Saturday, November 25, 2006

Fries with that?







Saturday, November 18, 2006

Milton Lost

Milton Friedman died the other day. Now I cannot say that I am all torn up by that, but it does provide an opportunity to tell this little story.

I was in a used bookstore, buying among many other things a copy of and Capitalism and Freedom and Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (It was my second copy of the latter, the first was falling a part, held together with packing tape.) As the clerk was ringing up the various books he read the covers, first Capitalism and Freedom then Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. When he got to the second he exclaimed, "Capitalism and Schizophrenia, that is more like it. It is definitely schizophrenia, not freedom."

I always thought that was funny.

This story made me think about the books that I have completely worn out, and even replaced, and the fact that they probably say a lot about me.

Books that I have replaced include: The Ethics, The Savage Anomaly, The Genealogy of Morals, For Marx, and The Phenomenology of Spirit (Although the last one doesn't really count because I started with a crappy used version that had pen markings in the first few pages, as far as the reader got I suppose). Of course the list should also include books that are now held together with rubber bands or tape like: Lenin and Philosophy, Capital, and The Grundrisse.

It occurs to me that this is a game that everyone can play. So what books have you worn out?

Monday, November 06, 2006

Weekly Indoctrination

I end up teaching Marx, a lot. Sometimes I try to avoid it, but it is hard to teach classes on political philosophy, nineteenth century philosophy, etc. without teaching Marx. What I notice most of all is that the whole dynamics of the class changes when Marx comes up, when I teach Aristotle, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Arendt, etc., I feel like I really have to sell it, convinve them why this is worth reading, with Marx they may not know why, but at least the relevance has already been established. As Althusser says "philosophy should be judged in terms of its effects." Well Marx has had effects, not all good, some nightmarish even, but effects nonetheless.

With Marx I am already dealing with a misreading. This can lead to some amusing responses. Case in point, a discussion of "Estranged Labor."

Student: "It sounds like Marx is on the side of the workers."
Me: "You could say that, yes."
Student: "Then why is he a bad guy?"

Now, not all responses are that amusing. Some can be downright interesting, even daunting. Today I was teaching some short pieces including "The Power of Money in Bourgeois Society" and the first question was about money in communism, could it be dispensed with, etc? Now this question is difficult to answer, especially for a class that is only reading the "1844 Manuscripts." I did a passable job, or at least I avoided loosing the whole class by discussing Marx's critique of "time chits", but it occurred to me while answering that this student really wanted to know this, it was not an academic question.

I have also noticed a particular impass in teaching Marx. Most students grasp the critique of capitalist society and agree with at least part of it. However, at the same time they are aware, albeit vaguely, that some attempt to put these ideas into practice went horribly wrong. Caught between the critique and the solution, students are often left in a position of impotence, in which all attempts to change things are doomed to fail. As Homer Simpson says, "Never ever try." Thus despite Marx's best efforts (and mine) students end at the place where they began: cynically aware that everything is bad, and any attempt to change it can only get worse.