[lbo-talk] Relevant Recent LBO Poisoning of Discourse [Fwd: Re: Jonathan Nitzan on Against the Grain]

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Jan 11 20:15:49 PST 2005


I post this because Tom very neatly disposes of the sort of chicken-shit cowardly rhetoric recently displayed on this list. Many very honorable leftists argued powerfully last year for the ABB position -- one, at least, on this list. So it is sad that those still chewing that cud can't give an argument instead of an attempt to muddy the waters with stupid yacking about purism, etc. Their case isn't that weak. Why don't they argue it instead of making fools of themselves with gradeschool sneers.

Carrol

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Jonathan Nitzan on Against the Grain Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 23:02:00 -0500 From: tom walker <lumpoflabour at YAHOO.CA> Reply-To: PEN-L list <PEN-L at SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> To: PEN-L at SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU

Jonathan Nitzan wrote:

Addressing me at first, presumably,


> Postone, Virno -- and presumably also Hardt and
> Negri Inc. -- “have
> said it all along”.

No, I didn't also mention Hardt and Negri because I was specifically excluding them from the question. And what's the purpose of the quotation marks around "have said it all along"? What I said is that you are not alone, which ain't even close. But then I suppose you "vant to be alone." Suits me.


> I suppose the difference boils down to this: They
> are post-Marxist. They
> already know everything...

Perhaps Hardt and Negri are the ones who know everything. Perhaps that's why I didn't include them in my question. But I referred to two texts, by Postone and Virno, respectively not to some vast, vague, ephemeral abstraction called "post-Marxism." There's no shame in not having read those texts, if that's the reason you couldn't answer my question. But to imply with a sweeping dismissive that my question was not legitimate because it came from some, presumably, presumptuous territory of the know-it-alls is, well, boorish.


> We, on the other hand, still feel a little insecure.

That is all too evident from the tone of your reply.


> You may feel that the fact that capitalists control
> social reproduction...


>From this point on, presumably, the rest of the
message addresses Charles Brown's point without making any distinction between the two of us, as if Charles' message and my own had anything in common other than their subject lines.


> So no harm intended, but I think the gap between us
> is just too wide for
> this sort of debate.

No harm done. _You_ were debating with a supercilious abstraction: "post-Marxism." _I_ was responding to a text you had written -- a text, by the way, that contained far too many scare quotes to be read by anyone who wished to retain some semblance of proximity between his "eyebrows" and his "eyes."

The Sandwichman

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