[lbo-talk] Jacobin debate up

shag carpet bomb shag at cleandraws.com
Fri Oct 21 05:26:19 PDT 2011


eric wrote:
>
> Similarly, I agree with most of the rest of your post, but I don't
> think you are interpreting Lennard correctly. Or maybe you are and I'm
> misinterpreting. But, judging by the vocabulary she uses, I don't
> think she holds the positions you are ascribing to her; specifically,
> she's not as subjectivist or individualist as the critiques you are
> offering here would suggest. Then again, maybe I'm being too generous
> in my reading.

I'm not sure it really matters what Lennard meant any more. What is troubling about this discussion is that, at least with Doug since I don't know Mike's positions well enough, we all know perfectly well, for instance, what a fair reading of the quote on working for capital meant. deliberate misreadings, characterizing Eric as some sort of vulgar idealist, is putrid horseshit.

And I know that Doug, for instance, understands what a quote like that means because he introduced me to a wonderful quote from marx which was about how slavery required a whip to get people to work, captialism doesn't - and it is not simply because we are wage slaves who must work to live, but because we happily and readily enslave ourselves - work alright by themselves.

i know he understands this because he used to read butler to understand why people are enamored of their own oppression, why they willing enslave themselves. He knows perfectly well you don't have to be a drooling idealist to take this position on ideology and domination.

And on any such reading, I know perfectly well that Doug and Eric would never say anything so foolish as, "Goshes, it's all a mind fuck they've got you in people. Stop thinking that way, think this way instead and capitalism will all go away."

it is on the basis of these uncharitable readings that this debate is less than worthless. make actual arguments *for* your damn positions, instead of stuffing people with straw in order to have a good hee haw amongst yourselves. If you insist on keeping it up, I'm going to have to respectfully ask that you at least put on fright wigs, big red rubber noses, and do it while riding unicycles. If you could pie one another once in awhile, that would be spectacular. kthxbai

http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)



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