[lbo-talk] Michaels, Against Diversity

brad bauerly bbauerly at gmail.com
Sun Oct 4 09:09:38 PDT 2009


I would agree that Walter Benn Michaels uses rhetorical devices to his detriment in a lot of what he writes. However, there also tends to be a strong tendency to apply to him views to which he does not explicitly claim. I would also understand what he is saying to both apply to the academy and to the general political situation we are living in. The recent debates over health care and Obama being a case in point about the attempts by some liberals and fellow traveler's of the Democrats to use race as a means of distraction from the class based influences and decisions being made.

I stumbled upon this great Collette quote which I thought succinctly sums up much of what passes for 'progressive' politics these days, both in and out of academia and does it in a better style then WBM's has tended to: "The general will is invoked in order to confer absolute value on individual caprice; society is invoked in order to render asocial interests sacred and intangible; the cause of equality among men [sic] is defended, so that the cause of inequality among men (property) can be acknowledged as fundamental and absolute. Everything is upside down." Lucio Colletti 1973 Introduction to Marx's Early Writings.

Brad



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