[Marxism] What's Telos Got To Do With Psychology? Nothing, In This Case

["Jeff Rubard" <jeffrubard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 02:52:13 -0500
> From: "Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: [Marxism] Neuroscience: Who's got the PET?
> To: <jeffrubard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, "'Activists and scholars in Marxist
>       tradition'"     <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <000001c3ee18$772e1380$78991a41@yourkf1y8xksrv>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset="us-ascii"
>
> Jeff wrote "Ohhh, no, they already took *Telos* away from me..."
>
> Actually, TELOS survives and you can find it online at
> http://telospress.com/telosintro.htm.  For those who don't remember it,
> as the rising tide of student radicalism actually threatened to have a
> major impact, the ruling class began throwing all sorts of things in its
> path.  Publications like TELOS were one of them.  I'm afraid much the
> movement reacted rather like my dog when she tries to get into the
> garbage and I toss a tennis ball into another room.  After doing this,
> those interested in TELOS either went to grad school to study what
> nobody else understood or chewed on their own tails.

Well, Telos has never too militant but for a long time (roughly the 80s and
90s) they were a quite fearless publication in terms of probing connections
between Marxist theoreticians and Carl Schmitt (a major influence on the
Frankfurt School in all kinds of ways); they seem to have dwindled in their
purchase on library and newsstand space but I was glad to have it to read
as the world's world-weariest teenager.

> Whenever someone said something about "the working class" to TELOS guru
> at Wash U Paul Piccone, he would snort and point his nose up to God (his
> first cousin, evidently) and release a string of impressive sounding
> gibberish that persuaded everyone who already believed it that Marx was
> right about everything inessential and unimportant, and that only idiots
> still thought about the world in class terms.

Well, you seem to be going into questions about the left's relationship to
religion,
and Telos would not be the worst place to start (Schmitt was in the tradition
of ultramontane political theorist like de Maistre, who were "more Roman than
Catholic", and although such sentiments are not common today I am not sure
such thoughts are not "of the moment", to obliquely address your example.

> That Mr. Rubarb would refer to it with any fondness clarifies more about
> philosophical underpinnings of his emails than anything he's said thus
> far.

Mr. Lause, If you are concerned about any kind of "philosophical
underpinnings"
you can spell my name right (Mr. Brady's example is not quite right, as any
serious student of New World culture could tell you) and if you're concerned
about materialist underpinnings you picked the weakest example in an email
also containing an "anomalous" one (standid Fodor boilerplate such as is
still
"curiously convincing") and a rock-solid one (Vygotsky and Luria are even
closer to historical-materialist norms than Pavlov in the sense that they are
the only "scientifically serious" psychologists ever to coquette with the
Marxist mode of expression).  And really, there's no need to not expand upon
any difficulties you might have with mine.

Jeff Rubard



> Solidarity!
> Mark L.
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 01:59:37 -0600
> From: "Tony Abdo" <gojack10@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: [Marxism] Marx as Left of the Marxists
> To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <Sea2-F30ElKYjXPRQXN00010461@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
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> I like your attitude about being a socialist, Juriaan.   It seems that you
> have decided that being a socialist transcends being a marxist, which you
> reject.   I too feel that while there once might have been reasons for
> situations like the split of socialists into camps of 'anarchism' and
> 'marxism just like with the divisions into Trotskyism, Stalinism, and
> Social Democrat,  anarchism vs marxism now has become a battle and
> contrast
> more and more dated and irelevant.   I still consider myself a marxist,
> but
> a marxist that has almost as much respect for ecologism and anarchism as I
> do for marxism itself.   This attitude is akin to your belief that being a
> socialist and anti-capitalist is something more and better than being a
> marxist.
>
> Each of those 3 camps (eco, anarho, marxist)  have rigid structural
> beliefs
> though, that often hinder a synthesis of a more relevent, unified
> anti-capitalist theory and activity.    And it is from out of the
> difficulties of being an American marxist, that came the soul searching
> that
> provoked my original comments.     It was damn difficult to survive being
> pro-socialist within the mindset of 'vanguardism'.   And it merits some
> discussion, because all of us on this list have pretty much had to deal
> with
> much of the same as I went through.   What does marxism currently offfer
> that is different to youth today, than what it ultimately offered the
> youth
> of 30years ago?
>
> Unlike the Right, the Left does not have a varied group of churches on
> every
> other block to propagate its ideology.    The church is a much bigger
> social
> institution for the Right than the Left has ever really managed to create
> anywhere.    It meets the needs of families and individuals in many ways
> in
> society, and a Leftist (as do atheists) has to try substitute other
> strategies to cope with society, minus the aid that the church often
> delivers.
>
> Many a marxist might ask why I bring up the churches in a discussion of
> the
> difficulties of being a marxist?     Simply put, I find that marxism as a
> movement often promises individual comrades pie in the sky when you die,
> but
> then sabotages their ability to function as individual marxists in a
> social
> setting, or group.    Marxism, in its current state, atomizes its
> adherents.
>    You, Juriann, also touched on many of the aspects of what this is and
> means, and I feel common ground with you on that.
>
> One of the biggest turnoffs for me as a marxist has beeen, the often
> over-intellectualized and militarized attitudes that constantly prevail in
> our circles.    But individuals in any social grouping need more than
> that,
> and that is Leninism's biggest failure as organizational form.    It
> originally formed as a theory of how to maintain underground functioning
> in
> a period of extreme stress to Russian society.    As such, it had to
> maintain an underground military aura of tough resistance at all times,
> and
> was primarily an organization for men.     This militaristic mindset of
> underground Leninism is now merged in the minds of most people, in their
> idea of what a marxist stands for.
>
> This model is dead today unless all hell breaks out, and has little to say
> to those of us who function in a less militarized setting, especially in
> the
> advanced capitalist economies.     Classical marxist concepts of Leninism
> along these militaristic, authoritarian, and macho veins need to be
> constantly fought against here, or marxism will remain unappealing to most
> people in today's environment.     Marxism needs to find a more socially
> supportive and even churchlike way of organization, as opposed to its
> semi-underground attitudes that still remain dominant in marxist circles,
> most especially with the sects.
>
> Marxism has to find a way to be an organizational movement that helps
> people
> survive in the hostile capitalist society.   Even when the revolution is
> not
> eminent.    That means concentrating on being socially supportive of its
> membership, rather than confronting them in a militarized and humiliating
> manner.    As such, as Juriaan said, Marx definitely is Left of the
> Marxists.    I am a marxist and a socialist, principally because Marx
> predates the influence of a fortified 'Leninism' on our movement.
>
> Tony
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Juriaan..
> Consequently, though reading the material, I personally rejected Marxism
> long ago, although people still sometimes falsely label me as that, and I
> subsequently rejected contacts with all but a few Marxists who are
> creative,
> independent thinkers capable of good human relations. But this does not
> mean
> at all, that I do not think Marx's thought is valuable. I think it is very
> valuable, indispensable even.
>
> As far as I am concerned though, there is only socialism or communism,
> Marxism does not exist. Socialism and communism are about the achievement
> of
> a just, egalitarian, ecologically sustainable and free society which
> abolishes social classes and exploitative forms of association. The
> thought
> of one man is completely insufficient for that purpose, it requires the
> contribution of millions, even billions of living individuals.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get some great ideas here for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day - and
> beyond. http://special.msn.com/network/celebrateromance.armx
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 03:10:51 -0500
> From: "Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Marxism] What the world doesn't need now (refounding the
>       Fourth  International)
> To: "mxmail" <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <NHBBKJHDOLDECLFMKJFNIEEKEAAA.ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> Louis wrote in answer to David Walters:
> I am making a prediction. You can count on it. Any group that puts
> stuff
> like this on their website will not take power. As a rule of thumb,
> any
> political person or group who is devoted to re-founding the Fourth
> International is not in touch with reality.
>
> Actually, I'm not sure at all that this counts as a prediction.  I
> tend to think it is a flat out statement of present-day facts.
>
> I suspect that there are revolutionary fighters in some of the various
> Argentine groups, including PO, who will be won over as a real
> revolutionary leadership like the Cubans or Chavez or the Sandinistas
> in their best days or Maurice Bishop or Thomas Sankara arises out of
> the present struggles and begins to prove itself.
>
> But people who today still are completely absorbed with constructing
> the Fourth International as the solution to the crisis of humanity --
> people so far out of touch with reality TODAY, people on a course so
> completely independent of and counterposed to the real class struggle,
> can only be won to a real revolutionary movement through an internal
> revolution at least as profound as what Trotsky said would be needed
> to win professional middle-class intellectuals. Nothing whatsoever
> will be achieved by looking to these groups or orienting to them in
> any way.  The solution to the leadership crisis is elsewhere, and it
> will be arrived at on a road that is completely counterposed to
> theirs.
>
> To the extent that these organized currents have influence in the mass
> movement today, it tends to be poisonous and dangerous.
>
> A week ago I submitted an article by a representative of one of these
> currents, Jorge Martin, describing apparently some alleged gains the
> views of his current were making in the Bolivian labor movement. (I am
> beginning to suspect and certainly hope that my concerns were
> exaggerated.)
>
> I submitted it because it was being published on a number of other
> lists by people I respect as announcing a new wave of the upsurge in
> Bolivia.  The line that it claimed was being adopted by the Bolivian
> labor movement (as I say, I suspect this claim was exaggerated at
> least) struck me -- although I admittedly was not in a position to be
> sure -- as a classic sectarian  "Trotskyist" "permanent-revolutionary"
> formula for disaster.
>
> The mentality is one that assumes that the defeat of a revolutionary
> upsurge is a small price to pay for discrediting "false leaders" like
> Evo Morales, Chavez, Torres, not to mention poor Allende.
>
> Lately I have had an opportunity to review some of the circumstances
> surrounding Castro's denunciation of Trotskyism at a 1966 conference.
> Its not one of his better speeches, extremely sloppy about facts and
> very trustful about Stalinist sources on the record of Trotskyism.  I
> am not surprised that it has no prominent place in anthologies of
> Fidel.  But it became clear to me that a central concern of Fidel's
> was the influence a particular "Trotskyist" "Fourth Internationalist"
> group-- the followers of Juan Posadas including the well know
> journalist Adolfo Gilly -- were having on a promising guerrilla
> movement in Guatemala.  And that effect was totally ruinous. No blocs
> with the Communist Party! Socialist revolution now (in the Guatemalan
> countryside)! Mao, not Fidel! Who killed Che?  (This was before Che
> announced he was in Bolivia.)
>
> The Posadas people were famous for ideas like nuclear war as the
> solution to the world crisis of leadership and that spacemen from
> socialist planets were htrying to help our struggle.  But the
> straight-up psychotic stuff was relatively harmless.  It was their
> real politics that were poison.
>
> One last point: I may be a little behind the curve but is there such a
> thing yet as the Argentinian revolution, let alone a leadership of
> same.  I lean toward caution about proclaiming such things.  It seems
> to me that Kirchner's actions indicate some forward motion by the
> masses, but I need to know a lot more to say that the Argentinian
> revolution is now underway.
> Fred Feldman
> F
>
> The
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 03:27:52 -0500
> From: "Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: [Marxism] Marx as Left of the Marxists
> To: "'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition'"
>       <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <000301c3ee1d$7192e360$78991a41@yourkf1y8xksrv>
> Content-Type: text/plain;     charset="us-ascii"
>
> Tony is again grossly oversimplying things in saying, "Each of those 3
> camps (eco, anarho, marxist) have rigid structural beliefs".  There are
> many from all three camps that do not, and this is one of the places to
> find them.
>
> In email, the last post read tends to frame the debate, which makes it
> too easy to direct polemics against positions that have merely been
> ascribed to others.  On the one hand, you compare Marxism to churches,
> and complain, on the other, that, even without a mass political
> upheaval, Marxism should "be an organizational movement".  How do you
> think "churches" form...faith without substance, no?
>
> And these polemics against "underground Leninism"!  You are addressing a
> list that explicitly rejects functioning as any kind of political
> organization and discusses everything openly, posting the results.
> Where is this "underground Leninism"?
>
> Solidarity!
> Mark L.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 02:13:09 -0800
> From: Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Marxism] Re.: Marx as Left of the Marxists
> To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <40260BB4.2E6ED4A4@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Oh, Mark, why bother?
>
> Juriaan boasts that he has advanced beyond Marxism, and Tony claims he
> likes that socialist ?attitude? while he himself remains a Marxist
> albeit a Marxist morphing with
>  a n a r c h y .
>
> At least they say so, finally. Which begs, um, what question?  Well,
> what ever.
>
> I suspect that the problems some folks have with Marxism stem from their
> perception of some revolutionary socialist or communist parties and
> their cultish followers as representative of Marxism.  Note the ?some?.
> I am by no means making blanket denunciations.
>
> I recall being part of a university labor group that had a fairly clever
> member who was from the Spartacist League.  He brought in another guy,
> and they set up a presentation, through the labor group, on Mumia abu
> Jamal, with videos and books, and also Workers Vanguard newspapers and
> pamphlets and Trotsky?s tome on the Russian Revolution for sale.
>
> A week later they alerted the group that a couple of special speakers, a
> man and a woman, were coming up from California and we should check them
> out.  I forget what the subject of the talk was but afterwards we met up
> in a tavern, the whole group of us, with the Spartacist speakers from
> out of town.  Apparently they had been forewarned about my work on
> Monthly Review subjects because at one point the woman turned to me and
> asked quite boldly, even coldly: ?And what are you, some kind of
> Stalinist?  Or a Maoist??  But she didn?t mean it as a question.  She
> meant to shut me out, and she turned her back to me in such a way to
> leave me physically positioned behind her and her comrade who had also
> adjusted his body.  They had actually cornered the rest of the group,
> whom they flattered and asked leading questions to feel them out.  It
> seemed to me that their primary interest was the younger members who had
> as yet not formed any political awareness or positions, and who were
> still malleable, I guess, as far as they saw it.  They were recruiting.
>
> They really didn?t see me as a fellow Marxist, say in a different
> branch--but as a competitor, or even an enemy.  My ecumenical Marxism
> was at odds with their sectarian variety.  I must be frank, though,
> because I still believe that their ideological underpinnings are
> Marxist, however narrow their operational strategies.  This may pose a
> conundrum for purists, but shouldn?t for those who recognize that
> Marxism is one thing, Marxists are others and shouldn?t be generalized,
> and parties are another--and certainly the most fallible agency, but the
> people are everything.  Ultimately, however, parties are also the most
> potent agency for the masses, and we must come to terms with the
> socialist and/or communist party problem.
>
> I do NOT suggest the internet or discussion list is the best forum for
> the formulation of any such party, or affiliation with such.  Take note
> of the political times around us, for goodness? sakes.  Nonetheless, the
> internet and lists like this one are ideal venues for the discussion of
> theory and exchanges of ideas and news.  And which also admits
> participants that contradict, oppose, dismiss or otherwise discount the
> underlying reason for this particular list?s existence, and essence.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> End of Marxism Digest, Vol 4, Issue 33
> **************************************
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