From: Martha Gimenez <gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: M-FEM: HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARL!
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| HAPPY 179TH BIRTHDAY KARL!!!!!! MAY 5, 1818-1997
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Birthday questions:
===================
(1) If Marx rejected "humanism" as Althusser suggested, why did he in the
1860's write that his favorite maxim was:
"Nihil humanum a me alienum puto"
["Nothing human is alien to me"] ?
(2) Marx's favorite motto was:
"De omnibus dubitandum"
["Doubt everything"]
Shouldn't this anti-authoritarian standpoint be part of the
perspective of Marxists today? Shouldn't we adopt this motto when
accessing any writer, including Marx?
(3) In the "Confessions", Marx also wrote:
"Your favorite virtue in man -- Strength
Your favorite virtue in woman -- Weakness"
yet, although he wrote that "weakness" was a "virtue", he went on to
write:
"Your idea of happiness -- To fight"
[man = strength = happiness = to fight]
"Your idea of misery -- Submission"
[woman = weakness = misery = submission]
a) as suggested above, doesn't his perspective that "weakness" is a
"virtue" of women conflict with his ideas on happiness and
misery?
b) In what ways, if any, was Marx's sexism reflected in both what he
included in _Capital_ and what he omitted?
c) why haven't we discussed issues related to gender and feminism on
this list yet?
In solidarity, Jerry
Reference:
==========
Karl Marx "Confessions" in Theodor Shanin _Late Marx and the Russian
Road_, NY, Monthly Review Press, 1983, pp. 140-141