This is far too sophisticated for me. Tom has to bring it down a level or two for me to appreciate. Louis On Wed, 13 Dec 1995, Tom Walker wrote: > Lord, forgive us our montages. As we forgive those who montage upon us. I > couldn't help but reframe Louis and Jim's "us prols against the perfessers" > thread in the context of the high falutin' casuistry of "identity politics. > So I've sampled some of Jim Jaszewski's remarks and follow them with Terry > McDonough's ironic commentary on the capriciousness of the identitarians. > IMHO, it shows how easy it is to step over the line from class analysis to > oppression fetishism. > > Informality and grittiness::marxism > as > Socially constructed identity::non-whiteness > > Jim Jaszewski wrote: > > >It's become clear to me (and > >others) that `academic' marxists/marxians/whatever suffer from an ACUTE > >case of lack of grounding in the reality of class struggle. > snip, snip > > Anyone who leaves a marxism List because they don't like the > >informality and grittiness of it all isn't much of a marxist, IMO... > > Terry McDonough wrote: > > >Two comments from Americans in > >the audience said that this notion was "dangerous" because it > >threatened to make socially relative the essential categories of > >identity politics. Being white must be an empirically objective > >category even if all others are the result of the endless play of > >differences. > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > "Only in mediocre art does life unfold as fate." -- Michael Ignatieff > > Tom Walker > knoWWare Communications > http://mindlink.net/knowware/ > > > >