Date: 	Mon, 14 Oct 1996 23:56:46 -0400
Subject: Re: Discrimination and the OPE list


Jerry has informed me that my request for membership in OPE-L has been
rejected. Or should I say blackballed? Three electronically hooded members
"who I (Jerry) view as fair and impartial" took the decision without even
feeling any interest in getting in direct touch with me. Even bourgeois
democracy abolished this sort of secret trials; the sort of things Latinos
as me cannot avoid immediately associating with the Spanish Inquisition and
some much more fresh pains. But everybody knows academy authoritarianism
can only be exercised through this sort of feudal aftertastes.

According to Jerry, no political discrimination determined my exclusion.
What arguments does he oppose to the analysis I developed in my first post
on the political meaning of OPE-L's discriminatory policy, to substantiate
this assertion? Only the emphasis he uses to claim it!

It happens that Jerry is a concrete product, a concrete personification, of
the most developed factory of capitalist political thought-control: the US
academic system. The couple of times I had the opportunity to watch its
daily life (and I am referring to radical, and even Marxist groups), I was
impressed by the authoritative structure that rules the relationship
between undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty members.
Moreover, I was impressed by the passivity with which the students accepted
their hierarchical discrimination: this sort of subordination has only been
imposed here over the students through military power. And it has been
demolished by the students' struggles once and again. Only someone that
actively personifies this authoritative structure could have faced the
political discussion in the Marxism list as a matter of grading other
people's posts, as Jerry started doing last year. And it is inside this
authoritative structure that professors as Jerry get used to the idea that
they only need to emphasize their points of view to make them come true.

Now, according to Jerry's "apolitical" politics, it is my "bad faith" that
has to be blamed for my exclusion from OPE-L. At least, he imputed me bad
faith for three times in the post he addressed to me on the question. Maybe
there is a cultural contrast here too.

According to my Latino culture, to continue what one has opened as a public
discussion through a private exchange to try to reach a backstage
"componenda" on one's own benefit, is an exercise in bad faith. According
to Jerry's culture, bad faith is not having followed this path.

Keeping under secret outside academia the formation of OPE-L until it could
be presented to the Marxism list as a consummated fact that excluded
non-academics from it because they were not there from the beginning, is
called bad faith here. According to Jerry, such a procedure expresses "the
willingness to collaborate in good faith."

As I have proved, Jerry left the Marxism list before M2 was formed, and
moreover, while the OPE-L was under formation. Jerry's open denying of this
fact is seen here as an act of bad faith. Is it in the world of academy
only a no-political-meaning in good-faith failure of Jerry's memory?

Arguing at the same time both for the legitimacy and illegitimacy of a
political action according to one's circumstantial convenience, is called
bad faith here. Two days after finding completely natural that the decision
about academy's monopoly on OPE-L should remain to the arbitrary decision
of three unnamed judges, Jerry wrote to M2:

>Who are the current members of the spoon-administration and
>marx-administration lists who are deciding the fate of m2? I would like to
>know the names of those who sit in judgment.

Yet, as a matter of good faith, I must admit Jerry's double-faced actions
are not called here just acts of bad faith. They are called exactly what
they are: maneuvers of political opportunism. And emerging from Jerry's
maneuvers, even he himself ends up making evident that political
discrimination is in the essence of OPE-L: in Jerry's words, the exclusive
clause concerns the "very concept" of OPE-L.

So here we are at the core of Jerry's good-faith/bad-faith inversions. The
whole question does not start from the way I should have asked Jerry for my
admission to OPE-L. The whole question starts with the formation of a list
on the basis of selective invitation that discriminates against
non-academics that fulfill all the requirements concerning "engage in
serious discussions," "collaborate in good faith" (which includes proving,
even through grammatical analysis, how an academic as Steve Keen exercises
the most abominable scientific bad-faith by openly falsifying Marx quotes
to make him appear self-contradictory and as an apologist of capital), and
"avoid flaming" in the same measure that the academic members of OPE-L did
in the Marxism lists.

In my first post on the subject I developed the political meaning of the
formation of OPE-L, as a concrete form of restoring the monopoly of
academia on any scientific discussion on the economic forms of capitalist
society. So I will not get back on this now. Still, I will face the same
question from a different point of view: three aspects that directly
concern other members of Marxism 2:

a) Some members of M2 have repeatedly complained about how the discussion
on political economy disappeared from the Marxism lists. But now that the
path followed by this emptying, and its political meaning, have been turned
into a concrete matter, they remained silent. They should bear in mind that
Jerry's maneuver is only the first step towards the closing of open,
politically uncensored, scientific discussion, we have witnessed here. But
it is clear that academia will strike again to further empty the
possibility of open scientific discussions, in the same field of political
economy or in other fields, as soon as it feels strong enough.

b) None of those who at the same time are members of M2 and OPE-L
considered that the political discrimination of non-academic scientists on
which the latter is based deserved an open discussion here. I ask them
never to forget that, when they engage themselves in the discussions going
on in OPE-L, they are not floating in a heaven of political neutrality
inside Marxism where only scientific interests count, but that they are
immersed in a political project aimed at closing the possibility itself of
scientific discussion beyond the appearances academia needs to cultivate.
If they do so, sooner or later this true essence of OPE-L will become
visible inside OPE-L itself, thus opening the possibility of transforming
it into an open forum.

c) Some members of M2 have posted comments I feel to be sympathetic to my
position, but telling me not to worry about OPE-L's political
discrimination. This sort of comment can be summarized in the phrase "go to
another party" included in one of these posts. I have developed my personal
and political reasons to get into OPE-L in my first post, so I will not get
into them again. But (although I appreciate these members sympathy) I must
point out my disagreement with any association of the development of the
scientific discussion about economic forms following Marx's discoveries,
with the lightness of a "party" one has not to worry about. From my point
of view, the scientific discussion about economic forms is not an abstract
matter. I'm interested in this discussion as a necessary step in developing
the concrete forms of the proletariat's revolutionary action through which
the necessity of capitalism to annihilate itself into the conscious ruling
of social life takes concrete form. So concerning that discussion, the only
reference to a party that fits is the reference to the revolutionary party
through which the proletariat realizes its historical determination.

>From my point of view, what started as a public discussion must be kept as
such to its end. Jerry prefers the secluded paths of private replies to
public posts. So he sent his rejection to my public request for membership
only to me. As a matter of good faith concerning I am addressing here
exactly what he says, I enclose his post:

>Dear Juan:
>
>I decided after receiving your message to the marxism2 list to refer your
>request to join OPE-L to three members who I view as fair and impartial.
>None of these three listmembers were mentioned in your posts to marxism2.
>These individuals were sent copies of your two posts to marxism2 and my
>two replies to your first post.
>
>While we are sympFrom owner-marxism2  Tue Oct 15 11:14:55 1996