---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: antonio callari <a_callari@email.fandm.edu> Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 19:32:24 -0500 Subject: Re: [OPE-L:6170] Lucio Colletti: 1924-2001 No, I don't really think much of this obit--not that I'm surprised by it, though. Colletti, as the obit makes clear, did turn on Marxism. Now, if I am remembering correctly, Colletti did, arguably, put his finger on what, retrospectively, could be seen to have been the weak spot of Marxism--of the Marxism that he had learned and that was prevalent at the time, i.e. up to the 60s or so: Hegel. [and no, this is not a simplistic rejection of Hegel, who can be and has been read in different ways, with different emphases. The Hegel that was the weak spot of Marxism was the one that emphasized "system" rather than openness, the one who had a teleological understanding of contradiction. This Hegelian mantle provided intellectual cover for the totalitarian construction of socialism--really, state capitalism, we can say now--the Stalinist experience turned out to be]. What the obit fails to note is that Colletti was not the only one who picked up on this. Others also picked up on the effect of the philosophical mantle on political practice and on the effects of "Hegel" (the system Hegel, that is). But, unlike Colletti, these others, notably Althusser, did not use the Hegelian legacy in order to abandon it, but tried to discover (and did discover) new philosophical linkages and foundations around which to rebuild Marx/ism. Unlike Althusser, Colletti (and I see this as a poverty of spirit and imagination on his part) seemed so stuck on the Hegelian legacy for marxism that he saw no way out; and he, therefore, was led to conclude that the very idea of socialism was inevitably corrupted by a totalitarian urge. HENCE, I DO NOT FIND IT SURPRISING AT ALL THAT HE WOULD END UP IN THE RANKS OF BERLUSCONI. Anyway, that's my take on him. Antonio >Lucio Colletti, an intellectual influence on a number of listmembers, >died on November 3. The following is an obituary from _The Guardian_. >Do you agree with the accessment of J.F. Lane? > >In solidarity, Jerry > > > ------------------------------------------------ >The Guardian (UK) >November 8, 2001 > >Lucio Colletti > >by John Francis Lane > >Lucio Colletti, who has died of a heart attack aged 76, was a much-loved >philosophy professor at Italian universities who dedicated most of his life >to studying and teaching Karl Marx - and ended his days as a parliamentary >deputy for the party of premier Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's richest >capitalist. Yet in spite of those contradictions, Colletti will be remembered >as someone who tried to come to terms with the failure of the communism for >which, like so many of his generation, he had held high hopes when fascism >was engulfing Europe. As a young man eager to study philosophy, he had to >wait till the fall of fascism in 1945 before he could enrol at Rome >University. He first taught at the University of Messina, but in the early >1950s was awarded a philosophy chair at Rome. He joined the Communist party >of Italy (PCI) but was already an irascible comrade, particularly after the >1956 Soviet party congress, when Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin. After >the suppression of the Hungarian revolution that year he was one of the 101 >PCI intellectuals who published a manifesto denouncing the party's failure to >distance itself from the Soviet Union. The PCI's founder philosopher was >Antonio Gramsci, but Colletti preferred another Marxist thinker, Galvano >Della Volpe. One of the most conspicuous victims of the 1960s radical wave at >Rome University, he had no sympathy for the 1968 movement. In 1974 he abjured >Marxism, expressing his views in an interview with Perry Anderson published >first in the New Left Review and later expanded in Italian as a pamphlet. He >became an outsider on the Italian left just when the PCI, under Enrico >Berlinguer, was winning more electoral backing. After publication of his >Twilight Of Ideology (1980), Colletti decided that the moderate socialism >within a market society proposed by Bettino Craxi, the new secretary of the >Socialist party (PSI), might be the solution he hoped for. After Soviet >Communism's collapse and the debacle of Craxi's brand of socialism, Colletti >was ready to support the first to come along with an attractive proposal for a >renewal of Italian society, but many were surprised that he should have felt >attracted to Berlusconi, who puts private interests before public service. >Colletti ran in a safe seat at the 1996 elections, which Berlusconi lost. He >was re-elected this year and though he has often been critical of Berlusconi's >actions - such as the way the G8 affair in Genoa was conducted - he remained a >loyal supporter to whom Berlusconi paid tribute after his death, praising "his >courage in rejecting communism". He is survived by his second wife, Fauzia, >and their daughter Giulia, and a daughter by his first marriage. · Lucio >Colletti, academic, born December 8 1924; died November 3 2001 -- ************ -- Antonio Callari E-MAIL: A_CALLARI@ACAD.FANDM.EDU POST MAIL: Department of Economics Franklin and Marshall College Lancaster PA 17604-3003 PHONE: 717/291-3947 FAX: 717/291-4369
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