IC holds out a continuing invitation: We undertake to print any statement of up to 1,000 words carrying the approval of this party or one of its branches. Letters from individual members or supporters will be printed if they are cogent, interesting and concise, and if space permits. If you want your letter to appear… read more »
Dear Editor, I found the Outline Sketch of Systematic Ideology to be, superficially at least, quite an interesting pamphlet. However, closer investigation revealed that behind the words there was little of substance. Also, the reasoning contains several flaws. On page 29 appears: A purely eidodynamic society could not do so [i.e. survive]. Every society, if… read more »
Dear Editor, There is some good news about publishing-for-profit, and some bad news. The good news is, as you have noticed in IC23, that for-profit publishing filters submitted writings for whatever will be of interest to masses of readers. The bad news is that for-profit publishing filters submitted writings for whatever will be of interest… read more »
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 »