Hinrich Kuhls wrote: > Louis Proyect's brief report on the Rethinking Marxism Conference "Politics > and Languages of Contemporary Marxism" has been welcome as one of the > little bricks that are needed to end the ignorance regarding the issues > being discussed by the Left in different countries. OK, I had been willing to withdraw from this thread ... but you (and Barkley and Michael's comment on Hinrich's post) have pulled me back into it. Let's begin with some simple facts: a) Proyect publicly, loudly, and viciously trashed this conference months before it happened -- indeed before he even had a full schedule of the conference. He did this on the marxism-international list and his comments are a matter of public record which are available to anyone who wishes to check the archives at Spoons. b) Hinrich and Barkley were on the marxism-international list at the time and were therefore fully aware of the above. (other PEN-Lers like Rakesh and Paul Z were there as well and will remember Proyect's posts). c) Proyect decided, after all, to attend the conference even though he was still publicly and vocally hostile to that conference. d) Hinrich, fully aware of the above, asked Proyect to write a review of the conference. I can not say whether Hinrich informed the editors of _Sozialismus_ of Proyect's very clearly stated bias against the conference. The above is a scandal of the first order as I will detail in a separate post when I compare it to the "Social Text affair." Barkley's explanation and Hinrich's evasions will not hold water. To begin with, there is an implied contract between the readers of a magazine and its editors that the publication will attempt to fairly review meetings, books, events, etc. Selecting a person to review a conference who has already publicly condemned that conference is as acceptable as selecting a reviewer of a book who has already trashed that book publicly before even getting a copy or reading the book. It is simply unacceptable. In this case, what makes it _worse_ is that it has the potential of creating an unnecessary divide among Marxists internationally who will read Proyect's review and dismiss the importance of a conference of thousands of Marxists held in North America. More shortly. > And I am sure they also would welcome any review of the forthcoming > Socialist Scholars Conference - provided the reviewer will not treat this > conference as boring > as just another academic meeting nor will misuse it as a genuine cure for > insomnia. I didn't offer to review that conference, did I? Jerry
