Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 08:30:30 GMT
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Re: Althusser


I have long been prejudiced against Althusser and still more 
his followers by the inaccessibility and impracticality of 
the technical language.

I will just say two things I have appreciated from him, after 
finally being stimulated by Rick Wolff's engaged advocacy 
on these lists a couple of years ago.

1) His theory of reading, minutely, obsessionally - yes I know
it is boring - but to try to understand what the writer was 
really trying to say not as dogma but to try to recreate 
the writer's interaction with the problem that was being faced.

2) His emphasis on the importance of acculturation in maintaining
a society and a culture, and ultimately a state,
 and the links between this 
and the fine detaile of exchanges between human beings which always have 
a social connotation as well as a personal dimension. 

Chris Burford

London.




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