[lbo-talk] On the Flight of the Bumble Bee , was Lou Proyect responds...

[// ravi]

On Feb 10, 2012, at 4:31 PM, Mike Beggs wrote:
> On Saturday, 11 February 2012, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>> 
>> That was my point when I posted the joke, to characterise those standing
>> on the peripheries opining on why OWS will fail, has failed, or is bound to
>> fail (because OWS does not see things the way the opinionator does, or OWS
>> does not prescribe to the grand theory the opinionator holds, etc). That
>> their grand theory is a pseudo-science is likely true but I will avoid, in
>> this post, the philosophy of science issues that arise.
>> 
> But who are these people standing on the sidelines? More often than not
> this is a rhetorical strategy in which anyone who tries to raise an
> unwelcome critical point can be treated as a theorist on the periphery. As
> if criticism - which is in any case almost always about part of the
> movement, not the movement as a whole - can only come from a grand theory.
> It's ridiculous to see e-list activists here implying that Doug or Louis
> are somehow critics from outside the movement.

Ooh, nice reflexivity there. You ask “who are these people standing on the sidelines”? Answer: one example: Matt Taibbi. Who later posted an article admitting that his attitude was misplaced.

	—ravi