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? --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005