tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post206683583833766672..comments2023-11-05T09:32:26.285+00:00Comments on Communist Realism: Nancy On The WordBecketthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07611811837667869318noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-44516546920647622862009-04-06T00:22:00.000+01:002009-04-06T00:22:00.000+01:00Thanks for that historical example, LCC. I don't h...Thanks for that historical example, LCC. I don't have any difficulty with this except for the unproblematical ease with which the idea (and commune instantiations) of communism is suddenly displaced onto the concerns of the traditional party form of organization (as blueprint for the Good Father state-form itself, as ersatz state), which form - hierarchical, despotic, authoritarian, the libidinal appeal of a New Father - systematically obliterated its original purpose ostensibly for purposes of 'defending' it. It's not just a re-thinking of the idea that's needed, it's an immanent re-thinking (and praxis) of direct and immediate political organisational forms ... something that is not yet evident in response to the present depression, despite the reassuring anecdotal reports eg a few worker contractually-based occupations of their corporate means of production. I've just returned from visiting one: the Waterford Glass factory occupation in Ireland (where the master glass-blowers used to earn more than commercial airline pilots), the only one in that country and, alas, a hopeless acting out. Ditto seemingly in those to date in England and the US that I'm also aware of, despite such conjunctures being crucial to resisting the present - and escalating - onslaught.Becketthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07611811837667869318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-38845848939243795622009-04-05T12:05:00.000+01:002009-04-05T12:05:00.000+01:00"There's something compelling about the idea of gi..."There's something compelling about the idea of giving our Marxian or post-Marxist revolutionary movement a new name. Naming is a powerful act in and of itself. "<BR/><BR/>it's a funny problem. naming, or branding for the launch? naming happens, it's sort of unstoppable - when something exists, it is referred to; history names. it's not quite like products named from scratch, at meetings, with graduates in semiotics, like new aspirins. (why not call "our new Marxism" Alleve?)<BR/><BR/><BR/>from Lenin, <I> The State and Revolution</I> :<BR/><BR/><I> In a preface to an edition of his articles of the seventies on various subjects, mostly on "international" questions (Internationales aus dem Volkstaat), dated January 3, 1894, i.e., written a year and a half before his death, Engels wrote that in all his articles he used the word "Communist", and not "Social-Democrat", because at that time the Proudhonists in France and the Lassalleans in Germany called themselves Social-Democrats. <BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>"... For Marx and myself," continued Engels, "it was therefore absolutely impossible to use such a loose term to characterize our special point of view. Today things are different, and the word ["Social-Democrat"] may perhaps pass muster [mag passieren], inexact [unpassend, unsuitable] though it still is for a party whose economic programme is not merely socialist in general, but downright communist, and whose ultimate political aim is to overcome the whole state and, consequently, democracy as well. The names of real political parties, however, are never wholly appropriate; the party develops while the name stays."<BR/><BR/>The dialectician Engels remained true to dialectics to the end of his days. Marx and I, he said, had a splendid, scientifically exact name for the party, but there was no real party, i.e., no mass proletarian party. Now (at the end of the 19th century) there was a real party, but its name was scientifically wrong. Never mind, it would "pass muster", so long as the party developed, so long as the scientific innaccuracy of the name was not hidden from it and did not hinder its development on the right direction! <BR/><BR/><BR/>Perhaps some wit would console us Bolsheviks in the manner of Engels: we have a real party, it is developing splendidly; even such a meaningless and ugly term as "Bolshevik" will "pass muster", although it expresses nothing whatever but the purely accidental fact that at the Brussels-London Congress of 1903 we were in the majority. Perhaps now that the persecution of our Party by republicans and "revolutionary" petty-bourgeois democrats in July and August has earned the name "Bolshevik" such universal respect, now that, in addition, this persecution marks the tremendous historical progress our Party has made in its real development--perhaps now even I might hesitate to insist on the suggestion I made in April to change the name of our Party. Perhaps I would propose a "compromise" to my comrades, namely, to call ourselves the Communist Party, but to retain the word "Bolshevik" in brackets. <BR/><BR/><BR/>But the question of the name of the Party is incomparably less important than the question of the attitude of the revolutionary proletariat to the state. </I>Le Colonel Chaberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18090919492176021408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-40897516523289956602009-04-04T00:53:00.000+01:002009-04-04T00:53:00.000+01:00"Am I a Neo-liberal, I did not realize that."I don...<I>"Am I a Neo-liberal, I did not realize that."</I><BR/><BR/>I don't recognise any such claim in what I wrote; more a light intrigue concerning the basis, the <I>direction</I>, of your sarcasm.Becketthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07611811837667869318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-32264799984397390802009-04-03T21:40:00.000+01:002009-04-03T21:40:00.000+01:00Beckett,Am I a Neo-liberal, I did not realize that...Beckett,<BR/><BR/>Am I a Neo-liberal, I did not realize that. But I would want to ask is it perfectly necessary among those who take themselves to be loyal followers and true believers of Marxism to paint those that disagree with them as some consolidated enemy? Is one either a true believer or a cynic? Between the two, a cynic I would have to say, as I don't find the behavior of most "true believer" thinkers appealing. <BR/><BR/>Now Communism has a problem. Talk about bad press, millions upon millions were killed in its name in largely brutal and systematic fashion, while it produced a very thin slice of extremely rich party members out of this blood. How to "sell" its brand to the populace while Capitalism is thriving (yes, it is thriving despite the "crisis" being sold to the middle class on all the tvs). I agree, a name change is in order. And logo maybe. Too bad the swoosh is taken. <BR/><BR/>Perhaps though the best strategy is to "sell" difficult to comprehend texts full of intensified vocabulary to the sons and daughters of the upper 1% rich families of the world, through the university system, and use this dissemination to produce an educated and dreaming elite that then can "think" for the poor of the world, and produce a real "revolution" (otherwise called an "event") that way. I say, more Badiou, with a bit of Nike thrown in. And more Che Guevara t-shirts too, damn that guy was handsome in a beret.kvondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07709562524431261018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-4031653731148283792009-04-03T21:09:00.000+01:002009-04-03T21:09:00.000+01:00Kvond, there is really no shortage of cynical appr...Kvond, there is really no shortage of cynical appropriations of left semiotics orchestrated in order to further sell neo-liberal ideology, some recent vulgar examples, leveraging themselves via quotidian ideological blackmail, moving from the consumerist <A HREF="http://anybody.squarespace.com/anybody_vent/2006/9/4/my-card-my-life-your-comments.html" REL="nofollow">Product Red</A> campaign to the murderous IDF invoking Deleuze. Is this what you had in mind?<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure I'd entirely blame the emergence of essentializing subjectivities on Aristotle's diistinction between permanence and substantiality, but I take your point.Becketthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07611811837667869318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-48853878329299699442009-04-03T15:48:00.000+01:002009-04-03T15:48:00.000+01:00I suggest "Maxism".1). It connotes "take it to the...I suggest "Maxism".<BR/><BR/>1). It connotes "take it to the max!" bringing in all those old and new surfer/skater types.<BR/><BR/>2). It makes the Badiouist happy, connoting the word "maxim". Implicit is "Let's all find our maxim (slogan)".<BR/><BR/><BR/>3). It has the bountiful fortune of paralleling a popular adult magazine "Maxim," re-appropriating the use of the fetish by the soft-porn industry, while allowing us to think that this new movement is "really hot!".<BR/><BR/>4). Old School Marxist would be happy that at least the name of their prophet has been maintain in history, but only slightly changed, like a meme suffering historical mutation. <BR/><BR/>So, let's take it to the max with our maxim, and give Ma(r)xism a second chance, and make history really hot!kvondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07709562524431261018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-55431317250690272402009-04-03T08:49:00.000+01:002009-04-03T08:49:00.000+01:00I think this entry is very interesting... I would ...I think this entry is very interesting... I would have liked to have been at the conference to hear Nancy.<BR/><BR/>There's something compelling about the idea of giving our Marxian or post-Marxist revolutionary movement a new name. Naming is a powerful act in and of itself. <BR/><BR/>I almost think this would've made a difference in Badiou's appearance on HardTalk (which, incidentally, seems to be a twin of MSNBC's "Hardball" with the same devil's advocate interviewing style)--if he could have started talking about how, as a way of acknowledging that communism could be problematically misconstrued and associated unfairly with certain regimes, we have decided on a new name for our revolutionary movement. <BR/><BR/>I think from there all of those normal average folks at home (the types who would even watch this kind of horrible TV) who are desperate for a new way would be wrapt and open. One could even admit that Marxian critiques were still foundational, but that the new term was a way to break from the past, an attempt to reconcile the radical thinking of the past with the challenges of the present while embracing new possibilities for the future.<BR/><BR/>(Overly semantic and rhetorical? Maybe.)<BR/><BR/>The first order of business then would be coming up with the new word...commonism? Nancy's suggestions were more teutonic in spelling.anodynelitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09196712046993163381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3055855971874669446.post-23932883565126032922009-04-01T21:32:00.000+01:002009-04-01T21:32:00.000+01:00kubrickgaze: "This, for me, is the point : communi...kubrickgaze: "This, for me, is the point : communism says more and says something else than a political meaning. It says something about property. Property is not only the possession of goods. It is precisely beyond (and/or behind) any juridical assumption of a possession. It is what makes any kind of possession properly the possession of a subject, that is properly an expression of it. Property is not my possession: it is me."<BR/><BR/>Kvond: Aristotle did a great disservice when he drew from the political fact of property and ownership (the <I>idion</I>) to create the philosophical notion of the properties of a substance. Properties of persons "are me" only to the extent that they express "me", which requires an immanentist view of the world, ones that explains that the very notion of "me" is contingently border-graded, a vector of power, and nothing substantial in its own right.kvondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07709562524431261018noreply@blogger.com