[Marxism] Re.: Please accept my apologies...,

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As I always seem to do, I agree--in large part--with David Walters.
I can say this about most folks on this list.
The quantity of our quality and the quality of our quantity keeps
smaller differences diminished (where they belong) so far.  As well as
certain doctrinal affiliations, a concurrent dedication to solidarity
makes us comrades.

I will allow that some tendencies regard any--even slight--divergence as
symptomatic of corruption leading to a condition of absolute
degeneracy.  Hey, what are you gonna do?  To coin a phrase: the poor of
spirit will always be with us.  Our moment here is limited, and must be
optimized.  Onward.

In a debate such as the current on "Milosevic" --which considers so much
more than
that individual-- we see a dynamic that often emerges here on this
list.  One
participant has created themself as an expert in a particular area and,
because we are finite beings,  focuses on that concentration, to the
exclusion of others.  That one becomes a specialist.  To contribute or
evaluate successive points, any other contributor on (or evaluator of)
each point must delve with equally certain and single-minded commitment
to that one point.

This comes from our historical situation.  Our liberal, historically
rationalized academy admits only fields of study devoted to
specialization.  Experts and specialists tend to magnify the importance
of their area, and reasonably so because that area occupies the entirety
of their vision and activity, that is what they see, what ?takes their
lives.?

Because of the nature of our political economy, the expert?s field must
become commodified, and defended.  Any position taken by an expert
becomes that expert?s raison d?être, a life and death struggle?beyond
all relative proportion.  Those who have the political economic power to
do so elevate an expert to recognized and supported professional
expertise.  Such experts must conform, compromise, or otherwise
accommodate their sponsors to continue being supported as experts.  This
happens in universities, but capitalist think tanks are also prime
examples, as is media production.  The tendency exists throughout
bougeois society, but is most powerful in the areas where there are the
most resources, or wealth, shall we say.  Thus, experts as a categorical
actors must remain suspected by levelers.

I don?t want the above to be construed as a condemnation of knowledge,
so let me give an example.  Mac.Stainsby forwarded to me a set of emails
that he had received from a Venezuelan anti-Chavista.  That
anti-revolutionary reactionary seemed prepared to dispute the film "The
Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and to do so until the end of time,
from more directions, based on more absurdly infinitesimal
concentrations, that I wondered if the fabrications of this
self-professed ?ordinary person? were supported by an organization of
flush financial and entrenched (albeit compromised) intellectual
contributors.  (Reading the emails, I got the same feeling I get halfway
through a student plagiary.)  One can be drawn into a tangle with such
antagonists, beyond the purposes of definition and a general placement
of comprehension that has any utility?and well-beyond the effective
CONFINEMENT of the current and increasingly particular(istic) argument.
We cannot allow infinite analysis to bottle up our work.  We should also
allow that point of view as well as evidence changes with time.  If we
are to make practical conclusions, they must be in recognition that all
is conditional.

In a situation limited by specialism, and since he does so much in so
many areas as a polymath, I am tempted to remark that in ?Milosevic?
Louis fights with one hand.  But for our purposes, this debate is not a
fight, with the participants locating triumphant victory against the
vanquished, as much as (as it should be) an investigation into a matter
that may have general utility.  Therefore, focus must join perspective
to be of use.  Such synthetic extrapolation is Lou?s forté as well as a
forte of Lou?s list.

Furthermore, I am sure other observers have noted a tendency for some
participants to identify the subjects of the debate, that is the players
and groupings in the erstwhile Yugoslavia, as representative of distinct
and immutable ethnicities and nationalities, and as such, in the current
history of the region, to be inherently and effectively good or evil.  I
am sure also that other observers would encourage participants instead
to argue dialectically from the central premise, or heart, of class
struggle.



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