[lbo-talk] Marx as Essentialist ; contra Foucault

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Apr 13 08:49:13 PDT 2016


Eric Beck: Charles, I notice you aren't putting your latest transphobic crap on Facebook, likely because you are aware on some level that it's transphobic crap. Why do you feel like comfortable putting it here? Also: stop it.

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Despite many initial flaws, the CPUSA for several decades really was a positive force in U.S. politics. Its "popular front" line in 1936 was a mortal wound, but even the Party's corpse make important contributions to the movements of the 1960s. It is sad to see the current utter corruption of a noble history.

And Charles himself contributed to the early years of this list. Now it is pointless to respond to him.

On a theoretical or epistemological level, one might note that any set of texts (in the present instance the works of Marx) become corrupt if viewed as an internally consistent and coherent whole. Any term (e.g. "species being") can be assumed to reflect the whole and thus, removed from any context whatever, can be made to mean anything whatever pleasing to a given writer. It's hopeless to debate such frenzy.

Dryden wrestled bravely with this conundrum 350 years ago in "Religio Laici."

Carrol



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