When first young _Maro_* in his boundless Mind
A work t'outlast Immortal _Rome_ design'd,
Perhaps he seem'd _above_ the Critick's Law,
And but from _Nature's Fountains_ scorn'd to draw:
But when t'examine ev'ry Part he came,
_Nature_ and _Homer_ were, he found, the _same_
Convinc'd, amaz'd, he checks the bold Design,
And Rules as strict his labour'd Work confine,
As if the _Stagyrite_^ o'erlooked each Line.
Learn hence for Ancient _Rules_ a just Esteem;
To copy _Nature_ is to copy _Them_.
(*Virgil; ^Aristotle)
(A. Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, 130-140)
Jim Devine wrote:
>
> [Large Clip]
> Of course, you might be using a different definition of "proletariat" than
> I do. As I've said before, definitions are conventional rather than being
> something that can be settled absolutely and completely. But I try to use
> Marx's definitions as the basis for my convention. (Not that he was always
> right.)
> [large clip]
_Not that he was always right_
Jim, I don't think this truism needs to be repeated in _this_ context,
because what is at issue is not whether Marx was right or wrong in this
or that particular, or even in this or that major corollary of his
thought. The perspective Lou is arguing does not modify or correct Marx,
it simply eliminates as garbage everything that makes Marx worth reading
at all -- it dissolves the very core of Marx's thought and replaces it
with a bourgeois radical critique of the moral evils of capitalism. What
remains is neither Marxist nor materialist nor historical. Nor does it
offer any serious basis for revolutionary praxis.
Carrol
