Socialists Are Generally Elitist, and That's Ok

Oops I did it again writes:

What socialists are not “elitist”? Aside from the “revolutionary masses”, all those who fancy leading/instructing them are and must be “elitists”. It’s people who need a mission, something that will make them heroes, and are too intelligent to find that kind of gratification doing jobs even for 120 IQ people.

Of course this is true. It’s always been true. It’s surely true with Leninists and Communists. It always bothered me that Communist Party membership was limited to say, Are the masses really that stupid and unaware of their own needs that only the top If you read early Marxists, they were quite clear that the masses didn’t know what the Hell they were doing, had no idea of what their needs or even wants were, and were very easily swayed to support their class enemies on the basis of nationalism, jingoism, tribalism, racism, sexism, values conservatism, or religion. They had no idea what they were doing and were incapable of figuring out what was best for them, so a paternalistic yet benevolent socialist elite (vanguard) was needed to show them the way. Granted, that may be the case, but it always seemed insulting towards the masses. And even after years or decades of Communism, the masses are still as retarded as ever? After all those revolutionary classes and sessions, and they haven’t transformed in the slightest? That seemed so dubious to me. The Chavistas, Sandinistas and others were trying to get away from that. I believe anyone can join the Sandinista Party, and members were often poor urban workers or peasants. The FMLN party in El Salvador is the same. Both of those parties managed to sell their project very well to the masses. Of course they were helped by decades of ruling class brutality and dictatorship that showed even the most blind of the masses that the ruling classes could never possibly be their friends in any formation or guise. The Chavistas in Venezuela are much the same. In fact, the party itself is a grassroots party such that the grassroots nearly control the party direction, and those at the top are nearly beholden to those at the bottom, a complete transformation of typical human political relations, or probably of typical human relations in just about anything for that matter. That’s not quite Direct Democracy, but it’s getting awful close.

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0 thoughts on “Socialists Are Generally Elitist, and That's Ok”

  1. A very good example is that all the early founders of the Indian Communist Party were Brahmins. The most well known Dalit icon Ambedkar didn’t like the Communists because of the Hindu Commie honchos’ brazen air of superiority. I read that the early Hindu Commies were also comically ‘Eurocentric’ like they could be more knowledgeable of the Communist Party of Italy than say the French Communists. BTW, Ambedkar married a Brahmin women. It was like M. L. King Jr. married a Nordic Blonde.
    A few years ago, I read an interview of a certain latter day female Dalit leader on the dismal education situation in India, particularly that of the Dalit children. When asked what she thought should be the preferred language of classroom instruction for Dalit children, I vividly remember she said: “English of course”, ie the lingual image the upper caste Hindus want to project or emulate.
    India is an amazingly elitist country.

  2. To put the argument into a finer resolution, the masses have a reasonable idea what they want. What they don’t know, is how to get there.
    I don’t know too many working class people who want the wealth to go to the top 1%. But why do they support those who bring about this outcome? Because they have been conned into believing that in doing this, they’ll get what they want too. They’d probably accept another way if it was presented to them, which it isn’t. They’d probably accept another way if they could see through the bullshit, but they don’t invest enough time and energy to do this effectively. They probably wouldn’t fall for it if better educated, but they aren’t.
    Really, what people need is a vanguard who have the capacity and means to invest the mental energy and time to see through the bullshit, through the false ideologies and act as some kind of ideas broker. This is probably also why the Establishment always seek to ridicule such people so they aren’t listened to.
    I’m not much for elitism. I wouldn’t assume to know whats best for others, but I’ve probably got a better idea on how to sort out the bullshit that’s presented to them.

  3. Yes, it is a pack of lies for the most part. Nothing wrong with coming up with numbers for how many various Commies killed, but that is way too ideological and often it’s just wrong. Isn’t that written by Rummell?

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