Dear Dave,
Well, we have at least one thing in common - we're both ex-grammar-school
inmates. Dunno about you, but it was being parachuted in from a council
estate into a load of middle-class kids that first 'politicised' me, as the
saying goes. I've gone on questioning received wisdom since, I hope -
including various handed-down nostrums of the left in which I once fervently
believed. Unreliable as they may be, I do prefer these days to trust my own
perceptions and experience over slogans and intellectual notions of how I
*ought* to think, and - to return to the poetry that I suppose to be the
starting-point of this List - I very much doubt that I could continue to
write honestly if I didn't operate both subjectively and pragmatically.
Hence my deep suspicion of the idea that we should be bound by some notion
of 'totality'. I think you have fairly spectacularly missed the point of
what I was saying in my reply to Mark. It's the Marxists who claim
objectivity, not me: I wouldn't even begin to know what it looks like. And
the fact is that Marx himself rejected the notion of social philanthropy -
ask Keston. I liked your 'Kilburn' riposte, incidentally, tho' I still think
you're off-beam with regard to dictionaries in general (the American one you
quote is a good example of the contrary, of course, but then so is Dr
Johnson's !)
(Genuine) best wishes Phil
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Bromige" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Phil Simmons" <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 8:53 AM
Subject: Re: CS, PC, the CP & b...s...
I found Phil Simmons' letter glued together in a way that made it hard for
me, a mere grammar-school boy, to grasp, although I found its title
fitting. Just in case there are others on this List who suffer likewise, I
have tried to be of assistance by breaking it down into parts, and
commenting upon each. David
>Dear Mark,
>*I* was assuming you didn't intend the very obvious syllogism of your
>original argument: exploitation is bad; Marxism is opposed to exploitation;
>therefore Marxism is correct.
>
>In Marx's own terms, it doesn't much matter whether the old boy
* What is the function of this overly familiar, patronizing phrase at this
point in the argument?
>could have
>anticipated the consequences of his theses: 'objectivity' is a favourite
>Marxian buzzword, and those who live by distorted notions of what's
>objective should be allowed to die decently by them.
* In order to recognize distortions of the objective, one must know what
the objective is. Congratulations to our author!
> For the record, I *do*
>hold KM responsible for Lenin, Stalin, et al. The megalomaniac
>pseudo-scientism of even basic Marxist economic theory is tailor-made for
>use as an all-encompassing ideology, and the precedents of organised
>religion, the wild offshoots of French Revolutionary philosophy, and indeed
>the exploitative consequences of nascent pro-capitalist propaganda were not
>only there to see but are actually referred to fulsomely by Marx himself.
* But do you hold John Lennon responsible for Charles Manson's murders? Do
you hold Jesus Christ responsible for the millions massacred by this or
that Christian Church? Did you vote for Tony Blair? John Major? Margaret
Thatcher?
>The fact is, Marx set his own thought up as having an 'objective' value
>over, above, & to some extent
* to what extent? remember, we're talking a fact here; you just said so. So
please be exact about this extent.
>divorced from the very notion of morality, so
>the idea that he was just a brilliant intellectual philanthropist concerned
>with relieving the misery of the poor and overworked doesn't hold water.
* too bad---that would have been enough for me! Couldnt we cherish him for
this congeries of qualities, before we rush him out the door for what you
are about to say next?
>This is the crux of the continuing problem with Marxist thought - the way
>well-meaning people, yourself included it would seem,
* Probably just as well-meaning as your good self.
>attribute some moral
>value to a system which is self-avowedly amoral, just because it declares
>itself to be on the side of the oppressed.
* The thought's a bit compressed here, I find. Does the system become
amoral by taking the side of the oppressed, or by only saying it does,
while actually opposing them?
>It's worth noting that the Church
>has been doing the same thing for even longer,
* which Church would that be? The Quakers? The Anabaptists? Rome?
Canterbury? Avignon? ...Those corrupt bishops? those sadly misled and thus
deservedly martyred nuns in Central America?....lump 'em all together, the
insincere bastards?
>and I doubt that many people
>on the BritPo list would have much truck with that.
* Hell no, I should think not! Not when a man who has the power of the
Objective doubts it.
>I think it's also a sad indication of how polarised, not to say Manichean,
* but you do say Manichean. So we will likely think "Hmm, Maichean."
>this argument has become that you could assume I am not opposed to social &
>economic injustice
* You are right to be concerned about this. It is an impression I have
already gathered---thinking about some tinpot dispute on an e-mail List
while riding through ghettoes for 2 hours! And fortunate you are not to be
living in one.
>just because I will not fall down and worship Marx.
* Well, will you fall down and not worship Marx? ---Just kidding!
>
>All the best
* Do you really mean it? In that case, all the best to you, too, Phil!
>
Phil
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>----------------
>Mark Weiss wrote:
>
>You're answering someone else. I was not defending Marxism beyond first
>principles. I was very careful not to propose a means to the end or to
>support history's horrors. The end, I think, is clear, however, and I can't
>see why striving for some sort of economic equality would necessarily lead
>to Stalin.
>
>What I was proposing is a compassionate understanding of the anguish that
>causes people to be leftists. I do wonder if academic leftists in the UK
>are as monolithic a group as you seem to think. Perhaps they are--I have no
>idea.
>
>The key sentence in my earlier post was "That [the Marxist solution] didn't
>work for a whole complex of reasons doesn't make the impulse to change what
>one finds intolerable--what one ought to find intolerable--worthy of
>scorn." In my neophyte's fervor I thought that I was being angry, not
>patronizing, but you can read as you wish. Remember that all I had to go on
>was your words.
>
>Incidentally, going back to those words, do you really think that Marx
>himself is responsible for all those miseries?
>
>
>
> At 11:26 AM 7/5/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>>Dear All,
>>I'm tempted to leave it at that after Alan B's touching affirmation and
>Mark
>>W's conversion to irony, but I've just spent 2 hours travelling on a bus
>>through one of England's most economically-exploited & underdeveloped
areas
>>(in which I live & work), planning my response, so here goes...
>>
>>Mark - You approach your subject with all the patronising fervour of a
>>newly-graduated economics teacher addressing a refractory first-year. I
>>don't need this, really. I have no difficulty appreciating that
>exploitation
>>exists (in the UK we tend to favour Bangladeshis rather than Mexicans) and
>>having first read Marx at age 13 I know full well that his starting-point
>>was a horror of the conditions that made such exploitation economically
>>necessary to capitalism as he saw it. However, you know & I know that
>>Marxism doesn't stop there. It purports to offer a total package of
>>revolutionary change which would affect the slightest detail of the way in
>>which it's possible to live (see Peter Riley's posts _passim_) This is
>where
>>the discussion-strand on 'the totality of relations' came in, the big
>>questions in my view being (1) who has the right to decide what such a
>>totality consists in, and (2) what happens when something comes along that
>>falls outside this ? We already have plentiful evidence in the dismal
>annals
>>of 20th century practical Marxism to indicate the answers, and alongside
>>this a continuing culture of academic leftism that insists that all this
>was
>>merely the product of bureaucratic mistakes and evil individuals, the
>>underlying theory being pure and sound. Rubbish ! When I was a Marxist
>>(yes, and it lasted for about 20 years !) it was generally agreed that the
>>highest form of theory was Praxis, i.e. what people actually _do_. Quod
>>erat demonstrandum.
>>
>>Henry (le Facteur de la Verite) - I'm with you on antiismism, but I'd be
>>inclined to go easy on the sneers at the middle-classes: I suspect that
>most
>>denizens of this List would qualify.
>>
>>Oh, and Dave B - you are Dave Spart of "Private Eye" and I claim my £200.
>>
>>Cheers Phil
>>
>>
>>
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