Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
I don't view Marxian dialectical method as a neutral "toolkit," nor did I say I did. Who said anything about "neutral"? Not moi. I assume that if you ask questions about class and exploitation, you do so because you have answered the question in your mind, which side am I on? But my point was just that the toolkit view is not the same as the package of substantive commitments in orthodox Marxism. Hell, my own ransacking of the toolkit doesn't find much place for notions like "dialectical" and "methodology." Of course I am a poor excuse for a Marxist. but I do know which side I am on. The method of looking at the totality (including the totality of the historical process) encourages the asking of all sorts of questions that encourage skepticism about any existing system of power. I dunno. Hegel didn't think so. The substantive commitment is to supporting the oppressed against the oppressors. That's an ethical thing, but hard to separate from a vision that sees the capitalist system as exploitative (in the sense that some get rewarded because they have power over others, not because they contribute to human welfare) and as made by human beings in a historical process rather than being a "gift" of nature. But this is violently opposed to orthodox marxism, on which morality is ideology. Communsim is after all rthe real movement, not an ideal to which we hold reality up in comparison, as Marx and Engels said in the German Ideology. I don't asy _they_ were orthodox Marxists; they were much too smart for that. But the orthodox view rejects ethical analysis, and it also requires a particular conception of the nature of exploitation, one based on the labor theory of value. So far as the view you state goes, for eaxmple, Emma Goldman was a Marxist, and I ams ure she would have demurred. If I had an inspiring message I'd tell you. No-one has inspiring messages these days except people like Fukayama and the IMF types with their Glorious Capitalist Revolution from Above. And those messages only _sound_ inspiring. OK, so you are sane. but the point is that orthodox Marxism, and indeed even Marx's Marxism, draws a lot of its power from the promise of tying together a vision of a better future with real social agency that is observably operating to change it. Take away that connection, you are just an analytical Marxist, in your case, one with a commitment to dialectical method. That is, you are someone who its commited to use a certain set of concepts in your work in the hope that it may somehow indirectly marginally advance the likelihood that someday there will be a social agency that will really change things for the better. I doubt that substantce and method can be prised apart in the way you suggest. It's true: Neoclassical and methodological individualist "tools" almost always are linked to right-wing politics, etc. It's hard to separate method from political commitment. (I'm no positivist.) I don't agree with your examples generally, although the point may hold may be true in economics. I sais: Lukacs would have been horrified by my own substantive views, for example. I don't know if that's good or bad, since I don't know what "substantive views" you have. Sure you do. You know, or would know if you thought about it, that I am a liberal democratic defender of a market socialist economy. Also a pragmatic empiricist in philosophy. Lukacs would think that was a really bad set of ideas. By the way, do you want that article on functional explanation? E-mail me your snail mail address. --jks
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
If you view "the theory" as a toolkit that doesn't involve substantive
commitments, it wonm't have the defects of orthodox Marxism, but it also
won't have the inspiring message that gave orthodoxy its power. I doubt that
substantce and method can be prised apart in the way you suggest. Lukacs, for
example, was pretty orthodox in his substantive views. He would have been
horrified by my own substantive views, for example. Anyway, I was attacking
orthodox Marxism of Louis' variety, not a watered-down methodological
Marxism. I regatd Louis, and probably Mine and Yoshie (sorry, Yoshie) as
millenarian Marxists, although not the cultified sort. I am aware that there
are jerks of all political persuasions. Used to be there were more on the
right, maybe still are, if only because the right is so much bigger. --jks
In a message dated 6/21/00 11:12:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
The theory
appears to be defective, and retaining a defective millinarian theory in
the face of inevitable continued disappointments probably requires an
in-group jargon to keep going. --jks
That's because some people see Marxism not as a method (a set of questions
for analyzing reality) but as a dogma (a pre-determined set of answers). I
follow Georg Lukacs to go with the former.
Instead of blaming the theory, I'd look at the material (i.e., social)
basis of dogmatism and a dogmatic style. I think the problem is not the
theory that working in isolation (in a small sect, in an academic setting,
etc.) encourages a style where one gets involved in only talking to others
who have extremely similar views, speak a similar jargon, etc. It's similar
to what happens with religious cults.
Nonetheless, I haven't run into very many millenarian Marxists, at least
not recently. Haven't the Sparts gone away?
BTW, a lot of anti-Marxian or non-Marxian types have very obnoxious styles.
Have you ever heard someone from the IMF talk? or a televangelist? A key
difference is that they have the power to impose their will or they are
obnoxious in a way that fits with the dominant social system.
One thing that turns people off from the "left," often encouraging them to
shift to the "right" is the obnoxious style of many on the left, especially
toward perceived apostates ("renegade Kautsky" and all that). But in my
experience, there are jerks randomly distributed across the political
spectrum, while folks who were jerks on the left (e.g., David Horowitz,
former editor of RAMPARTS, whom I used to know) continue to be jerks when
they shift right (as he has done, with a vengeance).
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel (fwd)
At 07:45 PM 06/21/2000 -0400, you wrote: If you view "the theory" as a toolkit that doesn't involve substantive commitments, it wonm't have the defects of orthodox Marxism, but it also won't have the inspiring message that gave orthodoxy its power. I don't view Marxian dialectical method as a neutral "toolkit," nor did I say I did. The method of looking at the totality (including the totality of the historical process) encourages the asking of all sorts of questions that encourage skepticism about any existing system of power. The substantive commitment is to supporting the oppressed against the oppressors. That's an ethical thing, but hard to separate from a vision that sees the capitalist system as exploitative (in the sense that some get rewarded because they have power over others, not because they contribute to human welfare) and as made by human beings in a historical process rather than being a "gift" of nature. If I had an inspiring message I'd tell you. No-one has inspiring messages these days except people like Fukayama and the IMF types with their Glorious Capitalist Revolution from Above. And those messages only _sound_ inspiring. I doubt that substantce and method can be prised apart in the way you suggest. It's true: Neoclassical and methodological individualist "tools" almost always are linked to right-wing politics, etc. It's hard to separate method from political commitment. (I'm no positivist.) Lukacs, for example, was pretty orthodox in his substantive views. He would have been horrified by my own substantive views, for example. I don't know if that's good or bad, since I don't know what "substantive views" you have. But the point is that the dialectical method gives a way of questioning existing dogma (substantive propositions, if you will) to adapt to new conditions, new facts, new arguments, etc. It's alternative to the method of mainstream social science, which invariably gives one-sided answers, either conservative, technocratic, or knee-jerk liberal. Not that I think that everything the social science orthodoxy says is wrong, but they almost always give us an incomplete, static, ahistorical, abstract, and/or apologetic viewpoint. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Dorman and Robin Hahnel(fwd)
Dear Doyle, in polemics concerned with red-baiting Marxism, the term "jerk" is used in a way to stigmatize the people on the Marxist left. Additionally, it serves the religious purposes of classifying them as dogmatic. The term dogma refers to religious convinction or faith. Associating Marxism with dogma is to dogmatize Marxism and invite the Church to the discussion. Like Carrol, I would not, of course, advise people not to use jerk. People need to stress out in a polemic, and "jerk" is one of the advisable terms to attack. I always look at the context of the meaning of jerk though. What it means and what it stays for can have class, gender, race and disability connotations, because our language is not always politically correct and neutral. For example, sometimes, drug abusers are called jerks and criticized as being individually responsible for their own victimization. Regarding gender, I don't know how it applies here, but I am sure it must be pretty the same, in my culture, a similar term to jerk is used to stigmatize women who do not follow the traditional feminine practices (cooking, birth giving etc..). Many times Marxist women, feminists on the left have been attacked for being masculine and imitating men--masculinity complex they call-- both by the mainstream culture and women on the far radical front. good night, It is also very interesting to put this point out in regard to how mental illness is stigmatized repeatedly this way. The point being, that the word, jerk, is not certainly about a mentally ill person. But that if someone is obsessive, then they belong in the social structure not external to society exactly in the sense that the liberal Democratic law ADA was intended. There is a way in which the sense of these sorts of discussions is that we are healthy functioning people and there are those who aren't and we certainly know the difference don't we. That is the dividing line between us and the dogmatists. it was written: By mistake, I've been sending pen-l my wrong web-page address, the one that refers to the support group for parents of kids with Asperger's Syndrome (mild autism) that my wife and I run. Doyle With regard to this web site, your phrase irony-impaired is offensive. You have a lot of gall to criticize anyone for being "irony-impaired". thanks, Doyle Saylor
