You know, something about you brings out the sarcastic in me.
Tahir: This from someone who tells me not to "presume to be personal"!
You've never seen a soc textbook that claimed Marx, Durkheim and Weber as the founders of sociology? Really? This formulation is so standard that it is a cliche.
Tahir: I didn't say that I hadn't seen that. What I was drawing attention to was precisely the way that academia, in both its Soviet and Western forms, has appropriated "marxism" to the point that this "marxism" is now a part of sociology rather than what I and many others prefer to see it as, namely a critique of capitalism that suggests a revolutionary communism. I am well aware that every first year sociology student needs to learn by rote Marx's definition of class.
You might look at Geoff Alexander's big multivolume work on thefounders of sociology, including guess who! We can "all agree" that marx did not "propose" a sociology, although he brought empirical data to bear on the theoretical explanation of social phenomena?
Tahir: When I read marxism I read precisely those writers who do not present some limited aspect of Marx as part of their professional specialisation. Marx's greatness lies in his ability to maintain a perspective on the historical whole. The empirical data is not presented as part of a sociological method. If anything Marx was one of the first great interdisciplinarians. That's the way I like it and that's the only way I think it can retain any revolutionary perspective (see below).
I've read Rose a long time ago, can't recall much about it, honestly wasn't that impressed. You are obviouslt operating with highly idionsyncratic notions of "Marxism" and "sociology."
Tahir: You mean that you can't remember a thing about the Rose book you read? Well then the point is irrelevant. I happen to like her work very much indeed and if you had recalled anything that it was about you would not have found my views as idiosyncratic as you do. I don't take as my point of reference a particular academic trend, but rather what I find useful. I am well aware, as I've said, that the views I expressed fly in the face of 'left' academic orthodoxy. So what? Why does this irritate you so much (and why should your irritation interest anyone else)?
Well, you and I are not going to agree much. I don't think there's a distinctive Marxist method, just better or worse social science.
Tahir: Actually this is kind of where we agree and both disagree with CB - you remember the start to this thread? - I also don't think there's a "distinctive marxist method" in social science. Did you forget that this was my starting point?
I don't think Marxism is necessarily especially revolutionary, in fact much of it is quite conservative, and I don't think anyone has a clue what it means to be revolutionary today. Maybe we will learn again, but I predict that whatever it comes to mean in the future, it won;t call itself Marxist.
Tahir: Well I hope you will support the first two of these points with some explanation at least. As for the last point I hope you are right. I still think that it should be called communism rather. There are many communists that I respect who are not marxists, such as certain anarchists, and I respect some of them way more than certain people who consider themselves marxists (like some soviet and western academics, leninists, etc.) Now will you tell me that there is also an anarchist sociology, an anarchist pol sci, an anarchist anthro, etc.?
>! (But I am neither a
>marxist nor an academic, so what would I know).
>
>Tahir: So why the jerking knee then? Which other nerve did I touch?
Don't presume to be personal.
Tahir: You started with the personal stuff pal and you continue with it down below, and you won't tell me what to "presume".
I made fun of you because you say silly things in a pretentious manner.
Tahir: I said things that you didn't grasp, but which nevertheless led to one of the most lively of recent threads. And for your personal remark above, let me just say I can tell a dry pedant when I come across one. It's something in the rusty creaking of the voice that even comes across in email.
I don't have to be a Marxist to care about such pronouncements, any more than I have to be a Kantian or a Hegelian or a Nieztzschean to have strong views about those thinkers. Or do you suppise that Marx is only of interest to people who call themselves Marxists? (This is another example of the sort of portentous comment that I am mocking here.)
Tahir: Which is? I don't see any comment of mine in the above, do you? As I've suggested, the only issue that you've even engaged with is the idea that there might be some vital intellectual life outside of the framework and disciplinary procedures of the academy. That definitely bugs you.