Re: [Marxism] The Return of Althusser

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:06:03 +1200 (NZST) Scott Hamilton
<shamresearch@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2006/06/return-of-althusser.html

"When Louis Althusser burst back into the public eye, it was as the
wretched parody of himself that he had drawn in the 'autobiography'
published posthumously in 1992. In The Future Lasts A Long Time Althusser
'confessed' to never having read most of Marx, let alone Hegel, to
getting his best ideas by 'eavesdropping' on graduate students in
university cafeterias, and to inventing some of the quotes and references
in his most famous works. The fact that the great philosopher also
'confessed' to being propositioned by General de Gaulle on a Paris
backstreet and plotting to steal a nuclear submarine did not seem to
bother his critics: they seized upon the literary products of his mental
illness as proof that the phenomenon known as Althusserianism had been
nothing but a gigantic confidence trick played by a loopy Left Bank
intellectual on pretentious academics and naive young radicals. Eager to
prove its anti-communist credentials, even the 'quality' press advertised
its hatchet jobs on Althusser with headlines like 'The Paris Strangler'
and 'Marx and Murder'. The Future Lasts A Long Time was a heavy headstone
on Althusser's grave. "

Has anyone considered that when Althusser wrote his "autobiography," he
was
perhaps just making a joke at the expense of his readers, including both
uncritical
disciples and hostile critics? Both of which would tend to take
everything
he wrote with the utmost solemnity.





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