[cs_edworkers] Re: CSEW members: please respond: New date and time for Marxism and Education Series
- From: Portia Seddon <portiaseddon@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "cs_edworkers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <cs_edworkers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 15:38:08 -0500
Hi all:
Unfortunately I cannot get away from another commitment on Friday, so I
won't be able to attend. I will do my best to help without being there,
though, and will send some notes that I use for teaching on this subject
(my students and I are discussing Engels right now). I have an MA in
Anthro, and as many of you know, teach in Women and Gender Studies, so am
familiar with the arguments.
The basic problem that most anthropologists have with Lewis Henry Morgan is
with what they argue is his linear view of history (savagery --> barbarism
--> civilization), which tended to be ideological fuel for colonialism. I
don't know whether Morgan's theories were overtly racist, or if the
bourgeoisie just gave it racial significance, so it would be worth looking
back at some of his work. But the basic finding that he made - that women
have relatively higher status in societies without private property - is
upheld. It is pretty much accepted, I think, that there has never been a
"matriarchal" society (i.e., systematic rule of women over men), but that
there have been, and continue to be isolated examples of, egalitarian and
matrilineal (what Engels identifies as "mother-right") societies.
Hope this will help,
Portia
On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 9:41 AM, S_ AN <s_an@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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 Time*
> Most people indicated Friday was their best day. That could be changed for
> future meetings.
>
>
> This series is initiated by Class Struggle Education Workers. We
> are active in the UFT, CUNY PSC, and other unions with education
> workers.
>
> cs_edworkers@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://edworkersunite.blogspot.com
>
>
>
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