File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1996/96-06-marxism/96-06-26.161, message 75


Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 12:14:29 -0700
From: tommym1-AT-ix.netcom.com (Thomas P. Murray)
Subject: The List ?


>
>
>       From an editorial in-IN THESE TIMES,June 10-23,1996.
>               PUBLICIZING LEFT INTELECTUALS
>
>          "....Indeed,they think of themselves as being on the left,
>  and they have left antecedents.Just as Bolshevism had its roots in
>  Marxian socialism,so did poststructuralism have its source in the 
>  New Left of the '60s.Furthermore,the core idea from which much of 
>  their rhetoric flows is taken from the pre-1917 Marxist understand-
>  ing that beliefs and intellecual constructs,as well as social atti-
>  tudes and institutions are historically determinded and can be 
under-
>  stood and evaluated only in the context of the times and social 
cond-
>  itions in which they develop."
>         .....",these academic leftists have increasingly become an 
un-
>  offending part of their profession,and their relation to American 
>  society has come increasingly to resemble that of cloistered monks 
>  and nuns speaking and writing to themselves in Latin.Thus,contrary
>  to conservative howls about Marxist subversion of the universities,
>  these academics have pursued studies that threaten nothing but the
>  possibility of the revial of an intellectually vigorous left."
>                "True,"Marxist"and "Radical" caucuses have prolifer-
>  ated in various disciplines .But all too often what they produce is
>  incomprehensible to anyone not conversant in current academic fads.
>  In place of the interaction with a general public that earlier gen-
>  erations of left intellectuals sought,these new radicals pursue only
>  their private careers and academic honors."
>                  "The current crop of intellectuals,on the other 
hand,
>  is the product of the collapse of and retreat of a generalized left 
>  in the United States.This required a circling of the wagons on 
campus
>  ,and in that context their retreat into impenetrable cocoons is un-
>   derstandable."
>               ..."We hope it is .After years of ascendancy,the right
>  in this country is in disarray and slipping,and there are signs of
>  life on the left. For too long,the general left has clung to old 
>  ideas and solutions,while avoiding or disparaging intellectual rigor
>  and the clear expression of new ideas.But if a new left is to emerge
>  as something more than a feckless sideshow,it will need all the help
>  it can get.So it's time for left academics to stop talking to them-
>  selves and start thinking about the needs of the world outside their
>  elite enclaves." 
> 
>                I wonder if the editors of IN THESE TIMES have been
>  reading M1 or M2?The level of inellectual discourse on M1 has be-
>  come more and more sectarian,almost completely devoid of any mean-
>  ingful insights or observations.It seems now the list exists only
>  as a place for vituperative personal attacks.Or as a place where
>  a few members display their vicious one line put downs.
>
>
>
>
>
>



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