Oishi

["Richard Harris" <rhh1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A contributor said:

> >"In analyzing the jointly written work The German Ideology, for example,
> Oishi goes back to the original handwritten manuscripts to separate Engels
> contributions from those of Marx.
>
> How does Oishi know that the handwriting proves the authorship?  What if
> they were merely taking turns writing what they both agreed to say, or
what
> if Engels was writing while Marx dictated and vice-versa?  Again, stupid
> stuff.

_______________________________________________

Alas this is.

Marxism and the future of working people in out brutal bloody world is to
serious for this kind of nonsense.

As far as  I am aware, there has yet to be written a scholarly biography of
Marx's life.  Carver has written a small life of Engels, but I am not able
to evaluate it.

The contributor cited has just made his comment up.  He obviously has not
read a jot of the literature on the authorship of the GI, let alone Oishi's
book.  There are authorship problems in many texts and a scholarly tradition
built up to solve them (Catullus or Sappho, for example, let alone the
Hebrew Bible.)  Disentangling texts is an area in which great scholarship
exists.

Please don't review books you have not read, or try to comment on what is
obviously a technical issue such as the documentary analysis of the GI,
unless you have the skills to do so.  It is just silly, and it is that kind
of dogmatism that brings our whole movement into disrespect.  Comrade
contributor, if you have studied the German language manuscript, then you
are entitled to your view.  But if not, I don't know how you can have a view
on the matter of the authorship of a particular manuscript.

No wonder Marx said 'je ne suis pas marxiste.'  He was a truth seeker, not
someone who knew what the world must be like because of a trans-historical
theory he had found on the two tablets (where else do you get a theory of
everything from?)

Without a scholarly Marx biography, I don't know how contributors to this
list can be as certain as they are about the bold assertions recently made
about the Marx-Engels intellectual relationship (not personal relationship
or friendship, which seems to me to have been profound ~ as DMS said, where
exactly did the wonderful and noble comrade Engels exactly influence Marx's
thinking?)  I find Marx breathtakingly original, but Fred a marvellous
socialist with the kind of intellect I understand, someone who is trying to
make sense of great ideas.

Richard

Richard Harris
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