File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_2000/phillitcrit.0007, message 41


Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2000 19:31:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Howard Hastings <hhasting-AT-osf1.gmu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: Marxist conviction: a problem with Marx or conviction?


On Sun, 9 Jul 2000, Ben B. Day wrote:

> While both sides tend to explain this "limited vision" of the Other as a
> greater form of conviction to their chosen cause, I think it's rather the
> DISTANCE between the two traditions, and not any particular commitment or
> passion to one's views, that brings about this appearance.
> In fact, I've found this distance to be particularly sharp between
> Americans and Marxists, as there's almost no socialist presence in
> recent American history.

A good point. 

 Even the student movements of the 60s and the
> anti-war generation, were largely pleas for civil rights or forms of
> foreign policy within a capitalist context. This absence is a stark
> contrast to most of the rest of the world. The vast majority of European
> Union states are led by Social Democrat regimes, the Labor Party in
> England - although it has moved radically to the center - certainly has
> socialist roots, Russia still has a Communist-dominated congress, China
> leads what it terms a "market socialism" today, the socialist/communist
> parties in Japan are very strong, and hold parliamentary positions, etc.,
> etc.

Yes, the political spectrum is generally broader in other countries,
especially those with parliamentary forms of democracy.

 Typically, this absence manifests itself in a complete unfamiliarty
> among Americans with what socialism or communism or Marxism IS, beyond
> being vaguely linked to the spectre of the Soviet Union and the image of
> evil directly equated with it. The Cold War still looms very large in the
> American imaginary.

Indeed, so one can say many things about Marxism and the history of
Marxism without contradiction from the press or schools in this
country. Here one can repeat dominant stereotypes of the Soviet Union
and Marxism without appearing to be an "ideologue"--though that changes
quickly outside the U.S.  And one can assume that those who contest such
stereotypes are ideologues all the more easily when your stereotype
involves starks contrasts between freedom and control, open and closed
minds.

> I say all of this in order to argue that it isn't narrow-mindedness or any
> particular form of conviction you meet in Marxists, it's just a vocabulary
> that's entirely foreign to your own. When, for most of your life, you
> are probably forced only to argue on behalf of issues within a capitalist
> horizon (e.g. social security issues, health care, etc.), to encounter a
> position external to that horizon - disputing the capitalist mode of
> production itself - makes it appear, when it won't enter your common
> ground of debate, as if it is somehow clinging to this externality.
> Marxists are, on average, just as flexible within socialist horizons as
> you are within the horizon of capitalism. This is not to say that these
> two "foundations" of inquiry aren't negotiable, but they are basic enough
> to preclude debate of particular social/political/economic, barring any
> resolution.

Well said.  

hh
.....................................................................



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