> I didn't say history is made by elites. I said that revolutionary >movements are spearheaded by relatively well-off, well-educated people. >This is why dictators always close down the universities, and why education >and communication are so important. Of course, all the great historical >struggles have be mass struggles by brave, valiant, and resourceful people >from the oppressed and dominated classes. Actually, Herb, I stand by my statement. My notes from your European History Class (Fall 1982), indicate that you said, "History is made by elites." [or perhaps "the elite"] Furthermore, the larger context was precisely your point that, contrary to lefty presumptions, history is not made by mass struggle but by maneuvers, negotiations, struggles, etc., among the elite. Your argument made mass struggles an appendage to struggles among the elite. We were not talking about the importance of education among the masses, nor about the leadership of mass struggles, but about the relative historical importance of mass struggles vs. conflicts within the ruling class. I distinctly remember talking after that class with a number of students who were also struck and dismayed by your comments. > I am on cordial terms with Wolff and Resnick, but our intellectual >projects are almost wholly disjoint. There was a time when we both read >Althusser, but we took different things from it, radically different >things, I believe (Sam and I took the notion of practices and sites, which >we used in our book Democracy and Capitalism, whereas Resnick and Wolff >took epistimological notions). In my opinion Bowles and Gintis on the one hand and Wolff and Resnick on the other took some different and some of the same things from Althusser. I think those of us who studied with both pairs of teachers were the beneficiaries of their mutual interest in Althusser, sometimes complementary, sometimes at odds and sometimes quite compatible. Wolff and Resnick, for instance, also talk about sites and practices, if, for sure, not in exactly the same way as Bowles and Gintis. For the first two years I studied at UMass I was in strong sympathy with the projects and perspectives of Bowles and Gintis, which is why I find it interesting now that I am close to Wolff and Resnick's work and not that of Bowles and Gintis. However, I would never deny that I learned a great deal of important and interesting social theory from Bowles and Gintis. (This statement, of course, is not intended to make them responsible for my limited understanding.) Indeed, with only a few exceptions, I felt that the vast majority of the courses I took at UMass, almost everything I read for my courses, and most of the class and extra-curricular discussions with professors and students, were extremely valuable. I do not regret for a moment having obtained my Ph.D. from there. Blair Blair Sandler [EMAIL PROTECTED]
