Search LBO-Talk Archives

601 [lbo-talk] what is the best measure of business investment in the US national accounts -- rank: 1000

I am sure that there used to be a heading Business Investment, but I can only find 'Gross private investment'. Also, I know this is an absurd and quixotic question, but to all those Marxists out there, if you were looking for the best approximation of investment in 'constant capital' in the national statistics, which would it be?

Document Size:	5266
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Nov 12 13:07:22 PST 2009

602 [lbo-talk] how radical was Derrida? -- rank: 1000

Alan, did you really mean to write "as you have it, all the confidence, uncertainty, torment, relief and sadness of all the people I know who've decided to terminate pregnancies - and I know a raft of people who've made that choice (not always feeling it was a choice), and for wildly divergent sets of reasons - was wasted emotional energy: their choice was either objectively right or objectively wrong and there's nothin' else to it." if you did, then I am sorry I was so obtuse. I did n ...

Document Size:	5616
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Nov 9 15:03:33 PST 2009

603 [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? -- rank: 1000

Well, I agree with Chris that hiding behind the holocaust is childish. But the fact that there is debate over moral choices does not indicate that there are no moral choices, on the contrary, it indicates that there are moral choices. There are indeed people who think that a woman's right to choose should be subordinate to that of her unborn child, just as there are people who think that the US should strike pre-emptively against Iran's nuclear programme, and they are either right, or they are w ...

Document Size:	5141
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Nov 9 13:26:02 PST 2009

604 [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida -- rank: 1000

Miles writes 'the "superiority" of one mode of knowledge over another has nothing to do with the sociology of knowledge...It's irrelevant to their work.' Yes, that's what is wrong with the sociology of knowledge. It dances around the outside of knowledge, fascinated with the tangential and esoteric questions, like what was the name of the man who payed for it, ignorant of the substance of the thing itself, is it indeed knowledge, or is it just prejudice? Knowledge is the one thing that ...

Document Size:	5875
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Nov 9 00:18:34 PST 2009

605 [lbo-talk] On witchcraft -- rank: 1000

Cross Diss: "You know who was a drywall installer? Heidegger" - yet another black mark against his name, I say.

Document Size:	4715
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Nov 8 13:42:19 PST 2009

606 [lbo-talk] On witchcraft (was how rad. Derrida?) -- rank: 1000

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann make the point more playfully - 'rural Haitians *are* possessed and New York intellectuals *are* neurotic' The Social Construction of Reality p 198 An argument that cannot distinguish between science and witchcraft is a victory of rhetoric over sense. The distinction between natural thinking and science is at the core of rationality (cf. Hegel, who usefully insists that it is not that they are made of different stuff, but that the latter is a refined form of the ...

Document Size:	5601
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Nov 8 05:15:47 PST 2009

607 [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? (was does anyoen read postructuralism anymore?) -- rank: 1000

Alan Rudy writes: "Most interesting to me is the ways that the socialist feminist interactionists (and deconstructivists) end up in a place where what they are endorsing is a radical democratization of Merton's communalism... they are pushing for scientifically transparent engagements w/r/t social interests and technical consequences when it comes to science..." Well, good luck with that! If you want to read a scientists' response to the radical critique, I recommend my brother-in-law ...

Document Size:	5597
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Nov 8 01:36:36 PST 2009

608 [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? (was 'does anyone read poststructuralism anymore?) -- rank: 1000

Ted writes: 'In contrast, according to Marx it's superstition and prejudice that are the basis of despotism. "Enlightenment" in his sense, a sense different from the sense invoked by those who find it impossible to imagine human relations as other than "despotic" (i.e. other than as various forms of sadistic domination), is the basis of "freedom" elaborated ethically as relations of "mutual recognition", an idea different from Derrida's idea of ...

Document Size:	6649
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Nov 8 01:31:47 PST 2009

609 [lbo-talk] Conversation with Derrida -- rank: 1000

A point made here against Sokal is that he does not engage with the school of science studies, which is of course a damaging criticism so far as it is true. But surely it is more damaging that, according to my straw poll, no working scientists seem to be remotely interested in the philosophy of science.

Document Size:	4803
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Nov 7 15:46:33 PST 2009

610 [lbo-talk] Chris Harman, 1942-2009 -- rank: 1000

Chris Harman, who wrote a Marxist history of the world, and two books on the Marxist theory of crisis, as well as being a leader in the Socialist Workers Party for many decades, died in Cairo.

Document Size:	4657
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Nov 7 15:38:58 PST 2009

611 [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? (was 'does anyone read poststructuralism anymore?') -- rank: 1000

Asad writes: "Derrida did not have an apolitical impact in France; actually he and his theoretical moment shook up the French republican/colonial ideology" Really? what evidence is there that he had an impact on the French Republican/Colonial ideology. Some radical thinkers in France did attack the colonial ideology - such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean-Francois Lyotard, both of whom were active in solidarity with the Algerian resistance. Then there were some who went further (some would ...

Document Size:	5951
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Nov 7 04:55:09 PST 2009

612 [lbo-talk] Conversation with Derrida -- rank: 1000

Shane writes that the founders 'made absolutely sure that neither the word nor the concept appear in their Constitution and Declaration. Even the Bill of Democratic Rights that they were forced to accept (in words only) includes no mention of democracy' Yes, but Marx says 'Democracy is the solution to the riddle of every constitution. In it we find the constitution founded on its true ground: real human beings and real people; not merely implicity and in essence, but in existence and in reality. ...

Document Size:	5298
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Nov 5 15:56:26 PST 2009

613 [lbo-talk] Conversation with Derrida -- rank: 1000

Chris writes: "There you have it, clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. That sounds totally Nietzschean. Marx was therefore obviously a Nazi. James Heartfield is a Marxist. Therefore, James Heartfield is a Nazi, and probably an environmentalist as well (no difference, really)." I am the batsman and the bat, I am the bowler and the ball, The umpire, the pavilion, The roller, pitch, and stumps and all. - Andrew Lang

Document Size:	4926
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Nov 5 13:55:03 PST 2009

614 [lbo-talk] Converation with Derrida -- rank: 1000

Doug: 'James, did all those years in the RCP teach you this bullheaded tendentiousness?' Well, I am sorry that we don't agree, but I don't suppose it matters that much.

Document Size:	4662
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Nov 5 13:22:45 PST 2009

615 [lbo-talk] Conversation with Derrida -- rank: 1000

Doug, you paraphrase my quote from Derrida as follows 'opposition to racism, totalitarianism, etc., in the name of *spirit* or universal human rights or some other axiom (i.e., something taken as self-evidently true, or assumed from the outset),' is not convincing. This is your version of Derrida's list: '*spirit* or universal human rights or some other axiom ' But this is Derrida's list: 'in the name of the spirit, and even of the freedom of (the) spirit, in the name of an axiomatic - for exam ...

Document Size:	6909
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Nov 5 12:07:32 PST 2009