I was saddened to hear about your illness. Thank you for sharing your experiences with others on your blog.
Your theory and analyses show the importance of Marx and class critique as long as capitalism is around. Your works have done and will continue in the years and decades to come to do a great job of introducing students and activists to the relevance of Marxist class theory and critical scholarship. Thank you for all the important work you have done.
Out of your work and life speaks a deep love of humans, the love of others, socialism as the society of love.
“If man is to be able to love, he must be put in his supreme place. The economic machine must serve him, rather than he serve it. He must be enabled to share experience, to share work, rather than, at best, share in profits. Society must be organized in such a way that man's social, loving nature is not separated from his social existence, but becomes one with it.
If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence, then any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature. Talking of love is not ‘preaching’, for the simple reason that it means to speak of the fundamental and real need of every human being. This need has been obscured, which does not mean it does not exist. Analyzing the nature of love is to discover its general absence in the present and to criticize the social conditions responsible for this absence. Having faith in the possibility of love as a social phenomenon and not just an exceptional and individual one, is to have a rational faith based on understanding the nature of man.”
-- Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving
Dear Erik:
It has been such an amazing privilege learning from you in so many ways. You have been a model for me as a scholar, as a colleague, as a community member, and as a human being. Just because most of us fail to emulate doesn't mean we haven't been deeply affected by having you pass by our sublunary sphere. You've pulled us all a bit in the direction of your wake. See you on the other side, Stardust.
Love,
John
You don’t know me, but your work has been deeply influential to my growth as a sociologist a decade ago when I was in grad school. I remember the days when I poured over your work on class, and how much I enjoyed the process of getting to know your work.
I also had the privilege to have heard you speak at the ISA in 2014 at Yokohama. To be able to hear your firsthand, and hear about your experiences in Taiwan was really an amazing experience for me.
I am deeply saddened by your illness, but also amazed at the courage which you have faced it. Your words and reflections on existence and being stardust reminded me of another intellectual hero, Carl Sagan. Like you, he went off far too young, and people like you and him are desperately needed in times like these.
Sending you my best wishes, and hopes that when you rejoin the stars, it will be comfortable and painless.
Hi Erik, we didn’t know each other well when I was at UW, but I have always had so much respect for you and have been following your journal. Sending you and Marcia lots of love .
Dear Eric,
We have been inspired by you so much as the generation of 78 in Turkey. Thank you so much for all your efford to do this planet best for all of us. I know hundereds of people will be with you with their love when you are leaving...
You will in our hearts until we leave.
Hatice Kurtuluş (Istanbul)
Dear Erik,
I didn't know you before, but having read your blog, I find it very moving and feel that I know you now. When you return to stardust, you will have left something valuable behind for those of us who are still alive.
Best wishes for a peaceful and painless journey,
Rohini
I am reading this from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I am your distant student and comrade, I read your writings, especially Envisioning Real Utopias, and was so greatly influenced by them. We are actually putting them into practice in Tanzania. I want to thank you for devoting your life to the cause of the working class.