stuartw2112
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
If you go to the link below, you'll find in the second issue of the journal an interview I carried out with Noam Chomsky on these very issues. I was working under the influence and with the help of Chris Knight. As the saying goes, Chomsky cut us both a new arsehole. He will certainly be very surprised to learn that "biological determinism" has been refuted – you should let the Intelligent Design people know! I'm now more with Young Master Smeet – though like him I am no specialist and have no dog in the fight. http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/journal
Will have to bow out as I'm away on holiday – an experience that I hope will answer both my material and spiritual needs!See you all soon
I suppose the argument is inherited from the economists – that no matter appearances, what we really want all boils down to profit for utility maximising individuals. I find it at least as likely that what we want, what we really really want, is meaning. We won't find it in fanatical religions or ideologies. But it's a lasting delusion.
I'm with PGB. How do you know it's not the other way round? Ie, that religous fanaticism is primary, and that, once you've got that, those oil resources etc would come in mighty handy?
You folks should love this. The FT's reply to Paul Mason and Varoufakis, on "funny money":http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/02/23/2119868/greek-funny-money-no-thanks/
As Adam twigged but others seemed to miss, I wasn't making the point, or saying it was unanswerable, just pointing out that any socialist argument would struggle under Paxman style questioning. That because he has all the assumptions (of bourgeois ideology, of "common sense") on his side. To give anything like a convincing answer, you'd have to challenge the assumptions. But as soon as you do that, it's "Answer the question! Answer the question!"As Jools says, a failure at that Punch and Judy game is no failure in anyway that counts.Still, if Danny and Adam and others are able to do it, fair play to them!
Robin agrees we don't really know anything about human nature, but insists that if there is one thing we definitely do know it's what he asserts as dogma. I'd go with the first proposition and reject the second.As for what humans would fight over if they didn't have to compete over natural resources and trade routes – is this a joke question? Religion and ideology, to ignore the more evil options, would seem to be prime candidates, if history is any guide.
It was a car crash, but would an SPGB candidate really do any better under that kind of questioning? After all, you're proposing, not 500,000 new homes, but social housing for the whole planet. How much would that cost?
I'm sure folk here know anyway, but Paul Mason is a good source for following this developing and fascinating story. You can see his blog and his Twiiter feed here:http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/As for Alan's suggestion that "no money" is the solution, I think that's precisely what the EU was threatening Greece with – it seemed no solution to them!
Robin: "There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists. If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike then that rules out socialism. QED"I really have no idea why you would want to make yourself a hostage to fortune in this way. The plain fact is that it is very hard to figure out what is supposed to count as part of our "nature" and what is not. That's why the arguments can drag on forever, as on this forum – they are unresolved issues in science. What seems equally plain to me is that it is plausible that Robin is wrong – that war, violence, greed, stupidity, you name it, is a part of our natural inheritance as human beings. As a socialist, I am totally relaxed about whatever turns out to be the case. The classic example is a classic for a reason so I'll repeat it. If anything is part of our natural inheritance as humans, surely it is our sexual drive. We want to have sex, and the urge is a strong one, and the urge and the behaviours that go along with it must be evolved ones that have a genetic basis. It's surely totally uncontroversial to say so. And yet I have never ever come across anyone who points out this fact and then goes on to argue that unchecked population growth and rape are therefore inevitable, and hence it's not worth doing anything about it. No one argues that because it's obviously daft. We're naturally sexual creatures, yes, but we also (naturally?) come up with ways to organise our behaviours in socially acceptable ways, using a variety of things including ritual, taboo, social organisation and technology (contraception).The same applies to war. Maybe we are naturally warlike. Seems plausible. Does that mean we can't organise ways of mitigating the risks of it happening? Even in capitalism, the answer is obviously no – after all, we do it all the time.
Final word: your last post illustrated an earlier point of mine – that ideology is violence. You cling to yours, you get upset and angry when I say something I shouldn't from your ideological point of view. Imagine that anger and upset with state power – or that of the organisd producers, whatever – behind it. That's one of the reasons, to refer to your arguments elsewhere, that the SPGB is so right to emphasise the importance of bourgeois, liberal freedoms.
But the point of the whole thread is that violence is just as prominent in communist societies. Denying it because it doesn't fit in with your ideology is dangerous – you can't learn from it.
