> Oh, pulllease... You're very good at informing people that there are
things
> you do not understand, and you are very good at insisting that because you
> do
> not understand something it must be dangerous.
Of course I have written no such thing. But I have been expecting this line of argument for some time -- in essence, that today's Marxism is beyond the comprehesion of mere workers or other mortals, and therefore requires a new priest class of celebrity intellectuals to explain it. That is the logical dead end for those who wallow in ambiguity and obscurantism, and who require seers to interpret the entrails. Sadly, it is how Marxism becomes religion.
As several participants on this list are aware, I once taught a fairly extensive course in Marxist dialectics, whose curriculum was published by Sojourner Truth Organization many years ago. Its breadth included the cultural and psychological elements that so charm the LBO-talk academics, but nonetheless remained focused on the essential ingredient of power (as in Hegel's master and slave discussion), which is so disparaged here.
> Let me put it another way: you return again and again to Zizek and
'desire',
> but haven't shown much interest in border politics, and certainly not much
> knowledge of the political campaigns in the EU on this. When Ken or I
have
> argued why the antiHaider protests will not fulfill what you claim is their
> content (defending migrants, anti-racism) . . .
I answered those posts directly, by observing that the choice facing Marxists is to take the side of the militants in the struggle, whatever their alleged failures might be (and I do not concede such allegations of failure are true); an argument for abstention is capitulation to the ruling class. This is what drew the storm of abuse; the subsequent exchanges on Zizek have been pertinent only to the extent that Z provided pseudo-left cover for the abstentionists.
The mass movement determines the terrain of struggle, not its intellectual critics who are too preoccupied with revolutionary navel-contemplation to join activists on the front lines.
Ken Lawrence