Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of quot; Auraquot; and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg
Mr. Dumain, would you please clarify why you regard Althusserian anti-humanism as a kind of epater les bourgeois? Thank you in advance, Mehmet Çagatay http://weblogmca.blogspot.com/ --- On Fri, 2/6/09, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: Althusserian and French anti-humanism in general is bullshit, the French intellectual's way of, as they say, epater les bourgeois. If humanism alludes to something else, then that should be decoded. And I think Tedman is quite mistaken. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of quot; Auraquot; and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg
Jim, thank you very much for this illuminating background knowledge. Dogan -Original Message- From: Jim Farmelant farmela...@juno.com To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu CC: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 15:27 Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of quot; Auraquot; and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg n Sat, 7 Feb 2009 05:30:54 -0800 (PST) Mehmet Cagatay mehmetcagatayay...@yahoo.com writes: Mr. Dumain, would you please clarify why you regard Althusserian anti-humanism as a kind of epater les bourgeois? The whole debate seems peculiarly French to me. n France since the 19th century humanism was een as something that was closely tied to he bourgeoisie. Even someone like Sartre truggled over whether he was a humanist r not. He eventually decided that his xistentialism was a kind of humanism, ut one that was different from the kinds f humanism that the bourgeoisie typically mbraced. In Sartre's case, I think he dentified conventional bourgeois humanism ith essentialism. Those humanisms osited a human essence, whereas for artre, existence preceded essence. In the French debates over humanism n the 1960s and 1970s, structuralists nd poststructuralists like Levi-Strauss, ouis Althusser, and Michel Foucault ttempted to push the critique of humanism uch further than Sartre had been willing o go. Sartre's existentialism, as he realized, as still a humanism. He placed free will t the center of his conception of man. eople, regardless of the circumstances hat they might find themselves in, still etained their freedom, if only the reedom to redefine their situation n alternative ways. The French nti-humanists questioned this view n light of such developments in the uman sciences like structural linguistics which Levi-Strauss to generalize into complete anthropology), psychoanalysis i.e. the work of Lacan which enjoyed reat currency in this period), and of ourse, Marxism. Althusser, was f course, a Marxist and long time ember of the PCF. Foucault, ho had been a student of Althusser, as a member of the PCF for a brief eriod of time. By the 1950s, he had enounced Marxism in favor of Nietzscheanism, lthough his work was still very much nfluenced by Marxism. Levi-Strauss, believed, identified himself at this time s a Marxist, although his work doesn't trike me as being particularly Marxist. There were certainly differences in viewpoints etween these people. Althusser doesn't eem to have been particularly enamored ith Levi-Strauss's work, and he didn't ike being called a structuralist. However, ll these people's work, whether drawing rom Saussure, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, r Heidegger, all had certain themes in ommon. They all rejected the Sartrean mphasis on human freedom, instead mphasizing the extent to which human ehavior is determined by structures f various sorts, whether these be inguistic structures, kinship structures, tructures of epistemology (Foucault n this *The Order of Things*), social tructures as represented by20the ode of production and associated uperstructures (i.e. Althusser), and o forth. They all rejected the traditional umanist idea that their exists an unchanging uman essence which provides the basis or freedom and equality and human rights. or the French antihumanists, this conception as rejected as being ideological and/or etaphysical, and they drew variously pon Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, n their critiques of humanism. Thank you in advance, Mehmet Çagatay http://weblogmca.blogspot.com/ --- On Fri, 2/6/09, Ralph Dumain rdum...@autodidactproject.org wrote: Althusserian and French anti-humanism in general is bullshit, the French intellectual's way of, as they say, epater les bourgeois. If humanism alludes to something else, then that should be decoded. And I think Tedman is quite mistaken. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ lick now for easy qualification on auto loans even with bad credit! ttp://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw4DjCERYK5gSSDrHjS4uhluxNytJa9bOdnXQvteZtsjDX5AF/ ___ arxism-Thaxis mailing list arxism-tha...@lists.econ.utah.edu o change your options or unsubscribe go to: ttp://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis _ ___ AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of quot; Auraquot; and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg
Hello, Thanks for your response. Yes, I kinda thought the idea might be that much humanism is philosophical idealism ( in Engels famous sense in _Ludwig Feuerbach: The End of Classical German philsophy_, two great camps of philosophy,idealism and materialism, especially modern philosophy, on the relationship between thought and being, and all that). He's probably avoiding being subjective as opposed to objective, too. But humanism as the term is commonly used today in English, is probably part of the rational kernel of idealism that we want to extract. Something might be lost in the translation from French. But even the French CP paper is name _L'Humanite_. Anyway, I'll try to look at Althusser's essay, because I have become more and more a respecter of Althusser over time. And I subscribe to a certain amount of Levi-Straussian structuralism from my schooling in anthropology( even with its aroma of philosophical idealism ,smile); and Althusser was a structuralist in that school. Ideology and all that. By the way, I think Marx did have a concept of human nature, in his discussion of species-being in the _Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_. He expresses an essentialism on the relationship between women and men that knocks the socks off the post-modernist anti-essentialists in the following passage: In the approach to woman as the spoil and hand-maid of communal lust is expressed the infinite degradation in which man exists for himself, for the secret of this approach has its unambiguous, decisive, plain and undisguised expression in the relation of man to woman and in the manner in which the direct and natural species-relationship is conceived. The direct, natural, and necessary relation of person to person is the relation of man to woman. In this natural species-relationship man’s relation to nature is immediately his relation to man, just as his relation to man is immediately his relation to nature – his own natural destination. In this relationship, therefore, is sensuously manifested, reduced to an observable fact, the extent to which the human essence has become nature to man, or to which nature to him has become the human essence of man. From this relationship one can therefore judge man’s whole level of development. From the character of this relationship follows how much man as a species-being, as man, has come to be himself and to comprehend himself; the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation of human being to human being. It therefore reveals the extent to which man’s natural behaviour has become human, or the extent to which the human essence in him has become a natural essence – the extent to which his human nature has come to be natural to him. This relationship also reveals the extent to which man’s need has become a human need; the extent to which, therefore, the other person as a person has become for him a need – the extent to which he in his individual existence is at the same time a social being. The first positive annulment of private property – crude communism – is thus merely a manifestation of the vileness of private property, which wants to set itself up as the positive community system. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm Indeed, the human subject is an ensemble of social relations, cultural beings in the anthropological sense of culture. But the sexual relationship is a natural social relationship, the sexual instinct a social instinct, and thus sexual relations are both socially and naturally social. The sexual relationship is a special exception to the postmodernist correct idea that human subjectivity and individuals are predominantly socially or culturally constructed (maybe, ? smile) Ciao, Comrade Charles Brown --- On Fri, 2/6/09, Disqus notifications-dqukn5y...@disqus.net wrote: From: Disqus notifications-dqukn5y...@disqus.net Subject: [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of quot; Auraquot; and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg To: cdb1...@prodigy.net Date: Friday, February 6, 2009, 3:12 AM Gary Tedman (unregistered) wrote, in response to bing: hello, Althusser meant philosophical humanism, which is basically mainstream bourgeois ideology, he distinguished it from humanitarianism, but there is a lot of humanism in bourgeois humanitarianism too (charity for example). Yes, Marx said that, and being a 'true humanist' is to go beyond classical humanism, as he did for example in his criticism of Feuerbach.. A classic humanist belief would be of the 'human spirit' or 'Man' with a 'human nature' (essence), 'born free' and 'responsible' for 'himself'. For Marx the human subject is an ensemble of social relations (to be brief). See Althusser's essay Marxism is not a Humanism in the book For Marx. Link to comment:
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of quot; Auraquot; and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg
Althusserian and French anti-humanism in general is bullshit, the French intellectual's way of, as they say, epater les bourgeois. If humanism alludes to something else, then that should be decoded. And I think Tedman is quite mistaken. At 11:10 PM 2/5/2009, Charles Brown wrote: Hello, Thanks for your response. Yes, I kinda thought the idea might be that much humanism is philosophical idealism ( in Engels famous sense in _Ludwig Feuerbach: The End of Classical German philsophy_, two great camps of philosophy,idealism and materialism, especially modern philosophy, on the relationship between thought and being, and all that). He's probably avoiding being subjective as opposed to objective, too. But humanism as the term is commonly used today in English, is probably part of the rational kernel of idealism that we want to extract. Something might be lost in the translation from French. But even the French CP paper is name _L'Humanite_. Anyway, I'll try to look at Althusser's essay, because I have become more and more a respecter of Althusser over time. And I subscribe to a certain amount of Levi-Straussian structuralism from my schooling in anthropology( even with its aroma of philosophical idealism ,smile); and Althusser was a structuralist in that school. Ideology and all that. By the way, I think Marx did have a concept of human nature, in his discussion of species-being in the _Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844_. He expresses an essentialism on the relationship between women and men that knocks the socks off the post-modernist anti-essentialists in the following passage: In the approach to woman as the spoil and hand-maid of communal lust is expressed the infinite degradation in which man exists for himself, for the secret of this approach has its unambiguous, decisive, plain and undisguised expression in the relation of man to woman and in the manner in which the direct and natural species-relationship is conceived. The direct, natural, and necessary relation of person to person is the relation of man to woman. In this natural species-relationship manâs relation to nature is immediately his relation to man, just as his relation to man is immediately his relation to nature his own natural destination. In this relationship, therefore, is sensuously manifested, reduced to an observable fact, the extent to which the human essence has become nature to man, or to which nature to him has become the human essence of man. From this relationship one can therefore judge manâs whole level of development. From the character of this relationship follows how much man as a species-being, as man, has come to be himself and to comprehend himself; the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation of human being to human being. It therefore reveals the extent to which manâs natural behaviour has become human, or the extent to which the human essence in him has become a natural essence the extent to which his human nature has come to be nnatural to him. This relationship also reveals the extent to which manâs need has become a human need; the extent to which, therefore, the other person as a person has become for him a need the extent to which he in his inddividual existence is at the same time a social being. The first positive annulment of private property crudee communism is thus merely a manifestation of the vileeness of private property, which wants to set itself up as the positive community system. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm Indeed, the human subject is an ensemble of social relations, cultural beings in the anthropological sense of culture. But the sexual relationship is a natural social relationship, the sexual instinct a social instinct, and thus sexual relations are both socially and naturally social. The sexual relationship is a special exception to the postmodernist correct idea that human subjectivity and individuals are predominantly socially or culturally constructed (maybe, ? smile) Ciao, Comrade Charles Brown --- On Fri, 2/6/09, Disqus notifications-dqukn5y...@disqus.net wrote: From: Disqus notifications-dqukn5y...@disqus.net Subject: [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of quot; Auraquot; and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg To: cdb1...@prodigy.net Date: Friday, February 6, 2009, 3:12 AM Gary Tedman (unregistered) wrote, in response to bing: hello, Althusser meant philosophical humanism, which is basically mainstream bourgeois ideology, he distinguished it from humanitarianism, but there is a lot of humanism in bourgeois humanitarianism too (charity for example). Yes, Marx said that, and being a 'true humanist' is to go beyond classical humanism, as he did for example in his criticism of Feuerbach.. A classic humanist belief would be of the 'human
