Re: Althusser versus the Frankfurter

["Bryan A. Alexander" <bnalexan@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis' criticism is well worth discussing as a thread on the F-School
(which I'd gladly leap into, if folks so desire).
        But I'd reiterate the point that the Benjamin-Horkeimer-etc.
gang, esp in the 1940ff period, did indeed articulate *a* nonStalinist
Marxism of import.



Bryan Alexander
Department of English
University of Michigan
**********************

On Sun, 14 Jan 1996, Louis N Proyect wrote:

> Leo Casey:
>
> Louis asks an important question concerning the place/significance of
> Althusser within Marxism. My personal take is that Althusser was the Martin
> Luther of Stalinist Communism. Before Althusser, Communist militants/scholars
> did not read/interpret Marxian texts on their own, but took their cues from
> the official, stultifying dogmatic reading provided by the Communist papacy
> residing in the Communist Rome, Moscow, transmitted through the local
> episcopal sees. Althusser's "reading of Marx" opened up the space in which
> the Communist militant/scholar could establish his/her own independent
> relationship with the Marxian texts....
>
> Bryan Alexander:
>
> Didn't the Frankfurt School do this as well?  of course it didn't address
> the same questions as did Althusser, but that crew did move quite
> independently of Stalin (esp. after 1940) and with formidable
> intellectual support.
>
>
> Louis Proyect:
>
> I probably will get around to reading some Adorno long before G.A. Cohen,
> since Alex Cockburn kept referring favorably to "Dialectics of
> Enlightenment" in his latest book. However, it appears to me that the
> Frankfurters tended to write off the whole project of proletarian
> revolution on account of late capitalism's ability to coopt the
> working-class through a combination of consumer goods and television
> programs. Marcuse became famous in the 1960's by spreading this message and
> now seems awfully dated. Meanwhile, having just read "For Capital" (or
> "Reading Marx"? I get confused...), I found the book, written about the
> same time as Marcuse's "One Dimensional Man", to be filled with fresh
> thinking. I will never be an "Althusserian". I find that Marx, Engels,
> Lenin and Trotsky and other members of my pantheon do quite nicely. If
> others can benefit from Althusser, I give them my blessing. But watch out
> for those Frankfurters....
>
>
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