Comments on: Jerry Cohen, a personal appreciation

By: Thuyein Kyaw-Zaw

Thuyein Kyaw-Zaw — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 23:11:16 +0000

I never had the previlege of being a Jerry’s student. I was brought up with strong admiration for egalitarian values, especailly Marxist ones. I deeply believe Marxist egalitarian values are morally superior to free-market driven moral behaviour. And I have this superstitious belief that if something is morally superior, it must be true, or at least it must be truer than morally inferior.
But after the fall of Soviet Union, communist ideas seemed to be in retreat and I was troubled by taunts from friends who know my religious affection to Marxism. Then in the fall of 2003, I took a course in Philosophy and found Jerry’s books in quick succession, first KMTH then Self-ownership. I think I even know some of the sentences in Self-ownership by heart. You can certainly feel an admirable socialist’s anger there. I definitely do.
I always wanted to meet him. A couple of years ago, I met my philosopher hero Jerry in a packed room at LSE. I think Jo Wolff was there, Michael Otsuka was there. I was too timid to greet him I must admit.
Now it’s impossible to get to meet him. Well…
I am forever grateful and respectful to him for his zealous defence of egalitarian ideals from liberals and the right.

By: Faige Gutherz

Faige Gutherz — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:31:23 +0000

How touching for me and what a warm trip down memory lane reading about Jerry Cohen in the Gazette Newspaper Montreal, my h0me town!!
I only knew Jerry as a child growing up in the same neighbourhood. His brother, is it Michael? and another brother who sadly died at the age of 4. His parents Bella and Morrie were friends with my Parents Sonia and Joe Gutherz, and with my Aunt and Uncle Leon and Tosia Gutherz and all of us being involved with the Communist/Leftist Movement and Kinderland Camp. I have a picture of Bella and Morrie at my Wedding. I especially loved his Mother. Bella lit up a Room when she walked in. She was a shining light, bubbling over with love and exhuberance. I have very fond memories of the Cohen Family.
My warm and deep sympathies to Jerry’s family.

My prayers and love are with you.

Sincerely,
Faige Gutherz
email: faige@sympatico.ca

By: Nicholas Vrousalis

Nicholas Vrousalis — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:33:13 +0000

Following the recent touching tributes to Jerry by Chris Bertram and Chris Brooke, I have decided to post a rough summary of his intellectual voyage from the Second International marxism of Karl Marx’s Theory of History to the egalitarian political philosophy of Rescuing Justice and Equality. My hope is that people may decide to pick up some of Jerry’s sharp and ruthlessly sincere work in philosophy, and draw inspiration from it. The post is here.

By: Marc Grinberg

Marc Grinberg — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:09:04 +0000

My own tribute to Jerry – http://www.thepublicphilosopher.com/2009/08/07/jerry-cohen/

By: Maria del Mar Medina

Maria del Mar Medina — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:03:02 +0000

I didn’t have the opportunity to know him.

But he did have a great influence in me, already as an undergraduate, in Spain.

I thought he was a very intelligent and very rigorous political theorist.

I’m very sorry.

By: Heloise

Heloise — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:00:37 +0000

I had the good luck last year to attend a seminar given by Jerry as part of the Oxford Radical Forum, having earlier sat in lectures given by him whilst at university. It was a mixture of students (graduate and undergraduate) and ordinary members of the public (although admittedly many were SWP members). He was engaging, intellectually stimulating and treated the questions from the public with utmost respect, giving thoughtful answers to each, even where most people might have become irritated or dismissive. At the end, he led us in a rousing chorus of “the union makes us strong” which was surreal but incredibly entertaining.

He really was something special.

By: JoB

JoB — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:44:45 +0000

Frank-16, as a ‘kameraad’ who did not necessarily admire all your practical politics but is all the same saddened by your sudden inability in putting your proposals in practice; can you give us a glimpse of where he was relevant to you. I only know J. Cohen from a couple of posts o’er here and, whilst I do not wish at all to scorn the sadness expressed here, I’m deeply interested how he inspired somebody in practical politics (as you coin it).

PS: your link doesn’t work; either it is amateuristic posting as Frank or you still need to adapt to life out of office

By: Agustin Reyes Morel

Agustin Reyes Morel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:12:27 +0000

I accept that the sentence: “The final victory is certain” does not belong to the Cohenite point of view. Maybe I should remove the sentence to reflect the real mood. Even so, if we do not accept that some kind of victory is possible (even the small victory that means prevent that the bullshiters have their hands totally free), what are we here for?

By: John Filling

John Filling — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Thanks for that fantastic appreciation, Chris.

Jerry was still supervising my (long-overdue!) DPhil when he died. (He had been my supervisor since I did the MPhil in Oxford in 2002.) I was just about to send him a chunk of the DPhil this week. I suppose I must be one of, if not the, last student Jerry still had on the books. Like so many others, I’m devastated by his loss. It’s bizarre to think I’ll never again have the privilege of having his tremendous intellect applied to my work.

But despite his intellectual qualities, I’ll still probably remember Jerry best for his jokes. Here’s one of my favourites.

A guy gets a job selling toothbrushes on street-corners. He comes back after his first day. His boss asks him how it went. “Terrible”, he replies. “I didn’t sell any toothbrushes.”
“No a single one?”, asks the boss. “What’s your sales pitch?”
“What’s a sales pitch?”
“A gimmick. Something to draw people in. Something to make them wanna buy a tootbrush.”
“Ok”, says the guy. “I’ll come up with a sales pitch.”

The next day the guy comes back having sold all his toothbrushes.
“That’s incredible!”, declares the boss. “What was your sales pitch?”
“I’ll show you in a minute. But first, try a taste of this dip.”
“Jesus Christ!”, exclaims the boss. “That dip tastes like shit!”
“It IS shit”, replies the guy. “Ya wanna buy a toothbrush?”

By: John Meredith

John Meredith — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:12:03 +0000

“The final victory is certain”

I know what you are aiming for, but I can hardly think of a less Cohenite point of view.

By: Agustin Reyes Morel

Agustin Reyes Morel — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:36:29 +0000

At the end of the paper “The Future of a Disillusion”, Cohen refers to the letter that Engels wrote to Sorge the day after Marx died:

“Local lights and lesser minds, if not the humbugs [or the bullshiters], will now have a free hand. The final victory is certain, but circuitous paths, temporary and local errors—things which even now are so unavoidable—will become more common than ever. Well, we must see it through. What else are we here for? And we are not near losing courage yet”.

Well, something like that is in the mood today. Although we may be losing a bit of courage.

By: Simon Halliday

Simon Halliday — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 08:00:16 +0000

I never had the pleasure of meeting Cohen, but his Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality affected me greatly after I read Rawls and Nozick. I’m an econ grad student, and Cohen’s work remains with me whenever I try to reconcile my understanding of economic theory with policy and its outcomes.

Chris, thank you for this message. Thank you too to those others of you who have told their tales – they make the author in my mind into an embodied, marvellous and intriguing being. Thank you again. My profoundest wishes to his friends and family.

By: LFC

LFC — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:44:09 +0000

As a non-philosopher whose direct acquaintance with Cohen’s work is limited to If You’re An Egalitarian… (which I read quite a while ago with enjoyment and appreciation even when I wasn’t completely persuaded), I’d like to join the other commenters here in thanking Chris for his heartfelt and illuminating recollections.

By: Daniel Sjöström

Daniel Sjöström — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 01:48:42 +0000

I just started as a post-graduate at UCL this year, and I remember how angry I was when I realised that Ronald Dworkin had retired just before I came, and then how happy I was that he was temporarily replaced by Cohen (Dworkin did show up as a guest one night though, which was especially exciting since the subject was David Dyzenhaus criticising Richard Bellamy’s version of republicanism with the world’s premier socialist and liberal in the room).

How could you not like this man? He was so brutally honest. One got the sense that if he was truly convinced that egalitarianism was wrong (as I think he more or less proves in If you’re an egalitarian.. is not likely to happen given his upbringing and education), he would change his mind. This is of course as it should be, but sadly doesn’t seem to be the case very often. Whenever anyone said something with absolute conviction he would retort immediately (almost no matter the conviction, it seemed to me. He didn’t like arrogance). More than once he would preface the discussion with general paradoxes like ‘how come intelligent people disagree’ to try to keep minds open. And more than once his comments during almost the entire seminar would be jokes (nothing very interesting was said anyway, let’s crack a joke!). During just one spring he certainly managed to make an impression.

Paula, you’re lucky. ‘your students cannot focus on the ideas alone’; Surely a main point of his was that you live your philosophy. This seems to be the message in his critique of Rawls, and the title of If you’re an egalitarian etc. And he did :)

By: Frank Vandenbroucke

Frank Vandenbroucke — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:32:37 +0000

On this sad occasion, I cannot add much to the comments made by Chris Bertram and others, but this: Jerry Cohen was not only an exceptional political philosopher, but he could also be exceptionally generous with his students, investing a lot of his time, patience and wisdom in their work. This was my experience when he was my supervisor for my D.Phil. thesis in Oxford (1996-1999), and it certainly is an unforgettable one. Since my métier – apart from my stay in Oxford – is practical politics, I can certainly reassure Ingrid Robeyns, who also commented on this page, that I consider Jerry’s work, although very abstract, as highly relevant for a practical left-wing politician who wants to think through fundamental questions of the left.