[lbo-talk] "Essence Must Appear" (was postscript on "trolling")

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 9/3/06, Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > killing time by tweaking
> > the list.
>
> A month ago, I posted a link to a multi-page
> translation of an article by an author that I consider
> to be one of the most important writers on the Marxian
> critique of political economy.
>
> That text is still available at:
>
> http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=06/07/28/1916205&mode=nested&tid=9

LBO-talk used to have a lot more Marxist subscribers of diverse
tendencies, including those who come from the tradition that you
appear to identify with, e.g., Angela Mitropoulos, Rakesh Bhandari*,
and Thomas Seay, who might have taken interest in Michael Heinrich.
Rakesh's intellectual influences are most like yours.

* There was a time when Louis Proyect (on account of Rakesh's critical
thought on Black nationalism and the Black Radical Congress -- cf.
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/1999/1999-November/020269.html>) was on a
jihad against Rakesh, and then there was a "Jan Carowan" episode
involving Doug and Rakesh (cf.
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2001/2001-February/003107.html>).  The
history of this mailing list is full of drama and melodrama.

> To be honest, I would *much* rather be discussing
> that, but there were no responses the first time
> around.  Israel seems a much more appealing topic of
> conversation.

John Norem posted a link to Fredric Jameson's review of The Parallax
View by Slavoj Zizek:
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20060828/045245.html>.
 In it Jameson quotes Zizek: "To put it in terms of the good old
Marxist couple infrastructure/superstructure: we should take into
account the irreducible duality of, on the one hand, the 'objective'
material socioeconomic processes taking place in reality as well as,
on the other, the politico-ideological process proper. What if the
domain of politics is inherently 'sterile', a theatre of shadows, but
nonetheless crucial in transforming reality? So, although economy is
the real site and politics is a theatre of shadows, the main fight is
to be fought in politics and ideology" (Zizek, qtd. in Jameson, "First
Impressions," LRB 28.17, 7 September 2006,
<http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n17/jame02_.html>).  Quite right, IMHO,
especially when it comes to the Middle East, though we ought to
examine the economics of the occupation, too: e.g.,
The Economy of the Occupation,
<http://www.alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=8&id=117&Itemid=70>;
Danny Gutwein, "Some Comments on the Class Foundations of the Occupation,"
<http://alternativenews.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=434&Itemid=70#Danny%20Gutwein>;
Efraim Davidi, "Neo-colonialism -- a Palestinian Nightmare,"
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/davidi231005.html>; "The Sewing
Factory in Gaza, the Administration in Tel-Aviv, and the Owners in New
York: Israeli Industrialists' Strategy in the Global Supply Chain,"
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/davidi180506.html>

Cf. "The Essence must appear or shine forth. Its shining or reflection
in it is the suspension and translation of it to immediacy, which,
while as reflection-into-self it is matter or subsistence, is also
form, reflection-on-something-else, a subsistence which sets itself
aside. To show or shine is the characteristic by which essence is
distinguished from Being -- by which it is essence; and it is this
show which, when it is developed, shows itself, and is Appearance.
Essence accordingly is not something beyond or behind appearance, but
-- just because it is the essence which exists -- the existence is
Appearance (Forth-shining)." --  Hegel, Logic,
<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slappear.htm>
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>