Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 20:05:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Zarembka <zarembka-AT-acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Althusser and the epistemological break


On Sun, 13 Apr 1997, Hugh Rodwell wrote:

> Paul Z and Jon BM talk about breaks in thinking....
> 
> So all in all, let's face it -- a break-through is not the same as an
> epistemological break.
> 
> Paul's position as he states it is peculiar. He writes: "By recognizing
> breaks in Marx's thinking we open up ourselves to "breaks" and liberation".
> I would say that by refusing to recognize development in Marx's ideas (ie
> breakthroughs such as the labour vs labour-power distinction) we put
> ourselves in the Maoist pillory of eternal scientific shame as juju
> worshippers and superstitious nuts. By needing to recognize development in
> some authority to justify our own development we reveal ourselves as
> helpless infants. This seems to me to be putting Stalinist dummy-sucking as
> the natural state for a revolutionary socialist worker. I can't believe
> Paul means this.

I don't understand the above paragraph perhaps because I know absolutely
nothing about juju worship and also don't know what is "Stalinist
dummy-sucking" (you probably know my position on Stalin, in any case).
As to "needing to recognize development in some authority to justify our
own development we reveal ourselves as helpless infants", wow, what can I
reply to this psychoanalysis?

> And to need some Althusserian mumbo-jumbo to rid ourselves and our
> parties of "the conservative understanding that people and class
> situations are fixed and unchanging" is also to bow to Stalinist
> petrification. The simplest genuine Marxist schooling starting with the
> Communist Manifesto would otherwise make mincemeat of any such "fixed
> and unchanging"  conceptions of history. 

I'm a Stalinist!  Perhaps more than one on this list is surprised.

> I'd be much more interested in Paul's account of his own "break in
> thinking". This would be worth knowing about and could certainly be used
> in political work. Projecting some abstract ideology of "epistemological
> breaks" into Marx's theoretical and political work on the other hand is
> just "muddying the water to make it look deep", as someone quoted the
> other day. 

To describe myself to you would open myself to further pyschoanalysis and
anyway I'd rather stay with less personal issues.

More seriously, I think Hugh's mind is already completely made-up on
Althusser. 

> Cheers,
> Hugh
> 
> 
> 
> >Jon has a good point.  By recognizing breaks in Marx's thinking we open up
> >ourselves to "breaks" and liberation.  We take away the conservative
> >understanding that people and class situations are fixed and unchanging.
> >
> >Paul
> >
> >P.S. I myself feel I went through a break in thinking.   As Marxists, we
> >must encourage "breaks".
> >
> >*************************************************************************
> >Paul Zarembka, supporting the  RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY  Web site at
> >http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka,  and using OS/2 Warp.
> >*************************************************************************



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