I do not often engage in the philosophical debates on this list (good  
or bad as they might be) but I must respond - as one octogenarian to  
another - that I greatly appreciate what Carrol offered in his P.S.

Charlie

On May 27, 2014, at 5:02 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:

> The Amherst Conference was one of the best left conferences I have  
> ever
> attended, and Dick Levins's paper in one of the conferences one of  
> the best
> I have heard.
>
> But my octogenarian short-term memory fails me. At the end of his  
> paper Dick
> laid down three wonderful propositions, and I can only remember the  
> third of
> them. All three revolved around what I consider a key issue for  
> contemporary
> soc8ialist activists: the scope and limits of theory. The third of his
> closing propositions was, "All theories are wrong." (he meant of  
> course,
> _eventually_ proved wrong.) That is of crucial importance. But I can't
> remember the first two of the three.
>
> I hope I can be illuminated here.
>
> Carrol
>
> P.S. There is a new MRE book, selected writings of Rosa Luxemburg.  
> The blurb
> for it calls her the most powerful socialist intellect since Marx  
> himself &
> I tend to agree. In her day the Grudrisse was not available, but  
> her remarks
> on "the final goal" are in the spirit of a wonderful aphorism from  
> that
> work: "The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape." Bertell
> Ollman catches up the import of this in his phrase, "Doing History  
> Backwards
> as does sweezy in his phrase "the present as history," as does Mao  
> when he
> remarks, "Marxists have no crystal ball." And this is consistent  
> with the
> claim that all theories are _eventually_ wrong. We work with the  
> best theory
> that we can carve out, but we (must) work with the awareness that  
> eventually
> (the present as history) that theory will fail.