class and no class language

Thomas Seay entheogens at yahoo.com
Mon Feb 24 22:39:54 PST 2003


Well, that solves the dilema, doesn't it? Anyone who has racist, homophobic, or bellicose tendencies, we will label as "lumpen proleteriat" and disregard them. Possibly we might find abandoned leper colonies for them to inhabit. The problem is, are there any leper colonies of such a large dimension as would be needed?

Being racist, homophobic, sexist, etc does not qualify you as "lumpen proleteriat" in Marx's definition. I think that title would go to those who live on the margins of society through thievery, hustling people, pimping, etc.

Of course, William Burroughs would probably ask what is so different about those occupations than the ones the rest of "us" engage in. Indeed.

In any case, I dont think your definition of "lumpen proleteriat" resembles that of Marx (which is not to say that your definition is thereby wrong).

-Thomas --- frank scott <frank at marin.cc.ca.us> wrote:
> "The "dangerous class", the social scum, that
> passively rotting mass
> thrown
> off by the lowest layers of the old society, may,
> here and there, be
> swept
> into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its
> conditions of life,
> however, prepare it far more for the part of a
> bribed tool of
> reactionary
> intrigue."
>
> This Marx fellow seems to have known a thing or two
> . . ."
>
>
> he was referring to what they called the lumpen,
> not the
> proletariat...anyway, both groups were exclusively
> white, as were the
> bourgies, at that time... the "white trash" slur is
> a product of
> american race relations, not marx ...
>
> but he did know a thing or two!
>
> fs
>

===== <<Be like me! The Primal Mother, eternally creative, eternally impelling into life,

eternally drawing satisfaction from the ceaseless flux of phenomena.>>

-Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy"

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