GeofCox on Nostr: npub1ezu9l…vjux5 npub1vdkt3…amsh2 Of course there are a range of views - ...
npub1ezu9lhk4auey2avn6393rkc5rzwwsn2zsc3dq6yd9dptlvqhr67s0vjux5 (npub1ezu…jux5) npub1vdkt3u6nfuaey7453ptnrmgj3av0enku8ygqszjatyeyfxpdrs4q6amsh2 (npub1vdk…msh2)
Of course there are a range of views - otherwise we wouldn't be able to 'take what insights we can from all the great traditions of left thought'. I don't see anything negative - or ambiguous - in this.
But don't mistake the various different blueprints for better societies that appear from time to time for substantive differences. Such blueprints come and go, and will never be realised everywhere forever anyway - history doesn't end - and as Camus argues in 'The Rebel' such teleological illusions carry inside them the terrible danger of believing 'the end justifies the means'.
The underlying unity of left thinking lies elsewhere: in working for the oppressed, opposing exploitation and injustice, and, deepest of all, in the belief that humanity is capable of organising itself on the basis of evidence and reason - it is this that really defines the left, and distinguishes it from the political right and centre.
Of course there are a range of views - otherwise we wouldn't be able to 'take what insights we can from all the great traditions of left thought'. I don't see anything negative - or ambiguous - in this.
But don't mistake the various different blueprints for better societies that appear from time to time for substantive differences. Such blueprints come and go, and will never be realised everywhere forever anyway - history doesn't end - and as Camus argues in 'The Rebel' such teleological illusions carry inside them the terrible danger of believing 'the end justifies the means'.
The underlying unity of left thinking lies elsewhere: in working for the oppressed, opposing exploitation and injustice, and, deepest of all, in the belief that humanity is capable of organising itself on the basis of evidence and reason - it is this that really defines the left, and distinguishes it from the political right and centre.