"Brave New World" or "the Soul of Man under Socialism"? (was Re:Desire & Scarcity)

[Daniel F. Vukovich]

At 10:32 AM 1/30/00 -0500,  Michael Yates wrote:
>Yoshie has made some very strong arguments in this thread about desire,
>needs, and communism. Her critics haven't said much of interest in my
>opinion and seem to resort to some sort of assumption that she and her
>supporters must be Stalinists, intent on imposing harsh rules and like
>the priest in Blake's poem I quoted earlier, "binding with briars my
>joys and desires." I'm waiting for someone to accuse her again of
>quote-mongering.


This is classic LBO/LPO- talk discourse.  I think it is nonsense, and that 
it sucks.

Michael, I havent seen them, and -- moreover -- I sure havent seen anyone 
accuse her of being a stalinist.  (I have no idea what quote mongering 
means, is that like being a fish-moger, and are there benefits?)  That was 
my job last week, and I still think I was pretty good at it, "because I had 
some very strong arguments in that thread."  It is in the archive, where 
you can look it up.  Interestingly, Angela, whom you really should read b/c 
you would learn a lot from her,  has recently shown the stalinist nature of 
Carrol's recent, and characteristically  ill-humored post to her, one which 
was also -- like yours here -- a melodramatic defense of yoshie, apropos of 
nothing.  Nothing that I can see at least.  I am shocked that Ted's 
critique of the way Yoshie interprets Derrida and other stuff, did not 
engender more such responses, though of course Carrol tried.  I regret 
having to name names here, but more on that in a short bit.  I am not 
saying Ted and Angela and me and etc are Right.  I am saying they have made 
the most sense to me, just as Doug and Max and etc have.  As Ted said, if 
these are spitballs, well then, duck.


Eric and Doug and Max and etc do not need defended because they are, um, 
adults and intellectuals in their own right, who have made what I think are 
very strong arguments in the thread about material and institutional 
limits.  Eric, too, b/c he has I think suggested that it is a-historical to 
think things like jealousy will rapidly peter out (excuse the pun perhaps) 
in post-rev society, just because capital has been socialized, and the 
expropriators, expropriated. He was not talking about an a-historical or 
eternal human nature, but its exact opposite.   Imho, it is positively 
un-marxist to be utopian, and moreover to wax poetic about the post-rev. 
culture and society.  Bloch might well disagree of course. What you will.

Talk of institutional arrangements is good sense, and a useful thought 
experiment, and that is what max and doug did.  It is in the archives, 
too.  (I am not mocking anyone, just the word "archive" in the context of 
mail-lists)  I would also have added that it is an out-and-out cheat, and 
positively un- marxist, to wax poetic and such, without some type of detour 
through the histories of actually existing socialism.   People do -- avoid 
-- this all the time of course ("Well, next time it'll happen *here* and 
we'll get it right b/c capitalism will have been..."); and this makes 
marxism and socialism look silly, and purely reactive.  This is just an 
aside, mind.

Anyway, I think it would be swell if (some of) us listers could do a better 
job of not "personalizing"  these here chats.  Sometimes this place sounds 
and reads like a dysfunktional family, with petty side-taking and pathetic 
and familial side-taking ("us and our supporters" versus "those jerks who 
are always just throwing out epithets like stalinist w/out any 
arguments").  Can we drop this crap please.  Is there any way to 
impersonalize this list.  This is not a plea for undistorted, ideal speech 
situations.  As Angela has noted, e-list protocols call this idea into 
question.  But something needs to be done imho.  "Dreadful oedipal 
atmosphere," as a couple communists used to say.

Jim O'connor has properly asked for dialectical reasoning.  I think we 
could do a better job of approximating that (assuming we all know what this 
means of course) if we impersonalize this list.  To hell with identity, I 
tell you.  (I exaggerate here, of course.)
Alternatively, maybe Doug could set up a chat room on LBO/LPO- site and all 
the personalist crap can happen in there (i jest).





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Daniel F. Vukovich
Dept. of English; The Unit for Criticism
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
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