[lbo-talk] Re: Religion & Body Counts

[Kelley]

At 06:49 PM 9/23/03 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
>Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>>This paragraph is pretty accurate -- there is an old wisecrack that
>>wherever two marxists meet three tendencies form. But it is _not_
>>correct to use Marx's observation here, since he used it in specific
>>reference to a really oddball group in France who called themselves
>>"Marxists." It was a chance observation in a particular context, and it
>>is distorting to call it a "pronouncment" as though he were laying down
>>some abstract universal principle. He wasn't. And it is only famous
>>because it is so universally misapplied.
>
>Somewhere, the Sage of Ljubljana says that the "out of context" defense 
>isn't always justified - sometimes the remark taken out of context is 
>really telling, a truth that the context may be trying to bury. I think 
>this is one of those cases. There are so many groups calling themselves 
>"Marxist," and so many positions identified as "Marxist," that I'm sure KM 
>himself would have applied his maxim to many of them.

Not to mention his stinging commentary in Critique of the Gotha Programme. 
You can hear Marx sarcastically shouting and pounding his fist writing or 
speaking, "If this is Marxism, I am NOT a Marxist. Though I may be a 
Marxit!" (heh. last sentence: inside joke with Bad Subjects folk!)

kelley