Bulletin N°702
Subject: ON CHOOSING THE LESSER EVIL: ENSLAVEMENT OR ANNIALATION ?
15 June 2016
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
Bertell Ollman attempts to decoded bourgeois social discourse in
his analytical study of Marxist dialectics, Dance
of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx's Method (Chicago, 2003), where in chapter 5, “Putting Dialectics
to Work: The Process of Abstractiion in Marx’s Work,” he describes five levels
of abstraction employed by Marx from a hierarchy of generalities, beginning with
level 1, the abstraction of “unique character traits.” At level 2,
the abstractions focus on the specific qualities of groups of people and of
communities, stemming from activities and conditions in their daily lives
in “modern capitalist society.” The next level of generality (according
to Ollman this 3rd level offers abstractions which are usually ignored entirely by
bourgeois writers) takes into account both objective and subjective experiences
which the capitalist political economy has historically reproduced –the
private ownership of the means of production, chattel slavery and wage slavery,
the insatiable quest for private profits through the commoditization of
virtually everything, the expansion of investment opportunities, etc, etc….
In this 500-year period new social relationships which seldom existed were
produced and perpetuated. At the 4th level, social
relationships within class-divided society, as it has existed for the past
5,000 years (as distinct from relationships in “modern capitalist society” as
well as from relationships in “classic capitalist society”), is the generality
from which qualities of relationships are abstracted. The 5th level of
generality represents the “human condition,” the human relationships
and necessary skills developed for survival which have evolved among our
species over the past 100,000 years. In this analytic framework taken from his
study of Marx’s writings, Ollman concludes :
So
it is that for bourgeois ideology people are either all different (level 1) or
all the same (level 5). While for Marx, whose abstractions of extension usually
include a significant number of social relations,
choosing the levels of generality of capitalism (level 3), modern capitalism
(level 2), and class society (level 4) was both easy and obvious, just as
privileging these levels led to abstractions of extension that enabled him to
take in at once sweep most of the connections that attention to these levels
brings into focus.(p.99)
Recently I purchased two books that two good friends
had recommended on separate occasions, and when I began reading these books, I
did not regret the decision, for they are truly interesting, although in Ollman’s categories they are decidedly limited by the
bourgeois priorities of the authors. It is true that The
Sixth Extinction, An Unnatural History (New York, 2014), by Elizabeth Kolbert does not include the recognition of capitalist
relationships in modern society; and that Yuval Noah Harari’s
best seller, Sapiens,
A Brief History of Humankind (London, 2011), does not take into account
the ineluctable role played by
social class struggle in the evolution of our species.
Kolbert,
for instance, offers the following abstraction from level 1 (psychology) and
level 5 (“the human condition”) to explain the devastating impact that mankind
continues to inflict on the environment:
In
1949, a pair of Harvard psychologists recruited two dozen undergraduates for an
experiment about perception. The experiment was simple: students were shown
playing cards and asked to identify them as they flipped by. Most of the cards
were perfectly ordinary, but a few had been doctored, so that the deck contained,
among other oddities, a red six of spades and a black four of hearts. When the
cards went by rapidly, the students tended to overlook the incongruities; they
would, for example, assert that the red six of spades was a six of hearts, or
call the black four of hearts a four of spades. When the cards went by more
slowly, they struggled to make sense of what they were seeing. Confronted with
a red spade, some said it looked ‘purple’ or ‘brown’ or ‘rusty black.’ Others
were completely flummoxed.
The
symbols ‘look reversed or something,’ one observed.
‘I can’t make the suit out, whatever it is,”
another exclaimed. ‘I don’t know what color it is now or whether it’s a spade
or heart. I’m not even sure now what a spade looks like! My
God!’
The
psychologists wrote up their findings in a paper titled “On the Perception of
Incongruity: A paradigm.” Among those
who found this paper intriguing was Thomas Kuhn. To Kuhn, the twentieth
century’s most influential historian of science, the experiment was indeed
paradigmatic: it revealed how people process disruptive information. Their
first impulse is to force it into a familiar framework: heart; spades; clubs:
Signs of mismatch are disregarded for as long as possible –the red spade looks
‘brown’ or ‘rusty.’ At the point the anomaly becomes simply too glaring, a
crisis ensues –what the psychologists dubbed the ‘My God!’ reaction.
This pattern was, Kuhn argued in his seminal
work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, so basic that it shaped not
only individual perceptions but entire fields of inquiry. Data that did not fit
the commonly accepted assumptions of a discipline would either be discounted or
explained away for as long as possible. The more contradictions accumulated,
the more convoluted the rationalizations became. ‘In science, as in the playing
card experiment, novelty emerges only with difficulty,’ Kuhn wrote. But then,
finally, someone came along who was willing to call a red spade a red spade.
Crisis led to insight, and the old framework gave way to a new one. This is how
great scientific discoveries or, to use the term Kuhn made so popular,
‘paradigm shifts’ took place.(pp.92-93)
And on the first page of the book by Dr. Harari, who teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is found
this statement of purpose: “I encourage all of us, whatever our beliefs, to
question the basic narratives of our world, to connect past developments with
present concerns, and not to be afraid of controversial issues.” His book is
advertised as an international bestseller, published in more than 30 languages
worldwide. The broad questions his research focuses on include: “What is the
relation between history and biology? Is there justice in history? [and] Did people become happier as history unfolded?”(p.i)
While the stories told by these two authors are
enjoyable and thoroughly empathetic, the subtext is chillingly politically
neutral; neither work offers any insights into our contemporary context of horrific
class struggles which are still under way, nor insights into the toxic
phenomenon of Donald Trump and the Republican Party leadership, who no doubt
have by now found common ground in agreeing that the world is “over-populated”
and who are preparing to correct this demographic error in their own way.
The question has been posed: Are we experiencing an
advanced level of class struggle or is it a life ‘short, nasty and
brutish . . . a war of all against all ?’ We live in dire times, and we
ignore the effects of class warfare only to our own detriment and to the
detriment of the environment.
In the 12 items below, CEIMSA readers will
recognize the priority given to Ollman’s level 3 and
level 2 generalities (life in class-divided society and life in the matrix of
modern capitalist relationships), for as Howard Zinn has reminded us; “You
can’t be neutral on a moving train.”
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
Professor of American
Studies
University of Grenoble-3
Director of Research
University of Paris-Nanterre
Center for the Advanced
Study of American Institutions and Social Movements
The University of
California-San Diego
a.
Abby Martin and Paul Jay - What Should Sanders Do Next?
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=16516
As Hillary Clinton becomes the presumptive presidential nominee of the
Democratic Party, Martin and Jay discuss the strategy of voting for the lesser
evil and the potential foreign policy of a Trump or Clinton administration
===========
b.
The Occupation of the American Mind
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44844.htm
Video
Israel’s Public Relations War in the
United States, Narrated by Roger Waters.
===========
c.
War With Russia Without Public Debate?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44852.htm
NATO is continuing its military buildup and “exercises” on Russia’s borders,
Moscow is taking “counter-measures,” while the US mainstream media remains
silent.
by Stephen F. Cohen
===========
d.
American
Committee for East-West Accord
===========
e.
German plans to lead NATO buildup ‘big mistake’ on anniversary of 1941
Nazi invasion – ex-Сhancellor
https://www.rt.com/news/346293-germany-nato-buildup-russia/
===========
f.
From: Diana
Johnstone [mailto:diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr]
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2016 10:12 AM
To: Jean Bricmont
Subject: Fwd: Our Ruling Class speaks!
Indeed.
Never mind elections, it’s all been decided.
Note
this very significant recommendation for rationalising
the Military Industrial Complex:
"The Pentagon must strike a difficult balance
between consolidating its approximately 20 percent excess infrastructure
capacity and maintaining
a presence in as many communities as possible to ensure that connections to Americans’ daily
lives remain strong."
Hillary
has been chosen as saleswoman, but first there must be a charade to convince
the American people that THEY chose her.
Note
the “bi-partisan” War Party signatures.
Diana
From: lastmarx2@gmail.com
Subject:
[national] Our Ruling Class speaks!
Date:
10 Jun 2016 02:17:46 GMT+2
To:
diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr
Check
out the "Coalition for Fiscal and National Security" statement of
policy, signed by a bi-partisan collection of representatives of the ruling
class and expressing their objectives and fears. Hillary is their candidate.
-MM
Read
" Strength at Home and Abroad: Ensuring America’s Fiscal and National
Security " (issued a month ago) at
http://www.pgpf.org/pgpf-programs-and-projects/2016-cfns-statement
===========
g.
Venezuela’s Struggle to Survive
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/06/10/venezuelas-struggle-to-survive/
by Lisa Sullivan
Amid a reassertion of U.S.-backed
neoliberal policies in Latin America, Venezuela’s socialist government totters
at a tipping point, beset by a severe economic crisis, but Lisa Sullivan sees a
ground-up struggle of Venezuelans to survive.
===========
h.
NATO's Anakonda: A Beast That
Preys on Its Own in Hungry Times?
by Finian Cunningham
===========
i.
Tick...
Tick... Tick... The Doomsday Clock
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176152/tomgram:_noam_chomsky,_tick..._tick..._tick.../
Nuclear Weapons, Climate Change, and the Prospects for Survival
by Noam Chomsky
===========
j.
Which Corporations Control The World?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44864.htm
by International Business Guide
A surprisingly small number of corporations control massive global market
shares. How many of the brands below do you use?
===========
k.
From: Edward S Herman
Francis,
And this is in the
supposedly liberal state of MA, But then Scott Walker
has thrived in the progressive state of Wisconsin.
ed herman
From:
Portside Labor <labor-moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2016 8:02 PM
To: PORTSIDELABOR@LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
Subject: Kill Shot: Years of State Austerity Budgets Put UMass Boston in
Jeopardy
Portside | Material of interest to people on the left. portside.org Portside aims to
provide varied material of interest to people on the left that will help them
to interpret the world, and to change it. |
Portside Labor |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
===========
l.
From: Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Friday, 10 June, 2016 2:30:12 AM
Subject: [MCM] MCM with Abby Martin, talkin'
propaganda—going viral!
Propaganda
& Engineering Consent for Empire
Video - Empire
Files
The manipulation of public opinion through
suggestion can be traced back to the father of modern propaganda, Edward Bernays, who discovered that preying on the
subconscious mind was the best way to sell products people don't need, and wars
people don't want.
Abby Martin interviews Dr. Mark Crispin Miller,
professor of Media Studies at New York University.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44850.htm