Your lack of knowledge is astounding - Marx's biggest complain concerning capitalism is that it is de-humanizing - that it turns us into commodities (labor time) - and in the process alienates us from our-selves and others - and as such destroys our ability to develop to our full capacity as human beings - Marx believed that the means of production as they developed would create a situation that would lead to our emancipation from devoting our lives to subsistence and that Capitalism had to be overthrown because it was a fetter on our ability to realize our full potential as human beings (Marx was a Hegelian) - Lenin understood this and this is the reason he had the support of groups like the constructivists and LEF and could implement the NEP - Stalin on the other hand was a vulgar materialists and did not understand culture in the most mechanistic terms as a tool of social and economic , and Trotsky (whose vision was informed by economism) misconstrued this goal- believing it could be arrived at by formalist means rather than through a planned process of social and cultural transformation.
On 5/1/09 9:26 AM, "Chris Miller" <[email protected]> wrote: Now that we know Saul is a Leninist, I have to confess my fondness for so many statues of the famous Bolshevik. Not all of them (and thousands were made) -- but for the few that I have selected for my webmuseum - like this one: http://www.ilovefiguresculpture.com/masters/russian/sov8.jpg (though it might possibly look better if the head were lopped off) I've even selected some statues of his henchman, Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the secret police. I realize that together with Mao and Hitler, these are the most catastrophically destructive and murderous men of the 20th Century. What might account for the selections that I have made? The "economic, social, and cultural circumstances" that I share with millions of other Americans who are probably happy to see it all torn down? Even my guru-father dismissed all Soviet sculpture as "too academic". The problem with Saul's Marxist -- oops, I mean Leninist -- ideology is that it reduces the human experience to "economic, social, and cultural circumstances", and has no comprehension of the life of the spirit that is so different in each human being. (which is why this ideology has no problem with killing people -- and lots of them) ____________________________________________ Saul Ostrow | Visual Arts & Technologies Environment Chair, Sculpture Voice: 216-421-7927 | [email protected] | www.cia.edu<http://www.cia.edu/> The Cleveland Institute of Art | 11141 East Boulevard, Cleveland, OH 44106 ____________________________________________________________ Prices, software, charts & analysis. Click here to open your online FX trading account. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxUY6xgWP9DLcpMB0uNbSaFXW qdoT7QqpDdFrJpiOyRPpDnILUNyuc/ --
