I found this via a link at Poststructuralism | Poststructuralist news and views and I liked it.

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“After the war French writers rejected the idea of narrative because Hitler and Stalin were storytellers, and it seemed naïve to believe in stories. So instead they turned more and more to theory, to the absurd. The French declined even to tell stories about their own history, including the war in Algeria, which like all history can’t really be digested until it is turned into great literature." "Social Sciences": Of course, [Julia Kristeva] is hardly the first French thinker to wield more influence over students and scholars in the United States than in France: this was also true of Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. In fact, it was the fate of Ms. Kristeva and this three unlikely subversives to be accused of planting the seeds of political correctness in American colleges long before the concept was re-exported back to France to be mocked as a typically American aberration. It's funny how that works. A group appropriates something borne of another culture, intended for that culture, and only properly understood by people of that culture, takes it for its own thinking the only translation or adjustment necessary is the elementary one of language. Of course it's not just the taker's fault; often it's just as much the giver's. For instance, regarding beautiful letters, it's probably more Roland Barthes's fault that American universities have utterly ruined the study of literature than it's the fault of -- I dunno -- say, Susan Sontag. And certainly, regarding "social sciences" (identity politics division), Foucault ran with and totally exploited the fame and acclaim America showered on him -- and who could blame him? -- but it was the angsty, middle-class remnants of the New Left who were all too eager to buy what they thought he was selling. Marxism was borne of the thwarted revolutions of 1848 -- thwarted revolutions of, at that time, the most developed countries on earth. Marxism was intended for and could only be properly understood by industrial Germany (and England, to give Engels credit where due). Naturally, it was applied to the European country most unlike those: Russia. In that application was a massive mutation. Christianity was borne of a colonized, tribal people, humiliated by their conquerors and suffering from occupation and the corruption of their own elites. It was invented by a Jewish man, intended for and properly understood by other Jews. Naturally, it was applied to "the uncircumcised", the goyim. In that application was a massive mutation. Lenin & Trotsky, Russians; St. Paul the Hellenized and Romanized Jew; American Academics -- they've all made the same basic error of taking systems of thought that are not parochial so much as culturally particular, systems they themselves do not and can not fully understand, and applied them to something they don't fit.

elementropy: Misappropriation

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Marxism was borne of the thwarted revolutions of 1848 -- thwarted revolutions of, at that time, the most developed countries on earth. Marxism was intended for and could only be properly understood by industrial Germany (and England, to give Engels credit where due).

Anyone who fails to understand this will express very unsound views about socialism.

Originally Posted by Zichao

Lenin & Trotsky, Russians; St. Paul the Hellenized and Romanized Jew; American Academics -- they've all made the same basic error of taking systems of thought that are not parochial so much as culturally particular, systems they themselves do not and can not fully understand, and applied them to something they don't fit.

The point about Marixism's conception is sound (and one I've harped on myself), but Lenin and Trotsky certainly did understand it fully, and made their decisions with thorough awareness of what they were doing.

Secondly, it's rather erroneous to describe Marxism as a system of thought specific to a culture, any more than is the theory of gravity.

This sort of argument seems to deny humans any capacity to think outside of their culturally mandated patterns, ever. If that were true, revolutions would have been quite literally inconcievable, and not just in Russia either.

Rather that when something is imported from elsewhere it'll be adapted to fit local mentalities.

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How do local mentalities arise?

They're a product of crystalised mako energy from the Lifestream.

Oops, sorry, no. I'm thinking of materia.

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They're a product of crystalised mako energy from the Lifestream. Oops, sorry, no. I'm thinking of materia.

No, they're a product of infectious bugs in the packaging.

Oops, sorry, no. I'm thinking of malaria.

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Secondly, it's rather erroneous to describe Marxism as a system of thought specific to a culture

Yes and no. It seems to uniformly infect the school teacher trade unions in most English-speaking countries, although there are otherwise distinctive features in the cultures of each. Here, comrades are building a wall of solidarity (or at least a few of them are):

Backpackers to take over school tests

ANNA PATTY EDUCATION EDITOR
May 1, 2010

THE Education Department is preparing to send in emergency strike breakers, including backpackers, after NSW teachers decided to ignore an Industrial Relations Commission order to lift their ban on supervising national literacy and numeracy tests.

Schools in inner Sydney and the north shore will be hit the hardest, warned the NSW Director-General of Education, Michael Coutts-Trotter. One in five schools in those areas could be left without teaching cover.

Principals or teachers who obstructed the tests faced disciplinary action, including the sack, he said.

Recruitment agencies have put out a call to ''anyone'', including backpackers with working holiday visas, to supervise the NAPLAN tests for an hourly rate of $19.11 for about five hours a day.

Applicants for the 2000 jobs would need to pass a police check which can take up to six days to process.

Invitations to help supervise the tests have also been sent to 8000 School Certificate and Higher School Certificate markers.

''The phone has been running hot,'' Mr Coutts-Trotter said.

The department said it had received 2500 positive responses to a text message sent to casual teachers asking them to also help supervise the tests on May 11, 12 and 13.

Mr Coutts-Trotter told the Herald he was confident that 85 per cent of schools in the state would deliver the NAPLAN tests with either their own or outside staff.

NSW has up to $1 billion in government funding tied to the national test data, which will be used to guide how money is distributed to the most disadvantaged schools. A reward payment of $94 million is at risk if the state government fails to deliver test results for all schools. [...]

Serves the wankers right. They won't get paid and backpackers (who never exhibit bolshie attitudes like this) will eat the teachers' lunch.

Originally Posted by Zichao

They're a product of crystalised mako energy from the Lifestream. Oops, sorry, no. I'm thinking of materia.

It was a serious question; you usually reject the role of say public statemens, symbology etc. in favour of a universal claim to everyone being able to make their own decisions. Hard, then to understand why you would recognise the possibility of a "local mentality" at all.

Haha, yeah I couldn't resist. You know that most of what I say here is funamentally impossible to justify (except maybe theologically, necessary opposition and all that), right?

My right to decide is based mainly on political utility, our rights being the product of a fiction of equal rationality. Sure, local ways of thinking emerge. I'd put it down to a mixture of geography, socio-political accident and reinforcement, but I'd be happy to add in other sources.

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It's the "reinforcement" that is the key point.

I understand your specific point about the fiction of equal rationality. But that doesn't explain how cultures develop.

Take for example, possibly the most extreme case, the MesoAmerican cult of human sacrifice. It must surely take some serious distortive force to create a culture in which life is seen in such terms. "Socio-political accident" isn't enough to explain its longevity and persistence. It's the persistence which is more important than the origin.

Only when the mechanisms of these local mentalities is appreciated can we make some sort of statement as to whether a specific person did or did not understand the information they were attempting to comprehend.

Dragging this back to the OP, russia was backward country by English and German standards, but it was not universally backward. It had areas of high intensity, highly mechanised labour in a sea of low intensity agricultural peasantry. Lenin and Trotsky did not therefore approach Marx works in a manner particularly different from that expected of a German or English worker, although this fact certainly had implications for Bolshevism as a mass movement.