you assume too much, or rather too little. As several postings have suggested, a number of us think you were mistaken in giving up on Althusser before you actually tried to figure out what he meant, but also that the reasons you give for your doing so are so facile that, since your critique is hardly serious, it doesn't warrant a serious response. Dismissing his work because you disagree with it is one thing, but, given that he was the principle theoretician for the French CP and among the most serious of postwar Leninists, doing so just because it was "too hard" just doesn't wash.
But if you really do need simple language even when the ideas are complex, you might want to try reading some Brecht, who kept a little figure of a donkey on his writing desk with a sign around its neck reading, "I, too, must understand it." Brecht also believed wholeheartedly in borrowing, or even stealing, terms, concepts, phrases from other contexts an "re-functioning" (Umfunktionierung) them to suit his own intellectual/creative/political purposes.
Jeez....
Jamie
Sat, 8 Aug 1998, Brad De Long wrote:
> Re:
> >>
> >> Can't say today that my allergic reaction to Althusser was a mistake.
> >>
> >
> >Overdetermination is purely and only a mathematical term? You need to
> >read more!
>
> No. I need to read *less*. I need to read *better*. I certainly do not need
> to read more...
>
> I do note that no one seems to think I made a mistake in moving the
> collected works of Louis Althusser to the "not worth reading" pile...
>
>
>
> Brad DeLong
>
>