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

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Mon Sep 4 09:47:00 PDT 2006


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/>



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