[cs_edworkers] Re: CSEW members: please respond: New date and time for Marxism and Education Series
- From: S_ AN <s_an@xxxxxxx>
- To: CSEW-new <cs_edworkers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 09:41:20 -0500
Yes, I can.
I have been doing a little research on controversies over Morgan and Engels.
Obviously the empirical data has expanded vastly over the past century-plus. So
have the arguments over how to interpret it, which makes sense in such a
politically-charged field. Attacks on Engels eventually overlapped to some
degree with right-wing rage (literally) against Margaret Mead (hardly a flaming
red) for daring to show -- for example in Sex and Temperament in Three
Primitive Societies -- that male dominance is not "innate to human nature." As
for the feminists, they seem to be all over the map, with Lise Vogel plus a
whole branch of "materialist feminism," for example, claiming to reconcile the
unreconcilable.
As very much a non-expert it seems to me that the key analytical points from
Engels have held up very well, and the programmatic points (which, of course,
are not derived in a linear way from the historical anthropology) have if
anything been strengthened by all the experience since that time. Among those
sympathetic to Engels' outlook, one of the controversies is whether there was a
matriarchal phase in human history, or whether Bachofen (originator of the term
mother-right) may have confused this with matrilineality. It is an interesting
question, but one we do not need to "resolve" before February 27th.
SJ
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 13:31:40 -0500
Subject: [cs_edworkers] CSEW members: please respond: New date and time for
Marxism and Education Series
From: marjoriestamberg@xxxxxxxxx
To: cs_edworkers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi comrades,
Please let me know if you can be there on Friday, February 27, from 5:30-7, so
I can send out a new posting to the various educator lists. Charlie, who has
agreed to present at the next session, can do it on February 27th, but he
cannot be there on March 6.
Everyone is looking forward to his leading the discussion on Engels,The Origins
of the Family, Private Property and the State.
So we went back to square one, and with San's help, were able to get space on
Friday February 27, but we must start an hour later. So it will be 5:30 to 7
(an hour later than usual).
This is an important discussion for a bunch of reasons. It raises the crucial
question of the state, as its (lack of) understanding was glaring during the
recent experience with the Ferguson-Eric Garner protests.
That is, the bulk of the radical youth were angry and ready to shut down the
streets over "bad apple" choke-hold cops. But they did not understand the role
of the system, the capitalist state, its cops and its courts whose class role
is to repress the working class and the oppressed. And so the whole movement
came to a grinding halt in confusion after the December killings of two other
policemen.
Secondly, the Engels work has come under polemical attack from the feminists
who wish to discredit Marxism, and seize on Engels' association with the early
anthropologist Lewis P. Morgan, and the questions raised therein.
So--to do this discussion well, we need comrades there, and particularly hope
Portia can be there, as well as others adding their wisdom.
Please let me know...
On the Readings:For Session 2, we decided to read Engels, The Origins of the
Family, Private Property and the State. I have 4 new copies of the 1972
International Publishers edition with the important introduction by Eleanor
Burke Leacock. These are $10 and will go to the first 4 people who contact me.
This same edition with the Leacock introduction is also available on Amazon
for as little as $0.01 + $3.99 postage. And the Leacock introduction is on
line at
http://www.marxistschool.org/classdocs/LeacockIntro.pdf
Class TimeMost people indicated Friday was their best day. That could be
changed for future meetings.
This series is initiated by Class Struggle Education Workers. Weare active in
the UFT, CUNY PSC, and other unions with
educationworkers.cs_edworkers@hotmail.comhttp://edworkersunite.blogspot.com
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