Intellectuals vs. activism

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Mon Aug 5 14:05:12 PDT 2002


----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>

Nathan Newman wrote:
>The classic Marx statement on it all was "The point is not to understand he
>world but to change it."

-Yes, but Marx spent *lots* of time trying to understand the world. -Not to mention writing theory. He was not one to subordinate his -interests to the immediate needs of activists.

No- but he did spend a lot of time with activists understanding what they were looking for and addressing a lot of the strategies then under discussion, attacking some, promoting others. His work is permeated by engagement with the debates of his day with concrete responses.

I am not drawing an opposition between theory and action-- they are intimately tied together. My biggest problem with most left theorists is that they are so abstracted from action in their writing-- positing the theory without the concrete possibilities.

-- Nathan Newman



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