Ian Murray wrote:
>
>
> > Think like a marxist, not like a liberal who has to have a moral
> > judgment of everything everybody does.
> >
> > Carrol
> =========
>
> The strategic uses of amoralism by marxists is every bit as
> problematic as the uses of moralism by liberals and conservatives. For
> in this, as in many other contexts the issue of reflexivity can be
> used to devastating effect.
>
This points in a number of directions. Let me pull on one thread now. I'm not clear on the sense of "strategic" in this context. I spoke to Max as a fellow-marxist -- that is, I did not intend the post to be an argument for marxism but an argument that presupposed marxism as a shared perspective. I concerned myself primarily with identifying limits of marxism from within marxism. Perhaps it should have been off-list even, but I posted it on list as a peg for whatever more Max might want to say.
The post was in fact limited enough (this in retrospect) that it did not even deny "moralism" abstractly but merely said that in the particular case Max should avoid making moral judgments, and that he ought not to respond to (implicit or explicit) moral judgments of him. The suggestion that a post by him a couple years ago bears on the present discussion is what a moral judgment -- it is relevant not to the present thread but to Max's inner reality.
(I tend not to respond on a maillist to queries or statements about my consistency or inconsistency over time. Each post must stand by itself, and I was in effect suggesting to Max that he adopt this practice. That is, I think he should simply have ignored any comments on what he did or did not say two years ago. That merely muddies the waters.)
Carrol