One comes across the strangest arguments these days. If you happen to be interested in Marxist thought, whether as history of ideas or as ideas of history, you find yourself quite regularly surprised. You may find yourself startled even, at the character of some of what you encounter. I offer here a modest compilation of examples, with accompanying critical commentary. The principles governing the compilation are few. Examples are all from writers of the Left and from writings of the 1980s. Seven broad types of argument are reviewed; each type prominent within contemporary socialist discussion- though I make no claim to their being exhaustive of the genre of criticism they represent. Together, the assembled examples provide a kind of snapshot of something, that is all. The sequence of them is interrupted here and there by a digression. I. Smiling Marxists 'Obloquy', as generally understood, means something very pronounced: speaking ill of a person or- as it may also be and is here- tradition of
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Norman Geras (1991) studied this question.