Sigrid, thanks, again for all the hard work.  Are we any closer to a discussion about continuing some aspect of the conference?   ---Rich Rosen

-----Original Message-----
From: Science for the People Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sigrid Schmalzer
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2014 10:27 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Query re the Amherst Conference

Hello! We are SO close to getting the videos for the conference up. 
There have just been a few technical problems delaying things, but I expect them up within the next few weeks at the lastest. I will be sure to post a link to them to this list-serv as soon as they're ready!

I was at a different session during the much-acclaimed Levins talk so I haven't yet seen it myself...

Sigrid

Sigrid Schmalzer
Associate Professor, History Department
Director, Social Thought & Political Economy Program UMass Amherst

On 5/27/2014 9:44 PM, Charles Schwartz wrote:
> 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.