>>> debsian at pacbell.net 10/11/00 12:01PM >>>
Pioneering is one thing but
I'd have to agree narrowly, with Radosh'es polemic, that his work evinces a
desire to advance political positions to the detriment
of careful consideration of opposing views.
-clippity-
CB: See Karl Marx's Theses on Feuerbach regarding unity of theory and practice (praxis). Scholarship unconnected to practice is, well, scholastic ( meaning a weakness). The historical materialist tradition of writing history , after Marx, specifically and especially and explicitly and famously, rejects the notion of socalled objective, non-partisan, neutral scholarship as an illusion typical and promoted by bourgeois scholars. For you and Radosh to blithely assert this bourgeois standard , as if it is not at the center of controversy between Marxist and bourgeois scholars of all types, is a real fake move. Such a criticism is an effort to assert as conclusive, what is in central epistemological dispute. In other words, it begs the question. That Aptheker combines theory and practice is part of why Genovese and Radosh are lesser scholars than Aptheker.
( And no it does not mean that Genovese or Radosh are more truthful or factual; they do have a bias, but do not admit it)