From: "Carrol Cox" <[email protected]>
Why would one want to? ^^^ CB: Why not ? People talk about many, many different things. The writer of this article evidently got into a discussion about this with a Republican; and was trying to make out a case that socialism is not so bad. Socialized medicine ,as in Canada, France and Britain, might be an eye opener to some Republican or other person who is a casual political observer ^^^ I've never tried to explain Marx or Marxism to anyone who was not already engaged in some kind of anti-capitalist or potentially anti-capitalist struggle. No one who is not already, at some implicit level, can understand such explanations. ^^^^^ CB: You've shifted from "socialism" to "Marxism". Explaining socialism "lite" , like socialized medicine, to a politically casual American is not the same deal as explaining Marxism. ^^^^^ This goes back to my understanding of Marx's Theses on Feuerbach. Theory makes sense only to those who have discovered the need for theory in their own practice. And from a revolutionary standpoint, nearly 200 years of experience has demonstrated that most of those who make a revolution are not self-conscious revolutionaries until after the fact. And this applies to many of the leaders as well as mass participants in the struggle. ^^^^^^^ CB: The Theses on F number 2 is that "practice is the test of theory". It is an epistemological proposition. Your statement "Theory makes sense only to those who have discovered the need for theory in their own practice" is not quite the same thing as what Marx says about the relationship between theory and practice in the These on F. ^^^^^^ Arguing socialism turns people away from the necessity of struggle _now_. ^^^^^ CB: The author of this article was not exactly making so much of an _argument_; more of an American-style political discussion. This discussion was concerning _current_ political struggles, trying to win support from soft Republicans for social programs. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
