"Pure" marxism - what the hell is this?

[Michel Ryckx]

Michel Ryckx wrote:

> KXX4493553 at aol.com wrote:
>
> > o.sell at telda.net: "Besides, I don`t believe that Pynchon "hates" Puritanism (or
> > Marxism, cause  a merely upside down turning won`t help - pure Marxists have
> > problems with Pynchon and Postmodernism)." (...)
>
> > Gude Otto,
> > welchen "reinen" Marxismus meenste eigentlich? What kind of "pure marxism" do
> > you mean? Is Jameson a "pure" marxist, or even a little bit poststructuralist?
> > I only know very "dirty" kinds of marxism, freudomarxism, Critical Theory, "New
> > Left" (Marcuse), antihumanism (Althusser) a. s. o. a. s. o. - for
> > marxists-leninists Marx' texts were "holy" writings, their bible...with their
> > "mirror theory" of the  superstructure... (look at Lenin, and his critics of
> > "empirio-criticism"  which meant the logic positivism of the early 20th
> > century).
>
> Two remarks concerning 'Puritanism' and 'Reiner Marxismus'.
> 1.In my opinion, mr. Pynchon uses the idea of puritanism  as a mere
> description
> of the United States ideology without including the theological meaning
> of the
> word.  One of the US keywords is 'success', meaning solely economic
> success.
> Every American is a member of the succesful (the elect) or the failures
> (the
> preterite).  The author uses the things he knows to illustrate other
> ideas.  If I
> may give another example of this: Jessica and Roger attending the
> Christmas
> mass.  I see it not as an ironic intermezzo or a comment on
> christianity, but as
> the human need to rituals.  Again, he uses something we all know
> (Christmas) and
> the connotations it causes (peace).  What, if one is in war, is more
> worth
> longing for than peace?  And if you cannot have peace, the next best
> thing to
> have, is the impression of peace.
> 2. The remark that 'pure marxists have problems with Pynchon and
> postmodernism'
> is not true.  What Marx designed was a tool useful for describing (part
> of)
> reality.  The socialist union I've been working for for 10 years still
> uses it as
> a fruitful analysis instrument.  I am not, repeat not, referring to what
> a lot of
> the so called marxists have done with his inheritance.  One of the
> themes in mr.
> Pynchon's work is the commodification of everything -and in the end:
> everyone
> -think of the Anubis.  I shall not say that he is a marxist, but that
> was already
> studied by Marx (and his conservative predecessors like Ricardo), and it
> is one
> of the corner stones of the myth of the free market.
>
> If marxism teaches one thing it is that, since an object cannot be
> known, the
> next best thing to understand it is its history.  That's fine with me.
> Occam's
> razor never killed.  It clarifies.
>
> Kind regards,
> Michel.