Been a while since I’ve thought about this, never finished this stuff or anything related to it. It’ll be a while yet.
For now, I’d settle for just knowing more about the history of the use of the term on the left. When did it start being used by folk like Marx (the folk Marx read I mean), where did they get it from, what reasoning went into their use of the term, what was the context, etc.
I am not sure if I should believe that, but at least Zizek writes that there are tendencies that Marx used the term proletariat as the “operator of the truth” or revolution and the term “working class” in the sociological sense.
Regards
hi Jonjon,
I’m not familiar with Zizek really, so I don’t know what ‘operator of truth’ meant. I think Marx probably used those terms in all sorts of ways, so I doubt that that’s right in a strict sense (depends on how loosely or tightly we define “tendencies”), but it may be true in the sense of identifying key uses of the terms in Marx’s most important writings (I think pretty much everyone is selective in reading Marx this way, even folk who see a clear continuity throughout Marx’s whole work, I think it’s unavoidable).
take care,
Nate