from the presses. There is one thing thatnoperators in the Marx industry tend tonhave in common: an inability to writenclearly. Most of the interpretations arenso opaque that anyone who spends evennthe shortest amount of time with themnis driven baclc to the source. Upon arrivingnat, say, Kapital {Grundrisse is gainingnpopularity lately), one finds notnsomething resembling a fiery call to armsn(as those who promote it but haven’tnread it would have it), but what wouldnnow be considered the grafting of anneconomics textbook onto a turgid sociologicalndissertation. Given that work, Insuspect that many of the so-called interpretersnare forced to produce obfuscationsnbecause they wish to blanket thenfact that they put Kapital down with itsnpages in the condition of a kissed, fondled,nbut otherwise intact virgin. Certainnquotes appear with such frequency innthe various secondary and tertiary textsnthat one could get the impression thatnMarx was the author of a few gnosticnpassages, not a man who displayednsymptoms of terminal logorrhea. Therencan be no doubt that Marx had somethingnto say. However, it’s more evidentnthat (a) many self-proclaimed Marxistsnaccept his word with a faith that is anparody of that of the believers whomnthey revile and (b) whatever Marx hadnto say has been filtered to such a degreenthat entropy, not purity, is the result.nMarx was known to have said that itndidn’t matter if the workers understoodnhim, that it was only important that thenintelligentsia did. His back-door epigonesnhave taken this approach one step fiirther,ninto the realm of near-incomprehensibility.nPeter Uwe Hohendahl is a Germannand presumably a Marxist. The essaysncollected in The Institution of Criticismn(with the exception of the Introduction)nwere written in German between 1970nand 1977. Although they primarily dealnwith the history of and difficulties in thenstate of criticism in West Germany, thenessays actually have a wider audience.nHohendahl states, “They address themselvesn… to the crucial question of whatn14nChronicles of Cttltorenthe task of criticism could be in the contextnof an advanced capitalistic industrialnsociety.” Therefore, while specific detailsndiffer, the general thesis applies to thenstate of several countries, including thenUnited States.nConventionally, people in advancedncapitalist countries don’t talk about orndon’t think about an existent state of affairs.nOn the one hand, there are thosenwho think themselves polite and egalitariannand so the subject is taboo; on thenother there are those for whom it is sonobvious that it doesn’t bear mention.nThose who do talk about it tend to be ofnone breed of Marxist or another, andnthus they are able to make a big bangnwith a popgun. It doesn’t take a Marxistnor a structuralist to recognize that therenis a tripartite division in advanced capitalistnsocieties. There are the upper,nmiddle, and lower classes; highbrows,nmiddlebrows, and lowbrows. Finer rulesncan be used, but three works well forngeneral purposes. Those on top, ofncourse, are the elites. Separation doesn’tnexclusively depend on the economicnbase, or wealth; education (and notnnecessarily just in institutions of learning)nis not to be overlooked. The elitesngenerate the ideas, concepts, mores, andneven mere slogans that are eventuallyn111 the f^>nh(.oniijiK issue of CIpHin^lesiiTt’UfiafVi.n..The-^e^iimof^n•fjAen< “^ t’.’Slh -.,.y-nViln ^/K AMI tMtii fnS(ni^iTM>»ii^l’ih]i| ‘^(f-utlj niit- f^ •n(iibm ; Ui.»( ULMUU|I)I<‘ ”IMMII piilKiiiui1^i>tj.iti,‘i i/t»«i.>-ijK si,CHii fit fisid ibt II pi ilii u ^tVi<H>”’iii(i.itbj,Niiuins’K iKniiiiijn1mianiiinjnil)>rnj!fTts’jri’ItVT^rf4(MtMivijR|Xicfjiil-‘ >r . ‘n\iji(.lM’s.Y$u4’ji’>il^t>i sotKivV^^^niFi’s J’*Mlll^ (intM i,r •n(.liliV^i” llu’^’iri&rmiisi Ix li(lil,ijt’i^)iii]i.i1WL hii’lus, . 1 ^ ^ , .’,'”i ‘ ‘ *»••n” • •*’ , —(nim-jviv.fttawt.ianC’n– ” ; ‘ – * – ‘jxAtortrqiw^io^n*- ” , ‘ ‘ J’^- i- ‘Vnnn