You miss understand my argument at a basic level, and perhaps deliberately so. My argument isn't that Marxism is 'tired and worn' out, but the kind of basically religious claims that you make, are. The simple fact is that Marxist modes of analysis have multiplied and proliferated. Most of the positions of the current Communist Party would seem alien to the earlier formulation of the party, who frequently shifted doctrinal and practical positions quite quickly. You may not like that fact, but it is simply true. I brought up Balibar because he brings up this multiplicity in an very direct manner, not because I am an acolyte. There is nothing non-marxist about this approach. To put another way, the proliferation of readings and political approaches drawing from Marx's work and political legacy doesn't indicate that his work is dated or tired. On the contrary, it points to the work's continuing relevance. In this sense, we will continue to read and reread Marx's work.
I would make a second point, which is that a scientist involved in defending the continued usefulness of the approaches that Darwin or Mandel began developing would not erase the ways that those approaches have shifted given the developments in scientific thought over the years. It's not surprising that given the nature of capitalist accumulation, that methodology that Marx began has shown even more transformation. Indeed, the approach that Marx himself takes to a variety of questions shifted over the years. I've simply reached the point that I am willing to recognize that there are people who have spent a long time in both social movements and reading Marx who I simply disagree with. At the same time, their engagement with Marx isn't necessarily no more or less valid than my interpretation. Their value has to be judged on some other merit, perhaps their ability to help us understand the current situation or to make some sort of political intervention within it.
As a last note, I find very little in common with the variety of critical theoretical traditions that fall under the rubric of 'social construction' with the straw man that you have set up in your last paragraph.
robert wood
> wrobert a
>
> These claims towards orthodoxy are tired and tedious.
>
>
> ^^^^^^^
> CB: This is sort of like saying claims for the continuing validity
> of Darwin and Mendel's ideas in biology, "orthodoxy" , are tired and
> tedious. You may be tired of the assertion that much of Marx and
> Engels basic ideas have continuing validity and freshness, but you
> can't make a successful argument against it, as we will see. Myself ,
> I'm tired of you being tired. As to your experience tedium, go have
> some fun or something. As Engels said, learning Marxism takes study.
> Study often involves tedium. Take a study break and enjoy yourself.
> If you don't want to be bored sometimes, take up another subject. Your
> being bored doesn't invalidate Marx and Engels fundamental concepts
> for the capitalist era which won't end until capitalism does.
>
> ^^^^^
>
> The simple fact is that the past century and a half have produced
> such a wealth of Marxist approaches tactically, strategically, and
> methodologically.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: But the classical and original ideas of Marx and Engels are not
> tired or worn out anymore than Darwin's are. The fundamental theory
> of Marxism, the concepts that tire you, are fully valid for 2011.
> The wealth of approaches you mention don't modify that. Some of them
> think they are successful in modifying it , but you and they are wrong
> about that.
>
> ^^^^
>
> In a lecture, Etienne Balibar was able to show how three antagonistic
> threads of Marxist thought could be linked to aspects to the
> introduction of The German Ideology. The practice of a variety of
> Marxist parties and organizations gestures to the same fact. I think
> its come to the point in which we need to defend our arguments on
> something other than the long discredited notion of a orthodox or
> genuine interpretation of Marxism.
>
> ^^^^^^^^
> CB: You are just plain wrong about the discrediting of classical
> Marxist concepts and theory. It is very important to argue for the
> continuing validity of classical and original Marxist fundamental
> concepts as espoused by Marx and Engels. Showing how three
> antagonistic threads of Marxist thought could be linked to aspects to
> the introduction of The German Ideology doesn't invalidate the
> fundamental ideas of classical Marxism, the theories of Marx and
> Engels. What a ridiculous implication. What a scholastic ( See
> Second Thesis on Feuerbach) and non-Marxist theoretical project you
> attribute to Balibar.
>
> I have not "defended" any of my arguments based on there being
> orthodox. What nonsense. I espouse classical Marx and Engels theory
> based on its proof in practice in the world and its correspondence to
> developments in natural and human history. Do you really know the
> full theory that Marx and Engels developed and which you claim to be
> tired ? I have my doubts from the way you discuss it. Why do you
> cling to the term"Marxist"if their "orthodox" ideas are so worn out
> according to your assessments ? Why don't you call yourself a
> Balibarian since he has discovered something rendering Marxist
> orthodoxy ( by which you can only mean the ideas of Marx and Engels in
> referring to my arguments) moot or superceded or whatever it is you
> think Balibar has discovered or figured out.
>
> ^^^^^
>
> As a second note, I largely agree with the arguments put up by
> Dissenting Wren and other concerning the democratic party. I want to
> go back to the significant example of the Communist Party of the
> 1930's (aka the party before its collapse into the rather sad creature
> it has become today.) The party's influence wasn't tied to an attempt
> to reform the democratic party, but through its contributions to the
> militant self-organization of a variety of subaltern groups. The New
> Deal was largely an attempt to appropriate that energy, leading the
> the transformation of the Democratic Party in response to this threat
> (as well as the the threat contained in the idea of the Soviet
> Union....) I think that it's important to separate the ambiguously
> anti-racist popular front from the explicitly white supremacist New
> Deal. I should also note that the delegitimization of the party had a
> great deal to do with the acceptance of no strike deals during WWII.
> In effect, the party didn't reform the DP from within, but scared it
> from without.
>
> ^^^^^^^^
> CB: The CP isn't sadder than whatever party u r in or you as an
> individually functioning left intellectual. There's no contradiction
> between the CP influencing the DP and contributing significantly to
> the militant organization of industrial trade unions. That influence
> is evident in the New Deal, FDR's last State of the Union address, and
> Wallace as VP among other issues. The Party was already
> significantly "delegitimate" even in the 1930's before the Smith Act
> trials. Most Party activity in the trade unions and DP was _not_ as
> open Communists. The early UAW president Thomas was not an open
> Communist because that was still not a legitimate status. That there
> remained contradictions in the reformist New Deal is not any sort of
> revelation. At any rate, Communists in this period were the known
> anti-white supremacist white people in the Negro community and among
> white supremacists. Most white people who participated in anti-white
> supremacists struggle in this period were suspected or thought to be
> Communists. Glory to the CPUSA !
>
> ^^^^^^^
>
> My third note relates to the debate concerning the use of 'nature' in
> the work of Marx. Marx certainly makes reference to both the
> biological needs of the human body as well as the raw materials
> brought into social processes of production, but neither of these have
> anything to do with the kind of transcendental notion of 'nature'
> brought into the conversation around not liking boring music.
>
> robert wood
>
> ^^^^
> CB: That sounds plausible. I missed the discussion of a
> transcendental notion of nature ( not scare quotes necessary) in
> relation to not liking boring music. I more interested in the concept
> of nature suggested in _The German Ideology_, and in natural history.
> To think that humans have evolved to a point where we have
> transcended natural history and our species being is "Social
> Creationism", creationism in the sense of today's debates between
> Evolutionism and Creationism. Absolute social determinists discard
> Darwinism, Mendel, genetics, biology; they substitute Human Society
> for God, and claim that all significant or "interesting" determination
> of humans and human society is by humans themselves. "Nature" has
> no significant role in creating or determining human society,
> according to these Social Creationists.
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