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1. ☭⚑ Comrade Angles ⚑☭ (angle@anticapitalist.party)'s status on Tuesday, 01-May-2018 15:51:00 EDT ☭⚑ Comrade Angles ⚑☭

   Heres a fascinating article by Scott Alexander, about the Fabian society. I'd never heard of them, but now I want to read more. :/

   http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/30/book-review-history-of-the-fabian-society/

   1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Tuesday, 01-May-2018 15:59:41 EDT Long Angles

      in reply to

      "I used to be upset when charitable and activist organization would have really nice offices with lots of art on the wall, call in expensive catered lunches to their events, and hire a bunch of graphics design and PR people to make everything look perfect. Wasn’t this excessive? Shouldn’t they be spending their money and energy on the cause? Pease argues no. There were hordes of unwashed socialists standing on soapboxes raving about Revolution. The Fabians’ comparative advantage was looking respectable. For a cause like socialism, where an important part of the battle is moving it into the Overton Window, handing out really well-designed stationery was important activism in and of itself."

      Hmm. Thats an interesting point. :/

      1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Tuesday, 01-May-2018 18:31:27 EDT Long Angles

         in reply to

         Another interesting point, though I think you see some of Scott's bias hanging out here, or at least that of the dude he's quoting. :V

         "The Fabians protected a sort of middle-class-liberal atmosphere of intellectual freedom and what Pease referred to as an inability to take themselves seriously – not in the sense of not being committed, but in the sense where they would laugh at anyone who seemed too pompous or too certain of anything. Pease seems to have thought that the lower classes’ lack of a liberal education and likely religious upbringing made them susceptible to a dogmatic orthodox Marxism marked by witch-hunts to weed out revisionists. Most British intellectuals wouldn’t have been willing to put up with such a climate, and so wouldn’t have been able to get into socialism. The Fabian Society provided an alternative space where the sort of open debate that intellectuals and middle-class people take for granted was available and encouraged"

         1. Long Angles (angle@dragon.style)'s status on Tuesday, 01-May-2018 22:18:07 EDT Long Angles

            in reply to

            @Angle They (The Fabian Society) published a number of interesting essays, too:

            http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/shaw-fabian-essays-in-socialism