>
>Two things on list protocol, Justin.
>
>When you change a quote, never leave what the other person actually said
>appended below. People will read it and catch on.
>
>I said: "My beef is with your implication that you've given any reason
>why marxism is less useful. You haven't" You turned that into "You
>misunderstand my point. I am not saying that 'Marxism is useless'", and
>had the effrontery to put it quotes as if you were quoting me. OK,
>lacking anything worth saying on my more nuanced point, you needed a
>strawman to whack, but don't you think you should be more, um,
>circumspect. As opposed, that is, to stopping the distortions in the
>first place, which, of course, is the best approach.
>
>Second, when you have nothing further to say, or want to break off for
>some other reason, try to avoid covering your frustration/ego by
>gratuitously insulting the other person. And on that point, you
>shouldn't flatter yourself that I would waste my time trying to show
>that my intellect is superior to yours.
>
>RO
>
>
>Justin Schwartz wrote:
> >
> > You misunderstand my point. I am not saying that "Marxism is useless." I
>am
> > saying that its core ideas can be expressed in terms that ordinary
>Americans
> > can understand and will be receptive to, but not if people who wish to
>talk
> > to the laity insist on talking in the language of 19th German social
> > democracy or early 20th century Russian revolutionaries. For these ideas
>not
> > to be rejected, they have to expressed in familiar accents.
> >
> > I don't pretend that this is a startlingly new or original idea or even
>that
> > it is deep. It's just true and useful. It also has not been absorbed by
>many
> > self-identified Marxists. Not all: some Marxists and Marxist-inflienced
> > activists activists and thinkers do a good job of talking plain
>language,
> > even in expressing deep. hard insights drawn from Marxist traditions.
> > Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin come to mind as models.
> >
> > In addition I am not saying that there is no point to using a Marxist
> > technical vocabulary in some contexts. I do this, and have done it,
>myself,
> > where I thought it appropriate. But it's not appropriate for activist
>work,
> > at least that aimed at a mass, or hopefully mass, audience. There will
>be no
> > mass audience in America for people talking about "the proletariat" and
>so
> > forth. I'd be happy to be proved wrong about this, but we have had over
>a
> > century of experience to the contrary.
> >
> > As to the thought that the Marxist commonplaces I say most people accept
> > could be assented to by right wingers: that is true, and they often are,
>but
> > not for the reason you suggest. You translate them into the language of
> > neoclassical economics. which is just as alien to ordinary folk as
>Marxtalk.
> > What I mean is something that ordinary people of little education can
> > understand because they have experienced it. I do not think that the
>basic
> > Marxist critique of capitalism expresses ideas that bear no relation to
>the
> > actual experience of working people. Nor do I think that workers are so
> > befuddled that they do not know more or less what is going on.
> >
> > Anyway, you seem more interesting in establishing that you are a
>superior
> > intellect than in enagging in a discussion, so I'll stop here.,
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