tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post4093966800492564784..comments2024-03-28T08:37:58.136+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: Marx and the devil 2Roger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-17307770141740636842009-01-25T06:19:00.000+01:002009-01-25T06:19:00.000+01:00Exit pursued by a bear, surely? (Or was it "exeunt...Exit <I>pursued by a</I> bear, surely? (Or was it "exeunt"?)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-51192700049763108052009-01-24T18:30:00.000+01:002009-01-24T18:30:00.000+01:00NP - your last graf is, I think, why so many peopl...NP - your last graf is, I think, why so many people - why I - like the Grundrisse so much. Because it seems to be full of stage directions. Exit with bear and all that. <BR/><BR/>As for Marx's vocabulary. I agree, but then I think, he's there at the beginning. He has to make things up as he goes along. So that a century and a half later, I can say, of course, he wants to make the social turn, and smile smugly - although the whole "turn" business might seem pretty odd two hundred years hence. With its idealistic presupposition - so strangely Hegelian - that we are conceptually taking turns, in what? The unfolding of the absolute spirit or something? Or are we turning to, as though we inhabited a "space" - Marx might laugh at this talk in turn, whereever he is now, no doubt drinking a beer... <BR/><BR/>By the way, I should have linked to your <A HREF="http://www.roughtheory.org/content/secret-marx-decoder-ring/" REL="nofollow">last post</A>, which in a way made me think I should devote a thread to the Grundrisse.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-5189399113399869242009-01-23T23:20:00.000+01:002009-01-23T23:20:00.000+01:00Marx is never more the grad student than when he i...<EM>Marx is never more the grad student than when he is employing that provincial vocabulary</EM><BR/><BR/>This is the absolutely perfect observation! :-)<BR/><BR/>But yes: a good friend who was looking over my shoulder in the early stages of the thesis kept just ogling over why anyone would say <EM>what</EM> I claim Marx is saying, in the <EM>way</EM> Marx is saying it. It's just <EM>massively</EM> not worthwhile, from the standpoint of communicating the points to any likely audience - but there's a certain inertia to the vocabularies we think with. Marx in his own strange way is consistent to his notion that production only takes place by changing the form of the materials lying around - and these were, I guess, his materials... Given the materials, what he makes is quite clever in a deeply perverse way - but it doesn't translate well for anyone not trying to build with the same conceptual vocabulary ready to hand...<BR/><BR/>And some of the vocabulary - the inflections of the term "science", for example - has aged badly in ways that are less idiosyncratic to Marx...<BR/><BR/>As for the risk of infinite Borgesian regress if Marx wrote meta-books: I'd settle for a bit of good old fashioned Hegelian inconsistency in Marx's texts - if prefaces and stage whispers that violate the explicit method are good enough for Hegel, why should Marx pass them by? ;-)N Pepperellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13228328556735095269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-12752009018966973172009-01-23T21:39:00.000+01:002009-01-23T21:39:00.000+01:00Well, if Marx then wrote a book about what he mean...Well, if Marx then wrote a book about what he meant, he'd have to write another one and - well, we'd be in a Borgesian short story!<BR/><BR/>Myself, I think the whole materialism idealism vocabulary has aged badly. It came out of a philosophical-theological debate, and Marx is never more the grad student than when he is employing that provincial vocabulary. By grabbing materialism and applying it with fine abandon to something nobody had called materialist before, he did a clever outlaw thing - threw his trackers off the scent! - but it wasn't worth it in the end.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-3934483491126186592009-01-23T20:00:00.000+01:002009-01-23T20:00:00.000+01:00Later on, Marx will make a note that he has to exp...<EM>Later on, Marx will make a note that he has to express these things less “idealistically”.</EM><BR/><BR/>Problem is, I'm not sure Marx ever gets around to this :-) - the sheer amount of time I find myself spending in my thesis, quoting some "idealist" phrase, and saying "What Marx <EM>means</EM> by this is..." - something that sounds like the opposite of the phrase... ;-) <BR/><BR/>But grounded at the moment from blogging :-) Apologies for the drive-by nature of the comment... :-)N Pepperellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13228328556735095269noreply@blogger.com