Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Eugene Coyle]

But didn't Waistline tell us the "workers" will be robots?

Gene Coyle

Michael Hoover wrote:

[EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/15/02 03:58PM >>>



Basically it is about whether you believe the economic system is 
essentially a social system, although privately owned, and whether you 
believe in the cooperative powers of human beings eventually to get on top 
of it, even though there may be no one party line.
Chris Burford
<<<>>>

believe it was g d h cole's theory of 'encroaching control' that posited workers' control of industry to be result of slow extension of power from bottom up until overall balance of
power within firm/factory/industry tips in favor of workers within it... michael hoover 

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Doug Henwood]

Charles Jannuzi wrote:


Then tell Henwood to stop making inane responses
just to bait people, or unsubscribe me. Like I
really care at this point. You deserve
discussions with Henwood. In other words, you
deserve inanity.


If anyone cares what I think about Empire, my review is at 
.

Doug

Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Michael Perelman]

Charles, if you don't stop your fight with Doug immediately -- I mean it
-- I will have to unsub you.  I don't want to do it.

On Sat, Nov 16, 2002 at 08:08:02PM -0800, Charles Jannuzi wrote:
> 
> --- Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
> > Please calm down.  Again.  This has no place
> > here.
> 
> Calm is having a substantive discussion about
> Negri practically by oneself. Dumb is responding
> to Henwood's tripe, some call it his forte'. I
> apologize. I should have ignored him.
> 
> C. Jannuzi
> 
> __
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Charles Jannuzi]

--- Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Please calm down.  Again.  This has no place
> here.

Calm is having a substantive discussion about
Negri practically by oneself. Dumb is responding
to Henwood's tripe, some call it his forte'. I
apologize. I should have ignored him.

C. Jannuzi

__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
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Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Michael Perelman]

Please calm down.  Again.  This has no place here.

On Sat, Nov 16, 2002 at 07:34:44PM -0800, Charles Jannuzi wrote:
> Then send Dougiepoo a post in private.
> 
> CJ 
> 
> __
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Michael Perelman]

Please, we don't need antagonism here.

On Sat, Nov 16, 2002 at 07:21:30PM -0800, Charles Jannuzi wrote:
> > 
> > Doug
> 
> Since he won't come on the list, how the f-
> should I know? My guess is that neither the
> workers nor the state have any room for
> ill-informed, obscurantist hack autonomist
> Marxists.
> 
> CJannuzi 
> > 
> 
> 
> __
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Charles Jannuzi]

--- Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Charles Jannuzi wrote:
> 
> >But if all this is unfair, let
> >him come on this list and defend himself like
> >normal human beings have to do.
> 
> I wonder if the conditions of his work-release
> from prison would 
> allow him to do so. Why is it that the Italian
> state is so down on 
> this ill-informed obscurantist hack, anyway?
> 
> Doug

Since he won't come on the list, how the f-
should I know? My guess is that neither the
workers nor the state have any room for
ill-informed, obscurantist hack autonomist
Marxists.

CJannuzi 
> 


__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Doug Henwood]

Charles Jannuzi wrote:


But if all this is unfair, let
him come on this list and defend himself like
normal human beings have to do.


I wonder if the conditions of his work-release from prison would 
allow him to do so. Why is it that the Italian state is so down on 
this ill-informed obscurantist hack, anyway?

Doug

Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Louis Proyect]

The charge sheet against the self-proclaimed “criminal” and “deviant” Toni 
Negri in terms of personal involvement in criminal activity, as opposed to 
mere rhetorical glorification of violence, is not totally dependent on 
Fioroni’s testimony in the Saronio murder case. A key witness is Giorgio 
Bocca, the famous Italian journalist, whose viewpoint is best summarised as 
non-Marxist centre-left, and who responded to the 7 April case by writing a 
book in which he tore apart the prosecution claims about Toni Negri being 
the brains behind the BR and the principal organiser of terrorism in Italy 
during the 1970s, claims which Bocca mockingly described as “a global 
theory, an all-inclusive fresco, a Sistine chapel with its last judgement 
of subversion”. Bocca, an expert on terrorism who interviewed many BR 
members, many of whom he saw as misguided idealists, had no liking for 
Negri, whom he subsequently described as “that little university Lucifer” 
and “a narcissus with a subtle brain”, one of those who use “a powerful 
memory purely to assist their tricks”, remarking that Negri “knew how to 
copy well from books that had not yet been translated in Italy”. Bocca has 
no doubt that Negri, whom he sees as far more influenced by Nietzsche’s and 
D’Annunzio’s ideas about “the superman” than by Marx, lived out his 
fantasies, albeit by proxy.

The two concrete instances he gives of Negri inciting others to commit 
criminal acts on his behalf have a definite ring of truth; they are 
precisely the sorts of crime one can imagine amoral academics engaging in. 
Firstly, when Negri lived in Milan, he used to send the young autonomi he 
regularly received in his house out to the nearest bookshop to steal all 
the books that interested him. Secondly, and rather more seriously, he 
asserted his power in Padua University by getting his “reactionary” 
colleagues kneecapped, and then used to theorise in his usual jargon-ridden 
style that “the levels of the use of force of counter-power have been 
exemplified by the punishment of teachers who are particularly zealous in 
anti-proletarian initiatives: Galante, Santo, etc”.

Somebody who behaved like this was not fit to hold a university post in 
Italy or any other country. Anybody who thinks that having your colleagues 
kneecapped by hit squads in balaclavas can be placed on a par with, for 
instance, Robin Blackburn offering verbal support to some students who tore 
down gates at the LSE in 1969, has lost contact with the real world. 
Autonomia may not have been a fully-fledged terrorist organisation like the 
BR (Red Brigades) or Primea Linea, but it was renowned for its systematic 
thuggery and intimidation. Professor Negri was far too busy writing to have 
ordered all the actions carried out by these half-educated young thugs whom 
he regarded as superior to the organised working class, but he dictated the 
general line.

Whilst the Centri Sociali (Social Centres seems a slightly misleading 
translation, even if these, often squatted, buildings are frequently used 
for musical and cultural as well as political and, occasionally, 
paramilitary purposes), the movement out of which Casarini and the White 
Overalls emerged, have, despite Rifondazione Comunista’s tireless efforts 
to steer them towards sanity, a measure of historical continuity with the 
remnants of Autonomia Operaia, the militarised hierarchical and 
semi-clandestine movement in which Negri – despite all his endless and 
utterly mendacious denials – was the leading figure, the recent Negri 
revival owes a lot more to Anglophone (principally US) phenomena than to 
his vestigial following within Italy itself.

Without the extremely gifted academic entrepreneur and manic self-publicist 
Michael Hardt, who first acted as his translator (most famously of Negri’s 
work on Spinoza, The Savage Anomaly, published by the University of 
Minnesota Press in 1991, but written more than a decade earlier during 
Negri’s first imprisonment and published in Italy in 1981 and in France in 
1982, in the latter instance presumably as a result of Giles Deleuze’s 
assistance) and then as his intellectual collaborator (on The Labor of 
Dionysius, published in 1994, and subsequently on Empire), Negri would 
never have made an impact on the American academic mainstream. Hardt was 
not Negri’s first translator or promoter in the English-speaking world, but 
most earlier translations of Negri into English were undertaken by often 
eccentric enthusiasts, inspired by autonomist politics but not noted for 
their technical competence as translators, and published by small political 
presses with a poor distribution network.

From "THE PROFESSOR IN THE BALACLAVA: TONI NEGRI AND AUTONOMIST POLITICS" 
by  Tobias Abse, in What Next? No.22 2002, at: 
http://mysite.freeserve.com/whatnext

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Ian Murray]

- Original Message -
From: "Chris Burford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> > > theorizing configurations of global and local requires new
> >multidimensional strategies ranging from macro to micro in order to
> >intervene in wide range of contemporary and future struggles, max weber
meet
> >thomas hobbes...   michael hoover
> >
> >===
> >
> >And Benoit Mandelbrot...
> >
> >Ian
>
>
> These comments are not as whimsical as they might seem. At the risk of
> inviting a whole number of people to disagree, including perhaps Ian and
> Michael H, let me try amplifying them in the way that makes sense to me.
>
> Yes there is not a single line or programme, but struggles at both the
> local level and the global level can enhance democracy for working people,
> and restrict the power of capital. The struggle for concrete demoncratic
> rights for working people is a major feature of the struggle for
socialism.
>
>   Making transparent the social nature of productive relations, and
> removing the mystification of money, prepares the ground for the ownership
> and control of the means of production for working people.
>
> The multitude was a negative term for Spinoza, but Hardt and Negri use it
> in a positive sense to mean the masses of working people., and to infuse
> some revolutionary enthusiasm, and "lightness of being" at the expense of
> clearly defining the target of the fight and emphasising class struggle.
> But in the sense that the expropriation of capital will be by the billions
> of working people whose creative energies, capital represents, that is a
> relevant fundamental contradiction in the world today.
>
> Yes Mandelbrot, and other champions of chaos theory, remind us that the
> stabilities of the world may conceal the possibility of sudden
> instabilities, or phase changes. These seem impossible for much of the
> time, and at other times need only a relatively slight push to flip the
> whole system into a different phase state. More dully called "dynamical
> systems theory", together with complexity theory, it provides a scientific
> structure that in consistent with dialectical principles of qualitative
> change sometimes leading to quantitative changes.
>
> Basically it is about whether you believe the economic system is
> essentially a social system, although privately owned, and whether you
> believe in the cooperative powers of human beings eventually to get on top
> of it, even though there may be no one party line.
>
> Chris Burford
>
> London

===

For the sake of possibly providing an example of some concreteness, the link
is to an essay which conjoins Sartre's and LeFebvre's notions of
counterfinality [law of unintended consequences meets the fallacy of
composition] with computational complexity theory and fractal geometry to
redescribe Bologna, Italy. I think in an indirect way it represents the kind
of localized intellectual environment that Negri is working in. That is to
say, the vocabularies and idioms of some Italian intellectuals are
influencing *him* to a greater or lesser extent than one can get simply from
reading his latest work; while Negri may be writing for a [virtually] global
audience, his writing participates in a specific environment of ideas
communicated with his [possible] colleagues.

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Mandelbrot.html

Ian

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Ian Murray]

- Original Message -
From: "Michael Hoover" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002 11:26 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:32263] Re: Negri explains the "multitude"


> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/13/02 02:59PM >>>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>  The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics
> hellbent on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and The
Nation magazine such urgent enemies?
>
> They aren't -- but this is a maillist, not the political bureau of a
> mass revolutionary party, or even the steering committee of a mass reform
party.
> Carrol
> <<<>>>
>
> theorizing configurations of global and local requires new
multidimensional strategies ranging from macro to micro in order to
intervene in wide range of contemporary and future struggles, max weber meet
thomas hobbes...   michael hoover

===

And Benoit Mandelbrot...

Ian

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Doug Henwood]

Chris Burford wrote:


At 13/11/02 14:34 -0500, you wrote:

The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics 
hellbent on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri 
and The Nation magazine such urgent enemies?

Doug

Because sectarian traditions of marxism cannot engage with the real 
world, and perhaps prefer not to.

By the way, the editor of the Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, is very 
antiwar. People who hate certain Corn and Cooper pieces should note 
that most don't appear in the Nation - they're in the LA Weekly and 
such. And even if you think the Nation is a limp social imperialist 
rag, you have to concede it's been against every U.S. intervention I 
can think of and has never been particularly red-baiting. So go find 
better enemies.

Doug

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Michael Hoover]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/13/02 02:17PM >>>
I am quite sure that Toni Negri's terminology stands a very good chance of 
becoming part of everyday academic discourse down the road.
Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org 

probably not, but how can one not like a guy who writes that money has "only one face, 
that of the boss", it's so "gangster" movieish...   michael hoover

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[joanna bujes]

At 02:34 PM 11/13/2002 -0500, you wrote:

The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics hellbent 
on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and The Nation 
magazine such urgent enemies?

Doug


Who says they're enemies? I think Carrol and I are saying, in different 
ways, that Negri is a waste of time. As for the Nation, I stopped reading 
it a few years ago because it was too depressing. Don't really know what's 
going on with it now, but I find Harpers more interesting.

Joanna

Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Charles Jannuzi]

--- Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Charles Jannuzi wrote:
> 
> >These are interesting philosophical questions
> but
> >none of this is a remarkable addition. One
> could
> >probably turn it in as a written assignment
> for a
> >Philosophy 201 class and get a B+.
> 
> This is one of the things I love about PEN-L.
> Everyone's so smart!
> 
> Doug

I don't think so!

CJ

__
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site
http://webhosting.yahoo.com

Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Ian Murray]

- Original Message - 
From: "Doug Henwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



> Charles Jannuzi wrote:
> 
> >These are interesting philosophical questions but
> >none of this is a remarkable addition. One could
> >probably turn it in as a written assignment for a
> >Philosophy 201 class and get a B+.
> 
> This is one of the things I love about PEN-L. Everyone's so smart!
> 
> Doug
> 
==

Yet our ignorance is still infinite...

Ian

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Doug Henwood]

Charles Jannuzi wrote:


These are interesting philosophical questions but
none of this is a remarkable addition. One could
probably turn it in as a written assignment for a
Philosophy 201 class and get a B+.


This is one of the things I love about PEN-L. Everyone's so smart!

Doug

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Louis Proyect]

Because sectarian traditions of marxism cannot engage with the real world, 
and perhaps prefer not to.

Chris Burford

Then I am opposed to engaging with the real world, if this means taking the 
side of NATO against Yugoslavia.


Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Chris Burford]

At 13/11/02 14:34 -0500, you wrote:

The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics hellbent 
on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and The Nation 
magazine such urgent enemies?

Doug

Because sectarian traditions of marxism cannot engage with the real world, 
and perhaps prefer not to.


Chris Burford

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Michael Perelman]

I am trying to wade through a load of e-mail today and just came upon
this.  This is absolutely uncalled far.  Please stop immediately.


On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 02:47:10PM -0500, Louis Proyect wrote:
> 
> 
> Sorry, Doug, but you will have to get used to me taking potshots at people 
> you look up to, whether it is Toni Negri or Marc Cooper. This is the 
> Internet, after all. In any case, I have been throwing spitballs at 
> postmodernism on the Internet since 1994 or so. This precedes by a number 
> of years your cultivation of ties to Michael Hardt and Zizek. I thought the 
> sort of thing they were writing was bullshit long before you began touting 
> it. You wouldn't expect me to keep silent just so you wouldn't get ticked 
> off? After all, Michael Hardt gets to defend his ideas on Charlie Rose and 
> Marc Cooper uses the LA Weekly. You use your connections to get me a guest 
> spot on Charlie Rose or a guest column in the Nation Magazine, and I'll 
> stop poking fun at them on pen-l. Unless Michael Perelman wants to put a 
> ban on making rude jokes at the expense of postmodernism on pen-l. When 
> that day comes, I am out of here.
> 
> 
> 
> Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Louis Proyect]

Jim Devine:

It sure seems that we could also spend time on such things as the 
principles of socialism (i.e., what are we really for, anyway?) but some 
object to that. I recently received a series of off-list insults from one 
who didn't want to discuss "socialism from below" (the socialist 
philosophy that I adhere to), invoking his or her long and highly 
effective life as a political activist to justify this rejection.

In fact, there is a discussion going on over on Marxmail by members of 
Solidarity, a group that is in the "socialism from below" tradition. I 
welcome pen-l'ers to look at our archives to see how useful such a 
discussion can be when it is rooted in the day-to-day experience of 
activists. Here's a sample exchange between 2 people in their 20s, who are 
deeply committed to democratic socialism:

--- Alex LoCascio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Plain and simple, there exists a minority but nonetheless hugely
> influental current within Solidarity, emerging from the Draper wing,
> for whom trade union work, and only trade union work, is the
> all-encompassing focus for any socialist organization.

I won't deny this, but I think we're beginning to move beyond it. I
myself am not in a union, being a professional geek. I'm a political
activist. Most comrades in Atlanta are of the same ilk, and there's
been no pressure to change our focus.

I think what Solidarity is realizing, though maybe not saying as much
as we should, is that it's going to take a variety of different work to
accomplish what we want. It's going to take trade union work, but it's
going to also take political activism, educational work, student work,
etc. You can't--and this is the failure of the SWP and other
sects--rely on just *one* focus if you want to build a broad movement.

> The success or failure of the Solidarity regroupment project (and
> frankly, I'm of the opinion that it's time to cut one's losses,
> though I'd welcome evidence to the contrary) ultimately hinges upon
> it's ability to have a rational discussion of these failures, rather
> than just assuming that anyone lobbing these critiques just wants to
> shit on the lifelong work of some people (Solidarity's record on
> welcoming internal dissent, rather than engaging in high-school like
> pariah politics and ostracism, is not very good).

I think regroupment is a success, but it's a long-term project. There's
no way to just say "hey! wanna regroup!" and have everyone jump on
board. You have to take it as it comes.

Alex, I don't think I disagree with you. I think any disagreement we
may have comes out of our viewpoint of Solidarity's potential. I think,
given the nature of the organization, we have room to do great things.
In Atlanta, we *are* doing great things. In the few short months since
three of us got together and formed a "twig," we've become a major
force on the Left here.

I think your criticisms are perfectly legit, but it's something that is
capable of being repaired. I don't think Solidarity's work in Labor
Notes and TDU is something to be dismissed, but you're absolutely
right, it's not something that can be the *basis* of all Solidarity
activity.

Adam

(Because I disagree with this person, I clearly have no experience in 
political action.

No, you have no experience because that's obvious--not because you 
"disagree with me". If you had such experience, you'd be framing your 
remarks to pen-l in terms of the above exchange rather than abstract 
discussions about what kind of socialism we need. Adam and Alex could be 
less interested in a discussion about whose vision was closer to Karl 
Marx's. They want to figure out how to unite Marxist activists. That is 
what is driving Marxmail forward nowadays. Virtually the entire leadership 
of the Australian left is debating perspectives there. We have also had 
important exchanges with the Workers World Party, the bogeymen of David 
Corn and company. We don't think they are bogeymen. We think they are 
comrades who can improve their anti-war work.

Simultaneously, my views are to be rejected because I clearly have no 
experience with political action. What fun! a circular argument!)

When you can discuss questions of how to build an effective anti-war 
movement or how to build a united front in Australia, I'd be happy to join 
you. As I have told you a million times, I am not interested in bull 
sessions about the contours of a future society.


Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Michael Perelman]

I don't think that they are THE ENEMY, but I am disappointed that they
have taken the path that they did.  Negri's early stuff was very
impressive, but Italian friends say that the new book did not represent
much of a turn for him.  Maybe I just did not understand the earlier work.

The Nation too used to be a wonderful resource for me.  Maybe it was the
Pacifica intervention that made me more upset with the magazine.

So, if I, for one, feel anger, maybe it is something like someone who just
got dumped by a loved one.

On Wed, Nov 13, 2002 at 02:34:05PM -0500, Doug Henwood wrote:
> The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics 
> hellbent on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and 
> The Nation magazine such urgent enemies?
> 
> Doug
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Devine, James]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:32161] Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"





> From: Doug Henwood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics 
> hellbent on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and 
> The Nation magazine such urgent enemies?


Because they go against the Party Line (PL), which is Known to be True and is clearly beyond debate. They are Anathema! The only things we should care about are the tactics and strategy of agit-prop, to disseminate the PL. Perhaps we should care about various facts that we can use to back up the PL -- along with ways to reject or ignore those ideas and facts that don't fit with the PL. But if we keep our focus narrow, the masses will rise up and embrace the PL -- so we can sweep capitalism away! Previous on-line discussion lists have only tried to interpret the world. The point is to change it! 

Seriously, what can pen-l do about the war on Iraq? It sure seems like nada. So we can spend our time making fun of those who use incomprehensible jargon. That's pretty harmless, at least as gallows humor. Isn't it? 

It sure seems that we could also spend time on such things as the principles of socialism (i.e., what are we really for, anyway?) but some object to that. I recently received a series of off-list insults from one who didn't want to discuss "socialism from below" (the socialist philosophy that I adhere to), invoking his or her long and highly effective life as a political activist to justify this rejection. (Because I disagree with this person, I clearly have no experience in political action. Simultaneously, my views are to be rejected because I clearly have no experience with political action. What fun! a circular argument!)


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Doug Henwood]

Tom Walker wrote:


As for Doug's worrying about wasting time on Negri and the Nation while the
"U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics hellbent on war
with a good bit of the world": shit happens, Doug. And time marches on.


Oh, of course. Why didn't I think of that?

Doug

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Louis Proyect]

The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics hellbent 
on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and The Nation 
magazine such urgent enemies?

Doug

Sorry, Doug, but you will have to get used to me taking potshots at people 
you look up to, whether it is Toni Negri or Marc Cooper. This is the 
Internet, after all. In any case, I have been throwing spitballs at 
postmodernism on the Internet since 1994 or so. This precedes by a number 
of years your cultivation of ties to Michael Hardt and Zizek. I thought the 
sort of thing they were writing was bullshit long before you began touting 
it. You wouldn't expect me to keep silent just so you wouldn't get ticked 
off? After all, Michael Hardt gets to defend his ideas on Charlie Rose and 
Marc Cooper uses the LA Weekly. You use your connections to get me a guest 
spot on Charlie Rose or a guest column in the Nation Magazine, and I'll 
stop poking fun at them on pen-l. Unless Michael Perelman wants to put a 
ban on making rude jokes at the expense of postmodernism on pen-l. When 
that day comes, I am out of here.



Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Carrol Cox]

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics
> hellbent on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and
> The Nation magazine such urgent enemies?
> 

They aren't -- but this is a maillist, not the political bureau of a
mass revolutionary party, or even the steering committee of a mass
reform party.

Why was Sokal such an urgent enemy on another list? The _Nation_ doesn't
bother me -- it simply began to bore me (and I found out that anything
interesting or useful in it always shows up on some maillist anyhow).
They clearly have hired an incompetent book review editor, however, on
the basis of the two book reviews I have seen reproduced on maillists
(of Gould & of Pinker). I do think it is verging on conspiracy theory to
characterize those reviews as representing anything more serious than
incompetence, however.

Carrol

> Doug

Re: Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Doug Henwood]

The U.S. is under the control of a frightening gang of lunatics 
hellbent on war with a good bit of the world. Why are Toni Negri and 
The Nation magazine such urgent enemies?

Doug

Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Ian Murray]

- Original Message -
From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

>
> I am quite sure that Toni Negri's terminology stands a very good chance of
> becoming part of everyday academic discourse down the road.
>
=

We'll see. What is interesting is the use of metaphors and similes drawn
from biology to think about collective action. This seems radical and novel,
until one remembers that folks like Alfred Marshall spoke of the need to
link economics and other social science disciplines to the biological
sciences via a greater sharing of idioms. In that sense N's stuff is no more
radical than a monograph in Ecological Economics.

Ian

Re: Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[joanna bujes]

At 02:17 PM 11/13/2002 -0500, you wrote:

I am quite sure that Toni Negri's terminology stands a very good chance of 
becoming part of everyday academic discourse down the road.

God help us all. On the other hand, it may also be a sign that pomo 
scholasticism is spinning on the tip of its last pin.

Joanna

Re: Re: Negri explains the "multitude"

[Louis Proyect]

Just goes to show how jargon is a positional good. Creating different idioms
and vocabularies to map class struggle in the 21st century is always going
to meet resistance. Hell look at the concepts Kant used in the Critique of
Pure Reason; a jargonologist's dream, yet so many of the terms are now part
of everyday academic discourse that they're viewed as quaint.

Ian


I am quite sure that Toni Negri's terminology stands a very good chance of 
becoming part of everyday academic discourse down the road.



Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org