Thoughts on the destructive power of ideology

-Wasting our energies through a cycle of anger, hope, and dejection.

-Both the "elect" (leftist activists/intellectuals) and the "politically naïve" could use a boost in morale.  (Why do we think of them as naïve?)  It is not true that increasing oppression will eventually lead to revolution. There is nothing dialectical about this position.

-Revolutions are not made of bitterness and guilt; they are made of hope and confidence in a better future.

-Weber is not necessarily an enemy.  Perhaps we need to look at him a little differently and try to appropriate and use his thinking, rather than going into an automatic attack mode every time someone sounds like him.

-Interpersonal conflict and other things that people make themselves (unnecessarily?) unhappy about, tend to keep them from seeing the social solutions to the underlying causes of their difficulties.  Hence, anything that helps reduce personal unhappiness may have long-term social advantages.

-The us-vs.-them mentality is perhaps suitable only for collective bargaining situations.  Not because there is no class conflict; there definitely is.  But because a "progressive" is not something that a person is, but rather something that a person aspires to be.  A progressive is a person who, through his or her life activity, tries to bring his or her community closer to the ideal of a happier better world.  A leftist is not something that you become by some ceremony of conversion or initiation; there are no "card carrying leftists."  Being a progressive does not mean confessing to a certain creed or statement of belief.  The issue is not separating people into believers and nonbelievers, and trying to convert the latter; the material issue is to try to increase the amount and the potential for positive action in the world.

-Elitist theoris and university degrees are worth very little in the day-to-day struggle of the poor, the oppressed, and working people.  A little happiness and hope, however, can go a long way.

-Leftist objections to Weber (and now to the self-esteem movement) have been based on the notion that these ideologies try to tell people they can think or feel their problems away.  But perhaps this is a misunderstanding.  Perhaps these ideologies say the exact opposite, namely that problems must be correctly understood in their exact material nature, rather than getting bogged down by ideologies.