From philion@hawaii.edu  Sun Apr 13 21:12:55 1997
From: philion@hawaii.edu (Stephen E Philion)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 10:12:55 -1000
Subject: M-TH: un-informed?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970413145044.25500A-100000@orichalc.acsu.buffalo.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.970413101049.9176C-100000@uhunix4>


Brian,

What is the difference between "uninformed" and your "un-informed"?  There
must be some good POMO logic that explains this innovation, I hope...

Steve

On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, Brian M Ganter wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------
> Revolutionary Marxist Collective at Buffalo/SUNY
> 
> 
> 
> PANIC LEFT:  8
> 
> 
> 
> *"Improvisation" in Place of "Theory": The Cult of Ignorance*  
> 
> 
> The reformist left, it seems, improvises as it goes on. "Humanism" (as in
> the laughable (because un-informed) and un-informed (because of the depth
> of anti-intellectualism of this left which lives on rumors and anecdotes)
> does not mean that "science" or "philosophy" or... is done by the "humans"
> and therefore it is "humanist".  Humanist in Althusser means that view of
> history that because it places such human limits (as "subjectivity", for
> example) at the center of its inquiries makes those inquiries become
> anthropomorphic, ahistorical (in the context of the distinction that he
> makes between "historical" and "historicist")... "Humanist", to repeat,
> does not mean by humans, but limited by human "values" which are treated
> as pre-given, transhistorical.  The question of "agency" for Althusser is
> simply an extension of Marx's own "Men make their own history but they do
> not make it just as they please".  Class struggle is not simply an
> enactment of human agency (if that were the case Marxism would have been a
> form of bourgeois voluntarism)--it is human agency in the movement of
> history (i.e. workings and unfolding of forces and relations of
> PRODUCTION).  There is no agency outside production.  
> 	Self-reflexivity should not be read -- as Austin does -- to mean
> theoretical "opportunism", i.e. PRAGMATISM.  How about reading Lenin, WHAT
> IS TO BE DONE ? on this very subject...and one more word, how about
> looking (dare we say, "reading"  without being attacked by Uncle Lou and
> Utica Rose) at Althusser's THE FUTURE LASTS FOREVER... maybe you can find
> out what he says about his (non)reading of Marx....  A Revolutionary
> Marxist critique of Althusser is not about his anti-humanism, his notion
> of agency, his idea of history, his (un)self-reflexivity and the like...
> It begins with his theory of "overdetermination" which is now the
> theoretical core of the ludic and reformist left... It is by introducing
> "overdetermination" (which by the way is not limited to Althusser -- as we
> indicated in our post on the identity of Wood and Laclau, two apparent
> opponents who both adhere to "overdetermination" and in doing so dismantle
> "base and superstructure" among other theoretical practices of Marxism.
> Why don't you net-lefts, instead of attacking the Academy which has given
> us Marx (holder of a "doctorate" in case you have "forgotten), and
> "intellectuals (which no matter how you define it will include Marx) just
> read a little?  How about it?  How about it before attacking theory and
> anything that resists "pure ignorance"?
> 
> 
> 
> 
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