wrobert at uci.edu
I think that Nietzsche provides a way of questioning certain assumptions about the enlightenment tradition that is hardly innocent from the legitimization of capitalism.
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CB: OK , but, you know, my impression is he sort of questions the enlightenment from the right, not the left. He seems to champion aristocrats down through the ages. I don't mean to insult anybody, but everytime I read him, I say to myself "this guy is a real snob; why do lefties like him ?" Honestly, I'm not trying to be a smart ass. Ever since high school (well I wasn't thinking "left/right" then ) it always seemed to me he was kind of a snob. Of course, snobs can be smart; but, hey, lots of people are smart. I'm smart :>). I tend to treat smartness as a given. The question is which side is your smartness serving.
Perhaps you could point out how his questioning is from the left.
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I think there is a difference between rhetorically distancing oneself from a tradition and abandoning a historical project. Actually, Bitch puts this quite well. There are simply phenomena in society that cannot be adequately be responded to with Marx's framework. This doesn't mean that the overwhelming usefulness of the project shouldn't be abandoned, just that it shouldn't be fetishized. I think this is implicit in Marx's understanding of capitalism as a dynamic system.
^^^^^ CB: I don't know if you care to give some specfic examples. I don't really find it necessary to go too far from the Marxist framework to analyze the prison system under capitalism. In fact, I think leaving the Marxist framework on the state and class struggle, private property, would undermine an analysis of discipline and punishment, power, under capitalism ( However, I guess Foucault doesn't entirely leave the Marxist framework). Sexuality might call for more new thinking, though even there...
I guess the impression one gets is that Foucauldians seem to think they have some new fundamental ideas on power. Hey, maybe we could lay out some more here beyond the one's Snitgrrrlll put in her post.
^^^^^ It's an interview.
^^^^ CB; I better dig up my copy.
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> CB; How is his concept of sexuality materialist in Marx's senses ? Real
> question.
It's a material practice used to constitute and legitimate a certain class domination. (sex is the bourgeoisie what blood is to the aristocracy)
^^^^^ CB: If you care to, I'd like to here your elaboration of this. When you say "blood" do you mean kinship or literal blood.
^^^^ Robert: No, Marx doesn't own the tradition either. My reading of the tradition is that much of its productivity comes out of it contentious nature and the debates that have occurred in it. My view comes out of the Luxemburg side of the tradition that emphasizes multiplicity, experimentation and learning from failure. I think that Marxism has been in constant turmoil and crisis. It's precisely this that marks its productivity. The part that I am less enamored with is the need for many of its members to claim that they speak from the truth of Marxism. I think that Marx's thought probably would have been infinitely less interesting if it weren't for the many challenges put to it by members of the workers' movement.
I guess ultimately I am concerned with historical materialist tradition rather than Marx as a lone individual. I never got into the is he a nice guy argument precisely because I don't care. I think that marxism has made a profound contribution to historical material. One that ignores at the peril of falling into mystification, but it is not a hermetically sealed tradition either.
Ultimately I believe that Marxism would benefit from a more pluralistic engagement with others (in a non-liberal sense of the word). There are a multiplicity of traditions within Marxism beyond the Leninist tradition, which are still nonetheless Marxist.
robert wood
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