Re: Marxism and Native Americans

[James Heartfield <James@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <3.0.3.32.19971221100304.00b5d2b0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Louis
Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>James Heartfield:
>>Whatever attitude we today might want to take towards the rights of
>>indigenous peoples, it is difficult to find a case for them within the
>>writings of Marx and Engels (whose attitude seems at times close to
>>genocidal).
>>
>>Some examples:
>>
>>'Just as each century has its own Nature, so it produces its own
>>primitives.'
>>
>
>Excellent, I can't wait till I get my hands on Marx's ethnological
>notebooks which repudiate this sort of misinterpretation of his immature
>thought. And watch Heartfield ignore the evidence. This is like using the
>Herald Tribune articles as a justification for the Vietnam war.
>
>Louis Proyect
>
Never mind teaching Proyect to read Marx. Somebody should teach him to
read. I post some examples of what Marx says, and he says that I am
ignoring the evidence. But I do not even say that one should agree with
Marx, only note what he says. Louis thinks that the Ethnological
Notebooks will overturn Marx's 'immature thought'. By this standard
Marx's immature thought extends from the early writings of 1840s right
through the Grundrisse to Capital!

Louis promises that he will be vindicated by the publication of the
Ethnological Notebooks, apparently unaware that they were published in
the 1970s, and contain no substantial departure from Marx's mature
insight that human development corresponds to the development of
society's productive forces.

In message <3.0.3.32.19971221100044.00b5e228@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Louis
Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>James Heartfield:
>
>>No I don't. And any way, what has the question of Nigeria got to do with
>>land rights in the Americas in the last century?
>
>Everything. The same methodology you deployed to rationalize genocide
>against Native Americans is used in your attack on human rights groups
>defending the Ogoni. They are trying to preserve primitive peoples like
>"jam" or maintain "human zoos" for ecotourists. You view peoples like the
>Sioux and the Ogoni as obstacles in the path of "civilization".
>
>Louis Proyect
>

Surreal. All history in this post is reduced to moralistic precepts, as
though the differences between the nineteenth and late twentieth
century's were a mere debating point. Kenya is America to Louis P. I'll
have a pint of whatever he's been drinking.

A government health warning: I do not stand by any of the positions that
Louis Proyect attributes to me.
--
James Heartfield