Rorty

pms laflame at mindspring.com
Tue Dec 22 18:15:25 PST 1998



>For us Americans, it is important not to let Marxism influence the story
>we tell about our own Left. We should repudiate the Marxists'
>insinuation that only those who are convinced capitalism should be
>overthrown count as leftists, and that everybody else is a wimpy liberal,
>a self-decieving bourgeois reformer...((Sam--re: your comment that he
>engage the oncept of ideology->) I think we should abandon the
>left-versus-liberal distinction, along with other residues of MArxism that
>clutter up our vocabulary--overworked words like "commodification" and
>"ideology," for example. (42)
>
>frances
>

ooh bummer, I am really bad. I sorta agree with what this guy is saying, though I have a feeling I'd have some quibbles if I read more, which I won't, since the best thing about philosophy is that you can make it up yourself, once you've built your foundation.

I don't think we should use a lot of these words either, and I want stories I believe in to be in wider circulation before the system gets overthrown. Actually, I think the system needs to transform with the stories, maybe, could be. Anyway, with a Republican party that wins because self-satisfied people don't want to vote for the party that caters to blacks, maybe we should start telling stories folks will listen to, and discuss Marx some other day.

That doesn't mean avoiding themes of ownership and subsidy of that ownership and exploitation, etc. But why use loaded buzzwords that qualify you as a nut with 98% of the people?

Occasionally, when discussing the economic situation with someone(non-politico), I'll say something like, ya know, Marx talked about this stuff happening, and I can see them bristle and then kind of let the word in, cause I'm not promoteing anything, just expanding the story.

Your pal, the ideologically impure, Paula



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