Thomas_More
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Yes, you can add an if clause, but that makes it purely hypothetical. You can say that, but it isn’t what happened, so therefore it wasn’t able to happen, or it would have. The chain of causation did not go that way.
The material conditions have long existed but the consciousness has not yet fully developed. If it does, socialism will happen; if it doesn’t, it won’t. We want it to, so we must continue to work for it.
Was the consciousness enough in 1890? No. Is it yet? No. Will it be? We don’t know. We must work at it. But our will for it has been produced by our life experience, based on numerous personal as well as social factors. Our will is not its own First Cause, and neither is anybody’s. It is within the chain of causation and follows the same laws of motion, of cause and effect, as everything in nature.The material conditions exist; the consciousness has yet to develop where most are concerned. If it happens, it could. If it doesn’t, it couldn’t.
We would say it’s not just the Tories but the rest as well: all representatives of the profit system.
I’m 62, to be 63 next month.
We also have an Off-topic forum here, which is for humourous messages, jokes, etc.
We can speculate for fun. But to say “it could” is to ignore all the antecedents that led up to what actually happened.
It was not in one’s power to think about what one didn’t think about at any given moment. It is ludicrous to say one could have.
One cannot will to will.
And free will is really an insidious notion that buttresses capitalism: from punishment and penal law to the Great Man Theory.
It rejects materialism.Necessity was the one truth that Godwin said would take the longest for people to accept, and he was right.
As well as reading books, one can confirm these things by contemplating one’s life. Know someone well enough, and one can say in advance how they are likely to respond to a certain situation, what they are likely to do, etc.
You expect yesterday’s friend to still be your friend today. If not, then you will seek the motive for his change of attitude toward you. But, were his will independent of causation, his behaviour would be totally anarchic, without history.
Social historical development would also not exist, were there no cause and effect.
