The Virtual Stoa

Over here [thanks, SM]

Max Horkheimer, Frankfurt Schoolman and co-author of Dialectic of Enlightenment; born 14 February 1895, died 7 July 1973.

Kazimierz Badowski, Polish Trotskyist and Esperantist, died 6 July 1990.

The Gaping Silence on the Italian Left.

Robert Jospin, French pacifist, socialist, Lavaliste, and father of Lionel; born 9 June 1899, died 9 May 1990.

Stella Browne, socialist feminist campaigner for the reform of abortion law. After Somerville College, Oxford and spells as a teacher and librarian she began to make a name for herself in the debates concerning women’s sexual desire before and after the First World War. She conducted a twenty-five year correspondence with Havelock Ellis and translated a number of works of continental sexology in the interwar period. An active participant in the work of the Malthusian League, she was a significant champion of birth control and far-reaching abortion rights, as well as campaigning around divorce law and against the stigma still attached to illegitimacy. At various times she was a Communist, Fabian, member of the Chelsea branch of the Labour Party, and – for a few years – member of the Eugenics Society, though she opposed its preferred criterion of ‘fitness’, and her ODNB biographer remarks that she probably joined the society “to represent the interests of the Abortion Law Reform Association of which she was a founder”. A page with links to some of her writings is here. Born Halifax, Nova Scotia, 9 May 1880, died Sefton Park, Liverpool, 8 May 1955.

Margaret Cole, Fabian socialist and wife of G. D. H., with whom she wrote detective novels. Born 6 May 1893, died 7 May 1980. Some quotes over here.

Ian Mikardo, Labour MP, born 9 July 1908, died 6 May 1993.

And here’s the banner that was unveiled at G. A. Cohen’s Valedictory Lecture here in Oxford, photographed by Chris Bertram:

He also got one of me being the Warm-Up Guy over here.

Here’s the dramatic hammer-and-sickle effect that appears on the campus of the University of Chicago round about noon on May Day, photographed by Abbi Eichhorn:

[thanks! PM]

Barbara Castle, the “Red Queen”, born 6 October 1910, died 3 May 2002.

Pierre Bérégovoy, French socialist and Prime Minister, 1992-3; born Déville-lès-Rouen in Normandy, 23 December 1925; shot himself 1 May 1993.

Happy May Day, everyone!

Here’s the Internationale scene from Bertolucci’s Il Conformista, which was playing in Oxford last week:

[Older Stoa May Day coverage is here.]

Beatrice Webb, Fabian, born 2 January 1858, died 30 April 1943.

Anton Pannekoek, Dutchman, astronomer, Marxist; born 2 January 1873, died 28 April 1960. An archive of some writings is here.

Antonio Gramsci, born Cagliari, 22 January 1891, died in Rome, 27 April 1937.

Strini Moodley, Black Consciousness militant and prisoner on Robben Island, 1976-1981; born in Durban, 22 December 1945, died, also in Durban, 27 April 2006.

There’s the transcript of a long interview with Moodley here.

CONCLUSION

54. The same procedure as followed above could be applied to the various optional papers, but I am only qualified to comment on the two that I chose (Logic and Political Theory). The recent additions which have been made to the list of special subjects do not tackle the crucial problems confronting PPE which I have tried to raise in this essay.

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ECONOMIC ORGANISATION

52. In the light of the foregoing, this paper obviously should make way for the study of political economy. The paper as it stands at the moment is easy to criticise, primarily because of its partial approach. The major economic problems of this country remain unsolved and the responsibility, at least partly, lies with those academic economists who have not been able to free themselves at this level of discussion from attempts to explain all our problems as the result of a single economic cause. The endless and largely sterile controversies over whether it is the rate of investment, the balance of payments, the level of employment or what have you, which is the real cause of our problems stem from the failure to construct a total, interdisciplinary model which will recognise the possibility of overdetermination of our problems. The spirit of Dunkirk lies heavily on the economic organisation paper: 300 sweating undergraduates are annually employed in Finals to help their examiners help Harold Wilson help British capitalism.

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PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS

48. Economics is perhaps the most difficult part of the course to criticise. Perhaps the most useful approach is to say that economics at Oxford tends to conflate political economy (roughly the explanation of changes in economic structure and functioning set in a social context) and praxiology (the science of practical reasoning). When the latter is studied without reference to the history and methodology of economic thought, there is a tendency to make an improper transition from the universality and rationality of a linguistic practice to an assumption of the universality and rationality of a particular social-political formation, namely capitalism.

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BRITISH POLITICAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY SINCE 1865

44. The difficult problems raised in the preceding paragraphs do not arise in connection with this paper. There is in fact only one major question: how can this paper most rapidly be consigned to the dustbin of academic history? For it does not illuminate the study of the history of this country, or of its political institutions, or its economic organisation.

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THEORY AND WORKING OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

37. Since the questions: why do we have political institutions? is generally omitted from consideration in the study for this paper, or if not omitted, answered in a plainly circular way (Why do we have a Parliament? In order to govern), the student has excluded from his consideration questions concerning (e.g.) the economic basis of power and the difference between power and authority, and is thrust instead immediately into social engineering considerations. The only questions which arise when such a perspective is adopted ask how the various systems can be made to function better within their own terms of reference. The trivia churned out by the reform of parliament industry become the centrepiece of the course; the level of discussion is indistinguishable from that orchestrated by the Sunday press (the writers are generally the same people); the examination paper asks for a civil servant’s background brief: Question 11 in the 1967 paper reads “‘A proper relationship between policy and good government remained the nub of good government.’ In which of the countries you have studied is this best achieved?”

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MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

31. This paper is certainly an abortion, as Gareth Stedman Jones has said. The paper in fact has very little to do with moral and political philosophy, and only provides the student with a second dose of indoctrination in linguistic philosophy on top of the draught he has been given in the misnamed ‘General’ Philosophy paper.

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AN IMPORTANT DIGRESSION

29. We should not pretend, however, that altering the content of a paper whilst retaining the present examination system can fulfil the conditions necessary for an integrated course. Whilst there are eight papers the course will be fragmented. In the same way, to break down the examination system will also, necessarily, be to break down the tutorial system. The tutorial is only another form of examination. It cannot be an integrative factor in our studies – only a class or seminar can bring to bear on the same problem minds with different trainings. In a sense then, the only way to be realistic is to demand the impossible: that is, that which is impossible given the present system of University and social power and authority. As we criticise each paper and offer suggestions for change, however radical, we shall time and time again be confronted with the inability to solve the problem of content without simultaneously solving the problem of form. In short, the deficiencies of the way we are taught and what we are taught reinforce each other mutually. To treat this problem fully, we should have to consider the length of the course, why only a few of the available teaching and work methods are employed, etc. [NOTE: I owe these insights largely to C. H. Allen.]

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