On 3/8/10, Ralph Dumain A Western Marxist, however untouched by or liberated from the > deadening influence of Soviet Marxism, can barely apprehend the weight > of the strangulating atmosphere of Soviet mental life as Mamardashvili > characterizes it.
^^^^ CB; Depends on how much the Western Marxist intellectual in the US is a Leninist, and involved in party work, radical political work. The repression of many US Marxists in McCarthyism , but even before and after, is not incomparable to the repression of some in the SU. In the US, the repression is rendering through unemployment, joblessness, careerlessness; denial of publishing, black listing. Witness the treatment of for example, Paul Robeson, the Hollywood Ten, dozens or hundreds of university and college professors and graduate students. There are significant stories of intellectual loneliness in the US. There are lots of pseudonyms (smile) ^^^^ ^^^^ > > Not that Americans have never experienced it, or continue to experience > it, but the relationship of the individual to the universe of knowledge > comprised by a diverse publishing industry--even at the worst periods of > repression--such that the problem is the relationship of the isolated or > suppressed individual to the zones of freer thought that exist. To take > an example: Richard Wright as a young black man in the South 80 years > ago was not allowed to borrow books from the public library, and had to > engage in trickery to check books out. His discovery of the possibility > of an intellectual life under conditions of extreme repression--the > American South being the first fascist state--had to do with > restrictions imposed upon his social environment, but not upon the > publishing industry and the universities in the nation at large in the > way that state censorship and monopolization of publishing and > distribution of information with one official ideology imposed upon all > of intellectual life would institute. These are my preliminary thoughts, > anyway. They do, in any case, invite comparisons among all kinds of > social environments and situations. > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
