarding his contributions on understanding the relative autonomy of “the superstructure” (meaning the realm of ideas, politics and power built upon the “base” of the relations of production).
One person pointed out from the floor (Question 7 in Zerohour’s notes) that Gramsci, Lukacs and Althusser had all made important contributions in exactly this area of communist theory. In fact some of these contributions were essentially the same ones claimed for Avakian. This is not a scholastic point regarding proper “academic citation.” The point is that Avakian and the RCP apparently do not know the historical record of theory and philosophy within the international communist movement well enough to make an accurate accounting of who developed what. Either this or there is a willful distortion going on, with the sole aim of placing Avakian on a pedestal. At any rate, one would think, given Avakian’s repeated call for wrangling with ideas in the realm of philosophy, theory and ideology, that Avakian and the RCP would have the good sense to openly and clearly engage what has come before, instead of ignoring the works of other communists and claiming to invent the wheel.
This pattern of distortion and omission was spoken to in the 9 Letters, particularly around the history of the Russian Revolution and how it has been mythologized in and around the RCP. This directly connects to the two main points on Politics in the New Synthesis: Internationalism and “Democracy and Dictatorship.”
Avakian has argued since Conquer the World (1981) for the determinate role of the international situation, as opposed to the line of Mao Zedong, which argued that internal contradictions of specific countries were the defining factor. Once again, without getting fully into the merits of this argument, two points can be made:
1) Avakian’s argument relies on a selective view of history in which the two world wars were determinate in making the revolutions in Russia and China. In this respect the RCP’s historiography of the Russian and Chinese Revolutions essentially begins in 1914 and 1936 respectively. In other words the emphasis on the international aspect of the equation must ignore the decades of changes in social and productive relations, and with them years of revolutionary struggle, which preceded the two world wars, and which were in the main internal dynamics to each of these countries. And, in fact, it is worth noting that at a certain point we see a chicken or the egg conundrum developing around this issue. Additionally, Avakian’s argument consistently smooths over the problem of uneven development that is at the heart of the way in which the internal dynamics of any given social entity interact with the international situation.
As I’ve said elsewhere, let us not forget that the first What Is To Be Done? was written in 1863 (as a revolutionary novel by Nikolai Chernyshevsky which then inspired Lenin’s famous pamphlet). And let us not forget the particularity of the “Prison House of Europe” or the “Sick Man of Asia.” Suffice it to say that the relationship between internal and external is far more dialectical than Avakian allows for, and the errors of his thinking are clearly related to both the “spiral-conjuncture theory” and to the RCP’s mistaken lines on WW3 or Christian Fascism — which, as I’ve noted elsewhere, has an inevitabilism that is not far removed from the general crisis theory that Avakian is so critical of.
2) This entire discussion, along with the particular discussion of Democracy and Dictatorship can be viewed as implicit polemics with the Nepalese Maoists (amongst others), who it seems, hold opposing views. (Parts of Lenny Wolff’s discussion characterized opponents of Avakian’s views as “mentally landlocked”).
A particular claim around the question of Democracy and Dictatorship exposes the inflexibility and exaggeration (dare I say dogmatism) of the RCP’s line. It was stated that, “the proletariat cannot share power with the bourgeoisie, or it will get eaten alive.” And this sounds quite Marxist, but it is in contradiction to another important development in the theory of the International Communist Movement: that class struggle continues under socialism, and that the leading communist party and the contradictions of socialist relations themselves regenerate the bourgeoisie, all of which suggests that at times the proletariat in fact DOES share (and contest) power with the bourgeoisie under socialism, whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not. This claim by Avakian, again, should be viewed as being partially polemical in the direction of the Nepalese.
The Strategy based on Talk
Once again, my report here can’t encompass the entire presentation, so I will leave the section on Politics untouched there for the time being, and move onto the section on Strategy, and this is where I believe the real guts of the differences are between the forces around Avakian and those increasingly viewing themselves on the outside and looking for another way forward.
The section on Strategy was rich, as it represented something of the practical synthesis of the two prior sections. It relied heavily on discussions from three main works “Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity” (which was called foundational), and two articles from issue #102 of Revolution (“Some Crucial Points“, and “On the Possibility of Revolution“).
Enriched-What-Is-To-Be-Doneism was enumerated thus:
“While coming from the general orientation of ‘hastening while awaiting.’ EWITBD encompasses: the pivotal role of the newspaper, the need to boldly spread communism in everything we do, the importance of promoting the works of Avakian as part of that, the need to organize people around the slogan ‘Fight the Power, Transform the People for Revolution,’ and as part of that to spread revolution and build resistance to the key ways that the system comes down on the masses, recruiting people into the Party, and undertaking political initiatives around societal fault lines that concentrate key social contradictions at any given time, like the struggle to drive out the Bush Regime.”
The second, and by far the most important piece describing the RCP’s strategic thinking was derived from “On the Possibility of Revolution”, in conjunction with “Some Crucial Points”, and posited a theory of “two tracks.” “Some Crucial Points” laid out the consequences of infantile leftism and posturing in relation to a revolutionary project. And it laid the basis for the theory of “two tracks”, which was read out loud verbatim from “On the Possibility of Revolution,” which is quoting Avakian from his work “Bringing Forward Another Way” and citing himself from “Some Crucial Points”:
“we should understand the role and the dialectical relation of these two tracks. These are separate tracks, and only with a qualitative change in the situation (as spoken to in what I just read from “Some Crucial Points”) can there be a merging of the two tracks. Until that point, they can only correctly be developed, and have to be developed, separately.
“The first track, which is the main focus and content of things now, is political, ideological, and organizational work, guided by the strategic orientation of united front under the leadership of the proletariat, having in view and politically preparing for the emergence of a revolutionary situation and a revolutionary people on a mass scale. This is what it means to “hasten while awaiting” the development of a revolutionary situation.
“The second track refers to and is in essence developing the theory and strategic orientation to be able to deal with the situation and be able to win when the two tracks can and should be merged—with a qualitative change in the objective political terrain, with the emergence of a revolutionary situation and a revolutionary people (as I have spoken to that here and as is set forth in a concentrated way in ‘Some Crucial Points’).”
Now here I am going to speak for myself:
This (to me) is the HEART of the error in the RCP’s line (not the cult of personality, which is just one edge of this concentration on theory and ideology). This perspective of “two tracks” replicates the distance between practice and theory, and in fact raises the same tall brickwall, between our ability to hasten revolution today rather than accept what exists, that they criticize amongst economists. On the one hand he talks of a dialectical relation between these two tracks, but then emphasizes that the two tracks are and must be completely separate. Moreover, BOTH tracks emphasize theory and ideological struggle over, and to, the exclusion of the practical struggles of the masses, when these things should in fact go hand in hand. These two tracks should TRULY be viewed dialectically, even as we recognize the dangers of doing so.
To take Avakian’s position is to accept a passive engagement, a talk-shop, where the only matter of difference is WHERE you talk, and then on what subject. This is part the deep conservatism of a revolutionary movement which is unwilling to test the State, or to defend the masses where the State is directly oppressing them, organizing them for revolution in the process. This is the RCP at its “activist” worst, standing on a soap box pontificating and saying how it ought be, but not actually leading the way, not forming the organizational ties, leaving a REAL strategic conception for “The Time,” and objectively abandoning the masses in their hours of need, while handing them a book on why their belief in God is an obstruction to humanity moving forward.
The logic of “Some Crucial Points,” suggests that this “2 track” theory is created under the belief that that the only other option is a left-adventurist struggle associated with violence, leading to near immediate defeat. It is this distance from the masses, and the inability to see struggle with the State along a continuum, and how struggling with the masses against the State is necessary to develop the ability to both withstand attack, and to win the whole thing, that characterizes the RCP (and much of the revolutionary Left).
This is where a new theory of the dynamics of the superstructure in relation to the State is much needed to describe and guide the development of a revolutionary movement, to outline its development to the seizure of power. This advancement is not a part of the New Synthesis.
In this respect it is important to reemphasize that Avakian implicitly denies the epistemology of On Practice. (Epistemology is the study of “where do correct ideas come from?”) For Avakian, it is not true that one should “learn war by practicing war” (as a general epistemological point). And he simultaneously refuses to recognize the relationship between war and politics, which understands war as the EXTREME expression of the latter — a point made by Clausewitz and many others (including Lenin). Such understandings (which are lacking in Avakian’s strategic thinking) suggest that one need not immediately engage in the extremity of political conflict to engage in political conflict and to develop that conflict toward ultimate resolution, that is, to the seizure of power.
It is the above line on “two tracks” which leads to the RCP’s current practice of emphasizing the popularization of communist theory via the works of Avakian, while jumping into the disconnected struggles of the masses mainly for this very purpose — rather than doing both of these “tracks” with a strategic vision which seeks to sink roots amongst the masses and revolutionize them through their struggles with the State, while connecting these different struggles together under one revolutionary movement.
Familiar and Constrained
In the end, the whole discussion on March 9 proved frustratingly familiar and constrained. There was a self-satisfied arrogance about the event. Large portions were extremely pedantic, and the form and arch of the presentation was a carbon copy of the DVD talk. There was little genuine excitement in the room. The core supporters seemed to be minding the waverers, and carefully observing everyone’s response, and so even they were not free to “get into it.”
Most questions were answered by referring people to the writings of Bob Avakian. At one point, when challenged that their event advertisement had a factual exaggeration (in a too-typical instrumentalist way), Lenny Wolff was reduced to saying, “If you don’t get it, I don’t know…”
There was more freedom for discussion afterthe official program and Q and A, but the attitudes of the Party’s supporters in soliciting responses was characterized by a very familiar patronizing arrogance. There has been a lot of training in the a priori assumption (largely on faith) that the New Synthesis is correct, and that Bob Avakian is the Lenin and Mao of our time – and that’s not a particularly fruitful framework for starting a conversation, or defining a debate.
In relation to this it is interesting to revisit a criticism of Stalin, spoken to by Lenny Wolff:
“Stalin had an apriori assumption that once agriculture had been mechanized, once they had tractors, and once production had in the main been put under socialized ownership in the ’30s there would no longer be antagonistic classes in soviet society, but struggle nonetheless continued…. [Stalin] was led to conclude that all opposition must be the work of agents or imperialists, and the results were grievous.”
The a priori assumption of Avakian’s greatness (remember the public verdict here preceded the public case for it by at least a year if not decades) has led to the understanding of all critics as being either narrow pragmatists (now being tagged with the title of “determinant realists”), parasitic critics, or wreckers. The RCP would be coming a long way if it got off its high-horse long enough to engage in the very debate and struggle that it has called for, in fact it would suggest that far from simply asserting how serious they are about revolution (over and over again), that they actually were serious about these issues.
While I hope that they do come around to being a part of a broader movement, without seeking to enforce the catechism of the New Synthesis, those of us uniting around Kasama are not waiting for Avakian and the RCP to “catch up” with the reality that they have systematically excluded from their work and thought.
Published: 2008 | Available online at mikeely.wordpress.com | Send comments to: kasamasite (at) yahoo (dot) com | Feel free to reprint, distribute or quote with attribution to Mike Ely and a link. | This website and all contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License
Eddy said
The second question read from the podium was NOT about On Practice. It referred to Mao’s thesis (following Marx & Engels) that ‘correct ideas come from social practice’, with the emphasis on ‘social practice’. LW was the one who turned that to his remark about ‘critically rethinking On Practice‘ (even though it was read off an index card).
The distinction is not minor. If the NS upholds the materialist thesis (being precedes consciousness; social being determines social consciousness), what is the social practice from which it is synthesized? If the NS repudiates the thesis, how is consciousness formed?
Traditionally, ‘theories of genius’ must deny the prime importance of social activity in the development of cognition and then of specific consciousness (‘true’ or otherwise).
zerohour said
“If the NS upholds the materialist thesis (being precedes consciousness; social being determines social consciousness), what is the social practice from which it is synthesized?”
This was asked at the Q&A and the response is that the practice on which the NS is based is the historical experience of the ICM. To reinforce the point, Wolff brought in the Critique of the Gotha Program in which Marx makes reasonable claims on some features of socialism. He forgot to mention that, unlike the claims made for the NS, Marx did not consider the Critique any kind of synthesis, much less a strategic orientation for revolution. Neither he nor the RCP will acknowledge that all past “syntheses” were based on contemporary practice [Capital, What Is To Be Done?, various works by Mao, etc., not speculations on future society. Nor did those thinkers claim to have formulated problems already better addressed by others.
Some Comments said
I just returned from the Berkeley program on the “new synthesis.” 90-100 people attended. In spite of demands to stand far from the entrance to the event (how likely is compliance to that?) About 60 flyers about the 9 Letters got out before and after the program. Even a young usher came out to ask for the flyer.
This was a middle aged event–only about 1/4 of the people there were under the age of 30 and none seemed to be younger than 20. Not a good sign for the RCP in the Bay Area.
Sunsara Taylor introduced James LeMonde (not from the French newspaper). LeMonde read from the same script read at the March 9 program in NYC. I won’t repeat what the prior posters have written about the script–it is broken down into sections on philosophy, politics and strategy. Some things that stood out to me were:
the assertion that “theory runs ahead of practice” instead of being based principally on current practice and serving to advance revolutionary practice. This seems to be part of Avakian’s critique of Mao on the role of practice.
the assertion that “the proletariat in power must put the advance of the world revolution above everything.” While I think that the primary error in the experience of the Soviet Union and to a lesser degree China was overemphasizing the defense of socialist countries from imperialist attack to the point of discouraging revolution at key points, this is a one-sided and simplistic solution to the extremely difficult and complex contradiction, that is not fixed in time and place, between defending the socialist state and advancing the world revolution.
the assertion that “passive complicity” is as bad as “active support for imperialism”.
the assertion that “enriched what-is-to-be-donism” is the basic method of revolutionary work in the U.S. The six components are listed by Ulises above, but nowhere is there any sense that revolutionary communists have to work WITHIN key struggles and communities to build up partisan political bases for revolution. As other posters have pointed out, in practice, Enriched WITBD means the RCP parachutes into important struggles for a couple of months–or occasionally for a few years–and then packs up to move on to the next get rich quick scheme without leaving any long-term roots behind.
the assertion that the solid core under socialism has four tasks: to not give up power; to expand the core; to move towards the future communist society where a solid core will not be necessary; and to maximize elasticity. The solid core was defined as the party plus those who give their lives to the struggle for communism–which means “getting with” the New Synthesis.
Overall, the presentation demonstrated that Avakian has done some thinking about the history of the communist movement and has developed some new thinking–some of it with considerable merit– on the problems it has encountered. But the assertion that this untested body of thought rises to the level of a “new synthesis” on the level of a Lenin or Mao–which is made inside the RCP if not publicly at events such as this–is untenable and laughable if it weren’t serious.
An already dull program got even more bogged down in an hour and a half long Q &A period. LeMonde’s answers to five questions were long, rambling and often didn’t clearly answer the question at hand. This was particularly true of his replies to two questioners who both asked, “Who makes the final decisions” in socialist society?
While LeMonde had earlier stated that the solid core would not give up power, now he equivocated. He stated that the party’s job was to provide overall leadership to the revolutionary process, not to be the primary decisionmaker. Instead there had to be “institutionalized leadership.” The state apparatus would be constrained by a Constitution and formed by contested elections. The proletariat and oppressed would increasingly be brought into the administration of the state. Opposition groups, as long as they do not try to overthrow the socialist government, would be given the means to organize against government policy, etc. (BTW, I don’t think that it is, in general, a wise policy to give state resources to groups that are opposed to socialism and want to restore capitalism.)
The RCP/Avakian’s view is that the party and the top levels of the state will make the final decisions, but that this is being sugar-coated in order to appeal to the bourgeois democratic sentiments of intellectuals and others.
There was no reference, or response, to the Nine Letters from the stage.
Mike E said
Kasama received the following email from SB:
*******
Here are a few quick things from the Chicago program on the new synthesis that I attended.
I counted 142 at the start of the program with some folks reading the Kasama leaflet while waiting for everything to start.
Lotta was passionate in his description of a future society where there would be a space for “passionate, articulate, and committed activists” to debate with the party over policy differences because the role of dissent is integral to this model of socialism. His other memorable quote was to talk of the necessity of revolutionaries facing “truths that make us cringe” since “all truths” are useful to the revolutionary movement.
Interestingly, both of the African Americans who asked questions at the end critiqued the strategy targeting religious faith. One man was especially strong in his defense of Black Liberation Theology and its progressive role.
A young member of the Black Panther Party setting next to me wanted very much to ask a question but was not called upon. His was a criticism of the synthesis for what he believed was an anti-Mao slant that denigrated the importance of practice. The overt criticism of Mao in the presentation was limited to the strategic implications of the Three Worlds Theory and some writing at the beginning of the GPCR that stressed “class truth”. I also believe that the new synthesis is in direct conflict with “On Practice”
I came away with the impression that the synthesis is a a complex, and very ambitious undertaking that is difficult for almost everyone to follow in the way it is being presented. There seem to be four or five key works that form its core and the ambition is clearly to surpass Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse Tung Thought. To really follow all the arguments will require a BA Selected Works with a study guide.
I just got home after a very long day so I will end it here. I am sure that you will get more complete reports.
zerohour said
” the assertion that “theory runs ahead of practice” instead of being based principally on current practice and serving to advance revolutionary practice. This seems to be part of Avakian’s critique of Mao on the role of practice.”
I think we should look at this a bit more to see why it is partially correct, but fundamentally wrong.
When critiqued on this point, one Party supporter said that it was a pragmatic argument. He didn’t elaborate, but I suppose I was being accused of reducing theory down to immediate practical application.
What the Party did here was reverse Mao’s dictum that the key movement in dialectics can be described as “one divides into two”, and instead take a position of two becoming one. Nothing is sacred, Mao can be challenged on this point as much as any other but I haven’t heard any direct counter-formulation.
It is true that theory can, and should, include some degree of speculation into the contours of a future society. It is true that we have concrete historical practice so that we can see where socialist societies made advances, where they fell short, and reflect on how this would affect our conception of socialism overall. But no communist has ever made this moment of theory into its main task. Again, if the Party can make a case why this should be, I haven’t seen it.
In order not to be utopian, theory must be concentrated on explaining the fundamental contradictions in the present. It is clear that RCP’s previous framework of the “coming civil war” isn’t exactly shaping up that way and that they had missed quite a bit in evaluating any potential countervailing tendencies to the rise of the Christian right. Rather than try to understand why they’re framework is problematic and develop a more rigorous one, they are changing the view. When challenged on this, their response is to say that people are deluded if they think Bush’s policies are going away just because he will be out of office. As imperialists, of course any president will move in the same overall direction, but where does the Christian fascism fit in? Total silence. But enough of this messy present, let’s look at the future now shall we…?
So they collapsed two moments of theory. For RCP, the present and the future became one and that one is the future.
Antonio1949 said
I remember a discussion I once had where someone raised the issue of groups being formed on the fringes of other, larger leftist parties becoming ‘encapsulated,’ where despite the intentions of the people forming the smaller group, it basically became a vehicle for spying on the larger group by the government.
Some of the reporting on the RCP’s activities here raises alarm bells for me in this regard. For example, the use of anecdotes about what particular people with particular political affiliations did and said inside the March 9/22 events, such as “A young member of the Black Panther Party setting next to me wanted very much to ask a question but was not called upon.”
The RCP did not allow photos or video inside these events, and a certain amount of privacy should be allowed in regard to the people who attended the event.
SS said
I’ve recently been thinking about the idea of “theory running ahead of practice” and how that could be one of the contributing factors to the Party’s current stance on religion. The book “Away With All Gods” presents a decent argument. It points out the contradictions of holy texts and some of the ways religion holds people back etc. But it is treated as if just presenting ideas to the religious masses is going to win them over, or win BA recognition. Like once the ideas are given to the people, they will just take them up, separate from real life experience.
The book isn’t good enough to win credit among intellectuals. It probably isn’t good enough to win people away from religion (separate from life experience), and it doesn’t show any real appreciation of their beliefs, so it probably won’t win credit among them. Sure it’s agitative, but I’m left wondering, what’s the point?
It seems like people would be much more likely to abandon ideas like God when they experience empowerment through struggle, not by someone providing a rationalist argument for why God doesn’t exist. That’s something you can’t just be told, you have to feel as well. It seems that for the Party, religion isn’t the dividing line, but at the same time it is. It’s as if religion is simply to be “tolerated”.
Well, I’m starting to go in a couple of different directions now, so I’m going to stop.
Ulises said
Antonio1949:
I don’t think the government needs a vehicle for spying on the RCP at a public event. No, they can just pay the sliding scale and attend like anyone else.
There is both an overestimation and an underestimation of the State’s interest in and around the RCP. On the one hand the RCP is important enough that Bob Avakian needs to be publicly defended from attacks of the State which aren’t happening, and on the other the RCP is not so important that they would send someone into their events to gather information. Rather they would choose to wait for people to post snippets of information about the attendees, and sort through what is true and what is not. Never mind that the RCP’s own account of the event in NYC focused primarily on the attendees, their backgrounds and their reactions.
I think that your “alarm bells” are the logical extension of the RCP’s line on the 9 Letters polemic. The leap from parasitic critics to encapsulated police agents isn’t so great, but it’s also the last refuge of a bankrupt organization and line to imply that critics are working for the enemy, particularly on such a shallow basis.
We’ll see if the RCP ever get that far, but in the meantime it should be made clear that your implications are overdrawn.
Jesus said
I think that Antonio’s post still raises the important, and bigger, question of whether or not folks who split from particular groups wind up tailing those same groups – almost in the “ambulance chaser” type of way which is described in the 9 Letters.
I don’t think that this is what is happening to this group, but it should be kept in mind that what’s needed, objectively, most of all is revolutionary organization which can develop roots amongst oppressed peoples and communities in order to fight the system. Criticizing the RCP may not be a waste of time, but the world truly is crying out for much more.
Mike E said
Jesus: I think we all agree with that. It has been said here on this site many times.
9 Letters (a major communist engagement with Avakian’s synthesis) has only been public for three months, and has still only started to reach many corners of our movement.
But we have no intention of being a cold moon revolving around a dead planet. Struggling in a deep and principled over major questions of line is a responsibility we have to our comrades in the RCP and internationally. And having dispatched that responsibility, in a fairly compact way, we are now free to start to move on.
The slogan at the top of our site says “Reconceive as we regroup.” That is the road we urge everyone to join us on.
* * * * *
On a secondary point: Antonio’s post suggests that having a public discussion of a public event is somehow wrong. He suggests that SB mentioning the question he heard from the floor, and mentioning the self description the questioner gave.
Now we have all seen how the RCP has cranked up a kind of “principle machine” in its basement, where it has newly invented and then proclaimed freshly minted “principles” that everyone is supposed to be judged by.
One of these counterfeit principles was that it was intolerable to oppose Avakian’s synthesis WITHIN their ranks (once the “train had left the station.”) This was soon followed with the assertion that it is unprincipled for communists to oppose Avakian’s synthesis OUTSIDE their ranks. Hmmm… we can all deduce that opposing Avakian’s synthesis is “unprincipled” no matter where and how you do it!
Then they argued that the only aspects of Avakian’s synthesis that could be discussed are the aspects that the RCP has itself published. Here is the catch 22: they are free to forced people out of their organization for opposing “Avakian as the cardinal question,” but then they argue we can’t criticize the “cardinal question” used to force us out because they choose not to PUBLICLY proclaim Avakian as the dividing line among communists. A convenient logic?
And so it goes, a self-serving machinery of counterfeit “principles” in overdrive.
Is it really possible to argue that it is wrong to have a public discussion of the RCP’s public event and what was publicly said there. What impoverished discussions would result!
John Steele said
Here’s a report from the “What Is Bob Avakian’s New Synthesis?” event in Chicago
Three of us leafleted outside the event, which was held in a large room in the “mega-dorm” shared by three Chicago colleges in the south Loop. Many people took leaflets, even some who were long-time party supporters, often with a smile. Occasionally we got the stony straight-ahead stare or cast-down eye. Oh – and Mike Ely and another comrade were told immediately that they would be barred from entering (to hear the presentation as they had planned). No reason was given other than “you are not welcome.”
At the event itself, inside, there were, at its height, between 130 and 140 people. The mood was a bit tense. I took detailed notes, but did not see anyone else doing the same. Clearly, for many, this was a ceremonial rather than an informational occasion. The two-hour-plus presentation was given by Raymond Lotta.
The presentation, which was read, closely followed what’s been reported already from March 9, and I will only give an account of points not mentioned in the reports from New York of Zerohour and DMC Ulises, as well as some comments of my own.
The presentation was (of course) divided into the same three parts: philosophy, politics, and strategic conception. Under philosophy, the innovations of the new synthesis were described as:
1. A further break with idealism
2. A deeper grasp of the ways in which matter and consciousness interpenetrate
3. A deeper criticism of pragmatism
4. A new epistemology
Two things are striking.
First, this is presented primarily as a critique of Stalin, and secondarily of Mao. Lenin, Marx and Engels are not mentioned, to the best of my memory, let alone any Marxist thinkers outside the pantheon of the ICM tradition. Essentially, it is clear, Avakian continues and attempts to make more consistent, Mao’s critique of Stalin. (This is a point which came up after the talk, when a questioner wondered if Lenin and Mao would really have disagreed with what are presented as the innovations of Avakian.) On the other hand, Avakian’s “deepening” of Mao’s critique is remarkably flat-footed and jejune, showing very little philosophical depth or sophistication. (“Truth is truth – and bullshit is bullshit” Lotta declaimed grandly at one point from the written text.)
Secondly, though: in the discussion of how matter and consciousness interpenetrate (under [2] above), there was absolutely no mention of Mao. This is notable, given that this topic is the subject of one of Mao’s central philosophical writings, “On Practice.” The conclusion must be that Avakian has made a so-far unannounced but very conscious break with “On Practice.” (This is a conclusion that’s been reached before by others on this site.)
The first portion of the “Politics” part of the presentation was on internationalism, and began by drawing out a contradiction between the international character of production, on the one hand, and the fact that “ownership is national,” with nations being divided into oppressor and oppressed. This seems to be an attempt to recast the Marxist contradiction of social production and private appropriation, and it’s not a formulation I’d seen before. What struck me more than this formulation, though, was the off-hand dichotomy of oppressor/oppressed nations. The development of capitalism and imperialism over the past 50 years has not only internationalized the process of production to an unprecedented degree, but has shuffled up and greatly complicated any simple dichotomous division among countries.
This has not meant a diminution of imperialism of course, but the ways that capitalism works globally and interweaves with national power has assumed very different forms from those it had in Lenin’s, or in Mao’s, time. This is one of those crucial topics that cries out for theoretical exploration and synthesis from a revolutionary perspective, but which is neither addressed nor even recognized in Avakian’s “new synthesis.”
The rest of the “Politics” section of the talk was fairly boilerplate, a lot of it devoted to the dictatorship of the proletariat, with many quotations from Avakian (particularly from “Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity”), as well as of course the “solid core with a lot of elasticity” figure, the metaphor of the parachute and “going to the brink of being drawn and quartered.” The solid core was explained as “those firmly committed to going to communism,” and it was said that this core must have roots in the proletariat. This section ended with a very l-o-o-n-g single sentence, quoted from Avakian, which purported to sum up the new synthesis.
The third part – “strategic conception” was again richly interlarded with Avakian quotations, in this case particularly from “Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity.” Ulises (“More Unofficial Notes,” above) has quite a bit about this section and I won’t repeat.
A question period followed after a break. Written questions had been solicited, and attempts at answering some of these were intermixed with questions taken from the floor.
Three questions (out of ten) concerned Avakian’s stance on religion, and two of them brought up liberation theology as a way of maintaining a revolutionary stance while retaining religion, which would be understood metaphorically (as one questioner put it). Responses given by Lotta were for the most part standard recitations – religion is untrue, represents a nonrational way of thinking, liberation theology “is still about god.” It was added at one point that this is a very important question because “we can’t make the society we have to make unless people from the oppressed cast off religion.”
The tin ear was much in evidence during this part of the program. Two or three questions were not really addressed at all (although many words were spoken) because they were not couched in the standard terms to which people close to this party have become accustomed. A reference by a questioner to “Rev. Wright here in Chicago” apparently did not register at all. (Yes, that’s Obama’s “notorious” pastor.)
More basically, there was no engagement with the concerns that lay behind the questions. What is involved in people’s refusal to “give up their religion”? Hint: it won’t be addressed by telling them that they are involved in “a nonrational way of thinking.” Nor is it an analysis of the Obama phenomenon to simply say, as Lotta did, “Obama is just a new face on this imperialist system.” These abstract statements are essentially a priori with respect to the historical moment: they don’t engage it, they don’t analyze it, and they don’t really interact with it.
Although my hand was up at every possible opportunity, I was not recognized. At one point, indeed, mine was the only hand raised as far as I could see, and there was a perceptible pause as both the MC and the person with the mic scanned the crowd uneasily until another hand was raised. I had intended to ask why the RCP had so far refused to engage the only substantive public critique of Avakian’s new synthesis, namely that contained in the Nine Letters. We can only speculate what answer might have been given.
orinda said
My first time posting here.
I also attended the Berkeley event. I did not find it to be dull but on the other hand, I did not find it to be as exciting as most supporters found it . People I talked to afterwards who were already Avakian followers told me they got a lot out of it. One person told me he finally understood what was meant by the “solid core’ for the first time. I have not talked to many people yet who are more skeptical about the RCP but one of those I did discuss it with said she found a lot of it hard to follow and not very interesting.
I went because I wanted to know what was meant by the New Synthesis. Now I know. In one sentence I’d say it’s: we need to evaluate the past of the ICM to learn what we should strive to repeat and what errors we should try to avoid.
I took notes on the Q & A as best I could. here they are:
1. Q. (combination of two written questions) Human beings need spirituality. Why deny that need to people? and Why do you want to stamp out religion?
A: Read “Away with All Gods”. Communists are atheists. We don’t want to stamp out religion, there will be a long struggle. How can people voluntarily and consciously transform themselves? We need to offer a higher reality that trumps reality. The most oppressed are often suffering from religious beliefs. But Marx also said that religion is the heart in a heartless world. (need for some warmth in a cold cash-driven world)
Avakian says oppressed people who refuse to confront reality are doomed to remain oppressed.
What about the need for more than the material basics for life? To quote the Bible- “man can not live by bread alone.” This is true, we need awe and wonder for the unknown and mysteries. But religions tend to want to keep things mysterious forever.
2. Q. I love the phrase “masses as conscious transformers of humanity.” But then I run into the problem about the solid core and who makes decisions. The roots may be in the proletariat but who makes the final decisions?
A. (missed first bit of answer) Yes the solid core will be a minority. When you make a socialist rev people will join as they are, many will have old ideas. No prayer (sic) of getting to socialism without leadership.
There are four tasks of the solid core (I missed one of them). To hold onto rev power, to expand solid core, to move to where you can abolish the State.
Party and masses need to develop forms to involve more people in decision making. Example of Shanghai Commune: group of people decided that everyone would be involved in decision making. Mao summed it up as a model that would lead to same old forces taking over, society wasn’t ready for that yet. Others in China formed revolutionary committees as way to involve more people, Mao liked this form and Avakian agrees with him.
There was a written question saying even this country allows oppositional films to be shown. Our society will do the same but go further and we’ll not just allow but fund criticism of our rev gov and leadership.
3. Q. (speaker identified herself as a born-again atheist). How would a democracy of the working class be different. Will there be litmus tests that exclude non-communist but passionate people? I don’t think we have all the answers. I hear you say “discuss” but I think you really mean “convince”. We can’t build a movement of people NOW if their beliefs aren’t respected.
A. Our vision of leadership does not mean only atheists or communists. The Party will not be the same as the government. The Party needs to lead through ideological line. There is the question of leadership of the Army. There have been problems, like under Stalin. Too much tendency for leaders to have unproportional leadership. Too much of whatever Stalin said went. Avakian said he wouldn’t want to live in a society “run” by himself (note: apparently meaning he wants to lead, not dictate?). We will need a constitution. Government can’t handles crisis or dissent by stepping around constitution, can’t have arbitrary decisions.
4. Q. The masses are locked out of discussions on science. What is the relationship between theory and the Party?
A. (I didn’t really understand the question and I missed part of the answer) Theory is very important, has to run ahead of practice. How can the RCP get big enough? If we get bigger won’t the State come down on us? We need to be able to solve these problems.
5. Q. If revolution is a science, what are the experiments that have been done in this country, what are the catalysts and the elements?
A. One part of the scientific process is doing experiments under controlled conditions, starting with a hypothesis, and testing your hypothesis. But even in the natural sciences, not everything comes out of immediate results. Darwin and Einstein — not all their work was doing experiments. Science also means observing reality, the broad experience of humans and drawing from other spheres. It’s a scientific fact that communism will be better than capitalism. The partisanship is brought to this science by those that want to achieve communism. Other sciences and philosophies: need to incorporate some things from other fields. As a bourgeois philosopher said, people can’t learn in a hothouse.
Sunsara announces: End of questions for now. Revolution Books will have James LeMonde on Monday evening to respond to more of the many questions we couldn’t get to. Everyone invited.
* * * * *
My comments: Some of the answers were good, others didn’t really go very deep. Question #3 I think is something that needs more. In practice today there really is more of efforts to convince than to hear what people are really saying. So why believe this will be any different in a future society?
I think it’s great to have a vision of what kind of future society we want. But can this thinking really be called theory? Not according to the scientific definition as stated by Stephen J Gould: “Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts.” But yes, according to a different use of the word: Critical theory is social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory). The problems I see are that theory can run too far ahead of practice and that there is neglect of how to get to socialism.
Sure there is talk of what to do today: get out the paper, protest, etc. But what about the actual seizing of a rev situation? Let’s hear more about that.
John Steele said
Here are my notes of the questions asked at the Chicago presentation. Noted which were written; others were from the floor. RL = Raymond Lotta and BA = Bob Avakian
1. Why the emphasis on BA rather than the experience of the RCP? Isn’t that what democratic centralism is about? [written question]
RL – BA is the Chairman; he works within the collectivity. But this talk was about the new synthesis, and the summation he’s made. What he’s summing up is the global practice of proletarian revolution – this is far broader than just the practice of the RCP. What BA is doing is on the level of Lenin and Mao and Marx. We have this talk about him because he is larger than the party even though he is the leader of the party. RL developed an analogy with John Coltrane, who was a member of a quartet and worked within that but was also much larger than the quartet he led. Then he went into another analogy with an architect whose work had been the subject of an exhibit at the Guggenheim that he’d recently seen – the path-breaking influence the arch had been having, based on her(?) summation of/rupture with previous work, and despite fact that a lot of her conceptions/plans had never been effected or built.
2. In re example/analogy of A. Roy and the dam in India (an example used in the talk). Debate–fine, but then what? What if the protestors, under socialism, didn’t back down? [2 written questions]
RL – There is no short-cut to an answer. People do have to have the right and ability to organize independently of the state and to project their ideas. Can’t resort to the armed forces of the state. The matter has to be debated out and struggled out. Have to deal with these contradictions in the real situation – have to win people to whatever is decided. On the other hand power and electricity do have to be developed and provided, people’s needs have to be met – this may be very urgent. It’s this thrashing out that will allow people to understand the questions of urgency, etc. But can’t sacrifice long-term [i.e. developing people as masters of society] to short-term needs. These problems have to be solved in the concrete.
3. Why bring God into question? Should keep it on revolution, and not interfere with people’s religion. And isn’t it a contradiction to say “away with God, but listen to Bob” – isn’t Bob then like God? Also, feels like he didn’t really get any new understanding from all that was said. And – we’re involved with the system every day, and to do anything, we’ve got to kiss ass [several illustrations], but we’re supposed to be about revolution – isn’t this a contradiction? [long question/excursus]
RL – On religion & “the God/Bob question” – Religion is untrue and it’s a shackle on the people. A nonrational mode of thinking. Second, Away With All Gods gets into what is wrong with religion. This is very important for people to be engaged with, because we can’t make the society we have to make unless people from the oppressed cast off religion. Unity-struggle-unity, i.e. unite with people in [practical] struggles, but struggle with people ideologically, in order to unite at higher level. Third, Bob is not a god. His new synthesis has to be taken up broadly; it is not the property of a narrow group. BA is not presenting himself as infallible, and he is against all forms of religiosity. He has always emphasized the need for people to think critically; he’s always been against blind obedience.
4. We’re meeting here today without any interference, talking about communism and bringing an end to capitalism. This is an illustration of the way that capitalism has great flexibility which is a way of keeping the actual power in power. How does this relate to the flexibility of “solid core with a lot of elasticity”? Here we have flexibility as a vent in order to preserve power. Would the allowance of dissent, and elasticity under socialism, also serve as venting? And is it new?
RL – seems to not understand what’s being asked – goes on about how this event today is important – We need a vision of communism out there. Essential that this vision be part of the discussion. People are discontented, but their sights are set so low. Excited by Obama, but Obama is just a new face on this imperialist system.
5. Been viewing the series on “The Power of Myth” by Joseph Campbell. Have any thoughts on that? Movement from matriarchal to patriarchal religions. Wonder if Campbell is an idealist. Mentions (I think) liberation theology. [vague and wandering question]
RL – Hasn’t read Campbell or seen series. Power of historical materialism to decode these myths. But the point about myths is that there’s a difference between myths taken as true [which is bad!] and myth as creativity and fiction, metaphoric and understood as such [which is good!].
6. How foster critical thinking among the masses? Question about artists. How would the mental/manual contradiction be resolved under communism? [3 written]
RL – Long, wandering and obvious answer, focusing only on the last question.
7. Wonder if Lenin and Mao would really have disagreed with what are presented as the innovations of BA. Many philosophers argued for objective reality. So how are these really innovations?
RL – Mao did break with a lot of these. BA has continued that rupture, but has also gone beyond Mao and ruptured with ways that Mao kept some aspects. Things like the reification of the proletariat and class truth – cites 16-point decision and the way in which the reliability of people was judged based on class origin; the way that intellectuals were seen as a problematic social group. Mao has elements of inevitabilism, of “communism is bound to triumph.” BA has both continuity with Mao’s ruptures, and then a further rupture with ways Mao continued wrong inheritances.
8. Speak to concerns on ecology, and that it may already be too late to save the earth. People feel the great urgency and are pulled to pragmatic solutions. [2 written]
RL – Yes, urgent. Very urgent. Goes off on to “socialist sustainability” (not a concept elaborated by Avakian, incidentally). Solid core with elasticity applies to this too.
9. Black liberation theology – people in this tradition can hold on to religion and see it more as a metaphor. People like Rev. Wright here in Chicago. Isn’t this an alternative going against religion entirely.
RL – Struggles that need to go on – unity with Black liberation theology in battles against theocratic right-wing movement in this country, and winning rank and file in that movement away from that. But on the other hand we also have ideological struggle against religion. Communists are atheists. There’s a reality to spirit in sense of human spirit, mastering reality. But not a separate reality. Liberation theology is still about god, and not only god but the Christian god. This ideological struggle is nonantagonistic. (Nothing on Rev. Wright)
10. Relation between ideological emancipation and material emancipation. [Announced as last question by MC]
RL – Corresponds to two types of the four radical ruptures Marx talks about – on the one hand with actual class relations, on the other with ideas.
Questioner rephrases it as question of how can really get beyond division of labor, intellectuals doing intellectual work, and some skills requiring much more study, etc.
RL – End of division of labor doesn’t mean anyone can be a brain surgeon. But people not confined within specialties. (Goes on – I had to leave at this point)
lily said
Speaking to the issue of people’s “right” to organize independently of the state and project their ideas:
a piece of this issue, I believe, revolves around the conception of granting this right versus the need of communists to understand that opposition and debate and dissent will occur regardless.
When Mao said, “where there is oppression there is resistance” he captured both a long view of whether the oppressing classes will ever fundamentally be able to stop such resistance. We know that dissent/debate/organized struggle against the proletarian state is not without a class character. i.e. not all opposition is in the interests of the people. But the point I want to get at here is that part of what BA’s theory AND PRACTICE does not grapple with is that the party can not, in a basic sense, control all of this. It can, if it wields state power, seek to crush opposition (and, in certain circumstances may indeed need to).
The wrangling BA is doing with these questions is important obviously and his excavation of the historic experience of proletarian revolution is significant. Yet, I think that he remains somewhat stuck in his conception of the solid core and their “right” to determine all of this.
How should we look at BA’s theory in light of current practice of the RCP? I think it would be wrong to reduce a verdict into a one-to-one comparison– i.e. how could BA and the RCP be rupturing with even the most developed understanding on these questions if he can not even hold a public forum without excluding opponents?
BUT, I do not think we should ignore this obvious example. Because in fact Raymond Lotta is right that there is not a simple answer. And I go back to my first point– that granting a “right” speaks to one part of the contradiction: what the proletarian state needs to formally protect. But, as we know, life is much more messy and not so easily controlled. For example, critics of BA actually exist. Whether BA, RL, or the RCP acknowledges their existence does not determine whether such currents actually exist. This relates to the theory of the “solid core”. I think that the difference between “who” it is and “what” it is relates to more than semantics.
I think it speaks strongly to how then this theory of BA’s relates to inner Party life, to what degree of homogeneity must exist in thought or at least in allowed thought.
Many people, who received their theoretical training through years as Maoist supporters of the RCP, were trained that different ideas inside the party do, at the highest level of line struggle, represent different classes. I believe there is some correctness to this. This is not the same as saying there is “class truth”– a characterization I reject in-so-far as truth exists objectively. But in the practice of revolution, the issues of what dissent is embraced outside the Party is connected to what is embraced INSIDE. Some ideas can be clearly and more easily located as reflecting the thinking and approach of an exploiting class.
Other ideas are not so clear because they may partially reflect practice and reality that is current or they may be “heretical” and indicate a possible future which is still small on the horizon. But, I think that a key challenge to all of us who would dare to ride the whirlwind of revolution is “how much challenge will we take before the door gets literally or essentially shut closed?” If that question is legitimate, and I believe it is, the direction of the RCP in practice would indicate the answer as being “not so much”.
lily said
One further point:
Given that BA’s theories include the issues of how the proletariat will or should wield state power, past and future why is he so aloof from current world practice?
BA has been referred to as a “living laboratory”. Yet, in Nepal, for example, we have a living laboratory in proletarian revolution in practice in our contemporary world. Why then has the RCP been essentially silent?
How does BAs approach end up leading the RCP to refrain from even featuring news of this struggle in its newspaper for great periods of time? And please don’t tell me that BAs works are polemical and thus indirectly address the Nepalese revolution. First of all, that is obvious. But the bigger question is this: does the RCP view the theory and practice of the Nepalese revolution as so disparate from BAs views on democracy, dictatorship of the proletariat (DOP), etc that the RCP must, at best, stand aloof?
The John Coltrane analogy is interesting because seeing Coltrane as “higher than” the band captures one aspect of the contradiction.
What may be left out is that Coltrane WITH THE BAND(s) (and featured cohorts), and this band included disparate, innovative, and fascinating musicians– created A Love Supreme, which was, after all, about god.
Theory can be so gray, but life is truly amazingly colorful and full of wonderful contradiction!
xbox said
An often remembered challenge was “raise it to the level of line.” If criticisms weren’t addressed it was because they were not presented as line questions. Well, the 9 letters does exactly that yet where is the engagement. Are we to believe that the D of the P lead by the Party would thrive in conscious struggle over questions of the day? Not at all it appears. Adding insult, I read that critics were not allowed to even enter the auditoriums. Please, let’s get information out to whoever among them is willing to listen. Any cadre who are reading this, folks know what it is like to feel something is wrong but be too afraid of ending up on the “wrong side of history” to speak out or make a move. But you have to really engage these criticisms. Think about this and everything from a wide open perspective.
Jaroslav said
Neftalí Paolo from the Single Spark has written up a response to the NYC BA event also: read it here. It also references a critique of Raymond Lotta’s Set The Record Straight talk by Manuel R. Chávez López called ‘Contribuir a la Confusión’ / ‘A Contribution to the Confusion’ (unofficial rough translation by Single Spark).