Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 22:59:36 -0500 (EST)
Subject: M-TH: Grammatical Clique/Bourgeois Populism




Doug Henwood wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 19:10:14 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Reply-To: marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
To: marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: M-I: OLD MAN OF THE LEFT

Brian M Ganter wrote:

>Uphold the Marxist-Leninist tradition of class struggle in the the combat
>zones of capitalism--in the streets, in philosophy and on the net.
>Marxist theoretical thinking and practice lives!

Yeah, but not in prose like yours, comrade. Your style is ponderous, wordy,
and obsolete. Marx wasn't like that. No one outside your charmed inner
circle would want to read past the first sentence. Your theory may be just
fine, but style is praxis, and yours sucks.


Doug

--

Doug Henwood
Left Business Observer
250 W 85 St
New York NY 10024-3217 USA
+1-212-874-4020 voice  +1-212-874-3137 fax
email: <mailto:dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>


--------------------------------------

Revolutionary Marxist Collective at U of Buffalo:

Bourgeois populism has invaded Marxism to such an extent that now the test
of "truth" of a theory has become its "readability".  Both Louis Proyect
and Doug Henwood deploy the vocabulary test against our writings and
Proyect goes even to such a laughable length as to defend the Monthly
Review crowd on the basis that they reach more people than we do.  By this
very test Ralph Reed, Newt Gingrich and the entire Republican Party is
much more "revolutionary" than Monthly Review press since Ralph Reed and
Co. reach a crowd a million times larger than the publications of
Monthly Review Press and the net writings of Proyect combined.  Proyect's
pathetic efforts to represent his reminiscences as revolutionary theory
reach an absurd level when he uses Lenin's term "ultraleft" to justify his
establishment leftism.  To use Lenin's notion of ultraleft as an alibi of
conserativism is in fact a new breakthrough in the reformist left (and
Proyect calls for "historical context" when we speak of Weitling!).  
	Furthermore: Doug Henwood should keep in mind we are philosophers 
and not journalists.   We are not writing for his newsletter (Left
Business Observer)...we are not in the "business" of selling but in
putting forth the project of 

			R   E   D
                        CRITIQUE

Left Business Observer cannot respond to Derrida's assault on
revolutionary practices in "Specters of Marx".  Louis Proyects' memoirs
are no match for Deleuze-Guattari's "Thousand Plateaus" (just to give the
names of two of the books he must eventually run into in his never-ending
search for books to review...)...  The grammatical sectarianism of this
anti-intellectualist grouping  will never allow it to rigorously engage
with and critique the world-historical situation along with the bourgeois
theories of knowledge that are emerging to mystify capitalism today
(knowledges which are given ample space on this very web site for one).

We want to point out here that the publication of "Performative Left: 
A Red Critique of the Theatre called 'Between Capitalism and Democracy'"
by the RMC at Buffalo has "shellshocked" the left on the net.  Andrew
Austin expresses this "shock" by asking "Where in the hell did this post
come from?" and makes it clear that he is not asking about the
"geographical" origin of the post.  The left does not comprehend "Where in
the hell the post came from" because it has for such a long time amused
itself with the fluff of what it calls "activism"--a melange of nostalgia,
moralization, faded pictures of scenes past.  The publication of
RMC/Buffalo's text has been treated by this left as an earthquake, and as
in all earthquakes, what has followed is panic and running for cover...the
cover of "your typography is wrong ...therefore I am deleting you and
freeing myself from having to understand you" ...the cover of "style",
"vocabulary", "prose"..  The problem is however, that none of these covers
covers.  The time has come to stake out a space for revolutionary Marxist
theory and the Red Critique of RMC-Buffalo is an attempt to exactly that.

Therefore we declare to this philosophically bankrupt left: stop whining
and start reading!! Learn to read CONCEPTUALLY--not the
New York Times or the Left Business Review but learn to read philosophy.
Learn to read.  A Marxist who cannot read is a bourgeois functionary
masquerading as a revolutionary!  Out then with the technicalities
and formal protests of the GRAMMATICAL CLIQUE--those who CANNOT READ
THEORETICALLY and who mask their illiteracy with the formal logistics of
grammar.  We do not need to hear (again)  the endless lessons on
vocabulary, prose, style or any of the other alibis that this left
grammatical clique (Henwood, Proyect, Cox, Dumain, Schwartz and so
on...don't forget Alan Sokal, the ringleader of contemporary bourgeois
populism who also substitutes grammatical proprieties for theory--FOR
LEARNING TO READ) is invoking against Red Critique.

No more alibis against the rigorous conceptuality of Marxist theory!  
For Red Critique not populist reminiscing!








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