Another Approach
Here are some questions pertaining to the last post which are part of the ZNet Re-imagining Society project. The crew is suggesting joining the 5th International proposed by Hugo Chavez. ( Beak, get on the groundfloor and we'll make you Commissar of Immigration) To that end this questionaire explores attitudes toward economy, culture and politics and naturally runs into the question of diversity. For instance:
32a. A new culture I would most favor would seek institutions that explicitly recognize that rights and values exist regardless of cultural identity, so that all people deserve self management, equity, solidarity, and liberty. A good society will protect all people’s right to affiliate freely and value diversity, yet its core values will be universal.
1. I agree strongly
2. I agree
3. I am marginally concerned either way...
4. I disagree
5. I disagree strongly
32b. A new culture I would most favor would seek institutions that recognize that that there are no universal rights or values and leave any well defined cultural community to determine its own priorities in all things.
1. I agree strongly
2. I agree
3. I am marginally concerned either way...
4. I disagree
5. I disagree strongly
33. A new culture I would most favor would seek institutions which guarantee free entry and exit for representative of all cultural communities in society. It would likewise advocate that institutions that do have free entry and exit can be under the complete discretion of their members, so long as they don't conflict with society's laws.
So far,of 181 respondents, 98% agree with 32a, 78% disagree with 32b and 78% agree with 33. Being a picky theory geek I have problems with how some of these questions are framed but think it is instructive. By focusing on the difficulties of building unity within diversity we learn from the past and are forced to think through concrete problems. Can we build "A new society within the shell of the old" if the old actively and subversively works to thwart all such construction? If we are corrupted through our internalized ideology?
How much unity (agreement) will have to exist before a Revolutionary Organization is formed? To what degree will each disagreement be worked on,reconciled, to achieve unity? How will this process take place? Which specific things can I live with ( though I may have issues) in order to further consensus and which will I insist be revised?
posted by troutsky @ 10:26 AM
22 comments
22 Comments:
By focusing on the difficulties of building unity within diversity...
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I ain't in unity with no tea baggers.
Samuel Bowles anyone.
Wonder it the Tea Baggers know it's a mugs game?
Even a modest unity within this growing economic "diversity" is unlikely. His concept of "guard labor" is pretty interesting.
Ducky
The Tea Bag crew is quite fine as is.
It remains on message unlike Commie
front groups.
Troutsky
I would prefer to be in charge of emigration. What will it take for Che Bob or Ren to renounce their citizenship and join Hugo for real.
I want to start a telethon with Sally Stuthers speaking about relocating Commies.
"If you donate $1000.00 We will give you a copy of the Mazzola Manifesto by Kultur"
If you donate $2000 we will throw in Kultur sings tired Commie Folk songs CD."
My ideal would be 32a, but with flexibility. If authoritarians wish to form their own groups, do not engage in criminal acts and do not try to subvert the rest of society this is fine with me - let them torment each other - just leave me out of it.
The problem is with suthoritarians is that they are almost always imperialistic in ideology and actions. They are not content with, say not believing in evolution or democracy in their own group, they just have to impose it on the rest of us.
"A good society will protect all people’s right to affiliate freely and value diversity, yet its core values will be universal."
even to affiliate in order to overthrow the 'good society'?
"Can we build "A new society within the shell of the old" if the old actively and subversively works to thwart all such construction? If we are corrupted through our internalized ideology?"
*Bingo*
To what degree will each disagreement be worked on,reconciled, to achieve unity?"
Is this like the reconciliation in Congress; everybody loses -- the STATE benefits!
Come on T, all thie is so much mental masturbation. There is no unity unless there is coercion in civilizaed society. And diversity is only a gimmick of the controlling party to make the outsiders feel like insiders.
Kulturcritic Come on T, all thie is so much mental masturbation. There is no unity unless there is coercion in civilizaed society. And diversity is only a gimmick of the controlling party to make the outsiders feel like insiders.
We are dealing with many countries. Inside the countries are different classes, with different interests. Within each class there are divisions. Within each political organization there are differences. None of what I said is static. There are moments in history, when the masses become actors in their own destiny. There are the Lenins and Trotskys, who can unite the contending forces, by their program and leadership.
The subjective in history works like this. You can be in an auditorium on fire, with 500 people. There can be one person who yells out the direction to the exit.
Chavez's call for a new international, is a response to pressure from below.
Ducky
Lenin already pointed the way to the exit, and all we got was Stalin.
But you are absolutely correct, history is all about actors and destiny. It is the cornerstone of historical consciousness (a rather new phenomenon) 6,000 years old. And it is the basis for all the misery, delusional self-aggrandizement, political chicanerie, genocide, mass murder, ecocide, slavery, butchery, theivery, planetary destruction... the list is so FUCKING long I can't even write it.
Do away with history, and the dialectics of progress: Marx was a Jew (oh no, Beaak---will you have to kill yourself now!!); although his father tried to make believe he (Heinrich) was not. And his mother decided to try a differenct religion later also... but my point is that Marx was as much a product of the Old Testament as every other Jew... and he was stuck on this issue of history and historical progress... So he came up with an alternative historical materialism
...maybe more later
Sorry Ducky --- my previous post was in response to Ren!!!
Well, it's still a point taken, culture.
Religious dogma is a driver in America. Fundamentalists in the armed forces chain of command who think that America was created and ordained by the deity, Calvinists who have laissez-faire so entwined in their theology they can't reason.
Even if they recognize being ruled by dogma it doesn't matter because it's divine truth. Not a source of optimism.
Everyone understands the complexity of change, call it a-historical, call it dialectics, and that is a good thing.As Ducky points out, some change is the kinda change we can do without.
The problem is the power of the default position, doing nothing or the status quo.Inertia kills! Take the climate "debate". A denier = a climate "samer" ( as opposed to changer) They have no burden of scientific proof to show the climate stays the same, it is enough for them to challenge "proof" of change. Win by default.
Same with economic justice. We "changers" have a nearly impossible burden of scientific proof. Marx and Michael Albert contribute greatly but cannot cover every counter-factual or contingency.Status quo of misery and injustice wins by default.
I am prepared to work on these tricky issues but not to develop theoretical proof.
Larry, I agree some questions need more nuance.But somebody has to finally say ten years of World Social Forums is enough. We know what we want, lets get it.
Bowles link is interesting. The article says ""Now it is the free marketeers who have a hard time being taken seriously." Davey Gregory had Greenspan and Paulson on Meet the Press Sunday but I couldn't watch to see if he laughed at them.
Bowles should cut to the chase and divide up ALL the resources, capital and power.
Here we have the Academic Anti Semite KKKultur making a factually incorrect statement and continuing to actually rip a page out of Nazi propaganda.
Marx's father was a convert to Lutheranism. Jews do not consider or recognize converts to another religion to be Jewish. One would have to have a basic competency in this religion to grasp this concept. However, as a member of a faculty gulag all KKKultur knows nothing other than the party line.
KKKultur also repeats a myth similar to the Nazi view the Communism is a Jewish plot. It was written by a rabid anti Semite whose followers have been promoting populist anti semitism continuously ever since.
In the insane mind of KKKultur all
of those Joooooooos think alike.
According, to KKKultur society is all the product of a Jewish plot as they all think alike.
Can we say entrenched bigotry.
There is nothing Jewish about Communism.
Oddly KKKultur repeated much of my material about where communism must
lead.
Commies of the world unite. You have nothing to lose except your pariah status . Ditch Marx and the old tired class genocide bit and embrace Kultur. Yes you can revert
to Hunter Gather ways and live short violent lives filled with back breaking work and privation.
If you buy the Mazzola Manifesto for 79.99 right now we will throw in a bonus CD Kultur abuses Barbra Striesand songs. This CD promises to put tears in your eyes and clear
the entire room every time it is played.
Operators are standing dial
1-800-BAD-IDEA
I would list Marx with Spinoza, Freud, Luxemburg and Trotsky as heretic Jews, whose ideas had universality, that transcended Judaism.
I had a debate with a Stalinist. He used a debate technique similar to Beakerkin's. He would try to make a point, by using out of context quotes. Marx used antisemitic sounding language at the end of his essay On The Jewish Question. The ironic part is he copied that writing from a friend of his, Moses Hess, who was a founder of Zionism. The essay is more about democracy than about Jews.
Kulturcritic: Do away with history, and the dialectics of progress: Marx was a Jew (oh no, Beaak---will you have to kill yourself now!!); although his father tried to make believe he (Heinrich) was not. And his mother decided to try a differenct religion later also... but my point is that Marx was as much a product of the Old Testament as every other Jew... and he was stuck on this issue of history and historical progress... So he came up with an alternative historical materialism
It's more than Marx, who is stuck on historical progress, it is the role of humanity. Marx transcended religion and nation.
Humans evolved from being on all fours, to using hands, eating meat and developing a mixed diet contributing to brain development, eventually to create art and science.
Ren
You must realize that the development of historical consciousness, which I above associated with OT Judaism, is not a religiously unique posture. It is a foundational event in the development of civilized life approximately 6,000-8,000 years ago. The archaic Hebrew fascination with their own homelessness, and waiting for revenge from the sky God Yahweh, was the basis for ancient Near Eastern historical narrative. The same sort of narratives can be ound in other ancient texts of the time as well. There is the beginning of a shift from mythmaking to historical accounting in these tales (Gilgamesh from Sumer, is another example). So my association of Marx's dialectical materialism and historical consciousness is not striclt a religious reference; I was simply making the point that his thought was also influenced by the development of historical consciousness originating in ancient Israel and the Newar East.
As far as the development of mankind I would recommend,
Paul Shepard, The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game, as well as Kirkpatrick Sale, After Eden.
Marx's father was a convert to Lutheranism.
------------------
I thought Judaism was matriarchal when considering inclusion.
Even the notion of evolution is imbued with this religious teleology, from the lower to the higher orders, from the undeveloped to the developed (thumbs, tools, metal and all that). Lacan pointed out how this ideology of evolutionism always implies a Supreme Good or final Goal but I think this is a vulgar reading of historical materialism and one Stalin favored.
I'm just saying a full belly is better than an empty one, however you want to structure your Moral Order. When dealing with justice we don't have to worry if the project is going from Simple to Complex, just hungry to full.Despite what might or might not have happened 6,000 years ago ( interestingly David Korten identifies his "break" 5,000 years ago) the best imperfect way to deal now is democratically.Capitalism inhibits that.
@ Ducky - quite right; and his mother did not convert until after his birth.
@Troutsky
The transformation pojnt is debatable, and it is not a singular point. Somewhere between 10 and 5,000 years ago,
That is the argument you must make, Trout, that capitalism is not democratic, and the there is another way. But remember... don't make it all about a full or empty belly... there was one lady once said..."let them eat cake."
Didnt work out so well for her
Here we have Prof KKKulur presenting
classic faculty lounge bigotry and
anti scholarship. His views are reflective of the political fraud being pushed as scholarship.
While the death cultists and the faculty lounge Klansman prattle on
lets talk about reality.
HG were not noble savages. Like us their society had their own issues.
In fact the faculty lounge Klansman
recycles the fall from Eden, borrows from Marx liberally and adds university style bigotry to his anti scholarship.
No doubt the mindless Kultur fails to note that slavery was ended by
those religious people he looks askance upon. Furthermore the notion of government responsibility for the poor and sick flows from Christianity.
Today's neoslavers are commies like Che Bob and Ren. They think by fealty to the sacred faith of Marxist Dogma they are entitled to lord over the unwashed masses. Then they treat the masses as a farmer treats cattle. Men of faith build orphanages so people like Ren and Che Bob can fill them.
The university Klansman will pretend that HG types tiptoed through the tulips and were proto hippies in between bong hits. His views are about as scholarly as a Looney Tune Cartoon with Che Bob in the role of Marvin the martian
For those who are interested. It is a fairly light-weight presentation of more rigorous reseach and fieldwork; but it sums up much about HG society.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200907/play-makes-us-human-v-why-hunter-gatherers-work-is-play
Thanks kultur, at our meeting last night ( trying to organize a "social" center) we discussed the role of play for some time.
Beak, you are right that Christians and other religious types have been helpful at times. And sometimes not so. Kulturs introduction into the nature of Time is difficult, I understand your frustration.
Troutsky
No Kultur is just dead wrong on the entire subject. His view is more Looney Tunes than factual.
His bigoted views are on open display and are clearly more vulgar
than anything ever said by Rush Limbuagh or Ann Coulter. The fact that he spews this stuff with such impunity here shows how entrenched anti Semitism is amongst your kind.
Let me be blunt if I repeated the words of Kultur with Islam in it how many of you would be screaming.
By the way Che Bob really should change his avatar to Marvin the Martian.
Beak, what bothers me more than some of the others here is that your hysteria is not a simple personal pathology but something that is manifest in the legion of Know Nothing tea baggers.
It really is a form of mass hysteria and even trying to give you the benefit of the doubt I have to conclude that your idea of a good movement is one that can do serious serious damage so long as you don't feel it threatens you personally, like your affinity for the white supremacist Yeagley.
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