[Marxism] Banal Platitudes and Marxism-Clulesslism (was Re: Diabolical and Histerical Materialism)

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I join two replies into one to abide by list rules... one to my friend
ZivkoVukolaj, and another to Carol Cox...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Zivko Vukolaj" <zivko_vukolaj@xxxxxxxxxxx>

> Sorry, it's not that I'm only picking on you, but I found this to be
> rather
> striking. What do you base this assertion on? I personally would have
> considered Trotsky's 'Revolution Betrayed' (to use an opposite example)
> alone to have been more influential than DHM.

Maybe if you are an ortho-trot. But for the rest of the people outside of
the universities (and anecdotically in some factories, i'll admit) of the
imperialist countries, D&HM way more important. "Revolution Betrayed", is of
course an important text among marxist academecians of any persuassion the
world over.

Almost every trot I know in LatAm (or Africa or the Middle east or Asia)
came to marxism because of the "banal platitudes" of D&HM and became trots
after reading "Revolution Betrayed". SOme won't admit it in public, others,
unable to escape their maoist or stalinist past admit it freely.

Maybe thats changing because we no longer get millions of free copies from
Progress or FLP, but still, the millions lying around are getting even more
dog eared than what they already are. And more importantly, "Revolution
Betrayed" is a defeatist historical-political account while D&HM, however
flawed, is a positive contribution to the political body of marxism.

IMHO, much more important and significant, if you wish to cite Trotsky in
contrast to Stalin, would be "The Permanent Revolution". That is indeed,
however flawed, a positive contribution to the politcal body of marxism.
That is why the CPC is republishing it, mind you.

More interesting than the above:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>

> Looked at as an article in a professional philosophy journal, it is
> indeed a collection of platitudes that are not only banal but incorrect.
> _And_ if one believes (as those condemned by events to the sidelines are
> apt to believe) that political practice is to be deduced from precisely
> correct premises, and that DHM is to be read as a collection of such
> premises, then again it is indeed a collection of platitudes that are
> not only banal and incorrect, but vicious.

1) The anti-revisionist wing of marxism has a standard answer to this. The
teachings of D&HM weren't followed correctly, some even argue by Stalin
himself. To equate the written word to the actions, is not only incorrect,
but to use your language, worthy of 9th grade forensics.

2) I won't reply to the sectarian aspects of the TvS Grand Slam Extreme
Championship. But I will indeed argue that if nothing positive can be taken,
even in a dialectical sense, from the experience of the USSR, the People's
Democracies, and the current Cuban, North Korean, Vietnames and Chinese
revolutionary experiences, then we are indeed worse off than what we think.
We are taking to steps back and none forward.

3) D&HM is not a collection of any premises (You might be confusing it with
"Foundations of Leninism", which is indeed a collection of premises).

D&HM didactically structures and abridges the writings of Marx's, Engel's
and Lenin's writings on D&HM. If you are correct, the the 3 of them are also
banal platitudes. Of course, such is indeed the arguement of the
capitalists. But you are a marxist, aren't you?

Lets be concrete, a quote a sample from the text:

"Contrary to idealism, which regards the world as the embodiment of an
"absolute idea," a "universal spirit," "consciousness," Marx's philosophical
materialism holds that the world is by its very nature material, that the
multifold phenomena of the world constitute different forms of matter in
motion, that interconnection and interdependence of phenomena as established
by the dialectical method, are a law of the development of moving matter,
and that the world develops in accordance with the laws of movement of
matter and stands in no need of a "universal spirit."

What is banal of that to someone new to marxism? Why is that view incorrect?
If we are to belive you, and this text is to be discounted, then we should
discount marxism! Imagine that!

> But if you (a) see it as a collective study text for those directly
> involved in political practice and (b) quite properly written at the
> same level of sophistication as a 9th-grade civics text, then it is easy
> to see it as every bit as useful as sks claims it to be in this post.

Lets, for arguement's sake, see D&HM as both.

What is so banal about a "collective study text for those directly involved
in political practice[...]quite properly written at the same level of
sophistication as a 9th-grade civics text"?

Of course, i'll have to wonder if you have read it or are simply following a
sectarian approach to the question.

Or maybe you were a specially gifted 9th grader as it is certainly a tad
above 9th grade civics in dificulty.

Such underhanded comments(as opposed to the more direct before them)
certainly point in the direction of the former, althought the elitist,
accusatory tone in which this description is given might point in the
former.

Alas, I won't speculate and let you answer...

I do find the D&HM a useful book, not only as a "collective study text for
those directly involved in political practice" but as an important starting
point in the development of marxist theory and theoricians (who to be trully
marxists should ALSO be involved in politcal practice). To discount its
importance as a text simply based upon who wrote it, and the historical
experience of a section of those who read it, is the very definition of
sectarian blindness, as defined by Marx himself: it is to seek not what we
hold in common to each other, but on the particular bullshit who separates
us. (The guy said shibolet, but in a tone that make bullshit a useful
translation from the yiddish). In this case the bullshit being the author,
and not his words; idealism, not materialism.

BTW, the person to whom the question was directed hasn't answered:

Jurriaan Bendien, you are free to answer in what way calling D&HM a "banal
platitude" contribute to steering the list into the "humanist maturity" and
away from the "petty vendettas and games of one-upmanship" you call for?

sks


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