Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 10:07:22 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: psychobabble, misrepresentations, & mythology  


Jerry: Thanks for an additional chuckle:

On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, Gerald Levy wrote:

<snip> 
> 
> If it makes you feel any better, I *did* laugh when I read the above. What
> psychobabble! On a more serious note, though, I believe it is symptomatic
> of the style of discourse --  distorting the perspectives of the ones who
> one is engaged in political arguments with -- that has become so
> commonplace for (most) all those on the Left. In addition to other
> objections that could be made, it is a waste of (everyone's) time. Isn't
> there too little time to be discussing and acting on the real issues for
> us to continually waste our time responding to misrepresentations?

Jerry: Absolutely. Over time I've come to feel that one of the most
important services we provide each other is information about what we do
NOT need to read/deal-with! I've long felt this was the great attraction
of "survey articles" that encompass a whole literature, but applied to
just day to day work, it is always a relief for somebody who HAS ;read a
book to say: "Don't bother because...." I remember the evening I asked
Gyatri Spivak if it was really worth my while to read Derida's
GRAMMATOLOGY --a huge book she had translated into English-- and delighted
when, after thinking about it, she said, "No, not really." --which
suprised me but it was one big piece of work eliminated from the agenda.

<snip> 
> Another popular myth concerning autonomists (of which I am not one) is
> that they represent some unified, monolithic perspective. Ha! Perhaps some
> on the Left find it hard to conceive of a "school of thought" (a clearly
> inadequate term to grasp the nature of autonomists' writings and actions)
> which does not have a hegemonic perspective and authority (e.g. a Lenin,
> Trotsky, Stalin, Mao who can be quoted to resolve a debate). 
> 
> Jerry
> 
Jerry: You know, the way the Italians dealt with this tendency was to talk
about a political "space of autonomia" --a space with many different kinds
of participants.  The metaphor that I find myself using most often is that
of threads running through the Marxist tradition because many "autonomist"
ideas showed up as anomolies amidst other more traditional ones and
gradually, as more and more of these threads/ideas/politics gathered and
multiplied something more systematic and consistent began to be apparent.
When I started talking about "autonomist Marxism" it was the outgrowth of
research on these threads and a perception of this gathering and
multiplying and I felt very much like Minerva's Owl taking wing long after
dusk.

Harry
............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage: 
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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