From owner-marxism-international  Thu Apr 17 14:44:29 1997
Subject: Re: M-I: PANIC LEFTIST:  FRAME TEN
Message-ID: <19970417.144212.10158.1.JSchulman@juno.com>
References: <199704171300.JAA295070@mime4.prodigy.com>
From: jschulman@juno.com (Jason A Schulman)
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 14:43:04 EDT


On Thu, 17 Apr 1997 09:00:06, -0500 LKED54B@prodigy.com (MS DEB P KELSH)
writes:

>Christi-Ann. . . believes that the rigorous debate in the 
>revolutionary left simply strengthens the capitalists who see 
>divisions etc. as "weakness."  

Christi was speaking not of "rigorous debate" but of the sort of ritual
denunciations that one routinely sees on this list and in the pages of,
say, *Spartacist.*  And yes, such denunciations are a sign of weakness;
the fact that there are so many little "Marxist" groups who can't find
enough common ground to work in the same socialist organization is a sign
of weakness...and a sign of intolerance towards pluralism...

>Discussions and rigorous critiques, 
>however, are part of serious engagement with issues:  they are not 
>signs of sectarianism but commitment to social change. Critique (not 
>anecdotes and abuse and substitution of scatological epithets for 
>political and theoretical analysis) is the condition of possibility 
>of vanguard politics.  (Stalinism is, above all, the silencing of 
>critique that thus provides the conditions of its internal implosion: 
> the de-politicization/de-mobilization of the vanguard.)  By 
>relentless critique the vanguard left marks the space of its 
>practices and places them in the public space for democratic 
>interrogation and inquiries.

What on earth makes you think YOU are "the vanguard"? This says nothing
save that you people have tremendous egos, no sense of the reality of
your situation, and a complete misunderstanding of what a "vanguard" is.

>However, if Christi-Ann is correct and the contesting debate among 
>the revolutionary left "weakens" it, imagine what damage the trade-
>union compromising with the capitalists does to revolutionary 
>practices. If capitalism, according to Christi-Ann, takes heart from 
>seeing divisions among the revolutionary left, then capitalism must 
>be doubly heartened by the dissents and debates among the workers (e.
>g., conflicts on contracts, strikes. . . .)

The capitalists take heart that certain people who think they are
revolutionary socialists speak in a jargon that no-one outside the
academy would care to investigate, and that has not a shot in hell of
attracting real living breathing workers...it shows a contempt for the
class which the "Revolutionary Marxist Collective" ostensibly would like
to be an agent of revolution.

> Critique is part of class struggle.  The language of 
>critique must be complex enough, layered enough to be able to analyze 
>the highly sophisticated, nuanced and elaborate constructs of ruling 
>class practices and ideas. To demand that critique be "translated" 
>into a commonsensical language is to systematically reduce its 
>analytical ability...

Do you people really think that you are ever going to attract real
workers to your ideas if you are unable to translate your critiques into
"commonsense" language?  You merely reinforce your own obscurity.  (And
it shows to me you've never read Engels, or Daniel De Leon, or Eugene
Debs, or any number of people I could name.)

> Critique must remain theoretically thick and deploy a 
>language resourceful enough to engage the most advanced discourses 
>and practices of the bourgeoisie. 

Yes, and it must engage the working class *as it is*, which is to say,
unfamiliar with academic leftist effluvia.

-- Jason
______
"Radicalism in the United States has no great triumphs to record; but the
sooner we begin to understand why this is, the sooner we will be able to
change it."  Christopher Lasch (1932-95), *The Agony of the American
Left* (1969).



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