Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 15:25:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: Brian M Ganter <bmganter-AT-acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: M-I: PANIC LEFT:  8 





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Revolutionary Marxist Collective at Buffalo/SUNY



PANIC LEFT:  8



*"Improvisation" in Place of "Theory": The Cult of Ignorance*  


The reformist left, it seems, improvises as it goes on. "Humanism" (as in
the laughable (because un-informed) and un-informed (because of the depth
of anti-intellectualism of this left which lives on rumors and anecdotes)
does not mean that "science" or "philosophy" or... is done by the "humans"
and therefore it is "humanist".  Humanist in Althusser means that view of
history that because it places such human limits (as "subjectivity", for
example) at the center of its inquiries makes those inquiries become
anthropomorphic, ahistorical (in the context of the distinction that he
makes between "historical" and "historicist")... "Humanist", to repeat,
does not mean by humans, but limited by human "values" which are treated
as pre-given, transhistorical.  The question of "agency" for Althusser is
simply an extension of Marx's own "Men make their own history but they do
not make it just as they please".  Class struggle is not simply an
enactment of human agency (if that were the case Marxism would have been a
form of bourgeois voluntarism)--it is human agency in the movement of
history (i.e. workings and unfolding of forces and relations of
PRODUCTION).  There is no agency outside production.  
	Self-reflexivity should not be read -- as Austin does -- to mean
theoretical "opportunism", i.e. PRAGMATISM.  How about reading Lenin, WHAT
IS TO BE DONE ? on this very subject...and one more word, how about
looking (dare we say, "reading"  without being attacked by Uncle Lou and
Utica Rose) at Althusser's THE FUTURE LASTS FOREVER... maybe you can find
out what he says about his (non)reading of Marx....  A Revolutionary
Marxist critique of Althusser is not about his anti-humanism, his notion
of agency, his idea of history, his (un)self-reflexivity and the like...
It begins with his theory of "overdetermination" which is now the
theoretical core of the ludic and reformist left... It is by introducing
"overdetermination" (which by the way is not limited to Althusser -- as we
indicated in our post on the identity of Wood and Laclau, two apparent
opponents who both adhere to "overdetermination" and in doing so dismantle
"base and superstructure" among other theoretical practices of Marxism.
Why don't you net-lefts, instead of attacking the Academy which has given
us Marx (holder of a "doctorate" in case you have "forgotten), and
"intellectuals (which no matter how you define it will include Marx) just
read a little?  How about it?  How about it before attacking theory and
anything that resists "pure ignorance"?




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