RE: [AUT] critque of Holloway's power critique

[jacques roux <jackroux@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quite impressive detective work, Angelus! Unfortunately, you are incorrect.
 
The article is an excerpt from a longer piece by a German blogger named MPunkt, “Zur Kritik des Weltanschauungsmarxismus - In seinen alten und neuen Verlaufsformen” which also deals with Joachim Hirsch, Hardt and Negri, and the “value critics” (It is also based on arguments by your guy, Michael Heinrich). It is available at: http://mpunkt.blogsport.de/images/neomarxismus.pdf
 
MPunkt’s essay does indeed have paginated citations to the German translation. These were left out because the book is available in English for free on the InterNet and web pages don’t have pagination (plus the translator is lazy). And, yes, the translation is inelegant, but it is an effort to communicate the meaning of the criticism.
 
This type of criticism is what is called “immanent,” that is, it shows the self-contradictions in an argument. If an argument is internally inconsistent, then it cannot be true. In which case, criticism of the substance should be “secondary” because it would be superfluous.
 
Your example of the respiratory system is silly because the respiratory system is part of the body and does not originate “from it.” If you want to understand the respiratory system you have to follow a process of abstraction. Similarly, in reality the state and capital are bound together and inseparable. But if you want to *explain* the relationship between the two, then you need take them apart in thought. If you explain the state from capital, you have not explained the state in its own terms, but have made a huge presupposition. If you just say, more dialectically, “the state is the reason for capitalism and capitalism is the reason for the state,” you have not really said anything at all.
 
Gegenstandpunkt cannot be a sect because its only precept is that one tries to think objectively about the world. It is not an organization but a journal put together by a lot of people who agree to work on it and think collectively. People can judge for themselves by checking out:

http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/en_index.html

But alas, you have changed the subject from the criticism to the critic!


 

> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:59:10 -0700
> From: fuerdenkommunismus@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [AUT] critque of Holloway's power critique
> To: aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> Even if it's not stated anywhere, this article
> transparently the product either of somebody
> associated with the German quarterly "Gegenstandpunkt"
> or their American Bay Area group of followers,
> "Ruthless Criticism."
>
> The tell-tale signs are everywhere:
>
> - the stilted English that reads like a exaggeratedly
> transliteral reproduction of a German original (for
> all I know, it might have been originally written in
> English, which would be even more hilarious since that
> means that American GSPlers are learning to write like
> their German role models)
>
> - the main critique of the person or school of thought
> being criticized always rests upon the allegation of
> some sort of logical inconsistencies in argumentation
> (substantive critique always seems secondary)
>
> - the assertion that so-and-so claims this or that but
> without offering any extensive citation or page
> numbers
>
> - a reverse functionalism that sees all manifestations
> of social life as ultimately being derived from the
> imperatives of the state (which is why it's so
> deliciously ironic that the author(s) accuse(s)
> Holloway of functionalism)
>
> - Cheap attempts to set up logical "gotchas" like this
> one: "If the state is necessary for the continuous
> reproduction of capitalist social relations, it cannot
> be explained how it could ever generally originate
> from these social relations."
>
> So following that logic, if my respiratory system is
> necessary for the continued reproduction of my body,
> it cannot be explained how it could ever have
> originated from my body?
>
> The GSP is worth reading on occasion, but their
> attempts to engage with thinkers outside of their sect
> are usually this shallow. The most recent issue also
> has a sleazy, disingenuous hit job on Michael
> Heinrich.
>
> I swear, they must have a cadre school where they all
> learn to write like that. :-)
>
>
>
>
>
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