G'day all, First of all, I fear I may accidentally just have rejected Dave Bedggood's very worthwhile post in a frenzy of rejecting commercial spam. If so, sorry Dave. Feel free to send it again. And a happy new year to you, too, mate.
Now, to Hugh, who wrote: > This to me indicates the polarization of revolutionary activists, to > some extent, away from arguing the toss with petrified opponents > (such as, to take a dialectical example, Oleachea, who is not just > rigid but also squishy and volatile at the same time...) to more > targeted activities in real social life. It also indicates a > (temporary) hegemony on the Net of arsehole sceptics and opportunists > like P and H, who have nothing but borrowed feathers in common with > Marxism and even less in common with Marx himself, his thought and > deeds. Skepticism ain't arseholery, Hugh. It's a daily necessity in a dynamic world. I do suspect some people (and many of 'em lefties) like the cut and thrust of personalised arguments and accusations, and that Thaxis lost its currency when most of the louder duellists left (perhaps leaving the list overly dependent on underly engaged moderators, I dunno). > What I'd like to see in the meantime is a bit of serious > self-criticism from the fence-sitters who were tempted to write off > the working-class and its historical power because of the shock to > the existing mass and most left class leaderships caused by the > capitulation of the Soviet bureaucracy to imperialism. All those > writing off Marx and class analysis and the pivotal significance of > the October revolution for instance -- what are they thinking now > that even good old Dagens Nyheter, the neo-liberal Swedish daily, has > informed us that Marx is back in the ring, and you can't discuss > world events and developments without him. > Oh, the ironies of history! > > So. Rob, as fence-sitter par excellence -- a comment? I'll admit to some splinters in the buns, Hugh, but not to the traits you accord 'fencesitters'. I never wrote off Marx, class or history. I have my doubts about the continual 'leadership' and 'vanguard' refrains because I can't (in the context of an imaginable reality) sufficiently distinguish between these programmatic verities of yours and the danger of substitutionalism, charismatic saviourism and bureaucratic centralism. I read socialism as practical radical democracy, you see. But we've been there a hundred times, eh? > PS My silence is due to personal reasons. They don't stop me > thinking, though... Well, I do hope all's well, mate. All the best, Rob. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
