Bill,
Would you kindly provide me with the specific references to Marx and the
statements you attribute to him?
Thanks.
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Colin S. Cavell "Had it not been for the race problem
Department of Political Science early thrust upon me and enveloping
Thompson Tower, Box 37520 me, I should have probably been an
University of Massachusetts unquestioning worshipper at the shrine
Amherst, MA 01003-7520 of the established social order and of
Internet: cscpo@polsci.umass.edu the economic development into which I
Voice: (413) 546-3408 was born."
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~cscpo --W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868-1963
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WEBER.
Blaut crys racism citing Weber's __Gen. Econ. His.__ p. 379: "..negroes
have long shown themselves unsuited for factory work and the operation of
machines... Here is ONE CASE in economic history where tangible racial
distinctions are present." Weber was a man of his time. So was Marx
(also identified by Blaut as Eurocentric, though not, if I recall, as
racist). What am I to make of Marx's famous comparison of peasants to
potatoes in a sack? That he was hostile to the lower rural classes.
Should I reject all of Marx's useful insights about class because of this?
Weber, says Blaut, is a racist and so, like Caesar, let the good be
interred with his bones. But wait -- Weber says it is the ONE CASE. Why?
Weber was of his time -- and ahead of his time. He dismissed the
scientific racism of his day as worthless and, in 1910, attacked the
raced-based work of Franz Oppenheimer at a meeting of the German
Sociological Assoc saying:
"With race theories you can prove and disprove anything you want."
He denied the existence of "'natural' racial antipathy," noting the that
the "abhorence" of interracial marriage by Whites was socially determined
"by the desire of the politically dominant race to monopolize social
power and honor."
He also suggested that race itself was a social construct, commenting on
the "one drop rule" applied in the USA:
"Doubtless it is important that Negroes appear esthetically even more
alien than Indians (because) Negroes were slaves and hence disqualified
in the status hierarchy."
[Quotes from __Econ. & Soc.__, pp. 398, ft.1 and 386-387]
Weber was not free of racism but he was not a racist (quite the opposite
by the standards of his day).
APESHIT.
(or stand a little closer to the bars, dear)
Jim Blaut imagines that his criticism of my eurocentric views on world
history made me "go apeshit" and asks that the list consult the H-WORLD
achives (postings, not threads). Yes, do. There you will find me
according to Blaut --- eurocentric (his favorite dismissive for anything or
anyone he wishes to ignore), conservative (enemy of the people) and
intellectually dishonest. [Blaut, H-World, 19 April 1997] The only mean
thing I said of Blaut (out of frustration at the end of weeks of debate)
was that be was "chronically inaccurate." [H-WORLD, Schell, 28 April 1997]
BLAUT.
The exchanges he refers to began with a debate on h-latam over Cortes
and tribute-taking which ultimately led me to do a review in two parts of
__The Colonizer's Model of the World__: first a summary without comment and
criticism in a second post a week later after the list had time to comment.
I undertook the review because, as the Cortes thread evolved into a debate
on bullion-China-global expanion, Blaut repeadly urged the list to read it.
[Blaut, H-World, 18, 21, 24 and 30 Mar. 1997) I took my summary of the
book directly from Blaut's own topic headings, chapter summaries and
conclusions. When it appeared, Blaut thanked me for spelling his name
right, complained that I had "distorted" his work, and huffed: "Nowhere did
I urge people to read the book." Really?
Tom Hall and Steven Sanderson (both of whom liked Blaut's book) said:
"Schell did a nice job of summarizing Blaut's arguement (18 April 1997).
Blaut, however, did not recognize his own concepts. He declared that, from
the beginning, I had found his "whole enterprise to be outrageous and
...evil", that I offered "denunciation in place of scholarly criticism" and
that "there was no other explanation for [my] distortions of [his]
argument." Really?
Blaut eventually refused any further debate of problems and issues with me
saying he would discuss these things with "Anyone but Schell."
Are we having fun yet?