I think he has written a number of good and useful books - I met him at a Mandel memorial seminar. He is extremely bright and writes extremely well. But this does not prevent him from writing the occasional bullshit - just like I have done occasionally. The "marxisant" thing I mentioned is not intended to insult, but to describe a process of tying a received interpretation of a Marxist tradition to the latest political trends in an ideological way, which ends up being internally inconsistent and thus eclectic, and not really a Marxist approach nor a socialist approach, but a sort of hybrid half-way house which accepts part of Marx and rejects part of Marx, seeking to appeal in an "open" way to the anti-globalisers and other radicals who are not Marxists or perhaps not even socialists. It's a sort of ideological opportunism or "capture" process if you like.
This reflects the peculiarities of the Trotskyist tradition, which conserved a revolutionary interpretation of Marxism during a non-revolutionary era in the West, often rather dogmatically, and then tries to connect this heritage or programme anew to radical political movements in the present day, with a view to refounding a Marxist movement, this time infused with new insights. The problem is really in the formal orthodoxy of past behaviour, which generates continual doubts and uncertainty about the validity of political innovation, its pattern and direction (because the conserved orthodoxy itself does not contain any definite political method, and at best suggests numerous heuristics in which politics COULD be consistently developed, "if only" new radicals would develop it consistently, rather than saying e.g. that we do not want to bother with this orthodox consistency agenda anymore). It is sort of like, we have to keep these heuristics, but we cannot implement them without violating orthodoxy. Another way of seeing it is that the word must become flesh again, but the flesh has changed the words, so we try to flesh out the words in a new way such that the flesh may be appropriately clothed with the words. Another way of looking at it is, that the spirit is willing, but the flesh weak, and therefore we have to strengthen the flesh with the spirit, and the spirit must be cast into the flesh somehow to animate it, and the way to do this, is to concentrate on the spirit and not the letter in the wording, so that a verbal message is transmitted, through which the spirit will flow into the flesh. A sort of occult Marxism. This is not really intended as a pornographic satire, although you could read it that way, the epistemic reference is really to Goethe, in his version of the Faust drama (this is not a precisely exact translation): 'Tis written: "In the beginning was the Word!" Here now I'm balked! Who'll now put me in Accord? It is impossible, the Word so high to prize, I must translate it otherwise If I am rightly by the Spirit taught. 'Tis written: In the beginning was the Thought! Consider well that line, the first you see, That your pen may not write too hastily! Is it then Thought that works, creative, hour by hour? Thus should it stand: In the beginning was the Power! Yet even while I write this word, I falter, For something warns me, this too I shall alter. The Spirit's helping me! I see now what I need And write assured: In the beginning was the Deed! Goethe can be interpreted as talking about an initiative, and the problem is, where do I start, from what basis do I start, what theme do I take up as my point of departure, and his character then considers various permutations methodologically - the word, the spirit, the thought, the power, and lastly "the deed", practical action (well, I suppose you could read "the deed" as a legal document or as a sex act, but really it just refers to a practical act - Die Tat - sort of like don't just sit there, do something, but not anything, a specific thing, Die Tat, the deed, the thing that you have to do, do it, never mind linguistic, spiritual, cognitive, or political aspects. And in a way, this is a kind of pragmatic stance, although you could also say, that it is a praxiological stance, since prior to taking initiative and committing "the deed", the linguistic, spiritual, cognitive, or political aspects have been meditated upon and thought through. I had Carrol commenting on the absence of an American Left and how to get one going, so I thought I might make a brief comment through the prism of Goethe's reflection. I guess the moral of that story is, that there is no genuine orthodoxy other than the orthodoxy of one's own practice, the integrity or fidelity of one's own practice, and if we concentrate on linguistic, spiritual, cognitive, or political-ideological "orthodoxies" as our point of departure, we don't really get anywhere, we just end up with a confusion, because there is always something which doesn't really fit there, no matter how much we try to build the movement in an orthodoxly principled way. On that note, I will definitely stop my public emails for a while. Jurriaan ----- Original Message ----- From: "andie nachgeborenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 5:32 PM Subject: [PEN-L] Lowy > Michael's an old friend and teacher of mine, though we > have not been in touch for some years. He thinks of > himself as Brazilian, I believe. He doesn't go by > Felix! jks > > --- Renato Pompeu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Felix Michel Lowy is a Brazilian that lives in > > France. I do not know if he > > has double nationality. > > Renato Pompeu > > > > -----Mensagem original----- > > De: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > nome de Jurriaan > > Bendien > > Enviada em: sexta-feira, 15 de agosto de 2003 03:37 > > Para: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Assunto: Re: [PEN-L] Guardian Unlimited | The > > Guardian | Study of Bush's > > psyche touches a nerve > > > > > > I'm not either, I largely stayed away from that. The > > most interesting > > figures from my point of view were Walter Benjamin > > and Erich Fromm (the > > French Marxisant Michael Lowy made a study of > > Benjamin). > > Jurriaan > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com > >
