Thomas_More
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Extracts from The Western Socialist.
By W.C. Currey.It is claimed by some persons that man has the free and absolute choice in his conduct between several possible alternatives.
That word possible deserves a little attention. Whatever one decides on and does is thereby proved possible. Whatever one does not do is manifestly impossible. It should be clear on this basis alone that whatever one does is the only conceivable “possible.” But before an action takes place it seems to us that there is a variety of possibilities. Why does a man select a particular one? Free will advocates say because he voluntarily chooses to do so.Everyone of us starts on his human career as a microscopic blob of protoplasm. Even before union, the male part is motile. Has a spermatozoon free will? The developing embryo adds new responses daily. Stimuli excite [the newborn baby] its nervous mechanism and it gives the appropriate response.
From conception to cremation the human animal continues to adjust itself to the compulsions acting on it from within and without.(Continue next message).
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8909/8909-h/8909-h.htm#link2H_4_0018
Holbach. Scroll to chap. XI.
http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/PShelley/mabnotes.html
P.B. Shelley.
http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Godwin/pj45.html
William Godwin.
I’ve said already that we are not just watching things play out, but are part of them.
I’ll paraphrase Sade and say to you that I am not responsible for my manner of thinking. I cannot change my manner of thinking. I cannot not be as I am. My manner of thinking has evolved with each stage of my life. It is as much part of me as are my organs.
You too cannot change your manner of thinking. Like mine, it may be changed or it may not. Either way, it will continue to be dependent on factors both external and internal. Of the latter, most are unperceived by us. Those of which we perceive their origin have come from conscious experience and learning.
It matters not to me that we hold different positions, which I believe we are bound to. What is important is that we work for socialism, although I consider you and others somewhat deficient in materialism. I will continue, in speaking of Will, to refuse the adjective Free. I will say Will, Volition, and I will continue in daily life to stop everyone who uses the adjective in mid-speech and challenge it, and explain why I challenge it.
I am confident in my materialist position. I also suggest that, if comrades believe in free will, that they drop the barrier to idealists joining the party, so as to be consistent, providing those idealists want world socialism as much as we all do. At least idealists who profess free will are not claiming to be materialists, so I don’t expect the same clarity on the point that I expect from avowed materialists.
So, let’s leave it there.
Actually, in that experiment, when the monkeys were offered a reward if they pressed the REAL electric voltage on other monkeys, they refused. But the humans obeyed when they thought they were giving other humans electric shocks.
What will be will be. No doubt about that.
Or are we to say what will be won’t be?One is a logical phrase. The other is nonsense.
She means we are part of it, not outside observers. What is to happen has antecedents already, and we are among them. Whether our wishes prevail or not, we don’t know. But we must act on them, which is what we do.
Only when we make socialism will we know.I’m not in a hole. Necessarianism is not fatalism, because we are in the chain of cause and effect, not outside of it.
