Forstater, Mathew wrote: [clip] vulgar materialism. David (M.) Gordon didn�t like this last phrase, by the way. I forget why, exactly. I thought Marx used it
Marx spoke of "vulgar economists," and both he and Engels, I _think_ spoke of mechanical materialism -- but I don't think either ever used the phrase "vulgar materialism." I don't know why David Gordon disliked it; I've come to dislike it because so often it is used by those who in fact believe that _all_ materialism is vulgar. If you say "mechanical" materialism, there is sort of an obligation to explain wherein the position attacked is "mechanical," and even give some account of why, in the specific context, it is even wrong to be mechanical. While if you say "vulgar materialism" you have implicitly suggested that the person holding the position is him/herself "vulgar," and therefore nothing she/he says need really be replied to. It is similar to taking some position some leftist somewhere has taken, labelling it "sexist" or "conservative" or "literal minded," and leapting from that first to the statement that "That, e.g., lack of humor on the left, is the reason we (the left) are nowhere," and from that to the suggestion that whoever you are arguing with is a mere humorless pedant and need not be answered in detail or in a principled fashion. "Mechanical Materialism" _names_ something; "vulgar materialism" is a way of poisoning the wells of discourse. Carrol
