Travis
>> ...Cox's text ("Playing Word Games") calls above all for attention to
>> “history” (we admit first off that the fleeting traces of concepts in
>> her texts set her apart from her accomplices — but not far enough
>> apart). The violent underside of Cox's distorted version of “history” is
>> that those who don't get it simply need to “shut up”; they are in her
>> words in “no position to... understand” even the simplest goings on in
>> the world today. Cox's pseudo-"history” in short, is one of the fascist
>> devices deployed by the panicky leftist for shutting up some
>> “presumptuous” revolutionaries...
> From owner-marxism-international
> Date: Sat, 5 Apr 1997 13:19:17 -0500 (EST)
> From: Brian M Ganter <bmganter at acsu.buffalo.edu>
> Subject: M-I: PANIC LEFT: TAKE THREE
>
> PANIC LEFT: TAKE THREE
>
> Carrol Cox's most recent text, we believe, displays with a great deal of
> clarity the place of the panic left and its fascist practices in
> “history." “History” it should be recalled is that which Cox insists
> cannot and will not be grasped by the “dilettantes” of Red Critique.
> “History” (of the academy, of the M-I list, of ideology, etc. and all of
> the other terms invoked ad infinitum in her short panicky narrative) is
> simply beyond the ken of the RMC/Buffalo, Brad Rothrock and all others in
> solidarity with their positions.... Although we will deal with more
> general issues and (yes) the history of the panic left below, we want to
> deal briefly first with Cox's narrative, a familiar story of the
> petty-bourgeois in a time of crisis: s/he reasserts the same reactionary
> practices under the cover of the new “reasonability” and “reinvention” of
> the center. One of the main moves of her text then is separating the
> “serious” left from the “cuckoo” left (Proyect/Dumain) in order to
> reconstruct the “reasonable” center.... Of course this centrist trajectory
> of reinvention and renewal is simultaneously being deployed by others to
> cover over their evident bankruptcy as radicals and theorists—“cuckoos”
> and “serious” alike (see below). After the earthquake of Red Critique this
> is the very historical “alliance” that the Coxs, the Proyects, the
> Henwoods and their supporters do not want to hear read back to them. Thus
> the rear guard of this group — Malecki — is now also attempting to
> “reinvent” history by his feigned amnesia ["perhaps I have missed
> something” he bursts out]—he, like them, caught up in the nightmare of
> history just wants to “go back” (renew and reinvent) and in doing so start
> all over again contradiction-free! We do not believe that jokes, grammar
> lessons, “deep thinking” or “allusions” to the “deep” left experience
> (those untheorizable “intensities” that have always been put forward as
> the source of wisdom and authenticity in the fascist imaginary) should
> dictate the terms of this space or for that matter what passes for
> historical analysis (Cox's “serious” text, Proyect's cynicism, Malecki's
> amnesia...). We have worked to make this space a critique-al space for
> sustained materialist analysis of capitalism, particularly of emerging
> forms of fascism (see Zavarzadeh's analysis of postmodern fascism in our
> last post for instance, PANIC LEFT, Pt. 2). The panicky left's
> mplication — however marked by retreats and flutters of panic — in the
> reemergence of fascism in the moment of late capitalism is our focus
> here.
>
> I. Allusion and the “Deep” Left Experience
>
> Cox's text ("Playing Word Games") calls above all for attention to
> “history” (we admit first off that the fleeting traces of concepts in her
> texts set her apart from her accomplices — but not far enough apart). The
> violent underside of Cox's distorted version of “history” is that those
> who don't get it simply need to “shut up”; they are in her words in “no
> position to... understand” even the simplest goings on in the world today.
> Cox's pseudo-"history” in short, is one of the fascist devices deployed by
> the panicky leftist for shutting up some “presumptuous” revolutionaries.
> Take her rebuttal to Mr. Rothrock that one cannot even speak of “ideology”
> in polemics without “confronting its varied history”. How then, we want to
> know, can she mark Mr. Rothrock's deployment of ideology as mistaken and
> wrong? How can Cox after first declaring the need for more analysis before
> one (Rothrock) speaks at all, then proceed to announce what “ideology” is
> and is “not” ("Ideas are precisely what an ideology is NOT” she says)?
> These are not trivial details of “clarity” and “style” but are part of the
> alibis through which the left as a whole marginalizes critiques of its
> complicity with capitalism: through its intellectual emptiness it performs
> the rule of ignorance and defends the poverty of left philosophy at large.
> Cox's deployment of something she calls “history” finally then shows the
> complicity of the “serious” left and the “cuckoo” left. It is no surprise
> that Cox's violent silencing of Red Critique with ALLUSIONS, EMPTY
> CONCEPTS ("history") and SPECTRAL ANALYSES (which are alluded to again and
> again but never make an appearance) echoes that of the very “cuckoos” she
> calls on to clean up their act (Proyect/Dumain) — so that they can all
> stand tall and proud in the absolutely new and improved “center”. Cox
> echoes Proyect who has mocked and aggressively opposed Red Critique for
> several days (at least) and only now finally stops to wonder what its
> really all about after all! Instead of cynicisms he now writes with all
> seriousness “tell us exactly what you have to offer"! What has he been
> opposing up until now??! Cox also embraces the postepistemological
> strategies of Dumain/Crouch: Cox like Dumain only has to “allude” (no
> presentation of argument is necessary). Dumain embraces “allusion” as a
> form of pseudo-argument, and in doing so reifies experience (the fascist
> mysticism of the self-evident experience) as the authentic source of
> knowing. He thus only needs to ALLUDE to his definitive study in the
> register of the Crouch/Dumain bureaucrat “I'm not going to recapitulate
> the detailed study I gave to the [Alternative Orange] just for your
> benefit"!. Like Proyect then, Cox shuts up those she doesn't comprehend
> and like Dumain she points and alludes to her absent arguments and
> spectral analyses (ultimately her “deep experience” as a person of the
> left) as the justification for her fascist attacks and silencings. Why
> shouldn't Dumain post his “detailed study"? WHY is Cox “suddenly” running
> out of time and space when it comes time for analysis ("Perhaps another
> time” she writes). WHY NOT ANALYZE OUR CRITIQUES HERE AND NOW? What is
> this space for if not analysis and theorization for social change? With
> Cox's/Proyect's/Dumain's endless fetishization of the “deep” left
> “experience” this is perhaps the point to move on to...
>
> II. The Death of Intelligence in the Left Mafia
>
> We will turn now to the history of the panic left — a tumultuous series of
> reversals and shufflings that have attempted to construct some semblance
> of radical thinking. In doing so this left falls back on the clichés of
> history. The panic left has been using “Stalinism” to represent its foes
> as a “gang” of uniform thinkers and itself as independent thinkers who act
> individually, write individually,.... This use of “Stalinism” — as we have
> already indicated—is simply a cover up for an underlying fascism. It is
> mark of this fascism that the panic left on the net is now acting like a
> mafia: defending each other (C. Cox annotating Louis Proyect, Henwood's
> coming to Cox's rescue by announcing that STYLE is the lynch pin of
> ideological struggle... Henwood and Scott McLemee rushing to rescue what
> is left of Dumain/Proyect... Proyect's glee towards Andy Austin: “He's one
> of us!"... Dumain's defense of Henwood and Proyect and his summing it all
> up in the networking slogan of the new left mafia: "socialism is who you
> know"). The members of the “reinvented” center—the left mafia—we are
> finding are getting to “know” one another better and better. The primary
> issue that unites this mafia is its fear and loathing of intellectuals.
> Scott McLemee after some delay and lingering in the editor's lounge of
> LINGUA FRANCA finally confesses to his disgust of intelligence. He,
> however, like all those who get nervous around smart guys, cloaks his fear
> in jokes ("gas bag”... “red scientology” etc.). The joke is the last
> resort of the embarrassed petty bourgeois who has nothing to utter but a
> nervous laughter. And this is, of course, typical of the panic left (e.g.
> Louis Proyect's laughter on being told that he has to READ Engels... he
> does not get the point but laughs at the suggestion anyway... it at least
> covers his ignorance... ).
>
> It is scandalous that in the last several days during which members of the
> mafia have all announced and re-announced their “opinions” on our text,
> none (not a single one) has actually ANALYZED it — not one has
> discussed/critiqued its ideas... all we have is “opinion” (as a device for
> protecting the holder of opinion from thinking) and the shield of
> style” — to divert attention from dense theoretical issues to matters of
> rhetoric. This is the scandal of this mafia left; it is so intellectually
> insecure that does not know what to think of what it reads. Until her last
> post, Carrol Cox was convinced that TRANSFORMATION was quite a “good”
> thing... now she is not so sure anymore. Soon, undoubtedly Henwood will
> change his view on LUDIC FEMINISM, Cox will perform (as all performative
> leftists do) an interpretive acrobatics and change her mind about the
> book. This is simply what happens when the panic left becomes the last
> bastion of anti-intellectualism. Thus its relentless attack on the
> academy— which is in a sense another mark of its self-loathing and
> insecurity in the presence of ideas. It is a symptom of this
> embarrassment and the intellectual insecurity and impatience with complex
> thinking that Louis Proyect declares: “do the rest of us a favor and tell
> us exactly what you have to offer." Of course, the very same person who
> says HOW you say (STYLE) is the most important element in communication,
> now has changed his mind — he no longer cares about HOW its said—he wants
> to know the WHAT of it — like all petty bourgeois readers he has no time
> to think through things (like Cox he cannot “afford” the time — “Perhaps
> some other time"). He wants a “summary” — a READERS DIGEST OF THE LEFT...
> well, we are not writing for READERS DIGEST... for paraphrase and
> summaries read Scott McLemee's luminous texts in LINGUA FRANCA...
>
> — from list marxism-international at lists.village.virginia.edu
> --
> Michael Pugliese
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