I’ve been seeing a bad line of thinking in leftist spaces and in myself and I feel the need to call it out.
The western left’s demonization of the class unconscious proletariat is a symptom of idealism that seems sadly acceptable in leftist social media spaces. Class consciousness is not an achievement to be proud of, you didn’t do it, it happened to you.
Labor aristocracy is not a “sin” of the western working class it is a weapon of the bourgeoisie. Unique material conditions are what lead each of us to class consciousness not some sort of moral/intellectual/educational supremacy. The limited class consciousness in the west’s working class is not an inherit flaw in the masses but a failure of the class conscious to conduct effective agitation. (the word “failure” is not a condemnation but recognition that we have been unable to succeed against the overwhelming power of the imperialist bourgeoisie.)
This extends to demonization of the troops. Yes members of the western armed forces actively benefit from imperialism and do horrific things supporting imperialism but they do this out of a response to their material conditions not because they are evil. That is not to say they are absolved of their crimes. It means many of them could be redeemable.
We have all had liberal and imperialist ideas that we now recognize are wrong. We must be willing to accept those who admit the faults of their past who are willing to fight for a better future. Anyone refusing to forgive comrades who admit to a flawed past is being dishonest about their own flaws. They are engaging in ideological moral supremacy. It is not a dialectical materialists position to refuse something changing into its opposite.
Again this is not a call to absolve the complicit but instead a call to remind us that we have all been complicit in some way and we are the proletariat not above them.
Good, I’m not either. What makes you think I am? Seriously, what exactly?
So what exactly are you trying to promote as point of view here? In contrast to what? As a contrast to “individuals aren’t responsible for anything”? Cause nobody said that. As scientists of dialectical materialism, however, it is important to acknowledge the heavy ways in what material conditions influence people. If you refuse to acknowledge that and instead just insist on moralizing all day, what you get is a church, not a vanguard. You can enjoy the ivory tower feeling of being part of a church if you want. There are plenty to join and many that offer a pre-made feeling of superiority, so long as you adhere to their tenets. But few have any relationship to political power and the ones that do are heavily pragmatic, not just preaching.
Not saying that you’re guilty of this, but I’ve often gotten the impression that people who talk about stuff like the “poverty draft” or whatever genuinely think these people had zero responsibility in what they ended up doing. Same goes for stuff like “the government, not the people” which is …uhhhh.
Obviously this goes without saying. Personally though, I believe that it’s quite possible to acknowledge that these people aren’t ontologically immoral but ended up there because of real material reasons while also believing that they should be held accountable for their actions.
All I can say is, when it comes to people in this space specifically, I’ve never gotten the impression that there is any kind of broad intent to excuse, but more like to assess. So what I see in the “poverty draft” narrative is hoping, really (and maybe it’s wishful thinking if that narrative is full of holes). Because if people are joining more so cause they’re poor and need the money, that means: 1) they are less committed than the true believer generational military member type of person and 2) if given other opportunities, they are more likely to quit. e.g. their allegiance is more for sale than the true believer.
If, on the other hand, most are true believers and patriotic fanatics, that’s a much uglier situation to deal with and much harder to overcome. It would mean that the people who have the majority of the guns are also some of the most ideologically dedicated to upholding the empire, not just mercenaries for hire who are going to quit or cave under pressure, or if alternatives are presented to them.
Odds are not all of them are true believers. If the majority are, that would still be a major problem, but those who aren’t probably have a greater chance of being swayed in a conflict (and are also probably less likely to be among the ones who have directly participated in war crimes: the desk jockeys, logistics people, ones who spend more time at home on practice drilling for potential threats than they ever do deployed anywhere).
I fully agree on that. The part that I keep circling back to though is the how. It’s not a trivial thing to get to the point where they can be systemically held accountable in the first place. Short of the US starting a war with China and China invading it, it’s not like there’s a major vanguard in the region who can stand up to them with any kind of parity. I’m not trying to say it’s hopeless, just that the fundamental asymmetry of the situation has to be accounted for somehow. Maybe thinking of it in terms of defectors is too limited thinking as strategy, but like, take the Black Panther Party for example. The military didn’t even need to get involved on that, as far as I know. FBI and cops was all it took to assassinate and destroy what they were doing. And they were a group that was serious about being militant, they weren’t playing footsie with elections as a saving grace.
That’s the kind of disparity it can look like. I don’t know if it’s that bad in other areas of the imperial core, but point being, we cannot expect some vanguard to materialize out of nowhere and take on the whole armed forces.
I’m under no delusions that something like all these guys being tried and sentenced for what they’ve done will ever happen in my lifetime. I’m simply not interested in having sympathy for them or being scolded for not liking them for things they did.