I hereby suggest that denying reality, such as, the importance of morality, might be a weakness. Like denying gravity in physics.
--- On Sun, 7/26/09, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> From: Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Left Strength and Weakness
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Sunday, July 26, 2009, 1:36 PM
>
> On Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:18:44 -0500 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
> writes:
> > A recurrent topic on lbo-talk is the question of "Why
> is the Left so
> >
> > Given this fact (and it is a simple empirical fact of
> history),
> > there is
> > a second phenomenon that needs explantion. Why do so
> many left
> > theorists
> > devote themselves to a false and misleading effort to
> explain left
> > weakness rather than attend to the crucial task of
> explaining
> > occasional
> > left strength.
>
> I think the answer to that question is that most people
> who have become leftist theoreticians, came of age
> politically, during those relatively rarer periods when the
> left was in
> fact strong. I think it is a natural human tendency
> to assume that the conditions that obtained when one
> was maturing are the ones that normally exist. It
> requires the development of some degree of historical
> perspective
> to realize that such is not the case and that the
> historical norm is one of leftist weakness.
>
> It's sort of like the people who were shocked by
> the Finkelstein and Churchill cases because
> they errneouslly assumed that American
> universities were normally protective of
> academic freedom. When in fact the historical
> norm in the US is that academic freedom is
> something that US universities have more
> often honored in the breach rather than
> in practice. To get some historical
> perspective
> on that one can read Thorstein Veblen's account
> of US universities from nearly a century ago,
> The Higher Learning in America. There,
> Veblen recounted the influence that business interests,
> business ideologies, and business models had over
> American academic life in the early 20th century.
> Which only shows that the more things change,
> the more they stay the same. Like many of the
> other more able academics of the time, Veblen himself
> was run out of the academy. A fate that at that befell
> such diverse people as the philosopher C.S. Peirce, and
> and the behavioral psychologist John B. Watson,
> as well as many numerous less well known people.
>
> Jim F.
>
> >
> > Carrol
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> >
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> Get your dream car or truck. Click here.
> http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTLa8vzjm05vb4Mp1AbrFxG12qQXrjDuG0xRBFxy2bylK1TrIMflJ2/
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>