Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 18:13:52 +0100
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (hariette spierings)
Subject: RE: Tenure is not a working class issue


>I should acknowledge that Louis Godena is absolutely correct in pointing out
>that it was not the academics that bear the brunt of the struggle against
>racist sociobiology, psychology, etc. These are battles that masses of 
>people must and have taken up out on the streets. The role of the 
>intellectual is to provide the scientific analysis. But as Marx
>pointed out just as he was starting out on his revolutionary path
>   "The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism
>    by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material 
>    force; but theory also becomes a material force AS SOON AS
>    IT HAS GRIPPED THE MASSES.  (emphasis mine-EM)  (from 
>    "A Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law.
>    Introduction, " Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works
>    vol. 3, p 183.
>                   )
>
>This work is one of the most important of the Marxist classics because
>it stresses the materiality of the class struggle and the need for 
>establishing material forms of struggle. Lenin repeated this in
>his argument for the need for a party of the new type as the material
>organizational base for revolutionary struggle.
>
>Thanks, Louis, for reminding us.
>Erwin
>


Yes, what Marx says is very true, but to identify the "marxist academics"
with the ideologues and theoreticians of the working class is rather rich.
As rich as tenure for 99% of those bonzos!

Adolfo Olaechea



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