From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Tue Feb 04 2003 - 09:11:40 EST
Re Chris's [8425]: > The change was relatively recent. Marx (in the CM?) refers to rural > idiocy. There was a discussion once about this (Draper? Carver?) > when it was argued > Marx had in mind not stupidity but the separation of those in rural > isolation from what was going on in the world. I assume the city dwellers > introduced the prejudicial use. Thanks for the reply. Comments in reverse order of importance -- 1) Whether Marx (and Engels and contemporary socialists) used 'idiot' in the classical sense rather than the 'modern' pejorative sense is not clear to me. A search at www.marxists.org under "idiot" of the works of M&E is not conclusive but does seem to suggest that 'idiot' was used -- at least in part -- as a pejorative. 2) It is still unclear to me when, where, and under what circumstances this inversion in meaning of 'idiot' took place. 'Idiot' has clearly been used in a negative connotation for a considerable period of time: e.g. "Why on earth should a man, because he is a Marxist, be a driveling idiot?" from Boris Pasternak's _Doctor Zhivago_ 3) Returning to the topic of 'socialism': a) Revolutionaries are typically (and one might add, intrinsically) critical, independent, individuals who think for themselves. In other words, they are 'idiots' in the classical sense. Yet, in a Bonapartist reaction, 'idiots' represent a threat to the new order. Hence, repression. [The purges under Stalin might be seen as a 'cleansing' of 'idiots' from the Bolshevik party.] This raises a larger question: how can a Bonapartist reaction be averted? It seems to me that the culture of 'idiocy' (exemplified by critical, independent thought) must be extended into the entire working class movement as a safeguard against a conservative post-revolutionary reaction. Yet, this is no small task. b) one might also argue that for a socialist democracy and workers' control to really work presumes that workers themselves are 'idiots' in the classical sense. Yet, bourgeois culture and institutions have stressed conformism and respect for authoritarian structures, including 'leaders', as a virtue. So, how is this historical transition then brought about whereby workers develop into 'idiots' who are essentially critical and independent individuals who have the confidence to make the decisions themselves about future society and thereby overcome the indoctrination of bourgeois culture rather than simply follow the leadership of others -- no matter how 'revolutionary' those 'leaders' claim to be? Solidarity, Jerry
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