RE: Scholarship and politics (was Re: Proyect v Woods)

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George Snedeker wrote:

in a special issue of Monthly Review in I think 1999, Ellen woods, Paul
Sweezy and Harry Magdoff were all interviewed. I think it was a 50
anniversary year issue. in her interview, Ellen Woods says that her primary
political work has been as a writer. . now, does this count as political
activism? does it make her ideas more or less true? I'm not sure.

Response (Jim C):

Let me try once more: If her (Woods) "primary 'work' has been as a writer",
it does dot make her words more or less true, but does it count as
"activism", well that depends. Where does the material about which she
writes come from? On what basis has it been derived and tested? Who reads it
(i.e. often the subjects of "revolutionary analysis" never get to read or
use that which has been written about them)? How is the material applied in
concrete struggles and contexts?

The issue is what does it mean to be a "Marxist"? Does it mean simply being
anti-capitalist? Does it mean simply seeing the world (theoretically)
through a disctinctive prism or paradigm? Or does it mean more than that?
Does it mean not only seeing the world through a distinctive paradigm, but
also applying that paradigm in concrete ways, in concrete contexts and in
concrete struggles. I thought that the inscription on Marx's grave at
Highgate Cemetary, from his 11th thesis on Feuerbach summed up the essence
of Marx and Marxism very well: "The Philosopher's Have Only Interpreted the
World in Various Ways; the Point, However, is to Change it."

As to being published in Monthly Review, even alongside Magdoff and Sweezy,
well, that to me is not automatically some kind of Marxist credential.
Again, there is no crime in not being a Marxist, and not being a Marxist
does not automatically invalidate one's analysis, but I was responding to a
comment about Woods being "A" Marxist or "THE" premier Marxist
"theoretician". And since I am unfamiliar with her work (I thought her essay
was repetitive and a lot to do with very little personally; and I do not say
that out of affection for  Jim Blaut with whom I corresponded privately and
extensively) and I asked for some enlightenment on the subject.

And finally I find the term Marxist activist to be as redundant as I find
the terms Marxist theoretician or Academic Marxist to be oxymoronic. What
also distinguishes Marxism, epistemologically speaking--from positivism,
pomoism, reductionism--is the basis upon which knowledge is derived, applied
and tested. Marx certainly had carbuncles on his ass from long hours in the
London Museum library, but he was always intimately involved in concrete
struggles of real people and real issues. I just find it interesting that a
self-professed Marxist would describe her primary political work as a
"writer". A writer about what, for whom and in the service of whom?

Jim C