Libération article on Edwin Black

[Michel Ryckx]

jbor wrote:

> The line of argument goes something like this: establish a connection between
> a company (eg IBM), a political figure or family (eg the Bushes), or indeed a
> critic (eg Paul de Man) or literary interpretation, and Nazism, and in that
> way you will discredit them for all perpetuity. The hidden agenda is in the
> promotion of some alternative company or political figure/clan or critic or
> interpretation (or, indeed, simply the author of the alleged exposé himself.)
> The Nazis were "evil" therefore IBM ( ... etc ) is "evil". QED. It is a
> strategy which is simplistic and manipulative and quite offensive in its
> reduction of WWII and its consequences to the status of rhetorical instrument,
> to the mouthpiece of propaganda.

Of all the things K. Marx has said, this is (to me, it is) the most important
thing: a thing is its history.  Well: one of the strangest inventions of
capitalism is the juridicial fiction of companies as persons.  By inventing this
fiction, families were able to continue producing and distributing over the
generations, without starting again every 25 years.  The families became
stockholders and the fiction became a reality: it led to the idea of a company
behaving as a citizen, with its own rights, but also with some obligations. So,
fiction became a reality.

It is not surprising at all that companies have their own, dark sides.  And I
think it not sincere to state that, when a dark side is revealed, it has to do
with a hidden agenda.  It may be an honest survey, a scientific investigation.
If such a book would have been full of lies, then I should have agreed with you.

One of my favourite authors is Louis-Ferdinand Céline.  He was, you know that,
an antisemite.  He may have been a nasty man, but does that make him a lesser
writer?  Jorge Semprun was a Stalinist in the Fifties.  Sartre (by the way,
co-founder of Libération) a Maoist.  Are Seneca's letters without wisdom or
beauty for he was as corrupt as (fill in what you want)?

One of the many things mr. Pynchon writes about, is ambiguity.

Best,
Michel.