Discussion on Leninist-International about Homosexuality 1998
----- part 3 of 3 -------
*****************************************
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 20:17:39 -0400
Subject: Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT])
From: farmelantj@JUNO.COM (James Farmelant)
On Sun, 04 Oct 1998 18:04:16 +0000 kloDMcKinsey <klomckin@infinet.com>
writes:
>> >
>> I find all this discussion of what is natural and unnatural to be of
>> rather dubious value.
>
>My reply,
>
>I don't. I find it of great value.
In order to convince me that this discussion of natural and unnatural
is of value you are going to have to explain what you mean by these
terms otherwise we are going to continue to end up in a muddle.
>
>The planted axiom in this is that what is
>> natural is good or acceptable, and what is unnatural unacceptable
>> or bad.
>
>My reply,
>
>You sound like a bourgeois theologian. Good or bad is not the
>question. That implies choice.
You have me thoroughly confused here. If good or bad isn't not the
question here then what is? Were you not inquiring whether or
not homosexuality is something that "...deserves to be protected,
fostered, legalized and allowed to operate freely, but stiff penalties
should be applied to those who operate in any illegal manner to the
contrary." That to me sounds you are concerned whther or not
homosexuality is good or bad.
> The question is whether not the
>people
>involved can do anything about their physiological makeup and the
>resultant behavior resulting therefrom. You don't punish someone for
>doing acts over which they have no control any more than you slap a
>baby
>because it broke its plate or punish a 14 year old for having wet
>dreams.
>
Here you seem to be saying that your main concern is whether or
not sexual orientation is something that people can be held morally
responsible for. However, that is a separate issue from whether or
not a particular sexual orientation is socially or morally desirable.
One could hold that homosexuals have no control over their sexual
orientation but that homosexually is socially undesirable. If one
holds such a view then one might oppose criminalization of homosexuality
while advocating the treatment of homosexuals as mentally ill.
Logically an advocate of such a view might well favor forced medical
or psychiatric treatment of homosexuals in order to change their
orientation. Indeed that that used to be the position of most of the
psychiatric establishment prior to the 1970s. On the other hand
it is also logically possible to hold that people freely choose their
sexual orientations and that society ought to protect people's
freedom to make such choices.
>
>This assumption upon reflection seems to be unsupportable.
>> As a noted bourgeois philosopher of the last century pointed out in
>> his essay, "On Nature," nature here means either (1) "the sum of
>all
>> phenomena, together with the causes which produced them" or
>> (2) those phenomena which occur "without the agency ... of man."
>> When some act is condemned as being unnatural or we are urged
>> to do something because it is natural it is apparent that neither
>> possible
>> meaning for nature can offer us adequate guidance. Under the first
>> meaning then every action is natural so there are no grounds for
>> discriminating between alternative courses of action. Applying that
>> to sexual behavior we would have to say that all possible forms of
>> sexual behavior whether heterosexual or homosexual including
>> monogamy, promiscuity, pedophilia, celibacy etc. are all natural.
>> On the other hand if we take up the second possible meaning of
>nature
>> we are no better off. As Mill put it "For while human action cannot
>> help conforming to Nature in the one meaning of the term, the very
>> aim of action is to alter and improve Nature in the other meaning."
>> As Mill pointed out nature is indifferent to our notions of value
>and
>> desert. "Nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned
>> for doing to one another, are nature's every day performances."
>> With regard to human nature, as with nature in general, Mill
>suggested
>> that our imperative is "not to follow but to ammend it."
>
>My reply,
>
>"Human nature." There's that phrase again. I wish someone could
>define
>it.
>
Actually I think that most conceptions of human nature are pretty
muddled anyway. However, I don't see why Marxists ought to have
any quarrel with J.S. Mill's view that our imperative with regard
to human nature is "no to follow but to ammend it" since Marxists
have always emphasized the historicity of human nature. Marxists
least of all have been willing to swallow reactionary shibboleths
concerning the supposed unalterability of human nature. I suppose
Marxists would modify Mill's dicta to say that it is human nature
to modify human nature as we acquire mastery over the world
around us.
>In other words
>> we should not look to nature as a source for norms sexual or
>> otherwise.
>
>
>My reply,
>
>Can't agree. Whether or not other animals are doing a certain act is
>powerful evidence as to whether or not it should be accepted. Not
>necessarily conclusive, but powerful.
>
>
>>
>> In the same vein I am puzzled by Klo's statement: " On the other
>hand,
>> if it is natural and is based on genetics primarily, if it is not a
>> matter
>> of choice but ofphysiological makeup, then it not only deserves to
>be
>> protected,
>> fostered, legalized and allowed to operate freely, but stiff
>penalties
>> should be applied to those who operate in any illegal manner to the
>> contrary." It is mighty unclear how or why genetics is supposed to
>> be relevant to the acceptability or unacceptability of any given
>variety
>> of sexual behavior.
>
>My reply,
>
>It is quite relevant because you don't punish people for doing acts
>over
>which they have no control, especially when genetically based.
>
>If it was demonstrated that pedophilia is the
>> result of a genetic predisposition, I very much doubt that Klo or
>anyone
>> else would become persuaded of its moral acceptability.
>
>
>My reply,
>
>Wrong again. You are more "conservative" than I. I would quite
>willing
>to accept this behavior if it could be proven to be natural and not an
>illness or perversion.
Are you telling me that if it were to be demonstrated that pedophilia
is the result of a genetic predisposition then it should be treated as
being socially and morally acceptable? And that pedophiles ought
then to be protected by society in their rights to gratify themselves
because they act on the basis of a genetically based compulsion.
Perhaps if Jefferey Dahmer had been a little smarter then he could
have argued that his behavior was a consequence of a gentically
based compulsion and Klo would have then fought for his right to
gratify himself as he saw fit. The absurdity of this view should be
apparent to all. The problem here is that Klo confuses the issue
of the moral or social desirability of a particular behavior with the
issue whether or not the person who commits it should be held
responsible for it. They are two different though related questions.
>
>
> Likewise,
>> I fail to see why if it was determined that a homosexual orientation
>> was the result of environment that should be regarded as relevant
>> to judging its acceptability.
>
>My reply,
>
>You are the one bringing in environment. I was focusing on genetics
>and
>basic physiological makeup.
>If it is environmentally based,m then you are into a decidedly
>different
>milieu. That can be altered and thus you are implying homosexuality
>can
>be altered or abolished. Of course, genes can be altered too and if
>it
>is genetically based then conditions could change with new research.
If you could wipe out a particular sexual orientation through genetic
engineering would you do so?
>But the question for now is the source and how should it be
>approached.
>
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
*****************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 03:08:50 +0000
Subject: Re: L-I: Lenin on Sex: 2
Louis Proyect:
>
> What does this have to do with puritanical attitudes towards gay people? We
> are dealing with repressive behavior consistent with ideology. They threw
> gay people in jail for breaking sodomy laws until protests made these laws
> either unenforceable or thrown off the books. I have no idea why you
> confuse these questions so willfully. When gay people want to enjoy sex,
> they should not be imprisoned or blackmailed. Get it? I guess not.
>
A remarkable and dishonest trick by Louis Proyect! You
referred to Lenin as a batty Puritan when Lenin was speaking of the
new sexual attitudes w.r.t hetero-sexuality and NOT homo-sexuality. I
simply pointed out that you had not understood the context in which
and why Lenin made these remarks. There was nothing remotely
connected to the persecution of gay people in what Lenin or what I
said.
And yet, NOW you bring in persecution of gay people by
Puritanism and say "What does this have to do with puritanical
attitudes towards gay people." What a performance coming from a
self-professed Marxist and done in in order to paint his opponent
with the brush of homophobia. And a striking parallel with the
"anti-semitism" tactic commonly used by Zionists in order to silence
all criticism and questions. One can understand why Adolfo referred
to you once as a sly fox.
> You are still confusing things. The distinction is not between repression
> and hedonism, but repression and the freedom to express one's sexuality.
> When my fellow workers at Columbia University decide to enjoy same-sex
> relationships, this is not hedonism. It is simply satisfying their desires.
> My boss has been living with the same guy for 15 years, an accountant.
> There is as much "hedonism" in their relationship as there was in my mom
> and dad's.
No, it is you whose horizons are circumscribed by the bourgeois
notions of sexuality and sexual freedom. You do not realize that in
the present capitalist system, all forms of sexuality, marriage,
free-love, homosexuality, etc. all of them have been commodified.
Sex in general, has become a commodity to be consumed and a means of
escape from the oppression and alienation of capitalist society. The
bourgeois state may dangle carrots before us and convert practices
which were once considered taboos into practices allowed by law - but
there is no real escape, only a temporary diversion. You also forget
that how we satisfy our sexual needs are to a large extent determined
by the existing social system and these sexual needs themselves are
also products of society (Marx: 'production produces consumption').
You should do some study of the advances made by the womens' movement
in ex-socialist societies like revolutionary China and how they
achieved them concretely instead of making empty irrelevant
statements like those above and your comment decrying the
'puritanism' of 1930s Russia in a previous post.
> What is opportunist sexual behavior? Nelson Mandela masturbating?
>
I do not know about Nelson Mandela, Your Majesty, but Bill Clinton is
a good example.
>
> You are quoting Lenin in order to legitimize puritanism. If you want to
> legitimize puritanism, then don't drag poor Lenin's remarks from a
> different time and place into it. In Lenin's age, homosexuality was a
> crime. Tchaikowsky was in the closet, as were millions of Russians. The
> Russian Revolution liberated them. Instead of recognizing this reality, you
> quote Lenin out of context.
>
Amazing, simple amazing! You yourself referred to Lenin as a batty
Puritan in matters of (hetero-) sexuality, and now after being
caught in your rope trick, you once again say that I am trying to
legitimize Puritanism by dragging in poor Lenin out of context! Well,
Lenin spoke for himself forcefully and the time and place were clear
in his remarks. And then you jump to the subject of criminalization
of homosexuality (which any thinking person will condemn), etc. What
a deflecting tactic!
>
> Oh, right. Banish the memory of Lenin. That's what this discussion is
> about. No, what it is about is that you have all sorts of sexual hang-ups.
> Everytime the subject of homosexuality or prostitution comes up, you turn
> into a Kraft-Ebbing case study. Puritanism in your homeland, by the way,
> has caused discussion of AIDS prevention to be next to impossible. That is
> why India faces the most extensive outbreak of the deadly disease in the
> world. Go get laid. You might enjoy it.
>
Well, you were trying to banish the memory of Lenin (on a list called
Leninist-International) by saying that you would "put a ban on
quotation-mongering" with which the bourgeoisie would agree most
heartily. And when you yourself indulge in this practice routinely in
your list by a more or less regular supply of articles from the
academic Marxists newly ensconced at MR. As to prostitution, I am
most curious to hear your views.
About AIDS in India, what you say is correct to some extent but it is
mainly the political-economic trajectory followed by the Indian
ruling class (literacy rate has not changed substantially since
'independence') and the colonial legacy which is responsible,
among many things, for the spread of AIDS. Your idea of Puritanism
should be connected to the social relations that give birth to such
Puritanism. That is if you call yourself a Marxist.
But your last line is positively insulting and full of First-World
condescension. You forgot perhaps that the Kama Sutra originated from
India. Your posts have revealed the superficial nature of thinking on
this subject. The concept of 'free love' that you adhere to is
thoroughly permeated with bourgeois ideology and miles apart
from the socialist concept of 'free love' which Lenin spoke of. That
is why you uncomprehendingly called him a batty Puritan.
In revolutionary China, to advance women's liberation, some of the
practices in matters of sexuality which were followed were:
1. Late marriage and prolonged celibacy
2. Monogamy
3. Marriage laws that discriminated against men and were in favor
of women.
4.True freedom of choice
5. New concept of love
To you and many others on this list, some of the above (1, 2 and 5)
will be bewildering and smack of conventional Judeo-Christian
morality. That is because you look at sexual freedom in the abstract,
as an absolute, with no connection to the underlying material base
which will make such a freedom possible. Yet, it was precisely these
measures that were leading to a true "voluntary union among equals"
in China. Measures that were laying the foundation for the ultimate
negation of the negation (i.e. of bourgeois marriage) which may take
centuries to achieve.
But instead of the complexity involved in this matter of human
sexuality, what do you supply us with? The example of the Bonobo
chimpanzees. Which is similar to how captalist intellectuals justify
free-market competition - by pointing out that it exists in the
animal kingdom. Yours is an idealistic fanatasy of something like
primitive communism to which no return is possible unless humanity is
completely destroyed and has to start all over again. So instead of a
spiral development upwards, Louis Proyect has at last completed the
full circle.
I salute you for your profundity, Sir!
Yours humbly,
S. Chatterjee
*****************************************
From: "John Ky" <hand@syd.speednet.com.au>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: Re: L-I: Lenin on Sex: 2
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 13:35:13 +1000
Myself:
> I would like to confirm Martin's evidence there. I
> cannot give you the source for it appeared in a
> television documentary about apes quite some time
> ago. It was probably "The world around us" or
> "national geographic". The documentary showed that
> one species of ape engaged in male-male and
> female-female sexual activities as a form of conflict
> resolution as well as the forging of relationships
> and bonds. Reasons for sexual acts ranged from the
> adoption of another foreign ape to the submission of
> one ape to another etc. The society was almost
> completely peaceful - whatever the problem or situation
> it could be resolved by sex.
>You could very well be taking an exception and trying
>to make it the rule. How often did this occur. Were
>there extenuating circumstances. Was it across the
>board or only exhibited by one or two. You are jumping
>to a conclusion too early.
Actually the documentary portrayed it that way, I was
merely regurgitating it. The conclusion wasn't mine.
>Anyway, I don't think that pursuing the naturalness
>of an act in another species is proper scientific
>evaluation.
>Can't agree at all. Other animals have always been
>used in experiments and observations to learn about
>human behavior, from mice in the maze to chimps at
>the primate centers to Pavlov's dog. Moreover, you
>have leaped to a quick judgment based upon observations
>of one species and a few individuals within it.
Actually I was trying to demonstrate the absurdity
of drawing conclusions about naturalness from the
behaviour of animals. I was not make quick judgements.
>Why do you assume this is even relevant. Homosexuals
>don't perform their deeds only a few times a year. And
>you are admitting it is only displayed by a particular
>species of ape. We are talking about an activity that
>is engaged in by millions.
Exactly. Homosexuality is only obvious in a particular
species of ape. In some species of ape, the female has
pride of place in respectable positions in the community
where status is inherited from the mother. In others,
the female is subordinate snacking on the remains of the
feast only after the male (the hunters) have finished
with it. If you want behaviours that act in the norm
these are examples of it. A person for equal gender
rights will quote the former, a person against it will
quote the latter. How do you settle that argument?
The most one can say is that there exists these diverse
set of primate societies - each and everyone of them
natural because they exist. To pick any one of them
to explain what is natural or not natural in humans is
_very_ unscientific. It is an interesting topic, and
is thought provoking about the possibilities of
homosexuality being natural but no more and no less.
Myself:
>The father snatches the baby from the mother and runs
>away with the mother chasing after him. A number of
>other males assist the kidnap by blocking and confusing
>the mother and once the prize is secure, the males
>feast. Now that happens in nature - would you dare
>call it natural in our faces?
Klo:
>How do you know it is not for that particular species.
>You are rushing to judgment again.
It _was_ for a particular species. That's part of the
absurdity of any judgement.
Myself:
>Then there was the case when a mother held onto her
>sick baby until it died and even then refused to let
>go, but continually caressing it as if it were alive.
>Probably mysticism, the grasping onto hope blindly -
>something that feeds the fires of religion. Would
>you submit to the fact that such behaviour is natural?
Klo:
>Mother what? An ape or a human being? In either
>case, it is could very well be a reasonable natural
>reaction.
An ape ... and yes - a reasonable natural reaction. The
refusal to accept the truth. The human being has two
sides of the brain, one side (I think the left) is very
good at lying, trying to put a rule to everything when
it is no more than random. (Walking under a ladder brings
bad luck? Throwing a pinch of salt over your left shoulder
brings good luck?) You see, there are plenty of arguments
that suggest that religion is the result of natural human
behaviour. This at least is the study of humans _compared_
to other animals. You can't simply observe any group of
species and apply those observations to humans without
studying humans.
>No it is not entirely subjective. Not by a long ways.
>This kind of research is reproducible, predictable,
>and reliable and for you to allege that nothing can
>be learned about human behavior from animal behavior
>is ridiculous. A veritable army of scientists would
>strongly disagree with you, if not actually laugh.
Subjective because the variety of animals lets anyone
choose the species that suits them best. Reproduceable,
preditable and reliable, but the conclusion you make
depends entirely on the experiment you choose to start
with.
To quote from Louis Proyect:
>Franz De Waal is an honest scientist. If he tantalizes
>us with the current theories about the hows and whys of
>the different modes of sociality and sexuality of our
>cousins, he also is careful to point out the objections
>to these theories and their speculative nature.
Showing curiosity, interest and experience is only a part
of science. Being cautious and open to alternatives is the
only way to ensure that science is pure. I haven't been
arguing the case for multiple definitions of DoP for no
particular reason.
All the best,
John Ky.
*****************************************
From: "John Ky" <hand@syd.speednet.com.au>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Rights and Human Nature
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 15:17:33 +1000
Klo:
>No way. Are you saying pedophiles should be allowed
>to operate unhindered. Are you saying pornographers
>should be able to peddle their wares to children because
>it gives them a sexual high. Are you saying people
>should be allowed to "do it" in public because they
>enjoy being exhibitionists. I could give a rather
>lengthy list of these kinds of examples. Are you
>telling me they will be socially acceptable under
>socialism? To quote my daughter: I don't think so.
The big difference here is that some choices compromises
the rights of others. I gather that homosexuality can
be acceptable because both parties engaging in the act
give consent and because it is private no one else would
be affected by it. Choice is okay as long as it takes
into consideration the rights of others.
The choices you mention _DO_ intrude upon the rights
of others - that makes all the difference.
Klo:
>"Human nature." There's that phrase again. I wish
>someone could define it.
Probably means some rule about human behaviour that
could be applied to all human. When someone speaks
of selfishness or envy as part of human nature, I
get suspicious.
How about
+ randomness
+ competitiveness
being the of the many elements of human nature. It
is something that I suppose most people would feel
more comfortable with because it is non-disrciminatory
and neither negative nor positive. Drawing human
nature along these lines may be more help in the
construction of socialist theory and models.
I've included an article that supports both these
points.
All the best,
John Ky
==============================
THE ARBITRARY APE (New Scientist, 22 August)
Our ability to behave and think randomly may lie
at the root of human intelligence and creativity.
Dynlan Evans spins the roulette wheel in our heads.
------------------------------
WE ALL HAVE something of the Greek god in us. Proteus to be precise, who
outwitted his enemies by constantly changing his shape. Humans may not go
as far as transmogrification but when it comes to confusing a rival, our
talent for erratic behaviou is second to none.
A rabbit pursued by a fox will bob and weave in a chaotic zigzag, rather
than make a beeline for cover. Other animals use different forms of randome
behaviour to evade predators or catch their prey. But humans are the only
ones who rely on unpredictability as a weapon in competition against each
other, whether it be in a game of football or in international diplomacy.
Such behaviour has long been ignored, but researchers are now waking up to
the fact that not only can we behave in very random ways, but that such
actions are far from pointless. Unpredictable behaviou may have eveolved as
a way of keeping our rivals in the dark. This could explain some of our
strangest behaviour as sudden mood swings, and it also adds a whole new
dimension to understanding the evolution of human intelligence. Our highly
developed sense of the erratic may be the spark that allows an ape adapted
for savannah living to paint the Sistine Chapel, design the space shuttle
and invent advertising slogans.
British biologist Michael Chance coined the phrase "protean behaviour" in
1959, while at the University of Birmingham. But the evolutionary
explanation for this phenomenon is less than a decade old. It began with
the observation by two British etholigists, Peter Driver and David
Humphries, that many animals develop cognitive capacities so that they can
predict the actions of their competitors or prey. Natural selection then
favours mechanisms that make these actions harder to predict, so their
enemeies evolve better predictive powers and an evolutionary arms race
develops.
FALSE SIGNALS
Two obvious ways of making your actions harder to predict are hiding your
real intentions and giving out false signals. Both of these, however are
still vulnerable to the evolution of even better perceptual mechanisms on
the part of the enemy, and so are not evolutionarily stable strategies - in
other words, the arms race continues. In many conflicts the only way to
stop this escalation is to adopt what game theoriests call a "mixed
strategy", which bases decisions on probability. No amount of predictive
talent will then prevail.
Submarine commanders in the Second World War hit on this idea and resorted
to throwing dice to choose random patrol routes and so evade destroyers. In
nature, interactions between enemies often wor in a similar way. Sand eels
for example, usually react to predators by bunching together and swimming in
a fast-moving school. But when threatened in a narrow pool, they behave
very differently - the school breaks up and each eel darts about in random
directions in an attempt to confuse the predator.
Driver and Humphries realised that protean behaviour should be common
because of the competitive edge it gives species. Once they began looking,
they found examples everywhere. There was the mobbing behaviour of gulls,
which dive-bomb intruders from all directions to try to protect nesting
colonies. And the herds of impala that burst into a whirlpool of activity,
racing and plunging in every direction when disturbed.
Proteanism could also make sens of some of the more bizarre interactions
between predators and prey. Many birds feign injury to lure the enemy away
from a nest full of fledglings, using random changes in speed and direction
to balance their aims of drawing attention away from their young and esuring
their own survival. Another puzzle - why moths lizards and mice have mock
convulsions when attaked - makes sense as a way of throwing a predator off
its stride.
Competitive situations also bring out the Proteus in humans, but when
biologists looked at people, they noticed an important difference between us
and other animals - our competitors tend to be other humans. Geoffrey
Miller, a psychologist at the University College London recently highlighted
this and suggested that this refinement in behaviour in our ancestors is key
to our unique cognitive style. Our talent for thining randomly may even be
a source of the creative flare that sets humans apart from other animals.
Miller's ideas build on the theory of Machiavellian intelligence, which
proposes that the main driving force in the evolution of human intelligence
was the need to predict and manipulate the behaviour of other humans. The
special cognitive capacities that evolved to deal with the social
environment have been dubbed social intelligence. This includes calculated
deception and its detection, but not protean behaviour. Miller argues that
in common with many other animals, our monkey-like ancestors had a basic
ability to act randomly that they evolved to outwit predators. But during
the transition from monkeys to apes to early hominids, this protean capacity
was boosted by positive feedback from social intelligence, as outwitting our
fellow humans became more important thatn outwitting other animals. As a
result, he claims, proteanism plays a pivotal role in social intelligence.
RANDOM RAGE
Miller gives the following example to illustrate why protean behaviour would
have evolved. Suppose our ancestors could have adopted one of two
strategies for setting their anger threshold - the point at which they lose
their temper. In the "Old Faithful" strategy, the anger threshold is fixed.
Those who adopt this strategy get angry only if an insult exceeds some
predetermined level of annoyance. In the "Mad Dog" strategy, on the other
hand, the anger threshold varies randomly. Sometimes a big insult does not
generate a response, but sometimes a small insult does. Which strategy
would have been more effective?
If you are using Old Faithful, others quickly leanr what they can get away
with, so they constantly push you to the limit. But against the Mad Dog
strategy any insult, however slight, might trigger retaliation.
Furthermore, the person using this strategy does not have to waste time and
effort punishing every small insult, because the uncertainty does most of
the work. Flare up for no apparent reason every now and then, and people
will tend to tiptoe around you. So Mad Dog is much more effective way of
outwitting your competitors.
"This might shed some light on the otherwise inexplicable nature of moods,"
says Miller. When people explode over a minor insult that they would
normally have laughed off, we assume that some particular event has
triggered their bad mood. Miller, however, suggests that some moods may not
be caused by any specific stimulus. "They may simply be randome alterations
of our emotional state," he says. "The tendency to have such random mood
changes could be a form of protean behaviour that evolved to make us less
predictable and so less easy to exploit."
But are we really natural born randomisers? Until a few years ago, most
psychologists thought that humans were incapable of truly random behaviour.
Dozens of studies seemed to confirm the view that producing a random series
of responses is difficult, if not impossible for humans. But most of these
experiments involved placing people in very artificial non-competitive
situations. often, the researcher simply asked an isolated subject to write
down a series of numbers with an instruction such as "be as random as
possible". If proteanism in humans evolved as a way of outwitting other
humans, as Miller argues, then people's failure to generate randome numbers
in these situations is not surprising. "Psychologists failed to tap into
our natural randomising abilities because they didn't expose subjects to the
social games where those abilities evolved," says Miller.
So in 1992, two Israeli psychologiests set out to test people in face-toface
competition. David Budescu of the University of Haifa and Amnon Rapaport of
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem got people to play a game called matching
pennies. The rules are simple. Two players start with an equal number of
coins. Each turn, both players simultaneously place a coin on the table
between them. If the coins match (head-heads or tails-tails), player A
keeps both coins; if not, player B keeps them.
Though the players have opposite objectives, they both benefit from being
able to predict what the other person will do next, and from making their
own moves hard to predict. Mathematically, the best strategy is to pick
heads and tails with equal probability in a truly random series. Then over
a long period of play, your contestant cannot gain the advantage. And this
is exactly what Budescu and Rapaport found. The sequences of heads and
tails generated by the two players came very close to true mathematical
randomness, even though the players were given no instructions to that
effect.
Another indication that randomness is an innate ability comes from teh work
of Allen Neuringer of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He has shown that
humans can learn to generate random sequences when given feedback. In one
experiment Neuringer asked students to generate a random series of a hundred
pairs of 1s and 2s at a computer termina. He then told the students how
well they had done, measuing their performance by whether, for example, the
series included approximately equal amounts of 1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and 2-2. In
the first trial, the series was always nonrandom, but after several trials,
the students performances improved to the point that their series could not
be distinguished from those generated by a computer.
A rat can learn to press a lever if you give it food as a reward, so is it
surprising that students learn to generate random numbers? Yes, says
Miller. The rat's behaviour is an example of conditioning - give it
feedback and it will learn a new trick. But conditioning works by gradually
elminating random variation. "It could never reinforce randomness itself,"
he says. This leads him to conclude that there must be some innate
randomising mechanism in the mind. "A roulette wheel in the head" is the
metaphor used by John Maynard Smith of the University of Sussex. "All sorts
of processes can generate effectively random series, so there is nothing
bizarre about the idea that the brain might be able to do so," he says.
Many animals seem to have this mental roulette wheel but, argues Miller, by
refining its abilities humans have developed a mechanism that is capable of
more than simply outwitting enemies. Our super-protean capacity is the
basis for our inventiveness and artistic creativity, he says. "Proteanism
provides a key element of creativity that other mental mechanisms lack - the
capcity for rapid, unpredictable generation of highly variable
alternatives," says Miller. Studies of human creativity often emphasises
this element. Without it, for example, there would be no brainstorming.
And in many forms of art, from music to comedy, coming up with a new twist
on an old theme or confounding an audience's expectations is the key to
success.
The prevailing view is that human creativity came about as a lucky accident,
through the increasing overlap of cognitive capacities designed for other
functions. Ecological intelligence evolved to meet the complex demans of
foraging for food in the savannah, technical intelligence developed with our
tool-making skills, and social intelligence with group living. In a recent
book, Steven Mithen, an archaeologist at the University of Reading, argued
that in the early hominid mind these intellectual specialities were walled
off from one another like the chapels of an early cathedral. He claims that
the modern mind evolved only with the collapse of these mental divisions and
the development of more general cognitive capacities.
CREATIVE SPUR
The problem with this view, says Miller, is that it is at odds with one of
the main features of natural selection - that it tends to lead to increased
specialisation rather than increased generalisation. Miller's theory,
however requires no appeal to increasingly general mechanism. On the
contrary, an innate randomising mechanism could well be very specialised way
of generating novel ideas. Miller speculates that it might work by
amplifying the quantum noise in synaptic activity. Alternatively, it could
work in the same way the computers generate random numbers: producing
pseudo-randomness by feeding the numbers it generates back into the program
that is too complex to be worked out by and outsider.
According to the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis, creativity is a
spin-off from social intelligence alone. The idea is that our ancestors
first evolved to cope with savannah life, then learnt to exploit their
environment using tools, and finally perfect the art of social living. It
was only then that creativity really took off. But until now, nobody has
come up with a plausible explanation of showing how this might have
happened. Miller's theory could have the answer by showing how proteanism
evolved in the social setting, and them making the link between radomness
and creativity.
Evolutionary theoriests have tended to see evolutionary adaption as a
process that increases order and complexity. Natural selection was thought
to build improbable regularities from random disorder. Protean behaviour
defies this simple view - it is at once random and adaptive, chaotic and yet
the result of selection. No wonder it took biologists so long to see it.
*****************************************
From: Krixel@aol.com
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 17:42:02 EDT
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT: A short fundamental statement
In einer eMail vom 04.10.98 14:10:39 MEZ, lois proyect wrote.schreiben Sie:
<<
Fascinating. Really fascinating. These Maoist revolutionaries remind us of
the proper role of religion in defining sexuality. What is particularly
important interesting is their reflection that it makes the "human being
strong." As Yoshie already pointed out, this is the same thing that was
important to Hitler.
>>
Always the same dirty trick. Name any cultural value in history which was
developed in the struggle for progress - Louis Proyect will find a quotation
where Hitler or some similar scum paid lip service to it. But not the cultural
values will be discredited in this way, only L. Pr. will.
BTW Thanks for acknowledging that
>Bourgeois society has already made great strides in breaking down homophobic
attitudes.
That was appr. what I tried to use in the argument with Yoshie, when I
mentioned the monotonous pervasive propaganda for sexual perversion by our
imperialist mass media. Perhaps she will take from you.
Krixel
*****************************************
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 13:49:20 -0400
From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB@CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
Subject: Re: The Gay Question [was Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT]
I have just been catching up on this long thread.
Comrade Welch makes a point I have been getting
ready to write. A funny thing about the
question that Klo keeps pressing - is homosexuality
natural or unnatural ? - is that in other areas of
life sometimes the natural is considered "good" and
desirable and sometimes the natural is considered
"bad" and undesirable. Thus, categorizing
homosexuality as natural or unnatural does not
exactly settle the issue.
Welch puts the issues well below. Surely,
emailing is not natural in the sense that
it is instinctive. Yet , in this regard as
unnatural, it is like flying in airplanes, builiding
pyramids and the vast majority of
great accomplishments of human history.
Speaking English is not natural, but
we don't consider it a vice for that reason.
Most of civilization is considered superior
because it is above the natural , that is
UN-natural. Are the paintings in
the Sistene Chapel natural ? No.
Is Calculus or Einstienian physics
natural ? No. Yet, suddenly with
homosexuality, it is labeled
a vice because it "is" unatural.
Thus, suppose somehow it were determined
that some or most homosexuality is
predominantly a learned enjoyment .Why
is it not categorized with speaking
a language or being able to fly in
airplanes or calculus, all also learned and
not instinctive activities ?
Incest on the other hand, must
be the result of a natural inclination.
Otherwise, why must there be a
cultural taboo against it ? If it was
unnatural to have incest, there
would be no need for a cultural
taboo, because people would
just naturally not do it. Thus , in
the case of incest the natural is
considered a vice, something to
be prohibited. The unnatural practice
of not having sex with certain people
is considered the way things should be.
On human nature, I don't agree with those
who act as if it is inappropriate to use the
term. Humans are an animal species.
We do have natural requirements that
must be met for individual and the
species to survive. We also have
natural instincts. However, unlike
other animal species, we also have
culture and history which sublate,
preserve and overcome, our instincts.
In a sense, the pattern and shifting
pattern of this contradictory relationship
between culture and nature is what
human history is all about. But for
this thread, it is important to note that
for humans neither the natural nor
the super or un - natural way is the
definiitive human or "best" way to be.
Thus, categorizing homosexuality
as natural or supernatural or anatural
does not settle the issue as Klo
thinks , I believe. This is especially
true in modern society, where fertility
is not a problem of perpetuating a group,
as it might have been for very small
groups of the distant past. In those
cases, differential fertility may have
impacted the Darwinian survival
ability of a group. Even there bisexuality
would not necessarily diminish
fertility.
Charles Brown
>From the market to the Marxit
>>> David Welch <welch@mcmail.com> 10/03 9:48 PM >>>
I read somewhere about scientists who were studying lesbian seagulls.
But perhaps an easier question is, are there any other animals that
participate in email lists. No? Then comrade, I suggest you stop this
perversion at once. Personally I intend to enjoy being human.
On Sat, Oct 03, 1998 at 08:24:40PM +0000, kloDMcKinsey wrote:
> Martin
>
> Your position is well considered and well structured. However, if what
> you say is true, could you answer this question?
>
> Is there any animal in the world, other than the human animal, in which
> males are sexually attracted to males and females are attracted to
> females. Or is this confined only to the human species?
>
--
David Welch (welch@mcmail.com)
For a Soviet Britain!
*****************************************
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 14:54:52 -0400
From: "Charles Brown" <CharlesB@CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: Re: Nature was (Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT])
Klo,
If you are not implying some sense of
"good" or " bad", why do you mention
punishment below ? You seem to say
homosexuality should not be punished
if it is natural, i.e. instinctive and not
learned. But that implies it should be
punished with the goal of stopping it
if it is not natural , but rather learned.
The goal of stopping it implies in
some sense that it would be "bad".
Secondly, most human conduct is
unnatural. We know this because
we constantly contrast ourselves
(favorably) with animals. So, even
if homosexuality is in some sense
determined to be unnatural or
supernatural or anatural, why is
it not categorized with say doing
calculus, which is unatural or
super-natural too ?
In other words, most conduct that
is not genetically based is not
considered a sickness, for example,
mathematics, building bridges,
music, speaking English, etc.
Do you follow me ? None of these
is genetically caused. But
we consider them the highest
of accomplishments not sicknesses.
Human nature is things like
the fact that if we don't eat
we will die. Human nature is
unique in that it is especially
capable of transcending itself.
We have culture. Thus, most
of human history has been
accomplishing things that
transcend our limited natural
selves. For example, we
cannot naturally fly. It is not
part of human nature. Yet it is
considered a great advance, not
a perversion, that we have
invented the airplane. In general,
this a central contradiction of
human existence.
You say whether or not
other animals are doing an
act is important in deciding
whether it is acceptable. Yet,
often an act is considered unacceptable
because it is "beastlike" , that is
like an animal. Furthermore, many
human institutions are considered
not only acceptable, but virtuous
because animals cannot do them
(see above). Animals can't write
poetry. Is it acceptable or not ?
Charles Brown
>From the market to the Marxit
>>> kloDMcKinsey writes
James Farmelant wrote:
>
> On Sun, 04 Oct 1998 00:23:00 +0000 kloDMcKinsey <klomckin@infinet.com>
> writes:
> ....
>
> >I have serious qualms about disagreeing with you but don't you think
> >this is a rather weak reed to lean on and does this really prove it
> >exists "all along the evolutionary line." Is it done by dogs, cats,
> >horses, cattle, pigs, chickens, racoons, birds, hogs, sheep, or
> >llamas?
> >What primates engage in homosexuality on a regular and broad-based
> >basis? These question are critical because, among other things, they
> >take the issue out of the cultural conditioning context. It has to be
> >determined one way or the other: Is this natural or not because upon
> >that decision rests all the other decisions. Once that is determined
> >all else falls in place.
> > If homosexuality is an illness, a perversion, or a sickness, then
> >it needs to be treated and certainly not propagated or promoted or
> >allowed to operate unhindered. On the other hand, if it is natural
> >and
> >is based on genetics primarily, if it is not a matter of choice but of
> >physiological makeup, then it not only deserves to be protected,
> >fostered, legalized and allowed to operate freely, but stiff penalties
> >should be applied to those who operate in any illegal manner to the
> >contrary. The problem is that so much of the information is so
> >tendentious. What is the truth. That's all I care about.
> >
> >Klo
> >
> I find all this discussion of what is natural and unnatural to be of
> rather dubious value.
My reply,
I don't. I find it of great value.
The planted axiom in this is that what is
> natural is good or acceptable, and what is unnatural unacceptable
> or bad.
My reply,
You sound like a bourgeois theologian. Good or bad is not the
question. That implies choice. The question is whether not the people
involved can do anything about their physiological makeup and the
resultant behavior resulting therefrom. You don't punish someone for
doing acts over which they have no control any more than you slap a baby
because it broke its plate or punish a 14 year old for having wet
dreams.
This assumption upon reflection seems to be unsupportable.
> As a noted bourgeois philosopher of the last century pointed out in
> his essay, "On Nature," nature here means either (1) "the sum of all
> phenomena, together with the causes which produced them" or
> (2) those phenomena which occur "without the agency ... of man."
> When some act is condemned as being unnatural or we are urged
> to do something because it is natural it is apparent that neither
> possible
> meaning for nature can offer us adequate guidance. Under the first
> meaning then every action is natural so there are no grounds for
> discriminating between alternative courses of action. Applying that
> to sexual behavior we would have to say that all possible forms of
> sexual behavior whether heterosexual or homosexual including
> monogamy, promiscuity, pedophilia, celibacy etc. are all natural.
> On the other hand if we take up the second possible meaning of nature
> we are no better off. As Mill put it "For while human action cannot
> help conforming to Nature in the one meaning of the term, the very
> aim of action is to alter and improve Nature in the other meaning."
> As Mill pointed out nature is indifferent to our notions of value and
> desert. "Nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned
> for doing to one another, are nature's every day performances."
> With regard to human nature, as with nature in general, Mill suggested
> that our imperative is "not to follow but to ammend it."
My reply,
"Human nature." There's that phrase again. I wish someone could define
it.
In other words
> we should not look to nature as a source for norms sexual or
> otherwise.
My reply,
Can't agree. Whether or not other animals are doing a certain act is
powerful evidence as to whether or not it should be accepted. Not
necessarily conclusive, but powerful.
>
> In the same vein I am puzzled by Klo's statement: " On the other hand,
> if it is natural and is based on genetics primarily, if it is not a
> matter
> of choice but ofphysiological makeup, then it not only deserves to be
> protected,
> fostered, legalized and allowed to operate freely, but stiff penalties
> should be applied to those who operate in any illegal manner to the
> contrary." It is mighty unclear how or why genetics is supposed to
> be relevant to the acceptability or unacceptability of any given variety
> of sexual behavior.
My reply,
It is quite relevant because you don't punish people for doing acts over
which they have no control, especially when genetically based.
If it was demonstrated that pedophilia is the
> result of a genetic predisposition, I very much doubt that Klo or anyone
> else would become persuaded of its moral acceptability.
My reply,
Wrong again. You are more "conservative" than I. I would quite willing
to accept this behavior if it could be proven to be natural and not an
illness or perversion.
Likewise,
> I fail to see why if it was determined that a homosexual orientation
> was the result of environment that should be regarded as relevant
> to judging its acceptability.
My reply,
You are the one bringing in environment. I was focusing on genetics and
basic physiological makeup.
If it is environmentally based,m then you are into a decidedly different
milieu. That can be altered and thus you are implying homosexuality can
be altered or abolished. Of course, genes can be altered too and if it
is genetically based then conditions could change with new research.
But the question for now is the source and how should it be approached.
That whole issue seems to be something
> of a red herring. And in any case the weight of the evidence seems
> to be that human sexual orientation are the results of a complex
> dialectic between genes and environment anyway. Here if anything
> there is a need for a dialectical rather than a simplistic mechanistic
> approach.
>
> Jim Farmelant
My reply,
I have no problem with that. Now if you would care to give us your
assessment as regards the specifics and what our course should be, I am
all ears, or should I say eyes. Closing out with a grandiose
generalization that sounds profound hardly clarifies the issue, proves
your point, or determines our course.
Klo
>
> ___________________________________________________________________
> You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
> Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
> Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
>
>
*****************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 20:29:13 +0000
Subject: L-I: "Getting Laid"
"Getting Laid"
Like Marie Antoinette of old, Louis Proyect has made this prescription
for us: "Get Laid". And all will be well; we will reach the promised
land. And the feminist Yoshie Furuhashi has levelled the charge of
"homophobe" on Frederick Engels who criticized the practice of
"boy-love" of the ancient Greeks (a society based on wholesale
slavery). Which was, in all probability, a hedonistic practice of
sexual coercion since it was a relation between a man and a minor.
Ah, what times we live in today, comrades! Times when the trash and
filth of the ancient and modern bourgeois epochs are held up as
glorious and exemplary examples pointing towards the sexual
`liberation' of the proletariat.
In all of this, sex and the sexual act are looked at totally from the
point of view of consumption, performed within the conjugal sheets of
the bedroom. Separated completely from the social relations of the
production process, culture and ideology which partly gave birth to
it and influenced our various needs and desires. In this view, sex is
to be considered as a commodity, a thing to be purchased (explicitly
or implicitly) for giving oneself pleasure (i.e. satisfy a need).
Like we go and buy fruits, vegetables, coffee, etc, many of them
coming from far-away lands. And we hardly ever give a thought to
their point of origin or to the entire process that has brought it to
the super-market shelf and finally into our refrigerators.
But it is precisely within the bedroom where the secret of the
bourgeois marriage relation or `free' love is to be found. And when
the mystery is finally understood, it is revealed to be nothing but a
commercial, an exchange relation. That's why bourgeois marriage (or
its other variant called `free love' or `living together') is
essentially legalized prostitution - a form of relation which has led
and will invariably lead to the sexual servitude of the woman in stark
contrast to the socialist vision of a "voluntary union among equals".
In the industrialized rich countries, there is some material basis for
making the love `free' - the incorporation of women into the
workplace, affirmative action, pregnancy leave, health benefits and so
on although some of these are being whittled away now. In the poor
countries, there is almost no material base which will make love
`free' for the majority of the population under the current order. In
fact, if the bourgeois form of `free love' is forcibly imposed, it
can lead to social and economic catastrophes in the society that will
lead to even greater inequality and disequilibrium.
In the rarified world of the academy, which has screened in people
with more or less similar class and educational backgrounds, again
there is a basis for love to be `free', i.e. a voluntary union of
equals. However, due to the great unevenness engendered by capitalism
in both economic development and in the mental development of human
beings, this luxury which Louis Proyect cites, is not available to the
majority of humanity. This especially becomes clear to those rare
souls who cross the class line in marriage. For once the mists of the
initial euphoria are cleared, the reality strikes as hammer blows. The
spouse, without the education, without the resources to give
herself/himself economic and cultural freedom and function as an
equal, becomes like a noose with a lodestone around the neck of the
one who does, while the latter, often lives of her labor. This highly
unequal situation drags both of them down, leading to mutual
recrimination and a soul-less marriage. Louis P had implicitly
recognized this aspect himself when he had contemptuously remarked
earlier on Bill Clinton's proclivity to go after women of the `cheap'
variety. This is one of the places where the cruelty and inhumanity of
bourgeois rule which denies education and economic opportunities to
the majority of people is to be felt - at least if you are a thinking
person.
So Louis Proyect formulates his `glass of water' concept as follows:
>You are still confusing things. The distinction is not between
>repression and hedonism, but repression and the freedom to express
>one's sexuality.When my fellow workers at Columbia University
>decide to enjoy same-sex relationships, this is not hedonism. It is
>simply satisfying their desires. My boss has been living with the
>same guy for 15 years, an accountant. There is as much "hedonism" in
>their relationship as there was in my mom and dad's.
While here is old Lenin whom Louis P has referred to as a batty
Puritan:
---------------------
"I consider the famous 'glass-of-water' theory as completely
un-Marxist and, moreover, as anti-social. It is not only what nature
has given but also what has become culture, whether of a high or low
level, that comes into play in sexual life. Engels pointed out in his
Origin of the Family how significant it was that the common sexual
relations had developed into individual sex love and thus became
purer. The relations between the sexes are not simply the expression
of a mutual influence between economics and a physical want
deliberately singled out for physiological examination. It would be
rationalism and not Marxism to attempt to refer the change in these
relations directly to the economic basis of society in isolation from
its connection with the ideology as a whole. To be sure, thirst has to
be quenched. But would a normal person normally lie down in the gutter
and drink from a puddle? Or even from a glass whose edge has been
greased by many lips? But the social aspect is more important than
anything else. The drinking of water is really an individual matter.
But it takes two people to make love and a third person, a new life,
is likely to come into being. This deed has a social complexion and
constitutes a duty to the community.
As a Communist I have no liking at all for the 'glass-of-water'
theory, despite its attractive label: 'emancipation of love.'
Besides, emancipation of love is neither a novel nor a communistic
idea. You will recall that it was advanced in fine literature around
the middle of the past century as 'emancipation of the heart'. In
bourgeois practice it materialised into emancipation of the flesh. It
was preached with greater talent than now, though I cannot judge how
it was practiced. Not that I want my criticism to breed asceticism.
That is farthest from my thoughts. Communism should not bring
asceticism, but joy and strength, stemming, among other things, from
a consummate love life. Whereas today, in my opinion, the obtaining
plethora of sex life yields neither joy nor strength. On the
contrary, it impairs them. This is bad, very bad, indeed, in the
epoch of revolution."
--------------------------------------
Ah, so far away the sexual `liberators' are from Lenin and so close to
........Daniel Ortega! A leader of the Sandinistas, and Louis P's
ex-hero, who is alleged to have molested his step daughter from a
young age.
Next we turn to the abstruse meanderings of Professor Carrol Cox on
the subject of "hedonism". The good professor is taken in by the
origins and connotations of this word (i.e. the form) while what he
should have done is looked at its concrete practice (i.e. content).
For example, as manifested in the cruel orgiastic parties of the
Indian maharajas (kings) of old. Or those that occur in the brothels
and harems of the Sheikhs of the Middle East into whose bowels flow
women and children (sexual commodities) from the poor countries of the
third world. Or those that take place in the great mansions of
Hollywood and in the massage parlors and elite clubs of New York City
under the aegis of `free love' under shimmering chandeliers and
amidst gardens with water fountains. While outside the glass and
oak-paneled walls, millions and millions of the dirty and disheveled
folk press in on all sides with their worn-out bodies and callused
hands. Those, whom the anthropologist Eric Wolf called the `people
without history', and who look on in wonder and amazement at the
tantalizing and delectable items offered by the bourgeois, all sold
under the banner of `free love' and `free sex'. But who somehow
instinctively realize in their hearts that all of this is beyond
their reach.
A beautiful hostess in a black velvet gown which shows up all the
contours of her magnificent physique flashes a welcome smile. She has
very white teeth and she asks in a throaty voice: "Would you like a
drink, sir?" Aeons ago, in the gathering gloom in the park of a
another city, a fat coarse woman with hard eyes, a woman who had been
in the business a long time, had similarly asked: "Would you like a
trick, sir?" Two events, vastly separated in time and space, yet
basically having the same content.
Dusk descends on New York City. The street lamps are lit and the
twinkling skyscrapers beckon with their cold light. Amidst the raucous
horns of the cars and the pungent smell of exhaust, the crowd
overflows all around charged with an energy that betrays a certain
wantonness. Surrounded by the glow of neon lights, the huge billboard
in Times Square lights up. Comrade Lenin's face, like in the mural by
Diego Riviera, appears momentarily. And then vanishes. To be replaced
by the faces of Diane Sawyer, Cokie Roberts and Barbara Walters -
smiling the synthetic smile of the newly `liberated' capitalist woman
- all harlots of the ruling class.
In a theater in a side street, they are showing the famous trilogy of
the great Indian film director, Satyajit Ray. Apu and his sister
Durga are playing in the rice fields, their innocent faces staring in
wonder as a train drawn by a steam engine rolls by in the distance.
The train that is a symbol of turbulent times to come and of a
changing era. In a slow dissolve, their little figures disappear to
be replaced by the loud and harsh 20th century technometrics of
Steven Spielberg, the pouting face and swayings of the material
girl Madonna as she sings to us of 'liberation', about whom many a
scholarly tome has been written, and the wild gyrations of Michael
Jackson.
Suddenly, the madman in the story "The Haunted Stones" by Rabindranath
Tagore, one of the best that India has given to the world, appears out
of nowhere. He is beating a cymbal while he shouts: "It's all lies,
it's all an illusion, it is all an illusion!". And then, he too
vanishes into the darkness.
Come comrades, let us all partake of this elixir which will transport
us to the shores of Nirvana!
Down with old-fashioned batty Leninism!
Long Live Manhattan Marxism!
Woody (`I am in love with my step-daughter') Allenn
*****************************************
From: Krixel@aol.com
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 21:36:05 EDT
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: L-I: Engels' "sex-love" and the incomprehensive Yoshie
I'm forwarding the following contribution to the current debate by a comrade
who is not on the list, but interests himself with the debate.
Yoshie ((furuhashi.1@OSU.EDU (Yoshie Furuhashi) ))
wrote:
>While Engels was no defender of the rights of
>homosexuals--in his time the terms hemosexual and
>heterosexual had yet to exist--and he made some
>homophobic comments as well as had heterosexist
>assumptions, he wasn't such a simpleton as to believe
>that sexuality was totally _ahistorical_. For
>instance, he wrote:
>Thus the history of the family in primitive times
>consists in the progressive narrowing of the circle,
>originally embracing the whole tribe, within which the
>two sexes have a common conjugal relation. The
>continuous exclusion, first of nearer, then of more and
>more remote relatives, and at last even of relatives by
>marriage, ends by making any kind of group marriage
>practically impossible. Thus the history of the family
>in primitive times consists in the progressive narrowing
>of the circle, originally embracing the whole tribe,
>within which the two sexes have a common conjugal
>relation. The continuous exclusion, first of nearer,
>then of more and more remote relatives, and at
>last even of relatives by marriage, ends by making any
>kind of group marriage practically impossible. Finally,
>there remains only the single, still loosely linked
>pair, the molecule with whose dissolution marriage
>itself ceases. This in itself shows what a small part
>individual sex-love, in the modern sense of the word,
>played in the rise of monogamy. (emphasis mine)
>In other words, what Engels called 'sex-love' (in our
>modern parlance sexuality) is a historical phenomenon--
>not a product of 'human nature' used in a static sense.
The Text until "...rise of monogamy." is a quote from
Engels.
Yoshie doesn't understand Engels at all or doesn't want
to understand him, what is shown by his (or her)
comment. Y. mixes up forms of marriage, sexuality and
individual sex-love. Engels examined historical
changing of s o c i a l f o r m s of sexual
relations. What he calls 'sex-love' or, more exactly
quoted, 'individual sex-love' (in German: "individuelle
Geschlechtsliebe"), is not at all an old fashioned term
for sexuality. It is the feeling not to be able to live
without the beloved, to love this one and to want to be
loved by this one also. That's it what Engels means. In
his work he describes, that the institution of marriage
originally did not have much to do with individual sex-
love, that sexuality w i t h o u t individual sex-love
originally was the rule of marriage. In his work "The
Origin of Family..." Engels without any doubt
recognizes it as a great progress if today it is seen as
the ideal that man and woman should be together as a
couple only voluntarily and based on mutual (sex-)love.
It is of significance if a vehement defender of
homosexuality does not understand that. By no means
this person can quote Engels as a witness. Without any
doubt it is reactionary to put "homosexuality" even
nearly on the same stage as the positive ideal of
(sex-)love between man and woman.
Engels would not have used a term like
"heterosexuality", even if it had been common in his
time. In its pure sense sexuality means the relation
between sexes, between man and woman. So the term
"heterosexuality" is just saying the same thing twice
over and only is a sophistic trick in order to let the
term "homosexuality" (would you also call masturbation
"monosexuality"?) appear better.
Finally, there are not only some, as Yoshie says,
"homophobic" comments by Engels. Wherever he wrote about
it he made disparaging remarks about it, but he did not
make so many remarks because it was a dismissed question
at that time. People like me would do the same if the
most rotten forces of imperialism would not try to put
this aberration of sexual urge on the same stage as
normal sexuality.
W.Gerhard
*****************************************
From: Krixel@aol.com
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 21:36:07 EDT
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: L-I: KPD on sexuality, Bebel on homosexuality
„Sven Buttler" wrote at Sun, 4 Oct:
"The KPD programme on the subject of sexuality:
"Mainly sexuality is considered a private matter
by the state and is denfended against discrimination
as long as no physical or psycological violence
is used or rights of others are violoated.""
What do you want to prove by this, except that you did not find a piece
in the KPD program that deals with homosexuality?
Tell the list which program, of which time and of which KPD your are speaking.
What you quote proves nothing.
But I give you a counterexample. August Bebel the leader of the old Social
Democracy in Germany strongly spoke against homosexuality. He called
homosexuality „wiedernatürlich" (against nature) and „Perversitäten".
You can read this for example in his well-known book
"Women and Socialism", page 238, Edition: Dietz Verlag Berlin 1974,
in the "Zwölftes Kapitel Die Prostitution - eine notwendige soziale
Institution der bürgerlichen Welt ," under "5.Verbrechen gegen die
Sittlichkeit und Geschlechtskrankheiten".
.
Klas Ber
*****************************************
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 18:04:01 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT: A short fundamental statement
Krixel:
>Always the same dirty trick. Name any cultural value in history which was
>developed in the struggle for progress - Louis Proyect will find a quotation
>where Hitler or some similar scum paid lip service to it. But not the
cultural
>values will be discredited in this way, only L. Pr. will.
Now this is really interesting. Krixel does not even bother to distinguish
his position from Hitler's. What an admission.
>That was appr. what I tried to use in the argument with Yoshie, when I
>mentioned the monotonous pervasive propaganda for sexual perversion by our
>imperialist mass media. Perhaps she will take from you.
Bourgeois society did not break down homophobia. Protestors did. The
Stonewall riots of the early 70s led to a massive movement of gays and
lesbians to defeat anti-homosexual laws. The movement was inspired by the
black liberation struggle and many Marxists were deeply involved with it.
What happened in the course of this struggle is that bourgeois politicians
were forced to accept the gains of the movement. Gay people could not be
pushed back into the closet. So what I was saying is that your bizzare
little sect is not even up to the standards of the Democratic Party in the
United States. You have a position that is similar to Pat Robertson, the
Moral Majority and other Christian fundamentalist outfits.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
*****************************************
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 18:08:36 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT: A short fundamental statement
Krixel@aol.com wrote:
>when I
>mentioned the monotonous pervasive propaganda for sexual perversion by our
>imperialist mass media
That's one of the funniest things I've read all day. The mass media are
still overwhelmingly heteronormative, as they say. What media market do you
live in?
Doug
*****************************************
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 21:33:15 -0500
From: Carrol Cox <cbcox@mail.ilstu.edu>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: KPD on sexuality, Bebel on homosexuality
Krixel@aol.com wrote: blah blah blah
It is becoming increasingly hard not to see this gay baiting and fumbling through
old texts is other than either sheer desire to disrupt or an instance of gays who
having incorporated the social contempt for gays are driven to gay baiting as
protective covering. In the last few years various gay publications have outed a
number of violently anti-gay congressman and other public figures as themselves
closeted gays.
Politically, such garbage can come only from those who have in fact despaired
(whatever they say to the contrary) of the working class, and hence have changed
marxism (or their distorted conception of marxism) into the religion that its
bourgeois enemies accuse it of being. It is interesting, in that light, that those
they choose to persecute are pretty much the came categories that bourgeois
society persecutes. Every religion needs its witches and heretics to burn.
Incidentally, the debate over whether homosexuality is "genetic" or "chosen" is a
misleading debate. The fact that Jews did not choose to be Jews did not save them
from the Holocaust. Claiming genetic causes (whether true or not) blurs the
central principles of the rights of working people, and of course 90%+ of the
world's gays are working people.
I think it time to recognize that gay baiters are, objectively, regardless of
their intentions, provacateurs, and their posts should be ignored. Gay baiting is,
quite simply, an effort to disarm the working class in its struggle with capital.
We don't endlessly argue with Pat Robertson or Bill Clinton, why should we bother
to argue with this pack?
Carrol
*****************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: marxism@lists.panix.com
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 05:42:22 +0000
Subject: L-I: The Silver Dagger
The cards are finally on the table.
Louis Proyect makes certain slanderous statements below full of
personal character assassination which reveals his own theoretical
weakness on the matter of how Marxism should address the matter of
human sexuality. At the outset, I had clearly stated my own views
that I was concerned not with the subject of homosexuality per se but
with human sexuality in general. About persecution of homosexuals
by the bourgeois state I had made this clear unequivocal statement on
Oct 4, 1998 on the leninist-international list:
"First, please allow me to clear some misunderstandings which have
developed on this subject. All attacks (violent or 'legal') on people
by the capitalist state or society who voluntarily (without coercion)
participate in a particular sexual lifestyle have to be combatted.
This defence has to be unconditional. However, the wider issue here is
human sexuality and not homosexuality per se. And how do Marxists deal
with this issue."
That Louis Proyect should dishonestly and demogogically try to paint
me once again as a "homophobe" very much like the reactionary
Zionists do with the label of "anti-semitism" to silence all
questions and at the same time to bring in all kinds of side issues
in order to deflect attention from the main subject, as he does
below, should be a lesson to all. An object lesson that is on the
tactics and ethics of a person who time and again has loudly
proclaimed and given testimony to us about his fidelity to Marxism.
But what is this type of 'Marxism' worth, a 'Marxism' which
consists mainly of recycling the perambulations of the
academic crowd (which has some value in itself), opportunists and
revisionists, and further, which does not carry out its practice in a
truthful manner? And uses the silver dagger to stab in the back when
one's impotence is revealed? After all, it is much easier to make fun
of the reactionary outpourings of little groups like MIM, Neue
Einheit and individuals like Rolf Martens like for example it is to
challenge the racism in a book like 'The Bell Curve'.
And what is this fascination of reading on and on and getting more
and more book knowledge about esoteric subjects very much like the
lust for gold exhibited by the colonizers when in practice use is
made of surreptitious or outright lying and deceit by the 'Marxists'?
I would rather have the company of a working-class person or a
peasant who knows absolutely zero about Marxism but whose heart is in
the right place. In fact, that is what is the most important.
I had caught Louis Proyect for the first time yesterday on the
Leninist-International list trying to use the weapon of "homophobia"
to defame and deflect attention from the debate. He did not
reply to my post (which I will now forward to Louis Proyect's list so
that people will get clarity of what actually went on). Today, he
indulges in the same practice on his own list while CLEVERLY not
cc-ing it to the leninist-international list which is where the
original debate took place. And where his action would not have
gone unnoticed since he would have done it a second time.
A brief reply to some of his outlandish comments:
> Chatterjee, you are really too much. You and your Maoist pals had a falling
> out with each other and you come over to other lists to raise the same
> garbage that finally caused sensible people to flee M-I. Cuba as a fascist
> country, bourgeois homosexual perversions, what have you. This is the
> bankrupt politics of the RCP and similar groups, MIM, Neue Einheit, etc. It
> has absolutely no attraction to normal people. It is absolutely repellent.
> What you write is disgusting and repellent.
>
So you would like to treat your list as your own private property
where only debate is allowed among the repectable folk. That is fine,
and this is why in the future, I will not write to your list except
perhaps to reply if you make further slanderous accusations.
But the leninist-international list does not belong to you. There is
an interesting aspect also. You reserve your own substantial
contributions for your own list but try to stir up provocations on
the leninist-international list which has become something like a
playground for you and the one-liners of your cronies like
Doug Henwood. In this way, you reveal your contempt
for people who do not have the necessary 'respectable' credentials.
It is amusing also that you have invented a 'Maoist' grab bag into
which you lump individuals and groups of various assorted
tendencies.From time to time, you have made derogatory comments about
what you call 'Maoism' (without any analysis). But that
is not surprising since you still adhere to your Trotskyists beliefs
although you try to hide them.
I do not recall of ever writing "disgusting and repellent" things
about Cuba being a fascist country or of "bourgeois homosexual
perversions". What I have maintained is that Cuba is on the road of
capitalist restoration and it has given support to the fascist regime
of Alberto Fujimori in Peru. And Castro had very warm relations with
Indira Gandhi when she was on a murdering spree that killed tens of
thousands of socialists and communists.
> So instead of cohabitating with fellow Maoists Olaechea and Godena, who
> share your homophobia and bizarre analysis of "fascist" Cuba, you try to
> foist it on people who fled from it in disgust.
>
Both Adolfo Olaechea and Louis Godena are not homophobic. That you
can utter this lie is once again a pointer. In fact about Adolfo's
and my alleged homophobia, Gary Maclennan, who had called me
"Adolfo's homophobic henchman" on the old Marxism list some years
ago, subsequently made a retraction and offered an apology.
At that time too, in order to refute wild charges of "homophobia"
that were being tossed around, I had posted material about how
in a past life, myself and some others had defended a homosexual
friend from persecution from the community. This was when all his
other so-called supporters from the liberal bourgeois camp had
deserted him. That is when he turned to us for support inspite for
the fact that he had formerly opposed us in the past and had sided
with the reactionaries.
You see Louis, the actual proof of a person's beliefs are tested in
action, and not in the flowery deceptive posts they write. As I
recall, it was subsequent to this that Gary Maclennan made his
retraction. If Gary feels that my post on "Getting Laid", which
addressed the hypocrisy of bourgeois sexuality (and was also a
rejoinder to your contemptuous Euro-centric prescription of "Go get
laid. You might enjoy it.") and nothing else, was homophobic, let
him speak up. I will then have to do some serious re-thinking.
> You owe it to yourself and the rest of the Internet left to explain the
> degeneration of the group you arrived with: Godena, Olaechea, Quispe, Rolf
> Martens and company. This is a political tendency that systematically
> repels people. When they are finished with people who are not hard-core
> Maoists, they begin to bite each other's necks. Godena is over on M-I
> ranting against the Jews, while Olaechea has disappeared. You got lonely
> over there and you sought out company, you poor chap.
>
I never arrived with anyone in a planned fashion. You seem to imply
some sort of a conspiracy among different people whom you once again
put in your 'hard-core' Maoist grab bag (similar to the word
'hard-line' used by the reactionary media). About company, don't
worry I got plenty. Only people with a lot of leisure time on their
hands can spend several hours a day on the Internet. Most of us have
to make a living. It was only to point out your brazeness that I
posted the last mailer to your list. I future I will not post on
your list except to answers your slanders.
> And what do you come up with? The same toxic garbage that you have always
> peddled: fascist Cuba, pedophile Ortega (as if this was an expression of
> Sandinista politics), gays and lesbians running around scandalizing honest
> working people. What a bunch of crap.
>
You should provide proof of your assertions about 'toxic garbage'
about fascist Cuba and homophobia that I "have always peddled". As I
said, if one is an opportunist (like Ortega, your hero), then this
opportunism WILL INEVITABLY show up in different facets of his
behavior, including SEXUAL behavior.
Because "Every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with
the brand of class." - Mao Ze-Dong. So it is not really surprising
that the turncoat Ortega (a Sandinista leader who surely influenced
its politics) is today revealed to be sexual predator. It is only
this peculiar kind of western marxism that you propound (with roots
in essentially counter-revolutionary Trotskyism) in which you can
separate the political from the personal.
> I just want to say a few words on this question of Lenin warning against
> libertinism. I took the trouble to track down the context today. You can
> find the background in Igor Kon's "Sexuality and Russian History." What
> happened is that students in and around the Communist Party were spending
> much too much time in bed fucking. The revolution had freed young people's
> libidinous energies and they went at it, just like I did in the 60s. Lenin
> wanted to reorient them to the tasks of building socialism. He thought that
> sex had become an escape from their revolutionary duties.
>
And was this not clear from Lenin's own words which I cited? Did you
have to run to your library and look at some academic textbook to
understand what Lenin really meant in second-hand fashion? And yet
you referred to Lenin himself as a batty Puritan when you first read
him on the leninist-international list on the issue of sexuality in
Russia during revolutionary times. And now you proclaim your fidelity
to Lenin. Like a chamelon changing colors!
It is not necessary to reply to your other insuniations about
homophobia which you make in your post. In the future, I may reply
only to your slanders, nothing else. You have revealed a certain
unprincipled and dishonest facet of your character which is totally
at odds with Marxism as it is known in much of the world. And because
of this, the contradiction between us has become antagonistic.
The poet, Rabindranath Tagore, after trying mightily to build a
cultural synthesis between the West and the East, finally failed.
Which was revealed in his intense frustration in the autumn of his
life. Perhaps, a synthesis, even among people who claim the mantle of
Marxism on the two sides of the border, is not possible now or for
the substantial future. The philosophical viewpoint towards life is
very different although there are some similarities. I guess that is
why Mao Ze Dong said "The East wind prevails over the West wind"
pointing out the contradiction. You and many others here will not
understand this apsect because the upbringing in the West is very
homogenous and one-dimensional. Eurocentrism runs in the blood and
operates sub-consciously when not overtly.
One last thing. From where I come, inspite of other heinous
atrocities, I have not heard of Jews and homosexuals being killed,
attacked or defamed like they are done in the Judeo-Christian West.
It is simply not in the tradition. At least not yet. Maybe, there is
a certain toleration in Hinduism, a respect for all forms of
life and beliefs, which was pointed out by Swami Vivekananda that is
missing in the Western religions.I am proud of that part of our
heritage.
S. Chatterjee
*****************************************
From: "Kerdudo" <kerdudo@jet.es>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: RE: KPD on sexuality, Bebel on homosexuality
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:18:54 +0100
i don't know whether the information regarding august babel given by krixel
(see below) was inted to mislead people into beleiving that the book
discussed was a recent publication by giving the refernce to the 1974
german edition, but just for clarity's sake i think it should be mentioned
that it was in fact writen at the turn of the century in 1883. also as far
as i am aware. lenin's converstaions with zetkin took place in moscow
around 1920 and engels wrote his famous the origin of the family, private
property and the state in 1884. whilst at the same time saluting all three
for their oustanding analysis of the opression women are subject to and
whilst in no way writing them off as great theoricians (which they were), i
hardly think that, for example, babel's (1840-1913) nineteenth century
moralistic views on sexuality can be taken as a reasonble yardstick for the
late 20th century. it would be sad to think that marxist analysis stopped
dead with their words. marxism supplies a method for action for
transforming society, not a theological book of rules to live our lives by.
in my opinion, if we are unable to analyse what's actually going on in
today's society, prefering instead to quote what was said over a hundred
years ago then i believe this is anything but a marxist approach. i for one
do not intend to live my own private sexual life based on whoever bebel
happened to think it was best i should sleep with or not. the whole idea is
completely ludicrous! if we are unable to ralise that politicians and
parties evolve within a given cultural context and that these cultural and
social contexts change throughout time and space then i think something is
very wrong with the basic approach. to my mind, marxism isn't about just
quoting from what lnin, stalin, mao, marx or whomever said within a
particular period and within a particvular cukltural context but rather to
apply the methodology they used in arriving at those conclusions whilst
applying it to current times. for example, would it be reasonable to quote
bits from marx and engels regarding imperialism? obviously not -
imperialism came about much later as society evolved. i think what we're
really talking about here is individual fear of certain social questions,
eg. women's oppression, gay rights, black rights and so on which it would
appear some people have serious problems accepting and coming to terms
with. my final last remark: most gays are workers and therefore should
enjoy the same support of their rights as workers, but not only as workers,
but also as people oppressed for their sexuality in as much as i beleive
that engel's analysis cited above is not only perfectly correct but when
applying it to understanding the undelying reasons leading to the
oppression of women under capitalism we are actually applying and
interpreting (the title of this publication would tend to lead any reader
not to assume that women was engel's prior consideration when writing it)
and that this same analysis can be applied to explain in clearly marxist
terms the origins of gay oppression. i think an impartial reading would
lead anyone to the conclusion that gays do not uphold the traditional
family structure so necessary for the development and mainatance of
capitalist order, but also that dividing the working class based on such
questions as women workers versus men workers, gay workers versus straight
workers is wholly in the interstets of capitalism. whether homosexuality is
actually natural or not is, i beleive, quite far from the point - nor do i
believe that human behaviour patterns can be shown to be natural or
unantural based on whatever goes on in the animal kingdom. is it natural
for felines to pur? do other animals do it? then if not it must be
unatural! rubbish. i did not intend to join in this debate as i feel it's
not going anywhere useful and i'm getting a bit rired of hearing the same
sort of ignorant, reactionary remarks i can go and listen to down at my
local on a saturday night. however, as neueu einheit has decided to raise
what i bleive to be its thoroughly uggly head i just wanted to manifest my
support to all of the reasonable human beings and communists who have taken
the trouble to combat such loathsome garbage.i shall make a point of
abstaining therefore form any further mailings on this particular subject
a) because i'm fairly bored of hearing nothing new over and over again and
b) i hardly feel it worth spending my valuable time and energy arguing with
such views.
neal
----------
> De: Krixel@aol.com
> A: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
> Asunto: L-I: KPD on sexuality, Bebel on homosexuality
> Fecha: martes 6 de octubre de 1998 2:36
>
>
>
> „Sven Buttler" wrote at Sun, 4 Oct:
> "The KPD programme on the subject of sexuality:
>
> "Mainly sexuality is considered a private matter
> by the state and is denfended against discrimination
> as long as no physical or psycological violence
> is used or rights of others are violoated.""
>
>
> What do you want to prove by this, except that you did not find a piece
> in the KPD program that deals with homosexuality?
> Tell the list which program, of which time and of which KPD your are
speaking.
> What you quote proves nothing.
> But I give you a counterexample. August Bebel the leader of the old
Social
> Democracy in Germany strongly spoke against homosexuality. He called
> homosexuality „wiedernatürlich" (against nature) and „Perversitäten".
> You can read this for example in his well-known book
> "Women and Socialism", page 238, Edition: Dietz Verlag Berlin 1974,
> in the "Zwölftes Kapitel Die Prostitution - eine notwendige soziale
> Institution der bürgerlichen Welt ," under "5.Verbrechen gegen die
> Sittlichkeit und Geschlechtskrankheiten".
> .
>
> Klas Ber
>
>
>
>
*****************************************
From: "Kerdudo" <kerdudo@jet.es>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: to the moderators
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 10:21:31 +0100
i'm not used to appealing to anyone for censorship but i am alarmed to see
that the group neue einheit has been allowed to so openly air its view on
the question of homosexuality. having been given the right of reply i feel
that this is perfectly sufficient. are there any rules regarding attitutes
which will not be tolerated on this list beyond a reasonable point, eg.
what are we to expect next, to have to defend the fact that blacks are not
inately inferior to whites based on brain size or that women should not be
allowed to vote?
*****************************************
From: "Sven Buttler" <sven.buttler@metronet.de>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Re: Engels' "sex-love" and the incomprehensive Yoshie
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 15:15:09 +0200
>I'm forwarding the following contribution to the current debate by a comrade
>who is not on the list, but interests himself with the debate.
[snip]
He better stays off list, we already have enough Nazis here...
*****************************************
From: "Ben Seattle" <icd@communism.org>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Homophobia or cluelessness ? -- (was: The Silver Dagger)
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 06:20:15 -0700
Siddharth Chatterjee:
> If Gary feels that my post on "Getting Laid", ...
> was homophobic, let him speak up. I will then
> have to do some serious re-thinking.
Sid, I am going to comment only because your remark above indicates that
you may be willing to consider that you have made errors.
My assessment is that you owe an apology to Yoshie Furuhashi, Martin
Schreader, Louis Proyect and pretty much the entire readership of L-I
and Proyect's list.
It is probably an exaggeration for Louis to call you "homophobic". But
there have been a number of rash and exaggerated comments made in the
course of a discussion that broke out when Neue Einheit attempted to
defend their reactionary line on homosexuality.
My own attitude, initially, was that Neue Einheit should simply be
ignored. It is difficult to build a list if energy and attention
automatically flow to the most backward and stupid postings rather than
the most advanced and intelligent.
But Neue Einheit's extreme backwardness on this issue reflects, to an
extent, backward ideas on such questions that have existed in the
communist movement for a long time. Homosexual activity was made
illegal under Stalin in the 1930's. Partly as a result of this, a
relative handful of activists who consider themselves to be communists
are confused on this issue even today.
This backwardness is reflected in the views of others on L-I and, most
likely for this reason, both Yoshie and Louis spent some effort to
clarify why communists must defend the rights of homosexuals as part of
the defense of the working class against the bourgeosie. Yoshie and
Louis brought up historical facts concerning the struggle for gay rights
and pointed out the relationship between this struggle and the struggle
for democratic rights.
Now supposedly you are also in favor of the defense of homosexuals
against reactionary culture. But your posts objectively tended to
support Neue Einheit. For example you asked Yoshie about "the rights of
those who practice incest" as if she owed you some kind of explanation.
Then, when others got angry at you, you insisted you were misunderstood.
But it is *you* who misunderstand.
The position of Neue Einheit on homosexuality must be condemned. *No
one* who responds to a post that has "Neue Einheit" in the title thread
(as you did) should *leave any doubt* about their position on this. But
you don't have a position on this, as far as I can tell. In fact you
are as clueless as Klo on this question.
Now there is nothing wrong, in itself, with being clueless. I am
certainly clueless on a fairly wide range of important questions.
What is unfortunate, however, is when people are *aggressively
clueless*. Yoshie and Louis are light-years ahead of you on this
question so, in my opinion, you would do well to have a little more
humility and see and if you can learn something from them.
I will also note that you deliberately provoked Martin Schreader, who,
whatever his imperfections, is also way ahead of *you* on this question.
He lost his cool and called you "scum". You *rejoiced* in this. It may
not have been correct for Martin to call you scum. But it was correct
for him to point out that you were acting like a jerk.
The issue which you should not forget amidst all your moralising about
sexuality--is that a list such as this not built solely on the
competition of correct ideas against incorrect ones. If we are serious
about building lists such as these into powerful weapons against *the
bourgeosie* -- we must be relentless in working to bring out--not what
is weak in one another--but what is powerful and healthy.
Sincerely,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 6.Oct.98
*****************************************
From: "Sven Buttler" <sven.buttler@metronet.de>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Re: KPD on sexuality, Bebel on homosexuality
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 15:21:22 +0200
Nazi Krixel writes:
>„Sven Buttler" wrote at Sun, 4 Oct:
>"The KPD programme on the subject of sexuality:
>
>"Mainly sexuality is considered a private matter
>by the state and is denfended against discrimination
>as long as no physical or psycological violence
>is used or rights of others are violoated.""
>What do you want to prove by this, except that you did not find a piece
>in the KPD program that deals with homosexuality?
Don't you get it, buddy??? ( Homo )Sexuality is considered to be a
PRIVATE MATTER
- as long as nobodys' rights are violated
- as long no physical or psycological violence is used
Is that so hard to understand? But I forgot I am talking to a Nazi...
I am sorry that we don't deal with all kinds of sexuality ( from above,
from below, from the back etc. ) I always thought other issues
should be touched, too. But I guess when talking about political
programmes you have "Mein Kampf" by comrade Hitler in mind.
>Tell the list which program, of which time and of which KPD your are
speaking.
8. Party conference, February 1993.
>What you quote proves nothing.
>But I give you a counterexample. August Bebel the leader of the old Social
>Democracy in Germany strongly spoke against homosexuality. He called
>homosexuality „wiedernatürlich" (against nature) and „Perversitäten".
>You can read this for example in his well-known book
>"Women and Socialism", page 238, Edition: Dietz Verlag Berlin 1974,
>in the "Zwölftes Kapitel Die Prostitution - eine notwendige soziale
>Institution der bürgerlichen Welt ," under "5.Verbrechen gegen die
>Sittlichkeit und Geschlechtskrankheiten".
.
So what??? If they claimed something like this they were wrong. It's
that simple.
In disgust,
Sven
Sieh zu das Du Land gewinnst, Du perverses Stück Nazi-Dreck!!!!
---
Sven Buttler
Leninist International Capital Reading Group
http://www.angelfire.com/co/socialism
Communist Party of Germany
http://home.t-online.de/home/KPD-Roter-Morgen/
*****************************************
From: Krixel@aol.com
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 14:24:11 EDT
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: Re: Lenin on Sex: 1
Hello Brett
What and whom did you think of when you wrote
<<
I have chosen not to mention this strangers to avoid a rude reply. I think
this is a valid topic though.
>>
Please help me understand.
Krixel
*****************************************
From: Krixel@aol.com
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 14:25:18 EDT
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: L-I: Why L. Proyect keeps shouting "Nazi!" although even he knows better
L. Proyect wrote:
>Krixel:
>>Always the same dirty trick. Name any cultural value in history which was
>>developed in the struggle for progress - Louis Proyect will find a quotation
>>where Hitler or some similar scum paid lip service to it. But not the
>>cultural
>>values will be discredited in this way, only L. Pr. will.
>Now this is really interesting. Krixel does not even bother to distinguish
>his position from Hitler's. What an admission.
I in fact need not bother because to everybody on this list the distinction is
clear. The problem is only that people like Louis Proyect are frentically
attempting to find something where they could tie up their barrage of abuse.
It is pure provocation to move a historical dialectical analysis of
homosexuality, of which the Group NEUE EINHEIT is giving some fundamentals,
into the fascist corner. Such is the work of people who, at least
ideologically, are deeply entangled with imperialism, especially with its
present US-dominated configuration. If our views on homosexuality were
„fascist“ then Marx’and Engels’ were equally. It is only political weakness
which causes L. Proyect (and others) to shout „Nazi“ every moment they meet an
argument not fitting into their political schemes.
The distinction, apart from that, is clear from every piece my group resp. I
personally resp. other comrades contributed to the list so far. For example,
the election article („Results From the Election Campaign“), the one which
gave rise to the whole debate, contains the following passage:
"For the part of the smaller parties, most of them defend positions which
are close to those of the Greens, or which make up only one single point,
or they defend extreme rightist, historically completely outdated
positions and extremely dangerous and fascist positions which may fall
back on the whole country. They are unacceptable. The last-named
channel the despair about the parliament's parties into a backward and
destructive direction. Fighting and de-camouflaging the points where
they tie on, thereby fighting their demagogy, will be one of the essential
tasks for the immediate future."
Who needs even more proof and information is invited to visit our homepage
http://www.neue-einheit.com.
But there is another distinction which is in fact rather blurred, the
distinction between L. Proyect’s views and the liberal anticommunist
propaganda of Western imperialism. For example, so far I cannot remember
anything but morose remarks by Proyect concerning the revolutionary Soviet
Union or China and their political leaders, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong,
whenever the discussion touches these historical questions.
There were other contributions in this debate, meanwhile, which put some
question marks behind Proyect’s alleged marxism and his sincerity. I think
they are of interest in this respect.
I hope that we’ll soon be able to concentrate on the dissens/consens we have
with some interesting contributions to this debate about human nature and
about sexuality. It is apparently Proyect’s aim to prevent a mutually fruitful
debate of the real subjects.
Krixel
PS:
In my last forwarding to the debate "KPD on sexuality, Bebel on homosexuality"
I forgot to say in advance that it is a contribution of comrade Klas Ber.
*****************************************
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 12:16:05 -0400
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
Subject: L-I: help for homos!
All you homophobes, sign up!
Doug
----
Homosexuals Encouraged To 'Come Out' of Homosexuality
NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Kerusso Ministries today announced
the fourth annual National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day (NCOHD) on October
11. The annual event is a direct counter to the pro-homosexual message of
organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Human Rights
Campaign and P-FLAG.
Michael Johnston, national chair of the event and a former homosexual with
AIDS said Monday, "The message from homosexual lobby groups is one of anger
and despair. They consistently blame everyone else for their misery and offer
no hope to the adult or young person struggling with homosexual desires. All
they can say is 'give up and give in.' The NCOHD project offers a different
message, a message of compassion and hope."
"There are thousands of men, women and young people who have rejected a
homosexual identity and gone on to live healthy normal lives," Johnston said.
He readily acknowledges that the walk out of homosexuality can be a difficult
one. "These individuals desperately need to know that they are not alone and
that many are willing to guide and encourage them." Johnston walked away from
homosexuality in 1988 after living for eleven years as an active homosexual.
Johnston said, "It is unfortunate that homosexual lobby groups continue to
deny and even work to suppress the truth about so many who have walked away
from homosexuality. It is cruel and anything but compassionate. They have
convinced many, including many in the media, to believe a lie. This week we
will take the truth to the streets to help the hurting. We will do it one
community at a time, one heart at a time; that they may know the truth and the
truth will set them free."
Events surrounding the October 11 observance of the National Coming Out of
Homosexuality Day will span the country from coast to coast. Activities will
include educational and ministerial outreach in local communities, churches
and on college campuses. Radio specials highlighting the stories of former
homosexuals are scheduled for hundreds of radio stations across the country as
well as television broadcasts in many markets.
National Sponsors include: American Family Association, Americans for Truth
About Homosexuality, Christian Action League of North Carolina, Christian
Coalition of Alaska, Christian Coalition of Colorado, Christian Coalition of
Washington, Christian Family Network, Citizens for Community Values, Colorado
for Family Values, Concerned Women for America, Coral Ridge Ministries/Center
for Reclaiming America, CrossOver Ministries, Exodus International (North
America), Family Defense Council, Family Research Council, Family First,
Family Watch, Inc., Focus on the Family, Foundation for Christian
Alternatives, Freedom At Last, Institute for Media Education, Liberty Counsel,
Living Hope, Love of God Outreach, Metanoia Ministries, Mission America,
Mothers for Good Government, New Creation Ministries (California), New
Creation Ministries (Hawaii), New Hope Ministries, Outpost, Regeneration,
Renew America, Stop Promoting Homosexuality America, The National Legal
Foundation, Transforming Congregations, Washington for Traditional Values and
Washington Opposed to Pro-Homosexual Policies. SOURCE Kerusso Ministries
*****************************************
From: "E.C.Apling" <E.C.Apling@BTINTERNET.COM>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT on the election campaign in Germany
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 18:46:00 +0100
After being away from the internet for a few days and then wading through
piles of e-mail with the above subject heading - (tho' what the discussion
has to do with the German elections escapes me! - or I forgot, the thread
started with something about the Greens...) I feel just like making a short
comment. After a while I got fed up with repetitiousness so only red to
Sunday 4th October, anything contributed on Monday is still beyond my ken!.
As one who was very much in favour of the Wolfenden Report (Royal Commission
on Homosexuality chaired by Sir Jorn Wolfenden, [1906-1985], then
Vice-Chancellor of Reading University and later made a life peer, Baron
Wolfenden], which led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in UK, I
must say that for the last decade or so I have been more and more disturbed,
annoyed, scandalised, sickened (can't think of any more words at the
moment), by the brazen displays, descrptions, advocacy (etc. etc) of
homosexuality continually confronting us on TV and the media generally.
This is all old hat - homosexuality was decriminalised in 1957 - what the
hell do they want to be going on about it still in 1998? Sexuality, in
whatever form, is a *private* matter - it is disgusting to parade advocacy
of some form of it in the streets.
It matters not to me what xxxx-sexuality an individual is - it is how they
relate to other people in general social matters, in discussion, in
politics, in work etc. etc. by which I judge them, and by which they
*should* be judged. Anyone who continually shouts out that "I'm a
homosexual" or "I'm gay" - or even on the contrary (but I have never heard
anyone do it) "Im heterosexual" - puts him/herself immediately beyond the
pale, and is to be resolutely avoided (and how to understand how anyone can
put forward "defence of "gay" rights" as a revolutionary slogan completely
defeats me - at least with regard to UK or anywhere where "gays" are not
criminalised).
By the way - homosexuality *does* exist in other mammals, and it appears the
"gays" are generally accepted - but then none of them go round shouting
about it!!
I suppose I really hope for an end to this thread, but am nevertheless doing
something to prolong it!!
Regards
Paddy
Mailto:E.C.Apling@btinternet.com
*****************************************
From: "Brett Murphy" <brettm@alphalink.com.au>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Re: Bonobos
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 11:25:28 -0700
And what was that all about in a few sentences?
Brett
*****************************************
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 14:28:27 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com>
Subject: L-I: Gays and the Left
Gays and the Left: Scratching the Surface
The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935), by John Lauritsen & David
Thorstad, (Novato, CA: Times Change Press, 1995), revised edition, $9.95
paper.
Gay Men and the Sexual History of the Political Left, edited by Gert Hekma,
Harry Oosterhuis & James Steakley, (Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press,
1995), $24.95 paperback.
Reviewed by Peter Drucker
THE CONTEMPORARY MOVEMENT for lesbian/gay liberation was born out of the
ferment of the New Left. Its leftist roots were openly acknowledged.
Theorists such as Dennis Altman, John D'Emilio, David Fernbach and Mario
Mieli all identified with one socialist or communist current or another.
All acknowledged their debt to Marxism as well as feminism and
psychoanalysis.
Times have changed. Lesbian/gay movements have grown and won some
significant victories in the past quarter-century, while the socialist left
has shrunk to a shadow of what it was. Unsurprisingly, nowadays lesbian/gay
spokespeople and theorists are less likely to identify with the
anti-capitalist left than they used to be.
Back to Basics
Lauritsen's and Thorstad's roots go back to the U.S. Socialist Workers
Party. They broke with that group in the mid-1970s when the word came down
from its leadership that lesbian/gay oppression was only a "secondary"
contradiction for which members' energies often could not be spared. But
the 1995 edition of "The Early Homosexual Rights Movement" contains few
major changes. Like the 1974 version, it treats the pioneers of lesbian/gay
emancipation with only mildly critical sympathy and stresses the bright
side of their alliance with leftist parties.
This makes the book useful reading for anyone who wants to begin by
grasping a few basic facts. For example: in the years before the First
World War, the German Social Democratic Party was in the forefront of the
fight to repeal that country's anti-gay Paragraph 175. Eduard Bernstein
defended Oscar Wilde (himself an iconoclastic socialist) in the pages of
the SPD's theoretical journal, "Die Neue Zeit."
The Bolsheviks repealed anti-gay laws when they took power in Russia, and
supported the pro-gay World League for Sexual Reform throughout the 1920s.
The German Social Democratic and Communist parties were the gay movement's
best allies in the 1920s. These basic facts are worth reiterating, if only
because some recent scholarship has managed to overlook them.
There is another side to the story. Trained in the Trotskyist tradition,
Lauritsen and Thorstad have a keen eye for the (many) failings of social
democrats and Stalinists. The German Social Democrats succumbed to the
temptation to gay-bait when samesex scandals among the German empire's
aristocratic elite emerged; Social Democrats and Communists succumbed again
when Nazi SA head Ernst Roehm was available as a homosexual target.
Stalin re-criminalised homosexuality in the USSR in 1934. Communists in
many countries obediently turned their back on their earlier stands and
began to identify gays with bourgeois decadence and even fascism. By the
time lesbian/gay liberation went though its resurgence in the 1960s and
1970s, an uphill battle had to be fought against anti-gay prejudices inside
much of the left.
Lauritsen's and Thorstad's focus on Germany helps them avoid noting that
the left in other countries, like the United States and the Netherlands,
fell short even of the German left's mixed record. Beginning their account
late in the nineteenth century saves them from mentioning Marx's and
Engels' homophobia, which surfaced not only in private letters but in
published writings. Ending in the 1930s saves them from discussing the
shortcomings of later, even anti-Stalinist Marxists.
Ambivalent left tradition
"Gay Men and the Sexual History of the Political Left" has been put
together with more scholarly thoroughness. It benefits from two decades of
accumulating research, and suffers from no inhibitions about exposing the
left's shortfalls. The result is a set of valuable investigations. The
strong development of gay studies in Dutch universities (where two of the
three editors are based) is well reflected.
The one contribution that focuses on the Netherlands (by Gert Hekma) is a
useful demonstration of just how ambivalent early socialists were about
sexuality. The anthology also does well to look at several different left
traditions - "utopian" socialism, anarchism and Marxism - in a single
volume. For anyone who wants to learn about topics as varied as how Andre
Gide squared his homosexuality with sympathy for the USSR, what the early
Frankfurt School had to say about gays, or the complementary roles of East
Germany's Lutheran Church and Stasi (secret police) in creating a gay
movement there, this book is a good starting place.
Yet most of the authors are hampered by three major flaws in their
approach. First, though many of them clearly have leftist sympathies, their
methods owe little to the left. They work as empiricist historians; few of
them seem to see how Marxism, feminism or any other radical paradigm can
help them analyse societies. Second, the book as a whole is marred by a
double standard, in which Marxist traditions are more harshly judged than
others. Third, few of the authors have learned much from social historians'
discoveries about the lives of ordinary gay men and lesbians, who after all
made up past movements and parties.
Public vs. private
In their introduction, the editors say that "socialism is singled out for
particular attention here because its project was, and is, to fulfil the
emancipatory goal of the Enlightenment: the universal liberation of
humankind from oppressive ideologies and exploitative social structures."
(7) This argument for holding the left to high standards is absolutely right.
The editors are also right to criticise socialist credulousness about
"scientific" biology and medicine, which contradicted the left's
distinctive emphasis on historical and social factors, and to criticise
socialist praise of working-class "manliness", which ignored the female
half of the working class. But they fail to grapple with the difference
between abstract application of principles and a project of liberation
carried out by concrete historical agents emerging from really existing
capitalism.
Ultimately, when the editors appeal to the classical liberal distinction
between public and private realms, they are judging the left by criteria
that are alien to the left. "The private sphere has enjoyed far less
protection under socialist regimes than under liberal ones," they say.(16)
They do note in passing that liberals (in the European sense of
constitutionalist, secular free-market advocates) were inpractice usually
even more anti-gay than leftists. But they fail to explain why. In fact the
liberal private-public distinction leaves straight male power in the family
unchallenged. Women's and lesbian/gay liberation require transforming the
family in ways that are bound to "interfere" in "private" life.
The authors' not very profound methodology sometimes limits their
predictive ability. For example, in his article on contemporary France, Jan
Willem Duyvendak moves beyond his earlier work in describing the difficult
"balance between desires and interests" that gay movements need to
strike.(370) But lacking a deep analysis of how much those desires and
interests are repressed in France today, he predicts continuing
demobilisation of French gays - who in fact began mobilising in steadily
more impressive numbers before the ink on his article was dry. [see "We
might as well die shouting" and "Vulnerability and resistance,"
International Viewpoint #287, April 1997].
The book's liberal critique of the left's sexual politics is limited mainly
to Marxists. Saskia Poldervaart's essay on utopian socialists and Walter
Fahnders' on German anarchists are not just sympathetic, but almost wholly
uncritical accounts, citing inspiring passages from their subjects' works
without paying much attention to the reality of their movements
It is valuable to recover these lost voices of sexual radicalism, to note
sex-radical insights in Fourier that Marx dismissed, or anarchist pro-gay
positions that were better than those of contemporary Marxists.
Anarchist Hubert Kennedy exposes Marx's homophobic attacks on gay German
Lassallean leader Johann Baptist von Schweitzer, though without shedding
much light on the issues between Marxists and Lassalleans that probably
concerned Marx more.
Richard Cleminson's careful, historically informed research on the Spanish
anarchist "Revista Blanca" sets a higher standard, however, in an article
that shows how anarchist puritanism gave way in the 1930s to greater
tolerance.
The articles focusing on Marxists mostly fall short of Cleminson's
achievement. In fact, of the ten contributions that deal mainly with avowed
Marxists, only two or three show much knowledge of Marxism. Four deal
largely with Stalinist regimes or spies; twenty years after Lauritsen's and
Thorstad's basic exposition, these articles make little distinction between
Stalinist sexual politics and earlier Marxist positions.
Laura Engelstein, writing about Soviet legislation, ends up asking in
bewildered ignorance, "Why did homosexuality escape the law between 1917
and 1934? That is the still obscure and intriguing tale."(173) Harry
Oosterhuis, who chronicles anti-gay statements in Social Democratic and
Communist anti-fascist propaganda of the 1930s with justified indignation,
blames the homophobia on Marxism as such; he either does not know or
prefers to forget that earlier socialist positions were more pro-gay.
David Thorstad, who contributes the one article dealing withthe U.S. left,
is of course knowledgeable about Marxism. He lays out the reactionary
positions of the CP and Maoists at the time of the 1969 Stonewall
rebellion, cites the enlightened comments of Panther leader Huey Newton,
exposes the limits of the SWP's position, and contrasts it with somewhat
better positions taken by other Trotskyist groups.[1] He rightly criticises
positions that in the best of cases tend to dress up defences of minority
rights in radical-sounding verbiage instead of attacking the deeper roots
of heterosexism.
Unfortunately Thorstad chooses as his decisive criterion agreement with his
and Lauritsen's demand for repeal of age -of-consent laws. Thorstad and
Lauritsen have every right to be bitter: The attacks on them not only by
the FBI and Jesse Helms but also from within the lesbian/ gay movement have
been appalling.
Sadly, this seems to sour Thorstad's vision of the movement as a whole. The
same sourness disfigures the "Afterword to the Revised Edition" of "The
Early Homosexual Rights Movement." "The mainstream gay organisations of the
present" are dismissed as "politically correct zombies," and the
"radicalism of such groups as Queer Nation" as "bizarre and offensive
behaviour." (102) Substantive lesbian/gay radicalism is certainly on the
defensive, but the scene is not quite as bleak as Lauritsen and Thorstad
paint it.[2]
Class and Community
Manfred Herzer's article on "Communists, Social Democrats, and the
Homosexual Movement in the Weimar Republic" stands out in "Gay Men and the
Sexual History of the Political Left," not only for its sense for
historical context but also because it points to new frontiers for
investigation.
Herzer shows how other writers wrench quotations from the Social Democratic
and Communist press out of context, simply editing out reaffirmations of
opposition to anti-gay laws that are inconvenient for anti-Marxist arguments.
German gay leaders, he shows, whatever their personal politics,
acknowledged the crucial support their movements received from the left.
But he goes further and deeper, pointing out that gay leaders treated Nazis
like Roehm with kid gloves and failed to mobilise their own members against
fascism because a high proportion of their membership was right-wing.
Herzer has no explanation for the disproportionate right-wing sympathies of
the gay movement's rank and file: this would require a far-reaching
"social" history and analysis of the pre-war community.
Only in the last few years have gay historians begun to explore in depth
the historical interaction of sexuality andclass. George Chauncey's "Gay
New York" makes a strong case that gay identity as it exists today emerged
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a mainly
middle-class phenomenon, while U.S. working-class men continued until at
least the 1940s to identify only "passive" malemale sexual behaviour with
"fairies" and to consider men who played an "active" role in sexual
intercourse with either women or men as "real men."[3]
If this same pattern held true for pre-war Central and Western Europe, it
could explain many things. It could explain for example why self-identified
gay men in Weimar Germany came largely from middle-class backgrounds and
largely shared the conservative politics of their social class. It could
also help explain why more left-leaning gay groups, like Magnus
Hirschfeld's Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, tended to put forward
"old-fashioned" "third sex" theories, while a more "modern" approach was
characteristic of more right-leaning groups like the Community of the
Special.
All this is speculation. Although historians like John D'Emilio have
already begun linking the social archaeology of emerging lesbian/gay
communities in the post-war USA with the wellsprings of lesbian/gay
politics.[4], similar work on the pre-war USA and Europe has not really
begun. There is certainly plenty to study. Left-leaning "sex reformers"
like Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, Crystal and Max Eastman and Floyd Dell
in the United States and the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Holland
were increasingly active in the 1910s, and networking internationally by
the 1920s.
Studying sexual changes in the broader societies is difficult, given that
almost everyone who was alive then is dead now. All the more reason why all
possible sources should be sought out and the exploration begun.
Peter Drucker
Notes
1. Thorstad's resentment against the SWP leads him to dismiss all groups
that resulted even remotely from SWP expulsions in the 1980s, including
Solidarity (the group that sponsors Against the Current, the magazine in
which this article first appeared). (346, n.14) People interested in
understanding Solidarity's lesbian/gay politics should not rely on
Thorstad, but read the section on lesbian/gay liberation in Solidarity's
1986 Founding Statement as well as its 1994 pamphlet, "Socialist
Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Liberation".
2. For another view of the U.S. movement, see Peter Drucker,"What is queer
nationalism?" "Against the Current" 43, March/April 1993.
3. George Chauncey, "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of
the Gay Male World, 1890-1940," New York: Basic Books, 1994.
4. John D'Emilio, "Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a
Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970," Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1983.
Peter Drucker, an advisory editor of "Against the Current" and
"Grenzeloos", is currently compiling an anthology on "same-sex sexualities
and popular struggles in the Third World" for Gay Men's Press (forthcoming
1998). He has lived in Amsterdam since 1993.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
*****************************************
From: "Brett Murphy" <brettm@alphalink.com.au>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Re: Lenin on Sex: 1
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 11:34:43 -0700
I have chosen not to mention this strangers to avoid a rude reply. I think
this is a valid topic though.
Brett
*****************************************
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 14:56:45 -0500
From: Carrol Cox <cbcox@mail.ilstu.edu>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT on the election campaign in Germany
E.C.Apling wrote: "This is all old hat - homosexuality was decriminalised in
1957 - what the hell do they want to be going on about it still in 1998?
Sexuality, in whatever form, is a *private* matter - it is disgusting to parade
advocacy of some form of it in the streets."
This is not worth arguing against, but it is worth labelling as the most malign
form of homophobia, the kind that under an umbrella of supposed "toleration" in
fact claims that those being beaten, driven from their jobs, mocked, deprived of
their children, ... are the ones who are causing the trouble. All would have
been well in the 1960s if those damn Vietnam peasants and those damn black
ghetto dwellers had only been decent about their oppression and not made such a
fuss.
Carrol
*****************************************
From: " Staffan Snitting" <fam.snitting@lund.mail.telia.com>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: to the comrades on the list
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 22:12:21 +0200
hey
I have not followed the recent discussion on homosexuality too close, as I
have been in Denmark for the 6th congress of my organisation's
sisterorganisation there, Röd Ungdom. but as far as I understand a group
called Neue einheit have spread out anti-gay propaganda. to me, this list
needs to be open for discussion, but that is discussion between socialists
and communists. we probably wouldn't let Tony Blair on the list (well not
that I came to think of it that would be kind of hilarious, but you get my
point), and neither neo-nazis, and I can't see any reason as to why we
should let us hear bullshit from people with anti-gay attitudes. they are
no comrades of ours. they are prejudiced and ignorant and biggoted. fuck
em.
thanks goes out to Louis Proyect for the Gays and the left article. also
even tho it outrages me to see ppl claiming to be leftish spread anti-gay
propaganda, it makes me feel good that most of you on the list was equally
outraged. I think the topic is very interesting, as even my organisation
has A HISTORY of not being anti-gay, but having some pretty strange views
about why gay people are gay. thankfully that is gone, but we still suffer
from it ("oh, yer in that stalinist-antigay party"). I am proud to wear a
badge made by the dutch communist punkgroup Seein Red with a red
"downpointing" triangle (as the pink "downpoiting" triangle is a "gay-logo"
(sorry about my english)), even tho I am not gay. also I'd like to quote
the same band to sum this up:
"swing your baseballbat make it clear, no more fagbashing here" (even tho
it sounds a bit anarchist)
staffan snitting of Revolutionary communistic youth, sweden
*****************************************
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Weklu@aol.com
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 06:55:29 EDT
Subject: L-I: Trotsky on homosexuality?
[This post was delayed because it was sent from an address not
subscr*bed to the list; it was forwarded by Hans Ehrbar]
Since the debate on homosexuality began some quotations from
Lenin, Engels, Bebel and others were posted.
It was said that Stalin criminalized homosexuality in the 1930s (but
nothing about his reasons to do it). What about Trotsky? Can
anyone tell
us what he said about? Did he wrote something about
homosexuality?
weklu
*****************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 09:48:26 +0000
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Doug Henwood
> All you homophobes, sign up!
>
> Doug
>
Another one-liner from the individualistically sex-obssessed
Manhattan Marxists and one more proof of their prowess of
analysis and their actual indulging in the practice of 'baiting'.
Like a refree in a soccer game, they have two cards. The first one is
yellow and has the words 'homophobe' inscribed on it. If that does
not work, they will whip out the red one that contain the word
"Hitler". Like George Bush and the mass media who were frenetically
using this very same word in the 1990s. (And this is also the way
they analyze the fascism of the present era.)
In that, they follow in the footsteps of their ideological masters.
In their banners, are the words "free love" and "free sex", the very
same views that are promulgated world wide by the ruling classes
through all their channels of misinformation and disinformation which
drag the intellectual and cultural levels of the masses to the ground
- to the base level where the bourgeois wants. They march with the
pictures of the new liberated capitalist woman, Ortega, Borges,
Villalobos, Castro, while pouring scorn on the leaders of great
revolutions (past and present) whose ideas are diametrically opposed
to the prescriptions and admonitions of Manhattan Marxism. What
supreme arrogance and what a joke.
And the list moderator, who see various lists (and people,
presumably) as playing 'complementary' roles, wonders at the reasons
for this 'strange outburst'. At this caricature passing for Marxism.
Father, please let us have our (apolitical) rut in peace before
we finally "rest in peace"!
*****************************************
From: "E.C.Apling" <E.C.Apling@BTINTERNET.COM>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: RE: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT on the election campaign in Germany
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 13:32:11 +0100
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
> [mailto:owner-leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu]On Behalf Of
> Carrol Cox
> Sent: 06 October 1998 20:57
> To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
> Subject: Re: L-I: NEUE EINHEIT on the election campaign in Germany
>
>
>
>
> E.C.Apling wrote: "This is all old hat - homosexuality was
> decriminalised in
> 1957 - what the hell do they want to be going on about it still in 1998?
> Sexuality, in whatever form, is a *private* matter - it is
> disgusting to parade
> advocacy of some form of it in the streets."
>
> This is not worth arguing against, but it is worth labelling as
> the most malign
> form of homophobia, the kind that under an umbrella of supposed
> "toleration" in
> fact claims that those being beaten, driven from their jobs,
> mocked, deprived of
> their children, ... are the ones who are causing the trouble. All
> would have
> been well in the 1960s if those damn Vietnam peasants and those damn black
> ghetto dwellers had only been decent about their oppression and
> not made such a
> fuss.
>
> Carrol
>
This attack just smacks of the Zionist response to criticism of Israel as
"blatant anti-semitism". It is not really worth a reply.
Paddy
Mailto:E.C.Apling@btinternet.com
>
>
>
>
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 16:19:22 +0100
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M@netcomuk.co.uk>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: WARNING TO NEUE EINHEIT was Re: L-I: to the moderators
Kerdudo wrote:
> i'm not used to appealing to anyone for censorship but i am alarmed to see
> that the group neue einheit has been allowed to so openly air its view on
> the question of homosexuality. having been given the right of reply i feel
> that this is perfectly sufficient. are there any rules regarding attitutes
> which will not be tolerated on this list beyond a reasonable point, eg.
> what are we to expect next, to have to defend the fact that blacks are not
> inately inferior to whites based on brain size or that women should not be
> allowed to vote?
I'm inclined to agree that this thread has run its course. Neue Einheit have
nothing new or interesting to say and what they do say is assertions and the
crudest kind of unsubstantiated prejudice without any pretence of rational
argument let alone science. Nevertheless they have the sole merit of
stimulating others, and I have read with real interest some of the other
contributions to this thread, as have others no doubt.
Since communists inevitably do meet all kinds of reactionary ideas coming from
the mouths of their fellow workers, there is some point in rehearsing the
arguments in a forum such as this. That is the main reason I let NE run on so
long. However I have reached the limit of my patience so this is just to let
Klas Ber and his pals know that any more homophobic remarks will result in
Neue Einheit being excluded from the list.
Mark Jones
--
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~jones_m/frontline.htm
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 11:31:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: John P Lacny <jplst15+@pitt.edu>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
OK, I'm coming into the middle of this exchange, but I feel I have
to say something. To claim that discrimination against homosexuals is all
in the past, and that therefore homosexuals should just quit whining now,
is objectively homophobic. It is to oppose the movement for the rights of
gays and lesbians. This is a movement against both the legal impediments
to full citizenship for gays and lesbians, and the structural
discrimination which exists against people who are "out of the closet"--
most especially working people who come out of the closet, and thereby
risk getting fired from their jobs.
In most countries, homosexuals do not have the right to marriage.
Now, don't give me all that crap about how marriage is just a bourgeois
institution anyway. If there was an attempt at the reinstitution of
miscegenation laws in the American South, for example, we would be raising
hell, and rightfully so. To shut people out of even bourgeois
institutions because of race, gender, sexual orientation, or whatever, is
a fundamental attack on democratic rights. That's why the French left
correctly saw the attack on Dreyfus as an attack on the republic-- as an
attack on the (admittedly limited) democratic rights the working class
had achieved-- and defended Dreyfus. It didn't matter that Dreyfus was an
army officer and that the army was an oppressive institution; what
mattered was that anti-Semitism was (1) inherently unjust in and of
itself, and (2) a gathering point for reaction.
Anti-gay sentiment is a similar gathering point for reaction
today. It has the potential to serve exactly the same function that Bebel
attributed to anti-Semitism: "the socialism of fools." Take, for example,
the ruling of the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia,
who, in defense of a Colorado law against civil rights protections for
gays and lesbians, alleged that homosexuals as a group were better off
economically than the rest of society-- and therefore, by implication,
were not worthy of protection by the law. This kind of development-- this
targetting of a specific population as privileged and wealthy by
right-wing forces who otherwise ignore inequality-- smacks of classic
demagoguery, and shows the true nature of political homophobia: it is a
tool of reaction. Leftists who grab at the bait do so at their own peril
and at the peril of the left generally.
As for those who would brush off accusations of homophobia by
comparing them to Zionist accusations of anti-Semitism: does the fact that
false accusations of anti-Semitism get thrown around mean that it is now
impossible for anyone to be anti-Semitic? or that it's impossible to make
an anti-Semitic statement? I think not.
For the sake of argument, let's say you encounter an individual
who makes the following statement:
"The US supports the Jew because of Jew money and the fact that
the Jew dominates American law, finance, and the media."
Now, I think it's pretty obvious that that statement is
anti-Semitic, and there's a good chance that the person who says it is an
anti-Semite. Whether he says it in 1933 or 1998, it's an anti-Semitic
statement. The Zionists, who so often throw around false accusations of
anti-Semitism, would be right if they labeled this statement anti-Semitic.
There's no contradiction there; this should be easy to understand.
(By the way, the statement itself is taken verbatim from a post on
the MARXISM-INTERNATIONAL list on Thursday, August 20, by-- you guessed
it-- Louis Godena.)
Call me a "Manhattan Marxist" if you want, but it seems to me that
if you're a gay man who's having his head bashed in by a thug, you
probably wouldn't see gay liberation as an irrelevant "bourgeois" side
issue.
My two cents,
John Lacny
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 12:39:01 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Siddharth Chatterjee wrote:
>In that, they follow in the footsteps of their ideological masters.
>In their banners, are the words "free love" and "free sex", the very
>same views that are promulgated world wide by the ruling classes
>through all their channels of misinformation and disinformation which
>drag the intellectual and cultural levels of the masses to the ground
>- to the base level where the bourgeois wants.
This is just pure nonsense. Your email address says you're posting from the
United States, and I've actually seen you in person on Manhattan Island,
which is part of the United States, even if not on the mainland. So I guess
it wouldn't make much sense to ask you what planet you're on, as much as
I'm tempted. So instead I'll ask you where you ever got the idea that the
bourgeoisie is encouraging rampant and unconventional fucking among the
masses. Do you realize that something called the Defense of Marriage Act
was passed by Congress last year? That the so-called welfare reform bill -
officially the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996
- has these as its first words:
>The Congress makes the following findings:
>
>(1) Marriage is the foundation of a successful society.
>
>(2) Marriage is an essential institution of a successful society which
>promotes the interests of children.
>
>(3) Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is integral to
>successful child rearing and the well-being of children.
>
>(4) In 1992, only 54 percent of single-parent families with children had
>a child support order established and, of that 54 percent, only about
>one-half received the full amount due. Of the cases enforced through the
>public child support enforcement system, only 18 percent of the caseload
>has a collection.
>
>(5) The number of individuals receiving aid to families with dependent
>children (in this section referred to as `AFDC') has more than tripled
>since 1965. More than two-thirds of these recipients are children.
>Eighty-nine percent of children receiving AFDC benefits now live in
>homes in which no father is present.
In other words, bourgeois marriage is official policy in the U.S.,
*especially* for the lower orders. Henry Hyde and others can commit their
youthful indiscretions, but the masses are expected to behave. Poor lesbian
Ellen can't even keep her TV show on the air.
I'm wondering what all you austere revolutionaries see as your utopia?
Wouldn't more pleasure be part of it? Or should we work work work to
produce even more steel than we can under capitalism?
Doug
*****************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 18:27:38 +0000
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Mark Jones
> But the problem with Sid's recent outbursts is not just that they are shrill
> and unnecessarily hostile, and also not very logical: the problem is that Sid
> has begun to apologise for the homophobia and antisemitism of troglodyte
> stalinists like Klas Ber and the evil Louis Godena.
Since you have made the above charge, I am asking you to provide
concrete proof of this. Both for homophobia and for antisemitism. If
you cannot do so, then you should withdraw your allegation. Also,
remember that I am not running for a popularity contest among the
Manhattan crowd of opportunists and revisionists (apparently your new
friends - the real 'left'). So it does not matter what they or the
others say.
But since I know you somewhat, I am wondering why you are alleging
this. From the very beginning, I have made my opinion clear. That
any attack by the state or society on consensual homosexuals has to
be condemned and opposed since it is private matter. Do I have to
repeat this in every post? My object was not the analysis of
homosexuality but the very notion of bourgeois sexuality of which
homosexuality is certainly a component as are heterosexual marriage
and free love.
But no one has answered some of the questions I have raised. And by
the way, for the millions and millions of hungry impoverished
people on the planet, this issue is not an issue at all at the
present time. And I am sorry that I too have spilled unecessary
ink on the matter. The famished and hungry people of Asia, Latin
America and Africa have no movements that represents their life and
death chances unlike the powerful bourgeois women's and gay rights
movements that today exist in the rich countries. And quite a few
among the ruling classes are supporters of such rights. Many people
on this list do not know, understand or comprehend real oppression or
even the source of true fascism today for that matter. That is why
they use this term very loosely like the boy who cried 'wolf'.
So which side do you stand on, Mark? With the Eurocentric Manhattan
'Marxists' of the Ortega, Castro, Borges, Villalobos, Marcos (who by
the way has become a sex symbol in Mexico) variety who heap insult
and abuse like loose cannons and who make prescriptions to "get
laid", which if made to a women would surely be considered anti-woman
and sexist? Who pour scorn and insult on Engels and Lenin and lay
baits for "homophobes"? Or on the other side.
It is time that you too laid your cards on the table.
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 19:59:23 +0100
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M@netcomuk.co.uk>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
John P Lacny wrote:
> As for those who would brush off accusations of homophobia by
> comparing them to Zionist accusations of anti-Semitism: does the fact that
> false accusations of anti-Semitism get thrown around mean that it is now
> impossible for anyone to be anti-Semitic? or that it's impossible to make
> an anti-Semitic statement? I think not.
>
This is so self-evidently true that it saddens me to see someone like Sid
Chatterjee make such statements in the first place. John Lacny and others who
criticised Sid have been right to do so.
I have always had a lot of time for Sid, who struck me as a serious and
committed activist, if a little over-earnest at times, and if he has a
tendency to get trapped into cycles of flaming, which of us doesn't from time
to time?
But the problem with Sid's recent outbursts is not just that they are shrill
and unnecessarily hostile, and also not very logical: the problem is that Sid
has begun to apologise for the homophobia and antisemitism of troglodyte
stalinists like Klas Ber and the evil Louis Godena. This is something we have
to be very clear about: homophobia and antisemitism have always flourished in
the dank and seamier undersides of the working class movement historically.
The politics of Hitler and Mussolini was fertilised in this soil, remember.
Antisemitism, racism and homophobia, especially the latent, inarticulate or
disguised kinds, are especially dangerous and must be dragged into the light of
day; and those who are its bearers must not be given houseroom in our
movement. This is the politics of imperialism within the workers' movement.
Sometimes it is necessary to let evil manifest itself in order to
better expose and destroy it. We have done that. But Neue Einheit --
like Adolfo Olaechea and the antisemite Louis Godena -- have no place
alongside us. They are not part of the left, even tho' they have usurped
our emblems and catchwords. In fact unpleasant little organisms like
Marxism-International or NE hate the left - Godena recently called for the
execution of trade union leaders as necessary to overcome 'social
fascism'. Godena and Olaechea are provocateurs who drove the real left
out of M-Int, and their vicious anti-gay, anti-semitic, anti-working
class politics shows that they are witting or unwitting agents of
imperialism.
> "The US supports the Jew because of Jew money and the fact that
> the Jew dominates American law, finance, and the media."
>
I am not a subscriber of M-Int but I did see this posting by Louis Godena and
I was astonished by it. It is clear evidence that Godena and Olaechea have
moved beyond the pale: they are not part of us. We should anathematize them.
Sven Buttler and other who call Neue Einheit 'Nazis' are literally
correct: they ARE Nazis. In my own Party our policy towards Nazis is to
'acquaint their heads with the pavement', as Trotsky put it. The fact that we
have debated these issues should not allow anyone to supose that the presence
of such people on this list is welcome; it is not.
Mark Jones
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~jones_m/frontline.htm
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 16:24:20 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: "Matt D." <mattd@tfn.net>
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Mark Jones wrote:
>This is so self-evidently true that it saddens me to see someone like Sid
>Chatterjee make such statements in the first place. John Lacny and others who
>criticised Sid have been right to do so.
To try and tar Sid with the brush of Olechea/Godena -- not to mention
homophobia -- is just ridiculous! From the *very beginning* Sid has
*explicitly* supported the unconditional defense of those oppressed by
*illegal or legal* means on the basis of their sexuality.
At the same time, he has attempted to initiate a conversation about the
Marxist-Leninist analysis of sexuality grounded in the history of our
movement and illuminated by an appreciation that the masses who will make
history for the most part don't live in the metropoles. If we are to get
any real handle on this extremely complex issue, which integrates perhaps
more closely than any other history, biology, economy and psychology, we
*must* go beyond the facile "free love" bullshit advanced by the likes of
Henwood and Proyect.
They have repeatedly mis-represented Sid, who has *never* endorsed
gay-bashing and whose own testimony is *explicitly* against any such
terroristic crap. They have repeatedly *refused* to engage any of the
serious questions he has tried to raise. The have repeatedly alternated
between appealing to Lenin and dismissing Lenin (whom they seem to
completely misunderstand anyway), without ever engaging the material that
Sid was kind enough to forward to the list.
As for the NE hate-mongers and the blockheads who can't see through their
game, they are an authentic -- and authentically ugly -- part of our
tradition. I agree with Mark that they are objectively on the side of
fascism, and must be dealt with as such.
But Sid has not at any point had any truck with these folks, so to toss
slurs in his direction as has been done is *exactly* like the accusations
of anti-Semitism used by Zionists *not* to call out real anti-Semites, but
to foreclose the possibility of any discussion at all.
As for Proyect's abominable admonition to "go get laid" -- why has this not
been called out? It's absolutely beneath contempt, the *exact* same
rhetorical strategy employed against women who attempt to raise the veil
that obscures the sexual culture of our times. We might expect something
like that from Henwood, the same "liberated" individual who found it a lark
to inflict Tracy Quan on the marxism-feminism list back in the day. It's
too bad that Proyect seems to be degenerating in this same fashion. Maybe
there is something to the thesis of "Manhattan Marxism" as a Sadean (cf.
"Frenchmen, if you would be republicans!") variant of modern revisionism.
-- Matt D.
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 17:10:13 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Godena wrote:
> "The US supports the Jew because of Jew money and the fact that
> the Jew dominates American law, finance, and the media."
This is truly extraordinary. When I first encountered Godena in cyberland,
he was a cranky but often compellingly interesting character. When I left
M-I, he was giving me a hard time over what I thought was Gore Vidal's
flirtations with anti-Semitism, of the upper class WASPy sort. Godena
thought this was outrageous, and clung to the distinction between
anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. I'm all for that distinction, but it's
obvious that Godena's gone over to the wrong side. What happened to him?
Where does this come from?
Doug
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 18:03:38 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Matt D:
>To try and tar Sid with the brush of Olechea/Godena -- not to mention
>homophobia -- is just ridiculous! From the *very beginning* Sid has
>*explicitly* supported the unconditional defense of those oppressed by
>*illegal or legal* means on the basis of their sexuality.
As I tried to make clear, it has been Sid Chatterjee's modus operandi to
never exactly come out and state the same things as Godena, Olaechea or
Neue Einheit. Instead what he does is make a big show of agnosticism while
giving aid and comfort to the extremists. In the debates on Cuba as
"fascist", Sid never came out and agreed with this position. What he does
is talk about prostitution in Cuba, the Pope's visit, trade with
multinationals, etc. This is the same stuff that Godena and Olaechea come
up with, but they connect the dots and state that Cuba IS fascist. Sid
seems to lack the guts to come out and openly state such an extremist and
stupid position, but he skates around it.
The same thing happened with the gay question. While giving lip-service to
the rights of gay people not to be thrown in prison for same-sex relations,
he writes obnoxious posts about incest, libertinism in 1920s Russia, and a
host of other issues that tend to objectively make defenders of gay rights
look like perverts. He, like you, have never really come to grips with the
politics of the question. The RCP, a group you used to belong to, made no
bones about calling a spade a spade. They described homosexuality as a
"bourgeois perversion." Furthermore, both of you are totally uncritical of
Stalin, who made same-sex illegal in the 1930s. Neither of you have the
guts to openly distinguish yourselves from Neue Einheit, nor do you have
the guts to state that the RCP was wrong and Stalin was wrong. So instead
you raise all sorts of red herrings about Russian CP students spending too
much time in the sack instead of making leaflets, or pedophilia, or whether
animals do or not.
Both of you are beneath characters like Olaechea who at least has the
courage of his convictions.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 18:30:29 -0400
From: Martin Schreader <martin@marxists.org>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Doug Henwood wrote in response to Godena's anti-Semitism:
>
> Where does this come from?
>
Adolfo Olachea.
Martin
--
Martin Schreader <martin@marxists.org>
Director, V.I. Lenin Internet Archive
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/
Marxists' Internet Archive -- http://www.marxists.org/
--
"Proletarians and semi-proletarians of city and country, organize
yourselves separately! Place no trust in any small proprietors,
even the petty ones, even those who 'toil'."
(V.I. Lenin, Collected Works [Goszdat, 1927], Vol. 9)
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 19:09:16 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Siddharth Chatterjee wrote:
>Also,
>remember that I am not running for a popularity contest among the
>Manhattan crowd of opportunists and revisionists (apparently your new
>friends - the real 'left'). So it does not matter what they or the
>others say.
Your rhetoric here belies the rest of your protestations of tolerance -
this is just the kind of turn of phrase you'd expect out of George Wallace
or some code-word-using devious bourgeois politician. I'll bet there are
same sexers and worse all over Syracuse, maybe even on your block, Sid.
Doug
*****************************************
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 19:54:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: John P Lacny <jplst15+@pitt.edu>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Siddharth Chatterjee wrote:
>And by the way, for the millions and millions of hungry impoverished
>people on the planet, this issue is not an issue at all at the
>present time.
This is just a cheap rhetorical trick. It's in the same league
with the small-minded thinking of rightists who love to say that the
poor in the U.S. are not "really" poor because poor people in the Third
World are even poorer. What nonsense. The issue here seems to be whether
we, as Marxists, should combat tendencies towards homophobia within our
own ranks. Chatterjee, while pleading his own opposition to homophobia,
seems to think it's not really important for us to oppose it, because it's
"just not an issue at all" for the poor of the Third World. Where's the
logic here?
John Lacny
*****************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 01:05:21 +0000
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
John P Lacny:
> This is just a cheap rhetorical trick. It's in the same league
> with the small-minded thinking of rightists who love to say that the
> poor in the U.S. are not "really" poor because poor people in the Third
> World are even poorer. What nonsense. The issue here seems to be whether
> we, as Marxists, should combat tendencies towards homophobia within our
> own ranks. Chatterjee, while pleading his own opposition to homophobia,
> seems to think it's not really important for us to oppose it, because it's
> "just not an issue at all" for the poor of the Third World. Where's the
> logic here?
>
> John Lacny
Since we are on the subject of homophobia, Father Lacny, what is your
opinion of Allen Ginsburg?
PS: By the way, I am not 'pleading' with any of you or your holy
brethren of the revisionist Manhattan flock. Let us get that clear.
And you are most welcome to oppose homophobia all you like. After
all, it is very fashionable (even within the ranks of the bourgeosie)
and heroic nowadays to address gay liberation, womens's liberation,
human liberation, etc . Class has almost vanished from the picture.
Amen!
*****************************************
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 01:09:11 +0100
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M@netcomuk.co.uk>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Sid
Let's try to avoid a show-trial atmosphere. No-one is on trial, except the
unashamed, open homophobes and antisemites. BTW, it's not enough just to say where
one stands (we all oppose attacks on the rights of consenting adults to do what
they please). As some people have been doing, it is also necessary above all to
expose the antisemites, racists and homophobes for what they are and to denounce
them. You did not appear to do that. Perhaps I misunderstood something. And this is
not a marginal issue and it is pointless to try to weight the relevance of gay or
race issues against the fate of the sufferring masses in the neocolonial
countries.For one thing, establishing freedom from sexual or racial persecution
does not detract or diminish struggles in neocolonial countries; so to drag that in
is just a red herring. Secondly, imperialism always uses racist untermenschen
theories to justify precisely its pillaging wars in the neocolonies, so the
interests of the neocolonial masses are also served by that struggle. This is just
ABC, Sid.
Siddharth Chatterjee wrote:
> [snip]
> remember that I am not running for a popularity contest among the
> Manhattan crowd of opportunists and revisionists (apparently your new
> friends - the real 'left'). So it does not matter what they or the
> others say.
If you call people like Lou Proyect and Doug Henwood 'the
Manhattan crowd of opportunists and revisionists' then you can expect a few
raspberries back. It is simply silly to dismiss them like. They are not
opportunists and revisionists, but you are highly, perhaps hopelessly, sectarian,
to say they are.
> My object was not the analysis of
> homosexuality but the very notion of bourgeois sexuality of which
> homosexuality is certainly a component as are heterosexual marriage
> and free love.
I am sure that is your objective and sometimes you write very well on that subject.
If you quit banging on about the Manhattan socialists etc and get back on track, it
would be good.
> But no one has answered some of the questions I have raised.
That is also true, and a shame, but part of the reason is that while asking your
questions you are also insulting people! So what do you expect?
> And by
> the way, for the millions and millions of hungry impoverished
> people on the planet, this issue is not an issue at all at the
> present time. And I am sorry that I too have spilled unecessary
> ink on the matter. The famished and hungry people of Asia, Latin
> America and Africa have no movements that represents their life and
> death chances unlike the powerful bourgeois women's and gay rights
> movements that today exist in the rich countries. And quite a few
> among the ruling classes are supporters of such rights. Many people
> on this list do not know, understand or comprehend real oppression or
> even the source of true fascism today for that matter. That is why
> they use this term very loosely like the boy who cried 'wolf'.
Actually, women's and children's rights bear crucially on struggles for social
justice in the neocolonies. These kinds of struggles ARE all interlinked and should
all be discussed.
> So which side do you stand on, Mark? With the Eurocentric Manhattan
> 'Marxists' of the Ortega, Castro, Borges, Villalobos, Marcos (who by
> the way has become a sex symbol in Mexico) variety who heap insult
> and abuse like loose cannons and who make prescriptions to "get
> laid", which if made to a women would surely be considered anti-woman
> and sexist? Who pour scorn and insult on Engels and Lenin and lay
> baits for "homophobes"? Or on the other side.
Sid, I'm happy to discuss any and all of the above with you, but not like this.
Life's too short.
Mark--
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~jones_m/frontline.htm
*****************************************
From: "Brett Murphy" <brettm@alphalink.com.au>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Re: Lenin on Sex: 2
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 13:11:50 +1000
An interesting paragraph I will say. Could you explain it in a few sentences
instead of paragraphs?
Brett
*****************************************
From: Krixel@aol.com
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 08:51:22 EDT
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: L-I: Incredible slanderings and helplessness
Indescribable slanderings and helplessness
Dear Mr. Jones, and Mr. Kerdudo who acts like a public overseer,
the accusation of Nazism is absurd and laughable and justified by absolutely
nothing.
Apparently you attempt to bring about the end of the discussion. Of course we
shall continue to post the necessary explanations to it. If you block this
there just will not be a further participation in the discussion. We do not
depend on your list and we shall possibly talk about your miserable measures
from other points of the net. You don't shrink back from any kind of
slanderings and insinuations which are completely absurd, only in order to
give some alleged credibility to your balking at criticism.
The experiences with the list during the latest discussion, the Trotskyite-
fascist standpoints which actually became evident in the cases of numerous
participants don't not make it attractive for us, anyway, to considerably post
contributions there. The Trotskyite writers have attacked us, we have
answered, and we have ready still more answers, and if you interrupt the
discussion only your weakness and wretchedness are being shown.
Besides, we dispute your right to decide alone if we can post to this list or
not!!
PS about your latest posting which we got just now.
This documents your real Trotskism and helplessness. You and your companions
are hit by the criticism. Nazism you cannot find an any of our writings or in
our practice. The group Roter Morgen - a relic of a three times traitor
organization - is so much disreputed in our country that it is not necessary
to go into their unproven assertions which they spread into the wind.
posted by Krixel in behalf of:
Group Neue Einheit
Hartmut Dicke
*****************************************
From: "Kerdudo" <kerdudo@jet.es>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: RE: Incredible slanderings and helplessness
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 07:34:50 +0100
i did say that i would refrain from taking part in this thread afer having
made my own pesonal position clear (two posts: one reagrding my actual
position itself re marxism and the gay question and the second a note to
the moderators). it would seem that someone has taken offence to this
latter note and as i have been mentioned in person as someone alledgedly
responsile for banying around accustations of lander vis a vis neue einheit
i feel bound to reply. i shall reply in points:
1. i have apparently been put in the same bag as Mr. Jones. i should like
to make it very clear that i do not know mr. jones nor have i ever met him.
as to whether or not we can be referred to as 'you and your companions' is
therefore rather dubious as all i know of mr. jone's politics is whatever
he has stated on this list. i also doyubt that he hasd any deep insights
into the plitics of the party i belong to (and whoe views i do not
necessarily represent on this list - i speak in a purely personal capacity
as i have pointed out many time before). nor, for the record, do i have
anything to do with (even know) roter morgen (or for that matter most of th
parties represented by the people participating on this list)
2. as for mr. jones being labelled a trotskyite, this is somehing i rather
doubt based on my experience of other postings of his to this list. i for
one completely refute this label - for your information my own personal
political formation is essential pro-albanian (but being a true marxist,
this does not of course mean that i recognise everything stalin or hoxha
happened to ever say on any topic under the sun to be gospel truth)
3. i completely refite the fact that i have ever accused either neue
einheit or any other person or group on this net 'nazi'. this is not a term
i would ver use lightly. i would appeal to you, therefore, as a gesture of
sincereity, to withdraw this particular accustaion
4. regarding the note posted to the moderators (the exact wording of which
i forget) i should like to say that i do not believe that i ever accused
your party of being a nazi gfroup. i do not know your party or its politics
- i stated the fact that the thread grew up from a comment regarding a
programmatical point of yopur party to which you responded and i stated
quite clearly that i beleive this right to reply to be essential. howver, i
felt - and still feel - that this particular thread is both going nowhere
useful (not only has no one actually managed to see reason or learn from
the debate in anyway given the fact that the stances have remained
unchanged but further it seems to be degenerating into yet another personal
slanging match) and should come to an end (not because of censorship per se
but becasue nothing new is really being said and we're just going round in
circles)
5. as far as censorship in itself is concerned, may i remind the person
from neue einheit who made the accustaions against me listed in the post
below that i (unlike neue einheit) have particpated actively on this list
for quite some time. if you have been passively watching from the side
lines over this same period you with have noticed that prcedents do exist
for calling it a day, closing a debate on the main list and inviting those
who wish to continue with the discussion to do so on a mini list (this is
what i understood to have happened with the long-running stalin-trotsky
saga)
6. finally, may i say that i do not take kindly to veiled threats. whilst i
can only assume you have other channels open to you, i hardly beleive that
were this debate to be closed it would provide reason enough for you (or
anyone else for that matter) to start attacking them (in what ways you do
not say) through the net. if i have misunderstood the terms of your message
below, i hereby withdraw this accustaion of you making threats and
apoligize for this publicly on the list. (you see, i am actually quite
polite and careful about the words i use which does not mean that i mince
my words - this is hardly in line with me accusing anyone i don't know of
being a nazi)
7. incidentally, i for one have no way of blocking any mails from getting
onto this list - i am not a moderator, just someone who is interested in
this list not becoming monotematic (stalin-trotsky, should on defend the
russian communists and now the gay question....). that is why i 'appealed'
to the moderator to reflect on this matter - that is what moderators are
for surely. my appeal was made in a purely personal capacity and was not
intended to exclude you in particular just an attempt to say maybe it's
time to move on to pastures greener.
revolutionary greetings,
neal
----------
> De: Krixel@aol.com
> A: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
> Asunto: L-I: Incredible slanderings and helplessness
> Fecha: jueves 8 de octubre de 1998 13:51
>
>
> Indescribable slanderings and helplessness
>
> Dear Mr. Jones, and Mr. Kerdudo who acts like a public overseer,
>
> the accusation of Nazism is absurd and laughable and justified by absolutely
> nothing.
> Apparently you attempt to bring about the end of the discussion. Of course we
> shall continue to post the necessary explanations to it. If you block this
> there just will not be a further participation in the discussion. We do not
> depend on your list and we shall possibly talk about your miserable measures
> from other points of the net. You don't shrink back from any kind of
> slanderings and insinuations which are completely absurd, only in order to
> give some alleged credibility to your balking at criticism.
> The experiences with the list during the latest discussion, the Trotskyite-
> fascist standpoints which actually became evident in the cases of numerous
> participants don't not make it attractive for us, anyway, to considerably post
> contributions there. The Trotskyite writers have attacked us, we have
> answered, and we have ready still more answers, and if you interrupt the
> discussion only your weakness and wretchedness are being shown.
> Besides, we dispute your right to decide alone if we can post to this list or
> not!!
>
> PS about your latest posting which we got just now.
>
> This documents your real Trotskism and helplessness. You and your companions
> are hit by the criticism. Nazism you cannot find an any of our writings or in
> our practice. The group Roter Morgen - a relic of a three times traitor
> organization - is so much disreputed in our country that it is not necessary
> to go into their unproven assertions which they spread into the wind.
>
> posted by Krixel in behalf of:
>
> Group Neue Einheit
> Hartmut Dicke
>
>
>
*****************************************
From: "John Ky" <hand@syd.speednet.com.au>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Shouting about homosexuality
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 18:47:19 +1000
>I must say that for the last decade or so I have been
>more and more disturbed, annoyed, scandalised, sickened
>(can't think of any more words at the moment), by the
>brazen displays, descrptions, advocacy (etc. etc) of
>homosexuality continually confronting us on TV and the
>media generally.
>
>Sexuality, in whatever form, is a *private* matter -
>it is disgusting to parade advocacy of some form of
>it in the streets.
>
>Anyone who continually shouts out that "I'm a
>homosexual" or "I'm gay" - or even on the contrary
>(but I have never heard anyone do it) "I'm heterosexual"
>- puts him/herself immediately beyond the pale, and is
>to be resolutely avoided (and how to understand how
>anyone can put forward "defence of "gay" rights" as a
>revolutionary slogan completely defeats me - at least
>with regard to UK or anywhere where "gays" are not
>criminalised).
>
>homosexuality *does* exist [snip] but then none of
>them go round shouting about it!!
Yes, it would be nice if these things didn't happen,
but the homosexuals who participate in these displays
aren't the only ones to blame. Just look around:
+ There are people who stand along the steets
+ There are people who turn on the television
+ The media is always hot on these events
+ The government and certain corporations are finding
these events very profitable.
+ There are politicians who try to grasp onto more
votes by supporting popular events.
+ There are heterosexuals being involved as well.
I am not so sure homosexuality will ever be accepted
in capitalism as is. It has become more of an exhibition.
It may well be that homosexuals have earned their freedom
and security by:
+ Openly declaring it for safety in numbers
+ Being profitable to the bourgeoise government and the
corporations that stage these displays.
+ Trying to get the message that "being homosexual is okay"
to heterosexuals and unselfproclaimed homosexuals alike.
(As Martin has pointed out that mental illness in homosexuals
is a result of the the trauma that comes with discovering
that one is gay. I gather there would be a shortage of
homosexual role-models as homosexuals are born to heterosexual
families.)
I cannot say - I am quite unlearned in this issue - but I do
believe the matter is deeper than what you suggest.
All the best,
John Ky.
*****************************************
From: "Sven Buttler" <sven.buttler@metronet.de>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Re: Incredible slanderings and helplessness
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 17:04:56 +0200
>This documents your real Trotskism and helplessness. You and your companions
>are hit by the criticism. Nazism you cannot find an any of our writings or in
>our practice. The group Roter Morgen - a relic of a three times traitor
>organization - is so much disreputed in our country that it is not necessary
>to go into their unproven assertions which they spread into the wind.
Hear, hear. And that is coming from the fascist mouths of a "group"
nobody ever heard of in Dortmund/Berlin, let alone in the rest of Germany.
Their website reads:
"...The triple naming KPD/ML (Neue Einheit) in this way is no longer
necessary,
the term "party" is outdated since a long time. "
HaHaHa. One of the better examples of irony to be found on the web.
I guess the term party is "outdated" ( of course they mean 'no longer legal' )
since they have not been able to attract at least three people necessary to
build a party....
I am not going to respond to any further messages of GNE and I appeal
to every one on L-I to do the same. They already got enough attention,
much more than they deserved.
---
Sven Buttler
Leninist International Capital Reading Group
http://www.angelfire.com/co/socialism
Communist Party of Germany
http://home.t-online.de/home/KPD-Roter-Morgen/
*************************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 12:36:47 +0000
Subject: Re: L-I: Re: Incredible slanderings and helplessness
Sven Butler:
>
> Hear, hear. And that is coming from the fascist mouths of a "group"
> nobody ever heard of in Dortmund/Berlin, let alone in the rest of Germany.
>
The GNE has certainly a backward, a medieval position on the issue of
homosexuality. But does this single fact mean that they are fascist
like Hitler as the Trotskyites and Orwell (who was as in now
revealed, a police spy) lovers are trying to paint? Are they in
league with finance capital and imperialist bourgeoisie? Do they march with the
fascists and have the same or similar program?
You have to examine the whole spectrum before you rush to judgment.
Perhaps, since you live in the same country as they, can provide
information about their other activities that conclusively prove
their deliberate collusion with fascism. Do not reply with saying
that their homophobia directly serves the bourgeoisie because one can
cite numerous examples of the anarcho-Trotskyites and even all of us
who someway and or the other also serve captitalism.
Do not fall for the repugnant and hypocritical moralizing of the
Manhattan school. This empty moralizing is also common among
anarchists. For these are same people who call Stalin a mass
murderer, heap abuse on Lenin (and when caught, retreat and lie
their way out), refer to the 'homophobia' of Engels, and even throw
mud on Marx for subscribing to the notion that the relation between
men and women was 'natural'. Besides their making fun and mockery of
a certain type of 'Thought', the representative of which is currently
either dead or languishing in the dungeons of a fascist govt in a
third-world country. And what is all this but the very same things
which the capitalist class and media repeat ad infinitum. If this is
not collusion at a much higher level, then what is?
So was Stalin a Nazi too? Since he signed the pact with Hitler. For
that's ultimately what the Trotskyites and capitalist intellectuals
say. So think before you consort with sly hypocritical foxes.
*****************************************
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 11:00:30 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: "Matt D." <mattd@tfn.net>
Subject: L-I: Matt replies to Lou Proyect.
Lou Proyect wrote:
>The same thing happened with the gay question. While giving lip-service to
>the rights of gay people not to be thrown in prison for same-sex relations,
>he [Sid] writes obnoxious posts about incest, libertinism in 1920s Russia,
and a
>host of other issues that tend to objectively make defenders of gay rights
>look like perverts.
I think if you revisit these posts, you will see that these issues were
raised in
relation to those whose approach to the complex issues of human sexuality
consists of the slogans "free love" and "if it feels good, do it".
>He, like you, have never really come to grips with the
>politics of the question. The RCP, a group you used to belong to, made no
>bones about calling a spade a spade. They described homosexuality as a
>"bourgeois perversion."
Well, RCYB. Sort of the baby RCP, I guess. In any event, I am surprised
that you would say I've not come to grips with "the politics of the question"
since you were present early in the history of the old marxism list (am I
showing my age?) when these issues came up in the context of identity
politics more broadly and when I was a more energetic and probably more
witty participant than is now the case. Certainly you could check the
archives if you'd like to refresh your memory.
>Furthermore, both of you are totally uncritical of
>Stalin, who made same-sex illegal in the 1930s. Neither of you have the
>guts to openly distinguish yourselves from Neue Einheit
Lou, in *the message I just posted that you quoted* I thought I distinguished
myself very clearly. Perhaps you could take another look. If I recall, you'll
find the point of interest in the third to last paragraph. If going back
to reread
this is too much trouble, drop me a line and I will send you another copy of
my post off-list.
>nor do you have
>the guts to state that the RCP was wrong and Stalin was wrong.
With regard to the former, you again seem to have forgotten the extensive
discussions about this on the old marxism list. Please check the archives.
As for the latter, what do you mean? Are you suggesting that the USSR
of the 1930s wasn't the earthly paradise? Are you suggesting that not
every decision made by Stalin and other leaders during the period was the
most correct of all possible decisions? Is your point that some of these
decisions may even have been incorrect (or "wrong", whatever that means)?
Well whooptie-doo, Lou! What a breakthrough in historical political eco-
nomy you've made!
If you are saying that the criminalization of homosexuality in the USSR in
the 1930s (presuming this happened ... it certainly seems plausible) was
a bad idea, or "wrong" or anti-human, I would say that *viewed from the
perspective of 1998* I would agree with you. But while you and I may get
some moral uplift out of how much nicer and smarter we are than those
poor benighted Russian bastards of the days of yore, its not clear to me
that there's anything terribly Marxist about this sort of "bless you / damn
you" history game.
As for laying this sort of thing at the feet of the Stalin-bogey that you
on occasion like to drag out of your trunk of SWP memorabilia, I invite
you to take a look at Sheila Fitzpatrick's _Cultural Revolution in Russia_
for a more nuanced perspective on those times, particularly in regard to
what is today sometimes referred to (for good or ill) as "lifestyle politics".
>So instead
>you raise all sorts of red herrings about Russian CP students spending too
>much time in the sack instead of making leaflets
That was Lenin.
>or pedophilia
Relevant to the issue of "free love" -- and we all know that there are more
heterosexual or gender-indifferent pedophiles than homosexual ones, right?
>or whether animals do or not.
And this, we agree, is just idiotic, but not raised or engaged by Sid or I.
>Both of you are beneath characters like Olaechea who at least has the
>courage of his convictions.
Beneath Oleachea?! Holy cow, Lou! That's pretty unfair, don't you think?
Now, if I can get back to criticizing you ... is there any reason for us to
believe that the politics of "free love" advanced by you and Henwood does
*not* find its logical expression in DeSade's _Philosophy in the Bedroom_?
I might ask whether you have the courage of *your* convictions, but you
dance about so much that I'm not sure you really have any convictions about
these things at all -- which is okay, I guess, but then just be honest
about it.
-- Matt D.
*****************************************
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 11:48:12 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: Matt replies to Lou Proyect.
>Beneath Oleachea?! Holy cow, Lou! That's pretty unfair, don't you think?
>
>Now, if I can get back to criticizing you ... is there any reason for us to
>believe that the politics of "free love" advanced by you and Henwood does
>*not* find its logical expression in DeSade's _Philosophy in the Bedroom_?
>
>I might ask whether you have the courage of *your* convictions, but you
>dance about so much that I'm not sure you really have any convictions about
>these things at all -- which is okay, I guess, but then just be honest
>about it.
>
>-- Matt D.
Look, Matt, both you and Sid know that I like both you personally and
respect you politically. I hope that we can put some of the nastiness
behind us and move on to other subjects.
That being said, it is very important to repudiate the Neue Einheit, RCP
"position" on gay rights. Both of you seem to do this, albeit in a
begrudging way, so I think it might be time to move on. I endorse Hans's
call for turning to the global economic crisis, which will either bring us
together as a revolutionary movement worldwide or reduce humanity to a
barbarous state.
The only thing I would disagree with Hans on is whether it has not been
discussed or not. To Mark Jones's credit, he was predicting this when
nobody else was. That was one of the reasons so many people flocked to L-I,
out of respect for him. It is incumbent on all of us to pay very close
attention to these developments, since they promise to make millions of
people receptive to the ideas of Marxism once again.
I will say one thing, however, and it speaks to the charter of
Marxism@panix.com. It is CRUCIAL that we focus on the class struggle as it
faces us and put sectarian squabbles behind us. I am not pointing fingers
at anybody. No, I take that back. I am pointing fingers at Neue Einheit,
Olaechea, Godena, Rodwell and Malecki. These types of personalities
represent the past. If Marxism is to become relevant to the masses of
working people, such a political sub-subculture must be transcended. On
this question, there is very sharp agreement between me and Mark Jones and
Jim Hillier.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
*****************************************
From: "Mark" <fma.rott@dnet.co.uk>
To: <leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: L-I: Socialists supporting oppression?
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 17:18:56 +0100
To see homophobic trash like the N-E doctrine on morality on this list is
absolutely sickening.
As Marxists, and followers of dialectic materialism, can
socialists/communists really discuss
this bigotry, even as a starting point for debate?
I understand Mark Jones' point that this has opened up an interesting (and
very important)
debate. But to be honest, I am astounded that this has been given so much
credibility on this
list.
To any Marxist, this is clearly a question of oppression. The group in
question is not how we
should determine our approach.Is it acceptable for a communist in Germany in
the 1920s to
say :
"I oppose opression, but those Jews..."
or in South Africa of the 1980s...
"I'm not racist, but we have to be careful with those kafirs......"
Lenin characterised the role of Bolsheviks as being "a tribune of the
people" - NB!!
not "the STRAIGHT people" or "the GENTILE people" or "the WHITE people"
the key criterion for us as Marxists is oppression, not petty bourgeois
hang-ups, which
stem purely from capitalist society.
Mark Adams
*****************************************
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 13:18:41 -0400
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com>
Subject: Re: L-I: Re: Incredible slanderings and helplessness
Sid Chatterjee:
>The GNE has certainly a backward, a medieval position on the issue of
>homosexuality. But does this single fact mean that they are fascist
>like Hitler as the Trotskyites and Orwell (who was as in now
>revealed, a police spy) lovers are trying to paint? Are they in
>league with finance capital and imperialist bourgeoisie? Do they march
with the
>fascists and have the same or similar program?
>
Actually, Neue Einheit is most definitely not fascist. They are dogmatic
Maoists, just like Olaechea and Godena.
This loose labeling of leftists as fascists is deeply destructive. Olaechea
was the first to introduce this habit and it tore the old Marxism list
apart. Most of us wanted to put as much distance between ourselves and this
kind of sectarian madness. That is why we abandoned Marxism-International.
I would urge everybody to simply drop this term from everyday usage. It is
neither correct from a precise Marxist standpoint and also tends to
polarize discussion in a needless way. It just provokes flame wars.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
*****************************************
From: "Siddharth Chatterjee" <siddhart@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 18:25:31 +0000
Subject: Re: L-I: help for homos!
Squire Henwood:
> I wasn't asked, but if you're talking about the poet Ginsberg, he was a
> damn fine wordsmith. Of course he lived a lot of his life in Manhattan, so
> you can't trust him. Queer as a $3 bill and all.
>
And what is fine about his fine art? Perhaps you can elaborate,
citing concrete examples and give a comparative literary performance
for the backward 'homophobes' (as you described us) on this list. Any
other information you got on him besides his fine art?
> This is so fucking stupid it hurts. If it were just random stupidity, I'd
> ignore it, but it's highly representative stupidity. Are same-sexers not
> oppressed? Are women not oppressed? Do those forms of oppression exist in
> partial independence from class oppression? Do they interact in complex
> ways with class oppression? I'd say yes, and yes, to both. It's not a
> matter of either/or, you know.
>
The dialectical squire certainly makes a good point above. Perhaps he
will not deem it beneath his Eminence's dignity to give us stupid
folk an exposition that traces all of these complex looping dynamic
inter-connections in all their pristine glory. Does the Squire eat
meat and fish? If so, he is directly participating in the killing and
oppression of animals. Birds, animals, fish cannot speak and are
helpless in front of human society. So should liberation of animals
from human tyranny also form a part of the overall liberation
movement? What does his Eminence think?
> Here's a question I'd like to see you class fundamentalists answer: in the
> U.S., white men are paid more highly (even controlling for education,
> occupation, and all the other usual influences on wage-setting) than people
> who aren't white men. So why do employers persist in hiring white guys,
> since they could consistently get nonwhites and nonmen to work for less?
>
I really don't know the answer to this one, haven't any clue, Sire!
Perhaps you or the Lord of the Manor can tell us why!
P.S.
Why can't a bird eat an elephant?
Tell me why oh why!
Because, an elephant is a pretty big thing, honey
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!
.....
Why won't you answer my questions?
Tell me why oh why!
Because, to tell you the truth, honey
I don't know the answers
Goodbye, goodbye, .... goodbye!
*****************************************
Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 18:35:38 +0100
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M@netcomuk.co.uk>
To: leninist-international@buo319b.econ.utah.edu
Subject: Re: L-I: Re: Incredible slanderings and helplessness
Sven Buttler wrote:
> I am not going to respond to any further messages of GNE and I
> appeal to every one on L-I to do the same. They already got enough
> attention, much more than they deserved.
You won't have to, Sven, because I just threw them off.
Good-bye, Neue Einheit.
Mark
*****************************************
*****************************************************************
* *
* This was the last message we received from the list. *
* * * *
*****************************************************************