Thread by @caitoz

The Revolutionary Struggle Is A Fight Between Movement And Inertia

"Most of the energy going into this debate has been focused on personalities; on AOC, on Dore and on his critics. But really this is just the latest manifestation of a perennial dynamic."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-revoluti…

There's a feud on the American political left right now which (as usual) breaks down more or less along the lines of center-left "Bernie in the primary, Clinton/Biden in the general" progressives angrily opposing a push towards meaningful change from those further to the left.

It all started when comedian and lefty commentator @jimmy_dore made a video arguing that House progressives should refuse to re-elect Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker unless she puts Medicare for All to a floor vote.

Dore's argument has been endorsed by many high-profile voices on the left, and it has also been dismissed by many others including AOC.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1337619367857713154

I haven't seen any convincing arguments why Dore's suggestion should not be implemented, but I have seen many strong arguments for why it should, like this one:

Most of the energy going into this debate has been focused on personalities; on AOC, on Dore and on his critics. But really this is just the latest manifestation of a perennial dynamic whose roots go much deeper.

The entire revolutionary struggle, ultimately, is a battle between movement and inertia.

Proponents of inertia always try to get people hung up on whether or not the specific details of the movement being proposed is exactly perfect in every conceivable way.

They're like the Lethargians in The Phantom Tollbooth, saying "you can do anything as long as it's nothing" and making every argument they can come up with for why you should remain in the Doldrums forever.

We are stuck. Stuck in the Doldrums. Stuck in a power-serving holding pattern that is driving us toward death and dystopia.

What do you do when something is stuck? Do you insist that every movement you make to un-stick it must be perfect?

In the same way, our job here is to create movement. We don't need to worry about offending Nancy Pelosi or upsetting the plans of the Lethargians in the sludge pool. We've just got to get things moving, with the understanding that we can continually course-correct once moving.

The illusion that safety lies in inertia is due to a glitch in human perception called status quo bias, which causes people's default assumption to be that keeping things the same is less risky than change even when that is plainly not the case.

If you've ever been stuck up a tree as a kid you've experienced status quo bias very concretely: if you remain too afraid to release your grip on the branches swaying in the wind, you remain in a position that is entirely unsustainable.

But the safety isn't up here, it's down on the ground with our feet firmly planted on old mother earth. It's in a big movement from a society that is based on competition and driven by profit to a society that is based on collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem.

Until we actually let go of our attachment to the status quo and take the leap into the unknown, trusting in our ability to course-correct as needed once we are in motion, we're just killing time in the Doldrums, waiting for the end of the world.