From owner-marxism-international
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 15:25:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian M Ganter <bmganter@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: M-I: PANIC LEFT: 8
— — — — — — — — — —
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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