Healyites & Bhaskar?

[Peter van Heusden]

On Sat, Feb 24, 2001 at 11:42:44AM -0800, Michael Pugliese wrote:
> Bizarre as it may seem to mere mortals, Healy's acolytes appear to have
> found in Roy Bhaskar's critical realism some justification for their views.
> Those of us who have plodded through Bhaskar's works find much of interest,
> but rarely a justification of Healy-style DM ['dialectical materialism' -
> ed.]. Or perhaps, in A realist theory of science, Bhaskar's use of
> "Aristotelian material causes" (1978 edition, p148) and attempts to revive
> the medieval concept of "natural powers and tendencies" (ibid. pp229-239)
> have a certain symmetry with the Workers Revolutionary Party's gibberish.
> And don't even begin to talk about Dialectics, which would have been best
> left unpublished.

A number of ex-Healyites seem to find Bhaskar attractive - I had some
peripheral interaction with the ex-Healy scene while in the UK. The
trajectory of Healyites after Healyism is quite interesting - while no
doubt some of them cling to the faith, the spectacular nature of the
implosion of Healyism has led to some soul-searching. For instance,
some fairly intelligent ex-Healyites are arround the journal Revolutionary
History, others are behind the 'Movement For Socialism' which seems to
be an attempt to re-centre activity on supporting struggles, rather than
Party building (e.g. the Workers Aid to Bosnia, Workers Aid to Kosova 
groups have attracted a number of ex-Healyites, and seem to be doing 
good work).

While Gerry Healy presided over a sad and destructive chapter of UK Left
history, it seems that there something honest, albeit slightly strange,
might come out of Healyism yet.

The Weekly Worker, btw. is the premier scandal sheet of the UK Leninist 
left. The CPGB (PCC) people seem to make a profession out of silly little
fights, which they provoke and document tirelessly. Always good for a laugh, 
or laughable, or something like that.

Peter
--
Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com>
NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics
"Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man 
shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain 
and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844
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