Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 21:33:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: M-TH: Buffalo Revolutionaries


A couple of years ago someone loosely associated with this group sent me all
the issues of ALTERNATIVE ORANGE to date and I read every one carefully.  I
gave this gentleman a thorough review.  Though not formally affiliated with
any stalinist party I know of, their methods and their mentality are
stalinist to the core.  Completely lacking in humor or a sense of human
personality as befits all stalinists, they freely reproduced in their paper
all the complaints from their students about being intimidated, abused,
depersonalized, subject to impenetrable jargon, along with their obtuse
responses.  Teaching is a fine art: it requires the ability to mediate
between the formalized knowledge of a theoretically trained person and the
spontaneous but conceptually less rigorous world of the average person, so
that the student can feel empowered and not crushed by the theoretical
apparatus being transmitted to him/her.  The Syracuse stalinoids are
incapable of doing this because they have no conception of human beings,
just robotic interpellated units.  They think their role is to make
revolution in the classroom, without of course asking their students whether
they wish to be drafted into revolutionary struggle.  Their entire approach
to teaching and to theory is stalinist to the core.  That intellectuals in
1997 could still have illusions of ruling the world makes me laugh.

I'm not going to recapitulate the detailed study I gave to their writings
just for your benefit.  I suggest, junior, that since you live in a working
class town, you get a little experience of real human beings, and then come
back and discuss theory.  As for Teresa Ebert, check out a recent issue of
NEWS & LETTERS for some provocative commentary on where she is coming from.
And grab yourself a copy of E.P. Thompson's THE POVERTY OF THEORY.  I know a
whole lot of people in academia, including alleged lefties, and boy are they
a sorry bunch.  Of course, you could join the the proprietary left and
become an "activist" like Uncle Lou.  Just practice being seedy and raggedy
and repulsive and unaccountable and stupid and talking to yourself and then
you will be ready for New York.

At 03:26 PM 4/3/97 -0500, Braderr-AT-aol.com wrote:
>And where are your "facts" to back up these allegations.  As a reader
>of both the Alternative Orange, and the work of the Marxist professors at
>Syracuse (Mainly Donald Morton and Mas'ud Zavarzadeh who also edit the
>journal Trasformation with Teresa Ebert) I find your characterization of them
>as "psycho" and "Stalinst" to be completely out of line.



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