April 22, 2009

QOTD:

“ Of course, when I read Althusser in college I felt like I’d found an explanation for virtually everything that had happened to me up to that point. I think I try to elicit that ‘WOW!’ reaction in my choice of what they read. I care more that students see Marx might help them understand the world (then and now) than I care about getting Marx exactly right for them. If they become Marxists, then they can start their little reading groups and debate the labor theory of value and how alienation doesn’t work in later Marx and all that. Once in a while such an improbable thing actually happens and they do spend the summer reading Capital. (Then, since I don’t really understand Capital, they come back in the Fall and realize I’m a total fraud. But hey, at least they’re learning stuff.)
Explaining Marx to newbies — Crooked Timber