And on Friday night here at the Historical Materialism conference in London, David's The Enigma of Capital won the Deutscher Prize.
On 2010/10/08 08:57 PM, Patrick Bond wrote:
> On 2010/10/08 12:15 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
>> Gurus provide
>> emotional gratification to audiences by affirming what the audience
>> already knows but putting it in a new and more sexy form. What Harvey,
>> Chomsky, Zizek& Co say is what their audiences already know, for the
>> most part, but they say it very well and in a way that the audience
>> finds it entertaining. Again, there is nothing wrong with being able
>> to say things well and being entertaining - the point is that it does
>> not go beyond that, it does change any minds (it is mostly preaching
>> to the choir,) does not give any tools for predicting future events or
>> actions - it is mostly an aesthetic experience, like seeing a movie
>> or a theatrical performance.
>> This can be illustrated by a review of Harvey's book by someone from
>> South Africa posted on Amazon
>> http://www.amazon.com/Enigma-Capital-Crises-Capitalism/product-reviews/0199758719/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_2?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addTwoStar
>>
>>
>
> Wojtek, the classical Marxist tools (by no means 'sexy') that David
> put out for assessment last night, which Chuck sums up but which
> really need several years of thinking to internalise (at least in my
> case it took that long, even sitting in his classes for three years),
> are not the stuff of 'entertainment'. And the futility of trying to
> reach audiences such as that South African (whom I don't know - but
> who said similarly vapid things about Tony Blair's autobio on an
> Amazon review) with classical Marxism is well known.
>
> Ok, for entertainment, the cartoon version of David's RSA lecture a
> few months ago (http://www.davidharvey.org) already has more than half
> a million hits (which puts him way beyond your 'choir'), but what's
> striking there too is the explicit recourse to Marxism, and the
> potential for reaching out in ways that so far only two or three have
> done, to make political economy more immediate and urgent, but also
> more durable and rigorous.
>
> Do you know any other combination of classical Marxist theory and
> revolutionary political advocacy that has achieved such universal
> respect (minus the case of the odious Brad DeLong) like this? Why
> would you begrudge the success of someone who, at age 75, has put on
> the accelerator with so many new contributions and free
> presentations/engagements across the world, and not compromised his
> analysis at all? (To be sure it has evolved and matured since the
> 1970s, but David's still amongst the world's most committed critics of
> capitalism.)
>
> He's not lowering the tone of radical intellectual work, he's raised
> it more than anyone else I can think of. Celebrate with us!
>
> Cheers,
> Patrick
>
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