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WSWS : Correspondence : Art & Culture

An appreciation of discussion of aesthetics

5 June 1998

I am a junior at Davidson College, and have just completed a semester of study on the Holocaust. I visited your site to read David North's review of "Hitler's Willing Executioners".

Being a browser by nature, I clicked on a couple of pages within your site, and was pleasantly surprised when I found two letters from readers, discussing the recent article on Aesthetics quite passionately.

I suppose I have been tainted by the mainstream American stereotyping of socialist parties as being unemotional and dispassionate about anything except skewering the bourgeoisie. I am reminded of the time one of my friends commented, "Huh, so left wing families can have family values". I must tell my Grandfather (who recently provided me with a "gift" subscription to National Review!) that I am coming round to the notion that socialists might be human after all.

On a more serious note, I would like to know more about basic socialist theory and how intellectuals and students can play a role in the Fourth International.

Yours sincerely,

DF
18 May 1998

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Note: A special section on the International Committee of the Fourth International is being prepared for the World Socialist Web Site. At present we would like to direct readers seeking more information on the program and history of the ICFI to:

1."Marxism and the Fundamental Problems of the Twentieth Century" at http://www.wsws.org/exhibits/iss-98.htm

2."Globalization and the International Working Class" located at http://www.wsws.org/exhibits/slreply/index.htm

3. The book catalog of the WSWS located at http://www.wsws.org/literatu.htm

The author of the letter refers to the lecture Fascism, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust: A critical review of Hitler's Willing Executioners by David North. He also refers to an earlier series of letters on The Aesthetic Component of Socialism by David Walsh.