Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 16:08:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Reply to Bob Nowlan and the Buffalo group


Bob Nowlan:
>
> Your critique of
>Ellen Meiksins Wood is a critique of a prominent public figure with
>considerable standing and influence on the contemporary "left"; it is
>therefore entirely legitimate, and, insofar as it points to serious problems
>with Wood's "Marxist" position (such as her movement towards complicity with
>Laclau and Mouffe in rejecting the priority of political economy and class in
>the infrastructure of captalist society, and as indispensable categories for
>making sense of this infrastructure) of urgent importance.  

Louis Proyect:
When you put the words "left" and "Marxist" in quotes, you are showing the
same kind of prejudice as your pals. One of the things that many of us have
learned on these Marxist discussion lists is that there is not much point in
having a discussion or debate with somebody who does not regard you as part
of the left or a Marxist. When you learn to respect those who you disagree
with as part of the left and as Marxists, then there can be dialog.

If you and the Buffalo group would ever learn to be a little modest about
who you are and what you represent, then some progress can be made. The odd
thing about the whole business is that I caught hell about two months ago
>from Comrade Monteiro, the only person on the list who has any kind words to
say about you, when I reported to the list that Teresa Ebert was a powerful
Marxist critic of postmodernism. I had just heard her up at the Rethinking
Marxism conference and was mightily impressed.

So impressed in fact that I took the fucking trouble to key in huge sections
>from an article on feminism that she wrote for Against the Current. Joao,
new to the list, went bananas because there were some formulations in
Ebert's article that he thought were weak and even reformist. I came to her
defense while Joao cried Menshevik betrayal. The point is that Joao is a
Marxist, Teresa Ebert is a Marxist, so is Ellen Wood and so am I. By
exaggerating differences between us, you close off the opportunity to unite
a broader current within Marxism against our real opponents.

With respect to Ellen Wood's ideas, the problem is that the original
manifesto your Buffalo folks wrote was written at such a high level of
abstraction and filled with such jargon that I had no idea what they were
talking about except that they did not think she was a Marxist, rather that
she was an advocate of radical democracy. This is such a bizarre notion that
I didn't even know what to say except what bullshit.

I would certainly love to debate Ellen Wood with the Buffalo group. I am
extremely partisan to her approach and am thrilled that she is now an editor
of MR. I have to tell you, however, that I simply don't have the patience to
take apart the original manifesto that the group nailed to the door of
marxism-international. I don't have the patience for the same reason I don't
have patience to read much of Social Text or Rethinking Marxism. The writing
is so overly complicated, ridden with jargon and neologisms, and filled with
obscure references that I throw it aside almost immediately.

If the group sticks around and doesn't get frustrated from people having
ostracised them, I will take up the challenge perhaps in a week or two. I
will defend Ellen Wood's Marxism against all comers. And nobody will have
any trouble understanding what I am writing.






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