a_Callari@ACAD.FANDM.EDU
Sat, 30 Oct 1999 15:36:04 +0100
>With due respect, Antonio Callari's passage exemplifies everything that I
>dislike about Althusserianism - a rootless, abstract, elitist and
>intellectualist discourse in a rarified academic language that no one ever
>heard in real life, and that normal people would have difficulty to
>understand.
Wow (referring to the whole message from Jurriaan Bendien, not just the
excerpt above)! this "respect" is not "due," and I could do without it,
thank you! There is quite a level of invective in this response. I don't
know this person, and s/he does not know me, or talked to/with me in any
way to be able to stray from discussing ideas into personal invective. This
mode of arguing is to me unacceptable personally, but the thing is that is
typical of the worst in the legacy of Marxism: ascribe a theoretical
difference to the opponent's "position" in society, thus justifying all
sorts of invective, if not worse. Perhaps this person would like to "purge"
me. Would that s/he had the power to do that, I might worry. But, this is
simply a left over from older times.
I just wanted to get this out of my gut right now. I might respond to those
parts of the message that addressed ideas, once I calm down, and if I feel
it would be productive (that is, if I get a sense that I would be engaged
in a discussion, not in personal invective).
antonio (who also was poor--of material resources, that is, but never poor
of spirit).
P.S.:" A rare and rarefied language that no one can understand"?
apparently, though, you, Jurriaan Bendien, understood it clearly enough to
feel confident to construct it in this invective-prone way. So, what's the
problem, that you don't understand it? or that you don't agree? Both?
Frankly, there is enough here for me to go on speculating on what type of
"intellectual" activity you are engaged in, but I'll refrain.
Antonio Callari
939 Martha Ave
Lancaster, PA 17601
Phone 717 397-3228
FAX 717 397-1790
e-mail a_callari@acad.fandm.edu
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