No, the Soviets used a cruel and tyrannical Stalinist standard. Our process is merely irrational and unfair. Of course that's not a reflection on the quality of the work. It is really not humanly possible to do good work under Stalinist conditions, where you are told what to say OR ELSE. It is merely difficult to do it under conditions of liberal democracy, where you have to watch yourself, keep up with fashion, not offend the powerful, or you may not get tenure or get hired.
^^^^^^^^
CB: Again, there is significant circularity to your argument. You assume part of what is at issue: that what they were "told to say" had no validity. Also, you assume that nobody agreed with dialectical materialism, and they all had to be forced to work in that school.
I'm thinking that a difference between the "planets" we are on is that you consider social philosophy as more akin to art. Whereas , I see it as a theoretical guide to the revolutionary transformation of society.
>
>But even more, isn't Marxism in power supposed to upset the status quo,
>conventional academic apple cart some, including in philosophy. The notion
>that all philosophical traditions and schools of thought in Russia at that
>time would be tolerated does not recognize the seriousness attitude of
>Marxists toward philosophy.
>
Right, it's too important to allow freedom of speech and thought. Who knows where THAT would lead. So what, exactly, is the anti-Soviet slander in saying that the Bolsheviks and Stalinists repressed free inquiry in philosophy. Arent you saying they did it, and a good thing too?
^^^^^^^^
CB: Well, where exactly have two hundred years of "freedom" of speech and thought ( for them that owns the presses and universities) led ? I mean we do have a lot of material evidence on that issue, and a Marxist would look at that material reality rather than proclaim based on the nice sound of the abstraction "freedom of speech and thought? I don't think we have the same assessment of where exactly we "are" , what these "freedoms" have gotten us.
The slander is in the implied comparison with the U.S. , and that the U.S. has freedom of speech and inquiry. And , yes, given that most philosophy and philosophers leftover from Czarist Russia would be reactionary or bourgeois, it was a good thing that a lot of it was repressed. As we have already touched upon, the classical Marxist attitude is the philosophy is more politically significant than it seems that you do. This is following Marx's rule of thumb from the Theses on Feuerbach: Marx distinguished his materialism from prior materialisms by introducing an active subject; the test of theory is practice; and philosophers have interpreted the world, the thing is to change it. Philosophers who see philosophy as only involving interpretation would be philosophizing for philosophy's sake , in the phrase I used earlier.
I guess another way of saying it is that it is not surprising that Russia was in need of a cultural revolution, and this included some active repression of the leftover reactionary cultural institutions , including in philosophy.
>I know the forms of authority and discipline are not identical in the two
>systems , but I don't think the bottomline result is that different
Charles, the bottom line result was that after I was fired I went to a good law school, got a several federal judicial clerkships, and am interviewing for well-paying jobs; I continue to write and publish in journals of philosophy of law. Ryazanov (and scores or hundreds more of Soviet philosophers) was murdered in a labor camp when he fell out of favor.
^^^^^^^^
CB: The "bottomline" on the point in dispute is not the level of criminality of the methods used, but how effectively that unfavored philosophy or theory is excluded from being broadcast within the given system. You contradict your own argument elsewhere wherein you declare the evilness of someone does not impact the content of their philosophical or other theoretical work.
The example that always comes up is Heidigger. He was a Nazi. So what, that doesn't mean he wasn't a good philosopher. Analogously, such and such a Soviet philosopher was in their position because of Stalinist repression. So what, that is a tu quque argument on the content of their philosophy
>It is not surprising that a revolution would result in significant changes
>in personnel in many segments of society.
That's one way of putting it, a whole new meaning to "fired." (Bang!)
^^^^^^^^
CB: I hate to break the news to you, but revolutions are violent. To claim to be a Marxist , and not recognize this is frankly typical of academic Marxism. The best polemic on the inevitability of violence in revolution is in _The State and Revolution_. There Lenin points out that Marx proudly declared that he had discovered , not classes , but the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The notion that academics and philosophers are in some privileged group that is exempt from radical rearrangement in a revolution is a glaring demonstration of the very elitism and presumption of class privilege that results in the use of force and violence against them in any uprising of working people. In itself, your attitude that philosophers and academics and their subject matters are aloof from the burning social issues that explode in a revolution shows why a lot of academics piss off the revolting masses and their representatives. This contradiction was active in the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Aptheker has pointed out that there was no freedom of speech to advocate Toryism in the newly formed U.S. among the population that formulated and passed the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. You refuse to acknowledge the undeniable real association and identification of the intellectual strata with the ruling class Czarist Russia and ruling classes!
elsewhere. But anybody with common sense would know that a bunch of workers and peasants carrying out a revolution would be justified in throwing out a lot of academics as much as they would be justified in throwing out government officials. Frankly, it disgusts me that you would try to imply that academics and philosophers are somekind of "angel" strata who had no cupability for the old society just as much as other officials and rulers.