REVOLUTION #120

Opposing the enemy within in the fight to defeat Trump/MAGA fascism

Huge numbers of people have stepped forward in the crucial fight against Trump/MAGA fascism. There is an urgent need to make this fight even more powerful—in numbers and in political impact and effect—and that requires clearly and actively opposing the enemy within this fight.

This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number 120.

What is this enemy? It is the putrid culture that still prevails way too much and too often—including among people who claim to care about and to be working for a better world.

What do I mean by this “putrid culture”?

An eager indulgence in snark, gossip, slander, accusation and cancellation (whether the accusation is fabricated or true—something that is effectively irrelevant to those caught up in this).

A culture that is defined by a preference for the subjective and superficial, as opposed to substance and a serious, scientifically-grounded engagement with important objective reality in order to come to a reasoned evidence-based understanding of what is actually true and what must be done to bring about positive change.

Based on considerable experience in encountering this culture, one of the revcoms (revolutionary communists) characterized it this way:

Believe the “lived-experience” gossip vs. going by evidence. Not only do so many people not have principled standards—and don’t even know what those are—they have an actual preference for gutter-level gossip. There is a pervasive anti-intellectual distaste for being asked to do any substantive compare and contrast of different ideas and programs. For example, people will take the time to type into twitter or reddit or whatever, “what’s the deal with Bob Avakian?” but NOT expend one iota of intellectual energy to read BA’s actual work to find out. A generation raised on Real Housewives and cancel culture. There is this terrible morality, politics and ideology, but also a corrupted mode of thinking.

This is characterized by widespread schadenfreude (delight in inflicting pain on others, or witnessing the pain of others) a kind of cruelty that has too much in common with the fascists.

A big part of this is an epistemology (an approach to what is true and how to judge the truth) that also has too much in common with the fascists: the insistence that truth is subjective, or “personal,” not objective; the notion that what is true is what conforms to “what I want to believe” (including what is contained in the latest rumor—or what somebody said on the internet—so long as that is in line with “what I want to believe”). People caught up in this don’t even know what truth actually is—and, far too much, don’t even care—don’t bother to look seriously into whether something is really true or not, so long as it is, in some way, satisfying to them.

This involves an aversion (an actual resistance) to critical thinking—which is also widespread among more formally educated people, in particular among the youth.

In opposition to all this, a struggle for a scientific—as opposed to a subjective—approach to knowing the truth, is of decisive importance. An important point that I have repeatedly emphasized, including in my article Philosophy and Revolution, Part 1 (available at revcom.us), is the fact that the test of truth is not personal feelings or other subjective notions about reality—it is not what anyone wants to be true (or not true): the test of truth is reality itself.

Arriving at the truth requires an evidence-based approach: seriously engaging something and determining what the evidence shows about that something (the objective evidence, not just an opinion, or a claim—or an accusation). Unfortunately for people who prefer to indulge in lazy speculation (and gossip) about things, getting at the truth of anything, beyond the most simple and obvious phenomena, requires some work. But, especially with anything of real importance, this work is crucially necessary—because whether or not you have arrived at the actual truth of things, especially really important things, will have major consequences, one way or the other.

To emphasize once more this crucial point: “whether you have actually arrived at the truth is determined by whether or not your understanding is in correspondence with—is an accurate reflection of—objective reality.”

And:

Once objective reality is thrown out as the test of truth—once objective reality is no longer the standard against which all statements, ideas, etc. are weighed, to determine if they are true or not—then all kinds of things can be declared “true,” with often terrible consequences.

Once any professed attempt to transform the world departs from a scientific grounding, and gives expression to subjective inclinations, the door is open to serious distortions of reality and to truly terrible acts, even in the name of supposedly lofty ends.

Let’s look at some examples of how this is expressed, particularly in relation to the urgent need to develop the powerful mass mobilization necessary to defeat and remove the Trump fascist regime.

RefuseFascism.org was formed at the beginning of the first Trump fascist regime, nearly 10 years ago now—exposing the very real danger posed by that regime and working to unite and mobilize people in non-violent opposition to it. And now, with the second Trump regime moving rapidly to even more forcefully impose an even more flagrantly lawless tyranny, Refuse Fascism has once again put forward the crucial rallying cry: In The Name Of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept A Fascist America!”—and is actively uniting with people protesting and resisting Trump/MAGA fascism, with the orientation of uniting all who can be united in non-violent but sustained and determined opposition to this fascism, working tirelessly to win growing numbers of people to take up and act on the urgent demand that The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW!

You might think that this would be welcomed and positively united with by everyone who says they are opposed to this Trump regime—and this has been the case with many “ordinary people” who are sincere in their opposition to this fascism and not “invested” in some narrow and petty “movement” sectarianism. But certain “movement” sects seem to regard opposition to Trump/MAGA fascism as their “private property”—and are obsessed with dictating who has, and does not have, the right to be involved in the fight against this Trump/MAGA fascism. They have spread blatant lies about the orientation and aims of Refuse Fascism (for example, accusing it of promoting violence, when Refuse Fascism is clearly committed to non-violent mobilization). These opportunists have at times carried out thuggish physical attacks on people involved with Refuse Fascism, as part of trying to prevent people from even knowing what Refuse Fascism actually stands for—to the point of literally attempting to stop people from listening to what people from Refuse Fascism have to say or taking literature they are passing out!

This attack has centered to a large degree around the fact that, along with others coming from different perspectives, we revcoms are actively involved in Refuse Fascism, and that works of mine have been part of what some people involved in Refuse Fascism have been grappling with, in terms of how to understand the nature of this fascism, what has given rise to it, and how to defeat it. (These petty would-be “movement dictators” have even declared that nobody should work with Refuse Fascism unless Refuse Fascism “disavows” me.)

All of these unprincipled actions are an extension of—and rely on people being caught up in—the putrid culture to which I have referred here.

None of these sectarian actions by these “movement” opportunists in any way contributes, positively, to the crucial struggle to actually defeat and remove the Trump fascist regime—and, on the contrary, this does a great deal of harm. Do these opportunists even care about that? And what are they actually afraid of?

To be continued, very soon, in my next social media message (number 121).