Shag writes: "of course, distinction between the two creates a demand to ask what is the relationship between the them.
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Indeed. And my next post will take off from this point. Here I want simply to observe that, like all such 'nice' distinctions, if you push on it very hard, it begins to get mushy, even to collapse. But before this distinction collapses, I think we can do some work with it. And a note on terminology. As I understand it, the Chinese language allows, even insists on, this distinction. English does not really. In English one can theorize or raise to a theoretic level, but one cannot play with "thought" that way (and "think" offers even more problems.) So as we pursue this distinction until I collapses on us, I think the best terminological solution is to speak of Theory 1 ('Real' Theory as it were: Theory of Gravity; Theory of Natural Selection; Critique (Theory of) Capitalism (ideal average). Theory 2 (or what Albritton would call "History") analogous to Chinese "Thought," our practice raised to the level of Theory (Theory 2 that is), the thinking we do as we try to make sense of the present in our revolutionary struggle and our revolutionary organization. And, for the most part (there are always exceptions) anyone who wants to participate in this endlessly messy and endlessly variable process of thinking will have to elave his/her Ivory Tower and come down and join us in the daily struggle.
Carrol
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