Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 13:01:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: M. CORNFORTH VS. LINGUISTIC FETISHISM


MAURICE CORNFORTH AGAINST THE FETISHISM OF LANGUAGE:

"But this role of abstract words, this 'tyranny of words,' is no 
new discovery of semantics.  It has been recognised for a long 
time, and eloquently expressed by many progressive writers -- by 
William Blake, for example, when he wrote:

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.

"But whence these "mind-forged manacles," and to what do they owe their power?  Is it because of the improper use of language and 
men's ignorance of semantics?  Blake was a poet who never gave a 
thought to semantics, but he already knew better than that.  
These 'mind-forged manacles' are the reflection in men's 
consciousness of the material conditions of their social 
existence.  And the 'manacles' which Blake was writing about, and
which still attract the attention of Stuart Chase and others in 
the United States of America, were produced by and owe their 
influence to -- as Blake knew, and expressed in some of his poems
-- the exploitation of man by man."

In: Cornforth, Maurice, SCIENCE VERSUS IDEALISM: IN DEFENCE OF 
PHILOSOPHY AGAINST POSITIVISM AND PRAGMATISM (Westport, CT: 
Greenwood Press, 1975), p. 309.  (Reprint of 1962 ed., originally
published 1955.)

Interesting that Cornforth, as a Marxist defending materialism 
against all forms of idealism, including the scientific versions,
should cite Blake as an ally.  --RD


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