The biggest divide on the Left is truly between those advocating for an overall extension of paternalism – people waiting to be saved (out of self-doubt, fear, laziness, etc.), or people looking to be the saviors – and those who want to maximize individual control and autonomy...

The paternalistic outlook is everywhere, from Social Democratic and/or Left electoral politics spaces where everything is centered on this idea that individual politicians will transform society for us, to more fringe, authoritarian, vanguardist spaces pushing “great man” theory.

The paternalism is commonplace because the paternalism is what we come from; it’s what we’re conditioned under.

And, naturally, we take this paternalistic outlook into our organizing spaces, our theoretical pontifications, and our practices.

This is a major, major problem.

This is dangerous. The paternalistic outlook not only weakens us in the sense that we become more fixated on individuals who are flawed and can be gone tomorrow instead of systemic solutions, but also in the sense that we cede psychological control (and our fate) to a tiny group.

The great challenge the Left faces in terms of both its internal development, as well as how it relates to the rest of the world, is in developing new organizing strategies/methods that streamline the socioeconomic transformation process whilst allowing people to lead themselves.

The working class is going to have to make a choice here and move on it:

Do we want to live in a society where we let others decide our lives for us, or do we want to decide our lives for ourselves?

If we are choosing the latter, then our organizing methods must reflect this...