Don't follow leaders...

Watching a Trade Union Leader



Frances O'Grady TUC embodying a larger purpose

 

Witnessing the Larger Purpose

 

...There are others, however, and I would proudly count myself amongst them, who would say that the leader is passionately committed to a cause which is larger than herself, a greater purpose, a historical project, a general, social unfolding which transcends the particular social action whilst including the particular social action (her own subjective, personal, human action), and is passionately committed to generalising her passionate commitment to the cause of social equality towards full human flourishing.

 

Consider Bertrand Russell’s prescription in times of war (first published 1916), which contains the privileging of the ideal relation of the unfolding dialectical historical practice:

 

If life is to be fully human, it must serve some end, which seems, in some sense outside of human life, some end which is impersonal and above mankind, such as God or truth or beauty.

 

And Russell continues, like the leader, to inspire those who must work to change

 

themselves and to change the world, with the courage to carry on against all the odds:

 

Those who are to begin the regeneration of the world must face loneliness, opposition, poverty, obloquy. They must be able to live by truth and love, with a rational, unconquerable hope; they must be honest and wise, fearless and guided by a consistent purpose.

 

And the leader finds herself engaged in the ‘regeneration’ project in accordance with the modern rational conditions which provide reasons for her actions. She works in a particular way in accordance with a general historical practice which legitimates the particular work in accordance with a particular articulation of British Labour Movement action. The social order makes her and she engages with the social order to make it different and better; her work chooses her and she chooses her work.

 

As Marx argues in The German Ideology: ‘circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances’. Each finds herself in particular spatio-temporally located conditions in accordance with which she must engage in the work of regeneration. Russell concurs, albeit from a more liberal, mystical perspective:

 

What we have to do practically is different for each one of us, according to our capacities and opportunities. But if we have the life of the spirit within us, what we must do and what we must avoid will become apparent to us.

 

 

                                                                

                                          Bertrand Russell and the Larger Purpose

But.....

 

I don't believe in leaders


I don’t believe in causes


I don't believe in truth


I don't believe in Russell

I don’t believe in Christmas

I don’t believe in holidays

I don’t believe in X-Factor

I don’t believe in Strictly

I don’t believe in Dad

I don’t believe in theory

I don’t believe in Sport

I don’t believe in Jesus

I don’t believe in Krishna

I don’t believe in Marx

I don’t believe in Gandhi

I don’t believe in fitness

I don’t believe in children

I don’t believe in sex

I don’t believe in banks

I don’t believe in America

I don’t believe in China

I don’t believe in Royals

I don’t believe in war

I don’t believe in love

I don’t believe in family

I don’t believe in animals

I don’t believe in medicine

I don’t believe in parties

I don’t believe in struggle

I don’t believe in teachers

I don’t believe in machines

I don’t believe in nature

 I just believe in...

And for a moment,
The boy who is nothing
Sits on the white square
Of a re-folded universe,
And with a pop
He is gone.