>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 09/29/99 11:20AM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>Jim:
>Well, the obvious is often deceptive and wrong.
>
>Charles: But not most of the time. And in this case it is neither
>deceptive nor wrong as usual.
Doug: Charles, I'm shocked a Marxist like you would say such a thing. The "obvious" is often the most ideological thing of all.
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Charles: I don't think the Marxist position is that most of what is obvious is false consciousness, is it ? I realize there is the famous quote from Marx on the differences between appearances and essence, and we wouldn't need science if all things were the way they appeared., but I don't treat that as a call to treat all or even most appearances as false.
In this case, the surface false ideology is not the connection between slavery and racism but the false ideology of the ruling class that they are not connected. In other words, the analogy to your nonrandom example below is not the perception that slavery is connected to today's racism , but the exact opposite :the false mass perception and ideology today that they are not connected.
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Doug
To take a nonrandom example, most people in the U.S. regard market exchange as a realm of freedom - the realm of liberty, equality, and Bentham, as the Old Guy put it. To a Marxist nothing could be more wrong. The whole point of the structure of Capital - the book, not the social relation - is to uncover all the mysteries hidden behind the exchange of a simple coat for a simple table. To most people, it's obvious; to Marx, it was worth more than 3 volumes.
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Charles: As I say above, it is the currently widespread idea , repeated by Jim H. ,that slavery and racism are not connected that corresponds to most people in the U.S. regarding market exchange as a realm of freedom. So, to a Marxist, the idea that slavery is not connected to racism could not be more wrong. Just as regarding market exchange as a realm of freedom is a falsely conscious idea perpetrated by the bourgeoisie, so is the idea that slavery and racism are not connected a false consciousness being perpetrated by the bourgeoisie. Flip what you are saying onto its feet. It is standing on its head.
CB