From owner-marxism-international  Thu Apr 17 13:56:50 1997
Message-ID: <33565A89.4C3D@mail.telepac.pt>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 18:14:49 +0100
From: Joćo Paulo Monteiro <jpmonteiro@mail.telepac.pt>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Marx an insufferable pedant?
References: <l03020901af7afc325f6f@[130.244.69.125]>

Hugh,

Naturally, comparaisons between Marx and our Buffalo campus
revolutionaries are bound to sound over-flattering. To the later, I
mean. On top of that, I choosed the wrong word to describe young Marx.
No, he wasn't a pedant at all. I ment something more like petulant,
agressively imposing. Maybe I lack the proper english vocabulary. There
are reports that he drank and, ocasionally, engaged himself in fist
fighting dialectics, while studying in Bonn.

Of course, Marx was not only intelectually serious but extremely solid
(if somewhat arid, at times) from a very young age. I don't know his
thesis on the greek materialists. I had mostly in mind his writings on
the "Rheinische Zeitung". I have recently red his series on the debates
on "Freedom of Press" in view of a possible portuguese translation. It
does have wonderful passages but this stuff is so full of hegelian
drivel that I let it rest. BTW, has anybody here really red "Holy
Family" and "German Ideology" cover to cover, with all those
philosophical and personal account settlings? Jesus Christ, what a
headache!

I agree with much everything else you say on your post. And thanks for
the compliment. I've enjoyed reading you myself. Petty you're such an
entrenched trotskyite. I think, at this historical juncture, we should
shuffle again and try to build something entirely new on a principled
revolutionary marxist stand.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know. Please don't debate me on this. I
guess only time will make my view self evident.

With my most cordial salutes,



Jo=E3o Paulo Monteiro

Porto



Hugh Rodwell wrote:
>=20
> Joao is nice and welcoming to the Buffalo crowd as they roam the
> cyber-prairies, and why not? The more the merrier.
>=20
> However, what he says about Marx is completely off the mark.
>=20
> >They have the intellectual arrogance of extreme youth. Marx, when he w=
as
> >about their age, was a bit like them.
>=20
> Not at all. Marx wrote a fantastic piece of original work on Greek
> philosophy  getting right into the nitty-gritty of the classical views =
of
> physics and existence and thought. He was deadly serious about ideas --
> which no-one who can recognize an idea would claim for the Buffalo. Ear=
nest
> and proprietary they might be, but serious? Never.
>=20
> >Except that Marx wrote better and,
> >occasionally, denounced absolute genius on a simple turn of phrase.
>=20
> He couldn't stomach pretension or pomposity, and he could tell a silk p=
urse
> from a sow's ear (or a buffalo's scrotum).
>=20
> >But he defenitely was an insufferable pedant.
>=20
> No way. No insufferable pedant would ever have won the heart of wealthy=
,
> scintillating, desirable Jenny von Westphalen -- the most beautiful gir=
l in
> town. She could have her pick, and she chose Charles and followed him t=
o
> hell. Nor could an insufferable pedant have forged a friendship with
> down-to-earth, convivial Fred Engels that lasted for life and cost Fred=
 a
> couple of fortunes into the bargain. Marx wasn't even a pedant in his
> writing. Even his doctoral dissertation is most unpedantic. He didn't h=
ave
> time for pedantry. He may have been thorough and implacable, and was a
> devil for the details, but he was never pedantic.
>=20
> >What's more, he did begin with
> >"abstract theory" and worked his way to the concrete. Not the other wa=
y
> >around. That's an empiricist illusion.
>=20
> He took the concrete world of the post-French-Revolution Rhineland and
> abysmally reactionary Prussia, and the Europe in which they were set, a=
nd
> chewed his way through the best available theories claiming to explain =
what
> it was all about. He used philosophy as a tool for understanding the wa=
y
> people thought about their situation in nature and society, and politic=
al
> action for changing this situation for the better. The concrete is a
> dialectical unity of theory and "reality". For humanity, reality and
> reflection are very closely linked. Marx put the concrete first, and sh=
owed
> the way thought and being, though separate, and unequal -- being having
> priority -- combined to form the concrete. And in doing this he singled=
 out
> the bits of the historical process that are most open to human politica=
l
> intervention. No pedant could have done this.
>=20
> >Keep on with it, Buffalo kids.
> >
> >
> >
> >Jo=E3o Paulo Monteiro
> >
> >P.S. It goes without saying that you're welcome to hit me too.
> >D=E9molissez moi.
>=20
> It's nice to have someone like Joao around who's positive without being=
 off
> his head.
>=20
> Cheers,
>=20
> Hugh
>=20
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