The Joy of Sects

Partyism : Socialist Party of Great Britain : International Communist Current

Well, I spent Saturday at a party meeting: DEMOCRACY: IS IT A WASTE OF TIME?


It was a good meeting with a couple of good talks and some interesting debate - especially since the local International Communist Current showed up to give us a visitation from Planet ICC.

For a group whose central thesis is parasitism afflicting the workers movement, I find it odd that they should come and do a paper sale (with four members and a sympathiser) outside a meeting consisting of about 30 people all told.

Grist to Stuart and Dave's point about sects I fear.

I have no problem with being called a member of a sect - I fully understand and appreciate that that is the siutuation we find ourselves in without a wider movement readilly available to join - but I do find this sects will eat themselves appraoch dispiriting - if the ICC want a debate they should organise one - for my part I've previously felt myself hugely embarrassed when I more or less accidentally came to dominate the debate at one of their meetings on the electoral circus (because they all rounded on me after my comments).

The ritual of meeting and debating is useful, it helps us learn new facts as well as hearing and countering counter arguments. Sects are useful for keeping a flame alive and concentrating minds on certain ideas and notions - the biological entities of the revolutionary meme pool. Evolution through sectual reproduction.

This post is rambling, it has no further point.