Marx and anti-semitism

[phildwyer]

Let's revive this one then! It's a fascinating subject.

 

[articul8]

Yes - harry's place are making the charge again so it's accuracy is topical againhttp://www. hurryupharry.org/2009/05/12/karl-marx-radical-antisemitism/

 

[cesare]

"empirical essence"? sounds wrong somehow. What's the german?

*pokes articul8's memory with a pointy stick*

 

[kyser_soze]

As one of the respondents on the thread says:

Self-styled “hedge-fund guru” (stop sniggering at the back there) rehashes shitty little Freedom Association pamphlet from the 1980s. Lame, lame, lame.

 

[articul8]

*pokes articul8's memory with a pointy stick*

Just proves what i already posted here
#http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=9129790&postcount=60

Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. {11} There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

 

[butchersapron]

There's a historian called tristram hunt making good money from these sort of lies right now - especially off Engels.

 

[articul8]

"empirische Wesen."

but wouldn't that normally be translated as "empirical being" (in the sense of concrete historical existence) rather than empirical essence?

I like this description though

He's not saying that Jews are hucksters. What I take him to mean is that hucksterism is a characteristic of society that the figure of the Jew tends to constellate around. Hence the Jew becoming "impossible" if those conditions are removed. It's not that Jews disappear, it's the basis of that process of figuration that goes.

 

[kyser_soze]

There's a historian called tristram hunt making good money from these sort of lies right now - especially off Engels.

He has an op-ed column in the Observer (or Graun on sat) and basically seems to spin out the Kings and Queens, lords and ladies model of history...

 

[phildwyer]

Christianity has always constructed Judaism as an objectifying religion, one which depends on works rather than faith, and which focuses on this, material world to the exclusion of the next, spiritual world. This provides a neat conceptual connection to capitalism, the primary ideological effect of which is the objectification of the subject. So it is not only a tropological and historical link that Marx is alluding to, but also a logical connection.

We should not allow fear of political incorrectness to prevent us from exploring this issue.

 

[the button]

but wouldn't that normally be translated as "empirical being"

It would normally, but possibly the translator (being charitable here) is thinking that Marx wasn't writing in "normal" he was writing in "Hegel," who would surely have written "Seyn" rather than "Wesen" if he meant "being."

 

[Knotted]

but wouldn't that normally be translated as "empirical being" (in the sense of concrete historical existence) rather than empirical essence?

I think it would be completely wrong to translate it as "empirical being". This would imply that every Jew was a huckster (which would be anti-semitic). I read "empirical essence" as being opposed to something like "ideological essence". Marx is refering to the material conditions that sustained Judaism.

I read empirical essence to mean those empirical features which characterise the essence of a group. Mammary glands are the empirical essence of mammals.

In contrast empirical being is those empirical features which are accidental. To say that Hucksterism is the empirical being of Judaism would be to say that by coincidence each and every Jew is a huckster.

 

[Knotted]

Harry's Place is so boring. I find it so difficult to read through this sludge. I can't be arsed to be annoyed about them.

 

[Knotted]

The banality of politically correct evil.

 

[articul8]

To say that Hucksterism is the empirical being of Judaism would be to say that by coincidence each and every Jew is a huckster.

No not at all - it would imply that the word "Jew" has (a matter of empirical record) been loaded with all kinds of accretions which relate to hucksterism and cognate activities.

It would be a way of differentiating between the historical accretion of associations that has constructed the "Jew" as a category of identity, from the true potentiality of the Jewish people whose fullest Being (not merely what has been empirically the case) - like that of the proletariat - would be fully realised only in self-transcendence, in universal emancipation.

 

[Knotted]

No not at all - it would imply that the word "Jew" has (a matter of empirical record) been loaded with all kinds of accretions which relate to hucksterism and cognate activities.

It would be a way of differentiating between the historical accretion of associations that has constructed the "Jew" as a category of identity, from the true potentiality of the Jewish people whose fullest Being (not merely what has been empirically the case) - like that of the proletariat - would be fully realised only in self-transcendence, in universal emancipation.

I disagree with your Hegelese. I don't think that the above would make sense in the context anyhow. It's about more than just kinds of accretions which could be all sort of things not relevant to the question at hand. Plus it would appear random whether one Jew had accreted these characteristics or not as you are looking at raw undigested empirical existence. It's about the defining characteristic of Judaism for the purpose of understanding the social dynamic.

 

[Knotted]

I think you Heideggerise Hegel and Marx. Very naughty.

 

[articul8]

No, I Marxify Hegel and Heidegger

The history of Judaism in its "empirical being" is different from that of any individual Jew, but intimately bound up with the history of "the Jew" as cultural category.

 

[Knotted]

No, I Marxify Hegel and Heidegger

The history of Judaism in its "empirical being" is different from that of any individual Jew, but intimately bound up with the history of "the Jew" as cultural category.

Judaism doesn't have an empirical being. Can you point to a lump of Judaism? The only thing you can do is point to a Jew. The individual Jew is not a cultural category. He or she is an individual who may be very different from the cultural stereotype. What we are talking about is Judaism which doesn't have an empirical existence but can be given an empirically sensible (ie. recognisable) charaterisation for a social/theoretical purpose ie. an (empirical) essence.

 

[JHE]

Yes - harry's place are making the charge again so it's accuracy is topical again http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/05/12/karl-marx-radical-antisemitism/

The last of the texts quoted in Harry's piece is a new one on me.

Apparently, the following extracts are from an article called 'The Russian Loan', written by Marx and published in the New York Tribune on January 4 1856.

Thus we find every tyrant backed by a Jew, as is every pope by a Jesuit. In truth, the cravings of oppressors would be hopeless, and the practicability of war out of the question, if there were not an army of Jesuits to smother thought and a handful of Jews to ransack pockets.

… the real work is done by the Jews, and can only be done by them, as they monopolize the machinery of the loanmongering mysteries by concentrating their energies upon the barter trade in securities… Here and there and everywhere that a little capital courts investment, there is ever one of these little Jews ready to make a little suggestion or place a little bit of a loan. The smartest highwayman in the Abruzzi is not better posted up about the locale of the hard cash in a traveler’s valise or pocket than those Jews about any loose capital in the hands of a trader… The language spoken smells strongly of Babel, and the perfume which otherwise pervades the place is by no means of a choice kind.

… Thus do these loans, which are a curse to the people, a ruin to the holders, and a danger to the governments, become a blessing to the houses of the children of Judah. This Jew organization of loan-mongers is as dangerous to the people as the aristocratic organization of landowners… The fortunes amassed by these loan-mongers are immense, but the wrongs and sufferings thus entailed on the people and the encouragement thus afforded to their oppressors still remain to be told.

… The fact that 1855 years ago Christ drove the Jewish moneychangers out of the temple, and that the moneychangers of our age enlisted on the side of tyranny happen again chiefly to be Jews, is perhaps no more than a historical coincidence. The loan-mongering Jews of Europe do only on a larger and more obnoxious scale what many others do on one smaller and less significant. But it is only because the Jews are so strong that it is timely and expedient to expose and stigmatize their organization.​

It would be nice to have the authorship of the article confirmed or denied by a proper scholar of Marx.

However, I don't really think it's at odds with some of the other nasty things Marx wrote.

I suppose it is worth remembering that Marx was inevitably aware of his own Jewish ancestry, but I think we've just got to accept that Marx was a gentleman of his time and most certainly did not have a modern (post-WW2) sensibility on matters of race. In fact, very far from it!

There is, as far as I can see, only one way in which Marx could be acquitted on the charge of anti-semitism. If we define an anti-semite as a person who aims to do down Jews per se, then of course I don't believe Marx counts as an anti-semite. Marx very obviously wanted a communist revolution that would expropriate capitalists, Gentile and Jew. That doesn't alter the fact that he sometimes wrote things that you'd expect from Nazi or Hamas propagandists, rather than from a communist.

 

[Knotted]

I suppose it is worth remembering that Marx was inevitably aware of his own Jewish ancestry, but I think we've just got to accept that Marx was a gentleman of his time and most certainly did not have a modern (post-WW2) sensibility on matters of race. In fact, very far from it!

The above bilge is a product of our time. Moral relativism is the perfect expression of decadent captialism.

Thank crap Marx did not have modern sensibilities on matters of race! Screaming me-me whining about thinking 'nasty' thoughts while not giving a fuck about actual oppression.

 

[frogwoman]

has anyone confirmed its authenticity tho?

 

[JHE]

There's no moral relativism at all in my recognition that 19th century folk felt, thought and wrote differently from the way people do now.

 

[Knotted]

There's no moral relativism at all in my recognition that 19th century folk felt, thought and wrote differently from the way people do now.

Yes there is. You were talking about 'nasty things Marx wrote' ie. you were make a moralistic judgement. Then you go on and excuse it by reference to the time it was written.

Second example of moral degeneracy in the era of modern capitalism. People don't argue their beliefs. They cower, they cringe and they hide their beliefs. Sometimes in the name of communism!

 

[JHE]

Yes there is. You were talking about 'nasty things Marx wrote' ie. you were make a moralistic judgement. Then you go on and excuse it by reference to the time it was written.

It's not a matter of excusing it. My point, which you'd see easily enough if you calmed down for a moment, is that it's no good trying to deny that Marx wrote anti-Jewish shit sometimes - any honest person has to accept that he did - and that we shouldn't be massively surprised given when he lived.

 

[articul8]

Judaism doesn't have an empirical being

This claim is equivalent to saying "you can't point to any evidence to suggest that anyone ever thought such a thing as "Judaism" ever existed". This is patently false.

The individual Jew is not a cultural category.

Ok but for us to identify said individual as a Jew, or for said individual to see himself as such requires the existence of such a cultural categoty

What we are talking about is Judaism which doesn't have an empirical existence

no, see above

but can be given an empirically sensible (ie. recognisable) charaterisation for a social/theoretical purpose ie. an (empirical) essence.

Not clear at all what work "essence" is doing here - what is an essence as distinct from a set of empirical claims or a concept?

 

[Knotted]

It's not a matter of excusing it. My point, which you'd see easily enough if you calmed down for a moment, is that it's no good trying to deny that Marx wrote anti-Jewish shit sometimes - any honest person has to accept that he did - and that we shouldn't be massively surprised given when he lived.

What's wrong with 'anti-Jewish shit'? Is Jewish culture above criticism?

 

[Knotted]

This claim is equivalent to saying "you can't point to any evidence to sugget that anyone ever thought such a thing as "Judaism" ever existed". This is patently false.

No its the equivalent of saying that you cannot observe a being called 'Judaism'.

Ok but for us to identify said individual as a Jew, or for said individual to seee himself as such requires the existence of such a cultural categoty

Yes, but how do we recognise this category? The empirical essence.

Not clear at all what work "essence" is doing here - what is an essence as distinct from a set of empirical claims or a concept?

We are looking at what is essential not what is contingent with respect to the indivdual in relation to the category.

 

[JHE]

What's wrong with 'anti-Jewish shit'? Is Jewish culture above criticism?

Nothing is above criticism (except possibly certain moderators on certain message boards).

Do you regard Marx's comments, quoted above, as an even vaguely accurate or fair-minded account of Jews and what they do?

In fact, do the comments have any value other than having provided some grumpy old sod the opportunity to vent his anti-semitic spleen?

 

[articul8]

No its the equivalent of saying that you cannot observe a being called 'Judaism'.

Why would he make such a banal point? Like saying "point at a solidarity"?!

We are looking at what is essential not what is contingent with respect to the indivdual in relation to the category.

You're confusing terms here - particularity is not synonymous with contingency.

 

[Knotted]

Nothing is above criticism (except possibly certain moderators on certain message boards).

Do you regard Marx's comments, quoted above, as an even vaguely accurate or fair-minded account of Jews and what they do?

In fact, do the comments have any value other than having provided some grumpy old sod the opportunity to vent his anti-semitic spleen?

I don't know if they are accurate. They sound perfectly plausible. If the big money lenders are pre-dominantly Jewish, why not say it? Why not use this fact as a criticism of Judaism? It helps the Jewish worker to see there is no salvation in Jewish nationalism.