Reconsidering Western Marxism

["OpenSentence Type Foundry" <typefoundry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This discussion of "Western Marxism" has piqued my self-interest.  Perry
Anderson is not a figure I admire; I know practically nothing of his work.
But what has been reported to me does not pique my interest, and in fact
sounds rather misleading.  Radical historians have a tendency to downplay
theorists as "pikers", when as Mr. Proyect's correspondent pointed out the
real agents of social struggle are invariably heavily disciplined workers
supported by the masses and no academic is radical enough not to be
surprised by what can be accomplished, hinted at, or frankly destroyed in
such struggles.

In terms of theory: it is true that Benjamin in particular (whose mature
work is quite thoroughly Marxist in ambition) has become a foofy icon for
aesthetes, and similar developments are continually threatening for other
such writers (although generally the Western Marxists, even though they
great intellectuals, built some elements into their theories which are
extremely unappetizing to liberal-bourgeois epicures).  But a lot of "solid"
work based in Gramsci (the only person besides Marx who is typically taken
to be acceptable, as even Lenin's *Philosophical Notebooks* are a little too
speculative and Engels too "scientistic") is frankly not worthy of Gramsci's
ambitions, which were (quite explicitly, cf. "The Revolt Against *Capital*")
to reveal the 'idealist' core of the Marxist dialectic.  Such things are
dull, in a commendable but lamentable way.

For my part, I am a Western-Marxist theorist turned worker (of sorts these
days), and recently I have written a series of essays ("Logic and Politics")
in the spirit of Western Marxism linking contemporary developments in the
social/'humanistic' sciences to close readings of Marxist theoreticians of
yore; if any of the brothers or sisters are feeling masochistic or generous,
these essays can be viewed at www.opensentence.org.

Jeff Rubard
www.opensentence.org


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