I feel so dirty.

[Paul Henry Rosenberg]

Kelly wrote:

> And, praytell, what exactly is wrong with theorizing, ey?  Is
> action always and only where it's at?

Not at all.  I think theorizing is VERY important.  Theorizing in ways
that foreclose action is something to be on our toes for -- especially
when it's inadvertant by those of us who very much DO want our
theorizing to support action, as I believe you clearly do. 

> >But that's always the case, now isn't it?  Class antagonism built on
> >hating individual capitalists is hardly any firmer.  You start with
> >people's inchoate grapplings with contradictions, and try to find firmer
> >foundations for them.  Same as it ever was.
> 
> Yeah, and it's very convenient to ignore what I closed
> with:  "Shutting up because I might delegitimate the
> positive features of their efforts hardly seems the 
> appropriate response.  And, for me, shutting up vitiates
> the very project of critical theory."

But I didn't ignore it...
 
> Now, I didn't think I'd have to explain what critical theory
> is.  It's not mere criticism for the sake of being critical,
> because I get so dang comfy in my arm chair, and can't bring
> myself to actually *do* anything.  No. Rather, as Marx wrote,
> critical theory must take seriously "the struggles and wishes
> of the age" in order to engage them in critique, to reveal
> possibilities, to push them forward, rather than leaving them
> where they are.

I just don't think that snipping at people's snobbishness does a very
good job of this.  Do you, really?  I don't think so.  Not from the
sophistication & insight I've seen from you elsewhere. 

> I wish you'd make up your mind.  Either I'm engaging in a material
> (political economic/feminist analysis) or I'm just spouting off.  I think
> it really quite possible to do both and, indeed, they may well mutually
> inform one another.

I agree wholeheartedly.  But in this I think your spouting off was not
so well informed.  The tedious old stuff I brought up, which you seem to
think was taken for granted appeared to me was being ignored.
 
> This activist v. armchair critic nonsense is just that:  nonsense.
> Firstly, there is always a need for critique.  Secondly, activism for the
> sake of activism isn't always a good thing; indeed, it can be very
> dangerous. 

Again, I agree wholeheartedly.  

I guess I just know SOME folks who are influenced by the whole voluntary
simplicity thing who I don't regard as totally brain dead (I've also
known some such who ARE braid dead, but I try not to return their
calls.)  Therefore, I think the critique ought to be made in a way that
doesn't simply shut those people down, but instead offers to engage
them.

> Thirdly, this is a listserv, this is where I (and I think a lot
> of other people here) come to engage in bombast, dialogue, whining,
> complaining, self- and social- reflection, bitching, pondering, spouting
> off, wondering, thinking out loud, working out ideas, pissing and moaning,
> asking questions, building up their egos by tearing others down, ironic
> self observation, wasting time, testing their ideas, keeping their
> orthodoxies on the straight and narrow.  Complaining that I'm just spouting
> off in an un-reflective fashion--well sometimes you seem to be saying this,
> other times not--seems to be asking a lot more of this venue than it can
> offer. 

Yes, but I wasn't asking it of this venue.  I was asking it of you,
sweet Snit. <g>  
Because I know you can.  (No, don't hear that in a fatherly tone,
puhleez!  Snotty, but proud, brother if you must.)

> Finally, I see no reason to justify anything I type by dragging out
> my activist street cred. 

Sorry I expressed myself so poorly.  This was never my intent.  Rather,
because I know your activist orientation, I regarded that consequence as
something significant to you -- and something you would seriously
weigh.  

Others on this list are pretty much convinced that nothing can be done
(the call-me-when-the-revolution-starts crowd) but I know full well
you're cut from different cloth, and generally DO think much more
dialectically.

> Dismissing anyone's views on the basis of whether
> they are academics or not, intellectuals or not, activists or not,
> authentically working class or not, well versed in Marx's writings or not,
> it's all the same:  Yawn.

Agreed.  It's not the position/instrument/role you play that matters,
it's the way you play it.

> >People NEVER have very sophisticated reasons they can articulate (or
> >even recognize) on their own.  Poets, philosophers, comics and
> >troublemakers are always necessary to develop such sophistication.
> 
> Exactly.
> 
> Though, I'd hardly say that I've been throwing tomatoes.
> Really, I thought I was on my way to making a delicious pasta sauce.

Um, maybe I just pipped up too soon, then.  But then, chalk that up to
my own spouting off.

Waiting for the dinner bell to ring,

-- 
Paul Rosenberg
Reason and Democracy
rad at gte.net
 
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"