Boxing and moral judgments
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“all subjects can be talked about.”
I agree with that. But to anyone with a half-skeptical eye – articles like this just look like willful blindness. The article mentions the RNLI, well for a counter-example, look at what happens to refugee crossings in the med!
The trouble with saying that certain human behaviours, are “natural” is that it just gives your opponent an easy knockdown, they can just refer to some other type of human activity and say that is “natural” too.
The article says “Humans help each other whenever they can. That’s why socialism will work.” But clearly, that is not empirically true. Humans don’t always help each other – and sometimes they go to great effort to cause pain death and suffering. As well as having a potential to co-operation, human beings have a potential to hostility and domination. These are just as ‘natural’.
Instead of saying how certain behaviours that are beneficial to socialism are ‘natural’ (and presumably by extension those that are not beneficial ‘unnatural’). Would it not be better to explain how the structure of capitalism would incentivise anti-social behaviours and discourage freely co-operative ones?
There’s nothing wrong with the topics of these articles, I like the topics, they just need some minor tweaks to avoid some simple and common objections.
Can it be explained how the current website ‘snippet’ is ‘low-hanging fruit? By the way it’s open to anyone to contribute to the regular snippets feature. Anyone who doesn’t like some of them is free to contribute. Contact Ann French (ann.french@bigduck.org.uk), the coordinator.
“Can it be explained how the current website ‘snippet’ is ‘low-hanging fruit?”
Hopefully, I did that in the comment above?
I appreciate that writing in a short space is a hard thing to do, and don’t want to disparage those that have been trying.
I agree, DJP, that we should use aspects of the social superstructure to show people the socio-economic base, which is the capitalist mode of production.
As to “nature”, whatever humans do is natural, including bringing about societies with their cultures. It is something humans do, and is therefore natural. It is FIXED human nature that we object to as a fallacy, because behaviours and ideas are produced by specific social environments which are constantly in flux. Hence there is no fixed human nature, beyond eating, requiring shelter, and seeking to reproduce.
This quote from Malatesta comes to mind. Swap “anarchy” for “socialism”
“At bottom Kropotkin conceived nature as a kind of Providence, thanks to which there had to be harmony in all things, including human societies.
And this has led many anarchists to repeat that “Anarchy is Natural Order”, a phrase with an exquisite kropotkinian flavor.
If it is true that the law of Nature is Harmony, I suggest one would be entitled to ask why Nature has waited for anarchists to be born, and goes on waiting for them to triumph, in order to destroy the terrible and destructive conflicts from which mankind has already suffered.
Would one not be closer to the truth in saying that anarchy is the struggle, in human society, against the disharmonies of Nature?”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1931/peter-kropotkin.html
“we should use aspects of the social superstructure to show people the socio-economic base, which is the capitalist mode of production.”
I actually don’t think the ‘base-superstructure’ analogy is that useful, and I think it should be dropped. But that’s something for another day and another thread.
” Would one not be closer to the truth in saying that anarchy is the struggle, in human society, against the disharmonies of Nature?””
No. Human society has so far been the most disharmonious society of all.
” I actually don’t think the ‘base-superstructure’ analogy is that useful, and I think it should be dropped. But that’s something for another day and another thread.”
Strongly disagree. People wallow in the superstructure and take aspects of it as the base. For instance, watching the news and gloomily saying “It’s human nature.” They need to be made aware that the horrors they are witnessing are the products of the capitalist economic base, and that that is what produces the rest.
Okay, I take your point. But difficult to say everything in 130 words (it wasn’t my ‘snippet’ by the way) and at least it gives material for discussion.
A bit late to the party: I revised my view of boxing some years ago, there was a fight on the telly in the pub, and some flyweights were giving each other welly. I realised at any moment either of them could stop, just walk away: its a sport not so much of inflicting damage but of demonstrating resilience in the face of damage and carrying on. It’s also a sport, at the top level, about the skill of not being hit, and having tremendous reserves of energy and fitness.
Partly that’s why I’ve shied away from MMA, although they’ve (mercifully) stopped head kicks on the floor, they still have ground and pound punching, which is unpleasant to watch.
I’ve been along to some exhibition chess boxing matches (yes, really), but the chess players, even with some moderate boxing skill, didn’t have the energy to have any power in their shots by the third round.
All that said, I think in socialism, where we won’t have police or armies to settle disputes like this, we will have some terrific arguments, and one town or village might take a different view than another for how their venues might be used. There won’t be money to gamble, prizes to give out, advertising, pay-per-view, or anything of that sort. If people still wanted to test themselves in this way, I imagine they’d find a way.
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