The history of mathematics has been tackled with varying degrees of success by literary mathematicians over the last few hundred years. Perhaps the most successful and readable of these histories is Dr. J. Struick’s A Concise History of Mathematics (London, G. Bell & Sons Ltd. 1954). Dr. J. Struick is Professor of Mathematics at Massachussetts… read more »
IC20 referred to Jane Jacobs and her book The Economy of Cities (mistakenly called “The Culture of Cities”). There appears to be no ideological analysis in the article. A suitable position for further comment in IC would be under the heading “If it ain’t bust, don’t fix it.” The report was a summary of Jacobs’… read more »
At school we were told of a medieval philosopher named William of Occam. (Because he grew up in a place whose name is spelt Ockham; they did tell us the strangest things at school). He introduced a principle of logic, first known as Occam’s Razor, more recently as the principle of parsimony, which declared, in… read more »
Suppression of traits or features considered undesirable is preceded by the isolation, of those exhibiting the tendency in question, from the general body of the people; they are identified as criminals, or kulaks, or mad, or female, or unemployed, or disadvantaged, or black, or immigrant, or young, or old, or disabled or addicted to something;… read more »
This is from the speech which Friedrich Engles delivered at Marx’s funeral: He [Marx] discovered the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat and drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, religion, art etc. and that therefore the production of the immediate… read more »
In TLS 5 Sept 86 John Gray reviews Marxism by J. G. Merquior. (Paladin paperback, £3.95). Gray starts off fireworks, describing this body of literature as a treasury of the absurd. He instances Lukacs saying the Kronstadt rebels were serving the bourgeoisie and Althusser blaming the Stalin regime for an excess of humanism. He almost… read more »
We have recently had another nasty shock which must also be passed on to readers. It came with the realisation that in one important way we have been doing, and still are doing, what we blame the (A-)SPGB for doing. They use the word “socialism” in a sense used by almost nobody else and are… read more »
In 1979 George Walford published a book entitled Ideologies and Their Function. It took a number of the principal social activities and discussed the connections of each of them with one or another of the major ideologies. Military activity, production and fascism (including Nazism) were ascribed to the protostatic, and this has now been recognised… read more »
IN THIS issue we print letters from Austin Meredith and Shane Roberts; further Letters to the Editor are invited. Please try not to exceed 500 words – “Small is beautiful.” If you want your letter to appear unedited or not at all, please say so. ANARCHISTS proclaim themselves in favour of freedom, and they (sometimes… read more »
Ideological Commentary announces itself as “an independent journal of systematic ideology,” but we do not claim final knowledge of this theory; the formulation that looked like the ultimate last month needs alteration now, and the account given here will be subject to continuous revision. The theory was created and largely developed by the late Harold… read more »