Date: Thu, 19 Sep 1996 02:47:27 +0200
Subject: Re: Marx - not a Marxist? 


Well spoken, Justin. I agree very much with the spirit in this - but ...

I am not in the "science business", but I think dogmas are quite useful -
if used with sense. As I understand it the term "dogma" in its true meaning
means something like an established truth from which we move on to
investigate further.

This is useful as it allows us to have debate and research based on certain
truths which for the time is outside debate. In other words we don't have
to start with Adam and Eve everytime we debate about f.x. "Social Democracy
in Denmark" (to take a very important question for the world proletariat).

Of course these "dogmas" (basic truths or whatever) can not just be stated,
we must be able to argue them out, if they are questioned. But making a
virtue out of being "non-dogmatic" is IMO not very productive. It basically
says that all accumulated experince is worthless (i.e. that we *do* have to
start with Adam and Eve over and over). This of course is not true, not
even for those who claim to be "un-dogmatic". They *do* have dogmas, but
they are obscured behind the "un-dogmatism". This IMO is muddle - where
clarity is needed.

What *is* productive is to state *which* "dogmas" should be questioned -
and how.

So if we take "dogmatism" to mean mere repetition of formulas, I think we
agree. But this should never be used to turn "un-dogmatism" into the new
"say-all-say-nothing-formula". I mean: Some of these "dogmas" have been
paid very dearly for.


Yours

Jorn


At 17:19 18-09-96 -0400, Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
>I am opposed dogmatism of any sort. The questions we have to ask of any
>proposition we consider, once we have determined what it means, are (a) is
>is true? and (b) is relevant and useful for a useful purpose?
>
>The misuse of "nondogmatism" by reformists both old (Bernstein) and new
>(Blair, who actually isn't interested enough in Marxism to critique it) is
>no rational basis for taking a dogmatic Marxist stance. The reason we
>don't compromise on whether the working class should rule and whether
>class conflict in capitalism is inevitable is that these propositoions are
>true and right, not because Marx or Engels stated them. 
>


-
Jorn Andersen

Internationale Socialister
Copenhagen, Denmark





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