Toney, 13, Simon Toney, University of Sydney, Department of Government and International Relations, Anti-Capitalism: A Beginner’s Guide, (PDF version:file:///C:/Users/foxct/Dropbox/PC%20(3)/Downloads/Anti-CapitalismBG_FullText.pdf), Zapatismo and ‘post ideology’, pg. 133, - FT
As a post-ideological politics Zapatismo effectively renounces the superstructure of expectations that have informed political philosophy since Plato invented the Philosopher Kings. This is to say that it has forsaken the idea that knowledge or understanding can give a superior insight into issues concerning how we should live and, thus, that, for example, I as a political theorist with twenty or so years’ worth of heavy reading behind me, have the right or the role to ‘legislate’ on behalf of others. It means that what the intellectuals or the ‘vanguards’ say is simply one set of views to be considered (or not) alongside everyone else’s views – no matter how ridiculous, incomprehensible, outlandish or outrageous the latter may seem. Everyone’s voice has in this sense equal weight and an equal right to be heard. If this sounds quite a lot like a certain kind of democratic liberalism, then in a sense it is. But Marcos insistently poses the questions:which liberal is it that actually wants the unmediated voice to be decisive? Which liberal thinks that voices are more important than structures, institutions and constitutions? Which liberal is it that wants the ‘voice’ to be heard on every matter facing the community, whether it be the kind of crops to be sown or the direction of military strategy? Which liberal is really prepared to hear everyone’s voice, without the ‘convenience’ of representatives to give sense or ‘wisdom’ to them? Certainly not the neoliberals. The problem is that liberalism in practice is quite a different proposition to democratic liberalism in theory, which in turn explains the success of liberalism in establishing itself as the dominant or hegemonic idea of the modern world. They say they are listening, but are they really?
