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That's a question of style. Being and appearing reasonable whereever possible. What I wanted to say is this: Most of the 'average guys' I meet dislike arrogance, whether it presides over truth or fallacy. If they could see the amount of arrogance between us - fortunately, unfortunately, they cannot - they'd tap their foreheads and walk away without considering whether we know something valuable or not. I could blame them, but often I myself find it hard to go through our texts, even though I really want to, because I literally must search for the argument under debris of sarcasm and accusation. It's really tedious. Ernst Alexander Rauter, a German marxist looking at his folks in the 60s wrote a book on their language. He saw that the way most socialists spoke and wrote turned people away from the marxist critique *before *they had a real chance to look at it, and that certain complications restricted the movement of ideas within the movement. On top of external factors - marginalisation of left groups and anti-socialist propaganda, this was always a third, completely unnecessary, hindrance to the spread of our critique. One problem he found was unnecessary complexity, a critique that Slavoj Zizek's talks may deserve. He likes it when he can jump from one point to another and make good-looking connections. He likes complex analytical problems, like a mathematician likes blackboards full of numbers. At least that is what he says. Rauter also critizised that, in a room full of marxists, each would try to keep the theoretical upper-hand, and that the atmosphere often resembled that of an intellectual boxing match rather than a group of people collectively thinking about *what to do*. Occasionally these battles might be instructive, as they dealt with a subject of importance. But most times the style of the discussion was so unscientific and the discussion so uncooperative (maybe aggressive is a better word) that there was little gain. The whole loud meeting was spent shouting at each other, but still nobody knew what to do next. I know maybe thirty young idealists who are seriously interested in socialist theory. There remains something magical about the idea of socialism - just the crude idea for now, and they are drawn towards it, they want to know 'how'. All possess an open mind. All dive into our writings in search of meaning. Of the thirty, except for one who by chance has found her path, so far all were held off by the writers' style. Blame them if you like. His argument was something along this line: If we are all on the same quest for the same objective truth, and none of us can realize it unless many of us do, displays of superiority will do damage, while mutual intellectual aid will see us thrive. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
