

My journey into the centre of a dark political world, and how I escaped - ivank
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2014/11/everything-problematic/

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pastProlog
She seems to be mixing apples and oranges. She talks about occupying
classrooms and being in militant demonstrations and says she's now all grown
up and doesn't do that now. This is very normal - young people are impatient,
passionate, tempestuous, etc. Older organizers generally are not doing that
stuff as much.

Then she associates this with changes in political positions. This is
something else, it may be connected for people like her, but not others. There
are plenty of people in their fifties with "radical" positions who are writing
essays, organizing voter drives, walking picket lines, volunteering at a
community radio station and so forth. They are in it for the long haul, and
usually getting more done. Going to a demonstration and yelling at a cop might
give someone an adrenaline rush. However, long-term efforts to work with
others on seemingly minor changes to attain a broader goal is usually what
gets more done.

She seems to think there is some connection between wanting the NDP elected,
or for US cabinet officials to not be former Wall Street CEOs, to young people
ranting and raving in the street. There isn't. She has little to say about the
left - she was not part of it, then she became a Fox News caricature of what
an organizer is (scratch that, she probably thought of herself as an
"activist", not an organizer), then is unhappy and renounces it all. She was
never really on the left at all. They're really scraping the bottom of the
barrel for this "God that failed" stuff nowadays. "I was a teenage agitator"

~~~
idiotclock
Sure, "people in their fifties" (and of all other ages) are doing a variety of
things to promote social justice. But I don't think it is helpful to put down
Aurora's effort -- including yelling at the police at protests. Besides,
"getting things done" is not always an innocent or simple approach. And having
nuanced views does (slowly) shape the world.

I don't think she intends to give up and renounce it all (in fact it sounds
like she's looking for new spaces to take action. She (quite candidly) relates
her struggle mixing maturing political views with the clichey activist scene
in Montreal -- which as she correctly points out (I too live in Montreal) is
like any subculture, ripe with dogmatism.

Just because she doesn't fall into your category of left doesn't mean she
isn't a part of it. That is the very problem.

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GHFigs
_The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements_ is a 1951 social
psychology book by American writer Eric Hoffer that discusses the
psychological causes of fanaticism.

The book analyzes and attempts to explain the motives of the various types of
personalities that give rise to mass movements; why and how mass movements
start, progress and end; and the similarities between them, whether religious,
political, radical or reactionary. Hoffer argues that even when their stated
goals or values differ mass movements are interchangeable, that adherents will
often flip from one movement to another, and that the motivations for mass
movements are interchangeable. Thus, religious, nationalist and social
movements, whether radical or reactionary, tend to attract the same type of
followers, behave in the same way and use the same tactics and rhetorical
tools. As examples, the book often refers to Communism, Fascism, National
Socialism, Christianity, Protestantism, and Islam.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer)

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chipsy
The tricky thing about beliefs is that they are so often instrumental to
authoritarian uses. Altermeyer's _The Authoritarians_[0] documents some of the
mentalities that take hold - although it's primarily focused on the "right
wing" of authoritarianism, it also describes how a "left wing authoritarian"
also exists but is less prevalent.

For my part, I've realized that at any moment of my life I will have some
limited view of the world as a belief structure. I can intentionally cultivate
beliefs that seem more logical(e.g. by writing down and rehearsing proverbs)
but this ultimately just moves around the lens with which I view things; it
doesn't "progress" my thinking to a higher state, because there isn't one. The
worst thing that could happen is not believing "wrong things," but getting
stuck in a state in which I can't move around my lens any more. If my lens is
not moving, then it's like I am no longer politically alive, I am a rock that
someone else throws.

[0]
[http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians...](http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf)

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alricb
I thought this was going to be about exposing trotskyist fronts (lots of
trotskyists in Montreal student politics). Bit disappointed.

It does remind me of what 1970s maoists write about their experience.

