Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] What are the CPUSA’s views on the USSR?
--- On Sat, 2/7/09, juan De La Cruz wrote: From: juan De La Cruz Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] What are the CPUSA’s views on the USSR? To: cdb1...@prodigy.net Date: Saturday, February 7, 2009, 2:15 PM ...I think or want to recommend to start our critical study of the exussr by using the concept revolutionary tentative in order to correctly understand that "particular" historical moment. One of the historical documents that demonstrates that the revolutionary proletariat was defeated during the 1917-1923 international wave of proletarian action is found in Lenin's Collective Works: The Eighth Party Congress and a decree stopping revolutionary action against private property Lenin's himself acknowledge during its intervention in the Party's Congress that Soviets had been transformed into government's administration organs for the proletariat.In the second document he signed a decree calling the direct action against private property to be stopped and those structures to merged with the Soviets, that were already organs of capital's administrationWe shall not forget the international invasion that followed to consolidate the new form of capital's dictatorship in contradiction with other fraction of capital...until all contradictions exploited in 1938(9): the second generalized capital war. Also, we could see and learn more historical evidence of the proletariat defeat in the files of the Third International. with revolutionary salutations, ballista ^ Is it your conclusion that the great october revolution was not really that great ? --- On Mon, 2/2/09, Charles Brown wrote: From: Charles Brown Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What are the CPUSA’s views on the USSR? To: a-l...@lists.econ.utah.edu, marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Monday, February 2, 2009, 5:15 PM What are the CPUSA’s views on the USSR? The subject of the USSR is a complex one. There was certainly an insufficiently developed democracy, but to dismiss over 70 years of their history developing socialism as completely undemocratic is a gross oversimplification. They practiced forms of economic democracy and worker involvement unknown in this country. They offered citizens many essential benefits that the drive to capitalism has destroyed. When the "solution" is worse than the problem, it is not a solution. Capitalism has made life for the vast majority in the former Soviet Union and other former socialist countries much worse. All indicators of social health are deteriorating, such as the sharp rise in infant mortality, the decrease in longevity rates, levels of malnutrition and starvation, decreasing health care for most of the population, inadequate and overwhelmed social security and welfare programs. The problems they faced would have had a better chance of being solved by more socialism, not less! I recommend six books to help deepen your knowledge of the accomplishments and shortcomings of the Soviet Union: Heroic Struggle, Bitter Defeat by Bhaman Azad from International Publishers, 2000, Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti from City Light Publishers. These are both valuable contributions to the discussion of what happened in the Soviet Union, why, and how that connects to the history of Soviet policies. About issues of human rights and socialist development in the Soviet Union, see Human Rights in the Soviet Union by Albert Szymanski, Zed Books, 1984. An earlier book of his, Is the Red Flag Still Flying, included an afterward that is a (very incomplete) start at an historical materialist analysis of Stalin’s role. (Symanski was an economist and a Maoist who set out to prove the Maoist thesis of "capitalist restoration" in the Soviet Union, but on examining the statistics and realities, came to the conclusion that the Maoists were wrong, that the Soviet Union was still primarily run in the interests of the working class. He used statistics and facts as reported by right-wing academicians, arguing that facts as reported by anti-communists could be used to prove progressive points with greater believability by anti-communist readers.) Soviet Women ( Ramparts Press, 1975) and Soviet But Not Russian (Ramparts Press, 1985) by William Mandel and The Siberians by Farley Mowat are useful responses to the barrage of anti-communism directed at the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. (Note that for writing this particular book, Farley Mowat was barred from entering the United States in the 1980s! He wrote a short funny book about his experiences. The U. S. State Department finally backed down, at which time Mowat refused to enter! Other world-famous authors have been refused entry into the U.S. as "undesirable aliens," including Nobel Literature Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.) http://www.cpusa.org/article/static/511/#question27 ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscri
[Marxism-Thaxis] The Concept of "Aura" and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg
The Concept of "Aura" and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg By Gary Tedman click here for related stories: science 1-28-09, 10:33 am I think we should not expect Marxism to produce a scientific (correct) theory of art, which would be like a Marxist theory of biology attempting to replace Darwinism. Instead, the theory must come from within the realms of art and be "internal" to that gamut of practices. Of course, Marxism has an input to make on this subject, and, in the absence of a universally accepted theory, it is obliged to take a position on art, to pick a side, so to speak. It is also obliged to champion those theories of art it thinks are the most progressive and scientific. I am not convinced that Marxism has done this in the past at all times. The Marxists Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin and Clement Greenberg have, I would argue, produced the most progressive theories of art, sometimes almost as an aside to their more pressing concerns. This essay critiques their contributions and also seeks to amalgamate them into a new and radical whole. It will help us to start this investigation by thinking of visual art as visual philosophy. Art, if it is not simply decorative, entertainment, or utilitarian, communicates deep and fundamental ideas, just like philosophy. I realize, of course, that “What is philosophy?” is no easy question. The Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1918-1990) has, however, made it an easier one for us. For Althusser, philosophy is class struggle in the field of theory. It battles over the status of the sciences. Thus, the practice of science is distinguished from the practice of ideology. Art, however, differs from philosophy in that, while philosophy (at least as commonly understood) deals with the rational via writing, art specializes in “feelings,” taking feeling to mean both emotion and sensory perception, using its materials in subtle ways to affect the senses. Linking art and philosophy in this way has the benefit of revealing a hitherto hidden aspect of art: As Althusser said, all philosophy interpellates us as subjects. The same can be said about art. “Interpellation" is a concept Althusser developed in his theory of ideology. For Althusser, ideology (even a system of false ideas such as bourgeois ideology) participates in the ongoing reproduction of the already existing social conditions of production. "As any child knows," Althusser said, all societies must reproduce themselves. Ideology is necessary in order to reproduce the "right kind" of human subject with the "right kind" of "mentality" for functioning properly in capitalist society. The bourgeois state has organized modern education to manage this task, a task which once had been the function of religious institutions. Part of this reproduction process is the “interpellation of the subject.” Althusser’s example is the French police way of hailing: “Hey you there!” Such hailing functions so that the subject recognizes he or she really is a "responsible individual" subject to ideology. For Althusser, the ruling philosophy always interpellates subjects, it always has a particular "world view," and it hails its subjects to recognize its authority. However, all interpellation by the state must be "materialized." It can never just consist of "pure ideas" floating from one brain to another. It must therefore exist in actual practice. We "act out" ideology, or to put it another way, because practice always comes before theory, ideology legitimizes practices that already exist (e.g., ideology legitimated the Iraq war after the war had already been started). But, as Althusser said, bourgeois philosophy “lives by its denegation," the promise of an objective knowledge of what philosophy is, as a practice, which is offered by Marxism, is always denegated, or disavowed, by bourgeois philosophers, who assert that such knowledge is impossible. This denial of status is crucial to the ruling ideology. The bourgeois world view, for example, sees itself as just because it is universal, which means beyond all partisan positions. Because of this it may/can be forceful, resort to violence, etc. The professional art teacher is similarly obliged to deny real knowledge of their practice. The phrase "there's no accounting for taste" is one of the unwritten commandments of modern art education. This reflects the bourgeois notion that art (ultimately) cannot "be scientific" or subjected to scientific analysis. In this, the ruling philosophy has decided what science and art is, but at the same time (absurdly) it holds there can be no definite (scientific) knowledge of it. It also asserts this of its own practice of philosophy. According to the ruling philosophy, we cannot know what philosophy does, as a practice. All of this is a function of the classical "bifurcation thesis," the great separation of the humanities from the scie
[Marxism-Thaxis] Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of " Aura" and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg
:Picking up on Jim F's discussion below it seems to me that the structuralist and other objections to "humanism" are objections to "individualism". That is humanism/individualism as a failure to understand Marx's notion that human in individuals are an "ensemble of their social relations". The human individual is a highly social individual. An extreme example of what here is being termed "humanism" would be Margaret Thatcher's claim that "there is no such thing as society". Her implication being that we are just a collection of individuals. Another term for this is "reductionism" as if' human society can be reduced to the interaction of all the individuals who have specific human individual natures or individual natural instincts , self-interests, etc. In bourgeois economics the natural individual is the "rational man" and what Marx criticizes as the "Robinsonade". In bourgeois law it's the "reasonable man". It is a fundamental tenet of the various Social Darwinisms. A fundamental critique of individualism is that it is actually a socially determined' ideology of the bourgeoisie. It is to reduce the social whole to the sum of its parts. The Briitsh Marxist philosopher Christopher Cauldwell has several essays critiquing this very well. Ted Winslow of several lists here calls it "external relations" when 'reality is in the form of "internal relations" He follows Whitehead on this, and his debates with Bertrand 'Russell. This takes it out of the realm of human society to the whole of reality. So, reducing wholes to the sum of their parts in general. Jim Farmelant fOn Sat, 7 Feb 2009 05:30:54 -0800 (PST) Mehmet Cagatay 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. In France since the 19th century humanism was seen as something that was closely tied to the bourgeoisie. Even someone like Sartre struggled over whether he was a humanist or not. He eventually decided that his existentialism was a kind of humanism, but one that was different from the kinds of humanism that the bourgeoisie typically embraced. In Sartre's case, I think he identified conventional bourgeois humanism with essentialism. Those humanisms posited a human essence, whereas for Sartre, existence preceded essence. In the French debates over humanism in the 1960s and 1970s, structuralists and poststructuralists like Levi-Strauss, Louis Althusser, and Michel Foucault attempted to push the critique of humanism much further than Sartre had been willing to go. Sartre's existentialism, as he realized, was still a humanism. He placed free will at the center of his conception of man. People, regardless of the circumstances that they might find themselves in, still retained their freedom, if only the freedom to redefine their situation in alternative ways. The French anti-humanists questioned this view in light of such developments in the human sciences like structural linguistics (which Levi-Strauss to generalize into a complete anthropology), psychoanalysis (i.e. the work of Lacan which enjoyed great currency in this period), and of course, Marxism. Althusser, was of course, a Marxist and long time member of the PCF. Foucault, who had been a student of Althusser, was a member of the PCF for a brief period of time. By the 1950s, he had renounced Marxism in favor of Nietzscheanism, although his work was still very much influenced by Marxism. Levi-Strauss, I believed, identified himself at this time as a Marxist, although his work doesn't strike me as being particularly Marxist. There were certainly differences in viewpoints between these people. Althusser doesn't seem to have been particularly enamored with Levi-Strauss's work, and he didn't like being called a structuralist. However, all these people's work, whether drawing from Saussure, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, or Heidegger, all had certain themes in common. They all rejected the Sartrean emphasis on human freedom, instead emphasizing the extent to which human behavior is determined by structures of various sorts, whether these be linguistic structures, kinship structures, structures of epistemology (Foucault in this *The Order of Things*), social structures as represented by the mode of production and associated superstructures (i.e. Althusser), and so forth. They all rejected the traditional humanist idea that their exists an unchanging human essence which provides the basis for freedom and equality and human rights. For the French antihumanists, this conception was rejected as being ideological and/or metaphysical, and they drew variously upon Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, in their critiques of humanism. ___ 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 " Aura" 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 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 " Aura" 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 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 unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/l
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [politicalaffairs] Re: Political Affairs Magazine - The Concept of " Aura" and the Question of Art in Althusser, Benjamin and Greenberg
On Sat, 7 Feb 2009 05:30:54 -0800 (PST) Mehmet Cagatay 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. In France since the 19th century humanism was seen as something that was closely tied to the bourgeoisie. Even someone like Sartre struggled over whether he was a humanist or not. He eventually decided that his existentialism was a kind of humanism, but one that was different from the kinds of humanism that the bourgeoisie typically embraced. In Sartre's case, I think he identified conventional bourgeois humanism with essentialism. Those humanisms posited a human essence, whereas for Sartre, existence preceded essence. In the French debates over humanism in the 1960s and 1970s, structuralists and poststructuralists like Levi-Strauss, Louis Althusser, and Michel Foucault attempted to push the critique of humanism much further than Sartre had been willing to go. Sartre's existentialism, as he realized, was still a humanism. He placed free will at the center of his conception of man. People, regardless of the circumstances that they might find themselves in, still retained their freedom, if only the freedom to redefine their situation in alternative ways. The French anti-humanists questioned this view in light of such developments in the human sciences like structural linguistics (which Levi-Strauss to generalize into a complete anthropology), psychoanalysis (i.e. the work of Lacan which enjoyed great currency in this period), and of course, Marxism. Althusser, was of course, a Marxist and long time member of the PCF. Foucault, who had been a student of Althusser, was a member of the PCF for a brief period of time. By the 1950s, he had renounced Marxism in favor of Nietzscheanism, although his work was still very much influenced by Marxism. Levi-Strauss, I believed, identified himself at this time as a Marxist, although his work doesn't strike me as being particularly Marxist. There were certainly differences in viewpoints between these people. Althusser doesn't seem to have been particularly enamored with Levi-Strauss's work, and he didn't like being called a structuralist. However, all these people's work, whether drawing from Saussure, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche, or Heidegger, all had certain themes in common. They all rejected the Sartrean emphasis on human freedom, instead emphasizing the extent to which human behavior is determined by structures of various sorts, whether these be linguistic structures, kinship structures, structures of epistemology (Foucault in this *The Order of Things*), social structures as represented by the mode of production and associated superstructures (i.e. Althusser), and so forth. They all rejected the traditional humanist idea that their exists an unchanging human essence which provides the basis for freedom and equality and human rights. For the French antihumanists, this conception was rejected as being ideological and/or metaphysical, and they drew variously upon Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, in their critiques of humanism. > > Thank you in advance, > > > > Mehmet Çagatay > http://weblogmca.blogspot.com/ > > > --- On Fri, 2/6/09, Ralph Dumain > 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 > > Click now for easy qualification on auto loans even with bad credit! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw4DjCERYK5gSSDrHjS4uhluxNytJa9bOdnXQvteZtsjDX5AF/ ___ 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 " Aura" 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 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
