Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 09:57:09 +0200
From: "Tahir Wood" <twood-AT-uwc.ac.za>
Subject: AUT: Althusser


I couldn't resist sending this little piece on Althusser from Andy Blunden. It was an 'explanation' given in response to a query about A on another list. Enjoy.
Tahir

Althusser was an advocate of "structuralism". This meant he wanted to establish 
a kind of "social theory" in which human beings are merely moving objects, not 
*subjects* in the fullest sense of the word. He saw human society as a law-
governed mass, much like a gas or a liquid. Discover the laws and you can 
control it. 

The writings of the young Marx, such as the 1844 Manuscripts, were somewhat of 
an obstacle in the way of this project, because it is obvious from these 
writings that Marx understood people as human beings, not molecules or 
machines. This view was called "humanism" and Althusser very much against it. 
He was also against Hegel, dialectics, contradiction and all that, as 
Structuralism is a nice neat branch of engineering that doesn't really haver 
any room for contradictions.

I may be parodying Althusser, but he deserves it.

Andy





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