Fear of organizational abuse paralyzed the left into ceding power to enemies
Evidence
As Nunes wrote, Brazil has been stalked by “the fear that the organization necessary to change the world will be the same that stops us from doing so—from there flow feelings of impotence and melancholy.” … It was an overreaction to reject them simply because they led to trauma in the twentieth century, and it is a mistake when “the establishment of structures of any kind is sensed as the start of a slippery slope towards the gulag.” Yes, we have to confront that they have the potential for misuse. But if you refuse to use the tools that work, you are not really building; you are refusing to take responsibility, and you are ceding your power to other people. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 905
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The paradox that refusing possibly-abusive tools to preserve moral purity itself cedes power to those who use them is a dense, layered diagnosis of left paralysis worth sitting with.
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: where exactly is the line between legitimate caution about structures and self-defeating refusal to organize?
- XREF: connects to: Sometimes the right political action is to wait and organize instead of disrupt — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 908; Vacated political power draws whoever is waiting in the wings to fill it — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 842; Leaders and hierarchies inevitably emerge in large groups regardless of horizontalist ideals — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 901 (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Brand-building leaders and rage algorithms hollowed out the left’s mass movements from within
#expands(0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 1049 - Left movements police their own borders and shrink their ranks
#complicates(0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 410 - Individual resistance is too weak to counter coercive organizational pressure
#expands(0.78) - The right exploits the left’s internal hypocrisies and treatment of allies
#qualifies(0.75) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 409 - Fear of total domination overrides left-right distinctions as a political yardstick.
#expands(0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 988