Dumain —•— Re: M-TH: Buffalo Revolutionaries

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  TEXT VERSION: M-TH

See also: M-TH: Buffalo Revolutionaries   (post by UticaRose@)

See also: M-TH: Buffalo Revolutionaries   (post by Doug Henwood)

See also: M-TH: Buffalo Revolutionaries   (post by Ralph Dumain)

See also: M-TH: New York perspectives & the Buffalo Boys   (cross-post by Hugh Rodwell)

See also: M-TH: New York perspectives & the Buffalo Boys   (post by boddhisatva)

See also: M-TH: TERESA EBERT FOLLOW-UP   (post by Ralph Dumain)

See also: M-I: The Teresa Ebert thread   (post by Louis Proyect)

See also: Re: M-I: The Teresa Ebert thread   (post by Yoshie Furuhashi)

See also: Re: M-I: The Teresa Ebert thread   (post by Robert Malecki)

See also: M-I: Complaint about cross posting Ebert thread   (post by Chris Burford)

Note: Text in red comes from http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1997-April/.

From owner-marxism-thaxis
Fri Apr 4 00:35:49 1997
From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Buffalo Revolutionaries

A couple of years ago someone loosely associated with this group sent me all the issues of ALTERNATIVE ORANGE to date and I read every one carefully. I gave this gentleman a thorough review. Though not formally affiliated with any stalinist party I know of, their methods and their mentality are stalinist to the core. Completely lacking in humor or a sense of human personality as befits all stalinists, they freely reproduced in their paper all the complaints from their students about being intimidated, abused, depersonalized, subject to impenetrable jargon, along with their obtuse responses. Teaching is a fine art: it requires the ability to mediate between the formalized knowledge of a theoretically trained person and the spontaneous but conceptually less rigorous world of the average person, so that the student can feel empowered and not crushed by the theoretical apparatus being transmitted to him/her. The Syracuse stalinoids are incapable of doing this because they have no conception of human beings, just robotic interpellated units. They think their role is to make revolution in the classroom, without of course asking their students whether they wish to be drafted into revolutionary struggle. Their entire approach to teaching and to theory is stalinist to the core. That intellectuals in 1997 could still have illusions of ruling the world makes me laugh.

I'm not going to recapitulate the detailed study I gave to their writings just for your benefit. I suggest, junior, that since you live in a working class town, you get a little experience of real human beings, and then come back and discuss theory. As for Teresa Ebert, check out a recent issue of NEWS & LETTERS for some provocative commentary on where she is coming from. And grab yourself a copy of E.P. Thompson's THE POVERTY OF THEORY. I know a whole lot of people in academia, including alleged lefties, and boy are they a sorry bunch. Of course, you could join the the proprietary left and become an "activist" like Uncle Lou. Just practice being seedy and raggedy and repulsive and unaccountable and stupid and talking to yourself and then you will be ready for New York.

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