[lbo-talk] Inorganic Intellectuals and the Mythical Ideal of the Marxist Tradition (Re: Moderation)

Yoshie Furuhashi critical.montages at gmail.com
Sun Jan 14 08:20:14 PST 2007


On 1/14/07, Jim Straub <rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com> wrote:
> our estrangement from the cultural mainstream

Secular intellectuals on the Left in the USA are largely inorganic intellectuals: our ideas are for the people, but not of the people. In this one respect, the USA is very much like Iran, its official enemy number one today, where the ideas of secular intellectuals on the Left have always been profoundly inorganic, for the people but not of the people.

Iran and the USA are only the most striking examples of the norm, however.

The only country in the world where the mythical ideal of the Marxist tradition -- the working class in class struggle with their own domestic ruling class -- has been organic to the working class is France, where politics -- from 1789 to 1968 -- approximates that mythical ideal the best. Social revolutions on the Left in other places have been peasant and/or anti-colonial/neo-colonial ones. That is not surprising, for Marx developed his thought by examining Germany philosophy, English economy, and _French politics_. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>



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