[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Mon Jul 27 17:46:01 PDT 2009


At 04:52 PM 7/25/2009, Miles Jackson wrote:
>So: does Marx engage in "appeals to morality"? If you mean "does he
>approve of some things and condemn others?", sure, in this trivial sense,
>Marx is a moralist. If you mean "does he approve of some things and
>condemn others based on abstract moral principles?", Marx is clearly not a
>moralist.

I haven't read Ollman in years. The woman I meant in local feminist and labor organizing, a professor, had me read him way back in 1989.

I re-read that chapter. People really should read it. And carrol, you really stink at getting your point across. sheesh. :) Of course, I stink too since I've summarized your point via my own words and Postone's (being too lazy to look up Ollman again or even order a copy from the library!), and people didn't get it either. They might have -- no one ever argued that I can recall -- but they were loathe to agree that I'd summarized you correctly.

Regardless, here's the kernel of what Carrol's saying, only via Ollman:

"For example, Marx claims that when a communist stands in front of 'a crowd of scrofulous, overworked and consumptive starvelings', he sees 'the necessity, and at the same time the condition, of a transformation both of industry and of the social structure'.12 Marx is asserting that for those who share his outlook these 'facts' contain their own condemnation and a call to do something about them. If an individual ''''chooses otherwise, it is not because he had made a contrary moral judgment, but because the particular relations in which he stands (the class to which he belongs, his personal history, etc.) have led him to a different appreciation of the facts.13"

Obviously, Carrol has been saying this over and over for at least the last five years that I've paid attention. I don't recall too much emphasis on this during the early war years of LBO. At any rate, the point is that people come to their moral positions -- to their recognition that something is immoral -- because of their location in the social structure, through the unique confluence of experiences in that social structure.

The ability to make that moral judgment is the result of that social and political praxis *in* the world. It is not the result of pondering moral principles.

I could see this constantly with my students from privileged backgrounds. With affirmative action, I could get them to defend the principles of affirmative action via arguing with me about the pro sports draft system. I could get them to be moved to tears, to shivering with rage and shock, to being viscerally disgusted by what they read in Kozol's _Savage Inequalities_. They would agree that it was the result of inequalities in school funding. They would agree that it was unfair to punish children for where their parents landed in the social structure. That even if their parents has made careless choices, it was wrong to not give kids equal opportunity in schooling. yadda.

That kind of daily response paper writing would go on for a couple of weeks. But at the end of the unit, they'd almost always write a paper defending the idea that they deserved the schools with the three Olympic sized pools, the television and radio station, the state of the art technology, etc. That they shouldn't have to pay more or equalize school funding and possibly suffer because they have one Olympic pool, one football field, etc.

Ditto affirmative action. They'd agree that, in principle, it is fair, just like the pro-ports draft -- if you liken each season to a generation. But when it came time to write an essay, everything they intellectually conceded was thrown out the window in order to affirm their commitment to a world where privilege continues to accrue to those who are, ab intio, privileged.

I've said this before, too. In my observations of feminist bloglandia, agreement to moral principles regarding anti-racism, anti-sexism, etc. only went so far, as long as it all stayed in the realm of discourse. It only seems to make a dent when these insights are actively achieved in the course of political practice -- where people have to work together to achieve something.

shag



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