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self-tantalizing torture. It is impossible to know what is the most
radical opinon to be held, because every opinion may be
undermined by further facts. Just as feminism, black power and
gay rights have be de-radicalized by a capitalism that has not
only tolerated them but fostered them as niche markets.

As private individuals we have our ethical opinions and values but
in our public guise as Monsieur Dupont we have learnt that it is a
waste of energy to hold ecological, anti-fascists or anti-nuclear
opinions, we have no power over these things and even if we could
mobilize enough support for them we think the apparent radicality
of such causes is very suspect and possibly less radical than the
current situation of instability of pressure and forces - possibly
less radical but we don't really know, so it is better for us to stick to
what we do know until someone comes along with a model of
urgent consciousness that really works.

It seems as nice as pie to advocate the transmission of
revolutionary ideas to workers in struggle so that they have a wider
perspective on the world and are therefore more prepared to
engage with society at a higher level, but when you get to the
nuts and bolts of it, the actual details of how it should be done, then
there are immediate problems: the most glaring of which is that in
this transmission of ideas and goals the pro-revolutionary 'party'
also imports into the very heart of the revolutionary project a
reproduction of the capitalist social relation: workers organized by
revolutionary experts. We see this missionary work, this
hierarchical relation, replicated in everything from support for
rebellion in Chiapas to the handing out of leaflets by activists
visiting picket lines. We see it in the vague pronouncements which
usually appear at the end of such leaflets: where class are made to
the working class, or it is stated that some kind of leap of
intellectual faith and working class solidarity (consciousness) is
needed before capitalism can be threatened: "When will you
workers wake up?" We see it also in the cozy social and political
world that the 'revolutionary experts' and activists have build for
themselves, where they can create their own importance though
their political activism.