NOTES ON LIBERAL IDEOLOGY AND CURRENT POLITICAL LEXICON
NOTES ON LIBERAL IDEOLOGY AND CURRENT POLITICAL LEXICON
of Emiliano Alessandroni (University of Urbino - Editor-in-Chief of "Marxismo Oggi" and member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party)
It was 2015 when Luciano Canfora, in an interview given to Il Fatto Quotidiano, stated as follows:
of Emiliano Alessandroni (University of Urbino - Editor-in-Chief of "Marxismo Oggi" and member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party)
It was 2015 when Luciano Canfora, in an interview given to Il Fatto Quotidiano, stated as follows:
"The PD has long been a centre party and the centre has always had a transformative vocation". On the other hand, he continued, "the crisis of real socialism in 1989-1991 [made] also the European social democrats enter into crisis".
Yet these days it is the press that is talking about a yellow-RED government, unleashing the indignation of those souls who see the PD all but a left-wing party.
The big media, however, has not gone as mad as some believe. It simply uses a language that is appropriate to its ideology, to those formae mentis that are a reflection of the historical phase that we are going through.
Except for rare exceptions in the West in general, and in Italy in particular, the political parties that explicitly refer to the lesson of Marx are now reduced to a minimum, if not disappeared.
Vanished or strongly in crisis, as Canfora noted, are also the social-democratic parties that, no matter how hard they try to survive or sometimes to give themselves new clothes, are systematically swallowed up by the vortex of liberalism.
The latter, on the other hand, now occupies the entire political space. And the liberal ideology differs from Marxism in at least two fundamental aspects: 1) it does not recognize the existence of a conflict between capital and labour; 2) it does not recognize the existence of a conflict between imperialist tendencies and anti-imperialist pushes.
In the eyes of many militants of these liberal parties, the above categories are not only obsolete: in their eyes, they have never had a real legitimacy. They did not have it to explain the historical and social phenomena of the past and less than ever those of the present.
The result? That whenever a conflict between capital and labour manifests itself, these parties tend to take the side of capital and whenever a conflict between imperialist and anti-imperialist forces arises, they tend to take the side of the former (or at least to support them).
Between these parties, however, the ideology changes: some of them are liberal-democrats, others are liberal-conservatives, still others are an assembly between these forms.
It should be borne in mind that liberalism as such is affected by Eurocentrism and has a racist streak that it cannot easily get rid of.
Let us remember that John Locke was a shareholder of the Royal African Company and that in the first 32 years of the United States all the most illustrious Presidents (including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) were owners of black slaves.
Today's liberal-democratic forces, however, are liberal forces that have introduced elements of modern democracy, i.e. elements derived from the encounter-clash with the workers' movement and with the socialist world.
The liberal-conservative forces are forces that from this encounter-clash have introduced fewer elements, that look favourably on the liberalism of the dawn and would willingly erase all the conquests that have been brought by the Jacobin-Bolshevik tradition. They would unhinderedly erase, if they could, both the October Revolution and the French Revolution.
We understand well then that the struggle between the different liberal parties constitutes today a struggle for a redefinition of the boundaries of the "sacred space" (in which to admit the principles of freedom, tolerance and solidarity) and those of the "profane space" (which should be treated only with the brutality of violence as they are identified as a barbaric world, to be suppressed or dominated, to be excluded in any case from the golden perimeter of "civilization" - the liberal-democratic narrative prefers today to replace the dichotomy "civilization"-"barbarism" or "West"-"East" with that of "democracy"-"dictatorship").
Now, for the big press, everything that comes out of the horizon of liberalism is nothing and should not even be taken into account. So when we talk about right and left, the media of the West take for granted that we are talking about liberal left and right, because an out-of-liberalism is unthinkable for them or, if it were, it would be relegated to the "profane space".
To echo this use of terms, however, means to replicate the liberal ideology that underlies it. It means implicitly accepting the horizon of liberalism as an impassable horizon.
In order to bring some clarity back into the political discourse and not to remain unconscious victims of the prevailing ideology (which forges and uses the terms in its own image and likeness) when speaking of "left", it would perhaps be appropriate to distinguish between "Marxist left", "social-democratic left" and "liberal left".
It should also be borne in mind that in recent decades the attractive power of liberalism has played a much greater catalytic role than that of left-wing culture. A "liberal left", that is to say, precisely because it is liberal, tends to make concessions more willingly to a "liberal right" than to a "social-democratic left" or to a "Marxist left".
It is also from here that we can take the steps to respond to that question which, at every turn, returns continuously in the public debate and arouses, just by asking itself, the wrath of many voters: why doesn't the left unite?
And it is always from here that we can also start to understand what is meant in the West when the parties speak of "change": it is, every time, circumscribed changes, never radical, that always remain within the liberal horizon and systemic compatibility.
No Aufhebung is in fact expected today, in the Euro-Atlantic world, of the current system and of liberalism.
Yet these days it is the press that is talking about a yellow-RED government, unleashing the indignation of those souls who see the PD all but a left-wing party.
The big media, however, has not gone as mad as some believe. It simply uses a language that is appropriate to its ideology, to those formae mentis that are a reflection of the historical phase that we are going through.
Except for rare exceptions in the West in general, and in Italy in particular, the political parties that explicitly refer to the lesson of Marx are now reduced to a minimum, if not disappeared.
Vanished or strongly in crisis, as Canfora noted, are also the social-democratic parties that, no matter how hard they try to survive or sometimes to give themselves new clothes, are systematically swallowed up by the vortex of liberalism.
The latter, on the other hand, now occupies the entire political space. And the liberal ideology differs from Marxism in at least two fundamental aspects: 1) it does not recognize the existence of a conflict between capital and labour; 2) it does not recognize the existence of a conflict between imperialist tendencies and anti-imperialist pushes.
In the eyes of many militants of these liberal parties, the above categories are not only obsolete: in their eyes, they have never had a real legitimacy. They did not have it to explain the historical and social phenomena of the past and less than ever those of the present.
The result? That whenever a conflict between capital and labour manifests itself, these parties tend to take the side of capital and whenever a conflict between imperialist and anti-imperialist forces arises, they tend to take the side of the former (or at least to support them).
Between these parties, however, the ideology changes: some of them are liberal-democrats, others are liberal-conservatives, still others are an assembly between these forms.
It should be borne in mind that liberalism as such is affected by Eurocentrism and has a racist streak that it cannot easily get rid of.
Let us remember that John Locke was a shareholder of the Royal African Company and that in the first 32 years of the United States all the most illustrious Presidents (including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) were owners of black slaves.
Today's liberal-democratic forces, however, are liberal forces that have introduced elements of modern democracy, i.e. elements derived from the encounter-clash with the workers' movement and with the socialist world.
The liberal-conservative forces are forces that from this encounter-clash have introduced fewer elements, that look favourably on the liberalism of the dawn and would willingly erase all the conquests that have been brought by the Jacobin-Bolshevik tradition. They would unhinderedly erase, if they could, both the October Revolution and the French Revolution.
We understand well then that the struggle between the different liberal parties constitutes today a struggle for a redefinition of the boundaries of the "sacred space" (in which to admit the principles of freedom, tolerance and solidarity) and those of the "profane space" (which should be treated only with the brutality of violence as they are identified as a barbaric world, to be suppressed or dominated, to be excluded in any case from the golden perimeter of "civilization" - the liberal-democratic narrative prefers today to replace the dichotomy "civilization"-"barbarism" or "West"-"East" with that of "democracy"-"dictatorship").
Now, for the big press, everything that comes out of the horizon of liberalism is nothing and should not even be taken into account. So when we talk about right and left, the media of the West take for granted that we are talking about liberal left and right, because an out-of-liberalism is unthinkable for them or, if it were, it would be relegated to the "profane space".
To echo this use of terms, however, means to replicate the liberal ideology that underlies it. It means implicitly accepting the horizon of liberalism as an impassable horizon.
In order to bring some clarity back into the political discourse and not to remain unconscious victims of the prevailing ideology (which forges and uses the terms in its own image and likeness) when speaking of "left", it would perhaps be appropriate to distinguish between "Marxist left", "social-democratic left" and "liberal left".
It should also be borne in mind that in recent decades the attractive power of liberalism has played a much greater catalytic role than that of left-wing culture. A "liberal left", that is to say, precisely because it is liberal, tends to make concessions more willingly to a "liberal right" than to a "social-democratic left" or to a "Marxist left".
It is also from here that we can take the steps to respond to that question which, at every turn, returns continuously in the public debate and arouses, just by asking itself, the wrath of many voters: why doesn't the left unite?
And it is always from here that we can also start to understand what is meant in the West when the parties speak of "change": it is, every time, circumscribed changes, never radical, that always remain within the liberal horizon and systemic compatibility.
No Aufhebung is in fact expected today, in the Euro-Atlantic world, of the current system and of liberalism.
Commenti
Posta un commento