File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-02-25.170, message 74


Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 04:24:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Politics, please


On Sun, 23 Feb 1997, Gerald Levy wrote:

> 
> It's true that he has a ponytail. What a crime! Not everybody has to wear
> hush puppies, dress shirts, and expensive watches like you.
> 

Louis: Jerry, did it ever occur to you that your career-advancement
problems have nothing to do with your difficulties with people in
management at Pratt University, but your own intellectual shortcomings?
Can anybody imagine an economics professor at a NY college wasting his
time with comments such as those above? If you are going to be crude and
stupid, at least do it with some panache like I do. But of course I am
nothing but a computer programmer with no academic pretensions.

I intend to post some rather significant critiques of Elster, Cohen and
Roemer to the list when I have some time available in my busy schedule. 
You have been on marxism-international and nearly everything you write is
related to "netiquette", especially mine. It's likely that The reason you
are not advancing career-wise is that you are intellectually shallow, as
your preoccupation with me would indicate.

In order for you to score points off of me in the "netiquette" department,
you need to amass some more solid intellectual credentials. I know this is
like asking Rupert Murdoch to make his newspapers more responsible, but
it's worth a try. 

You are without ideas and, even if you had them, lack the discipline and
energy to defend them. You have been spending far too much time with the
anarchist squatters on the lower east side of Manhattan, whose
contribution to the world of ideas is far beneath Emma Goldman's, to be
charitable.

The only way to expose me is to expose me intellectually. Since you lack
the nerve to confront me in this manner, you dwell on "netiquette". What
nerve you have. You referred to the Argentinian Juan Inigo in a racially
derogatory manner on marxism-thaxis and stood by your words to the bitter
end. Who will judge the judges? 

Do you have any ideas that differ from my own? Do you agree with my
approach to the AM question? Does the AM question bore you? I suppose it
does. Poor thing. Here you are on a Marxism list and you show scant
interest in Marxism.

It has been 2 years now since you began your crusade against what you
believe to be my foul language and rude demeanor. I still go on my merry
way. What does one make of an economics professor with countless free 
hours at his disposal trying to clean up the act of somebody like me who
counts Lenny Bruce as his most important cultural icon? An exercise in
futility?

Jerry is superego to my id. The problem is that this is a superego with
deep structural faults. His moral posture is so pure that it can't
recognize his racial slurs against Latin Americans. His intellectual
self-esteem is so high that it can not recognize the fact that he is
bereft of ideas.

Some day you might work up the courage to have a political debate with me. 
Wouldn't you like the satisfaction of defeating me in a debate? Since you
are desperately afraid of this prospect, you instead snipe away at me. Go
ahead, Jerry, try and confront me politically. You might have to use your
brain for five minutes. This exercise might even help you career-wise. 
Less time spent in the squats of morons with Mohawk hairdos and more time
at the library would do you a little good, wouldn't it? 





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