Finally, all I said was that I thought Yoshie's arguments were better than those who disagreed with her. My comments about her use of quotations was in response to another lister heaping scorn on her for doing this.
I guess I do not know what you are so worked up about. Maybe melodrama will end with communism!!!
Michael Yates
"Daniel F. Vukovich" wrote:
>
> 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).
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Daniel F. Vukovich
> Dept. of English; The Unit for Criticism
> University of Illinois
> Urbana, IL 61801
> ------------------------------------------------------