RE: Ricardo Duchesne on Ellen Meiksins Wood

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

-----Original Message-----
From: Les Schaffer [mailto:schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 11:00 AM
To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Ricardo Duchesne on Ellen Meiksins Wood


Lou writes:

> I have to salute Duchesne for having the integrity to change his mind
> on a question in which he had so much prior investment. If other
> scholars had the same flexibility, the world of academic Marxism would
> be much more creative.

I know zero about the state of Marxism in the universities. So i want to ask
list members a question: can someone outline what the current state of
marxism IS in the university system, and what PROBLEMS has this segment of
marxism created for the overall political movement.

can someone lay out for me, or point me to an analysis of this? even horror
stories would be ok, but i want to hear and understand whats behind the
disagreements and disputes with academic marxism. is it simply theory vs
parxis, or something else?

les schaffer


Response Jim C:

A) Sectarian Hangover--differences due to old associations and sectarian
differences carried over into present-day debates;
B) Cognitive dissonance--spent years being academically "respectable" in
order to get the degrees and positions allowing me to come out of the closet
and "get real"; problem: built up a long cv of publications in a given
bullshit area or on a given bullshit topic and now have a vested interest to
continue and protect the market niche built up and/or to justify the years
of whoring and opportunism in academia to get to the position of some job
security and "freedom of speech" that I'm still afraid to exercise;
C) Jargon-mongering and sloganeering--wars over appropriateness and meanings
of jargon and slogans;
D) What turns ME on: research topics and methodological approaches picked
according to narrow and self-centered personal interests or backgrounds of
academics rather than on the basis of most pressing issues in need of
investigaton;
E) Eurocentrism and ignorance of just how eurocentric many western academic
marxists are; lack of humility about own ignorance and limitations and
unwillingness to get less eurocentric and better educated;
F) Publish or perish--one CV notch is as good as another--especially in
esoteric and arcane journals not even read by bourgeois colleagues let alone
the "subjects" of the nominally "radical" analysis or work;
G) Mathurbation: attempting to gain "respectability" in bourgeois circles
through elaborate, esoteric and arcane math that does little if anything to
explain or "prove" the issues/assertions being dealt with; not giving a shit
if more than a few math nerds and geeks can even understand what you are
trying to "prove" or say;
H) Theory vs/and Praxis: Arcane theory with no real praxis behind it and/or
blind, narcissistic and emotionally gratifying "praxis" with no real theory
guiding it;
I)Gotcha,nit-picking and having the last word;
J)Theory/Jargon/Data mining and mongering with no care as to any possible
relevance or application in the real world to real people and real
struggles;
K) Cults of personality, groupees and uncritical following;
L) Expertise on everything: joining in discussions with no substantive
background on the issues with some cherry picked pithy quotes from one of
the "Masters" or mined "data" from an ideologically--favored source;
M) "Third World versus "First World", Male versus Female, Gay versus non-Gay
and White versus non-White academics: real differences that show up in
debates in terms of respective backgrounds, educations, life experiences,
conditions of life, degrees and types of allowable freedoms in life and at
work etc;
N) Esoteric, incomprehensible and pretentious grammar and syntax--trying to
sound like Talcott Parsons and not giving a shit who can really understand
what you are saying or what they can do with it;
O) Loving "humanity"--in the abstract--while fucking over and showing
contempt for real people with real issues;
P) Reification, commodification and cynical use of real victims with no
caring if those victims get to read or understand what has been written
about them, about what has happened to them when they are no longer "useful"
or how their own participation in some study will make any difference for
them in their own lives;
Q) Sectarian warfare (current sects) and the usual Trotsky versus Stalin or
Trotskyists versus labeled "Stalinists";
R) economists versus non-economists, econometricians versus
"institutionalists" and classical Marxists versus generic "heterodoxers";
S) "patient gradualists" versus "instant gratificationists", younger versus
older radicals and those experienced in long-term grass-roots work versus
activists focusing on the "politics of the deed" and primarily participation
in demonstrations etc;
T) Those with diverse life experiences under very diverse and sometimes
extreme socioeconomic/political conditions and
pressures--non-Western--versus those primarily raised in relative comfort,
privilege and academic freedom--in the West;
U) Those who have worked extensively as non-academics (not just to get
through school) versus those whose experiences are primarily in academia;

These arew but some of the differences--and/or reasons for some of the
differences--that I have observed among or between Marxist academics,
between Marxist academics and non-academics as well as between Marxist and
non-Marxist academics and non-academics.

Add to the list.

Jim C


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