Jacobin Radio Casualties of History: "Are We Not Always in an Exceptional Situation?"
With guest Asad Haider, we discuss at length the theoretical polemic of E.P. Thompson against Louis Althusser. What was the historical context for each side of this conflict (in which Althusser never participated directly)? What was Thompson’s critique? Asad argues that Thompson did not understand Althusser correctly, or even provide a satisfactory conceptual account of what was best about his own empirical research. The two, may have been closer to each other than Thompson understood. A humanist, he preferred the young Marx; Althusser, an anti-humanist, argued systematically for the importance of the mature Marx. Both, however, were reacting to the Stalinist ossification of their respective national Communist parties.
Readings discussed in this episode:
Louis Althusser, For Marx
https://www.versobooks.com/<wbr />books/35-for-marx
Louis Althusser, “Contradiction and Overdetermination” (from For Marx)
Louis Althusser, Etienne Balibar, Roger Establet, Pierre Macherey, and Jacques Rancière, Reading Capital
https://www.versobooks.com/<wbr />books/2042-reading-capital
Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”
https://www.marxists.org/<wbr />reference/archive/althusser/<wbr />1970/ideology.htm
Perry Anderson, “Origins of the Present Crisis”
Perry Anderson, Arguments Within English Marxism
https://www.versobooks.com/<wbr />books/576-arguments-within-<wbr />english-marxism
Asad Haider, Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump https://www.versobooks.com/<wbr />books/2716-mistaken-identity
Karl Marx, Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
E.P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English”
<u>https://www.marxists.org/<wbr />archive/thompson-ep/1965/<wbr />english.htm</u>
E.P. Thompson, “An Open Letter to Leszek Kolakowski” https://www.marxists.org/<wbr />archive/thompson-ep/1973/<wbr />kolakowski.htm
E.P. Thompson, “The Poverty of Theory:Or, An Orrery of Errors” https://www.marxists.org/<wbr />archive/thompson-ep/1978/pot/<wbr />intro.htm
E.P. Thompson, “Outside the Whale”
https://www.marxists.org/<wbr />archive/thompson-ep/1978/<wbr />outside-whale.htm