The following points are stated fairly tersely. I certainly hope to both develop and argue for them (along with some related themes), but I think there’s value to stating and inviting comment, as part of a process.
Our relation to revolutionary tradition: some initial theses
by John Steele
We are communists: not socialists but communists. To the extent that socialism is a goal, it is as a means, a way-station to communism.
Marxism is not a body of truths from which we deduce a politics. Politics is a creative practice proceeding from what is new in the present. In this practice, Marxism (and its developments) is a necessity, but the practice itself must be a process of forging new truths.
We are not revolutionaries because we are Marxist (or Maoists, or etc.), but we are Marxists (and whatever else may be necessary and applicable) because we are revolutionaries, because we seek to forge an emancipatory politics, a politics capable of overcoming the present and pursuing a communist future.
In this sense any emancipatory politics of the present will of necessity be postmarxist, postmaoist (postleninist, postanarchist, postsyndicalist….). This (or some of this) is our tradition, we love and honor it, we learn from it, but it does not define or constitute our thinking or practice.
On the one hand all this is always true. It is always true both that every era requires a new politics and that every new politics comes about through a real break with its own tradition. But on the other hand, it may not always be politically valuable to put emphasis upon this break. Lenin did not do so, nor did Mao. On the contrary, each of them felt it necessary, for reasons having to do with the political context within which they operated, not only to downplay the extent of their own break with that context and its theoretical self-interpretation, but to take the stance that their own innovations were the truth of their tradition (of Marxism, of Marxism-Leninism) from which other powerful players (Kautsky and the Second International, Khruschev and the Soviet Union) had deviated.
But that tradition, in the sense of a sequence of revolutions (Paris Commune, Russian Revolution, and Chinese) and of organizations (First, Second, Third Internationals), has reached a break; this sequence is saturated. It may retrospectively appear that a decisive advance made in this era – if we make such an advance – must be seen as another link in this sequence. But this is not the possibility from which we can proceed. Today it is necessary to articulate and give emphasis to precisely the gap between our efforts and our tradition, if we’re to create a politics which is worth anything at all.
We do not know what this politics is. It does not exist today. To forge it is both a theoretical and a practical task – the most important work we can do. What’s required is theoretical exploration and practical experimentation; this site offers itself as a space for the former.
Related posts:
Nick Paretsky on 
John Steele on 
Politics & Evil Part 3: Engaging Bill Martin’s Ethical Marxism « Kasama on 
Don Hamerquist on 
worker antagonism on 
Hi John,
You wrote:
Today it is necessary to articulate and give emphasis
to precisely the gap between our efforts and our tradition,
if we’re to create a politics which is worth anything at all.
My reply:
I hope that your conception of this “gap” does not mean that you agree with an orientation for Kasama that appears to abandon class politics.
My conclusion is that today, particularly in countries such as the U.S., where we live, revolutionary politics must be based on class politics.
That is to say that our work, the articles we write and post and so on–must be _centered_ around helping our readers become class conscious. This means we want to help them understand events from the point of view of classes with irreconciable material interests–and understand the need for the working class and oppressed to overthrow the system of bourgeois rule.
I will not bore readers by going on and on about this. I have written about this, at length, in the following thread on the Kasama forum:
Kasama ‘s social-democratic mission statement
Why the class struggle was eliminated
http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showtopic=1011
I hope, John, that as a serious thinker, you will find the ideas in this thread to be deserving of your attention and consideration.
I will be offline until next month. But if you have any comments, questions or criticisms of my views I would look forward to replying to you when I return.
sincerely and revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle
[...] Our relation to revolutionary tradition: some initial theses by John Steele : Khukuri "Marxism is not a body of truths from which we deduce a politics. Politics is a creative practice proceeding from what is new in the present. In this practice, Marxism (and its developments) is a necessity, but the practice itself must be a process of forging new truths. [...]
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Hi John,
I have a lot of disagreements with some of your assertions. As you’ll notice from my other reply dealing with Badiou, I don’t think we can properly be post-Marxist and are still in same trajectory of revolutionary theory-practice that started with the publication of The German Ideology. While we are working on new problems and dealing with new setbacks, this does not mean that we have to re-invent the whole conceptual framework. Rather, I believe we have to add to it based on our new experiences, as there are parts that are missing.
I can’t imagine a world in which I have to find a new ‘event’ to be in fidelity to that can somehow replace the Marxist sequence, which did have stages, and in which we could be said to be in the third stage of defeat and regrouping. Of course, an event will likely occur that will help us regroup for a new (and hopefully final and complete) round of success that will bring in world socialism within the next 100 years and help us struggle towards the final goal of communism.
I like this statement a lot, probably for some of the reasons the other two comments criticize it. Hopefully the following points will be seen as friendly suggestions.
I get nervous with language that claims to “love and revere” our tradition, particularly from those who may not have lived it as extensively as I have. At best this is an initial posture for an argument with people who are probably beyond persuasion. More commonly it’s a basis for diluting those critical evaluations of our traditions which are essential to a better future.
I think it is necessary to do more than note that Lenin and Mao presented their political contributions as the “truth of their tradition”. Should they have? I would argue that their de-emphasis on important elements of essential break have some responsibility for aspects of the tradition that none of us love and revere.
“What’s required is theoretical exploration and practical experimentation; this site offers itself as a space for the former.”
I question the separation of theoretical debate and practical experimentation. Possibly this means only that internet discussions have inherent limits – certainly true. However, it seems to imply a division of labor within revolutionary politics that has the flavor of Althusser’s theoretical practice. Such a division of labor will obstruct a clear understanding of the theoretical questions rising from the actual conditions of class struggle. It will work against a properly experimental approach to practical political work. One result can be that practical work confuses the concrete with the simple, or perhaps the simplistic, while the theoretical discussion flounders within controversies that rise from the abstract to the incomprehensible rather than the concrete.
Don Hamerquist (2/1)
Don -
Thanks for your comments. I think you and I have a basic agreement, which will offer a good basis for discussing differences. Let me expand a little on some of the fairly tersely stated points above.
I think the basis for a revolutionary politics today has to be theoretical exploration and practical experimentation. The necessity for both of these arises from the fact that the template many of us (many people in the world) once had (or once thought we had), is shattered. (I take this to be an obvious fact at this point in history.) This is a very general statement that could be read and spelled out in a number of ways — Marxist template, Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, anarcho-syndicalist, other strands of anarchism, etc. — and I mean it to apply to all of them.
We don’t have a plausible path toward communism, and the path toward finding one involves both theory and practice, in both cases exploratory. Obviously these aspects must interknit, overall. But each of them needs to claim, at present, a fairly strong sort of autonomy. I don’t see how it could be otherwise when both practice and theory are at such low levels as they are at present (certainly this is true in this country, and in much or most of the world as well.) The idea that these work in a sort of tight or immediate tandem with each other — first a practice-step, then a theoretical, etc. — has never been true (and reduces this dialectic to banality), but it’s particularly not helpful now.
Now in terms of this pair — theoretical exploration and practical experimentation — I believe at present the crucial aspect, the “key link,” is theory. This may be the crucial point of debate here as well. I cannot try to put out reasons for this in more detail right now (I have to leave), but let me say something very briefly in relation to the other aspect of Don Hamerquist’s comment – Part of theoretical exploration, in my view, involves our tradition(s), which must also be examined and re-evaluated in a clear- and fresh-eyed way. A large part of what we need is an understanding of both the world we inhabit and the past (certainly including the arc of 20th-century history, in its basic structures, development, and revolutionary aspects). This is part of what I mean to include under ‘theory’.
There’s much more to say, but I must go.
John Steele:
> We don’t have a plausible path toward communism
I have outlined what I consider a plausible path in a number of relatively easy-to-read essays, if anyone is interested. I list two essays below. More are available on my website.
Ben
(http, etc) struggle.net/ben/
Politics, Economics and the Mass Media
when the working class runs the show
(http, etc) struggle.net/ALDS/essay_153_content.htm
— Appendix F —
The ascendency of the
self-organizing moneyless economy
Ben Seattle speculates on some of the ways that
the self-organzing moneyless economy may unfold
as it overtakes and overwhelms the commodity economy
in the period following the overthrow of bourgeois rule
(http, etc) struggle.net/ALDS/part_7_F.htm
John,
You say, “We don’t have a plausible path toward communism…”
Unlike some other contributors to this site, I agree that this is an “obvious fact” and should be the starting point for a reexamination of our collective history. But it is important to see that communism is not only the ultimate end point of classes and class struggle, it also is – or should be – an axiomatic feature of a mass communist movement against capitalism and class society in the here and now. This means that;
“…the organized collective action should create new political space, and not reproduce the centralized management of the state.” (Badiou/Kasama, 10/2/09, Communist Hypothesis, p. 5)
When we get beyond the important issues of the past and begin to develop a strategic approach to the future, it is important to view communism as more than an objective – particularly an objective separated from where we are by various steps towards and through a protracted, but necessary stage of “socialism”. Perhaps this point is more relevant to Michael R.’s positions than yours.
Your initial conclusion above is a summation of collective practice that I accept, but one that numbers of serious revolutionaries don’t. This makes it particularly important that the issues raised by this history are clarified and dealt with openly and directly, since beyond questions of historical interpretation, they continue to impact all organized efforts towards implementing a revolutionary politics.
I doubt that you have any basic disagreement to here, but you may not follow where I would go with the theory/practice relationship.
I also reject any simplistic notion that theory should “serve practice”, but I’m hesitant to accept your alternative formulation that is more or less the defining assumption of the site: “…at present the crucial aspect, the ‘key link’, is theory.”
You say further that:
“Obviously these aspects (theory and practice – d.h.) must interknit, overall. But each of them needs to claim, at present, a fairly strong sort of autonomy.”
This is generally true, but insufficient. How should they “interknit”, and what is the essential content of this “autonomy”? Would you agree that the autonomy of theoretical investigation and discussion must include the right and responsibility to openly question and challenge the root premises of the revolutionary movement –applied both to our history and to the way these premises are articulated and implemented in contemporary politics? This necessarily involves contradictions with the collective discipline and the creation of an organized will needed to initiate “practical experimentation” (s), and there should be no illusions that any organizational formula will ever resolve these easily.
To extend the Gramscian framework, I also think that productivity of revolutionary theory depends on more than its autonomy. It also depends on developing an organic relationship to the working class, to class struggle, and to left “practice” so that it is distinctively the theory of that communist movement. A tenuous relationship of theory to the actual struggle, leads to a greater tendency for theoretical investigations to drift into academic cul de sacs. A tenuous relationship of the struggle to theory magnifies the difficulty of determining whether political outcomes, especially those that fail to meet expectations, are the consequence of the policy or of the adequacy of its implementation.
I definitely agree that political practice should be experimental. But to make this possible, the practice must be enlightened by a theory that can analyze the specific political conjuncture, clarify alternative hypotheses, and help determine the range of possibilities that are being addressed. Theory depends on a relationship to practice to properly prioritize its tasks, and political practice depends on theory to develop the mode and metrics for evaluating the outcomes of initiatives and making provisional evaluations of them.
Of course, none of this is a personal or organizational criticism. I am well aware that individuals and small groups can only do so much and typically this is painfully short of what is needed.
Don Hamerquist
Don -
You say, “I also reject any simplistic notion that theory should “serve practice”, but I’m hesitant to accept your alternative formulation that is more or less the defining assumption of the site: ‘…at present the crucial aspect, the ‘key link’, is theory.’”
First – Yes, that is the defining assumption of this site.
You hesitate to accept this because you fear the tendency of theoretical exploration unlinked to political practice to “drift into academic cul de sacs.” You believe “that productivity of revolutionary theory depends on more than its autonomy. It also depends on developing an organic relationship to the working class, to class struggle, and to left ‘practice’ so that it is distinctively the theory of that communist movement.”
Well – yes, of course, theory will bind itself into dead ends and run into the sand if “left to its own devices,” so to speak. But there are times when breakthroughs in the realm of theory are a primary need, and if that has ever been true it’s true now.
We need a deep understanding of the present and of the past which has led to it, and we need a strategic conception of how the present may be overcome in an emancipatory way. We may have bits and pieces of all of this, here and there, but generally we don’t have any of this. And getting it is a theoretical task. It is *the* theoretical task. So it’s not that of course we always need theory; it’s that our theoretical need, at this historical juncture, is deep and primary.
You point to the necessity of “developing an organic relationship to the working class, to class struggle, and to left ‘practice’ ” — But honestly, and excuse the sharpness, this strikes me as “nice words” with virtually no content at this historical moment. What, and where, is class struggle and left practice at this moment? They barely exist, certainly in any form worthy of the name. What would an organic relationship with the working class consist in, at this juncture?
You ask, “Would you agree that the autonomy of theoretical investigation and discussion must include the right and responsibility to openly question and challenge the root premises of the revolutionary movement –applied both to our history and to the way these premises are articulated and implemented in contemporary politics?”
Yes, I very much agree with this. But again — You speak of “the revolutionary movement.” Is there anything which could be described as such in this country, or in any part of the imperialist or advanced capitalist world? I do not mean self-denominated, but in reality.
Let us look at where we are, frankly and forthrightly, recognize our deep poverty theoretically and practically, and seek to remedy it.
hi John,
I agree with your points about a need to rethink key ideas, but I can’t tell from this site how much of that rethink you think is needed. I mean, how far down must the rethink go? Are we talking about the ways we understand capitalism and movements? Or are we talking about more thoroughgoing philosophical questions? Personally, I really like philosophy but I’m not convinced that we need – need in political terms I mean – much in terms of addressing perennial questions of philosophy (I’m thinking of Badiou and Negri on ontology, though I think the posts on Kant and Marx recently could fit here too). To put it another way, it seems to me that there is a history and a tradition of understanding the relationship of theory and practice and what sorts of theory we need, and in some ways Khukuri calling for a return to basic theoretical questions is very much not a break from the marxist tradition at a philosophical or meta-philosophical level.
take care,
Nate
Nate -
Clarify for me – are you asking, Why does politics need philosophy? Or are you saying, in effect, we already have the philosophy we need, so why open up questions on this level?
My impression from what you say is that you’re asking the first question, and in effect saying that philosophical conceptions or reconceptions are not necessary (possibly the reverse) for politics. But I don’t want to assume.
I do think we need philosophical reconception – but not from the viewpoint that politics is based on philosophical conceptions – not at all. I do believe, though, that human thinking in diverse areas is interconnected, and philosophy offers a sort of deep vantage point for consideration of these fundamental connections and interrelations. I think that many people who are politically involved often operate with rather impoverished philosophical concepts – of ‘materialism’ for example – and this has real (and harmful) political effects. The solution is not to eschew philosophy but to seek a deeper understanding. Especially now.
In rethinking, certainly we are talking about rethinking the “ways we understand capitalism and movements” – but unless we’re thinking simply pragmatically (not a good idea imo), this quickly gets into the realm of theory, and (in my view) getting very deep in theory soon becomes, or needs, philosophy.
You say, “there is a history and a tradition of understanding the relationship of theory and practice and what sorts of theory we need, and in some ways Khukuri calling for a return to basic theoretical questions is very much not a break from the marxist tradition at a philosophical or meta-philosophical level.”
Could you clarify and explain? Make this more pointed, if you would.
Thanks -
hi John,
Sorry I was unclear. I’m not sure how much philosophical rethinking we need today, that’s the main issue, and yes, I’m also unsure how much we need philosophy at all. I don’t have an argument here so much as vague doubts.
I also think a lot depends on what we mean by philosophy (among other things I’m unsure how the type of philosophy you’re saying we need – and I should have said alrady, I’m sympathetic, just unsure – relates to the academic discipline of philosophy). I also think a lot depends in this conversation on the sorts of philosophical inquiry we’re talking about. I’ve got an impulse toward/intuitions in favor of deflationary or therapeutic philosophical arguments. I don’t have a clear sense of why but I’m taken primarily with negative philosophical arguments that take apart bad positions, much more so than I am with positive philosophical statements. I don’t yet have an argument here in favor of what I favor but I’d like to point out that this sort of thing is what I meant by metaphilosophy, philosophizing about philosophy. Sorry if I’m stating the obvious there.
Deflationary arguments and my intuitions aside, I also think there’s a metaphilosophical issue here about philosophical register or the scope of philosophical inquiry we need. For example, I found the Lenin article you posted helpful and it’s clearly a piece of philosophy (I forget the title and author, but it was the one that distinguished first and second order strategy). I find Negri on Spinoza a political red herring, though, and not just because of Negri’s views but because I see little necessary connection between ontology and other issues. (This isn’t about Negri, I’d say the same of Badiou’s writing on ontology/meta-ontology. I like his claim very much that ontology is mathematics, but I don’t see what it matters for politics. I wonder as well about how Badiou would see this, I’m unclear about how he thinks about interactions between philosophy and the four truth conditions [truth procedures? I forget the term].) Anyway, I know that ideas *can* pass from or have effects across a register like Negri’s on ontology to a register like that in the Lenin essay. But I don’t think we *need* arguments in the former registers in order to make arguments in the latter.
About my vague comment w/r/t the historical theory-practice relationship, sorry that was so vague. I’ll try again. In my opinion one intellectual tendency in the marxist tradition is a metaphilosophical perspective, about how theory and practice relate. More specifically, I think we can point to various moments when people in the tradition have called for/tried to practice a big philosophical rethink along the lines you’re suggesting we need, and have made arguments like yours. There’s nothing wrong with that (so this isn’t a point where I meant to be or want to be pointed). I was just trying point out a continuity alongside your emphasis on break.
On the one hand you’re calling for a break with the tradition with regard to a lot of contents — we need to invent politics today, for us. On the other hand, that call for a break and a reinvention is part of what defines our tradition. I’m thinking mainly here of Lukacs’s essay on orthodox marxism, it’s been a while since I read it but I remember him saying ‘we could change all the content but remain marxists’, which to me suggests a way to break from the tradition within the tradition. None of this is meant as a criticism. For whatever it’s worth, I think I have intuitions that are the reverse of all this – I feel less need for a break from the tradition at the level that you’re calling for, but I think you’re emphasis on a need to go back to philosophical questions right now is more of a piece with the tradition than my own doubts about how much philosophy we need.
I’m not sure I’ve been any clearer here, I’m sorry if not. I’m still thinking a lot of this out as is probably obvious, which makes it harder to be clear.
take care,
Nate
Nate, I think what you are saying is actually also what Bosteels suggest in his afterward to ‘A Leftist Ontology: Beyond Relativism and Identity Politics’ (largely available at googlebooks), namely that many on the left blindly assert there is a need for philosophical underpinnings to Marxism, that is an ontology of some sorts. At least that was also my critical point toward Zizek in my comment here on Dean’s review of the PV.
Regarding Badiou’s mathematics I think again I agree with you, as do some of the better Badiou interpreters.
I have to say that the fact that articles on Zizek and Badiou can be posted here side by side with articles calling for more Kantianism and ethics (Bill Martin) is rather disturbing (on different levels), then again, it could have been expected.
Rodman -
Why do you find it disturbing that articles on Zizek and Badiou are posted here “side by side” with articles on Bill Martin’s call for Kantianism and ethics?
You say you find this disturbing “on different levels” — Meaning?
And why do you say that “it could have been expected”? What is the “it” and why was it expectable?
I’m fairly mystified. Could speculate, but I’d rather have your clarification.
John,
I like this post. I find it particularly helpful how you distinguish actual from ostensible breaks (you suggest that Lenin/Mao took the form of continuity but were substantive breaks, and I’m sure we’ve all run into pseudo novel politics that were really warmed over versions of positions we’d already encountered).
That said, I wonder about your claim to ‘saturation’. You describe the tradition “in the sense of a sequence of revolutions and of organizations” as saturated. Is the part I quoted a definition of the tradition or it a qualification of the scope of saturation (such that there is some other sense in which the tradition is not saturated)?
Also, you write that “It may retrospectively appear that a decisive advance made in this era – if we make such an advance – must be seen as another link in this sequence. But this is not the possibility from which we can proceed. Today it is necessary to articulate and give emphasis to precisely the gap between our efforts and our tradition, if we’re to create a politics which is worth anything at all.”
No disrespect intended, but I don’t see how you can actually know this. I think what this really amounts to is a hypothesis that we’ll be better off if we (or maybe just a prescription that we ought to) emphasize the gap. I’m having trouble seeing what the claim to saturation amounts to other than rhetorical weight for that hypothesis (or that prescription).
I say this in part because I’d like to think (my own hypothesis and prescription) that there may be untapped resources in the less dominant sections of our tradition. Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I have a hard time seeing where reading history fits into the emphasis you make here.
Finally, I’m curious to know what you make of Don’s criticisms of the tradition (elsewhere here in a comment he refers, I think, to Lenin and others helping create brutal forms of capitalism). Again maybe I misunderstand but it seems to me there is an important difference between ‘the sequence is saturated’ — which I take to be a claim about the utility in the present — and a criticism of past actors in their own moment.
take care,
Nate
Nate -
Thanks for your very thoughtful comments and questions. I’ll try to clear a few things up.
You ask about my description of the tradition “in the sense of a sequence of revolutions and of organizations” as saturated, and ask whether I mean that simply this aspect of the tradition is saturated (or the tradition in every respect). I mean the former, that is, that this series of revolutions and organizations, as a continuous sequence, is saturated. We cannot think to simply take up this chain again and forge the next link.
On the question of “it may retrospectively appear” which you raise. Of course I’m not asserting that it will appear that way, or that it won’t. I’m simply rising that possibility – and saying that this possibility is not something we can actually proceed from — and that we should, as you say, emphasize the gap.
On the examination of history and how this fits into this (you say “I have a hard time seeing where reading history fits into the emphasis you make here”), I should probably have made explicit the fact that I include historical reexamination and recasting as part of the theoretical project. As I say above in my reply to Don Hamerquist, Part of theoretical exploration, in my view, involves our tradition(s), which must also be examined and re-evaluated in a clear- and fresh-eyed way. A large part of what we need is an understanding of both the world we inhabit and the past (certainly including the arc of 20th-century history, in its basic structures, development, and revolutionary aspects). This is part of what I mean to include under ‘theory’.
Certainly (to address what you say in your final paragraph) “a criticism of past actors in their own moment” is part of such a re-evaluation, but I don’t believe it should be a big part of it. In particular, I believe its very unfruitful to approach historical examination with the goal of reaching “verdicts” on particular episodes (Kronstadt: right or wrong? – Great Leap Forward: uphold or condemn?), which has too often been the case among leftists. Nor can we approach the revolutionary past in order to see “what went wrong” so that we can build on the good parts and avoid the mistakes. (I hope it’s obvious why I say this.)
I’m sure I have still left loose ends. I look forward to more discussion (and critique).
hi John,
Thanks for the clarifications. I don’t mean this disrespectfully, it’s a sincere question – do you think there’s a link between your trajectory (I’m assuming because of the Khukuri-Kasama link that you were in the RCP milieu) and the importance of the emphasis on gap for you? I say this in part because I think my own attachment to history and criticizing past actors is tied to my … loyalties, for lack of a better term. (I belong to the IWW.) Given where you’re coming from, I can see where emphasizing the gap is an important move. I find myself wanting to appeal to a less dominant tradition (I’m taking the CP and so on as part of the more dominant left tradition), not just for reaching verdicts (I agree with you that sitting in judgment of past actors is an empty exercise) but as a way to try to think through current projects. To my mind this necessarily involves some criticism of past actors who opposed the people I want to know more about. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is the US Socialist Party expelling its members who belonged to the IWW. Oh, here’s another, maybe a better example – I find Italian movements and some Italian marxism from the late 60s through the late 70s exciting politically and intellectually. I think it’s impossible to make sense of any of that without having some very thorough criticism of the Italian CP. I also am unsure how the people I’m excited about in that period fit into the saturated-sequence portion of our tradition. I’ve been saying ‘less dominant’, that feels clumsy but I don’t have a better term. I’d consider the Italian CP a dominant part of the tradition (a part I’m happy to distance myself from), and the marxists to their left who they helped repress to be not dominant and so in a sense not saturated (though they identified a fair amount with earlier parts of the tradition that you’re saying are now saturated, something I’m not at all sure what to do with).
anyhow, this a thought provoking conversation, so thank.
cheers,
Nate
[...] Source: http://www.khukuritheory.net [...]
What is disturbing John, is that people would like their communist Badiou-Zizek pastrami stuffed with Kantian cheesefingers, but then again, the W.C. cleaninglady could be right that it’s all the same shit.
Rodman -
Two things:
This site does not represent a unified “position,” but a space for theoretical explorations aiming toward an emancipatory politics, as it is put in our “About” statement. Authors and essays which appear on this site may and will disagree with each other. But whether the positions of Badiou, Zizek, and Kant on ethics are incompatible is a point at issue – which you haven’t spoken to in any substantive way at all. In any case the point is exploration and discussion with a purpose – and in a respectful manner.
In line with this, I’d ask that your comments be made in a way that respects others and contributes to the substance of the discussion. I’d also draw your attention to another line in the About statement: disrespectful flaming will simply be removed.