John Gulick wrote:
Carrol: It isn't so much "experience" as failure to show any _knowledge_ of the history of efforts (successful and unsuccessful) to build the kind of party (or any kind of party) that she wants.
John: Right, I sensed that that was imminent in what you wrote. And that's what I meant, in part, too. Extensive "real-world" experience at building a putatively revolutionary party, broad and deep historical knowledge about such attempts (and also of the hoary debates endlessly conducted with anarchists and other "horizontal" tendencies, in the wake of movement successes and failures), or some combination of the two would seem to be required for her to write/speak with the degree of authority she claims for herself. (I mean, she's not explicitly claiming authority AFAICT, but her public profile implies that she has it.)
I was NOT denigrating book learnin'. I was (or I'm now) saying that to the extent that I'm familiar with her theoretical analyses, substantive claims, and rhetorical style -- which is more, but not much more, than a little -- I'm not convinced she really knows her stuff terribly well. Her insights strike me as no more learned or acute than those of a run-of-the-mill intelligent leftist blog commenter or mail list participant, one without any particular expertise. Maybe her sometimes obtuse phrasing leads me to underestimate the quality of her work. It's not EXACTLY terms/concepts from po-mo "critical theory" grafted onto a rather bare-bones Marxism (or Leninism), but there is a strong element of that if you ask me.
I am a little reluctant to be so harsh, b/c I do think there is a fair amount of validity to some of what she says, unlike Eric and Shag.
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This seems about right on the whole. If I had eyes I would like to look up some of her work in journals (not books) to see what the ground 'texture' of her research was. I've read quite a bit of history over the years that was useful even though the historians themselves couldn't 'think' with their own work. She could have useful material but it isn't _knowledge_ until it's put in the right frame. I wonder if she has read Lars Lih's book? Have I quoted on list the passage where Lenin calls Trotsky a windbag. Trotsky had said there wouldn't be another Father Gropin; Lenin said if there wasn't room for another Father Gropin then there was no room for revolution. There is no doubt that Lenin would have cheered on the Occupiers, urged support of them, and then begin to think just how one could build on their work.
Another way to put it,or at least image it. She does not think politically! If I agreed with her concept of the party, I would STILL reject criticism of the OWS; I would STILL urge all-out support of them. A new party, of any type, can only emerge in a period of great political activity, of a strong left movement. So the first step in crating any kind of a party, any kind of organization, is to pitch in and work with anything that is building movement.
In another week I may know what I want to say.
Carrol