My (seemingly forgotten) point is that Jurriaan seems to believe that the folks who describe their views as being "orthodox Marxist" are indeed representatives of some (nonexistent) Marxist orthodoxy. (Are these folks on ope-l?) That's different from the issue of whether or not "Marxism" (whatever that is) is a "religion."
Jurriaan Bendien wrote: > I cannot really say I am “losing my religion” as I have never been truly > religious, though I have tried at times. But nowadays I often think of > Marxism in two ways: > > 1) As a quasi-religion which believers try to warm over, in the > desperate hope that it might recapture the glory days of its youth. > > 2) As a broken car ready for the scrapheap, from which you can salvage > some parts and components that are still good and usable. Whose views are you talking about here? which version of "Marxism"? the late Ernest Mandel and his followers? > When I say “quasi-religion” I do not mean it, in the sense that many > Marxists have a violent hatred of religion. I mean simply a system of > metaphysical beliefs and orthodoxy, providing believers with meaning and > security in their lives, by defining the structure of the universe and of > society for them. Who are you talking about here? By the way, the refusal to be specific about the target of one's ire is one way to be "metaphysical." By the way, the idea that people one disagrees with have opinions because it provides them with "meaning and security in their lives" is on the same level as rejecting someone's opinion because their backgrounds are "petty bourgeois." It's fallacious. Each person's opinions should be judged on its own merits, not on some motives one attributes to them. > However, quite likely PEN-L is not a good forum to discuss these things, > since there are quite a few “true believers” on it. Challenging the faith > would only cause flame wars, which Michael wants to avoid. If anyone refuses to listen to reason (i.e., logic, empirical data, issues of completeness), they prove themselves to be dogmatic. It's a form of dogmatism to assume that others are dogmatic without talking to them. > All this terminology such as “globalization”, “neoliberalism”, > “financialization” I find exceedingly dubious. It can mean almost anything, > and is therefore highly suspect. It is I think an ideological terminology, > that hides and confuses more than it reveals. The term "ideological" is similarly dubious. It's an abstraction, like “globalization,” “neoliberalism,” and “financialization.” The meaning of such terms vary a lot among individuals (even between the same individual's different books or articles). The authors should be given a chance to define what _they_ mean by them before dismissing them. In any event, all human thought involves abstraction, so we can't avoid it. -- Jim Devine / "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
