Halfway through Problems of Everyday Life pt 1- ignorance

This is a series of editorials and speeches given by Trotsky in the years following the Revolution of October 1917. This volume (Monad press, 1973, third edition, 1979) incorporates the book *Problems of Life*. Covered within are areas ranging from habit (including spitting, family and gender roles) to hard science and the teaching thereof.

Many people ask what a post-revolutionary world or society would be like- the assumptions today are fairly dystopic, with anything from re-education camps to flat out enslavement and annialation prophesied as excuses to avert revolution. To be sure, there would be a period of comparative chaos, but this is where the true test of a revolution lies. Post revolution (as act of overthrow) there is the building of society anew. There are shards of the old society which must be thrown off still- habits die harder than governments.

In the essay which originally appeared in Pravda on April 4, 1923, Civility and Politeness as a Necessary Lubricant in Daily Relations, we find nothing to which even Miss Manners could raise an objection. Trotsky takes on the manner in which the state addresses the people, how the population is treated. He also tackles forms of rudeness-

--But our rudeness itself is not homogeneous. There is the simple rudeness of peasant origin, which is unattractive, certainly, but not degrading. It becomes unbearable and objectively reactionary only when our young novelists boast of it as of some extremely 'artistic' acquisition. The foremost elements of the workers regard such false simplicity with instinctive hostility, for they justly see in the coarseness of speech and conduct a mark of the old slavery, and aspire to acquire a cultured speech with its inner discipline. But this is beside the point...

Side by side with this simple kind, the habitual passive rudeness of the peasant, we have another, a special kind- the revolutionary- a rudeness of the leaders, due to impatience, to an over-ardent desire to better things, to the irritation caused by our indifference, to a creditable nervous tension. This rudeness, too, if taken by itself, is, of course, not attractive, and we dissociate ourselves from it; but at bottom, it is often nourished at the same revolutionary moral fount, which, on more than one occasion in these years, hs been able to move mountains. In this case what must be changed is not the substance, which is on the whole healthy, creative and progressive, but the distorted form...

We still have, however- and herein is the chief stumbling block- the rudeness of the old aristocracy, with the touch of feudalism about it. This kind is vile and vicious throughout. It is still with us, uneradicated, and is not easy to eradicate.--

I will stop there, though Trotsky did not, as he goes on to discuss red tape and the composition of and fight against it.

Let's talk about rudeness and its uses for a moment, though. As he points out, there are several kinds of rudeness, that of ignorance and the habit of being oppressed, which serves to keep the illiterate and uncultured in 'their place'; that of the revolutionist, who in their drive to accomplish things, lets civility slip- which is, as noted by T, someting which needs changing; and that of the aristocrat, which is born of a sense of entitlement and which is used as a weapon to keep others at a distance.

On the first kind- we do see this even today, of course. "Street cred" is something which is fought for (often literally), and to attempt to improve one's mind is often derided as "being all bougzhie", or "acting uppity". The getting of good grades in certain circles is seen as somehow selling out (it has been brought up most recently as a problem in African-American circles, but it is certainly not limited to this area. If I may lodge in your head a very bad song from the 1980's- Billy Joel asks "Should I try to be a straight-A student?", and answers by way of choral arrangement that, "If you are, then you think too much").

The stereotype of the "egghead" serves a role in society, whether the nerds get their revenge or not. Those who think are seen as hopelessly sexless, ill-socialized, and often badly dressed. Why? Whom does it serve to keep people from thinking- and thinking critically at that? The answer is pretty obvious- a stupid and illiterate population is easier to fool, and easier to oppress. Let us not forget that there were laws against teaching blacks to read in the United States. Their oppression was an economic imperative.

Today educationall funding is being cut accross great swaths of the country- the poor, who attend public schools, are often sent on ahead whether they have achieved literacy or not. The children of the elite are given tutoring in areas which are deemed important for future success. This, combined with a misguided and self-defeating denigrating of "thinking too much" serves only to perpetuate the cycle of oppression.

While it can certainly be argued that the public schools will teach what the government approves, it must also be noted that without the very basic tools of literacy (both verbal and numerical), there is no hope whatever of advancement either as a knowledgable participant in revolution or within the capitalist system. So it is as simple as this: The capitalist system benefits from the ignorance and subsequent "marking by uncouth manners" (if you will) that is entailed.

Other entities benefit, too, from such things. There are movements which will gladly prey on the ill-informed (religious ones spring to mind immediately, though they are by far not alone).

The pressure from within to not "act all boughzie" is particularly insidious. Wearing ignorance as a badge of valour plays directly into the hands of "the man" who is so oppressive. The defining of oneself as "not playing that game", no matter how it is put, precludes oneself from freedom. KNOWLEDGE is power, not ignorance.

The idea, closely connected with this, that having a modicum of civility and respect for your fellow human beings is also "acting boughzie" or otherwise playing into the hands of "the man" and therefore that to treat people with rudeness is necessary to maintain credibility within one's social circle is not only alienating, but also actually does play into the hands of the powers that be. If you cannot have a calm, straightforward and informed discussion with someone, you cannot foment revolution.

Do not mistake wanton violence and rioting with revolution- a conflation which is often made both by the (rightfully) extreemly angry and the quasi-leftish trust funded youth at university- revolution is a creative action. Though some windows might get broken along the way, this is not the goal- the goal is to build a better society which is designed for the good of the workers, not to leave everything in rubble. Knocking down is only half the way there. To stop amidst the shattered remains of the buildings of commerce and say "we have defeated them" is to allow the contracters to come in, rebuild with stronger materials and crack down on the freedoms of expression.

To knock down properly, one needs the plans for what is to be built either from the remains of the materials or from the new. In order to know what needs knocking down and what can be made- what should be made- in its stead, you need to have a solid revolutionary theory in place. In order to get that solidity, you need to be able to examine the options as they are- not just as you are told they are. You need not only literacy to examine the words, you need the critical thinking skills to place those words in the context of the actions taken by the speakers (do they match, the words and the actions?), and you need a knowledge of history and its driving forces.

Capitalism relies on a certain amount of ignorance- the less people know of their history, of the rights fought for and won, the less capitalism has to cover up. The less perspective people have, the more often we will hear phrases justifying current conditions with a skewed comparrisson to past ones- "You think you have it bad because your pension is being cut, well, at least you aren't a twelve year old factory worker, so you really have no complaint". That we had to fight so hard to get twelve-year olds out of the factories in the States and Europe is left out of the equation- had they their way, twelve year olds would be back in the factories in more places. Certainly they'd rather they had them there than possibly learning to read in the schools.

It would be a whole lot easier, say the elites, if people "Knew their place". Ironically, we hear much the same thing in the hurling of accusations of "acting boughzie" of the oppressed. In keeping hold of the traditions of crudeness and illiteracy, we keep tight hold of our chains and make it unnecessary for the elites to strangle us since we do such a good job of it ourselves.