Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 14:34:52 -0500
Subject: Re: E.P. THOMPSON VS. LOUIS ALTHUSSER


Ralph:

>You hit the pomos and I'll take out Althusser.  Thompson is not
>anti-intellectual, not in THE POVERTY OF THEORY so far, whose
>reading I have interrrupted for important works on Du Bois and
>other intellectuals.  Thompson is against vacuous schematism, such
>as the postmodernism you and I loathe.

I would never accuse Thompson of being anti-intellectual, although he is
afflicted by the English love of piling on massive amounts of detail while
not worrying about a broader analytical framework. Even so, he's clearly
one of the most important historians of the 20th century. What I'm hoping
to find out is whether he's against vacuous schematism in the right way, or
merely a rough approximation of it. Sounds like The Poverty of Theory is
the place to start.

I wish I had done what Alan Sokal did, although of course a nobody like me
could never get published in a prestigious pomo journal. They'll be
completely invulnerable to further spoofs as long as they enforce the guild
laws with an iron hand.

Rahul




     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---