Category talk:Marxist theory

From CfD:

How is this different from Category:Marxism? The other subcategories there seem more useful. -- Beland 03:33, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not being a Marxist, I maybe don't get this, but this category seems to be more like the Marxism studied within academia (more or less critically). If so, I think it might be motivated. Keep - at least until the issue is properly discussed somewhere. /Tuomas 10:31, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Keep: Marxism is a political ideology whereas marxist theory is more about the economic/philisophic work of Marx and his successors. There is overlap of course, but in general the latter is a distinctive enough category to keep. Note also that it isn't just a subcategory of marxism, but also of category:Continental philosophy and Category:Critical theory --Martin Wisse 08:27, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it is different. Keep. Also, I think this has been listed before. -Seth Mahoney 19:32, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

See my proposition to maybe rename Category:Critical theory to Category:Theories using materialist dialectics:

• side note: I don't see anybody working yet on a workable definition for the Critical theory category, so, as promised, I will put it up for deletion soon.
• "Marxist theory" has a great ambiguity whether or not a theory formulated after Karl Marx, is formulated within Marxism, or is only using Marxist dialectics (which happens to be a synonym to materialist dialectics). Having two separate categories (Marxism and Theories using materialist dialectics) seems clearer to me, making a Marxist theory category redundant, while too ambiguous (e.g. it is not even sure whether Marxian theory should be in this category...).
• Note that there is no separate Wikipedia article yet defining Marxist theory - this is only a redirect to Marxism. The article does not mention Marxist theory once (apart from a link to the Marxist film theory article), even less defines it the term as separate from marxism (while, on the other hand, the article defines Marxian theory as somehow different from Marxism/Marxist theory). On such shallow grounds it seems not advisable that there be separate categories for Marxism and Marxist theory. Note that there is a separate article on dialectics, with a subsection on Marxist/materialist dialectics.

--Francis Schonken 22:09, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Keep. This is a travesty. Marxist theory refers to something very specific. If you ask any English professor at any major university, they will point you to a set of things - Adorno, Benjamin, Althusser, Gramsci, etc. Marxist theory exists, and describes a number of thinkers. Yes, we don't have a Marxist theory article yet. Yes, we need one. No, I don't have time to write it. But Marxist theory is well defined - whether you are familiar with the definition or not. Snowspinner 23:13, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Note also [1]. Bill Brown is one of the biggest names in the University of Chicago's English department. UofC's English department is one of the best in the country. I'm going to go ahead and say that, should they claim Marxist theory exists, it exists and is a meaningful academic specialization, I'm inclined to agree with them. Snowspinner 23:16, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

In the mean while:

• The category definition of category:critical theory was improved (not perfect yet, e.g. using a word like "new", which is somehow against the wikipedia policy of not using indefinite time references - so this definition could stand further improvement, anyway, it looks better now thanks also to Snowspinner to get involved in spite of limited time).
• I performed some reorganisation in the philosophy-related categories (e.g. creation of category:Human sciences - I would be glad to read some comment on whether this would work the way I started it).
• I made a very embryonic marxist theory article (replacing the "redirect"). Please give some hand on expanding that stub!
• Side-remark: probably the distinction between marxism and marxist theory is somehow partly western POV (e.g. USA, with its period of McCarthyism, would not revert to teaching a marxist political doctrine - however distant - at its universities I suppose) - but I don't suppose this has to keep wikipedia from making this distinction, while it appears to be well accepted in western world. Nonetheless not something to lose awareness of.
• category:marxist theory has a category definition now (a "catmore" tag linking to the article described above).

In my view this settles enough to remove this category from CfD list again: quasi-unanimous keep, and all objections for those favouring delete have been solved I suppose - I'll copy this discussion to the talk page of the category.

--Francis Schonken 14:36, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)