On Being Holier-Than-Thou: A Critique of Curry Malott"s "Pseudo- Marxism and the Reformist Retreat from Revolution"

In the May 2011 edition of this journal, Curry Malott contributed an essay review of Jean Anyon‘s Marx and Education (2011). I would summarize Mallot‘s critiques of her book as follows: (1) she didn‘t write the book that he wanted her to write, (2) she didn‘t cite the authors that he wanted her to cite, and (3) her work is anti-Marxist because her take on the literature isn‘t identical to his. While his intention was to expose her book as undermining Marxist analysis even as she sought to support it, Malott‘s essay is actually more successful as an example of the dangers of sectarianism and of the tendency on the Left to purge those viewed as not sufficiently conforming to orthodoxy in their positions. By examining the problems in his essay I hope to provide a cautionary tale that may encourage Malott, and others, to remember the praxis in revolution.