From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Sun Oct 30 2005 - 09:50:49 EST
Steve C: I'm not sure what to say but I feel as if I should say something. It's difficult to know how to respond since this is obviously an issue that you are feel strongly and personally about. To begin with, even if there are some bruised feelings, I think it's better for all to have the attitudes that Allin and Ian expressed made openly on the list where we can discuss them critically and candidly than for them to remain unspoken and unsaid. Do you agree? The comments made by Ian were in response to what I took as a good-humored aside by Rakesh in a 10/28 post ["Perhaps even Anders and Ian W will find something of interest here? Probably not!"]. Yet, we can see with your post that the thread took a severe detour away from the playful discussion that we have been having this month on vampires and ghosts. From the intensity of your response to Allin, I infer that your comments need to be contextualized in relation to other struggles that you have been a part of. I'm not sure of the specifics of those struggles, but I have no doubt that you and others from a similar perspective have had to overcome attitudes by others in the academy which were dismissive of your work and the intellectual tradition that you are a part of. It might help others to better comprehend that reality if you were to explain some of that context further. Of course, no one wants to be "dissed": i.e. see their perspectives dismissed. If you feel that you have been dissed, though, you are not alone. Others have also adopted dismissive attitudes: e.g. Steedman in _Marx After Sraffa_. You might recall, in that connection, references to "obituaries." [You might even recall some dismissive language in Althusser -- "whiffs of Feurbachianism" -- and some references by contemporary Althusserians that others have found dismissive: e.g. at the 1988 IWGVT our friend Antonio suggested that, according to a synopsis by Doug Henwood, that "value theory can be used as a substitute for politics: instead of organizing and agitating, you study abstract concepts and await the FROP to bring capitalism to an end" (this is despite the fact that, as both Antonio and you know well, most of those who work on value theory are also politically active)]. This is part of a long-standing polemical tradition in radicalism that goes back even before Marx. The same could be said to Marxists about Marxists that was said to Cool Hand Luke: "What we have here is a problem to communicate." _Learning_ near forms of communication with each other is surely a _process_ that takes time and proceeds unevenly: after 10 years on OPE-L we've made great progress but we're _still_ learning how best to communicate with each other. The process of communication is however made more difficult when we are communicating using different vocabularies. We, of course, have different languages (as could be expected with a list with members in 22 countries) and different intellectual traditions, many of which in the course of their development adopted specialized terminology. 'Open Marxism' (especially in the writings of Antonio Negri), Hegelians (including Marxist-Hegelians), Althusserians, etc. all have their own vocabularies. There's nothing wrong with that; it's what is to be expected (especially from intellectual traditions which emerged in the context of XXth Century continental European philosophical discourse) but surely you must recognize that it's often frustrating for readers who are not part of those traditions. Perhaps you can appreciate that? For all the talk about the need for about pluralism and heterodoxy, I don't think that the pluralists and the heterodox economists have been the best in practice at supporting the right of other pluralists and heterodoxies to advance their own perspectives. I guess it's easier for most Marxians to support these principles in theory than in practice. This is reflected in the practice of many professional institutions (e.g. scholarly journals) and departments within universities. I agree that postmodern materialism should be taken seriously and intellectually engaged in good faith -- as should all contemporary Marxian traditions. But, _how_ more concretely, should that be done? Do you have any suggestions? In solidarity, Jerry
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