[lbo-talk] Explanatory Note

[Carrol Cox]

You and I have discussed theory a lot, on and off list. Neither of us have a
grip yet on Just what theory is and what is the relation between it and
"practice." But whatever that relation is, it is not one in which theory
shapes practice. That is an authoritarian Myth. It lies behind the M-L
Party. Lih I think, along with developing practice all over the world,
buried that myth. So I took your question in a double sense. (1) You wanted
to know the relation of a particular discipline, Marxology, to actual
practice. (b) You wanted to know the relationship between Marx's Critique &
actual practice. Angel's reply was to the 2d: He said that as people turn
left, they want to think within some framework, and he quickly summed up
that framework, the core of which is that  capitalism is a unique social
system, NOT a normal development from history. (It destroys the vicious
bourgeois myth of progress.) But it does not, it cannot tell us how to
practice. Crudely, for this is unfair but it's an important partial truth,
Doug is anti-theory. He thinks analysis should determine goals, and it
cannot. Theory developed can tell us why FHP wrote an anti-theory paper, not
a defense of theory. And now I've moved away from Marxology and Marx's
Critique and thinking out loud in the muddle world in which people start to
move (see above the 'comfort' of the Critique for them), and in another
sense of theory they need and want and are crying out for theory, for the
raising of their practice to a level of theory, for theorizing what they are
doing so they can do it better. But that theory does not have the
'universalizing' drive of Theory, such as Marx's Critique.

In fact we are moving to a different domain, occupied by Christians,
anarchists, Life-Style Marxists, Stalinists, Trotyskists, non-Marxists such
as Ian, etc. We have to start putting a we rather than an I before our
thinking. We are entering the endlessly muddy world of the anti-capitalist
struggle. Thought/Theory (which itself needs theorization) is what we work
out together in our practice: it cannot be worked out in isolation as some
Theory can. I care about Graeber as one voice of one trend among anarchists:
and we have to work together. And in another 'room' as it were I also agree
with Doug's nice spearing earlier today of anarchism: its metaphysics of the
state. But he was wrong to  call it a bias: it's a conviction, a wrong
conviction I think but a conviction rather than a bias, which term is just
more poisoning of the wells of discourse. We can fight the anarchist theory
here or in journals, but we fucking do not insult them: they are comrades.
So I guess I would say the answer to your question is the endless wrangling
that goes on among comrades.

The only person perhaps who has sort of tried to theorize all this is Ellen
Wood, and indifference to her is anti-theory with a bite. Her title tells
us:

Democracy Against Capaitalism.

Carrol 

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of shag carpet bomb
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 4:21 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Explanatory Note

I must be dumber than a box of rox because I took Angelus's response to be 
that people are more intested in reading marxist theory because of what's 
going on around them. i don't see how that answers the question I'd asked.

You know, someone once said that a marxist publication has a theory about 
where the subject of history emerges - something about how it can't emerge 
in the u.s. because people in the u.s. are too spoiled by consumer goods, 
wages, etc. to every care abotu overthrowing capital. Thus, they occupy a 
subject position that makes them resistant to seeing themselves as harmed 
by capitalism. People in the third world, even people in non-industrialized 
countries (IIR this view correctly) may be more apt to see their interests 
as opposed to capitalism and so more likely to be revolutionary or a 
fertile ground where they might want to stir up revolution.

you get my point yet?

Doug says theory matters, that it can be used to shape how we act, what 
goals we pursue, where we protest, who were are interested in as possible 
allies in the struggle against capitalism, where we attack capitalism, if 
we can attack it, where to best spent our limited energies. Most people 
agree with him.

So, in this debate does it matter. Does Graeber's view tend to push us in 
one direction or not? If it does, is this a "bad" direction and why?

At 03:48 PM 1/17/2012, Carrol Cox wrote:
>My eyes began worsening again in late November. I have now reached the
place
>where I can no longer read anything. I play it aloud through ZoomText at a
>painfully slow rate. Writing is not so deeply affected, but after a certain
>point I lose track of my text because I cannot scan it quickly. This is all
>complicated now of course because of my physical condition, which is
>improving but still leaves me beat periodically. I have a response, I hope
>nearly coherent, to shag's question on theory and practice which I hope to
>send out today. In the meantime on the specific case of theory/practice,
>Angel's response is pretty good.
>
>I hope some other than a morale-boosting off list poster take up the
>question of Vol. 2.
>
>Carrol
>
>P.S. to Jim F. Will you get me off the A-list & M-Thaxis. I have to
simplify
>my life and my inbox.
>
>
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

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